Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein - Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe
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Dynamics, 235
molecular, 287n
see also Thermodynamics
Earth, age of, 60–83, 199, 240, 281n
Kelvin’s calculation of, 59, 69–79, 81, 84–87, 91–102, 164, 210, 280n
Newton on, 64–66
Eddington, Arthur, 162, 191, 195–96, 221, 227, 293n
cosmological constant advocated by, 224, 243–44
hydrogen fusion concept of, 100, 161–62, 164–65
Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom, The (Darwin), 53
Eggleton, Peter, 213–15
Einstein, Albert, 7, 10, 101, 185, 187, 220–45, 242, 262–71, 281n
assumption of large-scale homogeneity and isotropy of space concept of, 185, 262
and cosmological constant, 223–25, 229–33, 252, 255–57, 264–65, 267, 298n, 300n, 301n
and discovery of expanding universe, 187, 189–91
Eddington and, 162
general relativity theory of, see General relativity
Lemaître and, 250, 299n
special relativity theory of, 220, 225–26, 264
Elements
formation of, 161–66 (see also Nucleosynthesis)
periodic table of, 160, 160–61, 163, 293n
“Einstein’s Greatest Blunder” (Leahy), 241
Elliot, John, 158
Elliott, Arthur, 112
Ellis-van Creveld syndrome, 34, 276n
Empedocles, 160
Empty space, 208, 247–52, 255, 257, 262
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 52, 53
England, 67, 120, 129–31, 148, 158, 161, 203
Christian chronologists in, 61
industrial revolution in, 32
late-Victorian, 40
in World War II, 182
see also Cambridge University; Oxford University
England, Philip, 95
Eniwetok Atoll, hydrogen bomb test on, 178
Equilibrium, 167, 288n
convective, 90
statistical, 169
unstable, 224
Escobar, Pablo, 243
Essay on the Principle of Population, An (Malthus), 275n
Eternal inflation, 161
Evolution, 1, 8–10, 12–36, 114, 202–3
age of Earth and, 59, 66–67, 72, 80–81, 93
cosmic, 10, 18, 156, 176, 180, 183–84, 206, 254, 263 (see also Big bang theory; Expanding universe)
intelligent design versus, 18, 26, 30, 80
mechanisms of, see Heredity; Natural selection
“Evolutionary Universe, The” (Gamow), 232
Expanding universe, 187–98, 188, 196, 231
acceleration of, 224, 226–27, 252–56
discovery of, 187, 190, 192–93, 197, 223, 231
general relativity and, 199, 244
see also Big bang
“Expanding Universe, The” (Lemaître), 198
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, The (Darwin), 274n
Extinction, 20, 22, 23, 30, 32, 33, 154
population size and, 40–41
Eyring, Henry, 235
Faulkner, John, 179, 213–15
Federal Bureau of Investigation, US, 155
Fermi, Enrico, 129, 168–69, 294n
Festinger, Leon, 96
Few and New Observations, upon the Book of Genesis, A (Lightfoot), 61
Feynman, Richard, 226, 281n
Field equations, 224–25, 230, 231, 247
Finlay-Freundlich, Erwin, 185
Finsbury Technical College, 281n
Fischer, Bobby, 5
Fisher, R. C., 179
Fisher, Ronald, 58
FitzGerald, George, 282n
Focke, Wilhelm Olbers, 53
Fölsing, Albrecht, 235
Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de, 63
Forbes, James David, 71
Fourier, Joseph, 71–72
Fowler, P. H., 179
Fowler, Willy, 171, 173, 178–82, 179, 181, 207
France, 129, 131
in World War I, 158
Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, 56
Franklin, Rosalind, 120–21, 123–26, 129–30, 139, 144–45, 148, 150–52, 287–88nn
Freud, Sigmund, 7, 217–18
Fri, Antonén, 56–57
Friedmann, Aleksandr, 190, 221, 230, 238, 239, 267
Frisch, Otto, 169
Galaxies, 25, 211, 221, 251, 257, 259–62
active, 209, 213
and cosmological constant, 231, 243, 270
in expanding universe, 187–92, 222, 252–54
in steady state universe, 184–85, 198–99, 201–7
see also Milky Way galaxy
Galen of Pergamum, 216
Galileo Galilei, 16, 62, 83, 265, 281n
Gamow, George, 155, 156, 165–66, 292n, 294nn
big bang theory conceived by, 167–68, 180, 201, 210, 232
Einstein and, 232–37, 241, 267, 300n
Hoyle’s role in theory of formation of elements recognized by, 175–76
Gann, Alexander, 124
Geikie, Archibald, 75, 80
General relativity, 24, 62, 220–29, 264, 268, 269
black holes predicted by, 263
and cosmological constant, 222–25, 239–41, 247–49, 265
Eddington’s advocacy of, 162
in expanding universe, 189–91, 222, 244, 252
space-time in, 189, 220–22, 225–29
in steady state cosmology, 199–200, 244–45
Genetic drift, 33–35
Genetics, 20, 30, 33
modern, 41–42, 50
population, 66
see also DNA: Heredity
Geological record, 21, 66
Geological Society of Glasgow, 76
Geological Society of London, 82
Geological Survey of Scotland, 80
Geologist, 275n
George VI, King of England, 203
George Washington University, 155
Germany, 57, 166
in World War II, 7, 182, 233
Gilbert, W. S., 37
Glasgow University, 67, 68, 79
Goertzel, Ted and Ben, 286n
Gold, Thomas “Tommy,” 182–83, 186–87, 198, 199, 201–4, 206, 209, 295n
Gondoliers (Gilbert and Sullivan), 37
Gosling, Raymond, 124, 126, 144, 148, 150–51
GPS satellites, 229
Gradualism, 18, 20–21, 58, 66
Gravitation, 185, 221, 227, 237, 240
and Sun’s energy, 74, 100, 172, 291n
Newton’s law of, 43, 226, 246–48
repulsive force of, 230, 246, 248
Greaves, William, 203
Greece, ancient, 229, 242
mythology of, 6, 7
Gribbin, J. R., 179
Gribbin, M., 179
Guggenheim Foundation, 134, 141
Gurney, Ronald, 166
Guth, Alan, 218
Habitable zones, 261
Haldane, J. B. S., 26, 58
Hale, George Ellery, 227
Halley, Edmond, 206
Harding, R., 179
Heaviside, Oliver, 282n
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm, 225
Heisenberg, Werner, 281n
Helmholtz, Hermann von, 74, 100, 164
Heredity
blending, 38–44, 43, 45, 47, 49–50, 52, 56
Mendelian heredity, 43, 46, 47, 49–58, 115
Herman, Robert, 168, 210
Hershey, Alfred, 131
Hewish, Antony, 182
High-Z Supernova Search Team, 253
Hinduism, ancient, 60, 278n
Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Parculière (Buffon), 65, 278n
Hoffmann, Hermann, 53
Home Is Where the Wind Blows (Hoyle), 208, 215
Homogeneity, 184–85, 218, 262
“Homogeneous Universe of Constant Mass and Increasing Radius Accounting for the Radial Velocity of Extra-Galactic Nebulae” (Lemaître), 191, 195
<
br /> Hooker, Joseph Dalton, 50
Houtermans, Fritz, 166
Hoyle, Barbara, 208
Hoyle, Fred, 10, 156, 172–84, 179, 181, 198–220, 209, 219, 269–71, 293nn, 295n
background of, 158–59
big bang theory rejected by, 157–58, 213–15
and cosmological constant, 244–45
idiosyncratic ideas on origin of life of, 216–17, 219, 298n
steady state cosmology of, 183, 184, 186–87, 191, 192, 198–213, 218, 244, 247, 295n
on stellar nucelosynthesis of, 101, 169–82
Hsien Wu, 285n
Hubble, Edwin, 197–99, 202, 209, 253
age of universe implied by observations by, 240, 243
discovery of cosmic expansion by, 187, 189–93, 222, 223, 231, 239, 252, 267
