This is one way to ‘save’ a lot of atomic models from being completely unrealistic. According to electromagnetic theory, point charges always radiate, but Ehrenfest demonstrated that an extended charge distribution could accelerate without radiation. At that time, before Bohr came up with his model of the atom and ushered in the era of quantum mechanics, most atomic models involved electrons accelerating in some manner. To counter this attitude, I present the following post: The gallery of failed atomic models.īack in April, I wrote a post about a 1910 paper written by Ehrenfest on charge distributions which can accelerate without radiating. This attitude can be stifling, as it prevents researchers from suggesting answers for fear of being ‘wrong’. Unfortunately, many people, including many scientists, feel that science is about ‘always being right’. Even a good scientist will come up with many wrong turns in trying to understand a complicated phenomenon. Science is all about testing ideas via experiment: ideas which match the current experimental evidence can be overturned when new experiments come to light. While this is perfectly understandable in a textbook (it is rather inefficient to teach students all of the wrong answers before teaching them the right answer), it can lead to an inaccurate and somewhat sterile view of how science actually works. Physics textbooks, for instance, often describe the development of a theory in a highly abbreviated manner, omitting many of the false starts and wrong turns that were taken before the correct answer was found. While this statement is usually referring to the winners of a military or political conflict, a similar effect occurs in the history of science. It is often said that history is “written by the victors”.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |