User talk:Ancheta Wis/t

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Welcome to wikipedia. If you have content to contribute to the article, or a comment about the article, then Be Bold. I have a personal preference for subjunctive mood, so I would have written 'If there were a technique', which puts the reader in the mood for hypotheticals. I also have a personal preference for individual experience, and logical propositions need to be grounded, in my book. Thus the natural philosopher has an advantage over the logician, based on greater intimacy with the problem of interest. In that case, we need only to worry about the rhetoric of science, since the thinking (logic) would be correct. But if one requires proof, then,


To address the why, it is a bit forward to state things from the point of view of today when the article clearly shows that usage has evolved in the past 50 years. In other words, an article which covers 2000 years would do well to consider how usage of an easy word like computer has shifted in meaning, much less a hard word/concept like software. Granted, hardware is the easy part, as it refers to something a bit more tangible. For example computer is misnamed. It should be called controller, if one were to be logical about it. But that's how usage has evolved, and history depends on the previous state, so computer it is.

Contents

[edit] First-generation von Neumann machine and the other works

Main article: algorithm
Further information: Mainframe computer

Even before the ENIAC was finished, Eckert and Mauchly recognized its limitations and started the design of a stored-program computer, EDVAC. John von Neumann was credited with a widely-circulated report describing the EDVAC design in which both the programs and working data were stored in a single, unified store. This basic design, denoted the von Neumann architecture, would serve as the foundation for the continued development of ENIAC's successors.[1]

In this generation, temporary or working storage was provided by acoustic delay lines, which used the propagation time of sound through a medium such as liquid mercury (or through a wire) to briefly store data. As series of acoustic pulses is sent along a tube; after a time, as the pulse reached the end of the tube, the circuitry detected whether the pulse represented a 1 or 0 and caused the oscillator to re-send the pulse. Others used Williams tubes, which use the ability of a television picture tube to store and retrieve data. By 1954, magnetic core memory[2] was rapidly displacing most other forms of temporary storage, and dominated the field through the mid-1970s.

"Baby" at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester (MSIM), England
"Baby" at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester (MSIM), England

The first working von Neumann machine was the Manchester "Baby" or Small-Scale Experimental Machine, developed by Frederic C. Williams and Tom Kilburn and built at the University of Manchester in 1948;[3] it was followed in 1949 by the Manchester Mark I computer which functioned as a complete system using the Williams tube and magnetic drum for memory, and also introduced index registers.[4] The other contender for the title "first digital stored program computer" had been EDSAC, designed and constructed at the University of Cambridge. Operational less than one year after the Manchester "Baby", it was also capable of tackling real problems. EDSAC was actually inspired by plans for EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer), the successor to ENIAC; these plans were already in place by the time ENIAC was successfully operational. Unlike ENIAC, which used parallel processing, EDVAC used a single processing unit. This design was simpler and was the first to be implemented in each succeeding wave of miniaturization, and increased reliability. Some view Manchester Mark I / EDSAC / EDVAC as the "Eves" from which nearly all current computers derive their architecture.

Magnetic tape: the 10.5 inch reel of 9 track tape, has been in continuous use for 50 years. It will be the primary data storage mechanism when CERN's Large Hadron Collider comes online in 2008.
Magnetic tape: the 10.5 inch reel of 9 track tape, has been in continuous use for 50 years. It will be the primary data storage mechanism when CERN's Large Hadron Collider comes online in 2008.

The first universal programmable computer in the Soviet Union was created by a team of scientists under direction of Sergei Alekseyevich Lebedev from Kiev Institute of Electrotechnology, Soviet Union (now Ukraine). The computer MESM (МЭСМ, Small Electronic Calculating Machine) became operational in 1950. It had about 6,000 vacuum tubes and consumed 25 kW of power. It could perform approximately 3,000 operations per second. Another early machine was CSIRAC, an Australian design that ran its first test program in 1949. CSIRAC is the oldest computer still in existence and the first to have been used to play digital music.[5]

In October 1947, the directors of J. Lyons & Company, a British catering company famous for its teashops but with strong interests in new office management techniques, decided to take an active role in promoting the commercial development of computers. By 1951 the LEO I computer was operational and ran the world's first regular routine office computer job.

Manchester University's machine, also a Mark I became the prototype for the Ferranti Mark I. The first Ferranti Mark I machine was delivered to the University in February, 1951 and at least nine others were sold between 1951 and 1957.

UNIVAC I, above, the first commercial electronic computer in the United States (third in the world), achieved 1900 operations per second in a smaller and more efficient package than ENIAC.
UNIVAC I, above, the first commercial electronic computer in the United States (third in the world), achieved 1900 operations per second in a smaller and more efficient package than ENIAC.

In June 1951, the UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) was delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau. Remington Rand eventually sold 46 machines at more than $1 million each. UNIVAC was the first 'mass produced' computer; all predecessors had been 'one-off' units. It used 5,200 vacuum tubes and consumed 125 kW of power. It used a mercury delay line capable of storing 1,000 words of 11 decimal digits plus sign (72-bit words) for memory. Unlike IBM machines it was not equipped with a punch card reader but 1930s style metal magnetic tape input, making it incompatible with some existing commercial data stores. High speed punched paper tape and modern-style magnetic tapes were used for input/output by other computers of the era.

In November 1951, the J. Lyons company began weekly operation of a bakery valuations job on the LEO (Lyons Electronic Office). This was the first business application to go live on a stored program computer.

Magnetic core memory remained in use until past the mid-1970s, when semiconductor memories became more economically feasible. Each core is one bit.
Magnetic core memory remained in use until past the mid-1970s, when semiconductor memories became more economically feasible. Each core is one bit.

In 1952, IBM publicly announced the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine, the first in its successful 700/7000 series and its first IBM mainframe computer. The IBM 704, introduced in 1954, used magnetic core memory, which became the standard for large machines. The first implemented high-level general purpose programming language, Fortran, was also being developed at IBM for the 704 during 1955 and 1956 and released in early 1957. (Konrad Zuse's Plankalkül language was designed in 1945 but had not yet been implemented in 1957.)

IBM 650 front panel wiring.
IBM 650 front panel wiring.

IBM introduced a smaller, more affordable computer in 1954 that proved very popular. The IBM 650 weighed over 900 kg; the attached power supply weighed around 1350 kg and both were held in separate cabinets of roughly 1.5 meters by 0.9 meters by 1.8 meters. It cost $500,000 or could be leased for $3,500 a month. Its drum memory was originally only 2000 ten-digit words, and required arcane programming for efficient computing. Memory limitations such as this were to dominate programming for decades afterward, until the evolution of hardware capabilities which allowed the development of a programming model that could be more sympathetic to software development.[6]

In 1955, Maurice Wilkes invented microprogramming,[7] which was later widely used in the CPUs and floating-point units of mainframe and other computers, such as the IBM 360 series. Microprogramming allows the base instruction set to be defined or extended by built-in programs (now sometimes called firmware, microcode, or millicode).

In 1956, IBM sold its first magnetic disk system, RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control). It used 50 24-inch (610 mm) metal disks, with 100 tracks per side. It could store 5 megabytes of data and cost $10,000 per megabyte. (As of 2008, magnetic storage, in the form of hard disks, costs less than one 50th of a cent per megabyte).


There is an uncomfortable point here: when we (as a civilization) find a successful direction, how can we be sure that we are not going off-track? (as in the rain dance). Some examples:
(1) just because something feels right we do it (right here in Wisconsin) when it fits our belief system.
(2) we follow our ideologies -- The Chief Speaker, Moctezuma_II, of the Aztec civilization destroyed it when a prediction he expected seemed to come true, right down to the expected year (One Reed in the Aztec calendar which is 1519 in the Gregorian calendar), as foretold in the Aztec tradition. The Aztecs collide with the Spaniards, and are conquered in the years to follow, by technology (stone age vs. iron age), smallpox, and religion (Huitzilopochtli vs. the Reconquista). 07:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


I quote your statement "The validity of a theory is decided by scientists who interpret data". The Stern-Gerlach experiment was a surprise to those who were trained to interpret data with classical theory, as the results do not fit the classical picture. How is that not a black swan case?
Avoiding the fallacy of 'affirming the consequent as proof' need not require the philosophical position of falsificationism as part of scientific method, if that is your entire point. I do not disagree that falsificationism is not required. However, the psychological lift of seeing a hypothesized condition actually appear is an undeniable part of both scientific method and mathematical analysis. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 21:34, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Elsie the cat is sitting on a mat
Elsie the cat is sitting on a mat
Let's share some common experience here, so that it becomes easier to communicate. From the article, there is a picture which illustrates a sentence, "Elsie the cat is sitting on a mat". One possible abstraction of that sentence, "Cat on mat", is pretty much reduced to two nouns linked by a preposition. Now the good thing about abstraction is that it becomes possible to communicate the point of a sentence. Now if you were concerned about your mat then you might have an interest in getting that cat off your mat. But if I were concerned about my cat, who had disappeared for two weeks, and we had the cat in front of us, as in the picture, then I might be interested in luring that cat back home.
In this hypothetical case, we are both concerned about where that darn cat is, for our own reasons, and graphic evidence serves us both well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ancheta Wis (talk • contribs) 02:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
When Newton wrote Principia he didn't sleep or eat for days on end. When Galileo looked at the sun thru his telescope, he did damage to his eyes and went blind eventually. When Einstein went thru his divorce he promised the money from his Nobel prize as part of the settlement; he was so sure he would get the prize, he made the promise beforehand. These facts are well known. I would guess that many others are similarly passionate about their commitments as well. Alhacen said it best: Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough. You don't get the same commitment to truth if your POV is pragmatic, because at the slightest difficulty, you will give up in favor of an expedient. Here is a more recent example: in the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, the Japanese would torture to get information. One American officer simply responded to the torture with a grin. In exasperation, they bayoneted him to death. Thus that officer was more committed than his torturers were. The officer 'won', you might say. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 17:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)


System influences Reality

In WWII, Russell Volckmann was a US Army officer who retreated to the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, Philippines. His 1954 memoir We Remained is online. A handful of American officers remained to lead the guerilla operation. They actually remained in radio contact with Brisbane (MacArthur headquarters during the war. He was resupplied by submarine after arduous effort and careful planning before the invasion. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 11:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


I just noted your reversion on the article page. Perhaps all the quotations from Popper might stand on their own to face just what the readers might decide, on the worth of what Popper has said, in the face of his published self-contradictions. After all, you can prove anything from a contradiction. That's why Alan Turing quit attending Wittgenstein's classes. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 12:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact was written by Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961), a Polish physician. Fleck published the German edition in 1935: Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv, Schwabe und Co., Verlagsbuchhandlung, Basel.

The first English translation, The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, was translated and edited by T.J. Trenn and R.K. Merton, foreword by Thomas Kuhn, and published by Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Fleck's case history of the discovery of the Wassermann reaction to syphilis, was originally published in German in 1935, and republished in English in 1979 after having been cited by Thomas Kuhn as an important influence on his own conception of the history of science. Both Fleck's history of discovery, and the history of his book's re-discovery, exemplify a view of progress that continues to inform research in the science and technology studies fields.

[edit] The book

Kuhn writes "Fleck is concerned with ... the personal, tentative, and incoherent character of journal science together with the essential and creative act of the individuals who add order and authority by selective systematization within a vademecum."[8]


"Wissen ist Macht und soll für jedermann frei verfügbar sein."

In my opinion, the article is now beginning to tell a story, by showing more of the interconnection between the theories. In the age of Newton, we could model physics as hard spheres, sometimes with rigid rods connecting the spheres. This view held, up to the age of Maxwell. But once it was discovered that these spheres could have structure, with properties like charge or spin, then their motion could explain not only the emission of light, but also the absorption of light and other energy. By investigating these physical properties, physicists could then begin to investigate the properties of matter at ever higher energies, at ever colder temperatures, as well as for other properties, like size. This allows a picture of physics where the bodies under discussion are no longer hard spheres, but which can deform, spread (and perhaps entangle) and further alter their physical properties, during the propagation and transmission of energy in the system under consideration. --Ancheta Wis 08:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I just learned about this medication last night in conversation; as I have a friend who suffers migraine headaches, my attention was roused. As it was described to me, loss of patience can be a side-effect. One of the fascinating side-effects, after the medication was begun, was an increase in rage at others, including strangers. Apparently, if you work at a help desk or other people-contact jobs, you ought not to take topamax and work customer service for three to four months until your body learns how to deal with the topamax. --Ancheta Wis 12:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

http://wikidashboard.parc.com/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&returnto=Help:Contents

open proxy: IP address for Wikidashboard: http://wikidashboard.parc.com

Your IP address is 209.233.50.75, and your block has been set to expire: indefinite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ancheta Wis (talk • contribs) 09:34, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

