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I'm certainly not a genius, just someone with occasional insomnia :)

Thanks for the link, that's a fascinating read. I wonder if his professor might not have been correct. What if there are an equal number of particles and anti-particles, but that the anti-particles are somehow hidden?

What if, for instance, Universes occur in pairs; one made primarily of matter, with time flowing in the direction we're used to, and one made of anti-matter, with time flowing in the opposite direction?

Perhaps the U-turn at each end is accompanied by the particle jumping from one universe (at its death) to its counterpart (at its big bang). The few instances of anti-matter that we do observe might be cases where the particle made the turn, but didn't actually make the jump to the other universe.

That way, the vast majority of the return trips would be hidden from us

Or, alternatively, what if we're wrong about the ratio of matter to anti-matter? How would we know if half of the Galaxies in the Universe aren't made out of anti-matter? Wouldn't an anti-star look exactly like a star?

If you really came up with that idea on your own, then you are a genius. That idea is usually attributed to Wheeler. He told his student Feynman about it, who immediately shot it down: if it were true, we'd see just as many electrons as positrons, but we don't. See Feynman's Nobel lecture.

The law of gravitation was published by David Hilbert in 1915 before Einstein. The article "Die Grundlagen der Physik (Erste Mitteilung)" by Hilbert is here.

" Think of all the damage done by the millions of people reacting to false information."

I have found Encyclopedia Brittanica to be extremely and subtly destructive. The short entry for Nobel prize winner Barbara McClintock gave no idea that her scientific articles spanned a width of 80 feet when put together. I discovered that only after a web search. Her work is still important to molecular biologists. Reading EB gave no impression of her importance.

The paper version of Encyclopedia Brittanica is limited by how much the executives of the company want to spend on paper. They probably say something like this to writers: "Give us 500 words on Barbara McClintock."

Wikipedia has the advantage of being written by enthusiasts.

--
24 wars since WW2: Creating fear so rich people can profit.

Because, ultimately, the safety systems at Three Mile Island were able to keep the plant from blowing up, where other nations have not done so well when they had accidents. Nuclear power systems are safest made by advanced technological nations... even leaving aside the number of agressive loons who want nuclear bombs to lob at their obnoxious neighbors. True, even the current guys get it wrong... but the US has 60 years of experience in screwing up, and tends to not make the same engineering mistakes twice. (Political mistakes are another story.) If the developing world gets to use advanced safety designs, even if only by borrowing them rather than having to build them themselves, it's probably safer than them trying to reverse engineer the product and botching it.

You want to stop nuclear proliferation? How about starting with the United States, Israel, England, France, India...

Ummm... because stopping proliferation means keeping those who don't have nuclear weapons from getting them, which is incidentally easier than it is to get the ones who have them to give them up?

... As if economics were science. At least sociologists perform controlled experiments from time to time ...

I hate to disagree, but that is not what Nobel organization says. They claim Marconi's radio patents were the first in the world.

--astr

In the end, this is news because it prevents a rather embarassing scandal involving the highest honor a scientist can recieve....

However, Nobel Foundation statutes dictate that "work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award. If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented." Or, simply (as stated in the frequently asked questions section, "no, it is not [possible for an individual to be nominated for a posthumous award]. The Statutes of the Nobel Foundation stipulate that a prize cannot be awarded posthumously, unless death has occurred after the nomination."

Indeed, you should consider the fact that even Ghandi is without an award.

Amazing what sort of answers a 5 minute search on Google can turn up...

However, Nobel Foundation statutes dictate that "work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award. If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented." Or, simply (as stated in the frequently asked questions section, "no, it is not [possible for an individual to be nominated for a posthumous award]. The Statutes of the Nobel Foundation stipulate that a prize cannot be awarded posthumously, unless death has occurred after the nomination."

Indeed, you should consider the fact that even Ghandi is without an award.

Amazing what sort of answers a 5 minute search on Google can turn up...

However, Nobel Foundation statutes dictate that "work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award. If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented." Or, simply (as stated in the frequently asked questions section, "no, it is not [possible for an individual to be nominated for a posthumous award]. The Statutes of the Nobel Foundation stipulate that a prize cannot be awarded posthumously, unless death has occurred after the nomination."

Indeed, you should consider the fact that even Ghandi is without an award.

Amazing what sort of answers a 5 minute search on Google can turn up...

Barbara McClintock got an unshared Nobel Prize for her work in genetics, but it wasn't for the structure of DNA itself.

No doubt they have taken patents out, despite audio holograms being described in a speech at Dennis Garbor's 1971 Nobel prize ceremony. Presumably there are papers out there dating from 1950 as well.

People have also been using computers to generate holograms for years, so the algorithms can hardly be new.

This misunderstanding stems from our science education in grade school, during which we're taught that a "theory" is just a guess that has yet to be proven.

Let me tell you about how theoretical physics really works. Quantum THEORY is just that, a theory. But it has been tested to unbelievable precision. Using the theory of quantum electrodynamics, one can calculate constants of nature from first principles to better than 12 decimal places. These theories are "right," even though there might be some improvement or refinement that comes along later.

That's the end of my general rant. Now to address specific things you said that were, quite ironically, complete baloney. You say general relativity (GR) hasn't been tested. Einstein's first prediction using GR concerned the deflection of light around the sun during an eclipse. His prediction was different from what others were saying, and when the eclipse of 1919 finally came, Einstein was vindicated. GR passes major experimental test #1.

Do you have GPS in your car? If you do, you may be surprised to know that those things rely on the mathematics of GR. Without taking into account some of the terms that pop out of the equations of GR, your GPS would never be able to locate you. But it can, and hence GR passes experimental test #2 with flying colors.

Finally, I point you to the Nobel Prize's page on Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor. They found experimental proof that two stars orbiting each other were decaying at a rate exactly in accordance to what had been predicted years before. This is a very stringent test of the validity of GR -- the stars were orbiting each other near the "strong field" where gravitational effects are really strong, and hence where any deviation from the behavior predicted by the theory should be obvious -- and, once again, GR passed the test like an Asian kid taking math.

A certain amount of skepticism is always healthy, of course. Do I think there will be eventual refinements to GR? Of course, probably in the form of superstring theory. But before you go around proclaiming that it's all baloney, you better figure out what you're talking about.

Tom van Flandern is a well-known crank. He has done some good science in other areas, but his conclusions regarding the speed of gravity are just plain wrong. For corrections of van Flandern's mistakes, see this paper, and also this discussion.

The speed of gravity has been indirectly measured to be equal to the speed of light within about 1% accuracy, by observing a binary pulsar system (whose rate of inspiral due to loss of energy from gravitational radiation depends on the speed of that radiation); the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Taylor and Hulse for this work. Direct measurements will become possible once LIGO or one of its peer or successor experiments detect gravitational waves.

So how do you explain PSR1913+16?

the creation of the first fision bomb was probably the greatest scientific achievment in human history.

No way! To the contrary!

I have talked to Josef Rotblat (who was among the advocates to get the Manhattan Project started), and he said that the reason why he thought it would be critical to start was that he realized how easy it was going to be. Surely, he said, anybody could do it, and seeing what Hitler had been capable of doing, it was critical that he didn't get it first. Later, he said, he understood how wrong he had been: You can't deter a madman (the argument is of course much longer and deeper than that, but that's the one-liner).

Also, in late 1941, (Bohr came on board much later IIRC), the other scientist you mention felt they had most of the stuff ready. They were allready certain how the bomb was going to be built. The rest was mere engineering to them. Sustained and controlled fission was a much more interesting problem, which they pretty much devoted all their attention to at that point, the question is if they really needed to do that to build a bomb....? Fermi was bored out of his mind by simply working on the bomb... I believe the reason why the got sustained fission is not because it was necessary for building the bomb, but because it was a much more interesting problem.

The bomb was no scientific achievement, it was a simple application of some trivial theory from contemporary science.

Claiming that Reagan ended the cold war is the equivalent of stating that Al Gore invented the internet; Both politically played an important role in those events but none did it by themselves and none started the process.

