scientists as superstars

Exactly. Many great inventions were by amateurs, crazy people without degrees, connections, membership in learned societies, or much money.

The US culture allows, actually encourages, that sort of paradigm breaking. Stuffier countries supress un-authorized invention.

This happens in culture, too. Clothes, food, music, movies, language, internet stuff.

But it worked. Two guys with a bicycle shop did it. Read the story.

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What's your point? That BBQ ribs were invented in Germany?

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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jlarkin
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Why do you make up this sort of nonsense?

More contempt. You are all about contempt. You must be very insecure to have such a need to mock.

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jlarkin

The European refugees didn't have much choice about where they went.

Quite possibly, but it isn't earth shattering.

The electric light bulb didn't go anywhere? The telegraph didn't go anywhere? Nukes didn't go anywhere?

A lot? In the past yes, but not as much as you seem to imagine.

Plus, of course, you've ignored all the things the Americans didn't develop.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

It's a pretty big world. But a lot of european scientists came, and still come, to the USA.

The point is that these inventions flourished here. There are many cases of likely prior art in europe, but that never went anywhere. The Homebrew Computer Club changed the world.

Europe seems to have slowed down a lot in invention, in the last maybe

200 years. China and Japan don't invent a lot of new stuff either. The Chinese are good at industrializing but don't invent much. England had scads of opportunities that were lost.
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John Larkin

This is the big hole in that argument: the requirement to publish is part of the routine business of finding out if an effect can be reproduced by an independent effort. The occasional lack of reproducibility is a scientific bit of progress, telling you that there are some variables (or uncertainties), perhaps not yet understood.

It isn't about fame, it's about knowledge and understanding, and even looking STRAIGHT AT IT you don't see that. Your preconceptions are the reason we often disagree with your findings. What you claim and report is not the truth of science in the world, but of the image of science in your mind.

So?

Reply to
whit3rd

Telegraph flourished in Europe first, and then was of key strategic importance in the British Empire. It flourished there too.

So did the British, e.g. with the world's first commercial computer that was used, of all things, for ordering supplies for a chain of tea/coffee/cake shops back in 1951 (LEO 1 computer for the J Lyons & Co)

For Europe, 50 years more like.

China is rapidly improving in that respect, and westerners would be foolish to rest on their laurels.

Absolutely. That's been a running sore all my life.

"King Rat" by James Clavell (based on his WW2 experience in Changi) comes close to illustrating why.

Boris Johnson and co are the current illustration. Shortform: an unwarranted belief that good breeding is more important than competence.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Man, we have one of the meanest most contemptuous vindictive SOBs who ever lived for a President. and lots of people love him, he wouldn't be President if they didn't. He's careful to only say nice things about certain types of people, though.

Me? I'm just not that careful

Reply to
bitrex

The Wrights may not have had high-falutin' degrees; but they weren't bumpkins or amateurs or "crazy people" who made miracles happen with spitballs and gumption and their own hands. They were methodical and persistent and read the literature and could do the math and were aware of others failures and learned from them.

That is to say most previous attempts at heavier-than-air flight had been made by dilettantes, they approached the problem scientifically.

Reply to
bitrex

Have you researched all of them?

I just got a call from a Big Thinker in the semiconductor business, who ranted for half an hour about current events. He agrees with me, anyone who has spent their life in politics is long decoupled from reality, but DT has common sense and does good stuff, but should just keep his mouth shut more. But there is the alternate theory that DT is so smart, he knows exactly what he is doing.

R has studied DT a lot more than I have. He is a thinker. Both of them I guess.

All successful companies have a few Big Thinkers.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
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John Larkin

It's important for people to differentiate a scientist from an engineer. It is mostly rogue engineers who have given science a bad name. If one of those nut cases becomes a "hero," we're in serious trouble.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

I could be wrong, but Language meaning is not the strongest suit for Engineers.

So may I defer to experts. Some have contributed to the Wiki definition, which includes Engineers under Applied Science and therefore if you have been involved in R&D then indeed you are a scientist.

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But then not all scientists, Lawyers and Doctos are created equal. So this is not a binary question , but an analog one with degrees or exponentials depending on education or actual inventions, or applied science products created.

I know one Engineer who was OK in RF but did much better in Financial Advisory, so he would probably not consider himself a scientist. Nor would you consider some Engineer who has spent most of their time in Project Management to be a scientist.

Bill S. considers a scientist only if the requirement is met with a peer reviewed published report. Even my son-in-law who has tenure at U of T in Power Engineering says. most of those papers are crap.

When I once applied to HP in Loveland Co. the requirement wasn't just papers publish, but how many and how which field the PhD's were in. Physics being the most respected.

I realize not everyone will agree with Wiki on this, but science is not just a matter of papers or degrees but also diligence in critical thought and finding solutions when none seem to exist.

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Here is an Engineer/Scientist who wants to be a politician. The poor guy who want to work with those bastards but with an appealing moralist motivation is running against Elizabeth Warren.

Reply to
Anthony Stewart

What happened? With radar and code breaking machines and systems operations from the war, England should have dominated electronics and computers.

Nobody is resting. People keep inventing and building things. There is no academic or government or financial institution to stop them.

Yes. Is the class structure still very important?

ARM is one success story, but it's a Chinese company now.

I've been told that class/caste structures inhibit India. Some classes simply don't work with their hands. That's why they produce great theorists but not so many inventors.

Bell Labs (sadly missed) deliberately mixed up practical telephone people with Nobel-class scientists. That was very fertile.

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John Larkin

This is astounding:

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"One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are -- for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable -- they just don't believe science and they don't believe authority," Fauci said.

"So when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to it, who's talking about science, that there are some people who just don't believe that -- and that's unfortunate because, you know, science is truth," Fauci said.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
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John Larkin

e:

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isn't ARM mostly owned by Softbank, a Japanese company?

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

I don't let business associates/clients talk to me about any topic that's not business or software or electronics for a half hour, much less politics or current events. I politely stop them and say perfectly honestly "I don't discuss these topics with clients it tends to be bad for business. Everyone has opinions and we see them and talk about them all the time elsewhere."

The majority seem satisfied with this answer. I'm not a confidant or therapist or buddy and conversely nobody's paying me for my opinions.

I think Apple could have done as well without Steve Jobs' return, they just needed to have not hired John Sculley or Michael Spindler.

Reply to
bitrex

I like this guy, and he's interesting, and he is very influential. He's fun to talk to.

Can you afford to blow off important people?

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
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John Larkin

Am 20.06.20 um 01:29 schrieb Lasse Langwadt Christensen:

Yes, it's a Japanese company.

Gerhard

Reply to
Gerhard Hoffmann

Don't forget Morris and Mullards. ;(

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Phil Hobbs

Part of it was that the US exacted a heavy price for its supplies. Essentially the US bankrupted us, and we didn't benefit from the Marshall Plan after the war.

Part of it is the incompetence of the ruling classes.

Difficult to give a simple answer.

The presumption and arrogance is still there, but there is less deference by the lower orders.

That's not bad, except when the lack of deference spills over to everybody, usually accompanied by an barely articulated "my opinion is as good as yours".

No, my opinion about medical options is not as good a doctor's. Nor is my doctors opinion about software safety as good as mine.

Japanese. But there is an entertaining-from-a-distance spat with the top Chinese official. He's been sacked but is refusing to go :)

Too simplistic, as is any statement about India.

In general they have a strong concept of "my work", "not my work", and "your work".

Yes.

That kind of thing can happen here too, but fundamental science and research is out of fashion.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

You said he ranted for a half-hour. That's not a "conversation." Perhaps you don't mean he continually talked for a half-hour.

I hear "conversations" sometimes like that, people talking on cell phones, the other party's going on and on and the person on the phone is just saying "uh huh" "right I get that" "hmmm yeah" I could write a software to just automatically respond with audio clips of my voice for calls like that while I get something else done. That's an engineering solution!

I don't blow anyone off, I'm not hanging up on them or such. I have my boundaries such as they are; if someone can't accept that I ask for a minimal amount of respect regarding them I know from experience they tend to be deadbeats regardless of how "important" they are or think they are. You think millionaires never stiff anyone on the bill?

Reply to
bitrex

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