What is science?

POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Sunday, August 30, 2026 21:01
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HERO

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 8:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
So, what IS science?

Science is the study of "why" and "how".

Engineering is the application of "why" and "how".

I note for the record that religon is the sudy of the application of "why" and "how".

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 10:19 PM

Quote:
Science is the study of "why" and "how".

Engineering is the application of "why" and "how".

I note for the record that religon is the sudy of the application of "why" and "how".

Therefore God is a robot.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SufficientlyAdvancedAlien

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 10:22 PM

Quote:
God is a robot.

That explains a lot.

CANTTAKESKY

Thursday, February 10, 2011 1:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I.e. the mountain of evidence against perpetual motion is so steep, dismissing it out of hand at this stage isn't pathological scepticism.

Two questions, out of curiosity:

1. Since there is a mountain of evidence against perpetual motion, could you perhaps submit just one example from this mountain? What kind of evidence have you seen that is "against" perpetual motion?

2. If someone said the revolution of a planet around a star is "perpetual," how would you argue that this was not an example of "perpetual motion"?

-------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

HARDWARE

Thursday, February 10, 2011 1:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:

The Wright Brothers didn't invent flight, nor heavier than air flight. The Wright Brothers get most of the press, at least partly because the people who did it before them weren't as canny with marketing, and partly because they weren't American.

Sour grapes much? The Wright brothers invented controlled powered flight. Their methods have been improved upon, but the majority of aviation today uses a design recognizable as one the Wrights flew.

As far as foreigners competing and being out-marketed by the Wrights, their primary competitor was Glenn Curtiss. The Wright company eventually went into powerplants. Curtiss' company thrived up through WW2. When it merged with another competitor.

Most of the aircraft flown by the combatants in WW1 were produced by foreign companies. I don't see how American aircraft companies out marketed anyone.

And regarding science falling on its face. Here's a list of some radical concepts in science that were resoundingly denied when they debuted.

Arrhenius (ion chemistry)
Alfven, Hans (galaxy-scale plasma dynamics)
Baird, John L. (television camera)
Bakker, Robert (fast, warm-blooded dinosaurs)
Bardeen & Brattain (transistor)
Bretz J Harlen (ice age geology)
Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan (black holes in 1930)
Chladni, Ernst (meteorites in 1800)
Crick & Watson (DNA)
Doppler (optical Doppler effect)
Folk, Robert L. (existence and importance of nanobacteria)
Galvani (bioelectricity)
Harvey, William (circulation of blood, 1628)
Krebs (ATP energy, Krebs cycle)
Galileo (supported the Copernican viewpoint)
Gauss, Karl F. (nonEuclidean geometery)
Binning/Roher/Gimzewski (scanning-tunneling microscope)
Goddard, Robert (rocket-powered space ships)
Goethe (Land color theory)
Gold, Thomas (deep non-biological petroleum deposits)
Gold, Thomas (deep mine bacteria)
Lister, J (sterilizing)
T Maiman (Laser)
Margulis, Lynn (endosymbiotic organelles)
Mayer, Julius R. (The Law of Conservation of Energy)
Marshall, B (ulcers caused by bacteria, helicobacter pylori)
McClintlock, Barbara (mobile genetic elements, "jumping genes", transposons)
Newlands, J. (pre-Mendeleev periodic table)
Nott, J. C. (mosquitos xmit Yellow Fever)
Nottebohm, F. (neurogenesis: brains can grow neurons)
Ohm, George S. (Ohm's Law)
Ovshinsky, Stanford R. (amorphous semiconductor devices)
Pasteur, Louis (germ theory of disease)
Prusiner, Stanley (existence of prions, 1982)
Rous, Peyton (viruses cause cancer)
Semmelweis, I. (surgeons wash hands, puerperal fever )
Steen-McIntyre, Virginia (southwest US indians villiage , 300,000BC)
Tesla, Nikola (Earth electrical resonance, "Schumann" resonance)
Tesla, Nikola (brushless AC motor)
J H van't Hoff (molecules are 3D)
Warren, Warren S (flaw in MRI theory)
Wegener, Alfred (continental drift)
Wright, Wilbur & Orville (flying machines)
Zwicky, Fritz (existence of dark matter, 1933)
Zweig, George (quark theory)

Quote:

"Concepts which have proved useful for ordering things easily assume so great an authority over us, that we forget their terrestrial origin and accept them as unalterable facts. They then become labeled as 'conceptual necessities,' etc. The road of scientific progress is frequently blocked for long periods by such errors." - Einstein

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

...and he that has no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. Luke 22:36

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, February 10, 2011 3:54 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
1. Since there is a mountain of evidence against perpetual motion, could you perhaps submit just one example from this mountain? What kind of evidence have you seen that is "against" perpetual motion?

