Speed of Gravity

[rynner2]

The revisionists and presentists would have us believe that Shockley et al invented the transistor, but cock deaf ear and a blind eye toward the true history. The motive is to create the illusion that modern scientists are actually doing something and to elevate their paper heroes to the sainthood of science... To create a scientific, textbook, mythology that beatifies their own for sham academic agrandisement.

That hardly makes sense, even within the cock-eyed framework of your own crusade against 'academic science', because they were working for AT&T's Bell Labs, a commercial institution researching science and technology for business applications relating to telecomms.

Perhaps you'd care to expand on your idea of academic science? Or does it just include everyone you disagree with or don't understand?

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Theory to practice and only forty odd years later, they were not only making transistors, but they were making them into integrated circuits sophisticated enough to build computers that could get men in rockets a quarter of a million miles to the moon and back, without them ending up as a smear on the landscape.

Pretty impressive and all done without the use of Tesla's theory of aether, or of gravity.

All done without a theory:
There was no theory that preceded the transistor, it was patched-on later.

"The old quantum theory was a collection of results from the years 1900-1925 which predate modern quantum mechanics." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_quantum_theory

What this means is that when the first transistors arrived, quantum physics did not exist in any form recognisable today. It also coincided with the "Golden Age"(for rynner).
It's somewhat paradoxical when we consider that there was more by way of inventiveness during this period than there is today. Even more so if we ponder the fact that we have more scientists now than ever before in history.

This is just absolute and total nonsense.

What this means is that when Julius Edgar Lilienfeld applied for his first patents for a device similar to a transistor, quantum theory had started to assume something like the form we know it today. Lilienfeld was amongst those many scientists working towards a modern theory of electronics, at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Edgar_Lilienfeld#Career

...

Career

Lilienfeld's early career was at the University of Leipzig, where he conducted important early work on electrical discharges in "vacuum", between metal electrodes, from about 1910 onwards.[1] His early passion was to clarify how the phenomena changed as vacuum preparation techniques improved. More than any other scientist, he was responsible for the identification of (presently named) field electron emission as a separate physical effect. (He called it "auto-electronic emission", and was interested in it as a possible electron source for miniaturised X-ray tubes, in medical applications.) Lilienfeld was responsible for the first reliable account in English of the experimental phenomenology of field electron emission, in 1922. The effect itself was explained by Fowler and Nordheim in 1928.

Lilienfeld moved to the United States in the early 1920s, originally in order to defend patents he possessed, and then made a scientific/industrial career there.

Among other things, he invented an "FET-like" transistor and the electrolytic capacitor in the 1920s. He filed several patents describing the construction and operation of transistors as well as many features of modern transistors. (US patent #1,745,175 [2] for an FET-like transistor was granted January 28, 1930.)[3] When Brattain, Bardeen, and Robert Gibney tried to get patents on their earliest devices, most of their claims were rejected due to the Lilienfeld patents.[4]

The optical radiation emitted when electrons are hitting a metal surface is named "Lilienfeld radiation" after he first discovered it close to X-ray tube anodes. Its origin is attributed to the excitation of plasmons in the metal surface.[5][6][7]

The American Physical Society has named one of its major prizes after Lilienfeld.

...

You've written elsewhere that time does not exist. Certainly, you don't appear to have any real concept of time. You seem to think that by dipping back into the early years of the last century, somehow, you're reaching back into far antiquity. A place where inventions sprung full formed from the heads of their creators, like Athena from the head of Zeus. In fact, it usually takes time, theory and effort to move from ideas and discoveries, to something that has practical applications that can be applied on an industrial scale.

Here's an interesting article on Lilienfeld's work on the elctronic field effect and the development of field effect transistors.

http://ghn.ieee.org/wiki/index.php/A_Very_Early_Conception_of_a_Solid_State_Device

A Very Early Conception of a Solid State Device

Introduction

Invented at Bell Telephone Laboratories between 1945 and 1948, many consider the transistor to be one of the most important inventions in 20th century technology. The story of the first working transistor underscores the power modern industrial laboratories have had to coordinate scientific discovery in the pursuit of technological breakthroughs. It is about great intellectual leaps and driving ambition. But while the story has been told and retold to scientists and engineers for years, only a small circle of history buffs and scholars know that the pursuit of the solid-state amplifier has an even longer history than the transistor. This quest dates back to 1924–1925, and the work of Julius Edgar Lilienfeld.

