Useless scientists.

[bindeweede]

This, from a medium/psychic site.....

To realise how utterly bloody ridiculous it is for scientists or anyone else to believe they can control the temperature of Earth and its fluctuations, you only have to go outside and look up to the sky.
That - all that lot up there - is what these bloody idiots profess to be able to "control" via regulation of just one of the things - carbons - that interact to produce earth's atmosphere.

It is the most complex thing imaginable ! In fact it is complexity BEYOND imagination.
And these prats who cannot even cure a common cold reckon they can "regulate" (and therefore "control") THAT ?
Trust me, they are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Getting back to our current question, it asks us to define the very nature of mankind, something some of the best minds on this earth have been trying to do for thousands of years.

We can and should keep trying. But, Gawd, if only we knew the answer to that question ! It would explain so much to us.;D http://s2.images.proboards.com/grin.gif http://s2.images.proboards.com/grin.gif

The fact is, on things that REALLY matter, we "know" very little more than the Egyptians knew 4000 years ago.

P.S. - Or, to put it another way, we are still blundering along in the dark and, in this country at least, we seem to now be going backwards in many respects. (Just been reading today's paper - yet more gratuitous murders - what the hell are things coming to ?

Cloud Cuckoo Land.......?

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Sounds like a Daily Mail reader :cheesy:

[bobdezon]

Such a broad sweeping statement really, it doesnt even stick to the same subject it just meanders about and returns to some ancient egyptian crap. Its more like a conversation with a pissed old fella in a backstreet pub than a web blog.

[median]

And these prats who cannot even cure a common cold reckon they can "regulate" (and therefore "control") THAT ?


Are these, by any chance, the same prats that can treat many different types of cancer or split the atom.

[MRT]

So, according to the quote, humanity is not causing global warming. One less thing to worry about ... :smiley:

[The_Corinthian]

The fact is, on things that REALLY matter, we "know" very little more than the Egyptians knew 4000 years ago.


I dunno, I hear the Egyptian Large Hadron Collider had problems from the off, and their space program was a complete shambles. I think we've come quite far.

[bindeweede]

I dunno, I hear the Egyptian Large Hadron Collider had problems from the off, and their space program was a complete shambles. I think we've come quite far.
Quite far, yes. Well, at least most of us don't think the sun is Apollo driving his chariot across the sky. But you never know on these medium/psychic forums. (yes I know that was the Greeks, but......)

And no cure yet for the common cold? But I get my flu jab in a couple of weeks, so that's something:smiley:.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

This lady could have done with some of that modern scientific stuff:

http://www.egyptianmyths.net/djedmum.htm

But then, perhaps dealing with dental abscesses and consequent blood-poisoning doesn't " really matter".

[bindeweede]

This lady could have done with some of that modern scientific stuff:

http://www.egyptianmyths.net/djedmum.htm

But then, perhaps dealing with dental abscesses and consequent blood-poisoning doesn't " really matter".

I wonder what people would choose as the greatest medical advance of the 20th century. Antibiotics? MRI/CT scanners? Anti cancer/HIV drugs?

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

I wonder what people would choose as the greatest medical advance of the 20th century. Antibiotics? MRI/CT scanners? Anti cancer/HIV drugs?

It's not my area of expertise by any means, but I've heard people say the whole antibiotic/bacteria probably did more for medicine than any other discovery or area of research.

[Zaira]

She seems a bit lost to me. Maybe depressed. People who are depressed often become over sensitive to newspaper stories.

"(Just been reading today's paper - yet more gratuitous murders - what the hell are things coming to ?"

Just an observation.

[Mongrel]

It's not my area of expertise by any means, but I've heard people say the whole antibiotic/bacteria probably did more for medicine than any other discovery or area of research.

BMJ has Sanitation first (since 1840) with Antibiotics a close second. (Source (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/suppl_1/DC3))
After all an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure :smiley:

[Cuddles]

I wonder what people would choose as the greatest medical advance of the 20th century. Antibiotics? MRI/CT scanners? Anti cancer/HIV drugs?

