CERN’s 8,000 scientists may not be able to find the hypothetical Higgs boson, but they have made an important contribution to climate physics, prompting climate models to be revised.

The first results from the lab’s CLOUD (“Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets”) experiment published in Nature today confirm that cosmic rays spur the formation of clouds through ion-induced nucleation. …

This has significant implications for climate science because water vapour and clouds play a large role in determining global temperatures. Tiny changes in overall cloud cover can result in relatively large temperature changes.

Unsurprisingly, it’s a politically sensitive topic, as it provides support for a “heliocentric” rather than “anthropogenic” approach to climate change: the sun plays a large role in modulating the quantity of cosmic rays reaching the upper atmosphere of the Earth.
…
When Dr Kirkby first described the theory in 1998, he suggested cosmic rays “will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century.”

© Copyright 1998–2011

Dr. Donald Simanek discusses their use in Error Calculations Using Calculus. Dr. Mike Coombes discusses their use in Error Propagation Using Calculus Solutions. And Dr. Rhett Allain uses them in the interesting Error Propagation And the Distance To the Sun.

I have not read the articles/essays closely, so I don’t know if there are any mistakes in them. But they illustrate the general idea.

There are constant reports about the invalidity of the methods and thinking of those who proclaim and push “man made global warming.” For example, ScienceDaily.com reports:

Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.

To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.

In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

Copyright © 1995-2009 ScienceDaily LLC  —  All rights reserved

I don’t know about the validity of the research and reasoning; I’ll have to find out more.

Recent research, e.g.,”Lindzen on Negative Climate Feedback” (be sure to also read the comments), regarding climate concludes that there is net negative feedback in our climate system, not, as presupposed by climate models that say ‘the earth is in crisis,’ a net positive feedback.

Facts must come first in science. Otherwise, our thinking is detached from reality, and our action will follow suit. Then we will be doing things like bleeding or putting leeches on people to make people healthier; or, like kingdoms of old, beating people like to make them be good; or, like some today, recommending people wear running shoes (which end up giving people back and chiropractic problems; see, for example, “Shoes, Sitting, and Lower Body Dysfunctions,”  “Running shoes may cause damage to knees, hips and ankles,” “The Effect of Running Shoes on Lower Extremity Joint Torques“); and more.

Radio broadcasts use the low-frequency, long-wavelength portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Commercial AM radio is at frequencies of 550 kHz to 1600 kHz (wavelengths of 545 m to 187 m) and commercial FM radio is at frequencies of 88 MHz to 108 MHz (wavelengths of 3.4 m to 2.8 m). Because these waves have wavelengths longer than 1 m, they are called radio waves. But the electromagnetic waves used in microwave ovens have wavelengths shorter than 1 m and are called microwaves. Microwaves extend from wavelengths of 1 m (3.3 ft) down to 1 mm (0.04 inches).

p. 433 , How Things Work (3rd ed.) by Louis A. Bloomfield, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., (c) 2006, ISBN-13: 978-0-471-46886-8.

Such waves are things we never see, touch, taste or smell. But because of concepts and mathematics, we can identify and control electromagnetic waves, as if they were things we could actually see or touch. Math and conceptual thought make possible all devices and inventions based on electricity and electromagnetic waves: radio, live365.com, the iPod, the iPhone, cell phones in general, GPS, the Internet, microwave ovens, AC, the automobile and more. People who say that math is useless are saying, by implication, by logical necessity, that all things logically and causally dependent on mathematics — such as those just enumerated — are useless and can and should be done away with.

But mathematics is implicit in most all the technology we use in most aspects of our lives. (That so many people don’t see this is, sadly, an indictment of the anti-conceptual nature of our culture. How I wish it were otherwise…) Mathematics and measurement are implicit in signage along the roadside and on buildings, in all recorded or amplified music we hear and enjoy, in the medical treatment we receive and depend on, in the cell phones we use to call family or friend or business associate, in the Internet we use to read news or keep up with friends, in the automobile we drive on vacation or in which we are driven to the hospital. The modern life we live is dependent on mathematics — what’s more, I’d argue that mathematics and measurement are essential to human consciousness and experience and thus to human life, and fundamentally differentiate us from all other animals.

Priestley attended the University of Leeds, receiving a B.S. in 1933 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1935. He served in the Royal Air Force as an industrial research physicist, civilian education officer, and air intelligence officer. He came to the US as RAF liaison officer in 1942, but stayed on to teach physics at Ripton College after WWII. In 1952, he became chairman of the physics department at Knox College, where he stayed until he retired in 1980.  His obituary is on Knox College‘s Website.

Two caveats. Priestley makes some statements in his Chapter 1 about the philosophy of science which I do not fully agree with. He also does not give Aristotle proper credit as a scientist. People have insulted Aristotle for centuries, for things that are not Aristotle’s fault –- there have been people throughout history who blindly believed what was written in Aristotle’s corpus and who did not look at reality on their own, yes, but that is not Aristotle’s fault. Aristotle, in method, was objective, and referred to experience. If he had the evidence available to him which people did who lived 1,000 years or more after he lived, he could have arrived at the conclusions modern scientists have. He was a solid scientist, as can be seen in the work he did most: philosophy, logic and biology.

Dr. James Lennox, Professor of Philosophy and the History of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, has some good articles on his Website regarding Aristotle as scientist and philosopher of science. An article directly relevant to some of Priestley’s uninformed, unresearched accusations against Aristotle is Lennox’s “Aristotle, Galileo and the Mixed Sciences,” which discusses (1) Aristotle’s use of mathematics as a tool of explanation and (2) Galileo’s debt to Aristotle.

Following is an excerpt from Priestley’s book. I hope this is not a copyright violation! (This post is a great advertisement for the book. This post publicizes and praises the book, which would otherwise remain largely unknown. Plus, while the quoted section is lengthy, it is a small percentage of the whole.) The book is out of print, but, I think, still under copyright. I communicated with the publisher, who said they did not have any copies of the book to sell and would not make any. This is a book that should be reprinted! It should be preserved, studied, spread far and wide, and used as a standard for how science textbooks should be.

It is impossible to grasp Priestley’s masterful and rational approach in brief one-paragraph excerpts, so the excerpt must be lengthy. Priestley does use math (only algebra; no calculus) in his textbook, but the excerpt has none. The excerpt illustrates, in context of electricity, how Priestley focuses his discussion of physics on causality, scientific method, and the development of concepts, principles and theories.

Excerpt Chp. 15, “Electricity and Chemistry,” pp. 201-205

15.1 Galvanism. Electricity and chemistry are closely inter-related. A chemical reaction can produce a supply of electricity for as long as the reaction continues. This, the first source of a continuous supply of electricity, an electric current, is the principle of the electric battery. Conversely, an electric current can produce a chemical reaction, usually the decomposition of a chemical compound into its simpler elements, the process of electrolysis. Both processes involve the conversion of energy from one form to another; in the first case, chemical energy becomes electrical energy; in the other, the reverse takes place.

Every living cell produces electricity. The functioning of living tissue today is studied through its electrical action. The study of electricity in living tissue, which began quite accidentally about one hundred and fifty years ago, led to the development of the electric battery, for many years thereafter the standard method of producing electricity

About 1750, it was noted that pieces of lead and silver placed above and below the tongue, respectively, with their outer edges in contact, produced an unpleasant and pungent taste not encountered when the metals were placed separately upon the tongue. The phenomenon was attributed to some excitation of the nerves of the tongue. By this time, various physicians and experimenters had demonstrated that electricity could be used as a muscular stimulant in man and animals. This fact had been used to distinguish between paralyzed and atrophied muscles, an electric charge producing a contraction only in a paralyzed muscle.

Before the end of the eighteenth century it was known that an electric discharge passed through the body of a freshly killed animal could cause a convulsive action in its muscles, and that the discharge of an electric eel (section 14.2) produced motion in a nearby dead fish. Identification of the origin of these effects was made by Galvani (1737-1798), a professor of anatomy at Bologna. Galvani began experimenting about 1780, using a Leyden jar [A Leyden jar was the earliest form of electric condenser, consisting of “a bottle filled with water into which was inserted a wire held in place by a cork.”  p. 191] and an electrostatic machine to test the effects of the electric discharge upon the nervous system of the frog. During these experiments he made the chance observation that nearby electrical discharge caused convulsions in a freshly prepared frog’s leg in conducting contact with the earth.