"And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out..." --Mark 9:47

It is inconsistent to criticize the History for length, and then to pluck it out for yet another reason. There is no limit to the number of names in a history, and yet one can make the case for the founder of a science. That would be Newton. Galileo has been called the Father of Modern Science, and Kepler spent ths twenty years on his laws, which Newton was able to derive, per the quote #3. Copernicus goes a little farther with his heliocentric system, but then you have to include Yajnavalkya, Aristarchus, al-Biruni, Alhacen etc. in the millennia before that. If we include Maxwell, then we have to include Faraday, and before him Oersted and before him Ritter, Benjamin Franklin, Volta, Galvani, Gilbert etc. If we include Einstein we have to include Mach, Lorentz, Poincaré etc. If we include Schrödinger we have to include Heisenberg and Born and Ehrenfest.

If we limit this to a history of ideas, that would make a case for Galileo, Newton, Orsted, Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein. If I limited that to one quote apiece that is still a section which is 3x longer than the above. --Ancheta Wis 00:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

While editing the history section I was struck how Newton used underlying models for his science. Thus mechanics serves as a thin veneer over a mathematical model with equations serving to explain a System of the World. And we learn these approximations in school. So matter is a collection of particles, or rigid bodies, or unstretchable strings, etc. This leads to egregious designs like Galloping Gertie, where rigid bodies had to give way to more flexible structures.

This brings me to a pet peeve. What's the big deal about 'matter'? It reeks of the 4 humours or the 4 causes of Aristotle. It is a 'mass noun' which allows us to sweep detail under the rug of a model. Why are we compelled to mention matter as something real? It strikes me as a false fundamental. Why not just live with the equations, give their subjects names, and work with the resultant propositions? For example, why don't we just talk about particles which obey Fermi statistics, or Bose-Einstein statistics, and skip the mythical point endowed only with mass.

This has implications for the article. The so-called 'core theories' can be learned with the abstract definitions, but the real items which are the subject of experiment have lots of messy properties, like the magnets which have disturbed the experimental schedule of the collider at CERN. And you have the spectacle of students of physics who have partial understanding of one or two fields. What comes to mind are the critics of the GPS system who think that you can design them without the relativistic corrections. --Ancheta Wis 02:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] History

Inquiry into the nature of matter dates from at least several thousand years ago, from the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent to the Hellenes. philosophical terms, and never verified by systematic experimental testing as is popular today. The works of Ptolemy and Aristotle however, were also not always found to match everyday observations. There were exceptions and there are anachronisms: for example, Indian philosophers and astronomers gave many correct descriptions in atomism and astronomy, and the Greek thinker Archimedes derived many correct quantitative descriptions of mechanics and hydrostatics.

The willingness to question previously held truths and search for new answers eventually resulted in a period of major scientific advancements, now known as the Scientific Revolution of the late 17th century. The precursors to the scientific revolution can be traced back to the important developments made in India and Persia, including the elliptical model of the planets based on the heliocentric solar system of gravitation developed by Indian mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata; the basic ideas of atomic theory developed by Hindu and Jaina philosophers; the theory of light being equivalent to energy particles developed by the Indian Buddhist scholars Dignāga and Dharmakirti; the optical theory of light developed by Persian scientist Alhazen; the Astrolabe invented by the Persian Mohammad al-Fazari; and the significant flaws in the Ptolemaic system pointed out by Persian scientist Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. As the influence of the Islamic Caliphate expanded to Europe, the works of Aristotle preserved by the Arabs, and the works of the Indians and Persians, became known in Europe by the 12th and 13th centuries.

[edit] The Scientific Revolution

Galileo
Galileo

The Scientific Revolution is held by most historians (e.g., Howard Margolis) to have begun in 1543, when the first printed copy of Nicolaus Copernicus's De Revolutionibus (most of which had been written years prior but whose publication had been delayed) was brought to the influential Polish astronomer from Nuremberg.

Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton

Further significant advances were made over the following century by Galileo Galilei, Christiaan Huygens, Johannes Kepler, and Blaise Pascal. During the early 17th century, Galileo pioneered the use of experimentation to validate physical theories, which is the key idea in modern scientific method. Galileo formulated and successfully tested several results in dynamics, in particular the Law of Inertia. In 1687, Newton published the Principia, detailing two comprehensive and successful physical theories: Newton's laws of motion, from which arise classical mechanics; and Newton's Law of Gravitation, which describes the fundamental force of gravity. Both theories agreed well with experiment. The Principia also included several theories in fluid dynamics. Classical mechanics was re-formulated and extended by Leonhard Euler, French mathematician Joseph-Louis Comte de Lagrange, Irish mathematical physicist William Rowan Hamilton, and others, who produced new results in mathematical physics. The law of universal gravitation initiated the field of astrophysics, which describes astronomical phenomena using physical theories.

After Newton defined classical mechanics, the next great field of inquiry within physics was the nature of electricity. Observations in the 17th and 18th century by scientists such as Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray, and Benjamin Franklin created a foundation for later work. These observations also established our basic understanding of electrical charge and current.

James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell

In 1821, the English physicist and chemist Michael Faraday integrated the study of magnetism with the study of electricity. This was done by demonstrating that a moving magnet induced an electric current in a conductor. Faraday also formulated a physical conception of electromagnetic fields. James Clerk Maxwell built upon this conception, in 1864, with an interlinked set of 20 equations that explained the interactions between electric and magnetic fields. These 20 equations were later reduced, using vector calculus, to a set of four equations by Oliver Heaviside.

Albert Einstein in 1947
Albert Einstein in 1947

In addition to other electromagnetic phenomena, Maxwell's equations also can be used to describe light. Confirmation of this observation was made with the 1888 discovery of radio by Heinrich Hertz and in 1895 when Wilhelm Roentgen detected X rays. The ability to describe light in electromagnetic terms helped serve as a springboard for Albert Einstein's publication of the theory of special relativity in 1905. This theory combined classical mechanics with Maxwell's equations. The theory of special relativity unifies space and time into a single entity, spacetime. Relativity prescribes a different transformation between reference frames than classical mechanics; this necessitated the development of relativistic mechanics as a replacement for classical mechanics. In the regime of low (relative) velocities, the two theories agree. Einstein built further on the special theory by including gravity into his calculations, and published his theory of general relativity in 1915.

One part of the theory of general relativity is Einstein's field equation. This describes how the stress-energy tensor creates curvature of spacetime and forms the basis of general relativity. Further work on Einstein's field equation produced results which predicted the Big Bang, black holes, and the expanding universe. Einstein believed in a static universe and tried (and failed) to fix his equation to allow for this. However, by 1929 Edwin Hubble's astronomical observations suggested that the universe is expanding.

From the late 17th century onwards, thermodynamics was developed by physicist and chemist Boyle, Young, and many others. In 1733, Bernoulli used statistical arguments with classical mechanics to derive thermodynamic results, initiating the field of statistical mechanics. In 1798, Thompson demonstrated the conversion of mechanical work into heat, and in 1847 Joule stated the law of conservation of energy, in the form of heat as well as mechanical energy. Ludwig Boltzmann, in the 19th century, is responsible for the modern form of statistical mechanics.

[edit] 1900 to Present

In 1895, Röntgen discovered X-rays, which turned out to be high-frequency electromagnetic radiation. Radioactivity was discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel, and further studied by Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, and others. This initiated the field of nuclear physics.

In 1897, Joseph J. Thomson discovered the electron, the elementary particle which carries electrical current in circuits. In 1904, he proposed the first model of the atom, known as the plum pudding model. (The existence of the atom had been proposed in 1808 by John Dalton.)

These discoveries revealed that the assumption of many physicists that atoms were the basic unit of matter was flawed, and prompted further study into the structure of atoms.

Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford

In 1911, Ernest Rutherford deduced from scattering experiments the existence of a compact atomic nucleus, with positively charged constituents dubbed protons. Neutrons, the neutral nuclear constituents, were discovered in 1932 by Chadwick. The equivalence of mass and energy (Einstein, 1905) was spectacularly demonstrated during World War II, as research was conducted by each side into nuclear physics, for the purpose of creating a nuclear bomb. The German effort, led by Heisenberg, did not succeed, but the Allied Manhattan Project reached its goal. In America, a team led by Fermi achieved the first man-made nuclear chain reaction in 1942, and in 1945 the world's first nuclear explosive was detonated at Trinity site, near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

In 1900, Max Planck published his explanation of blackbody radiation. This equation assumed that radiators are quantized in nature, which proved to be the opening argument in the edifice that would become quantum mechanics. Beginning in 1900, Planck, Einstein, Niels Bohr, and others developed quantum theories to explain various anomalous experimental results by introducing discrete energy levels. In 1925, Heisenberg and 1926, Schrödinger and Paul Dirac formulated quantum mechanics, which explained the preceding heuristic quantum theories. In quantum mechanics, the outcomes of physical measurements are inherently probabilistic; the theory describes the calculation of these probabilities. It successfully describes the behavior of matter at small distance scales. During the 1920s Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Born were able to formulate a consistent picture of the chemical behavior of matter, a complete theory of the electronic structure of the atom, as a byproduct of the quantum theory.

Image:Richard feynman.jpg
Richard Feynman

Quantum field theory was formulated in order to extend quantum mechanics to be consistent with special relativity. It was devised in the late 1940s with work by Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, and Freeman Dyson. They formulated the theory of quantum electrodynamics, which describes the electromagnetic interaction, and successfully explained the Lamb shift. Quantum field theory provided the framework for modern particle physics, which studies fundamental forces and elementary particles.

Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee, in the 1950s, discovered an unexpected asymmetry in the decay of a subatomic particle. In 1954, Yang and Robert Mills then developed a class of gauge theories which provided the framework for understanding the nuclear forces. The theory for the strong nuclear force was first proposed by Murray Gell-Mann. The electroweak force, the unification of the weak nuclear force with electromagnetism, was proposed by Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg and confirmed in 1964 by James Watson Cronin and Val Fitch. This led to the so-called Standard Model of particle physics in the 1970s, which successfully describes all the elementary particles observed to date.

Quantum mechanics also provided the theoretical tools for condensed matter physics, whose largest branch is solid state physics. It studies the physical behavior of solids and liquids, including phenomena such as crystal structures, semiconductivity, and superconductivity. The pioneers of condensed matter physics include Bloch, who created a quantum mechanical description of the behavior of electrons in crystal structures in 1928. The transistor was developed by physicists John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain and William Bradford Shockley in 1947 at Bell Telephone Laboratories.

right|130px The two themes of the 20th century, general relativity and quantum mechanics, appear inconsistent with each other. General relativity describes the universe on the scale of planets and solar systems while quantum mechanics operates on sub-atomic scales. This challenge is being attacked by string theory, which treats spacetime as composed, not of points, but of one-dimensional objects, strings. Strings have properties like a common string (e.g., tension and vibration). The theories yield promising, but not yet testable results. The search for experimental verification of string theory is in progress.

The United Nations declared the year 2005, the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis, as the World Year of Physics.


George Polya's four steps for constructing a mathematical proof[9] differ from scientific method in both purpose and detail, and yet the process of analysis requires the ability to make conjectures (to guess) as in the second step of scientific method.

[edit] Introduction to scientific method

Alhacen (Ibn Al-Haytham 965 – 1039, a pioneer of scientific method) on truth: "Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough. ..." [10]

Alhacen's experimental setup to show that light travels in straight lines
Alhacen's experimental setup to show that light travels in straight lines

"How does light travel through transparent bodies? Light travels through transparent bodies in straight lines only. ... We have explained this exhaustively in our Book of Optics. But let us now mention something to prove this convincingly: the fact that light travels in straight lines is clearly observed in the lights which enter into dark rooms through holes. ... the entering light will be clearly observable in the dust which fills the air." -- Alhacen[11]

Alhacen's conjecture: "Light travels through transparent bodies in straight lines only".

Alhacen's corroboration: Place a straight stick or a taut thread next to the light, to prove that light travels in a straight line.

[edit] Truth and myth

A myth need not be true (although a myth can be true); when constructing a generalization from a set of observations, it is necessary to disprove its contrapositive, by the laws of logic. It is a fallacy to continually reify a statement as proof of a generalization.

