[time-nuts] science projects

Bill Hawkins bill at iaxs.net
Fri Feb 10 00:00:21 UTC 2012


Fellow time scientists,

Here's my view of the difference between science and engineering:

Someone with better measuring equipment finds a discrepant result
while verifying some physical law or accepted truth. That person
needs to know the existing truths and create ideas about testing
the new result. Questions are formed and hypotheses proposed.
 
Initial testing is done and a paper published for all to see, but
not, we hope, like Pons and Fleischmann's paper on cold fusion.
Other scientists familiar with the nature of the problem try to
verify each hypothesis with their own experiments. Positive results
cause someone to propose a theory that explains the results so well
that they become accepted truths.

A technologist follows the progress of new theories and thinks of
ways that they might be applied to life's problems, like renewable
energy and uncontrolled growth, or like taking more money from the
little people to make the incurably power hungry a bit more powerful
than their rivals.

If marketing studies show a positive return on investment, engineers
are turned loose to solve the problems revealed as the details of
building or manufacturing the new thing are studied.

It is really difficult to find new problems in the physical sciences.
One of the frontiers is brain science - how does any brain work. The
human brain is most puzzling, because there are no instruments that
provide a clear view of the workings of a living brain. See "101
Theory Drive" by Terry McDermott for a description of one man's
research into long term memory (no relationship, and so on).

A time nut might be intrigued by the various frequencies that show
up in brain waves. The Theta wave (about 3-8 Hz) is essential to
memory, as described in McDermott's book. It is also essential to
language processing, as hearing or speech. Why? What else does that?

There are many oscillators in the brain. At least one of them is
good enough that I can sometimes cancel my alarm just before it
goes off.

Bill Hawkins





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