Ten Scientists Commit Suicide!

[RSLancastr]

In a recent (now-deleted) thread on a believer forum, one of the believers brought up something I had not heard before, but which has the distinct aroma of an urban legend about it.

She said that many people simply cannot handle concepts which they find too much at odds with their currently held beliefs (no big news there), but as an example of that, she said (and I am paraphrasing here):

"It's like when science proved that everything - chairs, rocks, people - is made up mostly of empty space, several scientists (I think it was ten) committed suicide. My professor told us this story back in college."Again, I'm paraphrasing there, but I think I have the essence of it right.

I tried to find references to the story on Snopes and elsewhere, but to no avail.

Anyone else familiar with this?

I have no clue why this knowledge would make anyone - let alone a scientist - commit suicide.

[Cynric]

That's nothing!

I heard that God himself vanished in a puff of logic after inventing an online translation engine.

I read it somewhere I think.

[sophia8]

So just when did science prove that "everything - chairs, rocks, people - is made up mostly of empty space"? And like RLancaster said, that concept wouldn't disturb anybody, least of all a scientist. Anyway, how many scientists after the Middle Ages believed that everything was solid?
It's an urban legend all right, on a par with that perennial story about God proving His existence to an atheist professor by playing around with a piece of chalk.

[KingMerv00]

So just when did science prove that "everything - chairs, rocks, people - is made up mostly of empty space"?

Atoms are made up of mostly "empty space" (whatever that is) therefore matter is mostly empty space.

[hgc]

My professor told us this story back in college.Another proud graduate of Bob Jones University.

[headscratcher4]

Regardless of the silliness of the statement, why would such a "discovery" cause anyone to Kill themselves...how would it, as a fact, change anything? Am I missing something?

[ponderingturtle]

I have never heard of any suicides atributed to the Rutherford gold foil experiment, and am sure that none of the participants commited suicide shortly after it.

If it was physicists that year, well is 10 doing that statisticaly significant?

[MWare]

Having new discoveries really is the only way to effectively and humanely control the scientist population. If their numbers become too great, special hunting permits need to be issued - its all quite tiresome. Luckily after new scientific discoveries are made, several will kill themselves. It's only logical.

[Ririon]

Multiple choice question:

A physicist makes a discovery sure to give him a Nobel Prize. Does he:

A: Kill himself?
B: Party like it's 1999 and hurry to write an article for Nature?
C: On Planet X they have all the answers so nobody makes new discoveries.

[ponderingturtle]

Multiple choice question:

A physicist makes a discovery sure to give him a Nobel Prize. Does he:

A: Kill himself?
B: Party like it's 1999 and hurry to write an article for Nature?
C: On Planet X they have all the answers so nobody makes new discoveries.

Well as the discovery noted seems to be the Rutherford gold foil experiment, that showed that the plum pudding model was incorrect and that mass and charge where concentrated into a very small region of the atom. I can find the people involved and when they died.

The experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_foil_experiment) was in 1909. The people involved died in 1937, 1945 and 1970. It does not seem like there was any dirrect connection between discovering that matter is mostly empty and commiting suicide.

You might be able to argue for a connection to the Nazi party as Geiger was a member of that, or being on the new zeland 100 dolar bill, as rutherford is on that.

[Amapola]

This is what I found out. I found this page on the Wikipedia of Scientists who committed suicide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scientists_who_committed_suicide). I found they all died at different times in different parts of the world, and they all worked in many different disciplines. So there aren't a group of 10 who all died at the same time, in the same place by suicide.

Here is an interesting thing, though. George R. Price, born 1922 and died 1975, a geneticist, was an aethiest. He converted to Christianity, gave away all his stuff and then committed suicide.

So I could not find a bunch scientists committing suicide together, but I did find one that committed suicide after converting to Christianity.

[boooeee]

This seems like an odd variation of the Pythagorean legend - the one where they killed the guy that proved that the square root of two was an irrational number.

[alfaniner]

Maybe it was a "binary" 10?

[aggle-rithm]

Five people commited suicide when they heard about cold fusion.

Boy, do they feel stupid now. ;)

[Hellbound]

Five people commited suicide when they heard about cold fusion.

Boy, do they feel stupid now. ;)

Well, we do know that two commited [professional] suicide when they told everyone about it...

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

B: Party like it's 1999 and hurry to write an article for Nature?
Too late, dude. But I wonder what Prince made in royalties on that song in 1999?

~~ Paul

[fuelair]

So just when did science prove that "everything - chairs, rocks, people - is made up mostly of empty space"? And like RLancaster said, that concept wouldn't disturb anybody, least of all a scientist. Anyway, how many scientists after the Middle Ages believed that everything was solid?
It's an urban legend all right, on a par with that perennial story about God proving His existence to an atheist professor by playing around with a piece of chalk.

Essentially early 1900s when they (Rutherford I believe) did the "let's shoot really energetic small particles through really thin gold leaf" experiment and noticed that most passed straight through but a very few were deflected - demonstrating something there but not a heck of a lot of it,

[Dilb]

Essentially early 1900s when they (Rutherford I believe) did the "let's shoot really energetic small particles through really thin gold leaf" experiment and noticed that most passed straight through but a very few were deflected - demonstrating something there but not a heck of a lot of it,

Err, no. The fact that it was a thin piece of gold showed that there wasn't much stuff there (Avogadro's number was worked out before Rutherford's experiment). The observation that this thin piece of gold would occasionally cause the particles to rebound completely indicated that what positively charged stuff was in there was concentrated into an incredibly small volume. The analogy is "imagine firing cannon balls at tissue paper, and seeing one bounce back at you".

Of course, even knowing that the positively charged particles are in a small fraction of the atom's volume doesn't say the atom is mostly empty. If you assume electrons are points with no volume, then you have the problem that 'voluminous' objects don't exist (unless you imagine that electrons are points but protons aren't, which seems like a very odd thing to imagine, in my opinion), and if you allow the electrons to have some volume why shouldn't they take up the entire atom, or at least a large part of it?

[geni]

Well, we do know that two commited [professional] suicide when they told everyone about it...

Not really.

[geni]

She said that many people simply cannot handle concepts which they find too much at odds with their currently held beliefs (no big news there), but as an example of that, she said (and I am paraphrasing here):


At that time the whole physics of the atom being rewriten so I doubt anyone predisposed to comit suicide due to that kind of thing would still be around.

[Hellbound]

Not really.

Well, I was referring to the (well deserved, IMO) lambasting they recieved for their so-called "science by press conference", rather than waiting for peer review and such.

I thought that pretty much ended it for them, but I accept that I haven't really researched the facts of what happened to them afterward, as my goal was humor over accuracy :)

[ceptimus]

if you allow the electrons to have some volume why shouldn't they take up the entire atom, or at least a large part of it?If you work out how much space (whatever that means) could be taken up by the electrons of a heavy element like Radon, then for lighter elements, like Neon, there would still be lots of room between the electrons unless the Neon electrons were bigger than the Radon ones.

[Eos of the Eons]

Anybody ask for the names of the scientists yet? I wonder if that will make the little claimant think for a second.

[ponderingturtle]

Err, no. The fact that it was a thin piece of gold showed that there wasn't much stuff there (Avogadro's number was worked out before Rutherford's experiment). The observation that this thin piece of gold would occasionally cause the particles to rebound completely indicated that what positively charged stuff was in there was concentrated into an incredibly small volume. The analogy is "imagine firing cannon balls at tissue paper, and seeing one bounce back at you".

Of course, even knowing that the positively charged particles are in a small fraction of the atom's volume doesn't say the atom is mostly empty. If you assume electrons are points with no volume, then you have the problem that 'voluminous' objects don't exist (unless you imagine that electrons are points but protons aren't, which seems like a very odd thing to imagine, in my opinion), and if you allow the electrons to have some volume why shouldn't they take up the entire atom, or at least a large part of it?

Well my understanding was that protons being so different in their nature from electrons do have some size. Of course you might be able to argue that he components of the proton do not have size themselves. Kind of like a atom has a size, but the components do not.

I am not quite versed in the details of the standard model to say that clearly about this issue. Wikipedia does list a size for a proton but not an electron.

Ah I was right about electrons being a fundamental partical while protons are not as they are made up of quarks

see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton

[Dilb]

If you work out how much space (whatever that means) could be taken up by the electrons of a heavy element like Radon, then for lighter elements, like Neon, there would still be lots of room between the electrons unless the Neon electrons were bigger than the Radon ones.

Allright, I'll guess that the greater field from a heavy nucleus compresses the volume of the electron. Sounds reasonable enough to me, as much as I can guess what reasonable would be for subatomic phyiscs in 1910.

ponderingturtle, I'm just attempting to imagine what scientists could have thought about the atom after Rutherford's experiment. I think that by the time scientists learned about quarks quantum mechanics muddled up discussions about the volume of electrons so that asking about the volume is somewhat pointless (though I wouldn't be surprised to learn I'm wrong).

[ponderingturtle]

Allright, I'll guess that the greater field from a heavy nucleus compresses the volume of the electron. Sounds reasonable enough to me, as much as I can guess what reasonable would be for subatomic phyiscs in 1910.

ponderingturtle, I'm just attempting to imagine what scientists could have thought about the atom after Rutherford's experiment. I think that by the time scientists learned about quarks quantum mechanics muddled up discussions about the volume of electrons so that asking about the volume is somewhat pointless (though I wouldn't be surprised to learn I'm wrong).

Well the atom would have been under much discussion, but basicly they would have thought it had a small charged core instead of a difuse postively charged media as was previously thought to be the case. It would not have been until the discovery of the proton and the idea that there was things that made up nucleous and such that changed things.

[geni]

ponderingturtle, I'm just attempting to imagine what scientists could have thought about the atom after Rutherford's experiment. I think that by the time scientists learned about quarks quantum mechanics muddled up discussions about the volume of electrons so that asking about the volume is somewhat pointless (though I wouldn't be surprised to learn I'm wrong).

We know what they thought:

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

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

[RSLancastr]

Anybody ask for the names of the scientists yet? I wonder if that will make the little claimant think for a second.I asked for details, but before I got an answer (if indeed one was forthcoming), the thread was locked, then deleted, then I was banned.

[Foster Zygote]

Anybody ask for the names of the scientists yet? I wonder if that will make the little claimant think for a second.

They can be found with the 51 scientific "facts".

Steven

[Dilb]

We know what they thought:

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

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

Neither theory, as far as I'm aware, says much about the structure of electrons, whether it's point or a volume. The Bohr model could place a limit on the size it can occupy and still have it's centre of mass appropriately positioned so the angular momentum works out (assuming you don't allow oddly shaped mass distributions), but I don't see anything in the theory that would say atoms are mostly empty space.

[ponderingturtle]

Neither theory, as far as I'm aware, says much about the structure of electrons, whether it's point or a volume. The Bohr model could place a limit on the size it can occupy and still have it's centre of mass appropriately positioned so the angular momentum works out (assuming you don't allow oddly shaped mass distributions), but I don't see anything in the theory that would say atoms are mostly empty space.

electrons where known to be close to an effective point particle before that. The rutherford experiment showed that the positive material in an atom is also highly concnetrated. Between them you can see that most of the volume in an atom is not occupied by any particle.

The rutherford experiment does show that atoms are mostly emty space because it shows that their mass must be highly concentrated in one place or you would not get the rebound of the alpha particle. You know the mass and energy of the alpha particle and to rebound like that it needs to hit a highly concentrated mass as well. This has to be small or most of them would not pass through uneffected.

[Dilb]

electrons where known to be close to an effective point particle before that. The rutherford experiment showed that the positive material in an atom is also highly concnetrated. Between them you can see that most of the volume in an atom is not occupied by any particle.

I don't see how that follows. Electrons were known to be quantized and less massive compared to the rest of the stuff in the atom, but I don't see how that's evidence that they have an extremely small volume.

[bruto]

This sounds like an inflated, overwrought version of a rather cute story told by Loren Eiseley, in The Firmament of Time, even then cited as a "legend" among scientists, about a physicist who in his dotage took to wearing enormous floppy slippers to forestall the possibility of falling through the interstices of matter.

