Order of Kilopi
[Moderator Note]
This thread has been created by splitting posts from the SN 1a data ruling out "all" cosmologies? thread
[/Moderator Note]Originally Posted by Cougar
These divisions are on the same floor in the same building. It is an historical fact that major breakthroughs in scientific theory are most likely to be the result of someone working in a peripherial field of research.
Established Member
Please support that claim. E. g. by listing what you consider to be "major breakthroughs", who made them, and showing that most of those people worked "in a peripherial field of research".
Order of Kilopi
(my bold)
Even if you could successfully defend this claim, why do you think something like this might be happening in this case?
To ensure that we have all relevant facts to hand, please give an indication of how you would estimate how many times "somebody working in a peripherial field of research" has failed to result in a "major breakthrough in scientific theory".
Order of Kilopi
I started by looking at Discovery's top 100 discoveries in a half dozen areas - Here is an example of Items in the top ten:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics (1824 – 1850) - (Engineers)
Electromagnetism (1807 – 1873)
Oersted - teacher - was actually demonstrated electricity and magnitism are not related!
Special Relativity (1905) - Patent Office clerk
Superconductors (1911 – 1986) - Chemists - after physicists said it was not possible
Rules of Heredity (1850s) - A monk
Evolution - a boat's Botanist
Anesthesia (1842–1846)
The earliest experiments with anesthetic agents — nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and sulfuric ether — are performed mainly by 19th-century dentists - not doctors. Dentistry evolved in the 1700's from barber's.
Germ Theory (1800s)
French chemist Louis Pasteur - chemist, not a biologist or physician, most of whom dissed his theory for decades.
Sulfa drugs
Gerhard Domagk - dye chemist
Continental Drift (1911)
Alfred Wegener – Meteorologist
Oxygen: Joseph Priestley –clergyman
Periodic Table
Dmitry Mendeleyev - Director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures
Structure of DNA - Watson and Crick obviously deserve some credit, but so does the physicist who produced the first X-rays of the double helix
Voltic battery – Mining engineer George Stevenson - stolen by "Nobelman" Davy
Television’s Image Dissector and raster scan: An Idaho Farmer - Stolen by RCA and credited to Vladimir Zworykin.
Radio Astronomy: Bell Telephone engineers
CMB: Robert Wilson & Arno Penzias : Radio Engineers
Copernicus: Doctrate in Canon Law
Microorganisms: Microscope lens grinder Anton Van Leeuwenhoek
Obviously, where specialized instruments like big telescopes, super colliders or electron microscopes are required, breakthroughs have occurred most often within the developed community - but a lot of fruit cakes have also logged a lot of wasted scope time - including Lowell, and possibly Arp - the jury is still out on that one.
...And a few fruit cakes have made important discoverys: Tesla, Edison...
Order of Kilopi
This is indeed an interesting list.I started by looking at Discovery's top 100 discoveries in a half dozen areas - Here is an example of Items in the top ten:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics (1824 – 1850) - (Engineers)
Electromagnetism (1807 – 1873)
Oersted - teacher - was actually demonstrated electricity and magnitism are not related!
Special Relativity (1905) - Patent Office clerk
Superconductors (1911 – 1986) - Chemists - after physicists said it was not possible
Rules of Heredity (1850s) - A monk
Evolution - a boat's Botanist
Anesthesia (1842–1846)
The earliest experiments with anesthetic agents — nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and sulfuric ether — are performed mainly by 19th-century dentists - not doctors. Dentistry evolved in the 1700's from barber's.
Germ Theory (1800s)
French chemist Louis Pasteur - chemist, not a biologist or physician, most of whom dissed his theory for decades.
Sulfa drugs
Gerhard Domagk - dye chemist
Continental Drift (1911)
Alfred Wegener – Meteorologist
Oxygen: Joseph Priestley –clergyman
Periodic Table
Dmitry Mendeleyev - Director of the Bureau of Weights and Measures
Structure of DNA - Watson and Crick obviously deserve some credit, but so does the physicist who produced the first X-rays of the double helix
Voltic battery – Mining engineer George Stevenson - stolen by "Nobelman" Davy
Television’s Image Dissector and raster scan: An Idaho Farmer - Stolen by RCA and credited to Vladimir Zworykin.
Radio Astronomy: Bell Telephone engineers
CMB: Robert Wilson & Arno Penzias : Radio Engineers
Copernicus: Doctrate in Canon Law
Microorganisms: Microscope lens grinder Anton Van Leeuwenhoek
Obviously, where specialized instruments like big telescopes, super colliders or electron microscopes are required, breakthroughs have occurred most often within the developed community - but a lot of fruit cakes have also logged a lot of wasted scope time - including Lowell, and possibly Arp - the jury is still out on that one.
