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Pathological Science
Pathological science is an area of research where "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions."Irving Langmuir, "Colloquium on Pathological Science," held at the Knolls Research Laboratory, December 18, 1953. A recording of the actual talk was made, but apparently lost, though a recorded transcript was produced by Langmuir a few months later. transcript is availableon the Web site of Kenneth Steiglitz, Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University. But see also: I. Langmuir, "Pathological Science", General Electric, (Distribution Unit, Bldg. 5, Room 345, Research and Development Center, P.O. Box 8, Schenectady, NY 12301), 68-C-035 (1968); I. Langmuir,Pathological Science, (1989) ''Physics Today'', Volume 42, Issue 10, October 1989, pp. 36–48 The term was first used by Irving Langmuir, Nobel Prize-winning chemist, during a 1953 colloquium at the Knolls Research Laboratory. Langmuir said a pathological scienc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wishful Thinking
Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire. Methodologies to examine wishful thinking are diverse. Various disciplines and schools of thought examine related mechanisms such as neural circuitry, human cognition and emotion, types of bias, procrastination, motivation, optimism, attention and environment. This concept has been examined as a fallacy. It is related to the concept of wishful seeing. Some psychologists believe that positive thinking is able to positively influence behavior and so bring about better results. This is called the "Pygmalion effect". Christopher Booker described wishful thinking in terms of :"the fantasy cycle" ... a pattern that recurs in personal lives, in politics, in history—and in storytelling. When we embark on a course of action which is unconsciously driven by wishful thinking, all ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polywater
Polywater was a hypothesized polymerized form of water that was the subject of much scientific controversy during the late 1960s. By 1969 the popular press had taken notice and sparked fears of a "polywater gap" in the US. Increased press attention also brought with it increased scientific attention, and as early as 1970 doubts about its authenticity were being circulated. By 1973 it was found to be illusory, being just water with any number of common compounds contaminating it. Today, polywater is best known as an example of pathological science. Background In 1961, the Soviet physicist Nikolai Fedyakin, working at the Technological Institute of Kostroma, Russia, performed measurements on the properties of water which had been condensed in, or repeatedly forced through, narrow quartz capillary tubes. Some of these experiments resulted in what was seemingly a new form of water with a higher boiling point, lower freezing point, and much higher viscosity than ordinary water – ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Refractive Index
In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or refracted, when entering a material. This is described by Snell's law of refraction, , where ''θ''1 and ''θ''2 are the angle of incidence and angle of refraction, respectively, of a ray crossing the interface between two media with refractive indices ''n''1 and ''n''2. The refractive indices also determine the amount of light that is reflected when reaching the interface, as well as the critical angle for total internal reflection, their intensity (Fresnel's equations) and Brewster's angle. The refractive index can be seen as the factor by which the speed and the wavelength of the radiation are reduced with respect to their vacuum values: the speed of light in a medium is , and similarly the wavelength in that medium is , where ''� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prism (optics)
An optical prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that are designed to refract light. At least one surface must be angled — elements with two parallel surfaces are ''not'' prisms. The most familiar type of optical prism is the triangular prism, which has a triangular base and rectangular sides. Not all optical prisms are geometric prisms, and not all geometric prisms would count as an optical prism. Prisms can be made from any material that is transparent to the wavelengths for which they are designed. Typical materials include glass, acrylic and fluorite. A dispersive prism can be used to break white light up into its constituent spectral colors (the colors of the rainbow) as described in the following section. Other types of prisms noted below can be used to reflect light, or to split light into components with different polarizations. Types Dispersive ''Dispersive prisms'' are used to break up light into its constituent spectral col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert W
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and '' berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in AmE, American and CanE, Canadian English) is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has a great affinity towards oxygen, and Passivation (chemistry), forms a protective layer of Aluminium oxide, oxide on the surface when exposed to air. Aluminium visually resembles silver, both in its color and in its great ability to reflect light. It is soft, Magnetism, non-magnetic and ductility, ductile. It has one stable isotope, 27Al; this isotope is very common, making aluminium the twelfth most common element in the Universe. The radioactivity of Aluminum-26, 26Al is used in Radiometric dating, radiodating. Chemically, aluminium is a post-transition metal in the boron group; as is common for the group, aluminium forms compounds primarily in the +3 oxidation state. The aluminium cation Al3+ is small and h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
X-ray
X-rays (or rarely, ''X-radiation'') are a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. In many languages, it is referred to as Röntgen radiation, after the German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who discovered it in 1895 and named it ''X-radiation'' to signify an unknown type of radiation.Novelline, Robert (1997). ''Squire's Fundamentals of Radiology''. Harvard University Press. 5th edition. . X-ray wavelengths are shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. There is no universally accepted, strict definition of the bounds of the X-ray band. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 nanometers to 10 picometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range of 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz ( to ) and photon energies in the range of 100 eV to 100 keV, respectively. X-rays can penetrate many solid substances such as construction materials and living tissue, so X-ray radiography is widely used in medi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosper-René Blondlot
Prosper-René Blondlot (3 July 1849 – 24 November 1930) was a French physicist, who in 1891 made the first measurement of the speed of radio waves, but is now mostly remembered for his "discovery" of N rays; a phenomenon that subsequently proved to be illusory. Early life and work Blondlot was born in Nancy, France, and spent most of his early years there, teaching physics at the University of Nancy, being awarded three prestigious prizes of the Académie des Sciences for his experimental work on the consequences of Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism. In order to demonstrate that a Kerr cell responds to an applied electric field in a few tens of microseconds, Blondlot, in collaboration with Ernest-Adolphe Bichat, adapted the rotating-mirror method that Léon Foucault had applied to measure the speed of light. He further developed the rotating mirror to measure the speed of electricity in a conductor, photographing the sparks emitted from two conductors, one 1.8 km longe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ad Hoc
Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with '' a priori''.) Common examples are ad hoc committees and commissions created at the national or international level for a specific task. In other fields, the term could refer to, for example, a military unit created under special circumstances (see '' task force''), a handcrafted network protocol (e.g., ad hoc network), a temporary banding together of geographically-linked franchise locations (of a given national brand) to issue advertising coupons, or a purpose-specific equation. Ad hoc can also be an adjective describing the temporary, provisional, or improvised methods to deal with a particular problem, the tendency of which has given rise to the noun ''adhocism''. Styling Style guides disagree on whether Latin phrases like ad hoc should be italici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statistical Significance
In statistical hypothesis testing, a result has statistical significance when it is very unlikely to have occurred given the null hypothesis (simply by chance alone). More precisely, a study's defined significance level, denoted by \alpha, is the probability of the study rejecting the null hypothesis, given that the null hypothesis is true; and the ''p''-value of a result, ''p'', is the probability of obtaining a result at least as extreme, given that the null hypothesis is true. The result is statistically significant, by the standards of the study, when p \le \alpha. The significance level for a study is chosen before data collection, and is typically set to 5% or much lower—depending on the field of study. In any experiment or observation that involves drawing a sample from a population, there is always the possibility that an observed effect would have occurred due to sampling error alone. But if the ''p''-value of an observed effect is less than (or equal to) the significan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognitive Bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. Although it may seem like such misperceptions would be aberrations, biases can help humans find commonalities and shortcuts to assist in the navigation of common situations in life. Some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive. Cognitive biases may lead to more effective actions in a given context. Furthermore, allowing cognitive biases enables faster decisions which can be desirable when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics. Other cognitive biases are a "by-product" of human processing limitations, result ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