...

Lilienfield Acknowledged As Pioneer

In an address to the American Institute of Physics in 1988, Bardeen acknowledged the great credit due Lilienfeld for his pioneering efforts to make the semiconductor amplifier. In the 1920s, Lilienfeld could not have understood the physics of the field-effect semiconductor amplifier, as the quantum theory of solids was still several years away. Nevertheless, he had a good intuitive feel for a new approach to electronics. In Bardeen’s own words, “Lilienfeld had the basic concept of controlling the flow of current in a semiconductor to make an amplifying device. It took many years of theory development and material technology to make his dream a reality.”

Well worth a read. Lilienfeld made the theoretical leap, based on his work on the electronic field effect, but it took several decades before the theory and the materials were advanced enough, to bring his ideas to fruition. This is the way things usually work.

 

[wembley9]

There was a golden age of discovery from the beginning of the 19th century to the first decades of the 20th. Such things as AC power and distribution, radio, television, aviation

...all based on earlier ideas and discoveries, just like in every other age.

 

[wembley9]

.
My point is that they date back to pre 1930's, like so much else in our modern technology.

But ALL technology dates way back, isn't that the real point?

No doubt you could find earlier precursors to the transistor concept if you were willing to be esoteric enough. Wikipedia takes it back to 1907.

 

[Ghostisfort]

Theory to practice and only forty odd years later, they were not only making transistors, but they were making them into integrated circuits sophisticated enough to build computers that could get men in rockets a quarter of a million miles to the moon and back, without them ending up as a smear on the landscape.

Pretty impressive and all done without the use of Tesla's theory of aether, or of gravity.

All done without a theory:
There was no theory that preceded the transistor, it was patched-on later.
"The old quantum theory was a collection of results from the years 1900-1925 which predate modern quantum mechanics." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_quantum_theory
What this means is that when the first transistors arrived, quantum physics did not exist in any form recognisable today. It also coincided with the "Golden Age"(for rynner).
It's somewhat paradoxical when we consider that there was more by way of inventiveness during this period than there is today. Even more so if we ponder the fact that we have more scientists now than ever before in history.

This is just absolute and total nonsense.

What this means is that when Julius Edgar Lilienfeld applied for his first patents for a device similar to a transistor, quantum theory had started to assume something like the form we know it today. Lilienfeld was amongst those many scientists working towards a modern theory of electronics, at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Edgar_Lilienfeld#Career

...

Career

Well worth a read. Lilienfeld made the theoretical leap, based on his work on the electronic field effect, but it took several decades before the theory and the materials were advanced enough, to bring his ideas to fruition. This is the way things usually work.

GiF
You need to do more homework on this:
Lilienfeld's patent was for a field-effect transistor and Shockley applied for a patent but was turned down because his was also was a field-effect transistor(FET). Lilienfeld's transistor was not an "FET-like transistor", it was an FET, hence no patent for Shockley.

Walter Brattain and John Bardeen were the ones who built the point-contact transistor... http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinv ... istory.htm

Shockley believed that since he had given the initial direction the idea for the transistor was wholly his. Shockley began a major campaign with the company's lawyers to patent the transistor exclusively under his own name. He called Bardeen and Brattain separately into his office and explained what he was doing. Brattain shouted at him: "There's more than enough glory in this for everybody!" Bardeen said nothing, but began to fume silently. The rift had begun.
It's fascinating and you can read it all at: http://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/addlbios/egos.html

Shockley having had his FET rejected, went on to claim sole ownership of the point contact transistor of Bardeen and Brattain. His only justification being that he was the gaffer.
But Wiki still gives him the credit:

Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley

The Nobel was awarded to Shockley after having played no part in the development of the point contact transistor by Bardeen and Brattain. The potential he saw was that he could get a Nobel prize for someone else's work having failed in an attempt to steal the FET from Lilienfeld.

The exact nature of Shockley's contributions to the development of the transistor remains a subject of controversy, as does the question of how much (if any) credit he should be given for its invention... Shockley's treatment of Bardeen and Brattain eventually prompted both men to break away from Bell Labs, and severed any good relations between himself and his former colleagues.
http://www.fi.edu/learn/case-files/bard ... shock.html

There is also an interesting letter on the same page that describes Shockley's contribution as development rather than invention.
The rivision makes Shockley a hero, but the history makes him a scoundrel.

 

[Ghostisfort]

.
My point is that they date back to pre 1930's, like so much else in our modern technology.

But ALL technology dates way back, isn't that the real point?

No doubt you could find earlier precursors to the transistor concept if you were willing to be esoteric enough. Wikipedia takes it back to 1907.

The point is that heroes are made of people like Shockley and the true history is suppressed. If you can tell us all why this is done then you will know why I bother to write these posts.

 

[Timble2]

Shockley having had his FET rejected, went on to claim sole ownership of the point contact transistor of Bardeen and Brattain. His only justification being that he was the gaffer.
But Wiki still gives him the credit:

Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley

How many times do you need telling Wiki is not an authoratitive source and can be edited by any idiot with a computer and a personal agenda?

 

[escargot]

Yes Timble, and incidentally have you seen your own Wiki page lately?

 

[Timble2]

Yes Timble, and incidentally have you seen your own Wiki page lately?

:shock:

I didn't know any one had a camera.... The bit about the fish isn't true though...

 

[rynner2]

@ Gif:

I still await your definition of 'academic science'. And an explanation of how Shockley's Nobel Prize boosts 'academic science' when he was an industrial scientist, if not (as you allege) a fraudster too!

Frankly, almost everything you write could have holes picked in it for hand-waving misrepresentations, but I fear I'd lose the will to live if I took it that seriously!

The muddled nature of your thinking is not helped by your apparent inability to use Quote tags correctly - half the time it's not clear who's said what to whom, or what the course of debate actually is, or whether you're just muttering to yourself. Why not go the whole hog and post in GREEN INK AND CAPITAL LETTERS!

As for your 'golden age', how about some proof? It should be easy enough to turn up statistics on numbers of patents granted then, compared with those granted in a later period, say 1970 to 1999.

 

[escargot]

The bit about the fish isn't true though...

Yes it is. It must be, it's on Wiki. Honestly, you people.

 

[Timble2]

All right, but it was pollocks, not whitebait...

 

[rynner2]

All right, but it was pollocks...

Which brings us back on topic!

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

That's quite enough pollocks, thank you very much.

 

[Ghostisfort]

How many times do you need telling Wiki is not an authoratitive source and can be edited by any idiot with a computer and a personal agenda?

I meant to answer your post on teleportation and quantum mechanics but got sidetracked by transistors.
I was going to mention the incompatibility between GR and quantum physics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gr ... relativity

It seems to two can never be reconciled without the graviton, something undetected and unknown outside of metaphysical theory.

But the graviton can be found in a brown viscous liquid, used to prevent Aunt Bessie's Yorkshire Pudding Light from floating upward above a Christmas dinner.
It's antiparticle is the leviton, discovered at a CERN all-night piss-up by the Chuckle Brothers, who provided the entertainment.

I'm told that they drink to forget at CERN because their objective is to produce a singularity that will swallow the earth.
Although constantly reassured by Hawking, they are not stupid, and they realise that he actually wants to destroy the Earth to sate his all consuming hatred of God.
It's all very sad.

As for Wiki: yes, you're right, but it's no worse than any other. I made one or two wiki corrections when compiling my web pages.
I'm not going to ask for an authoritative source because I know what the answer will be.

 

[escargot]

Anyway, here're a couple of REAL scientists discussing today's Higgs Boson seminar at CERN.

Physicists gassing

 

[Ghostisfort]

Anyway, here're a couple of REAL scientists discussing today's Higgs Boson seminar at CERN.

Physicists gassing

“I hate that ‘God particle’ term,” said Pauline Gagnon, a Canadian member of CERN’s ATLAS team of so-called “Higgs hunters” — an epithet they do not reject.
“The Higgs is not endowed with any religious meaning. It is ridiculous to call it that,” she told Reuters at a news conference after her colleagues revealed growing evidence, albeit not yet proof, of the particle’s existence.
http://www.firstpost.com/tech/higgs-bos ... 55838.html

I recall reading in Scientific American, years ago, how the scientists at such facilities are deeply troubled by the possibility of generating a singularity, a black hole that will swallow the earth. "Real scientist" who have nightmares about the ramifications of their work.

Such insecurities are not unusual among the wider community. A paradoxical deep seated fear of religious salvation pervades while the obligatory scientific materialism promises the certainty of oblivion after the death. A Hobson's choice brought about by a desire to cling to institutionalised thinking processes and the meritocracy offered in return for a troubled mind.

The LHC was conceived as a modern version of the Sword of Damocles and cathedral to the hope and glory of a saving materialistic grace set in an ever uncertain and ever receding utopian future.
The promise of things that never quite seem to arrive because we need extra millions to...
All very sad!

 

[Ghostisfort]

The point is that heroes are made of people like Shockley and the true history is suppressed. If you can tell us all why this is done then you will know why I bother to write these posts.

Is it because you have a romantic belief in a Golden Age, when the noble Amateur tinkering in their shed produced ideas and inventions with nothing more than their own ingenuity and absolutely no recourse or reliance on any prior science, mathematics, engineering or physics?

I find the above and rynner's demand for evidence quite intriguing.

When I speak of new ideas I don't mean the development of existing technology, something like the digital video recorder, things inevitably destined to appear. We're looking for original ideas that changed the world forever during the Golden Age of discovery, 1800 to 1930 for the sake of argument, although some modern technology started life even earlier.

For starters:
William Crookes (1832–1919) is my first choice and his invention of the Crookes tube that led to the TV cathode ray tube and the vacuum tube (valve UK) used in early radio. It was also the forerunner of the particle accelerator and the LHC.

A particle accelerator is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams. An ordinary CRT television set is a simple form of accelerator. There are two basic types: electrostatic and oscillating field accelerators.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_a ... or#History

Also of note is that he was trained as a chemist and not a physicist as some biographers tend to overlook. He was an amateur, independent physicist and would be called a pseudo scientist today. He did the work that led to the Nobel prize for J.J. Thomson.

From Thompson's Nobel lecture page:
"William Crookes was a productive researcher and highly original and speculative thinker in many areas of physics and chemistry. (See chapter 14, note 29.) His work on electrical discharges in vacuum tubes in the late 1870s laid some foundational work on which Thomson built; indeed, his "Crookes tubes" were widely used in cathode ray research..."
http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/ea/THOMSONann.HTML

Just about everything Thompson did, had already been done by Crookes and a few others. I'm sure I can say with confidence that he did nothing to advance the development of the cathode ray tube and certainly did not discover the electron or even the word electron as suggested in Wiki.

Sir Joseph John "J. J." Thomson, OM, FRS[1] (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel laureate. He is credited for the discovery of the electron and of isotopes, and the invention of the mass spectrometer. Thomson was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the electron and for his work on the conduction of electricity in gases. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._Thomson

Once again we see the credit for invention going to an academic undeservedly.

 

[rynner2]

Bollocks, as usual. It doesn't help that you don't even spell Thomson's name correctly, even though Wiki makes a point about its spelling (which is the Scottish form).

Gif: [Crookes] was an amateur, independent physicist and would be called a pseudo scientist today.

Why? He started his career by spending several years at the Royal College of Chemistry, and later took positions in other academic institutions.
Wiki says:

...he received many public and academic honours.
...
Crookes was knighted in 1897, and in 1910 received the Order of Merit.

Far from being a 'pseudo-scientist', he was a well-known and respected pillar of the community.

He pioneered many scientific fields, but this in no way takes away Thomson's credit for discovering the electron.

Crookes investigated the properties of cathode rays...
..but his theoretical views on the nature of "radiant matter" proved to be mistaken. He believed the rays to consist of streams of particles of ordinary molecular magnitude. It remained for Sir J. J. Thomson to discover their subatomic nature, and to prove that cathode rays consist of streams of negative electrons, that is, of negatively electrified particles whose mass is only 1/1840 that of a hydrogen atom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes

Why oh why do you insist on distorting history, and forcing it into a conspiratorial mould of your own design? I rather think a psychiatrist would enjoy rummaging about in your sub-conscious!

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

Why oh why do you insist on distorting history, and forcing it into a conspiratorial mould of your own design? ...

I pointed this out months ago. There´s nothing to be gained by distorting the facts to rubbish the science.

That really isn´t Fortean, at all.

 

[Cochise]

I suppose we all do accept there was a kind of heroic age of science where individuals sat in armchairs, dreamed up a theory and set out to prove it in their shed or the nearest university lab? Or practical people created things and then the science was worked out afterwards? (or in some cases the practiacal non-scientific people worked out the science anyway - one thinks of the Wright brothers, for example, who succeeded where others failed by properly analyzing the problem).

