Revolutionary Science

References, please.

Any chance of some quick links to the articles you found? (yeah I'll be lazy ... ) I'm shocked! How's the move going?Edited by RAZD, : pitytypi

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
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I'd show you a picture but I can't find my camera... or anything Running your office out of your home always seems like such a good idea... until you move and everything gets mixed up Is it e or is it c? Experimental Tests of Varying Alpha Phys.Lett. B549 (2002) 284-289
A Cosmological Tale of Two Varying Constants Phys.Lett. B541 (2002) 201-210
New varying speed of light theories Rept.Prog.Phys. 66 (2003) 2025

Thanks (now all I've got to do is find the time to read them while travelling to texas and back in the next two weeks ... )In the process of selling one house (MI) and looking for another (RI), hopefully much smaller with (HA) low taxes...It's not until you move that you discover how much you are owned by stuff. Or does matter just expand to fill a vacuum ....Edited by RAZD, : title changed just for ned

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Uh, RAZD, beside being off topic just what did this post have to do with "Big Science"?

Huh? I gave you a list of counterexamples demonstrating that Kuhn was wrong.You know who Einstein was, I take it?What is it in my post that you need a reference for?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I didn't see any counter examples. I saw only bare assertions.In Message 30: But Kuhn did use Einstein as an example. I am not aware that he ever used Wegener. Maybe you mean something weird by "Kuhn was wrong". I cannot make sense of your Message 30.

Again, huh? These are all easily verifiable historical facts, each of which is a counterexample to the claim that appreciation of a revolutionary theory needs a new generation of scientists to appreciate it. But not, clearly, as an example of someone whose theory required a new generation of scientists to appreciate it, 'cos it didn't. No, subbie did. Subbie's claim, on Kuhn's behalf, was that a new idea required a new generation of scientists to agree with it, because the existing scientists were too entrenched in the existing paradigm. I have produced counterexamples.

I'm not aware that Kuhn made such a claim.There was certainly some resistance to Einstein's relativity, and some physicists found it difficult to adapt.The statement that comes to mind about needing a new generation of scientists is due to Max Planck, not to Kuhn. So I'll take it that what you meant was that subbie was wrong, not that Kuhn was wrong. Okay, it makes more sense that way.

Not so. I thought I recalled that Kuhn said "revolutionary ideas often gain acceptance ... [through] new entrants into the field...." It's entirely possible that I confused Kuhn and Plank.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

This November 7, Bob Colwell (see Message 1) will be giving a presentation at my work site. After reading his columns for so many years and exchanging a few emails with him, it will be great to finally meet him. Here's the abstract of his talk: Barring Armageddon, I will attend. Has anyone read his book? I didn't even know he had one out.--Percy

What does he know. He's a Sox fan.Also, back in 2000 or so he was saying that we were reaching a plateau where the average computer was as powerful as we need. Now, six years later, what is his opinion on that?Edited by jar, : No reason given.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Funny you should say this, because it was a six year old computer I just replaced, and it had become a real dog. If you can dig up a reference to what he actually said back in 2000 I'll be glad to pose the question during Q&A.--Percy

Today I listened to an hour and a half presentation by Bob Colwell based on his book The Pentium Chronicles. It was entertaining and informative. Everyone would enjoy the first ten minutes, and all the computer geeks would enjoy the rest, especially those who have been involved in hardware design. I'll try to get a copy of the video and post it here at EvC Forum, though I'm not optimistic about that. I'll pirate it if I can figure out how.Me and five other engineers spent about 45 minutes in a conference room with Bob after the presentation and just shot the breeze. Bob and I reminisced quite a bit about Carnegie-Mellon, it turns out we didn't actually overlap. I left in August of 1977, and Bob arrived a month later.I didn't ask Jar's question about Bob's comment that computers are as powerful as they need to be because it came up spontaneously. Bob believes that as long as people need more computing power than they can get that companies like Intel are in good shape, but that once they begin providing more than people need then other differentiators come into play that are much less obvious and difficult to predict. He used the example of ringtones, apparently now a $5 billion industry that was never predicted by engineers or marketeers - implementation of programmable ringtones apparently came as a afterthought simply because other phone features made them possible and not because anyone thought there would be significant demand for them.So Bob's opinion hasn't changed. He still thinks that silicon companies like Intel are in for a shakeup because they're still fighting the previous battle for ever higher performance, while the next battle will actually be over some technology features we don't know about yet, or at least that we don't know that the buying public will go gaga over yet.Innovators Dilemma came up in discussion and was highly recommended. I seemed to be the only person in the room who hadn't read it.Anyway, it was a great talk, it was wonderful to finally meet Bob, I've had a great day!--Percy

There was a news item yesterday that put technology in perspective for me. It seems that the next shuttle flight may get postponed because of a software issue. It seems that the programs for the shuttle use Julian Day. It also seems there is no provision for a flight that extends into a new year, the counter simply increments, day 365, 366, 367,...What was so funny was that the article said they have known about this problem since 2003.Now I cannot even imagine writing a program keyed to Julian Day. That would mean that if a flight was delayed every date time stamp would have to be incremented based on the delay, things scheduled for day 325 (assuming a 2 day delay) would have to be reprogrammed for day 327. If it was a matter of saving space then a Mission Day scale would work even better.But come on, Julian day went out the window by the later 70s and I cannot imagine programs written in the last 25 years using it.Technology that is just Good Nuff seems to be the standard.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion