http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html "It's a mystery that presented itself unexpectedly: The radioactive decay of some elements sitting quietly in laboratories on Earth seemed to be influenced by activities inside the sun, 93 million miles away." If this is true it could have outstanding effects on physics, to explain this we would need either new particles or new forces. Of course extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence and clearly other researchers have to repeat these experiments or do other corroborating experiments to verify this is true or not.
P.S. I read the article (see the link above) with great interest. The author is a journalist, not a scientist. Vital numerical information--the percentage by which the well known "decay constant" of 54Mn changes--is not specified. I would also would like to know the "error bars" of experimental results reported by each team. In other words, how reproducible are experimental results? Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia) My profile==> http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/my_profile.html .
Welcome to Sciforums, Ludwik. I've already had a thread about this, but it remains interesting, but it might 'go away' on further analysis. It doesn't seem plausible to be neutrinos, and if it were real it would mean 'new physics' not yet understood. The 'effect' is relatively minor on the order of 1/2% variation. You seem to have had some similarities of background with me. I worked with P.B. Price in the early 1970s on particle track etching using Lexan, moon-rocks, and other materials through which charged particles traversed. We were doing cosmic ray studies, and had balloon flights, SkyLab flights, etc.
Please clarify this last bit? Kowalski seems to believe his anti-Communism gives him the right to self-publicize and write his own Wikipedia biography, despite not listing any actual achievements to make him notable in anti-Communism or Physics. Wagner seems to believe the experience of getting his ankles wet in a research program makes him a scientist and authority on nuclear safety despite not having any peer-reviewed, published material of a scientific nature. Is the similarity of background delusions of grandeur and a messiah complex?
That's never stopped rpenner before. Rpenner: My post clearly states that he has a background in particle track detection when it was in its infancy, as did I. I suspect he knows many of the publications by the Price group in particle track detection methods, of which I was an integral part for several years.
The point of an encyclopedia article is to be a self-contained article broadly covering the high points of the subject matter to a degree where one would know if the subject was interesting and ideally where to go for more information. If the author has a good reputation in either physics or anti-Communism, we can't find out from an article the merely parrots the subject's own homepage.
This page will then direct you to his list of publications: http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/LK_publications.html These are peer-reviewed articles and are not 'self-publication'. My previous post had referred specifically to: *7. "Track Detectors, New Method of Visualization of Nuclear Particles. " (In Polish) Postepy Fizyki, 1964, 15, 437. Do your homework, RP.
I'm not questioning that he's done physics or is an anti-Communist. I'm questioning if he's notable. Who has he mentored? How has his work changed the world? Why, other than self-promotion, is he listed in Wikipedia? The publication list shows that he has increased the bounds of man's knowledge, as a scientist is expected to do, but not that any of it was in an area of controversy. X-ray crystallographers can have publication lists 10 times as long, because the world of molecules is vast and science required large amounts of empirical stamp collecting. But some stamps are, by the nature of controversy and utility, more valuable than others. Mr. Wagner did work in P.B. Price's Berkeley lab, but did they ever reference the earlier work by Kowalski? That's what I mean by notable. Did anyone take note of it? For future reference, what was it that was notable? If I go to Einstein's Wikipedia page, or even P. B. Price's Wikipedia page, I learn why they are notable. I learn what awards they got, and how they shaped what we know at the detailed technical level and at the broad-strokes "big picture." I was unimpressed with the Professor Emeritus when he promoted his article in Op Ed News on the forum I moderate in 2010 and the non-discussion which followed. http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=28730 I'm unimpressed with his Wikipedia article (and it's October 2010 history). I'm unimpressed by his seeming to equate the constitutional duty to "promote the general welfare" with communism. And I'm unimpressed with his habit of signing his web posts and Op Ed News article with directions to look up his Wikipedia page which doesn't actually make the claim that he is notable.
Perhaps he is not as impressive as Einstein or Price? (at least not to you:shrugPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But as to why he is in Wikipedia, I suppose it is because of the posting by Aboudaqn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aboudaqn) who initiated and posted the bulk of the article. However, there are about 16 other Wikipedian editors over the past year (since the article was posted) who have added-to/fixed/improved the article. If Aboudaqn is actually Kowalski, I still don't have much of a problem with it, because Aboudaqn has posted about 100 articles (authored or major-contributor) at Wikipedia, most of which appear to be biographies of notable people, and if he slipped one in about himself in the process which was then modified by 16 others, so what? And I don't know that Aboudaqn is actually Kowalski -- he might just be a friend who happens to know a lot about Kowalski. And Kowalski's peer-reviewed publications are extensive in a wide variety of related fields centered around his knowledge of nuclear physics. And while we are on the topic, what are your publications that would allow you to determine whether his publications are noteworthy or not? Or do you just stand on a soapbox while casting rocks at others?
Wow , Big players in the game of life . World war 2 guy at that . That is big history . Very interesting . Me Algebra teacher Mr. VanVlete. He escaped the death camps in Germany . He was on one of the trains . He told us the story how he got out and made it to America . Very riveting to say the least