The only difference here is that the Gore thing was some badly formulated sentence that he pronounced once in an interview, for what he never meant to give the meaning that the propaganda machine of some party gave it and that he rapidly corrected in subsequent interviews.

On another hand the Reagan thing is something that republicans are repeating over and over without any shame of the exaggeration like if repeating it enough times will make it more believable.

Don't you think that this guy deserve the credit for the changes in is country who made possible the scenario of a peaceful end to the cold war? ... as he also deserve the credit for the economic collapse of is country ;)

Ah the transistor, quiet possibly the single most influential invention in the past 100+ years. And, by the only person (I believe) to win 2 nobel prizes in physics. That my friend is impressive. In 200 years who do you think will be the most well known person associated with the state of Illinois in the US? Today it is probably Lincoln, then likely to be John Bardeen.

>But I think creating genetically-modified foods in the first place are terrorist activites!

"We're 6.6 billion people now. We can only feed 4 billion; I don't see 2 billion volunteers to disappear."

-- Norman Borlaug on Penn and Teller's Bullshit! - "Eat This!", speaking on the effects of removing modern farming techniques and genetic engineering from the food supply.

Sorry. I'm gonna have to take the word of a man who is estimated to have saved 1 billion lives and has a nobel peace prize over yours. Hope you understand. Don't take it personally.

did anyone ever consider the possibility that the photons of light may be being deflected off the sides of the paper ... and making an interference pattern?

No, nobody considered it! Please go here to claim your prize.

I think this is in great part because someone already paved the way, and with great success: Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, who solved the Schwarzschild equations while on the long boat trip from India to England. When he met stiff resistance in a field of study, he did the sanest thing I've ever heard -- he'd publish his work in a volume that would go on to become required reading for future generations, and move on to something else. I'm sure you've heard the saying "fuck 'em if they can't take a joke", but his way was more like "fuck 'em if they can't handle the truth".

Mal-2

Alfred Nobel, the inventor of TNT, knew this only too well. He created the Nobel prize so people wouldn't remember him as the creator of a weapon.

I completely agree except for one thing:

Alfred Nobel, the inventor of TNT

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite (which was basically just a better way to handle the good old nitroglycerine). TNT (trinitrotoluene) was invented by German scientist von Willbrand in 1860's.

Corrent except for the fact that Nobel created Dynamite not TNT. He also developed the blasting cap I think.

Correct nitroglycerin was a touch to volitile... but using clay to absorb the nitro. Unfortunatly during this time between the Civil war and WW-I much of the world was at peace so the only application of his invention construction, road / railroad building, minning and such.

Also see the Time line.

I know Bertrand Russell wasn't quite a scientist, but he certainly wrote quite a bit about it.

Now for my rant... Why it's hard to view scientific literature as literature.

I'm taking a break from finishing my term paper for an English class. In fact, this semester, I'm a part-time student, and I'm only taking English classes (gasp!). One of the things I have noticed this semester is how English professors solve problems. Sure, English professors like to examine problems, just not in a rigourous way. When examining problems from the eyes of an English professor, anecdotes are often evidence enough. Often times, these professors beg the question, leave paradoxes unanswered, generalize from the specific to the particular, and perform other such logical fallacies in their thinking. The sheer aesthetics of their analysis often have greater weight that the results themselves.

Poetry is about aesthetics; science is about explanation. The genius of literature is in its exposition. It's all about style. In science, genius is predictability. Literature embraces long-winded, prolix treatments of subject matter, in science this practice is abhorred. Literature can be paradoxical. It can defy the fundamental laws of logic. Science cannot. Science is built upon logic and its beauty is derived from it.

IMHO Raymond Smullyan's "First-Order Logic" is the best math book I've ever read (I've read quite a bit of mathematical literature). It's terse, rigourous, and concise. It has the most informational bang for my buck. I like my mathematics that way. Such a description horrifies the average English major. Sure, I like elaborate prose in my Shakespeare. The bard was famous for his elaborate sentence constructions. However, it's often hard to parse. Sometimes, I appreciate Shakespeare just for the rhythm of his work or his plays on words. I also appreciate the sound of Shakespeare when performed by a good actor. Science and Mathematics aren't appreciated in that way.

