HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: caspar@sci.kun.nl (Caspar Terheggen)
Subject: Re: List Wanted: Nobel Laureats in Physics
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 10:51:53 GMT

In <1992Oct14.170147.3158@u.washington.edu> jing@milton.u.washington.edu (Jing Huang) writes:

>I am wondering whether somebody has a neat list of Nobel laureates in 
>physics over the years and the topic of their work that led to the prize.
>Detailed descriptions are even more appreciated (though I thought it is 
>unlikely to get?)  I will post a summary if I get partial info from everyone
>that replies.  Thanks!

Please summarize regardsless,

Thanks in advance,
Caspar.
--
 Caspar Terheggen  +31 80 652801  caspar@sci.kun.nl  U634008@HNYKUN11.bitnet
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Subject: FEYNMAN 4
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 05:46:10 GMT


Feynman 4
"Feynman stories were clever and comic. They gradually created a legend ...
After his death in 1988 his sometime friend, collaborator, office neighbor,
foil, competitor [controller of Mac Arthur Foundation money for physics and
Santa Fe Institute _JS] and antagonist , the acerbic Murray Gell-Mann,
angered his family at a memorial service by asserting 'He surrounded
himself with a cloud of myth, and he spent a great deal of time and energy
generating anecdotes about hmself.' These were stories, Gell-Mann added,
'in which he had to come out, if possible, looking smarter than anyone
else.' In these stories Feynman was a gadfly, a rake, a clown and a naif."
p.11
From: abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA AND THE PRINCIPLE OF TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING THE
Summary: STATUS QUO AND REACTION TO PROVOCATION
Date: 11 Oct 92 20:30:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.Bvz4z5.11C
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA



In article <1992Oct11.011759.2257@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>In article <abian.718746124@pv343f.vincent.iastate.edu> abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian) writes:
>
>[discussion of the 'motivations' of inanimate objects deleted]
>
>> you were indoctrinated with.  This is quite natural, and indeed this is
>>how everybody and everything  acts until by brutal force or by force of
>>a stronger persuasion one changes the status quo of his beliefs and
>>forms a new status quo of beliefs.  Right now I am doing the same thing.
>>I am exhibiting the tendency of maintaining the status quo of my beliefs.
>
>     'Beliefs' are not science insofar as they are not falsifiable.
>
>     Yours do not appear to be falsifiable, and are thus not science.
>
>                                    dale bass
  
  Your above two line statement is itself a belief.  Is it a scientific
or a nonscientific belief ?  It does not matter - it is a belief.

  Also, are you agreeing with me or are you trying to falsify my beliefs
in which case do my beliefs acquire the aura of "science"  according to
your definition of "science" ? 

  I think that any statement conveys a "belief".  It is almost futile to
define what is  "scientific "  or  "non-scientific".  I have already
mentioned that it is futile to give "definitions of absolutes" since
the first question would then be  what is the definition of "definition"?
I don't want to go further than this concerning "definitions".

  I still maintain that:
    
   THE TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING THE STATUS QUO,  REACTION TO PROVOCATION 
           AND THE TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING AGAIN A STATUS QUO

is to me the most basic PRINCIPLE in matters pertaining to all events:
scientific , social, political, psychological, philosophical, cosmic,etc.
etc.
   A person, in order to maintain its status quo of tranquillity, may react 
so violently to a provocation that could distroy itself and/or the provoker 
and create a new status quo.  Just the same way that a chemical (such as 
uranium) in order to maintain its status quo of tranquillity, may react so 
violently to a provocation (such as being struck or hit) that it will explode 
like an atom bomb.  No physics or mathematics can explain better the real 
reason which governs the action of an A  or  H bomb.  They may quantify but 
they do not explain.  The above Principle explains!

                                         Alexander ABIAN
From: dmetz@vax1.umkc.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Transporter Technology
Date: 11 Oct 92 20:32:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: vax1.1992Oct11.143257.1
Organization: University of Missouri - Kansas City


> Gee, it sounds so neat, too.  While you are correct about matter/energy
> being neither destroyed nor created, you have neglected that to regenerate
> a human being, you have to know how to organize this matter/energy so as not
> to wind up with Jello.  Given the complexity of even an inanimate object
> like a rock, it would seem that a truly tremendous computer would be required
> to reconstruct you or me.
> 
> This is not to rule out the technology, just to say that it probably doesn't
> exist now.
> 					Dave

Well of course the technology doesn't exist now, for the exact reason you
state, computers aren't sophisticated enough yet.

This is exactly the kind of thing which attracts me to science and more
specifically physics.  As computer technology continues to increase, making
things like the "transporter" work simply requires time and imagination.

Things are only impossible until you make them work!

Wayne
From: tekman@ecn.purdue.edu (Erkan Tekman)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: 1992 Nobel Prizes: a prediction
Date: 15 Oct 92 02:24:03 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <93071@netnews.upenn.edu>, weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
|> In article <9OCT199221030655@utahep.uta.edu>, sawyer@utahep (Lee Sawyer) writes:
|> >other is not de Broglie (the work that he was cited for was
|> >in his dissertation - a unique occurance as well, I believe).
|> 
|> Didn't Glaser invent the bubble chamber as a grad student?

and Mossbauer was a grad student when he came out with the spectrescopy named
after him.

E. Tekman 
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Time to develop a crackpot index?
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 04:01:33 GMT

In article <MATT.92Oct14151612@physics.berkeley.edu> matt@physics.berkeley.edu writes:
>In article <1992Oct14.201718.9125@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
>
>> >Claiming to deserve the Nobel prize is a 20 (unless you really do, in which
>> >case it's only a 5 for arrogance.).
>> 
>> I agree with these and will put them in.  Abian seems to be the latest
>> offender.  Also, 50 for claiming to be God unless you are.  :-)

I meant to add: in which case it's only a 5 for arrogance.

>Another entry for the Crackpot Index: defending yourself by bringing
>up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to past theories.  ("Everyone
>laughs at me, but don't forget: they all laughed at Edison.  They all
>laughed at Columbus.  They all laughed at Bozo the Clown.")

Hear, hear!  This is a very good test.  I think it is a 20-point
indicator.  Of course, some decent scientists do this, but that merely
goes to show that we all have a crackpot in us eager to burst out, solve
all the world's problems, and win a Nobel prize.  


Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Questions of transparency
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 02:27:09 GMT

In article <1992Oct10.234101.9875@prim> prim!dave@germany.eu.net (Dave Griffiths) writes:

>If a beam of light passes through a glass block, are the majority of the
>photons which emerge on the other side the very same ones that entered? Or
>are the photons absorbed and retransmitted?

There is no such thing as "the very same photons".  Photons being
identical bosons, and light being a collective state of such, it really
makes no sense I can see to try to answer this question.  

Of course it also makes no sense *in general* to talk about "the very
same electron".  For example, say I have some ionized sodium that's
missing one electron.  I drop in an electron and it binds to the sodium.
Then I re-ionize the sodium and an electron shoots off.  Is this the
SAME electron that I put in??  There is no experiment that can tell the
difference, and the formalism of quantum mechanics is constructed so
that it is a meaningless question!
From: apm212a@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Transporter Technology
Date: 16 Oct 92 01:29:03 GMT
Organization: Computer Centre, Monash University, Australia

In article <67690@cup.portal.com>, R_Tim_Coslet@cup.portal.com writes:
> In article <1b79amINN8cl@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bz223@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dann
> y Guy Frezza) writes:
>>
>>This may sound far out, but does anyone have any information on current
>>research in Transporter Technology, ie, the technology used on Star Trek?
>>It seems to me, that if the law of physics holds, ie, "matter cannot neither
>>be created nor destroyed, but transformed into energy of another form", that
>>this technology, although far out, is not impossible.
>>Please email if anyone has any current research on this topic or knows of it.
>>-- Thanks!
>>--

[Comments on large computers, mass <-> energy conversion and the efficency
of KNOWN techniques deleted to save bandwidth.]

                Why bother with conversion and then transmission.  Adapt
        quantum mechanical effects.  A person may be at point A but there IS
        a small, although non-zero, probability that they are somewhere else
        in the universe, ie. point B.

                If `Star Trek'(tm) science can distort the structure of
        space-time sufficiently to escape the limits of Einsteinian physics
        surely they can distort the rules of QM.  At least far enough to
        tunnel an object from orbit to a planetary surface and back again.

+-------------------+--------------------------------+-------------------------+
| Stuart Robinson   | In any hierachical bureaucracy | My opinions are my own. |
| Mathematics Dept. | the bitchiness expands to fill |                         |
| Monash Uni.       | the egos available.            | They are not those of   |
| Clayton 3168,     |                                | Monash University.      |
| Victoria,         +--------------------------------+-------------------------+
| Australia         | apm212a@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au  |Ph : +61 3 565 4501 (BH) |
+-------------------+--------------------------------+-------------------------+
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: scip1061@nuscc.nus.sg (Marc Paul Jozef)
Subject: straight lines in GR
Organization: National University of Singapore
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 10:51:24 GMT

  In the thread `how do you draw a straight line',
  several people have suggested that physical lines
  are related to spacelike geodesics in GR, or to
  orbits of light.
  To be concrete, how does this relation work in the
  one-star Schwarzschild universe?

  Suppose we make a very long very rigid euclidean
  stick at infinity. Now we put this stick to rest
  close to the star. In what sense is this stick 
  straight in GR?

  1. In no sense at all.
  2. It is the orbit of a laser-beam. 
  3. Its worldsheet is that of a spatial geodesic of
     the Schwarzschild metric.
  4. It is straight in PPN or isotropic coordinates. 
  5. Other.

  N.B. Let us suppose the stick is so rigid, that if
  we pull a rope between the two ends taut, the rope
  touches the stick everywhere (infinitely light and
  strong rope and all that). If rigidity and tautness
  are different, what is their relation?
   
  marc.


Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: kim@Lise.Unit.NO (Kim Gunnar St|vring \yhus)
Subject: Re: Quantum Zeno Effect, Part 1.
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 12:36:38 GMT

There are exponential decay systems different from nuclear ones.
F.ex. excited atoms in vacuum, the spontaneous emission of yellow
light from a sodium (natrium) lamp. Lasers are something entirely
different.

The quantum zeno effect have been used to stop some trapped excited
atoms from emitting light, so in practice, it's possible to stop exponential
decay. [Scientific American]

If one excited atom is placed in a small mirror-blank cavity, it will
oscillate regularly between the states of emitting and absorbing its own
photon. This oscillation do have an X^2 dependece as usual. So, can 
the start of an exponential decay be quadratic because of re-absorption
when the emitted photon is still close to the atom?
Or when the particle is close to its decayed nucleus?

Kim0
Xref: sparky sci.physics:16523 sci.math:13208
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math
Subject: Re: How do you draw a straight line?
From: news@massey.ac.nz (USENET News System)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 00:32:49 GMT
Organization: Massey University

In article <jim.719077694@st-michael>, jim@cs.UAlberta.CA (Jim Easton) writes:
> 
> jim@cs.UAlberta.CA - that's me - (Jim Easton) writes:
> 
> >geg@beep.mis.semi.harris.com (Gregory E. Garland) writes:
> 
> >>Assuming I'm visualizing how this thing works; it will only draw
> >>a line for a small arc oscillating back and forth.  Got any pretty
> >>pictures of something that will turn continuous full revolutions into
> >>a straight line?
> 
> In answer to your question - no I don't have a linkage that would
> allow full revolutions - I'll think about it and maybe I'll come
> up with something but I doubt it.
> 
Lateral thinking is the answer! (If I can remember the question:-)

Connect the arm which moves in a circular arc to a crank (via
a connecting rod), If the radius of the crank is less than half the
distance the arm moves, then the crank can do full circles.

              oxxxx
              x    xxxx con rod
    rest      x        xxxx
              x            xxxxo
     of       x                x
              x arm             x  crank
  inversion   x                 x
              x                  o
   lingage    x
              x
              o

Terry Moore
From: metzler@pablo.physics.lsa.umich.edu (Chris Metzler)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: 1992 Nobel Prizes: a prediction
Date: 14 Oct 1992 02:47:54 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan Department of Physics
Distribution: na
NNTP-Posting-Host: pablo.physics.lsa.umich.edu

In article <8OCT199210452292@csa2.lbl.gov>, sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
|>
|> In physics they have an excellent record.  With few exceptions, (who ever
|> heard of Jean Baptiste Perrin?)  the list of Nobel laureates is a list
|> of Who's Who in physics, the names we all know and love.  Nor can I think
|> of any grossly offensive ommissions, at least off the top of my head.  Can
|> anybody?
|>
|> -Scott

Yeah, sort of.  George Gamow.  On either the elucidation of quantum
mechanical tunnelling (to explain alpha decay), or for the first
cohesive formulation of the relativistic hot big bang model.

It has amazed me for some time now that Penzias and Wilson's accidental
discovery of the CMBR was worthy of a Nobel Prize, but Gamow's prediction
of a 3 K CMBR and approximately correct primordial nucleosynthesis calculations
-- in the absence of compelling observations to suggest either -- was
somehow not worthy.  Very strange.
From: an938@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (George II Lenzer)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Stephen W. Hawking?
Date: 13 Oct 92 01:25:22 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc10.ins.cwru.edu


	I don't know if this is the right place to post this, buty
but, it seems like it.  

	Has anyone heard anything about Hawking as of late?  I
need to get info on him for a paper relating religion and physics.
If anyone can provide information, especially on that topic, it
would be greatly appreciated.

-- 
"I'll let you in on a little secret.
	The whole universe is totally INSANE!!!!"
						Mr. Natural
From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Value Rule is sometimes false
Keywords: Calm down Benjamin
Date: 12 Oct 92 15:00:00 GMT

naturman@uctvax.uct.ac.za writes:

>Ok Ok, delta functions do funny things which I forgot to take into account.

Weren't similar "funny things" the crux of what you were saying?  The
sign-function distribution which violated the Value Rule was, if anything,
more bizarrely behaved than a Dirac delta. 

It seems to me that the central topic of this discussion is the relevance
of sets of measure zero in quantum mechanics.  It's quite true that
physicists usually tend to remove such things from consideration or treat
them in a very cavalier manner.  For many purposes, such as, as you
found out, Bell's inequality, it turns out not to matter much.  But I
think it's quite valid to ask whether this kind of sloppiness will always
yield correct results.  In quantum field theory, standard behavior is
to construct terms in the Lagrangian by taking operator-valued
distributions, which don't even have finite eigenvalues unless you
smear them out by integration, and multiply them together at the same
point in spacetime!  The fact that this doesn't yield instant nonsense
seems to result from the putative renormalizability of many physical
theories, but there is more lore than actual results to justify the
calculations.  

This doesn't mean that the whole theory is garbage; in spite of all
these difficulties, our sloppy calculations seem to agree with
experiments.  It's when the theory has to be extended into radically
different domains, like gravity, that the foundations must be carefully
investigated.

Many physicists do all kinds of things without giving them proper 
mathematical justification-- the use of functional integrals in quantum
field theory is another egregious example.  It's amazing to me
that they don't get burned more often.  Some ideas in mathematics seem
to be sufficiently robust that they will yield fruitful results even
when stretched far beyond the bounds of rigor, even when used in contexts
where nobody's proven that a rigorous treatment is possible.

