Another example of dogma falling at the hands of good science. :thumbup:
Ridiculed crystal work wins Nobel for Israeli | Reuters
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Another example of dogma falling at the hands of good science. :thumbup:
Ridiculed crystal work wins Nobel for Israeli | Reuters
This article makes me so happy. After the Scientific Community and Israeli Community basically shunned him, refusing to give his theory any more attention than laughter, they all have to eat their words. Success is the best form of revenge, especially when its success for an idea greater than yourself. This man is a hero for modern science.
pwned lol I agree with omnis.
Did the other scientists even give his work a look? Or try to replicate it?
Ridiculed is a strong word. They thought he was incorrect, but there's a big difference between that and the ridicule you get for thinking bigfoot exists. Just keep that in mind.
The article kind of tells a different story, IMHO. I think 'suffering years' of 'being laughed at', having 'a crusade mounted against him' and people coming up with pithy little saying about him such as 'there are no quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists', is a little closer to ridicule than just thinking someone is wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmind
There will always be a small number of stick-in-the-muds with stupid attitudes. The great thing about science is that their opinions don't matter one iota; if you have objective reality on your side then there is nothing anybody can do to stop it becoming accepted.
This is unfortunately not just a small number but usually the majority of the community. While truth is on your side, an idea is still just an idea, especially when it's presented to people unwilling to replicate or consider it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Yeah, I would say there's more than just a few scientists with stupid attitudes toward the progress of science. Much of it is taken too personally, and though the objective evidence is the only judge, it tends to drag some people who don't like it for some personal reason "kicking and screaming" to accept it. People like that can delay progress on the practical level, especially if they're in a position of "authority":lol: which I think is a concept that has no place in science.
I guess you missed my point entirely. There's a big difference between challenging the idea that all crystals are periodic (a subtlety of chemistry that most people don't even know or care about and is only discussed in conferences and journals) and believing in things like bigfoot, ESP, ghosts, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oneironaut
Of course people 'in the know' will take this stuff very seriously and engage in name-calling, but the fact is, he was still well within the scientific mainstream. My point is, some people here will use this as an excuse to advance their own quasi-religious, pseudo-scientific ideas about god knows what, citing this guy as an example of "the establishment being wrong".
Ah, I got ya. Point taken, and I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmind
Sounds like one of two things happened:
1) The evidence wasn't good enough to back up the claims, which would make it bad science.
2) The evidence was there, but people within the field refused to look at it and try to replicate it, which would make it bad science.
Still, ultimately this was corrected in the end.
What I don't get is how people could disagree at all with something as directly objective as this. The crystal exists... they just had to look.
Except scientists will rush to try to replicate any exciting result as fast as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
Scientists become renowned for being contrarian; no scientist became famous by changing nothing.
Yet another of the strengths of the philosophy.
I think the point is that, the more comfortable 'certain' scientists get with an established principle, the less-likely many of them are to go through the inconvenience of testing a theory that they already feel is bullshit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
It's not so much a problem with 'science', itself. It's a problem with some of the egos that often act as the base of the scientific community, when unchecked. I'm sure there is no small number of scientists who were ridiculed for their own findings, just as this man was. He's just one of them that actually persevered through it all.
I doubt there has ever been any scientist who did not persevere through it all, considering you objectively know that everybody else is wrong.
Like you say, it is not a problem with science, the central strength of science being its total inviolability from dogma, opinion or tradition. Anybody not acting true to these principles is not acting as a scientist, and fortunately the way it works out is that there will always be a huge supply of contrarians to counter any dogmatists. Just look at cold fusion; that violates the first law of thermodynamics, which is far more deeply rooted than this crystal thing, and people tried to independently verify that hundreds of times, despite it being 'ridiculous'.
You objectively know everybody else is wrong? That sounds like a Dogmatist, not a Scientist. It's true what they say, first an idea is ridiculed, then violently opposed, then accepted as common sense.
In this case, he literally did objectively know the people who didn't believe him we're wrong, unless he considered the possibility that he hallucinated the atomic pattern lol.
How does cold fusion violate the first law of thermodynamics?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Could have been instrumentation error.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayfaerer
Well I'm sure he was a good enough scientist to make sure, because it wasn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmind
I didn't say it was...Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayfaerer
I know, I'm saying that he probably made sure that he had the right to think his observation was real.