...And a few fruit cakes have made important discoverys: Tesla, Edison...
However, it did not answer my questions.
Should I restate those questions? Which part, or parts, of them are unclear?
Order of Kilopi
Ah, the good old days. Doesn't much happen like that anymore.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Established Member
Engineers did not really "discover" this law - their experience merely told them that such a statement is probably true. The law was finally formulated by physicists.
Additionally, the engineers did in no way work in a "peripheral field of research" - they worked in exactly the field where the 2nd law is most important!
First, your "not" here makes no sense.
Second, Oersted was not merely a teacher, but a professor of physics and chemistry, who worked extensively on electricity and magnetism. Again, this was not someone who worked "in a peripheral field of research".
Einstein had studied physics and even published papers before he began work at the patent office. So this was not work done in a "peripheral field of research".
Superconductivity was discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, a physicist (not a chemist!), whose specific area of research was the behaviour of matter at very low temperatures. Again not someone working in a "peripheral field of research".
Whose main area of research was the variation of plants So Mendel was not working in a "peripheral field of research" when he discovered these rules. (and, BTW, Mendel had studied science, he was not merely an ignorant monk, as you try to imply here).
Er, and how does this make evolution a discovery by someone who worked in a "peripherical field of research"?!? Is this supposed to be a bad joke???
BTW, Darwin was not the "boat's botanist" - he went on board as a "naturalist" and studied lots of things during the voyage beside botany - e. g. also zoology and geology. Could you please get your basic facts right?
So what??? Nevertheless, dentists are still a kind of physicians. Again, not work done in a "peripheral field of research".
Pasteur studied science in general, not merely chemistry. He also was a professor for physics for a short time. And his discovery of germ theory came from the time when he did extensive research on biological topics - this did not came as a chance discovery while he examined something totally different. So yet again, this was not work done in a "peripheral field of research".
Domagk studied medicine and did a lot of research in medicine. He was decidedly not a dye chemist - he discovered the usage of dyes as antibiotics while working at the Bayer's Institute of Pathology and Bacteriology! Again, this is not work done in a "peripheral field of research".
Additionally, I would not call this a "major scientific breakthrough".
I suppose you are right on that. First point for you.
Who had studied scientific topics (then called "natural history") extensively on his own (because it was not taught in school back then), taught (among other things) anatomy and went on field trips with students to collect fossils and botanical species. Yet again, not someone working in a "peripheral field of research".
He was also a professor of chemistry. Again, not someone working in a "peripheral field of research".
Yes. But that does nothing to prove your point.
You consider the development of a battery (long after the original one by Volta!) to be a major scientific breakthrough???
And what exactly do you even mean with "voltic battery"?
BTW: according to Wikipedia, Stevenson and Davy invented miner's safety lamps, not batteries, and the inventions were independent of each other. Stealing is not mentioned. Please provide evidence for that claim.
Again not a "major scientific breakthrough". And again a claim that the idea was stolen - without providing evidence for that.
Jansky worked on radio transmission. Yet again not work done in a "peripheral field of research".
Actually, both worked on microwave receivers intended for radio astronomy. Yet again, not work done in a "peripheral field of research".
Copernicus studied lots of astronomy, math etc. at the university and devoted a lot of his time to astronomical studies - which were his main interest, not the law. Yet again not work done in a "peripheral field of research".
The discovery of something microscopic by someone who works on building microscopes can't be called work done in a "peripheral field of research".
Summary: you got exactly one right, as far as I can see.
Order of Kilopi
[Moderator Note]
The post which Nereid is quoting is this one, in the thread from which this thread was created (by splitting out posts):[/Moderator Note]Do you mean by this, how many cracker-jack theories have been proposed?
I once knew a babble-mouthed technician who proposed a constant stream of stupid, ill-informed ideas which where quickly rejected. But every once in a while he would propose something ingenius, and an engineer would grab the idea and run it. So who should get credit for the idea? The creater of the idea, the scientist who proved it would work, or the politician who funded the project?I don't think this answers either of my questions ... would you please answer them?Do you mean by this, how many cracker-jack theories have been proposed?
I once knew a babble-mouthed technician who proposed a constant stream of stupid, ill-informed ideas which where quickly rejected. But every once in a while he would propose something ingenius, and an engineer would grab the idea and run it. So who should get credit for the idea? The creater of the idea, the scientist who proved it would work, or the politician who funded the project?
[snip]
On your "babble-mouthed technician", would it be fair to say that a direct implication of this is the more nonsense we generate, the greater the chances of finding some incredible breakthrough somewhere in amongst it would be?
Also, when your "babble-mouthed technician" did "propose something ingenius" [sic], did the tech (the author) recognise that it was in any way any different from any other of "stupid, ill-informed ideas" he'd proposed before?
