The Bob Park of his day....
Richard van der Riet Wooley
(Astronomer Royal) Fellow of the Royal Society, Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
“The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space]…presents
difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss
the notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author’s
insistent appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed
impossibility of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually
accomplished” link
On appointment as Astronomer Royal, he reiterated his long-held view that “space travel is utter bilge”. Speaking to Time in 1956, Woolley noted
“It’s utter bilge. I don’t think anybody will ever put up enough
money to do such a thing . . . What good would it do us? If we spent the
same amount of money on preparing first-class astronomical equipment we
would learn much more about the universe . . . It is all rather rot”.
Woolley’s protestations came just one year prior to the launch of Sputnik, five years before launch of the Apollo Program, and thirteen years before the first landing on the moon.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [Vo]:Why are pseudoskeptics so relentless in their mission
to debunk?
From: "Craig Brown" <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, June 06, 2013 2:11 pm
To: [email protected]
Naval scientist Eldon Byrd put it rather succinctly when he said – “What major contribution has any sceptic made to the betterment of humankind? How many Mother Teresa’s have they produced? How many great scientific discoveries have they made? Many of them are like movie critics–useless and usually wrong.”-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Why are pseudoskeptics so relentless in their mission
to debunk?
From: Ron Kita <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, June 06, 2013 2:09 pm
To: vortex-l <[email protected]>
Robert Park is 82In my cabinet I have a bottle to celebrate his no longer finding a use for oxygen.
Also..I will debunk his death...as will others.Ron KitaOn Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:06 PM, William Beaty <[email protected]> wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jun 2013, Jed Rothwell wrote:
They only reacted this way to cold fusion. I will never
understand why.
Well, CF is an example of traditional alchemy: transmutation of elements via basic chemistry. If CF is real, then not only does this demonstrate that modern chemistry has a huge hole in it, and the hole has been carefully maintained by hundreds of experts over centuries ...but sitting in that hole are woo-woos: crowds of Crackpot CF True Believers who've been right all along. It means that the Knigts of Scientific Purity and Rightness are shown to be bullies who were beating up innocent victims, and worse, shown to be doing it because they never bothered to read a single thing about the topic that wasn't their own propaganda.
If CF is real, then you just know that all the major magazines and news outlets will focus on how the disbelief caught fire; on a certain physics meeting where the outbreak of sneering first started, and on the ones who led it. The CF-supporters will be promoted, perhaps to department heads and controllers of funding. The powerful suddenly have bosses with old grudges to satisfy. CF-deniers are suddenly seen as the symbol of everything that's wrong with the modern world. Crowds of screaming undergrads dance around bonfires made of old paper journals and magazines, each copy found to contain a column by Park. Maybe even Physics itself will fall, losing any hope of major funding for decades as everyone piles onto the CF bandwagon, and all the young students will want to emulate famous chemists (or famous crazy gold-makers.)
(((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) )))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb at amasci com http://amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair
Seattle, WA 206-762-3818 unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
