OT (a bit) Flying saucers were Italian!

[Dr. Whom]

The weirdest conspiracy theories surround Marconi. Apparently he demonstrated some kind of electromagnetic weapon to Mussolini, which was capable of stopping an engine at a distance. The weapon wasn't developed on the express request of the Pope. This didn't stop Marconi from conducting further experiments. He faked his own death in 1936 to retire to a secret underground scientific community in South America. There he worked on the concepts of energy transfer and antigravity of Nikola Tesla. Based on this principle, flying saucers were built, who reached Mars somewhere in the late 40s, early 50s.

It is all on the internet! Google Marconi, Tesla, Death Ray and Flying Saucers a bit and you'll see!

The most revealing is, of course, that the flying saucers weren't manned by little green men saying ack ack ack, but by Italians!

[akiratubo]

Uh, ok.

[Shadowphile]

Sounds like the plot of a bad movie

[Neville]

Mamma mia!

(insert your favourite Super Mario sound clip here)

[Dr. Whom]

It would make a great scene, with a flying saucer landing, camera crews everywhere, half the US army in attendance, and out steps a short dark haired guy saying Bongiorno!

[Yaddo 42]

And that man would have to be Roberto Bennini (sic, it's too late to look up the proper spelling) from "Life is Beautiful".

Is this the kind of stuff those conspiracy books about Tesla and Marconi I used to see advertised in the back of various non-mainstream magazines were talking about? I always wondered but didn't want to shell out the bucks for them.

[Dr. Whom]

Well, unless there are still OTHER conspiracy theories, these should be it. It should be made in a movie. It has absolutely everything: death rays, lone scientist, secret bases in the andes, flying saucers, nazis and the Pope!

[Flangepart]

And the leader of it all? Sasquatch!

[loyal1]

This has to be one of my favorite conspiracy theories.

You know, sometimes you just never know...and it's that kind of thinking that leads to great imaginations based on a few scientific theories and pronciples.  Isn't that what science is...proving a theory that isn't fact?

But just because some theory is proved...history shows that it does not really equal truth and fact.  Something else will be discovered and we say "Hmmmm, maybe this isn't how things really work...."

[ulthar]

loyal1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>  Isn't that what science
> is...proving a theory that isn't fact?
>

No, that's not what science is.  In science, the Physical Sciences anyway, the term "theory" means something quite different than the popular, lay usage.

Theories and facts are two DIFFERENT things.

To a scientist, facts are observations - the results of experiments.

Theories are explanations that connect collections of facts.  

No "real" scientist sets out to prove or disprove a theory - it cannot be done and there is no point.  Experiments are done to TEST theories and specifically to try to falsify them.  That's one of the two main tenets of science: you must ask TESTABLE questions ("is there a God" is not science, for example) and theories must be falsifiable.

A theory cannot be proven or disproven.  It's not really in our vocabulary to "prove" a theory.  There are often multiple theories that encompass the same set of facts.  All that a theory must be to be 'valid' is consistent with the observed facts.

There is an excellent historical example of how the term theory is often misunderstood.  Based on a set of facts understood in Ancient Greece at the time, Ptolemy put forth a theory that the Earth was the center of the "solar system," and this theory stood for 1500 years.  Often derided nowadays as "wrong," it really was not wrong at all.  Ptolemy's theory was perfectly valid because it was completely consistent with ALL the known factual data at that time.

Copernicus discovered that an alternative theory, one with the sun at the center of the solar system, was ALSO completely consistent with the known facts at that time.  Both theories were completely correct given the data set available.  Tycho Brahe realized that a few key measurements could be done to distinguish between them; if these new measurements were made, no longer could BOTH stand together; one must fall.

This was a 'great day' for mankind.  This was one of the most significant, and perhaps the first, instance of an experiment being specifically designed to falsify one of two then-equal theories.

Brahe performed the experiments - many, many painstaking measurements that took years.  So much data was collected that the issue was not really decided until Brahe's student, Johannes Kepler, did the mathematical analysis that determined Ptolemy's theory was falsified and Copernicus' theory remained consistent with the new set of facts.

And thus we believe today the sun is the center of the solar system.

The important lesson in this story is not who was right.  There are two key take-home points.  One, both theories were equally correct until new facts were collected to make a distinction and two, very important, it is experiment that drives all science.

Sorry.  The new semester starts next week and I am going into "that mode."  Yes, I'm teaching again, and I'm not sure if I am really excited about it or not.