Some examples of incorrect generalization based on observation alone include:

  • To make houseflies, hang a piece of raw meat from the eaves of your house.
  • To make mice, pile dirty clothes in the corner of your room.
  • To fall off the edge of the earth, sail west from the Mediterranean Sea through the pillars of Hercules into the Ocean.

The crucial experiment will distinguish whether a generalization is correct or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ancheta Wis (talk • contribs) 15:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A conundrum

Kenosis, I propose a rewrite of the initial part of the article, based on a conundrum, meaning a question whose answer is a conjecture, a question, or a riddle. The reason is that scientific method excels at the discovery of new knowledge, and it is here that we can best expose its advantages.

Here is a proposed outline. I hope to draw in other editors so that we can take advantage of the wiki-action, and have fun updating the article to increase its rating.

  • 1. A sample question. We could start with something which was not known, say, at the beginning of the development of scientific method, with Alhacen's book on optics, for example. We then use Alhacen's experiment to show that light travels in a straight line. This may seem obvious now, but it was not understood a millennium ago. My reference will be Alhacen's experiment with a camera oscura (which has more than a passing resemblance to Newton's experiment with a prism, 320 years ago).
  • 1.1 This includes Observation, Description, and Conjecture (hypothesis).
  • 1.2 Alhacen's experiment includes Prediction, Control, Identification, and Variation etc.
  • 1.3 The provisional nature of the Conjecture can be highlighted by displaying the various provisional explanations and controversy.
  • 1.4
  • 2. Another question, possibly a more recent one, with an answer which is not generally accepted or controversial (a more recent conundrum)
  • 2.1 Wien Black-body radiation
  • 2.2 Quanta
  • 2.3 Photons
  • 2.4 Quantum entanglement
  • 3. A classical question and its famous answer: for example, the nature of matter and the atomic hypothesis
  • 3.1 Thales
  • 3.2 Democritus
  • 3.3 Dalton
  • 3.4 Mendeleev
  • 4. Another question, possibly from the 20th century, with an answer which is well established, but not so famous except to those in the know: for example, the unification of black holes, gravitation, and quantum theory by Hawking
  • 4.1 Newton
  • 4.2 Einstein
  • 4.3 Black Holes
  • 4.4 Hawking
  • 5. An application, say from business or commerce.
  • 5.1 Industrialization
  • 5.2 Investment
  • 5.3 Insurance
  • 5.4 Risk

Ancheta Wis 03:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

  1. ^ John von Neumann (1945), First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC
  2. ^ U.S. Patent 2,708,722 "Pulse transfer controlling devices", An Wang filed October 1949, issued May 1955
  3. ^ Enticknap, Nicholas (Summer 1998). "Computing's Golden Jubilee". RESURRECTION (20). The Computer Conservation Society. ISSN 0958-7403. 
  4. ^ Computer History Museum, Manchester Mark I
  5. ^ CSIRAC: Australia’s first computer. Retrieved on 2007-12-21.
  6. ^ The hardware capability which provides a better software development environment includes a large, linear memory model, rapid execution of programs within seconds of time, multiprogramming, full-screen editing, and, some would say, a GUI. FORTRAN and COBOL have a static memory model; C has a frame-based memory model.
  7. ^ Maurice Wilkes, Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer. The MIT Press. 1985. ISBN 0-262-23122-0
  8. ^ p. ix, Thomas Kuhn's foreword to Fleck's Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact ISBN 0-226-25325-2
  9. ^
    • 1. "You have to understand the problem."
    • 2. (Analysis) "Make a plan."
    • 3. (Synthesis) "Carry out the plan."
    • 4. "Look back."
    -- George Polya, How to Solve It
  10. ^ Alhazen (Ibn Al-Haytham) Critique of Ptolemy, translated by S. Pines, Actes X Congrès internationale d'histoire des sciences, Vol I Ithaca 1962, as referenced on p.139 of Shmuel Sambursky (ed. 1974) Physical Thought from the Presocratics to the Quantum Physicists ISBN 0-87663-712-8
  11. ^ Alhazen, translated into English from German by M. Schwarz, from "Abhandlung über das Licht", J. Baarmann (ed. 1882) Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Vol 36 as referenced on p.136 by Shmuel Sambursky (1974) Physical thought from the Presocratics to the Quantum Physicists ISBN 0-87663-712-8
  • The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. announced that it is preparing to shut down two hedge funds, Bear's High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund and High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund.
  • United Capital Asset Management

In the table of the distribution of world religions, I was surprised to see no mention of Animism, or the belief that animal species can be totems of religion. Thus belief that turtles or birds, for example, might signify some good thing, like storks in northern Europe. This type of belief can be just as valid as Paganism as a folk religion. My motivation is the beliefs of the American Pacific Northwest tribes, as documented in museums like the Field Museum. The exhibit used to hold some items which the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest hold sacred(I believe they were masks of animals, such as bears or birds ). Those items are no longer displayed, and were even returned by the Museum. (Other sacred practices include worship of Pele in Hawaii, etc.)