Established Member
Bjoern has already dealt with most of Jerry's misrepresentations, but I wanted to correct a few of them myself. First off, the era before the 1800's was before the establishment of professional training for scientists. Heck, physics, as a field by that name, really only dates to the 1850's or so. Before that was the age of the amateur. By the standards of their day and in their fields, Leeuwenhoek, Mendel, Darwin, Priestly, and Copernicus were part of the scientific mainstream. (addition: I'm surprised Jerry didn't include the discovery of oxygen (Lavoisier, tax collector) in his list. Of course, Lavoisier falls under the same category as Copernicus as being part of the mainstream in the pre-academic age of science. Then again, his career caught up with Lavoisier when he was beheaded during the French Revolution.)
Bjeorn has also dealt with Jerry's mistakes related to Onnes and the discovery of superconductivity. I'd like to point out one more.
Penzias and Wilson, discoverers of the CMB were not radio engineers. Both were Ph.D. physicists (Penzias from Columbia, Wilson from Cal Tech) as one can find in their CV's on the Nobel prize website. Yes, they were working at Bell Labs, and yes, they were working on radio comms with satellites. However, when they found the CMB they were taking advantage of Bell Labs then policy of allowing their staff to conduct "pure" research and were using the radio horn as a radio telescope. For the background check out Wilson's Nobel lecture. It makes it clear that they were doing radio astronomy with the apparatus. It wasn't a case of two engineers stumbling onto something by accident while they were doing something else.
So we have yet another case of Jerry not understanding the history of the field he claims to criticise.
Last edited by Eta C; 2007-Feb-08 at 10:09 PM. Reason: Add another example
Order of Kilopi
Wasn't the 'radio astronomy' they were conducting an experiment in satellite communication: Bouncing radio signals off of a big aluminized ball? I think finding a 'cosmic' background source of radio waves in this case is the very definition of a peripheral discovery: Something they were not directly funded to do. (Today, if this type of activity involved government funding, even research funding, they could go to jail for it.)
Radio astronomy was at first a backyard project of a radio engineer, adopted by the astronomical community only after the feasiblity was demonstrated with old radio gear.
Was Darwin 'out of field' when he proposed human evolution? Absolutely! In the mid 1800's the origin of man was solely the province of highly educated theologens - and they were extremely miffed that a Botanist invaded their turf. It is unlikely that any science-funding body in any science field would have, in that century, funded any research projects with the heading "determine the origin of the human species'. Human evolution was a peripherial discovery of a biological taxonomy project.
Researchers today are handicapped by the same dilemma as charity fund raisers: The more time they spend writing proposals, the more likely they will be funded, but the less time they will actually have to do the research. The more couragous the proposal, the less likely it will be funded.
Astrophysical researchers in the U.S. are also handicapped by the unlikelyhood they will get funding for projects which are not affirmative of the consensus cosmology. Evidence? There have been many proposals to verify the veracity of the Pioneer probe anomaly, but if it would not have been for the Planetary Society, the taped evidence of the Pioneer adventure would have been destroyed. The U.S. has funded multiple CMB research projects, but not one penny has been spent on space hardware trying to solve the Pioneer anomaly riddle.
Established Member
I suggest that you acquaint yourself with the history of evolution before making claims like this. Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory, by Edward Larson, is quite readable. You will find that Larson's historical research suggests that your claim is quite untrue.
Established Member
No. Read the lecture by Wilson and you'll find they were using the horn specifically radio astronomy when he and Penzias found the CMB. To quote the paperWilson was trained as a radio astronomer at Cal Tech. It was his thesis topic. Again I quote:
Yes, the CMB itself was unexpected but Penzias and Wilson were not two radio engineers who stumbled onto the CMB while bouncing signals off a satellite. They were two Ph.D. physicists doing radio astronomy who found something unexptected in the course of their scientific research. Bell Labs in those days encouraged their researchers to do research that may not have had direct relations with telecommunications. So what if it wasn't government funded? Penzias and Wilson were firmly in the mainstream of scientific research. Your attempts to picture them as non-scientists and outsiders are both wrong and disingenous.My interest in the background measuring ability of the 20-foot horn reflector resulted from my doctoral thesis work with J. G. Bolton at Caltech. We made a map of the 31 cm radiation from the Milky Way and studied the discrete sources and the diffuse gas within it.
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It was not researchers who established the relationship, it was engineers performing a peripherial activity.
He was teaching - demonstrating that there was NO connection between electricity and magnitism when he proved the currently accepted scientific rule was wrong. Teaching is not research, it is a closely related peripheral activity.
True, but high temperature superconductivity was discovered by unfunded chemists - because everyone knew high temperature super conductivity is theoretically impossible. Likewise lasers and masers were invented by chemists who did not know any better.
