Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: DoctorBeaver on 07/02/2008 17:00:24
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Which scientist would you most like to hear interviewed on the radio show and why? It can be a living or dead person (let's just assume Chris is a medium [:D] ).
I would opt for Isaac Newton. I'd love to hear his views on discoveries since his death, and his reaction to knowing that he is still revered as one of science's greatest intellects.
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I agree with Doctorbeaver -Isaac Newton, definitely!
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I would have like to hear what Rosalind Frankin would say about the scientific
progresses in DNA also for the forensic, scientific and medical things that
are still very active.
But mainly to hear what she has to say about Crick and Watson.
For a male scientist then Charles Darwin as he changed the outlook for the world and evolutionary thoughts.
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Rosalind - good choices
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These old icons are attractive, in principle, but you would get more out of a more modern famous scientist, like Richard Feynman or Herman Bondi. Their language and presentation would make their programme much more accessible. Many of the ideas from hundreds of years ago have undergone a huge amount of 'editorial' in order to be presented to us. I think Sir Isaac might have a difficulty in recognising some of his ideas when stated in modern form. (A few days of getting up to date would probably be enough for him, though.) His enormous EGO might make him a rather unattractive broadcaster; he wasn't good at being humble, I believe.
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I understand what you're saying about old icons. I did consider that but, as I said, I would like to hear his views on advances that have been made since his death. You never know, the realisation that his law of gravity was awry, and even that his laws of motion are being queried, made help to humble him somewhat [:D]
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well that's Isaac well and truly dissed! I'm sure he would have felt it a fair put-down by another who's so obviously destined for greatness....
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Destined for greatness? I've already achieved it! [:D]
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I didn't mean you doctorbeaver, you seem very balanced- it must be that tail...
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I didn't mean you doctorbeaver, you seem very balanced- it must be that tail...
Forsooth, thou hast gained my favour!
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Gadzooks!
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What about Robert Hook - didn't he draw the first amazing microscopic pictures....?
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What about Robert Hook - didn't he draw the first amazing microscopic pictures....?
He certainly drew them but I don't know if he was the first.
He was a remarkable man, inventing among other things the balance spring, which made clocks more accurate and reliable, and the universal joint. He also made improvements to existing scientific instruments, collaborated with Boyle in the study of gases, and, of course, there is Hooke's law of elasticity.
When he had a few minutes spare he also helped re-build London after the great fire of 1666.
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I'd forgotten some of that- whadda guy!
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I'd forgotten some of that- whadda guy!
Indeed.
Then, of course, there were his famous spats with Isaac Newton. (Should we mention his work on combustion?)
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my favorite scientist has always been karry mullis. he invented the technique of PCR and wwon the nobel in chemistry for it. his memoirs is one of my favorite books. he's had such an interesting life, is so incredibly curious about everything in the world around him, and the way his mind works... he has such incredibly unique ways of thinking about a lot of things.
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I've not heard of him. What is PCR?
I've just found out it stands for Polymerase Chain Reaction. I've heard of that, but I'm not entirely sure what it is.
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How about Marie Curie- a lifetime of scientific endeavor, only to be killed by it....
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What about Alexander Fleming as it would be interesting to hear what he'd
have to say about the overusage of Pencillin also the other antibiotics
that have been invented and used since he discovered Pencillin in that
Petri Dish.
To see what he'd say about MRSA and EColi, Botulism etc. Quite a lot I should
guess.
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Robert Hook would be one, Louis Pasteur (with a translator!)..... um, Joseph Banks must have some exciting tales to tell!
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Wasn't Joseph Banks a botanist?
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I agree w/ the Beaver's choice and Rosalind's
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I've not heard of him. What is PCR?
I've just found out it stands for Polymerase Chain Reaction. I've heard of that, but I'm not entirely sure what it is.
its a method by which you can amplify large amounts of a specific sequence of DNA from a very small starting amount. an extremely useful technique both in lab science, as well as crime labs, etc.
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I've not heard of him. What is PCR?
I've just found out it stands for Polymerase Chain Reaction. I've heard of that, but I'm not entirely sure what it is.
its a method by which you can amplify large amounts of a specific sequence of DNA from a very small starting amount. an extremely useful technique both in lab science, as well as crime labs, etc.
Thank you
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Wasn't Joseph Banks a botanist?
Yes you are right that Joseph Banks was a botanist but also a naturalist too,.
He was partly responsible for setting up The Kew Gardens, London.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Banks
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/biographies/joseph-banks/joseph-banks.html
http://www.kew.org/heritage/people/banks.html
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What about the character (read nutter) William Flinders Petrie who measured the pyramids in a ballerina's tutu? He should be rather colorful, to say the least.
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How about all the people who were overlooked for the Nobel Prizes for Sciences, Literature, Peace etc.
Such as Ghandi who was nominated 5 times but never received it. Same went for Rosalind
Franklin.
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Overlooked achievements for the Nobel peace prize (Got these frm Wiki)
Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times between 1937 and 1948 but never received the prize before being assassinated on 30 January 1948, two days before the closing date for the 1948 Peace Prize nominations. The Norwegian Nobel Committee had very likely planned to give him the Peace Prize in 1948 as they considered a posthumous award, but ultimately decided against it and instead chose not to award the prize that year.[19]
The strict rules against a prize being awarded to more than three people at once is also a cause for controversy. Where a prize is awarded to recognise an achievement by a team of more than three collaborators, inevitably one or more will miss out. For example, in 2002, a Prize was awarded to Koichi Tanaka and John Fenn for the development of mass spectrometry in protein chemistry, an award that failed to recognise the achievements of Franz Hillenkamp and Michael Karas of the Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Frankfurt.[20]
Similarly, the prohibition of posthumous awards fails to recognise achievements by a collaborator who happens to die before the prize is awarded. Rosalind Franklin, who was key in the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, died of ovarian cancer in 1958, four years before Francis Crick, James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins (one of Franklin's collaborators) were awarded the Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1962.[21] Franklin's significant and relevant contribution was only briefly mentioned in Crick and Watson's Nobel Prize-winning paper: "We have also been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M.H.F. Wilkins, Dr. R.E. Franklin, and co-workers...."[22]
In some cases, awards have arguably omitted similar discoveries made earlier. For example, the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "the discovery and development of conductive organic polymers" (1977) ignored the much earlier discovery of highly-conductive charge transfer complex polymers: the 1963 series of papers by Weiss, et al. reported even higher conductivity in similarly iodine-doped oxidized polypyrrole.[23][24]