[I] had dissected and prepared a frog. [While] attending to something else, I laid it on a table on which stood an electrical machine at some distance…when one of the persons present touched accidentally and lightly the inner [thigh or leg] nerves of the frog with the point of a scalpel all the muscles of the legs seemed to contract again and again as if affected by powerful cramps. [One of my assistants] thought…the action was excited when a spark was discharged from the conductor of the machine [and] called my attention to it…I was eager to test the same and to bring to light what was concealed in it. I therefore myself touched one of the other nerves with the point of the knife and at the same time one of those present drew a spark. The phenomenon was always the same. Without fail there occurred lively contractions in every muscle of the leg at the same instant as that in which the spark jumped…

[Thinking] these motions might arise from the contact with the point of the knife rather than by the spark, I touched the same nerves again in the same way in other frogs with the point of the knife…with greater pressure [while] no one during this time drew off a spark…no motion could be detected. I [concluded] that perhaps to excite the phenomenon…needed both the contact of a body and the electric spark.

Therefore, I again pressed the blade of the knife on the nerve and kept it there at rest while the spark passed and while the machine was not in motion. The phenomenon only occurred while the sparks were passing. [In many experiments with the same knife] it was remarkable that when the spark passed the motions observed sometimes occurred and sometimes not… The scalpel had a bone handle…if this handle was led in the hand no contractions occurred when the spark passed; but they did occur if the finger rested on the metallic blade or on the iron rivet by which the blade was held in the handle…

Now to put the thing beyond all doubt we…not only touched the nerves of the leg [with a slender dry and clean glass rod] but rubbed them hard while the sparks were passing. But…the phenomenon never appeared. [It] occurred however if we even lightly touched the same nerve with an iron rod and only little sparks passed. [William F. Magie, A Source Book in Physics (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1938), p. 421.]

Galvani’s “phenomenon” occurred only when the frog’s leg was in conducting communication with the earth, first by chance contact of the scalpel with the nerve, thereafter intentionally by bringing the leg into contact with a conductor grounded by contact with the human body. He continued his researches, turning to the effect of atmospheric electricity (lightning) on muscular motion. He attached frogs by the nerves to long iron wires, the feet of the frogs being grounded by similar wires. Simultaneously with a flash of lightning the muscles were markedly convulsed.

In both these series of experiments the frog, place upon a body insulated from the ground, became charged by induction (section 14.11) from either the electrostatic machine or lightning. When a grounded metal object (scalpel or iron rod) touched the nerve, the sudden change of potential caused by grounding produced the observed convulsive action.

[I next laid one of the prepared frogs] on an iron plate and began to press the hook which was in the spinal cord against the plate. Behold, the same contractions, the same motions…other metals [gave] the same result, only that the contractions were different [for] different metals…more lively for some and more sluggish for the others. At last it occurred to us to use other [non-conducting] bodies…[dry] glass, rubber, resin, stone or wood. With these…no muscular contractions and motions could be seen. Naturally [this astonished us] and caused us to think that possibly the electricity was present in the animal itself…a very fine nervous fluid which during the occurrence of the phenomenon flows from the nerves to the muscle like the electric current….” [ibid., p. 424.]

Galvani now recognized that here was something entirely new. “To make the thing plainer” he varied the experiment by placing the frog on a glass non- conducting plate. A curved rod connected the hook which entered the spinal cord with the muscles of the leg or feet. Convulsions occurred only when the curved rod was of conducting material and only when the hook and conducting rod were of dissimilar metals.

Two possible explanations of these phenomena suggested themselves to Galvani; that there was electricity in the animal organism, or that there was involved some electrical process depending upon contact of the metals and for which the frog’s legs merely served as a sensitive detector. He leaned toward the first of these – the existence of “animal electricity,” for which the nerves had the greatest affinity and were the repository. His theory further assumed that the inner substance of the nerve served as the conductor of this electricity, while the outer layer of the nerve prevented its dispersal. The muscles were the receivers of the animal electricity, and were charged negatively on the outside and positively on the inside. The mechanism of motion was a discharge of the electric fluid from the inside to the outside of the muscle by way of the nerve (like the discharge of a Leyden jar), and this discharge provided a muscular contractional stimulus to the muscle fibers.

