Scientific Doctrine

It is comforting to remind that science is not a democracy. Although scientists are devoted to their freedom to research in any field of their expertise, they can not afford to be continuously wrong in their scientific pursuits. Because we are in the business of finding the truth of the nature, which is a very different discipline compared to that of the politics where politicians have to try as best as they can to satisfy the interests of the majority of the members of the society. Therefore, it's not uncommon in science that one scientist suddenly show up one day and prove everybody else has been wrong. Unless one wants to be totally isolated and extremely unpopular, that will be the most risky thing to do in the normal human society. But I think only scientists have the privilege to do that. Because scientific truth is not always popular. Furthermore, it can also be very unpleasant. Of course one of the good examples is the earlier heliocentric view of Copernicus and Galileo. Although many early cosmologies speculated about the motion of the Earth around a stationary Sun, it was not until the 16th century that Copernicus presented a fully predictive mathematical model of a heliocentric system, which was later elaborated by Kepler and defended by Galileo, becoming the center of a major dispute. As the principle of Occam's Razor demonstrates it, there is only one path to the truth of the nature which explains it with the least number of assumptions until there appears further simpler theory that explains wider mysteries of the nature than the previous one could. There are always human factors in this process that hinders the further progress of the science. Especially when there exists a form of a society that a group of scientists are involved in the same path of the research that has not been obviously in the correct one. The subject matter in this case is not that of a minor adjustment or improvement. The new doctrine demands the total overhaul of the direction and the way of thinking in the conventional way of pursuit of the truth. In this case, the new doctrine that comes up with much simpler explanation of the nature will have the uphill battle of gaining the public access of his/her finding because of the momentum that has been built up for a long time in the wrong direction of the pursuit performed by the majority of the scientists involved in the similar research. They simply won't give up their way of thinking that has been going on for a long time. The public confidence that has been built up around these scientists will make it extremely difficult for the new comers to gain access to the public to convey his/her view point which can be revolutionary. How can we fix this problem? Humans are not always rational. They can be extremely prejudiced and biased because of the various reasons. But one thing that is obvious is that this human factors can be detrimental to the development of the science and the advancement of the human society in general. We as a human society may need to consider the formation of a supreme council where this kind of matters can be discussed and resolved. The members of the supreme council in scientific matters have to be formed by various members of the society whose rationality has never been challenged. Their personal integrity should not be in question. They also should not be allowed to have any political affiliation. Most open minded and child like people will be sitting there amicably discussing the scientific matters without personal grievances. May be just another day dreaming. But remember things do start from day dreaming.

Subtlety of the Discharge Device

It is not very hard to see for the minds of the experts in the field of electronics that the key critical component in this device is the discharge tube. Tesla spent enormous amount of time to design many different types of the spark gaps including the types where many spark gaps are placed in series and some times with a blow fan on it to blow off the continuous stream of the spark(arching) to make the switching activity more efficient. This can also be seen from Moray's case in his device when he hid his tube out of the sight after demonstrating his device to the public and also many of his attempts to make different kinds of tubes to suit the purpose. The fundamental function of the discharge tube is to make the charges to spread out from the inner (smaller) electrode toward the acceptor electrode without making the continuous stream of the electrical current. This process can be made faster if the discharge time is succinct. Still the fundamental physical limit is the passage time of the flight of the electrons toward the outer electrode. Also in the choice of the metallic component of the electrode, it would be better to have a metal that has highest work function potential perhaps like tungsten. On the other hand this type of metal can have uncontrollable discharge characteristics. In other words, we want a device that breaks down without delay at exactly the same voltage every time. Any kind of jitter in this process means the less efficient delivery of energy to the tank circuit. After many thoughts, I came to the conclusion that the external triggering method is better for the purpose of controlling the discharging frequency and the exact timing. In general, depending on the radiation environment surrounding the discharge tube, the triggering timing changes drastically. In fact, presence of ultra violet light, beta decay source drastically enhance the discharge characteristic of the tubes. In fact, the Geiger counter head has already been utilizing this effect. High voltage is constantly applied in between the two electrodes inside the head and as soon as a radiation enters the chamber, it triggers the avalanche discharge and this is counted as one radiation. Of course if there are more than one beta decay at the same time, this counter will not accurately count both of the decays. But it can be made pretty much close to the actual numbers. In Hubbard case, I mentioned that he used radium coated spark gap. The effect of this is to make it easy to control the trigger timing because by coating the radioactive material like radium at the electrode, he could make the gap distance wider and thereby make the switching off effect more abrupt, in such a way that he didn't have to use a fan to blow off the continuous conduction through the plasmatized air like in the case of Tesla.

Kuhn's Theory of Scientific Revolution

Kuhn begins by formulating some assumptions that lay the foundation for subsequent discussion and by briefly outlining the key contentions of the book. A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice". The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs exert a "deep hold" on the student's mind. Normal science "is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like" —scientists take great pains to defend that assumption. To this end, "normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments". Research is "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education". A shift in professional commitments to shared assumptions takes place when an anomaly "subverts the existing tradition of scientific practice". These shifts are what Kuhn describes as scientific revolutions—"the tradition-shattering complements to the tradition-bound activity of normal science". New assumptions (paradigms/theories) require the reconstruction of prior assumptions and the reevaluation of prior facts. This is difficult and time consuming. It is also strongly resisted by the established community. When a shift takes place, "a scientist's world is qualitatively transformed [and] quantitatively enriched by fundamental novelties of either fact or theory". The form of resistance can take many different faces depending on the contemporary cultural environment. It could be in the form of a religious prosecution, when the dominant religion defines the thoughts and beliefs of the society. But then, "religion" is a part of human psychic which appears in many different facets regardless of the areas of the practice of trade or human lives.