And that now it is done rather differently, and in a much more commercial way.

The only difference is that some think the modern way of doing this is a conspiracy or driven by crude business financials or other financial considerations, whereas others see it as the natural result of our more complicated times.

Me, I think it is due to a changed world, but not necessarily the changes in the scientific part of it, rather due to more general cultural and social conditions.

One wonders how many potential innovative scientists have actually spent their energy inventing computer games or vacuum cleaners, and how many more who, had they had the money to indulge (like many of the 18th and 19th century scientists) might have come up with stuff, but have actually become accountants because they need to earn a living.

There are many more possible reasons of that nature, but I'm just trying to make the point that the environment now is very very different from that 'heroic age'.

 

[Ghostisfort]

...

Why oh why do you insist on distorting history, and forcing it into a conspiratorial mould of your own design? ...

I pointed this out months ago. There´s nothing to be gained by distorting the facts to rubbish the science.

That really isn´t Fortean, at all.

You would need to point to this as I can't remember it at all. I always reference the things I post, just as you asked me to.

Thomson is remembered mainly for his discovery of the electron."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron

Between 1838 and 1851 "he (British surgeon Richard Laming c.1798-1879) published a series of papers speculating about the electrical makeup of atoms. He hypothesized that there existed sub-atomic particles of unit charge; perhaps one of the first persons ever to do so." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Laming

"By measuring the amount of deflection for a given level of current, in 1890 (Arthur) Schuster was able to estimate the charge-to-mass ratio of the ray components. However, this produced a value that was more than a thousand times greater than what was expected, so little credence was given to his calculations at the time." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron

George Johnstone Stoney
Stoney's most important scientific work was the conception and calculation of the magnitude of the "atom of electricity". In 1891, he proposed the term 'electron' to describe the fundamental unit of electrical charge, and his contributions to research in this area laid the foundations for the eventual discovery of the particle by J.J. Thomson in 1897. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Johnstone_Stoney

What is obvious from the above is that J.J.Thomson did not discover the electron. But, of course, it depends on how much history one can ignore for the sake of a science to hide behind.
I could claim to have discovered the electron myself based on the criteria required for Thomson's Nobel.

Even to this day, it cannot be said that the electron is "explained" or even exists with any certainty. Although it is popularly thought that it is the current carrying particle or even the current itself. After work done in an electrical circuit, there is no evidence that the electrons are diminished in any way.

If a current passes through a transformer for example, the current continues on the other side, having become magnetism and then back to current again. The energy, carried by the alleged electron, that gives rise to what we call electricity is unknown.

 

[rynner2]

Even to this day, it cannot be said that the electron is "explained" or even exists with any certainty. Although it is popularly thought that it is the current carrying particle or even the current itself. After work done in an electrical circuit, there is no evidence that the electrons are diminished in any way.

If a current passes through a transformer for example, the current continues on the other side, having become magnetism and then back to current again. The energy, carried by the alleged electron, that gives rise to what we call electricity is unknown.

Yet another indication that you don't understand what you're talking about. Why would the electrons be 'diminished'? It takes energy to push electrons around a circuit, and this energy can later be extracted in various ways (eg, heat, or machanical power), but the electrons themselves are not changed.

The energy that pushes electrons around is called electromotive force, emf (commonly referred to as voltage), and this can be created from other forms of energy in a variety of ways.
(See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromotive_force )

So electrons are just a means by which energy can be changed from one form to another, just as water molecules are the means by which a hydroelectric power station changes gravitational potential into mechanical power. But the water molecules themselves remain unchanged.

 

[Cochise]

Even to this day, it cannot be said that the electron is "explained" or even exists with any certainty. Although it is popularly thought that it is the current carrying particle or even the current itself. After work done in an electrical circuit, there is no evidence that the electrons are diminished in any way.

If a current passes through a transformer for example, the current continues on the other side, having become magnetism and then back to current again. The energy, carried by the alleged electron, that gives rise to what we call electricity is unknown.

Yet another indication that you don't understand what you're talking about. Why would the electrons be 'diminished'? It takes energy to push electrons around a circuit, and this energy can later be extracted in various ways (eg, heat, or machanical power), but the electrons themselves are not changed.

The energy that pushes electrons around is called electromotive force, emf (commonly referred to as voltage), and this can be created from other forms of energy in a variety of ways.
(See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromotive_force )

So electrons are just a means by which energy can be changed from one form to another, just as water molecules are the means by which a hydroelectric power station changes gravitational potential into mechanical power. But the water molecules themselves remain unchanged.