15.2 Volta disagrees with Galvani. Galvani’s experiments and his interpretation of the results aroused considerable interest. Among the physicists, physiologists, and medical men who obtained frogs and pieces of dissimilar metals to repeat the experiments for themselves was Volta (1745-1827), a countryman of Galvani’s and professor of physics at Paris.

Volta, greatly impressed by Galvani’s work, referred to it as “one of those splendid major discoveries which…serve to usher in new epochs, not only because it is new and wonderful but also because it opens up a broad field of experiments that are especially and outstandingly capable of the application. “ [ibid., p. 443.] Volta’s original belief in the correctness of the “animal electricity” theory was weakened when he found that a muscular contraction could be produced simply by allowing a very weak electrical discharge to traverse a nerve without the discharge in anyway passing through the muscles. To produce a contraction required only stimulation of “the nerves that control the motions of the voluntary muscles concerned.”

A physicist rather than a physiologist, Volta now shifted his emphasis to the function of the metallic rods used. Repeating the experiment of placing on the tongue two dissimilar metals, he “covered the point of the tongue…with a strip of tin…With the bowl of a spoon, I touched the tongue further back; then I inclined the handle of the spoon to touch the tin. I expected…a twitching of the tongue… The expected sensation, however, I did not perceive at all; but instead, a rather strong acid taste at the tip of the tongue this taste lasts as long as the tin and sliver are in contact with each other. …This shows that the flow of electricity from one place to another is continuing without interruption.” It was “not less remarkable” that reversing the experiment so that the silver touched the tip of the tongue and the tin its middle gave “a very different taste…no longer sour but more alkaline, sharp, and approaching bitter.” [ibid., p. 444] Bringing together the free ends of strips of dissimilar metal which touched, respectively, the forehead and palate produced, at the instant of contact, a bring flash clearly visible to the eye.

Investigations such as these gradually convinced Volta that the metals not only served as conductors but actually generated the electricity themselves. He accordingly modified his views to the belief that the nerves were merely stimulated by a cause to be found in the metals themselves, which were “in a real sense the exciters of electricity.” By 1794 he declared his opposition to the idea of animal electricity and substituted the term “metallic electricity.” The entire effect arose from the electricity set into circulation when metals were brought into contact with any moist body. This circulation through nerves caused stimulation of associate muscles. He found that the results depended upon the nature of the substances used and drew up a series of substances  (metals, graphite, an charcoal) such that the magnitude of the effect produced using any two of the substances increased with the separation of the substances in this series.

Volta now dispensed entirely with the use of nerves and muscles n his investigations, and brought pairs of metals into contact with various moist substances, such as paper, cloth, etc. With a sensitive electrometer which he had previously developed, he was able to show the existence of “contact potential” – that the momentary contact of two dissimilar metals caused them to become oppositely charged, even without any moist substance present. A zinc and a copper disc after being placed in contact were both found to be charged, the zinc positively and the copper negatively. Copper also became negatively charged after contact with iron or tin, although less strongly than after contact with zinc. On the other hand, contact with gold or silver gave copper a positive charge and the gold or silver a negative charge. By numerous experiments along these lines, Volta constructed a series for the metals such that upon bringing any two of them into contact, the earlier in the list became positively charged, the later one negatively charged:

zinc                copper
lead               silver
tin                  gold
iron                graphite

Furthermore, the more widely separated the substances in the series, the greater was the contact charge developed between them.

On the basis of his investigations, Volta originally assumed that the exciting electricity was located only at the points of contact of the metals and that the animal or other fluid served only as a conductor. But further experiments showed that an electric charge can be produced not only between metals in contact, but also between a metal and certain fluids. For instance, an insulated disc of silver or other metal brought into contact with moist wood or paper and then removed was found to be negatively charged. Experimenting further with liquids and metals, Volta found that the best results were obtained from two dissimilar metals with a moist conductor between them, a combination called a galvanic element. The effect of such a single element was multiplied by combining a large number of them to form a “pile.”

In 1800, Volta described a pile which produced a constant flow of electricity. By comparison with a Leyden jar, it was “equal only to a [Leyden jar] very feebly charged; but infinitely surpasses the power of these [jars] in that it does not need, as they do, to be charged in advance by means of an outside source; and in that it can give the disturbance every time that it is properly touched no matter how often.” [ibid., p. 428.]

The pile consisted of small, clean and dry discs of zinc and silver and discs of a spongy material capable of absorbing and retaining a liquid. On a table or  base is placed a sliver plate, then a

plate of zinc; on this…one of the moistened discs; then another silver [plate], followed immediately by another of zinc, [then another] moistened disc…continue in the same way coupling a plate of sliver with one of zinc, always [in the same order] and inserting between  these couples a moistened disc. [ibid.]

Such a pile produced a slight shock when the hands were placed in contact with the top and bottom of the pile, and also the previously experienced effect upon the nerves of taste, sight, and hearing. One drawback was that the moist material between the metal discs dried out, decreasing the electric current generated. To overcome this, Volta devised his “crown of cups,” consisting of a row of beakers of non-metallic material filled with brine into which were placed alternate strips of sliver and zinc. Each silver strip in one cup was joined to the zinc strip in the next cup by a metallic jumper. “A train of 30, 40, 60 of these goblets joined up in this manner…in substance is the same as the [pile] tried before; the essential feature, of the immediate connection of the different metals which form each pair and the mediate connection of one couple with another by the intermediary of a damp conductor, appears in this apparatus as well as in the other.” [ibid., p. 431.] This crown of cups was subsequently improved by substituting copper for silver and dilute sulphuric acid for brine.

Volta reported that the “tension” (potential difference) produced by the pile or cups

“is less according as they are nearer in the following series…sliver, copper, iron, tin, lead, zinc, a scale in which the first [is positive with respect] to the second, the second to the third, etc.”

The importance of Volta’s discovery of a means of producing a continuous supply of electricity cannot be overemphasized. Sarton, the distinguished  historian of science, compares it with the development of the telescope and microscope, with the fundamental difference that the telescope and microscope “were only means of magnifying our vision. They enabled us to see things which we could not see before, but which existed nevertheless… On the contrary, the electric cell was really a creative instrument; it opened to man a new and incomparable source of energy.” [Bern Dibner, Galvani-Volta (Norwalk: Burndy Library, Inc., 1952), p. 40.]

15.3 The simple voltaic cell. Volta’s identification of the true origin of “animal electricity” led to the familiar batteries now used in radios, automobiles, etc. In every case, production of electricity results from the conversion of chemical into electrical energy. To understand the mechanism involved, consider the simple or voltaic cell, consisting of two dissimilar metals immersed in a liquid, and in essence an element of Volta’s pile.

Priestley then goes on to discuss the work of Michael Faraday in discovering the laws of electrolysis, which led to the development of practical cells, i.e., the batteries we now have in everyday life and which we take for granted.

But what we have in this excerpt is the scientific history of the development of the modern battery – which came out of experiments which changed fundamentally how we view man, as well. The observation that we had different sensations when metals touched our tongue in different places would have gone nowhere and could have been interpreted in all kinds of ways, without the knowledge that frogs’ nerves and muscles are affected by electricity.

This knowledge was the first step in our modern science of neurology, in understanding how the brain works, and in developing some of the drugs we have today (which have neurological effects because of their chemistry and electrical effects). And if not for the foundational work of Michael Faraday arising from the research of Volta and Galvani, we would not know what we do today about nutrition and the operation of the cell. What does something so everyday as Gatorade have in it? Electrolytes. Thank Michael Faraday next time you drink some.

Priestley is a genius in taking us from the observation that we had certain sensations when metals touched our tongues, to the modern battery. He presents a missing side of modern scientific texts: causality. Science is about discovering cause-effect relationships. Most modern texts present physics as an exercise in mathematics – the texts could be addenda to math texts, providing word problems and applications of math. They fail miserably in presenting cause-effect relationships, and showing how scientific knowledge really develops. They fail to present the important experiments that led to modern understanding of the material world, and that make physics what it is.