At the time, monks were amoung the most educated. Screwing around with plants was peripherial to his doctrinal studied.Whose main area of research was the variation of plants So Mendel was not working in a "peripheral field of research" when he discovered these rules. (and, BTW, Mendel had studied science, he was not merely an ignorant monk, as you try to imply here).
Taxonimist observe and classify. Darwin was expected to do descriptive bean counting, not shake the foundations of civilization. Darwin was highly cross-trained in religious philosophy.
So there was not a great deal of pain in hospitals? Why didn't doctors say, "gee, we ought to be able to make this easier on the patients". Dentists at the time were not trained in physiology or human anatomy or pharmicology; they worked out of mainstreet offices, and realized they could attract more patients if they could make their work less painful.
Pasteur's bold assertion was completely out-of-step with prevailing theories of human physiology - and he was not trained as a physician. He came at the descipline broadside, and torpedoed it.Pasteur studied science in general, not merely chemistry. He also was a professor for physics for a short time. And his discovery of germ theory came from the time when he did extensive research on biological topics - this did not came as a chance discovery while he examined something totally different. So yet again, this was not work done in a "peripheral field of research".
Bayer WAS a dye chemical company that started dabbling in medical research in 1888:
http://www.bayer.co.jp/byl/english/aboutus/history.html
They introduced aspirin in 1889 - so once again, a peripherial field of experts entered the medical arena and made a great breakthrough.Bayer was originally founded in Germany as a dyestuffs company in 1863, and its pharmaceutical division was established in 1888.
http://inventors.about.com/library/i.../blaspirin.htm
Not my list, either, Discovery's list.Additionally, I would not call this a "major scientific breakthrough".
That depends on how much you limit the scope of "peripheral". I think it is fair to say individuals with broad backgrounds and/or a fresh prospective are more likely to do breakthrough science than well-established experts. This is true of Michelson and Morley, Einstien, Bohr, Darwin, Pastuer and on and on.
Like many geeks in the 50's, I grew up with my head in the back side of a television set. The arcing and sparking and general chaos I raised there was similar to much of what we see in the cosmos, but as an undergraduate in the 60's:
I was assured NONE of the cosmic phenomenon we observed were electrical in nature, because electric currents could not flow through space. We now know this is blately false. I wish I would have stuck to my guns, and wrote all kinds of papers about how it all seemed to work to me. They would have been ignored then, but seen as visionary today...maybe, there is still a lot of harrumping about how wrong the astrophysical world was about electromagnetics for decades...
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Not non-scientists, but scientists working in a peripherial field - telecommunications.
http://www.history.com/encyclopedia....fw..ra004200.a
[quote]As a result of the great improvements made during World War II in radio antennas and sensitive receivers, radio astronomy flourished in the 1950s. Radio scientists adapted their wartime radar techniques to the construction of a variety of radio telescopes in Australia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, the U.S., and the USSR, and the interest of professional astronomers was soon aroused by a series of remarkable discoveries.
The fact is, the professional astronomical community ignored all of the work from Tesla, Janzky and Reber in the first half of the twentieth century. Even today, the implications of radio astronomy (highly redshifted point sources, high proper motion of quasars), is overlooked and discounted by the astrophysical community.
Established Member
Jerry, you don't get it. Penzias & Wilson were doing radio astronomy when the discovered the CMB, not engineering. READ THE PAPER! See what they say about the research themselves. You, and other readers will find what I say is true.
As to the discovery of superconductors, nice move of the goalposts. Also, I wouldn't say that Bednorz & Muller were unfunded chemists. Both were working at IBM research specifically on the properties of ceramics and their possible superconducting properties. Again, as with Penzias & Wilson your assertion that they were "unfunded" is wrong and disingenuous. Just because they were working in an industrial research lab doesn't make them researchers on the periphery of science as you seem to think is the case. For those interested in the real story instead of Jerry's misrepresentation here is the Nobel lecture by Bednorz & Muller describing the discovery. I think you'll find the search for high Tc superconductors in metallic oxides was an ongoing area of research with a history going back to the 60's and 70's.
I find your insinuation that the physicists were somehow certain that high temp superconductivity was impossible both wrong and insulting. It shows a typical, naive, ATM view of mainstream science as blinded and blinkered. If they were so hidebound why did research in this area blossom after the discovery? Shouldn't they have tried to supress it?After all, that's what the Galileo Gambit you're so fond of says should have happened.
So, Jerry, go read the history from the sources. Not from some brief survey tinged with ATM biases. Until you do, your posts will continue to display your lack of knowledge about the history of science and your own blinkered and hidebound orthodoxy of ATM.
Last edited by Eta C; 2007-Feb-13 at 02:13 PM. Reason: spelling
Established Member
Honestly Jerry, I have to reiterate this given that you continue to speak of the history of evolution in ways that betray that you are unfamiliar with the basics of that history.