The pulsing rivers of his blood, the awe-inspiring movement of his thoughts had become a vague cloud of electrons interspersed with the light-year distances that obtain between us and the further galaxies. This was the natural world which he had helped to create, and in which, at last, he found himself a lonely and imprisoned occupant. All around him the ignorant rushed on their way over the illusion of substantial floors, leaping, though they did not see it, from particle to particle over a bottomless abyss. There was even a question as to the reality of the particles that bore them up. It did not, however, keep insubstantial newspapers from being sold nor insubstantial love from being made.

[ponderingturtle]

I don't see how that follows. Electrons were known to be quantized and less massive compared to the rest of the stuff in the atom, but I don't see how that's evidence that they have an extremely small volume.

Known to be quantized? This is before the bohr model, indeed that is a reaction to this as the plum pudding model didn't work any more so you could not have electrons hanging out in a decentralized positively charged medium. This was around the time that the charge was measured and such. You seem to be incorperating discoveries made as a result of the Rutherford experiment as being already known.

OR did you mean electrons where known to be individual particales, that is about fundamental as well.

I don't understand what you are trying to say, would please state your position clearly.

[Dilb]

Known to be quantized? This is before the bohr model, indeed that is a reaction to this as the plum pudding model didn't work any more so you could not have electrons hanging out in a decentralized positively charged medium. This was around the time that the charge was measured and such. You seem to be incorperating discoveries made as a result of the Rutherford experiment as being already known.

OR did you mean electrons where known to be individual particales, that is about fundamental as well.

I don't understand what you are trying to say, would please state your position clearly.

I ment electrons were known to have a fixed quantity of charge, rather than being infinitely divisible.

[ponderingturtle]

I ment electrons were known to have a fixed quantity of charge, rather than being infinitely divisible.

That comes with the idea of them being particles. Once you define an electron then at least charge based on electrons must be descreet as you can only have a descreet number of electrons.

There relative size would have been shown to be small in experiments with cathode rays and the like(which is where they where discovered). The plum pudding model was based on the idea that electrons are much smaller than atoms, and are just kind of sitting there like nuts in a plumb pudding. The Rutherford experiment showed that while atomic size is pretty big it is almost entirely empty. So that certain information about the size was well known or readily measureable from this.

I think avogaldro's number was known and you can get a fair idea about molecular size through a few experiments with oil slicks and such.

So the relative sizes where at least understood if not as dirrectly measured as we have done them now.

[Dilb]

That comes with the idea of them being particles. Once you define an electron then at least charge based on electrons must be descreet as you can only have a descreet number of electrons.

Yes they're discrete, but it seems to me they could still be volume charges.

There relative size would have been shown to be small in experiments with cathode rays and the like(which is where they where discovered).

Unless there was an amazing experiment I missed, cathode ray experiments only showed the electrons had a charge to mass ratio of some value. Milikan's oil drop experiment then determined the charge, and that allowed calculation of the mass, which they found to be a small part of an atoms mass. But I'm not aware of any experiment that measured a spatial size of electrons. There are semiclassical electron sizes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_electron_radius), and I don't think any of them are based on experiment, and I'm not too sure anyone really believed they were true.

[Cuddles]

Yes they're discrete, but it seems to me they could still be volume charges.



Unless there was an amazing experiment I missed, cathode ray experiments only showed the electrons had a charge to mass ratio of some value. Milikan's oil drop experiment then determined the charge, and that allowed calculation of the mass, which they found to be a small part of an atoms mass. But I'm not aware of any experiment that measured a spatial size of electrons. There are semiclassical electron sizes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_electron_radius), and I don't think any of them are based on experiment, and I'm not too sure anyone really believed they were true.

Classical electron radius was never meant to be an actual size of an electron, it merely chracterises certain interations with other particles. It is called the electron "radius" because it is defined in the same way as the real radius of other particles (hydrogen atom for example).

Higher energy particles have shorter wavelengths and so allow smaller particles to be investigated. So far there is evidence that protons and neutrons are made of quarks, and it has been suggested that quarks may be made of smaller particles, which should show up in experiments at the LHC and ILC in the next few years. Electrons are even smaller than this, so even if they do have a finite size, it will not be possible to test this until much more powerful accelerators are built.

[Eos of the Eons]

I asked for details, but before I got an answer (if indeed one was forthcoming), the thread was locked, then deleted, then I was banned.

Yeah. Quickest way to get banned is to show you need more information instead of happily swallowing garbage and contributing more to show team spirit.

I once got banned for asking "How is polio natural to gut flora??".

[American]

I am sure that her professor said exactly that, and that he was being hyperbolic.

Had he said, "They all did back-flips over the discovery," Little Miss Dim would have taken that literally too.

[ponderingturtle]

Yes they're discrete, but it seems to me they could still be volume charges.



Unless there was an amazing experiment I missed, cathode ray experiments only showed the electrons had a charge to mass ratio of some value. Milikan's oil drop experiment then determined the charge, and that allowed calculation of the mass, which they found to be a small part of an atoms mass. But I'm not aware of any experiment that measured a spatial size of electrons. There are semiclassical electron sizes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_electron_radius), and I don't think any of them are based on experiment, and I'm not too sure anyone really believed they were true.

It is not about if they are a true point partical or not, it is that regardless if they have some volume or not, it is so small compared to atoms and nucleons that its size can be be safely ignored for these interactions. If it has a radius or not doesn't matter if it is on a totaly different scale than everything else you care about.

So they knew that compared to everything else it did not have a size that was relevent and could be treated as a point particle and get accurate results. That is all physics ever does, it is all about aproximations like this.

Do electrons have a volume? I don't know and I don't have not seen it matter

[Dilb]

It is not about if they are a true point partical or not, it is that regardless if they have some volume or not, it is so small compared to atoms and nucleons that its size can be be safely ignored for these interactions. If it has a radius or not doesn't matter if it is on a totaly different scale than everything else you care about.

So they knew that compared to everything else it did not have a size that was relevent and could be treated as a point particle and get accurate results. That is all physics ever does, it is all about aproximations like this.

Do electrons have a volume? I don't know and I don't have not seen it matter

I still have to disagree. A spherical charge distribution is pretty much indistinguishable from a point charge, so even when something is obviously not a point charge it can have the same field. I still think it wasn't obvious that it's volume was small compared to atoms, in general. Just because electron might have a larger volume doesn't mean things are going to 'hit' it and scatter. The 'solidness' of matter is caused by the outer electrons applying an electric force against each other, so it seems reasonable to think that other particles can pass through the electron and are only affected by the electric field. With the small field of individual electrons this makes the size irrelevant for most experiments, but it doesn't mean the electron is small.

[ponderingturtle]

I still have to disagree. A spherical charge distribution is pretty much indistinguishable from a point charge, so even when something is obviously not a point charge it can have the same field. I still think it wasn't obvious that it's volume was small compared to atoms, in general. Just because electron might have a larger volume doesn't mean things are going to 'hit' it and scatter. The 'solidness' of matter is caused by the outer electrons applying an electric force against each other, so it seems reasonable to think that other particles can pass through the electron and are only affected by the electric field. With the small field of individual electrons this makes the size irrelevant for most experiments, but it doesn't mean the electron is small.

A sphereical charge distrobution is indistingushable from a point charge, unless you hit the sphere. So if it was not obvious why did the plum pudding model(the standard before rutherford's experiment) have the electrons as small items with in the larger positive charge of the atom?

That model shows that electrons where concidered to be much smaller than an atom, it is built on that principal. So why are you saying that this idea was not understood at the time of discussion? The accepted model of the atom had electrons being very small compaired to the rest of the atom. What rutherford showed was the the real pieces of the rest of the atom where small as well.

You don't seem to have a good grasp what was known at the time being discussed. If no one new that electrons where very small compaired to atoms, why was the commonly accepted model using such a definition of electrons.

As for the solidity of matter, that understanding was a result of learning that most of matter is empty space, and that was discovered by rutherford when he discovered the nucleous.

[Dilb]

A sphereical charge distrobution is indistingushable from a point charge, unless you hit the sphere. So if it was not obvious why did the plum pudding model(the standard before rutherford's experiment) have the electrons as small items with in the larger positive charge of the atom?

I've never seen the plum pudding model use tiny electrons. Having just browsed through the two historical articles from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_pudding_model) neither say anything about size, expect as an assumption in order to try and model what would happen in a plum pudding atom. If it was commonly accepted that electrons were points I really would have expected to have heard about it at somepoint.