It’s impossible to prove a negative, but the observational evidence is strongly against that proposition. Can you point to even a single example of a layperson coming up with an idea that pushed physics in the right direction?
I saw a documentary on Stephen Hawking where one of his PhD collaborators wrote down what Hawking indicated using what movements he had left. It looked painfully slow and frustrating for both.
You confirm what I said: in applied science there is no division into normal people and "crackpots", just as in everyday situations people always think the same way, regardless of whether they believe in evolution or in flat earth. I have experience in chemistry (I sell software for chemists), but this is not interesting for me, I want to do great things. I suppose a lot of "crackpots" also work as research assistants, but they are not interested in such work.
I suppose there were such cases, but currently I cannot name them. I can cite as an example the idea of Richard Feynman that a positron is an electron moving backward in time. Technically, this is absurd, but such ideas are useful for science.
That's wonderful. But as Edison said, "Invention is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration." The best way to do great things is to first work hard and study to understand what's in the box, not to begin with pontification.
While it is tempting to think this is true, as we all like to believe that anyone can contribute no matter who they are, the reality is that someone who is not heavily educated in mainstream physics has no chance at making a meaningful contribution. At least in the realms of new fundamental physics.
Feynman was a professional scientist, not a layperson.
'Crackpots' vary widely in both education and profession. Many are engineers or in other STEM fields. These are usually the type that write up fancy papers with fancy math that are occasionally used by other crackpots not educated in math and science. Some are simply random people with little science education.
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to get at.
And I wanted to be an optical engineer and design telescopes, cameras, etc. But health problems forced me out of college a few years ago before I could graduate. Could I still design optical systems from home? Certainly. But they would be very poor quality and I would struggle to get anything meaningful done unless I spent another few years learning optical engineering on my own.
The rules for General Discussions say:
Do you have any actual examples of this? I strongly suspect that you don't.
Much science in the West is funded by governments, not by businesses.
"Lay scientists" is an oxymoron by the definitions we are using in this discussion. Either a person has taken the time to actually learn the science they are claiming to make a discovery about, or they haven't. If they have, they're a scientist; if they haven't, they're a lay person. Franklin, by this definition, was a scientist; he happened to be one in an area where what science existed was still in its early stages (electricity), but what there was of it, he knew. So Franklin is not an example of a lay person making an actual scientific discovery.
He was a mathematician, and a very gifted one, yes, who made a number of mathematical discoveries on his own before he had any formal training to speak of. But mathematics is not the same as science.
What scientific discovery did he make?
Which simply means that what you are callling "applied science" is irrelevant to this discussion, since nobody ever makes any discoveries in it.
The topic in the quote put into bold type might fit in the Lounge section, General Discussion -- maybe. Better, it does not honestly belong anywhere on physicsforums, mostly because it is not part of Natural Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science/Computer Technology.
The problem with historical examples from the distant pat is that science was smaller and less formal then. I see Franklin as more of an inventor and tinkerer than formal scientist, but since many things he studied/tinkered with were poorly developed it was possible for him to contribute. Today the entry barrier is much higher. That's why more commonly people constrain the statement to the past 100 years or turn of the 20th century.
A more workable definition would be a person who first tries to learn what others have discovered or derived about science before making his/her own extensions. (Learn what's in the box before thinking out of the box.)
Yes
Absolutely.
if "educated" means "having formal credentials", then I agree, the conversation should not be limited to that. But if "educated" means "took the time to learn what is known in the field, by whatever means", then I think that should be a requirement for someone to join the conversation. My personal heuristic for this is: can the person describe what is currently known in the field in terms that current experts in the field would agree with?
These statements are fundamentally incorrect.
The solution is narrowing the focus. Without modifiers/specialties, there are no "Scientists" anymore. Heck, Einstein might have been the last "Physicist". Now it's "Particle Physicist", "Solid State Physicist", etc.
PF does not cover the universe of scientific conversations. We do not exclude anyone from all conversations, only PF conversations. That's consistent with our mission to teach science defined by textbooks and papers. That is a subset of science, not all of it.
This topic went a huge circle from 'who can submit' (a new theory) to 'who can join'.
Here at PF we certainly don't require any "proof of education" in order to post a thread.
Agreed. The closest thing here at PF is the thread prefix system: B/I/A. We try to encourage the OP to set the level of their thread at the level of the replies that they are looking for in the discussion. As Mentors, we also watch the thread prefixes to try to spot when an OP has either not understood what the prefix represents, or has set the prefix either way high or way low for their apparent background.
Edison wasn’t even that generous. The actual quote is “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
I have read your posts back...
No.