Member
This is completely false. The theoretical groundwork for lasing was laid by quantum mechanics, and physicists explicitly set out to apply this theory in optical pumping and the laser. Einstein, Lamb, Kastler, Townes; all physicists. You're just making up facts to support your assertions at this point.
I am only passingly familiar with the electric universe discussions on this board, but from what I've read, this is par for the course. You correlate "arcing and sparking" with "what we see in the cosmos" and conclude that somehow, everything is "electrical in nature" (what does that even mean?). Astrophysicists are well-accustomed to working with plasma physics and electrodynamics, so I don't know what you're accusing them of doing here. I can't process what you mean when you say you were told "electric currents could not flow through space;" I can only interpret it as a naive understanding of electric current as anything that "arcs or sparks."Like many geeks in the 50's, I grew up with my head in the back side of a television set. The arcing and sparking and general chaos I raised there was similar to much of what we see in the cosmos, but as an undergraduate in the 60's:
I was assured NONE of the cosmic phenomenon we observed were electrical in nature, because electric currents could not flow through space. We now know this is blately false. I wish I would have stuck to my guns, and wrote all kinds of papers about how it all seemed to work to me. They would have been ignored then, but seen as visionary today...maybe, there is still a lot of harrumping about how wrong the astrophysical world was about electromagnetics for decades...
Bad Post-Doc
Actually, Leeuwenhoek's field was dry goods merchant. He was a gifted amateur, like essentially all scientists of his day.
Darwin's job was primarily to hold the social status to keep the captain company at dinner. However, as naturalist, he was intended to discover things that would bring glory to the Empire. The Theory of Evolution certainly qualifies.
_____________________________________________
Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
Order of Kilopi
Well he did get buried Westminster Abbey, which means at least one other person agrees with you. (More likely at of other people too.)
http://www.westminster-abbey.org/
Established Member
[ATM hat] Ah but that's where you're wrong! There is an active conspiracy in the halls of science to supress all mention of ANY hint of the true electromagnetic nature of the cosmos. They are ALL commited to the false belief that gravity causes everything and that EM forces do nothing in the cosmos. Soon, however, they will be forced to see the errors of their ways and we, the true disciples of Alfven and Tesla, the unfunded researchers on the fringes, will take over as the high priests of science with Thornhill as our leader!!!!![/ATM hat]
See how easy that is?
That just means you're someone who actually understands the physics involved.I can't process what you mean when you say you were told "electric currents could not flow through space;" I can only interpret it as a naive understanding of electric current as anything that "arcs or sparks."
P.S. Jerry, with all this searching I've done on the Nobel web site I couldn't help but notice that the discovery of BEC's still stands and Wolfgang Ketterle's Nobel is still unrevoked more than a year after your initial post.
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You are correct, but so am I.
They were working for the telephone company, a company that cut-off research into radio astronomy that they had pioneered in the thirties. Much later, they hired a couple of young radio astronomers and leverage this early research to obtain NASA funds that became available in the 60's and start over...sort of. The equipment used by Penzias and Wilson was built for satellite communications, not radio astronomy, a PERIPHERIAL field of research! Could they have obtained funding to design and build a radio telescope from scratch? They might as well have ask Bell for funding for a gravity camera.
Try going to the NSF today and ask for funding to build a gravity camera and see what kind of response you get. Everyone reviewing the paperwork will immediately say it is impossible and deep six the proposal.
Radio Astronomy languished for decades because astronomers did not grasp the potiential. Radio engineers did, and as they established themselves within the astrophysical communty they were able to solicit funding - but it took decades.
http://www.nrao.edu/whatisra/hist_jansky.shtml
That is one explanation. A better one is that the ranking astronomers, who could solicit funding through Roosevelts New Deal programs, had little interest in obtaining funding for a field of research they were ill-qualified to advance.Jansky wanted to follow up on this discovery and investigate the radio waves from the Milky Way Galaxy in more detail. He proposed to Bell Labs to build a 100 foot (30 meter) diameter dish antenna. But Bell Labs had the answer they wanted about static: the static was not a problem for transatlantic radio communication. Jansky was assigned to another project and did no more radio astronomy.
Many scientists were fascinated by Jansky's discovery, but no one followed up on it for several years. It was during the great depression, and observatories could not afford take on any new projects.
So it was a half century after Tesla claimed he could pick up signals from the heavens before there was serious funding for radio astronomy.Two men who learned of Jansky's discovery in 1933 were of great influence on the later development of the new study of radio astronomy: one was Grote Reber, who singlehandedly built a radio telescope in his back yard in 1937 and did the first systematic survey of radio waves from the sky. The second was John Kraus, who, after World War II, started a radio observatory at Ohio State University and wrote a textbook on radio astronomy, which is still the "bible" for radio astronomers.
