X-Message-Number: 23238
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: Tsk, Tsk
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 11:45:05 -0000

> Message #23237 (Cryonet, http://www.cryonet.org )
> Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:04:39 -0800
> From: James Swayze <>
> Subject: Tsk, Tsk
> References: <>
<del>
> Oh and I'll have you know it's not armchair science, it's wheelchair
> science, thank you very much. ;) Since when have amateurs not
> contributed good science or not been allowed to try?

There was a time when all science was "amateur science", which is when
freethinkers with private incomes created the basis of the world we live in
today. In their time, most such people were considered harmless eccentrics.
A good account of this can be found in Dr Clifford Pickover's Strange Brains
and Genius
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0306457849/longevitybooksA/ where you
find details of how, for example, a now revered mathematical physicist used
to write learned papers and then, rather than publish them, use them as loft
insulation. You will even find the ideas of preservation of the dead for
future reanimation -- Victorian style, using the newly discovered science
(art?) of electroplating.

In medicine, the idea of keeping people with diseases isolated and medical
premises clean was initially for some years regarded with derision by the
authorities, as was anaesthesia. Only be the action of people acting on
their own initiative outside the discipline of their peers did this change.

Even today, some practises still disregard this, which is why the world
suffers influenza epidemics that kill on average more people than war or
terrorists. According to New Scientist 10 Jan 2004 p 19, flu infects 700,000
people worldwide each year, plus numerous other species. Yet familiarity
breeds contempt -- those that die are usually over 70 or under 2 -- not
politically active groups. Maybe, the article suggests, if the disease was
rebranded "acute myalgic fever" the authorities would take more notice and
not encourage individuals to carry on going to work infecting hundreds more
people. There is little economic advantage in developing treatments or
vaccines, yet governments devote their expenditure on loss common diseases
such as Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (which has military significance).
But sometime, the article concludes "we will face a biological attack that
has nothing to do with terrorists and everything to do with flu viruses
circulating ... ".

In the mid 20th century, many of these so called eccentrics were taken into
industry and government employment. But there were still examples of extreme
strangeness, such as the fact that the inventor Alec Reeves, who offered the
allied powers previously unheard of accuracy in bombing, was convinced that
his ideas came in spirit messages from Faraday. (The inventor of the theory
and technology behind all the electric motors we use today). In his spare
time at the government's military research facility, Reeves conducted ESP
experiments during the war. Reeves also introduced PCM, (Pulse Code
Modulation, the basis of modern digital telephones, CDs and so on), in 1938.
More details, including some of Reeves' ESP papers, can be found on
http://www.alecharleyreeves.com There you will read how he predicted the
world we live in today - in a paper presented around 1970 in which amongst
other things he described mesh networking. This he called Synsol and is
similar to wireless networking for PCs that is the hot topic of today.

Today science is more rigidly disciplined, and whereas this may be more
apposite to the extreme complexity of modern systems, it gives no
opportunity
for the "wild card" - great leaps into the unknown - gambles that pay off
and avoid possibly centuries of hard grind.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

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