-- 
Matt McIrvin, posting nonsense again 
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: Crackpots of the newsgroup
Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 22:47:31 GMT

In article <PRLqsB3w165w@1776.COM> bob@1776.COM (Robert Coe) writes:
)bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:
)> In article <abian.718940281@pv343f.vincent.iastate.edu> abian@iastate.edu (Al
)> ) Give me a better explanation for the violent reaction of gun-powder 
)> )when it is struck ! I say that  gun-powder is like a Hitler or Stalin, ...
)>
)> Yeah - but why is the 'boom' from an H-bomb so much bigger than that from
)> gunpowder?  Is it just because H-bomb's are more irritable?  ...
)
)Can't you people tell when your leg is being pulled?  :^)  I suppose it's 
)impossible to tell whether or not the Abians of the newsgroup actually 
)believe the guff they post,

It's difficult to prove one way or the other.

)but it doesn't matter: what they *really* enjoy 
)is the *reactions* they provoke.  If you want them to go away, ignoring them 
)is probably a better strategy than ridiculing them.

I find it useful to try and separate the ideas from the poster.  I actually
find it sort of fun to look at things in odball ways from time to time.
I generally try and avoid taking potshots at a person, and look at the ideas
instead.  From this viewpoint, it doesn't matter so much whether abian
is pulling our legs or not - the issue is one of the ideas themselves.

Actually, a lot of what abian posts is not half so strange as some of the
stuff I find in reality / mainstream science.  QM is (IMO) much, much, much
stranger than anything abian ever posted.  For that matter, the chaotic
(or allegedly chaotic) behavior of the solar system is pretty weird too.
From: matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr))
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Understand...!!!!
Date: 10 Oct 92 02:15:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: nuscc.1992Oct10.021536.10207
Organization: National University of Singapore

bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:
: In article <1992Oct7.061158.15794@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr)) writes:
: 
: )Time is the length of timelike worldlines. That's all. Just take
: )spacetime seriously, and the universe is yours.             : 
: 
: But - what is length?  :-)
: 
The integral of a certain function along a curve.
: 
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: Mattel Protest
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 06:04:29 GMT

In article <burt.718433315@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> burt@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca (Burt Voorhees) writes:
>
>  There is another way to look at the results of programming girls out of
>math.  That is, that it is costing us a great deal.  How?
>  Let's assume that there _are_ sex-linked cognitive differences which show
>up in the statistics of large populations.  (And ignore, for the moment, the
>stupidity of trying to apply statistical data to unique individuals.)  Then
>consider the fact that because of social and cultural factors math has,
>purely historically, been developed almost entirely by men.  (Yes, I know
>there have been a number of excellent female mathematicians!)  Then it is
>reasonable to apply statistics to the large sample of all past mathematicians
>to infer that math, _as it now exists_ contains a built in bias toward those
>cognitive skills at which men tend to excel, leaving skills at which women
>tend to outperform men out, or puting them down as "not real math".  I would
>argue that this implies that current mathematics has cut itself off from
>much that might have otherwise been discovered.
 
     This is very sloppy.  The existence of 'cognitive skills at which
     men tend to excel' or alternatively 'cognitive skills at which
     women tend to outperform men' may well invalidate the contention
     that 'because of social and cultural factors math has ...
     been developed almost entirely by men'.  Your premise was that
     is was only society that kept women out, you then use a justification
     based on the loss of innate biological sex-related talents in the 
     development of math.  One could more simply posit that there
     are sex-related cognitive factors that predispose women generally
     to perform poorly in mathematics, that this is what continues to 
     keep them out of mathematics.  In this case, there would be little
     'loss'.

     However, as I have said, I suspect that if the pay and the general respect
     of society were better in the relevant areas, then more women would 
     show up in the relevant workforce.  As it is, the attainment of
     doctoral degrees in math and the physical sciences (and engineering
     for that matter) seems somewhat akin to a fetish.  'Fatal Attraction'
     notwithstanding, men seem more prone to that kind of behavior.

                               dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926