I ask as a humble enquirer, having revealed that I know next-to-nothing about the subject, but I thought I read somewhere that the idea of the electron as an actual particle was really a convention, and that it was more like a 'shell' or 'ring' around the nucleus which was not anywhere solid? In other words thinking of it as a particle orbiting so quickly that you could never say where it was provided an easier way of visualising it?

I stress I am in no way putting this forward as an argument, its just something I vaguely recall reading. Probably so long ago that it is completely out of date, or that it was just someone's theory.

 

[Ghostisfort]

When the battery is fully charged there is a surplus of electrons on the anode giving it a negative charge and a deficit on the cathode giving it a positive charge resulting in a potential difference across the cell.
http://www.mpoweruk.com/chemistries.htm

I've been looking for a website that explores electricity and its quirks, but I don't seem to be able to find any more.

The guy first shows a conventional circuit, with an AC supply feeding the primary of a transformer.
He then splits the transformer in two, with primary and secondary separate. The two halves are then connected by long iron wires, and he assures us that it still works.

I suppose, based on this, that it's possible to wire a whole house with iron wires and have no electricity present until we reach the sockets equipped with a secondary transformer and power-socket outlet.

The current enters the circuit via the link above. It then becomes a magnetic flux and then returns to the usual electric current. Underlying is a ghostly polarised energy, unidentified save for "electromagnetic/electromotive force", a rationalisation that is supposed to get a nod of understanding.

rynner
""The energy that pushes electrons around is called electromotive force, emf (commonly referred to as voltage), and this can be created from other forms of energy in a variety of ways"".

The electron is also energy and so we have energy pushing energy, the usual circular argument.

There are many electric oddities unexplored by mainstream science since the time of Faraday. The homopolar motor is an example of a motor that works but lacks a coherent theory. http://www.andrijar.com/homopolar/index.html

 

[Ghostisfort]

The next on my list of world-changing discoveries during the Golden Age is the polyphase induction motor invented by Nikola Tesla. There can be no doubt that without this invention, the electronic revolution could not have taken place. He also designed the distribution system, a complete power supply system.

Nikola Tesla conceived the basic principals of the polyphase induction motor in 1883, and had a half horsepower (400 watt) model by 1888. Tesla sold the manufacturing rights to George Westinghouse for $65,000.
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_2/chpt_13/7.html

We also find this guy apparently doing the same thing:

Galileo Ferraris (31 October 1847 – 7 February 1897) was an Italian physicist and electrical engineer, noted mostly for the studies and independent discovery of the rotating magnetic field, a basic working principle of the induction motor.
Ferraris independently researched the rotary magnetic field in 1885. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Ferraris

For those who seem to be hooked on the idea of a linear development of technology: in Tesla's case, the generator was designed to be well over 90% efficient and has not been improved upon to this day.
There has been little or no subsequent development of power generation in the years since and we still use steam engines to produce electricity.

The flat screened TV was described by Philo T Farnsworth in 1957.

"Farnsworth an American inventor and television pioneer...
"...predicted HDTV and solid-state flat-screen technology in a 1957 interview: (See Klmn Tihanyi above)
"[W]e think we can eventually get in excess of 2000 lines instead of 525 and do it on an even narrower channel which will make for a much sharper picture. We believe in the picture-frame type of a picture, where the visual display will be just a screen. And we hope for a memory, so that the picture will be just as though its pasted on there." See Farnsworth also here:
Edit: Link removed. P_M
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_Farnsworth

Again, the idea of a long development is questioned and the delay is due to a lack of investment in a production line by industrialists.

I know from personal experience of the automotive industry that all the major components of a car are a hundred years old. Improvements have been cosmetic or added gadgets.

The idea that everything is linear comes from our education where evolution and history are presented erroneously as being linear. The advertising industry have cashed in on this and encounter no problems in telling us all that next years model will be sooooo superior to last years.

 

[rynner2]

I ask as a humble enquirer, having revealed that I know next-to-nothing about the subject, but I thought I read somewhere that the idea of the electron as an actual particle was really a convention, and that it was more like a 'shell' or 'ring' around the nucleus which was not anywhere solid? In other words thinking of it as a particle orbiting so quickly that you could never say where it was provided an easier way of visualising it?