The best science fiction examines the human condition. That's why Star Trek:TNG is such a classic, while the new drivel from the Star Trek universe is such a bore. I appreciate work where the main characters are scientists or the plot is placed in the backdrop of science. I don't appreciate the technobable (often purely fictitious) of many pulp sci-fi authors. In fact, the best sci-fi authors often drop the sci-fi from their title. Ellison and Asimov both preferred to be thought of as writers of the general sort. Ultimately, the best science fiction is good fiction.

The most popular discoveries of science tell us something about ourselves. Why have Einstein, Godel, and Darwin been publicly canonized, while Gauss, Fermi, Von Neumann, and Hilbert have not. It's because the former's work was philosophy quantified, while the latter's work was quantified philosophy. The former gave us bold facts about our universe that could be described in human terms, while the latter gave us universally inhuman feats that can only be described by specialists of their respective fields.

Poetry and science meet when aesthetics and explanation intersect. Since literature is about human experience, the poetry of science is literature that describes the human element of exploration. Richard Feynman once remarked [I'm paraphrasing, but its derived from that famous BBC interview|special he gave] that he too could see beauty in nature. However, unlike the poet he could appreciate nature on a deeper level. He could peer inside the petals of a flower and see the beauty of the chemistry inside. That same beauty was the inspiration of much of his "amateur" art work. However, his beauty is one of order. Its aesthetic is the human need for exploration. Ultimately, if any scientist wants to win the Nobel Prize for literature, he will need to produce a literary work about science, not scientific literature.

Well, he was awarded the nobel prize for literature for "his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought"

So no, I don't think he really counts as a mathematician as far as Nobel committee is concerned; I think the prize was more for his political activism and his writings relating to that (for example: The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism or The Freedom and Organisation 1814-1914) rather than his Principles of Mathematics or Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy

The US moved signals faster than the speed of light.
here

Of course the Russians showed that matter can move faster than light, 1958 Nobel prize in physics.
here

--Tsiangkun

This was obviously designed by German nuclear scientist Otto Hahn.

The only thing the sun does, which we would not do in a lab is convert protons to neutrons by adding electrons.

Steven Weinberg... who the hell is he? What does he know about anything? Why should we listen to him?

Oh, wait. Nobel prize for Physics 1979. THAT Steven Weinberg.

Never mind.

While y'all are arguing about the merits of manned space travel, let me just brag about my and Prof. Weinberg's common alma mater, The Bronx High School of Science. Prof. Weinberg is one of five Nobelists in the school's 65-year history, more than most colleges (and, more importantly, three more than Stuyvesant). In fact, both Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow are members of the class of '50, making that graduating class possibly unique in world history. I wonder if their classmates had any idea they were in the presence of future greatness?

While y'all are arguing about the merits of manned space travel, let me just brag about my and Prof. Weinberg's common alma mater, The Bronx High School of Science. Prof. Weinberg is one of five Nobelists in the school's 65-year history, more than most colleges (and, more importantly, three more than Stuyvesant). In fact, both Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow are members of the class of '50, making that graduating class possibly unique in world history. I wonder if their classmates had any idea they were in the presence of future greatness?

Steve Weinberg is a dimwit.

I would have to disagree; and so would the 1979 Nobel commitee, who awarded him the prize for physics. For those who aren't familiar with him, his best-known work has been in unifying the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces. More information can be gleaned from his biography.

What winds up happening is I pay MS to produce a product that I have very little input on. I buy the off the shelf solution to then develop 50% of the solution anyway. And, then it crashes, the documents are incorrect (updates might be available on their web sites), and I have no way of figuring out what the issues are without paying more $s for something I paid for already. If I tried to pull the same trick, I would loose my client.

Linux side is someone spots the issue, makes us aware of it in most cases. People have something more important than a paycheck at stake get to work on a fix for the problem. A, or multiple, potential fix(es) is(are) put up. Sometimes a fix goes straight in with minimal review (it works, most liked it), sometimes the fix gets kicked around to hash out any potential problems (in the full light of day, normally my apps do not break when the fix is rolled out.)

