[General] Articles of interest

Sun Apr 26 00:30:30 PDT 2015

Hi Richard,

Indeed!

I was simply wrong.

Certainly with speculation. Every new idea starts off as a speculation. Faraday used to claim, and I think that he was right, that all theory was (merely) speculations. There is some sense in which the act of thinking itself, is just speculation. This is the second world of Popper.

I know what I meant to say, but the English word "speculation" is not good here (the Dutch equivalent is closer to what I meant). Can't really think of a good English word though. I mean something more like  "self-deception" than "conjecture". Unfounded, incomplete or internally inconsistent thinking. Not thinking through the consequences for the whole framework. That sort of thing.

The idea was the development of the process needed to, collectively, come to a solid theory and convince the outside world. Educating one another, to dispel ignorance (who else is going to do it?). Pointing out to each other where any "speculation" was in conflict with a given theoretical framework or (apparently) in conflict with experiment. Pointing out errors in calculations (as you have done yourself for many), misconceptions in the meaning of theory, misunderstanding the significance of other peoples work and so on. Pointing out misconceptions in what we may expect others to "know" as well.

Regards, John W.

________________________________
From: General [general-bounces+john.williamson=glasgow.ac.uk at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] on behalf of Richard Gauthier [richgauthier at gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2015 6:26 AM
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Subject: Re: [General] Articles of interest

Hello John W and John D,
  Let’s start by getting rid of the “just plain wrong” stuff here that is not ok to use in an attempt to convince the outside world that we are serious and not cranks. I wouldn’t want to necessarily exclude speculative stuff because that’s what new discoveries often evolve from (for example de Broglie’s prediction of an electron wavelength when there was no experimental evidence for this. Ill-informed stuff also may or may not be “just plain wrong” and could be improved or corrected by better information.
  So what is the just plain wrong stuff here that you would like to get rid of? Please be specific. Thanks.
         Richard

On Apr 25, 2015, at 2:01 AM, John Duffield <johnduffield at btconnect.com<mailto:johnduffield at btconnect.com>> wrote:

“Any communications of this to the outside world needs to get rid of the speculative, ill informed, or just plain wrong stuff that is perfectly ok within the context of an online discussion or over a pint or two, but not ok at all if we wish to make a serious attempt at convincing the outside world“.

Well said John.
Regards
John D

From: General [mailto:general-bounces+johnduffield=btconnect.com at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] On Behalf Of John Williamson
Sent: 24 April 2015 14:46
To: David Mathes; Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Cc: Manohar .; Nick Bailey; Anthony Booth; Ariane Mandray
Subject: Re: [General] Articles of interest

Dear David and everyone,
Sounds as though MIT does a bit of a better job of promoting itself than I do (what a surprise!).
There is nothing much new in looking at single electrons. SLAC was doing this for years in HEP with its linear accelerator.  For that matter Millikan was sensitive to single electrons with his oil-drop experiment – and the school I went to was enlightened enough to let me do this experiment myself at the age of sixteen or so. What is marvelous is that they can make it sound as though detecting one electron something sexy! Robert Hadfield (in our group) is in the business of detecting single photons and John Weaver (in our group) has huge capability to look at individual electrons with some of his work as well. This stuff is widely published!
More important than looking at detecting single electrons (easy enough!) is looking at the underlying  sub-electron structure. Back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s I was in the business of looking at just that. I designed a single electron electrometer sensitive at down to about a thousandth of the electron charge. If you look at my Google scholar page you can find several papers related to this. The device could also be used as a single electron pump, to deliver a stream of electrons phase locked to the frequency of a varying gate potential.  My paper (see attached), looking at the electron sub-structure delivered electrons one-at-a-time and probe the profile of the individual electron wave-function with a resolution of better than a tenth of its de Broglie wavelength. This experimental work did not stop when I left the field of course. Leo Kouwenhoven, in particular, spent many years investigating my single-electron electrometer device (and creating new ones) in the last quarter of a century. There is now a very great deal of experimental information about the inner structure of matter, electrons (and photons) with which to work.
What was lacking then, and is still not widely accepted now, is a proper theoretical framework within which to interpret this inner structure. This is what we have to do. Firstly develop the theoretical framework and secondly get the message out.
We have to convince people we are not crazies and that this is serious, new science. That is what will be hard. Any communications of this to the outside world needs to get rid of the speculative , ill informed, or just plain wrong stuff that is perfectly ok within the context of an online discussion or over a pint or two, but not ok at all if we wish to make a serious attempt at convincing the outside world.
Regards, John.
________________________________
From: General [general-bounces+john.williamson=glasgow.ac.uk at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org<mailto:general-bounces+john.williamson=glasgow.ac.uk at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org>] on behalf of David Mathes [davidmathes8 at yahoo.com<mailto:davidmathes8 at yahoo.com>]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 11:11 PM
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Subject: [General] Articles of interest
Science moves on...two articles of interest for the discussion.

Detecting a single electron
https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/magnetic-system-detects-single-electrons-0421

Detecting photons on the fly
http://spie.org/x113450.xml

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