If there are some texts with a rational epistemology out there, please let me know!!! I’d love to have them!!

If a protein solution is placed in an electric field, the individual protein molecules travel toward either the positive of negative electrode at a fixed speed dictated by the pattern of the electric charge, the size and shape of the molecule and so on. No two varieties of protein would travel at precisely the same speed under all conditions.

In 1937, the Swedish chemist, Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius (1902- ), a student of Svedberg‘s, devised an apparatus to take advantage of this. This consisted of a special tube arranged like a rectangular U, within which a protein mixture could move in response to an electric field. (Such motion is called “electrophoresis.”) Since the various components of the mixture moved each at its own rate, there was a gradual separation. The rectangular-U tube consisted of portions that fitted together at specifically ground joints, and these portions could be slid apart. Matters could be arranged so that one of the mixture of proteins would be present in one component of the chambers and could thus be separated from the rest.

Furthermore, by the use of appropriate cylindrical lenses, it became possible to follow the process of separation by taking advantage of changes in the way light was refracted on passing through the suspended mixture as the protein concentration changed. The changes in refraction could be photographed as a wavelike pattern which could then be used to calculate the quantity of each type of protein present in the mixture.

pp. 155-156, A Short History of Biology by Isaac Asimov, American Museum Science Books, the Natural History Press, Garden City, New York, (c) 1964 Isaac Asimov.

The integration of physics, chemistry, technology, and biology is awe-inspiring and beautiful.

Mr. Asimov presents some of the discoveries and ideas in biology that led up to Tiselius’ work (such as the discovery of organic compounds and proteins), and then discusses in his book what happened after this. He focuses on the biology and chemistry. Mr. Asimov teaches correctly: the reader gets to see what basic evidence and reasoning led to the concepts, principles and theories of modern biology. The reader gets the skeleton of induction needed to grasp a concept, etc.

Most students now-a-day are trained in a mash that amounts to confusion, memorized words (like a parrot), and obedience of authority, not to understanding proper. Students are not being trained in reasoning and objectivity.

To properly understand Tiselius’ work, one would need to learn that which Mr. Asimov presented, but one would also need to learn some of the scientific work of Michael Faraday (The Laws of Electrolysis) and Willebrord Snellius (Snell’s Law of Refraction). What’s more, Tiselius’ work has to be clearly rooted in the work of Galileo and Newton, who studied telescopes and light, studied motion and gravity, and started modern science. There are also ideas developed in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s that are essential to achieving a real, inductive, objective understanding.

Update (9-4-09, 8:15 AM):  And, of course, none of this would have been possible without the development of mathematics, Aristotle’s development of logic, and the integration of mathematics and the physical and biological sciences.

The Future of Science: ‘Science Workshop’ Approach Lets Students Learn What They Want

The New York Times  
By Motoko Rich
   August 30, 2009

JONESBORO, Ga. — For years Lorrie McNeill loved teaching chemistry.  She taught her students the periodic table of elements, the ubiquitous classroom staple that many Americans regard as a scientific rite of passage.

But last fall, for the first time in 15 years, Ms. McNeill, 42, removed the periodic table from her classroom.  Gone, too, were assigned lab partners–and even the laboratory tables themselves, bunsen burners and all. Instead she turned over all the decisions about what science to learn to the students in her seventh- and eighth-grade science classes at Jonesboro Middle School in this south Atlanta suburb.

Among their choices: building model volcanoes, setting off smoke bombs, making sundials from modeling clay and popsicle sticks, and creating “geysers” by dropping Mentos candies into 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke.

The approach Ms. McNeill uses, in which students choose their own science projects, discuss them individually with their teacher and one another, and keep detailed journals about their observations, is part of a movement to revolutionize the way science is taught in America’s schools. While there is no clear consensus among science teachers, variations on the approach, known as science workshop, are catching on.

John Dewey rears his corrupting head and raises his cognition-destroying hand. Again.

Without induction, integration, and hierarchy, it is not science. It’s just a Feynmanian cargo cult (Feynman’s speech is also on GasResources.net, UIowa.edu, and elsewhere on the Internet).