Philosophy
Today is the 75th birthday of Robert Wilson, an accidental Nobel laureate in physics. In 1964, Wilson and his partner Arno Allen Penzias were working at Bell labs in New Jersey developing a new ultra-sensitive antenna that could measure small amounts of radio waves that would be bounced off of satellites. As anyone with a hearing aid will tell you, the problem with listening devices is that they hear everything around you, not just what you are trying to listen to. So, Penzias and Wilson spent a lot of time figuring out the possible sources of interference and filtering them out.
But then there was one source they could not figure out. It was a low hum that came from everywhere. It was the same frequency no matter where in the sky they pointed the antenna. They had cooled the instrument down to eliminate internal effects of heat, so that couldn't be it. But the noise was still there, yet seemed to have no definite source. They checked everything they could think of, but none of it accounted for the noise. Then they thought they found it. Pigeons had set up a nest in the antenna. They shoo-ed them out and cleaned up the droppings and figured that was that.
But it was still there. They had no sense of what it could be until a friend, hearing of their issues, told them about a paper he had read from a group headed by Robert Dicke, right down the road at Princeton, who argued that if the big bang theory was true -- something up in the air at the time -- then there ought to be a cosmic background radiation, in a sense, echoes of the bang resonating through all of space. Once Dicke and his team had realized that there was this strange effect which would seemingly show the likelihood of the big bang theory one way or the other, they set out to build an instrument sensitive enough to look for it.
When Penzias and Wilson read the paper, they finally figured out what their noise was. And for it they -- but not Dicke -- won the Nobel Prize for physics for providing the first clear evidence of the big bang theory, even though they were never looking for it.
- 5. Philosophy Is...philosophy
Your teacher argues that philosophy done well is science and philosophy done poorly is. . . well, philosophy. What advantage is there with doing a philosophy predicated on science (Edward O. Wilson's Consilience) versus a more traditional route?...
- The "bizarre"--gary Larson
Gary Larson Gahan Wilson I am a day late but Gary Larson celebrates number 60. A cartoonist of the bizarre much like Gahan Wilson [ who drew cartoons for Playboy] but not as grotesque. "Happy 60th Birthday, Gary Larson!" by Matt Blum August 14th, 2010...
- Georges Lemaître And The "big Bang" [aka "hypothesis Of The Primeval Atom"]
Georges Lemaître July 17th, 1894 to June 20th, 1966 This Big Bang will not end as to whom originated the notion. Georges (Henri) Lemaître was a Belgian astronomer and cosmologist, born in Charleroi, Belgium. He was also a civil engineer, army officer,...
- Bell Lab's Physics Research To Be Shut Down
Left to right: William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain 1947 I am sure that there is some sound corporate reason for this move--NOT. "Bell Labs Kills Fundamental Physics Research" by Priya Ganapati August 27th, 2008 Wired After six Nobel...
- Eyes On The "prize"...nobel That Is
Some advice from a former Nobel laureate...Douglas Osheroff. It would be a mistake and poor science if the Nobel Prize were the sole goal in scientific research. Osheroff does offer some advice and certainly understands that scientific achievement may...
Philosophy
Happy Birthday Robert Wilson
Today is the 75th birthday of Robert Wilson, an accidental Nobel laureate in physics. In 1964, Wilson and his partner Arno Allen Penzias were working at Bell labs in New Jersey developing a new ultra-sensitive antenna that could measure small amounts of radio waves that would be bounced off of satellites. As anyone with a hearing aid will tell you, the problem with listening devices is that they hear everything around you, not just what you are trying to listen to. So, Penzias and Wilson spent a lot of time figuring out the possible sources of interference and filtering them out.
But then there was one source they could not figure out. It was a low hum that came from everywhere. It was the same frequency no matter where in the sky they pointed the antenna. They had cooled the instrument down to eliminate internal effects of heat, so that couldn't be it. But the noise was still there, yet seemed to have no definite source. They checked everything they could think of, but none of it accounted for the noise. Then they thought they found it. Pigeons had set up a nest in the antenna. They shoo-ed them out and cleaned up the droppings and figured that was that.
But it was still there. They had no sense of what it could be until a friend, hearing of their issues, told them about a paper he had read from a group headed by Robert Dicke, right down the road at Princeton, who argued that if the big bang theory was true -- something up in the air at the time -- then there ought to be a cosmic background radiation, in a sense, echoes of the bang resonating through all of space. Once Dicke and his team had realized that there was this strange effect which would seemingly show the likelihood of the big bang theory one way or the other, they set out to build an instrument sensitive enough to look for it.
When Penzias and Wilson read the paper, they finally figured out what their noise was. And for it they -- but not Dicke -- won the Nobel Prize for physics for providing the first clear evidence of the big bang theory, even though they were never looking for it.
- 5. Philosophy Is...philosophy
Your teacher argues that philosophy done well is science and philosophy done poorly is. . . well, philosophy. What advantage is there with doing a philosophy predicated on science (Edward O. Wilson's Consilience) versus a more traditional route?...
- The "bizarre"--gary Larson
Gary Larson Gahan Wilson I am a day late but Gary Larson celebrates number 60. A cartoonist of the bizarre much like Gahan Wilson [ who drew cartoons for Playboy] but not as grotesque. "Happy 60th Birthday, Gary Larson!" by Matt Blum August 14th, 2010...
- Georges Lemaître And The "big Bang" [aka "hypothesis Of The Primeval Atom"]
Georges Lemaître July 17th, 1894 to June 20th, 1966 This Big Bang will not end as to whom originated the notion. Georges (Henri) Lemaître was a Belgian astronomer and cosmologist, born in Charleroi, Belgium. He was also a civil engineer, army officer,...
- Bell Lab's Physics Research To Be Shut Down
Left to right: William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain 1947 I am sure that there is some sound corporate reason for this move--NOT. "Bell Labs Kills Fundamental Physics Research" by Priya Ganapati August 27th, 2008 Wired After six Nobel...
- Eyes On The "prize"...nobel That Is
Some advice from a former Nobel laureate...Douglas Osheroff. It would be a mistake and poor science if the Nobel Prize were the sole goal in scientific research. Osheroff does offer some advice and certainly understands that scientific achievement may...