Physics – Geophysics
Scientific paper
May 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agusmhg44a..01g&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #HG44A-01
Physics
Geophysics
6610 Funding, 1700 History Of Geophysics, 1704 Atmospheric Sciences, 1724 Ocean Sciences, 1794 Instruments And Techniques
Scientific paper
Thomson and Tait gave their name to a text (T and T') that sums up nineteenth century mechanics. T and T' says that scientists gain knowledge of the natural universe and the laws that regulate it through Experience. T and T' divides Experience into Observation and Experiment. The posthumous (1912) edition of T and T' appeared seven years before Eddington's expeditions to observe the eclipse of 29 May 1919 that demonstrated the bending of starlight predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity. During the 2005 centenary of young Einstein's remarkably productive year, Eddington's (1919) result was frequently remembered, but the description in 2005 of what Eddington did in 1919 often differed from what Eddington said that he did. In his words then, Eddington observed; in words from scientists, historians of science, and philosophers of science during 2005, Eddington often experimented. In 1912, T and T' had distinguished Observation from Experiment with an apt contrast: ""When, as in astronomy, we endeavour to ascertain these causes by simply watching, we observe; when, as in our laboratories, we interfere arbitrarily with the causes or circumstances of a phenomenon, we are said to experiment"". (italics in T and T'). Eddington himself conformed to this distinction in his report (Physical Society of London, 1920). In its Preface, he states that observations were made at each of two stations, and concludes that ""I think it may now be stated that Einstein's law of gravitation is definitely established by observation..."". Chapter V of that report deals with The Crucial Phenomena. In this chapter, some form of the word observe (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) appears 13 times. In this chapter, experiment appears only as experimental, and then only twice. Einstein's prediction, with Eddington's observations, profoundly impressed contemporary philosophers of science. Karl Popper, then aged 17, considered Eddington's findings to effect a turning point in his career, but during that career, Popper painted himself into a philosophical corner by disallowing observation as contaminated with psychological problems and by advocating an aggressive deductive application of crucial experiments. As a result, in a 1974 review of what he really meant, Popper at least twice remembered ""Eddington's famous eclipse experiments of 1919."" The Web in 2006 lists NASA and NOAA acronyms for recent and ongoing research programs with geophysical content. A significant subset of these acronyms end in E or in EX, meaning experiment, but the scientific work done in the associated programs is actually observation. Experiment stands for actual Observation. This reversal in meaning recognizes the higher status of Experiment compared to Observation in the competition for government grants.
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