I am not wrong that basic theory had to be changed in order to accomidate the results.I find your insinuation that the physicists were somehow certain that high temp superconductivity was impossible both wrong and insulting.
Back to the sixties? What about the period between when superconductivity was first discovered and the 60's? It was in the early sixties that there was a minor explosion in creative science - the first combination of nobel gases into molecules, masers, lots of young scientist who were questioning the status quo and proving established science theory had some holes in it.
Then you should also be INSULTED by Professor Gösta Ekspong's Nomination speech:I find your insinuation that the physicists were somehow certain that high temp superconductivity was impossible both wrong and insulting.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/p...on-speech.html
Which inevitably lead to everyone jumping on the bandwagon:
The same thing is happening since supernova researchers announced the 'discovery' of dark energy, but there is something wrong: The emperical evidence is the failure of the supernova distance scaling to meet with prior expectations. The problem is systemic and theoretical errors in the approach by the researchers, not the discovery of dark energy.
Nevertheless, the bandwagon is following, and with every disparity between the expected-and-the-observed, belief in this untestable mysterious force grows.
There is no question we are all wearing blinders and blinkers - that is why we discuss this.It shows a typical, naive, ATM view of mainstream science as blinded and blinkered. If they were so hidebound why did research in this area blossom after the discovery? Shouldn't they have tried to supress it?After all, that's what the Galileo Gambit you're so fond of says should have happened.
Did I say they were unfunded? If i did, I was wrong, but I said peripherial - industrial research labs are peripherial - you would have had a difficult time going to the National Science Foundation and obtaining funding for high temperature superconductivity research because most of the physicists who sat on the funding boards would have flatly stated that it was impossible.As to the discovery of superconductors, nice move of the goalposts. Also, I wouldn't say that Bednorz & Muller were unfunded chemists. Both were working at IBM research specifically on the properties of ceramics and their possible superconducting properties. Again, as with Penzias & Wilson your assertion that they were "unfunded" is wrong and disingenuous.
Just because they were working in an industrial research lab doesn't make them researchers on the periphery of science as you seem to think is the case.
Moving the goal posts back to the original discovery:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/p...es-lecture.pdf
Before 1911, there was no theoretical prediction that there would be anything like superconductivity, and the discovery was treated with much scepticism as theory was revised to accomidate this latest unprediction.
Ok, this result was not in any sense "peripherial", But if Kamerlingh-Onnes had gone to the NSF with a proposal that he should look for a new state of matter at ultralow temperatures, it is unlikely he would have been funded.
Incidently, Kamerlingh_Onnes had a 'peripherial' trump card:
http://www.nyas.org/programs/nobel/essay2.html
Progress creeps when scientific experiment is governed by specific proposals. Breakthroughs usually happen as the result of someone working in a peripherial field of research.
Order of Kilopi
???
If you are referring to the 'evolutionary' contributions of Lyell and Malthus, you are quite right, but they were two of a very small small contingency of precursors.
I consider the definitive work on Evolution Ernerst Mayr's One Long Argument, but this specific statement is best supported in James Burkes 'The Day the Universe Changed' (Strongly recommended for anyone who feels so absolute about the rightness of today's scientific theories.)
Not only was he unpaid, he, or his family paid for his passage!
So if you want to argue Darwin was a professional theologen, and therefore a professional philosopher, you have a problem with the fact that he was working in a peripherial field, as an UNPAID naturalist who majored in theology after failing medicine, he is the very definition of the creative scientist who made a major discovery while working in a peripherial field.
Bad Post-Doc
Did Burke spell "fauna" wrong or did you?
I'm not 100% sure, I'll admit, but I don't think any of the New Deal programs went into science research per se. Yes, Roosevelt ended up funding the Manhattan Project, but most New Deal programs (with a few notable exceptions, yes) went toward building infrastructure, and there's not a heck of a lot of use for radio astronomy in roadbuilding.
_____________________________________________
Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
Order of Kilopi
You are correct, I was completely miss-informed here. All of the advances in laser and mazer physics are credited to physicists. It is interesting to point out what Prokhorov wrote in his Nobel Prize lecture:
He goes on to lecture about how all the necessary pieces were available long before researchers put them all together and concludes with:
Like radio astronomy, it took a new generation of hungry, competing researchers to put it all together. But I was wrong about the chemists!Therefore scientists engaged in the field of spectroscopy did not take into account the stimulated radiation and some of them, apparently, considered that phenomenon as a « Kunststück » of a theorist necessary only for the theory.