This is true. Doesn't help that it's about crystals either! :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by cmind
However, quacks will find a way to do this no matter what. Mutilating science to further their own agenda.
Well, you need a certain temperature to overcome the activation energy required to overcome the electrostatic repulsion of the nuclei... as far as I know, cold fusion is totally at odds with known physics, that was all I was saying. Currently too drunk to look up further details... but the experiment was never successfully repeated anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmind
Keep trying, maybe one day you'll make a good post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
(Read Wayfaerer's obvious response which was freely available to the common sense of everybody who understood the basic message of what I said).
http://gallery.sealhat.com/albums/us...up_george2.jpg
> gets drunk
> researches nuclear physics
To be honest, nuclear physics is for noobs. Seriously.
Rocket science is for people who couldn't get into the special olympics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVPsBmhgjTkQuote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Rocket scientists are just compensating for their small wieners.
Catalyst. l2chemistryQuote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Besides, what you said isn't even a violation of thermodynamics, it's just inconvenient. A violation of thermodynamics would be a spontaneous reaction that both reduces entropy and increases enthalpy.
Oh mah gawd a persecuted Israeli, who ever heard of such a thing. Well, good job anyhow.
Muon-catalyzed fusion is not yet practical, and in the experiments of Fleischmann and Pons excess energy is being produced than what is being put into the experiment, which does violate the first law of thermodynamics, which is the conservation of energy.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmind
It's either a violation of basic thermodynamics or it's somehow 'turning off' the electrostatic force. Both of these things are pretty out there.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmind
Last time I checked, fusion is supposed to produce excess energy. So does burning coal. Is burning coal a violation of thermodynamics? DurrrrQuote:
Originally Posted by Wayfaerer
I thought they were accounting for the mass as well. Nuclear fusion and coal do not produce excess anything, they change energy forms.
Er...Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayfaerer
Energy is completely conserved. What's being referred to is the useful work. If you put say 10MW in and only get 5MW of usable power out of it, that still adds up to a total of 15MW. The goal of current fusion experiments is to obtain a Q value of >1, where you get more usable energy out of the fusion reaction than you used to start and contain the reaction in the first place.
The energy produced also comes from converting some of the mass. No violation of thermodynamics whatsoever... this is basic basic stuff.
I don't know much about the cold fusion experiment, but like I said, I thought it was energy unaccountable by the mass reduction. I thought it had something to do with the the mysterious excess energy they would need to overcome the repulsion of the nuclei without a catalyst.Quote:
Originally Posted by Photolysis
Well with cold fusion I haven't heard of any peer-reviewed evidence from a reputable source for it actually occurring, much less any mechanism that would lower the activation energy for the reaction, unlike Muon-catalysed fusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayfaerer
In any case, thermodynamics states that the reaction pathway is irrelevant when it comes to the total energy released in the reaction. So if the same reaction released different amounts of energy through different pathways that would indeed be a violation of thermodynamics.
Yes, thank you. Someone who isn't aQuote:
Originally Posted by Photolysis
moronsuper cool dude and thinks that high activation energy somehow equates with a violation of thermodynamics.
I've asked you to knock this crap off. Grow up, please.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmind
You're not special for understanding basic chemistry (wow catalysts, what the fuck are they?), and my meaning has already been explained to you.Quote:
Originally Posted by cmind
No it wasn't. You said that cold fusion, by being cold, violates thermodynamics. I pointed out that the existence of catalysts disproves this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
"you need a certain temperature to overcome the activation energy required to overcome the electrostatic repulsion of the nuclei"
Why so confused? It's pretty simple bro.
Not quite. Nuclear catalysts, like the already mentioned muon catalyst, can rearrange the forces in a way that actually reduces the required activation energy, and hence the temperature. Once again, I think it is you who is missing something.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Your off topic (although this topic is off topic lol). The experiments in question when someone says "Cold Fusion" do not use such catalysts. Also, muons do not "rearrange" the electromagnetic force, they bring the nuclei closer together by replacing electrons in atoms.
"Rearrange" might not be the best word, but catalysts do change the required activation energy, which is my point. Also, you don't necessarily need a traditional catalyst. For example, a well-designed particle accelerator could achieve net gain fusion without needing a high ambient temperature in any non-negligible space*.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayfaerer
*Technically, you could say that an individual particle has a certain temperature depending on its energy, but that's a big stretch. Temperature, as a concept, is meant to talk about large numbers of particles.