Re: end of science?
Could it be that scientific discoverys are also subject to the bell curve and we made be over the rise portion . Some thing to think about anyhow.-GES-
end of science?
Richard posted; and Keith Nagel continued; With all due respect, you're sounding like that fellow Horgan we we discussing earlier in the week, who believes that all science has been done and nothing new will be discovered. I'm reminded of the question of Chi. IMHO, it is the fifth great force in the universe. We have no understanding of what it is. My hot button that Parksie regularly pushes is Energy Medicine in general and Homeopathy in particular. I believe that the two phenomena are related. Then there is the matter of cold spots. Our local CBS affiliate plays Unexplained Mysteries on Sunday night. A frequent topic of discussion are ghosts. The investigators go into the house with the reported phenomena with a thermal imaging camera. The video shows a zone of low temperature. We are clueless as to the nature of the entity that is producing the phenomena. A similar effect has been associated with the Newman Motor. While wouldn't invest a nickle in Newman that I wasn't prepared to loose, a reputable investigator, Roger Hastings observed the cooling of the room. I could go on, but this in enough. There are plenty of interesting phenomena that we don't understand, and are worth investigating.
End of Science
or end of respectabilityfor "Scientific American"? Recently some geniuscommented that at his death Bethe had almost witnessed the "end of science"...John Horgan couldn't agree more. Horganis a senior writer for the stogy, intransigent and way-past-its-prime magazine, "Scientific American" and occasionally presents himself to be one of the mostfoolish educated-men on the planet. Not just for his essay"The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age." but for repeatedly compounding his earlier errors with irresponsible backup statements. It is almost as if the senior staff at S-A haspledged allegiance tothis "end-of-science" credo as their mantra; and are prepared to go down with the ship, once they are proven wrong. Horgan ends his silly essay with "Modern science, as far as it has come, has left many deep questions unanswered. But the questions tend to be ones that will probably never be definitively answered, given the limits of human science." Yet as he speaks, these very questions are being answered in bits and pieces, and we actually seem to fast approaching a "tipping point" of sorts - one that will turn mainstream cosmology on its head and will indeed answer everything definitively. The truth of the matter is, we are just on the dawn of a gigantic rebirth of science, especially physics and cosmology, as many old and incorrect and notions and "Laws" are being swept away to be replaced by a new physics for the new millennium. ZPE and LENR, dark matter and dark energy,are just the tips of the iceberg.To wit: *Negative refraction* is brand new (age ~4) to physics and astronomy, but has been causing a stir in fields of applied-materials science. When light crosses a boundary, it is bent in a characteristic way.Keepers of the faith,like Horgan, would love to see it stay that way, so that they can have the smug satisfaction of saying "told ya so". But in 2001, researchers showed that certain artificial materials bend light in the opposite direction. Over a year later S-A, having tried to ignore this exciting RD for as long as it could, finally did a modest and slightly negative assessment -hoping, one supposes, that this nonsense would just go away, since it doesn't fit into their end-of-science mega-theme. It hasn't gone away. The initial revelation prompted a flurry of confirmation research, most of which has focused on understanding and developing earth-bound negative refracting materials. But then, theobvious and larger repercussions of negative refraction have emerged, some of them hinted at on vortex. "Black holes bend light the 'wrong' way" is a new story by Jim Giles along these lines."Refraction effect may be distorting astronomers' results. The galaxy Centaurus A has a supermassive black hole at its heart but could its gravity be fooling astronomers?" Duh... where have you been, Jim"Starlight may be bent in odd directions when it passes close to a rotating black hole, the researchers now say, unexpectedly shifting its source's apparent position in the sky. The cause is a recently discovered phenomenon called negative refraction, which physicists are still struggling to understand." ... well, Jim, not that recently, but hey, better late than never... The foot-dragging here is understandable, when the mainstream press chooses to ignore the initial accounts (and it may take S-A a few decades to catch-on to the full extent of this), that is, if the publisher does not hurry-up and fire the entire senior staff, beginning with Horgan... Some critics of the magazine might even suggest a national "drop-your-subscription" campaign or boycott and this step should not be ruled out, as this is still an influential journal, presentlybeing hijacked by Luddites. How long will it take themto realize that Halton Arp gave the partial answer to this and much more, many years ago. They poo-pooedhim then, but will they apologize when they are forced to "eat crow"?... I doubt it. Gravitational red-shift is a "sizeable part" of the correct answer, but one cannot eliminate distance, so it is not all the answer -and Arp himself was a bit over-reaching. But redshift itself is the higher order phenomenon that demonstrates that whenover halfof the universe is "dark matter" then the gravitation from this type of matteris going to bend light or retard/advancelight-wavesdifferently than is the standard assumption of the way light is affected by regular matter. Oh well, we can sit back and wait to see how long it will take them to realize this little gem. Gravitational red-shift has been and still is significantly under-appreciated in both observational analysis and in mathematical calculations of the age, mass and rate of expansion of the universe,
Re: End of Science
At 10:35 AM 3/10/5, Jones Beene wrote: Oops another eldritch-errata, it is only fari to allow his pre-buttal, no? Sorry. There was no intent in my notoriously dyslexic spelling to imply anything about Mr. Horgan's sexual preferences. Usually the MS spell-checker steps-in and saves me from these occasionally humorous, but seldom this prescient, kind of slip-up I've been using a freeware version of Eudora for about 10 years now. It has no spelling checker. I'm slightly dyslexic and both a bad speller and typist. This experience has led me to suspect the probability of a spelling error is proportional to: a. the degree to which the error inverts the meaning being expressed, b. the degree the expression is turned profane by the error, c. the amount of personal embarrassment the error causes, d. the degree of necessity to correct the error in a repost. I've also noticed that the probability of finding the error upon proofreading is inversely proportional to the above, as is the time interval after pressing send before the error is noticed. I suppose these observations are merely corollaries to Murphy's law. 8^) Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: End of Science
Horace Heffner wrote: I've been using a freeware version of Eudora for about 10 years now. It has no spelling checker. You should get the paid version. It is much better and it does have a spelling checker. - Jed
Re: End of Science
- Original Message - From: Horace Heffner I've also noticed that the probability of finding the error upon proofreading is inversely proportional to the above, as is the time interval after pressing send before the error is noticed. I suppose these observations are merely corollaries to Murphy's law. 8^) Yup. Exactomundo. And speaking of that genius, Murphy... here are a few of my favorite corollaries, a few of them shamelessly paraphrased from: http://dmawww.epfl.ch/roso.mosaic/dm/murphy.html MURPHY'S LAWS Corollaries Nothing is as easy as it first looks. Everything takes longer than you first think. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go wrong. Or else, they will all go wrong at once. Corollary to that corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen precisely then. If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will go wrong anyway. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something. It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are as ingenious as indigenous. Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics Things get worse under pressure. Murphy's Law of Logic Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence. The Murphy Principle of Life Smile . . . tomorrow things will only get worse. Murphy's Law of Laws Laws of science will be vacated quickest in direct proportion to their assumed prior validity. The day after any law is overturned, the former proponents will say it was always meant to be special and never general Murphy's 1st Law of RD All great discoveries are made by accident. RD corollaries Always draw your curves first, then plot your reading. Enough research will tend to support any theory. Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand. Never report you null experiment so that others can waste as much time on it as your have. Poor Man's Commentary on Murphy's Laws 1) If your have nothing to lose by change, relax. 2) If you have everything to gain by change, relax. 3) If change doesn't seem to matter, be very concerned. O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy Murphy was an optimist. Tuttle's Comment on O'Toole O'Toole was a person predisposed to take a favorable view of Murphy Murphy's Military Laws Friendly fire isn't The most dangerous thing in the combat zone is an officer with a map. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you are. Murphy's Love Laws All the good ones are taken. If the good person isn't taken, there's a better reason. Brains x Beauty x Availability = Constant. Money can't buy love, but it sure puts you in a great bargaining position. Nice guys really do finish last. The qualities that most attract a woman to a man are usually the same ones she can't stand years later. Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Love, for a man, is the delusion that one woman differs significantly from another. And many more... so **smile** it hides one's deep angst about the truth of Murphy and makes people wonder what you know that he missed.
Re: End of Science
At 3:32 PM 3/10/5, Jed Rothwell wrote: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Horace Heffner wrote: I've been using a freeware version of Eudora for about 10 years now. It has no spelling checker. You should get the paid version. It is much better and it does have a spelling checker. Obviously, I'm way too cheap for that! 8^) Actually, current versions of Eudora probably won't work on my computer (A Mac Performa 5200 running System 7 - see how cheap I really am!). I am interested in upgrading though, both Eudora and Mac, but wonder if the 500+ megabytes of email I have cataloged can be converted. Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: End of Science
At 08:52 am 10-03-05 -0800, Harry Tuttle wrote: snip *Negative refraction* is brand new (age ~4) to physics and astronomy, but has been causing a stir in fields of applied-materials science. When light crosses a boundary, it is bent in a characteristic way. Keepers of the faith, like Horgan, would love to see it stay that way, so that they can have the smug satisfaction of saying told ya so. But in 2001, researchers showed that certain artificial materials bend light in the opposite direction. Over a year later S-A, having tried to ignore this exciting RD for as long as it could, finally did a modest and slightly negative assessment - hoping, one supposes, that this nonsense would just go away, since it doesn't fit into their end-of-science mega-theme. It hasn't gone away. snip Stimulated by Tuttle's incisive post I googled *Negative refraction* to find out about this interesting discovery. http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-6/p37.html From the opening sentence. --- Materials engineered to have negative permittivity and permeability demonstrate exotic behavior, from a negative refractive index to subwavelength focusing. --- .I could recognise the mistake that was being made. For years I made a similar mistake myself. Permittivity and Permeability are simply Iterative Hierarchical Strains of EM space. One is a measure of tensile strain, the other a measure of balancing compressive strain. If epsilon is positive then mu must be negative and vice-versa. So let us say that permeability represents positive space strain, then permittivity must represent negative space strain and must be accompanied by a minus sign. So the statement should really read, --- Materials engineered to have positive permittivity and negative permeability demonstrate exotic behavior, from a negative refractive index to subwavelength focusing. -- In other words the signs of permittivity and permeability are reversed. For most materials the quasi Solid Phase is in compression and the quasi Fluid Phase is in tension, using the terms Solid and Fluid in the sense they are used in Di-phase Theory. But for some materials, such as jelly and children's balloons, it is the other way around. The Fluid Phases (water and air respectively) are in compression and the Solid Phases (organic networks) are in tension. In effect, these new materials are the equivalent of jelly and balloons on the EM scale of things. The trouble with physicists is that they are so lost among the trees they very rarely get a good look at the wood. ;-) Cheers Frank Grimer = vox Domini confringentis cedros et confringet Dominus cedros Libani et disperget eas quasi vitulus Libani et Sarion quasi filius rinocerotis =