The solar wind is a directional flow of charged ions, an electric current. Solar flares are clearly electrical arcs and coronal discharges are electric sparks. The auroras are the result of accelerated ionized gas - electric currents as well. Astronomers use different names, but the governing physics are the same.I am only passingly familiar with the electric universe discussions on this board, but from what I've read, this is par for the course. You correlate "arcing and sparking" with "what we see in the cosmos" and conclude that somehow, everything is "electrical in nature" (what does that even mean?). Astrophysicists are well-accustomed to working with plasma physics and electrodynamics, so I don't know what you're accusing them of doing here. I can't process what you mean when you say you were told "electric currents could not flow through space;" I can only interpret it as a naive understanding of electric current as anything that "arcs or sparks."
I quote from Scott's 'The Electric Sky', not because I think many of the concepts in his book are correct (many are rubbish), but because this is what I experienced. Continuing:
I would be interested to hear the prospective of others on the changing astrophysical prospective of electric current flow in space - whatever you want to call it. Was the amazing current found connecting Io to Jupiter a surprise to most astrophysicists, or were we poor students and/or bad teachers?
About all that I can find in my older texts is that the solar wind was hypothesized by Biermann in the 50's to be stream of particles emitted by the sun that blows the tails of comets away, but I don't think he thought they were charged...as is often stated now. All that stuff we found out there, when we got out there, stuff that landed Alfven a belated Nobel prize was... surprising.
Order of Kilopi
[jk mode][ATM hat] Ah but that's where you're wrong! There is an active conspiracy in the halls of science to supress all mention of ANY hint of the true electromagnetic nature of the cosmos. They are ALL commited to the false belief that gravity causes everything and that EM forces do nothing in the cosmos. Soon, however, they will be forced to see the errors of their ways and we, the true disciples of Alfven and Tesla, the unfunded researchers on the fringes, will take over as the high priests of science with Thornhill as our leader!!!!![/ATM hat]
See how easy that is?
[snip]
No references to papers. check.
No references to observations. check.
No math, no equations, no numbers. check.
But where are the smilies?
Where are the (gross) spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes?
Where are the logical fallacies?
Sorry Eta C, your first attempt will earn you no more than a C.
[/jk mode]
Moderator
The solar wind is a directional flow of charged ions and electrons. The solar wind is a neutral flow away from the sun, and in such, does not make up a current. This is just the sillyness of EU talking.
Solar flares are magnetic loops that are expanding, reconnecting and exploding and not electric acrs. Coronal discharges, I have no idea what you mean by that, but if you mean coronal mass ejectins, those certainly are not electric sparks.
Indeed, the aurora is mainly created by accelerated electrons that interact with the upper layers of the atmosphere, letting oxygen (green) or nitrogen (red) emit after they have been hit and put into a higher state.
I'd rather wish you did not quote from such an outdated source. Nowadays, well, at least since I was a highschoolboy (finished in 1983), no teacher will tell you there cannot be charge separation, and the notion of plasmas is well known.I quote from Scott's 'The Electric Sky', not because I think many of the concepts in his book are correct (many are rubbish), but because this is what
I experienced. Continuing:
No, the currents in the Jupiter-Io flux tube were not a surprise, the homopolar inductor had been thought up long before the current were measured by spacecraft visiting the Jovian system.I would be interested to hear the prospective of others on the changing astrophysical prospective of electric current flow in space - whatever you want to call it. Was the amazing current found connecting Io to Jupiter a surprise to most astrophysicists, or were we poor students and/or bad teachers?
About all that I can find in my older texts is that the solar wind was hypothesized by Biermann in the 50's to be stream of particles emitted by the sun that blows the tails of comets away, but I don't think he thought they were charged...as is often stated now. All that stuff we found out there, when we got out there, stuff that landed Alfven a belated Nobel prize was... surprising.
I would advise you not to look at your old texts but to take a look at new texts like 'The encyclopedia of the solar system' by McFadden, Weissman and Johnsson. There you can read that in 1859 Carrington already thought there should be coming somthing from the sun, as after a solar flare about 17 hours later a magnetic storm at the Earth would occur.
According to the encyclopedia Bierman in the early 50 concluded that a continuous outflow of charged particles from the sun should be present to explain that the ion tails of comets always point away from the sun. He first estimated that 1010 protons per squared cm per second were needed, but later revised his numbers to ~109, closer to the averaged observed flux of 3.8 x 108.
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Order of Kilopi
You forgot that he also didn't use all capitals and change the color of every other word to catch our attention.[jk mode]
No references to papers. check.
No references to observations. check.
No math, no equations, no numbers. check.
But where are the smilies?
Where are the (gross) spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes?
Where are the logical fallacies?
Sorry Eta C, your first attempt will earn you no more than a C.
[/jk mode]
Member
Of course the necessary pieces were available long before they were put together! Science is not blind fumblings about in a lab with scientific-looking stuff; I doubt they could have produced the laser 'by accident' without knowing exactly what they were doing. Discovering an unexpected phenomenon like CMB can happen by accident in the course of research, but designing experiments is not an accident.It is interesting to point out what Prokhorov wrote in his Nobel Prize lecture:
He goes on to lecture about how all the necessary pieces were available long before researchers put them all together and concludes with:
Like radio astronomy, it took a new generation of hungry, competing researchers to put it all together. But I was wrong about the chemists!Therefore scientists engaged in the field of spectroscopy did not take into account the stimulated radiation and some of them, apparently, considered that phenomenon as a « Kunststück » of a theorist necessary only for the theory.
As for the time-frame involved: science is not done in a vacuum. Theory is nice and cheap; as long as the theorist is kept fed, he or she can keep on trucking toward a theoretical solution. Experiments are expensive, and grow more so over time; they also depend heavily on the current state of technology. Before the post-war economic boom, there was only so much funding available--and scientists still did an excellent job spreading it around. I suppose you could say it was "difficult" to get a grant during the Great Depression.
You are half-right on the "new generation of researchers" concept, but not the way you think you are. A young scientist has more freedom to choose the research he or she does, having not invested an entire career into a specific project or field of research. The early career is for building foundations, the later career for sustaining them.
As others have pointed out, the solar wind may consist of charged particles, but is neutral overall. Yes, the cosmos are largely plasma, but neutral plasma on a large scale.The solar wind is a directional flow of charged ions, an electric current. Solar flares are clearly electrical arcs and coronal discharges are electric sparks. The auroras are the result of accelerated ionized gas - electric currents as well. Astronomers use different names, but the governing physics are the same.
I quote from Scott's 'The Electric Sky', not because I think many of the concepts in his book are correct (many are rubbish), but because this is what I experienced. Continuing:
I would be interested to hear the prospective of others on the changing astrophysical prospective of electric current flow in space - whatever you want to call it. Was the amazing current found connecting Io to Jupiter a surprise to most astrophysicists, or were we poor students and/or bad teachers?
About all that I can find in my older texts is that the solar wind was hypothesized by Biermann in the 50's to be stream of particles emitted by the sun that blows the tails of comets away, but I don't think he thought they were charged...as is often stated now. All that stuff we found out there, when we got out there, stuff that landed Alfven a belated Nobel prize was... surprising.
As for your analogies involving flares, CMEs arcs and sparks, they're cute but ultimately without substance; ignoring the conditions that give rise to each entity, the plasmas are so widely dissimilar in density, temperature, B field, beta, indeed all other plasma parameters as to make a connection utterly meaningless.
It's easy to say "plasma is electricity," but that doesn't mean anything by itself. It's a great conductor, but that doesn't get you anywhere.
Member
Jerry, I'm sorry if I'm sounding a bit short in response you your points. It is because I am interpreting your posts as saying "Mainstream scientists get their degrees and sit on their patushkies waiting for the next grant, while the real breakthroughs are made by people not even working on the science." IOW, that most scientists either "don't have what it takes," or willingly suppress discovery and advancement.
If you mean something different by your posts, could you please clarify your position? If this is basically what you're saying, then, well, wonderful.
Order of Kilopi
No. But I still deserve some scolding - I am not diplomatic.
I know mainstream researchers grind out difficult proposals and pray that their funding will not be cut. I know they work their tails off to meet expectations (and work as much as they can on more speculative approaches than they publically propose). I also know there is a tendency to be careful and conservative in proposal writing for the very same reason. It is too easy to be labeled a kook, too easy to get funding cut if a paper or proposal ventures too far.
I don't blame researchers for this - it is a handicap of the funding system, driven by the fact that there are a lot of kooks out here. And a few prostitutes: I have seen a lot of money diverted from much more productive energy work into W's stupid hydrogen fuel gambit. Good, ethical scientists shouldn't do that.
Two examples:
A research team headed by Nilsson published a paper in ~1985 where they concluded that a certain type of supernova produced a certain type of gamma ray. This was herasy at the time, and their funding was pulled. Twenty years later, they have been entirely vindicated.
About two years ago a group of kooks said, 'I think we can use the buzzword nanotubes to extract another round of space elevator funding'. Even though space elevators have been proven engineering impossibilities time and time again, the ploy worked.
So how is funding controlled in a manner that encourages innovation and increases the potential for breakthroughs without opening the zoo? I don't think it should change - I don't have a better answer than professional funding boards like the NSF. But we should scream and holler if and when there is evidence of bad science.
I scream and holler about the interpretations of the data by supernova researchers. But at the same time, i appreciate and admire the hard work that they do - I think they are totally blindsided by bad basic theory. No, I would not advocate pulling funding for supernova studies; but we should challenge the interpretive data.
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