That's actually an interesting question. As Mongrel says, the biggest advances overall are usually said to be sanitation and antibiotics, but they are both 19th century discoveries, as was anaesthesia and vaccination is even older. According to that BMJ article, that would put the discover of the structure of DNA as the greatest 20th century advance. However, I'm not sure I agree with this. Although it's an interesting discovery and will almost certainly lead to big advances, it hasn't actually contributed that much to medicine yet. Considering how much medicine has advanced in the last century, it's actually quite surprising how few big changes there have been, it seems to have mostly been many incremental changes and is hard to pick out any individual thing that made a big difference by itself.

[Matt]

I was going to suggest x rays but I see that in 1895 its discovery just creeps under the bar as a 19th Century innovation. Nobel prize in 1901 though.

So intead I'm going to say solid state electronics.

[Mongrel]

Considering how much medicine has advanced in the last century, it's actually quite surprising how few big changes there have been, it seems to have mostly been many incremental changes and is hard to pick out any individual thing that made a big difference by itself.

I think part of the problem is that we're not specialist enough to be aware of the large breakthroughs - we generally only see the end result. Gene sequencing has allowed us to create new and better techniques in antibiotic production and oncology, for instance, that leads to better targeted treatments. We will only see this if we seek out the journals or are unlucky enough to have need of these new techniques, techniques which have greatly increased the long term survival chances of patients in the case of cancers.

[huw-l]

I'm going to go with 3D imaging technologies in general as the greatest medical advance of the 20th century. This covers CT,MRI and PET. They get used in lots of forms of Medicine from Surgery to RadioTherapy. Being able to generate 3D pictures of what is going on inside a patient is massively useful.

This is a subject close to my heart (almost literally) because my spine was stitched back together by some clever surgeons using a 3D model generated from CT scans.

MRI gets bonus points for use of superconductors.

PET gets bonus points for use of anti-matter.

Did the Ancient Egyptians have anti-matter or superconductors? No, of course not.

[vbloke]

To realise how utterly bloody ridiculous it is for scientists or anyone else to believe they can control the temperature of Earth and its fluctuations, you only have to go outside and look up to the sky.
That - all that lot up there - is what these bloody idiots profess to be able to "control" via regulation of just one of the things - carbons - that interact to produce earth's atmosphere. We're not controlling, we're altering. Subtle difference.

It is the most complex thing imaginable ! In fact it is complexity BEYOND imagination.
And these prats who cannot even cure a common cold reckon they can "regulate" (and therefore "control") THAT ?
Trust me, they are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land.I can think of more complex things than an atmosphere - plasma physics, QCD, M-Theory, etc

Getting back to our current question, it asks us to define the very nature of mankind, something some of the best minds on this earth have been trying to do for thousands of years.And all that knowledge adds up, you know...

We can and should keep trying. But, Gawd, if only we knew the answer to that question ! It would explain so much to us.;D http://s2.images.proboards.com/grin.gif http://s2.images.proboards.com/grin.gifLike how stupid some people can be and yet still function as adults?

The fact is, on things that REALLY matter, we "know" very little more than the Egyptians knew 4000 years ago.I was really excited when I read about when Howard Carter excavated the Valley Of The Kings and found computers, cars, aeroplanes and mobile phones alongside the gold and other treasures.

P.S. - Or, to put it another way, we are still blundering along in the dark and, in this country at least, we seem to now be going backwards in many respects. (Just been reading today's paper - yet more gratuitous murders - what the hell are things coming to ? We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

I'm going to go with 3D imaging technologies in general as the greatest medical advance of the 20th century. This covers CT,MRI and PET. They get used in lots of forms of Medicine from Surgery to RadioTherapy. Being able to generate 3D pictures of what is going on inside a patient is massively useful.

This is a subject close to my heart (almost literally) because my spine was stitched back together by some clever surgeons using a 3D model generated from CT scans.

MRI gets bonus points for use of superconductors.

PET gets bonus points for use of anti-matter.

Did the Ancient Egyptians have anti-matter or superconductors? No, of course not.

I'll go with MRI as I've got a couple of sets of scans of my brain/head at home O0

Any resemblance of the shape of my head on the scans to Homer Simpson's head is purely accidental. ;)

[Muttley]

....the biggest advances overall are usually said to be sanitation and antibiotics, but they are both 19th century discoveries, as was anaesthesia and vaccination is even older.

