[extropy-chat] Elvis Sightings (2)

[Ben Goertzel]

 From the wikipedia page on Schwinger:

"
After 1989 Schwinger took a keen interest in the research of low- 
energy nuclear fusion reactions (AKA cold fusion). He wrote eight  
theory papers about it, including these [1] [2]. He resigned from the  
American Physical Society after their refusal to publish his papers.  
He felt that cold fusion research was being suppressed and academic  
freedom violated. He wrote: "The pressure for conformity is enormous.  
I have experienced it in editors’ rejection of submitted papers,  
based on venomous criticism of anonymous referees. The replacement of  
impartial reviewing by censorship will be the death of science."
"

Unfortunately, the guy died in 1994.  If not for the goddamn ongoing  
blight of involuntary death, we would probably have a theory of cold  
fusion by now, and maybe Schwinger would have a second Nobel Prize  
for it ;-)

-- Ben


On Feb 7, 2007, at 6:44 PM, Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 06:30 PM 2/7/2007 -0500, Ben wrote:
>
>> I think there are many theories, but not enough experiments to
>> validate or refute them.
>>
>> Nobelist Julian Schwinger posed one sketch of a theory in this  
>> lecture
>>
>> http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue1/colfusthe.html
>
> Here's a telling quote:
>
> < Critics should learn to operate within the bounds of sanity.
>
> My first attempt at publication, for the record,
> was a total disaster. "Cold Fusion: A Hypothesis"
> was written to suggest several critical
> experiments, which is the function of hypothesis.
> The masked reviewers, to a person, ignored that,
> and complained that I had not proved the
> underlying assumptions. Has the knowledge that
> physics is an experimental science been totally lost?
>
> The paper was submitted, in August 1989, to
> Physical Review Letters. I anticipated that PRL
> would have some difficulty with what had become a
> very controversial subject, but I felt an
> obligation to give them the first chance. What I
> had not expected–as I wrote in my subsequent
> letter of resignation from the American Physical Society–was  
> contempt.>
>
> Everyone should bear in mind that Schwinger is
> right up there with Feynman. It's not too hard to
> suspect that something *sociological* is at work here.
>
> Damien Broderick
>
>
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