Saturday, November 20, 2004

Fool's Gold

Ludwig Boltzmann







1 comment:

nige said...

The link says:

"Boltzmann's contribution was vital, but had a tragic outcome. Towards the end of the nineteenth century several puzzling facts (which eventually led to quantum theory), triggered a reaction against 'materialist' science, and some people even questioned whether atoms exist. Boltzmann, whose work was based on the concept of atoms, found himself cast as their chief defender and the debates became increasingly bitter. Always prone to bouts of depression, Boltzmann came to believe that his life's work had been rejected by the scientific community, although this was far from being true. In 1906, he committed suicide. If despair over rejection, or frustration over being unable to prove his point, were contributing factors the irony would be great indeed. Soon after Boltzmann's death, clinching evidence was found for atoms, and few would ever doubt their existence again."

It is nice that the scientific community is never wrong, and that so many people are not all wrong. It is nice that they don't call people egotists or ignore work based on Mach's or Bohr's philosophy.

Notice also that revisionist history avoids the statement that Jesus was crucified by the mass and only had 12 real followers, one of whom was a doubter and another of whom betrayed Jesus.

Instead, revisionist history says Jesus was crucified deliberately to accord to supernatural scripture, and that Jesus was really a very popular figure!