I think in real terms you have to think of antibiotics as a 20th century development. OK, the properties of Penicillium spp. were noted in 1897, and some work was done in the early 1900s, but nothing much happened until Fleming's re-discovery in 1928, and practical drugs took a number of years after that to be developed.

M.

[Cuddles]

I think in real terms you have to think of antibiotics as a 20th century development. OK, the properties of Penicillium spp. were noted in 1897, and some work was done in the early 1900s, but nothing much happened until Fleming's re-discovery in 1928, and practical drugs took a number of years after that to be developed.

M.

I suppose it depends how you define things. Technically, various antibiotics had been used for thousands of years, but used as the mold or plant rather than the purified antibiotic. Do we say antibiotics were discovered when they were first used, when the active chemicals were identified or when they entered mass production? Depending on your choice they can be placed in three different centuries.

Incidentally, antibiotics were in use well before 1928. Penicillin was not the first antibiotic. Salvarsan was discovered in 1909 and quickly saw widespread use for treating syphilis and similar diseases. Penicillin is a wider spectrum antibiotic and so more useful, but it gets a lot more of the credit than it should since it was a couple of decades later, and took even longer to actually see much use.

[Mongrel]

This was the cover story for The Pharmaceutical Journal this week, Landmark Drugs (http://www.pharmj.com/pdf/articles/pj_20071013_landmarkdrugs01.pdf).

On another note two instances from my life where medical advances have routinely increased quality of life or survivability. When I was at middle school (early 80s) one of the classmates died from Leukaemia, now days it has a high survivability and is almost 'routine'. Second one is my Sister-in-Law who has Cystic Fibrosis, 20 years ago she'd have been dead by 30 but with the advancements available her life expectancy is longer with a better QoL and the hope of a gene therapy for a cure on the horizon (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/things_like_this_make_medical_science_wo.php).

[bindeweede]

I'm going to go with 3D imaging technologies in general as the greatest medical advance of the 20th century. This covers CT,MRI and PET. They get used in lots of forms of Medicine from Surgery to RadioTherapy. Being able to generate 3D pictures of what is going on inside a patient is massively useful.

This is a subject close to my heart (almost literally) because my spine was stitched back together by some clever surgeons using a 3D model generated from CT scans.

MRI gets bonus points for use of superconductors.

PET gets bonus points for use of anti-matter.

Did the Ancient Egyptians have anti-matter or superconductors? No, of course not.

huw-l

I have been re-reading this thread. Would you be willing to explain anti-matter to a non-scientist? I thought it was purely a theoretical concept.

PET gets bonus points for use of anti-matter.

[brianp]

I have been re-reading this thread. Would you be willing to explain anti-matter to a non-scientist? I thought it was purely a theoretical concept.

Far from it. Anti-matter is very real, indeed anti-electrons (positrons) are produced by the radioactive decay of many naturally occurring isotopes. Anti-protons and anti-neutrons can be made artificially - as can whole anti-atoms, namely anti-hydrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_Emission_Tomography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_Emission_Tomography)

[bobdezon]

I read somewhere once (lol thats almost FOAF info) that they have created about 1 gram (-1 gram?) of anti matter by using a large hadron collider similar to the CERN thing. I dont know how true that is but I wouldnt be suprised if they had at least attempted it.

Anti matter as an energy source seems possible on paper.

[bindeweede]

Far from it. Anti-matter is very real, indeed anti-electrons (positrons) are produced by the radioactive decay of many naturally occurring isotopes. Anti-protons and anti-neutrons can be made artificially - as can whole anti-atoms, namely anti-hydrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_Emission_Tomography

Blimey!

Brian, thank you. Anti-atoms? For me, I have to say, it is a difficult concept. Star-Trek stuff. But then I have confessed to my scientific ignorance several times here.

Now then, do you believe in chocolate.......? I bought this delicious Lindt stuff today............far more interesting than anti-matter. IMHO.

[bindeweede]

Blimey!

Brian, thank you. Anti-atoms? For me, I have to say, it is a difficult concept. Star-Trek stuff. But then I have confessed to my scientific ignorance several times here.

Now then, do you believe in chocolate.......? I bought this delicious Lindt stuff today............far more interesting than anti-matter. IMHO.

Also had this thought...... is there an anti-universe?