I like the public knowledge aspect of OSS. Yep, hackers have access to it also, but closed source never seemed to stop them, it just stop me from protecting myself.

Maybe we need to look at the next step for OSS? Maybe there is a better model for building OSS? Maybe companies might start providing more donations (like cheap lic fees) to a foundation that rewards freelance OSS programmers with cash for tackling certain problems (and does not pay until the code is peer reviewed and bug checked to a reasonable extent.) Maybe that would work better... Are certain organizations not starting to do that?

Given how much OSS has accomplished in the past decade with its relative lack of fees and "structure", imagine what might happen if more companies started using their proprietary source software budget to put bounties out on features they needed in OSS. True, not all features would they want to make public, but enough they would wat to so as to dramatically cut everyone's costs (GNU lic is important because of this). Most companies actually have very close to the same needs. But, their money goes to legal and marketing fees more than it seems to go to actual development fees with off the sheld software. What an economic waste! Check out John Nash for a rather different rather OSS view of the world.

In the end, you are left with a decision. The programmers at MS are very bright. The programmers in OSS are very bright. The real difference is the perceived safety of being able to blame MS (who you can not hold responsible yet - name one successful law suit against MS for the failure of their software to function as advertised) versus the cost effectiveness of not paying for huge legal and marketing fees (as well as other corporate overhead having very little to do with getting better or more code). I am not against programmers getting paid. I am against sloth and leeches in a corporate setting destroying the market in which programmers get paid.

InnerWeb

Not to troll but... this technique has been used for years!

Indeed, Chu took the 1997 Nobel prize in physics along with Phillips and Cohen-Tannoudji. The Nobel site includes an illustrated presentation of how laser cooling works.

The Nobel laureates who signed the statement were
Philip W. Anderson Physics, 1977
David Baltimore, 1975 Physiology or Medicine
Paul Berg, 1980, Chemistry
Jerome Friedman, 1990 Physics
Walter Kohn, 1998 Chemistry
Leon Lederman, 1988 Physics
Mario Molina, 1995 Chemistry
F. Sherwood Rowland, 1995 Chemistry
J. Robert Schrieffer, 1972, Physics
Richard Smalley, 1996 Chemistry
Harold E. Varmus, 1989, Physiology or Medicine
Steven Weinberg, 1979, Physics

Funny, I don't see Arafat on that list of signatories. I don't see Carter, either. It really shows how narrow minded these "scientists' are. Not a single literature or peace laureate was mentioned in the Union's press release.

Chandrasekhar won the physics Nobel prize in 1983 for predicting neutron stars. Read about it here. He was born in Lahore, which was part of India, but is now in Pakistan, and his bachelor's degree was done in Madras, which is in modern-day India.

Errr ... V.S. Naipaul is a fellow Trini.

and the questionable "science" surrounding CFCs and ozone

Yeah, that bastard Molina really pulled one over on the Nobel committee.

and the questionable "science" surrounding CFCs and ozone

Yeah, that bastard Molina really pulled one over on the Nobel committee.

And Yassar Arafat was awarded one. So that prize doesn't mean shit.

I agree with the parent that this site seems untrustworthy, or Safire is.

Safire claims the blast occurred in June 1982.

The nobombs.net story quotes the "Soviet leader" Gorbachev holding a moment of silence in memory of those who died "over the weekend."

Gorby wasn't a Soviet leader until he was elected General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985, then Executive President of the Soviet Union in 1989.

Either Safire is wrong about the 1982 date of the blast, nobombs.net is wrong about Gorbachev being the Soviet leader at the time of the blast, or there were two blasts, one in 1982, and one some time after 1985.

PCR = Polymerase chain reaction. A method use to amplify the amount of DNA.

Once more and more copies are formed... it is easy to cut it up the DNA and compare the pieces of one sample to another sample.

PCR is kinda famous...
Nobel Prize

PCR for OJ

The Curies died as a result of their exposure to radiation.

WRONG.

Pierre Curie was run over by a horse-drawn wagon on April 19, 1906, although Marie Curie did die of leukemia on July 4, 1934 at 66 years old, having played with radioactive materials for over 50 years.

http://www.nobel.se/physics/articles/curie/

These guys have a cool desktop, if you can call it that.

Riccardo Giacconi was using a fairly ordinary CDE on Solaris desktop on a beautiful 24 inch wide-screen monitor the last time I saw it, with some very cool galaxy images from the Chandra Deep Field.

Steven Squyres probably also has an interesting desktop, and I think I saw it on ABC News last week, before they switched to talking about the problems with the rover.

You can see Asia Carrera's desktop in the background, but it's not safe from work. Looks mundane.

I wonder if Pheobe has a cool desktop. Not Alyssa Milano, but her character.

Speaking of fiction, I wonder whether David Kay uses Windows or Mac?

While I like innovators, I'm more interested in users. They at least try to do useful things. That was the problem with Alan Kay. He always has interesting desktops. He showed squeak at a conference a few years ago that just stunned people, but none of us could figure out what we would actually do with it.

Yeah, exactly, you think you'd ever find an Einstein working in a patent office?

As you are going into some sort of medical field, I hope you learn how to be a pro-active thinking sort of person, not just a reactive "lose your rag" naysayer.

Let me remind you from your study of the history of science that you know many ideas that turned out to be right at first met violent opposition from the scientific community. History has shown us that many scientists do very poorly at considering and accepting new ideas. At least in your ability to reject new ideas, you seem well on the way to being a good run of the mill mediocre scientist.

Stanley Prusiner, the scientist who coined the term prion, originally speculated that Alzheimer's may in fact turn out to be a prion disease. This speculation came in the mid 1980's.

Of course you know that Stanley Prusiner was award the Nobel prize for his work with prions, don't you?

I would at least consider the ideas of a Nobel prize-winning scientist, not reject them outright. It may not be that 100% mad cow = Alzheimer's as the body is a very complex system. However, mad cow could certainly be a leading factor in why Alzheimer's is growing at an amazing pace and being found in many younger people.

In today's most modern research, we are finding evidence that prion-like structures are involved with how memory works. Here's some information from a dementia site, note the links to Cell at the end.

Here's a December 29, 2003 recap from a government website of some of what is going on.

I could provide you with many many links and sources, but I suspect you will be a closed-minded doubter until either CJD rears its ugly in your life or you go ahead and do the research yourself.

Here are a few more places to start exploring --

#123400 CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE; CJD

variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease Citations 1-10 of 66 total displayed.

That's all. If you eat beef, I would strongly urge you to do the research. Your life and the lives of people you care about may be at stake :-)

Unfortunatly, IANAAP so I did not quite know this. A quick google search shows that indeed this is not the first binary pulsar. Also, yes the article is being published in Science, however I found the press release in Nature. Another oops on my part.

1. virus -- ((virology) ultramicroscopic infectious agent that replicates itself only within cells of living hosts; many are pathogenic; a piece of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) wrapped in a thin coat of protein)

In viruses, which represent the border between living and dead matter, there are simpler aggregates between nucleic acids and proteins. A virus can be said to be genetic material without a cell of its own, and the structure of viruses can provide clues to the more complicated organisation of the hereditary material in higher organisms.

Virus represent the border between living and dead matter. I thought that it meant that when the virus came across a host cell it could inject its DNA and multiply and that is why it is living , and when it didn't it just lay dormant i.e. it was dead matter. Wasn't the whole premise of Jurrasic Park based on this notion ?

But in the article it says ....

Several years ago in Kentucky, she said, a construction crew unearthed a metal coffin containing the mummified corpse of an apparent smallpox victim that researchers traced to the mid-1800s. The CDC checked the tissue for live virus and came up empty.

There's also a slim chance, researchers say, that the scabs could yield live smallpox virus -- believed to reside in only two laboratories in the world -- and provide valuable information on the deadly plague.

If the virus is nothing but the DNA and a protein coating around it, why are the people wanting it to be live ?

Am I missing something ? What am I missing ?