2. If someone said the revolution of a planet around a star is "perpetual," how would you argue that this was not an example of "perpetual motion"?

Thank you.

Yes, it is one of many examples of perpetual motion. We also have a moon that orbits the earth, and creates tides. We have a convection oven of Geothermal inside the magma core, and inside that we have an absolutely tremendous electromagnetic field being generated by the magnetic core. Additionally, we have a transpiration/evaporation cycle which has been running on this planet for perhaps billions of years. When you go onto a cosmological scale, there are systems which appear to run forever, and some seem to increase in energy.

IMHO, the second law of thermodynamics itself is incorrect: The universe has been steadily been progressing towards a more ordered more highly differentiated state from a low energy state as far back as we can see.

The Newtonian universe only applies to small machines operating in a vacuum, because as far as what Newton could harness did fit this model more or less.

But everything does *not* operate in a vacuum. There are forces which generate energy in the universe, that are infinitely greater than ourselves, and that seem to only increase in energy over time, and on some models of the universe, those which I feel actually accurately describe the data that we have, this appears to increase indefinitely into the future.

I think it really took the advent of science fiction to be able to look into the world of science and see not just what *was* but what *could be*, and the major steps of HW Wells and Jules Verne, indispensable in this regard, and what I consider the real first step... Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, showed us just how far, possibly, science could take us.

The golden age gave us an endless amount of insight into things which would never have occurred to the mundane mind, showing us that, yes, it would actually be possible to set up a sailing ship which would cross the trade winds of the pacific by mechanical means alone, back and forth, forever. You could set up a rail system that traveled the countryside, stopping at each station, and moving on to the next, running on no internal power source to the train or the tracks, and I have tested this model and it does work, and I am not going to post it here just to win an argument over the internet, because I actually want to build it.

But beyond that, is my iPad not a perpetual motion machine? As long as the sun, or some light source, pours out energy which my solar collector can pick up, and as long as the circuitry shows no wear, I see no reason why it can't work forever.

Have you read about the molecular computer? This design was printed in Science News, and the machine relies on electron transfer on a nanotech level, and the machine does not wear, or use power, it recycles its own electrons to supply back to its own power supply, which runs forever.

Or the nanomotor?

These machines run forever without even any wear, and they do so because on a quantum mechanical level, the picowear that would normally seem to occur, or would be expected, simply does not happen, because the molecules which make up the switches and gears of a nanomachine repair themselves to perfection with every turn, as if by magic.

What scientists suspect is that the quantum mechanical subatomic particles are stablizing themselves internally by drawing from the energy of space time, which is infinite according to the current available data, and equally importantly, appears to be spontaneous created on the spot for the purpose.

When we step outside of the Newtonian world of kinetics, black boxes and heat engines, and into a world which stretches from string theory to cosmology, the nature of matter, energy and motion app

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, February 10, 2011 4:20 AM

Hardware

Nice list. Thanks.

Quote:
the majority of aviation today uses a design recognizable as one the Wrights flew.

One caveat, simply because he's my homeboy: The airplane model which was used ultimately was Curtiss'. Glenn Curtiss made some comment about "you could fly a bicycle in Kitty Hawk" (Those of us who have been there understand, IIRC, one of us lives there, so no offense ;) but you know what he means, it's a windy place, and there are some major cliffs.)

Now, maybe that's sour grapes on his part, since they beat him into the air, but he does have a point that they were cheating, they deliberately went to Kitty Hawk to exaggerate their chances, and the machine which they flew, on the re-enactment of their flight, actually didn't work. There's a fair amount I've seen that argues that it's not in fact a feasible design, outside of the wind itself, but people here who are pilots, please feel free to dispute that.

I was actually at the re-enactment of Glenn Curtiss' launch, and I have to say the reconstruction was perfect in materials and design down to the last detail, and the pilot who was to fly it was terrified. He actually said a final farewell to his whole family before getting in the plane. But that said, the plane took off beautifully, with no wind, from a flat surface, and he flew many miles around before coming back to land seamlessly where he had started.