Hmmm.

[brianp]

I read somewhere once (lol thats almost FOAF info) that they have created about 1 gram (-1 gram?) of anti matter by using a large hadron collider similar to the CERN thing. I dont know how true that is but I wouldnt be suprised if they had at least attempted it.
Good gracious, no. Nothing approaching a gram. It's something of the order of a few picograms (0.000000000 001 grams) per year and even that costs millions.

[Matt]

I read somewhere once (lol thats almost FOAF info) that they have created about 1 gram (-1 gram?) of anti matter by using a large hadron collider similar to the CERN thing. I dont know how true that is but I wouldnt be suprised if they had at least attempted it.

Anti matter as an energy source seems possible on paper.

Yes I've read that too. Of course I have to remember that where I read it, "Angels and Demons" by Dan brown, is a work of fiction and chock full of howlers that make the scientifically trained cringe from here to kingdom come.

Oh and it's not -1 gram. Anti Matter has positive mass. Other properties such as charge are reversed but not mass. Negative mass has been postulated and is required for some esoteric General Relativity solutions that allow "time travel" and "warp drive" however as far as we know it doesn't actually exist.

1 gram of antimatter anihilating with 1 gram of matter will produce and energy output calculated by the famous E=mc2 formula, equivalent to 43 megatonnes of TNT.

[Cuddles]

Also had this thought...... is there an anti-universe?

Hmmm.

No. Anti-matter is a perfectly normal part of this universe.

I read somewhere once (lol thats almost FOAF info) that they have created about 1 gram (-1 gram?) of anti matter by using a large hadron collider similar to the CERN thing. I dont know how true that is but I wouldnt be suprised if they had at least attempted it.

As already mentioned, Angels and Demons is a work of fiction that is not even loosely based in reality. As for attempting to create that much, why would anyone ever bother? Antimatter is used when needed, no-one would ever make it simply for the sake of it. It's used all the time in lots of very basic things. As already mentioned, PET is a common scanning technique using antimatter (hence positron emission tomography). Particle accelerators don't try to create antimatter, they use it. LEP, the accelerator which existed before the LHC, stands for "Large Electron-Positron collider". Antimatter isn't the output, it's the input.

Anti matter as an energy source seems possible on paper.

No it doesn't. Energy storage possibly, but not energy production.

[bobdezon]

Yes I've read that too. Of course I have to remember that where I read it, "Angels and Demons" by Dan brown, is a work of fiction and chock full of howlers that make the scientifically trained cringe from here to kingdom come.

Oh and it's not -1 gram. Anti Matter has positive mass. Other properties such as charge are reversed but not mass. Negative mass has been postulated and is required for some esoteric General Relativity solutions that allow "time travel" and "warp drive" however as far as we know it doesn't actually exist.

1 gram of antimatter anihilating with 1 gram of matter will produce and energy output calculated by the famous E=mc2 formula, equivalent to 43 megatonnes of TNT.

I have never read a book by dan brown to be honest matt, I read it on some science blog some time ago but I cannot recall why it was mentioned or indeed the context of the piece. It just struck me as something I had not heard before and I still remembered it because of that. I remember this from a very long time ago though, I do not think dans book was even written at that time (looking it up it was published 2000)

The -1gram thing was a little joke because its anti matter. I really didnt know what you would measure it in, or even if "anti" whatever had its own measurement system.

[mahakala]

Does anti-matter have mass? If not, how do they weigh it?

[Matt]

Does anti-matter have mass? If not, how do they weigh it?

Yes it does. They weigh it just like they weigh equivalent matter, by detecting the acceleration it experiences when acted on by a known force.

[Cuddles]

Yes it does. They weigh it just like they weigh equivalent matter, by detecting the acceleration it experiences when acted on by a known force.

Just to add a little more detail. Charged particles, whether antimatter or matter, are usually weighed by being fired through a magnetic field. The field causes them to travel in a curved path, the curvature of which depends on the strength of the field, the charge of the particle, the velocity of the particle and the mass of the particle. The field, velocity and charge can all be known in advance, so the mass can be calculated by measuring the curvature.

[mahakala]

So, same electron, reversed charge, is that it?

The universe must be full of anti-matter.

The internet is certainly full of it. >:D