When I follow the link to Paganism, I am surprised to see that the term has a Christian connotation/usage, much like the Gentile appellation in Jewish usage. Might this use of the term Paganism not be a signal of some type of bias in the selection of the category or class of religion?

I am further surprised that Animism is flagged as being a non-neutral article. Why might this be so, especially since Animism neatly explains many of the beliefs of the Native American people. I am even inclined to call these beliefs religious beliefs, and worthy of inclusion in the table of religions. For example, a mountain visible from my home town, Sierra Blanca, is sacred to the Mescalero Apache. In fact, they operate a hotel called the Inn of the Mountain Gods, referring directly to the mountain of which I speak. And if that is to be dismissed as marketing hype, how do we reconcile this with the historical practice and usage of traditional dances, which were at first suppressed by the padres (but later allowed, and which survive to this day).

Failing that, why not label the subject of the term 'Paganism' as folk religion instead? That would avoid the animism onus, if that is a non-neutral term. I am not an expert on the subject, but it seems inherently unfair that the Pueblo People's indigenous religions, or the Apache's indigenous religion might not be included in some category of the listed table. Now that I have followed the link to 'Folk religion' I see that it does not qualify on an institutional basis, such as an Army or a Navy. (I refer of course to the quip that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.)

Again, the articles seem unfair and biased. If any of this is naive, I stand corrected. But I await an explanation in the articles. --Ancheta Wis 09:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Stephen Toulmin (1967) "The Astrophysics of Berossos the Chaldean", Isis, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Spring, 1967), pp. 65-76 [1]

European Neural Network Society 2002

Google radar Bayes Kolmogorov signal processing Wiener filter Google counterfactual epistemic probability defeasible

George E. P. Box (1978) Statistics for Experimenters ISBN 0-471-09315-7

In the past few centuries, some statistical methods have been developed, for reasoning in the face of uncertainty, as an outgrowth of methods for eliminating error. This was an echo of the program of Francis Bacon's Novum Organum. Bayesian inference acknowledges one's ability to alter one's beliefs in the face of evidence. This has been called belief revision, or defeasible reasoning: the models in play during the phases of scientific method can be reviewed, revisited and revised, in the light of further evidence. This arose from the work of Frank P. Ramsey[1], John Maynard Keynes[2], and earlier, William Stanley Jevons' work[3] in economics. ; one's individual actions Alan Hájek, "Scotching Dutch Books?" Philosophical Perspectives 19 Per Gunnar Berglund, "Epistemic Probability and Epistemic Weight" The rise of Bayesian probability

  • In a parallel effort, Leibniz, Pascal, Babbage and Jevons' algorithmic thinking stimulated the development of mechanical computing, which gave rise to entire classes of professional careers. Before the mid-twentieth century, computer was a person's job title; women were able to pursue professional careers as computers, at a time when other professions were unavailable to them, before the rise of computing hardware in the mid-twentieth century.

These statistical and algorithmic approaches to reasoning embed the phases of scientific method within their theory, including the very definition of some fundamental concepts.

  • The stages of scientific method usually involve formal statements, or definitions which express the nature of the concepts under investigation. Any time spent considering these concepts will materially aid the research. For example, the time spent waiting in line at a store can be modelled by queueing theory. The clerk at the store might then be considered an agent. The owner of the store and each customer might be considered to be principals in a transaction.

In summary, scientific thought as embodied in scientific method, has moved from reliance on Platonic ideal, with logic and truth as the sole criterion, to its current place, centrally embedded in statistical thinking, where some model or theory is evaluated by random variables, which are mappings of experiment results to some mathematical measure, all subject to uncertainty, with an explicit error.