So, not to deny the contributions made by the Wright Brothers to sustainable flight, I suspect old Glenn had a point: They were unable to fly their plane in their native Dayton, Ohio, because it wasn't really a stable flying machine.

Just picking up from the wikipedia entry on the Wright Brothers here

Curtiss' June Bug sustained flight, July 4, 1908, a month before the first demonstration flight of the wright brothers, but I cannot find that they ever had a windless or sustained flight. May 25, 1910, Orville Wright was able to demonstrate a flat take off and land, though it doesn't specify the length, and or that it was wind-independent.

Many of the inventions and innovations of science are like this, and someone gets the glory, but really everyone contributed to the result.

Oh, and yes, Curtiss was an American, and he's from right here in Hammondsport, where he flew the plane, and where they re-enacted the first flight and the first water-to-water flight, which was really a better idea, IMHO, since 90% of all crashes stem from land takeoff and landing errors.

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, February 10, 2011 5:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Anti-Gravity is something I'd be dubious of more or less out of hand at the moment, mainly because the people doing it are nearly exclusively people who should be on prodigious amounts of medication. If there was a source of good quality that provided a paper on the subject I'd listen, but this is such a well trod subject by crazy talkers I'd admit that if just Joe anybody voiced it I'd switch off.

Then why not dig up Townsend Browns work and Project WINTERHAVEN, now declassified ?

Hell, Brown had a functional prototype goin at one time.

-F

CITIZEN

Thursday, February 10, 2011 8:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I.e. the mountain of evidence against perpetual motion is so steep, dismissing it out of hand at this stage isn't pathological scepticism.
Two questions, out of curiosity:

1. Since there is a mountain of evidence against perpetual motion, could you perhaps submit just one example from this mountain? What kind of evidence have you seen that is "against" perpetual motion?

The laws of thermodynamics are the most well supported concepts in physics, you're really demanding I submit evidence for them here? That's the pathological scepticism you were talking about ;).

Every thermodynamics experiment on the subject proves Thermodynamics, the second law of thermodynamics is proven when a broken vase doesn't magically reform without external energy input. But still, not that it's at all necessary at this stage:
www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/~campismi/campisiSHPMP2.pdf

Quote:

2. If someone said the revolution of a planet around a star is "perpetual," how would you argue that this was not an example of "perpetual motion"?

I'd suggest that "someone" doesn't understand what is meant by perpetual motion. Perpetual motion is where a closed system creates more energy than it has applied to it. A planet orbiting a star isn't a closed system, Q.E.D.

Further orbiting bodies pull energy out of the system, on a long enough time frame orbits change and collapse of their own accord.

You really missed the closest thing to a gotcha I'm afraid though. Thought Experiment:
You place an object in a perfect vacuum, with zero gravitational forces acting on it, and set it spinning. Does it ever stop? No. Is it a perpetual motion machine? No, because as we can plainly see it's merely acting under the dictates of First Law of Motion, acting under all the external forces that have been applied to it. Besides there's no where in the universe with zero gravitational forces nor a perfect vacuum.

CITIZEN

Thursday, February 10, 2011 9:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:

Sour grapes much?

Note really, just noting how the myth of the Wrights inventing flight is so pervasive.

Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:
The Wright brothers invented controlled powered flight.

Ah, so you agree with me. They didn't invent powered flight, or heavier than air-flight, they invented the aileron which I'd agree with, since previous designs used somewhat inefficient wing warping, or just no control altogether.

Of course I never said they didn't make the first powered controlled manned heavier than air-flight. I said they didn't invent powered heavier than air flight. And they didn't.

Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:
Most of the aircraft flown by the combatants in WW1 were produced by foreign companies. I don't see how American aircraft companies out marketed anyone.

You word this like it's a rebuttal to something I said, but since I never claimed American companies out marketed anyone that would seem strange. I said the wrights marketed themselves as the first to produce flight, which has been the enduring myth, and isn't true.

Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:
And regarding science falling on its face. Here's a list of some radical concepts in science that were resoundingly denied when they debuted.
...snip...

And yet all those things are now accepted by the "scientific establishment", proving that science is sceptical but that "radical new ideas" will gain traction if there's something to them. Or in other words, your list only goes to show that science works more or less pretty well and exactly how it's supposed to, that my original statements you're arguing against are correct and that the only thing falling on it's face is your argument :p.

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