Yes, as I said elsewhere (and quite recently), our brains did not evolve to handle quantum stuff (and that's the realm we're in with atoms and their constituent 'particles'). This is because, at this level, things have a wave-particle duality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80 ... le_duality

The best we can do at visualising what 'really' goes on is to choose whatever aspect best suits the situation we're looking at. Sometimes an electron is like a particle, other times it's more like a wave. The Wiki page covers it in some depth, so there's no point me repeating it all here.


As for Gif:

The electron is also energy and so we have energy pushing energy, the usual circular argument.

You are confusing electrical energy with the energy of an electron. Electrical energy uses streams of electrons for various purposes, but the electrons themselves remain unchanged, as I explained before.

Electrons, and all other particles with mass, do have energy by virtue of E = mc^2, but this mass normally remains locked inside - it takes a nuclear explosion to release this energy. In the case of electrical energy, it's simplest just to think of electrons as tiny charged particles - their self-energy is not involved.

 

[OneWingedBird]

I read somewhere that the idea of the electron as an actual particle was really a convention, and that it was more like a 'shell' or 'ring' around the nucleus which was not anywhere solid? In other words thinking of it as a particle orbiting so quickly that you could never say where it was provided an easier way of visualising it?

That's pretty much how it was taught in A level Chemistry a few years ago, the electrons don't whizz around the nucleus willy nilly but form a shell, where each shell can hold a certain number of electrons and will try and gain or lose them to reach the nearest stable state, which is either a complete shell or an empty one (with the shell below that one complete).

 

[rynner2]

I read somewhere that the idea of the electron as an actual particle was really a convention, and that it was more like a 'shell' or 'ring' around the nucleus which was not anywhere solid? In other words thinking of it as a particle orbiting so quickly that you could never say where it was provided an easier way of visualising it?

That's pretty much how it was taught in A level Chemistry a few years ago, the electrons don't whizz around the nucleus willy nilly but form a shell, where each shell can hold a certain number of electrons and will try and gain or lose them to reach the nearest stable state, which is either a complete shell or an empty one (with the shell below that one complete).

When I did physics at uni in the mid-1960s, electron shells weren't on our course! I learned about them from looking at the text-books of a friend who was doing chemistry! (The shells determine the chemical properties of atoms: again, Wiki has more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_shell )

 

[Ghostisfort]

In fact, J.J. Thomson will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 for proving the electron is a particle and his son, George Paget Thomson, will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1937 for showing that the electron is a wave." http://www.chemteam.info/AtomicStructur ... story.html

Not mentioned is that it was originally thought of as a wave by many physicists:

1892 Heinrich Hertz who has concluded that cathode rays must be some form of wave, shows that the rays can penetrate thin foils of metal, which he takes to support the wave hypothesis. Philipp von Lenard develops a cathode-ray tube with a thin aluminum window that permits the rays to escape, allowing the rays to be studied in the open air.

1894 J.J. Thomson announces that he has found that the velocity of cathode rays is much lower than that of light. He obtained the value of 1.9 x 107 cm/sec, as compared to the value 3.0 x 1010 cm/sec for light. This was in response to the prediction by Lenard that cathode rays would move with the velocity of light. However, by 1897, he distrusts this measurement.
http://www.chemteam.info/AtomicStructur ... story.html

Wave–particle duality postulates that all particles exhibit both wave and particle properties. A central concept of quantum mechanics, this duality addresses the inability of classical concepts like "particle" and "wave" to fully describe the behavior of quantum-scale objects. Standard interpretations of quantum mechanics explain this paradox as a fundamental property of the Universe, while alternative interpretations explain the duality as an emergent, second-order consequence of various limitations of the observer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80 ... le_duality

What this is in effect saying, is that the electron is neither a wave nor a particle. It's more likely to be a bundle of energy that displays the characteristics of both wave and particle...something not able to be described by science. And so we have both wave and particle.

An electron shell may be thought of as an orbit followed by electrons around an atom's nucleus. The closest shell to the nucleus is called the "1 shell" (also called "K shell"), followed by the "2 shell" (or "L shell"), then the "3 shell" (or "M shell"), and so on further and further from the nucleus. The shell letters K,L,M,... are alphabetical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_shell

Again, it's unlikely that an electron describes and orbit in the accepted sense of the word. How does a bundle of energy behave? Not like a planet, to be sure.