Hubble constant, 217, 254, 297n
Hubble Space Telescope, 189, 193, 231
Hugo, Victor, 6
Human Genome Project, 153
Humason, Milton, 189, 192
Hume, David, 16
Hutton, Frederick Wollaston, 31, 275n
Hutton, James, 21, 66, 76, 279n
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 49, 57, 81–82, 84, 116, 281n
Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (Playfair), 76–77
Immutability, dogma of, 16
Indiana, University of, 120
Industrial revolution, 32
Infeld, Leopold, 266
Inflationary universe, 218
Inheritance, see Heredity
Intelligent design, 15–16, 217, 282n
evolution versus, 18, 26, 30, 80
Interbreeding, 22
Internal Security Act (1950), 128
International Biochemical Congress, 129
International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium, 153–54
Introduction to the Theory of Relativity (Bergmann), 237
Islam, J. N., 179
Isotopes, 94, 164, 166, 168, 171, 283n
in stars, 175–76, 179
Isotropy, 204
homogeneity and, 184–85, 218, 262
James, William, 157
Jenkin, Fleeming, 38–40, 43, 44, 47–49, 52, 56, 58, 59
Jesuits, 20
Jews, 182, 251, 259
see also Judaism
Johns Hopkins University, 253
Joly, John, 92
Jones, Harold Spencer, 205, 296n
Jowett, Benjamin, 214, 297–98n
Joyce, James, 271
Judaism, 61–62
Hasidic, 96–97
Judson, H. F., 289n
Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 179
Kahneman, Daniel, 6, 140, 270
Kant, Immanuel, 62–63, 74
Kelvin, Lord, 10, 21, 67–102, 212–13, 269–71, 282–83n
calculation of age of Earth by, 59, 69–79, 81, 84–87, 91–102, 164, 210, 280n
at Cambridge, 68
cognitive dissonance of, 96–100
and Darwin’s theory of evolution, 79–80, 202
ennoblement of, 68
on ether and gravitation, 246, 247
eulogy of, 67–69
impact on geology of, 80–83
Perry’s challenge to assumptions of, 85–92
and radioactivity, 92–95
on thermodynamics, 60, 279n
Kelvin-Helmholtz timescale, 280n
Kendrew, John, 110–13, 134, 137, 141
Kepler, Johannes, 260–61, 264, 265
Kettlewell, Bernard, 276n
King, Clarence, 90, 100
King, Samuel, 34
King Lear (Shakespeare), 179
King’s College, London, 120–21, 125, 130, 140, 141, 144–45, 148, 151
Kirshner, Bob, 185
Kirwan, Richard, 66, 279n
Klein, Felix, 230
Kornberg, Arthur, 150
Kragh, H., 296n
Krone, Ray, 6
Laborde, Albert, 92, 283n
Lahav, O., 300n
Laloë, S., 300n
Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 20, 66
Laplace, Pierre-Simon, 74
Larmor, Joseph, 282n
Laue, Max von, 110
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 253
Leahy, J. P., 241
Leakey, Louis, 274n
Leeds, University of, 127
Leeds Grammar School, 40
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 65
Lemaître, Georges, 193–98, 201, 224, 297n
cosmological constant advocated by, 243, 267, 300n
Einstein and, 240, 250
elected to Royal Astronomical Society, 198
expanding universe discovery of, 187, 191, 192, 197–98, 222, 231
general relativity theory applied to universe by, 221, 239
Le Mascrier, Jean Baptiste, 63
Leonardo da Vinci, 63
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 268
Levene, Phoebus, 117
Life, origin of, 18, 21, 155, 261
Hoyle on, 214–16, 298n
see also Evolution
Life magazine, 104
Lightfoot, John, 61
Locke, John, 16, 21
Lodge, Oliver, 282n, 283n
London Times, 93, 129
Lorentz, Hendrik, 266
Lyell, Charles, 21, 66–67, 70, 71, 274n
Mach’s principle, 298n
MacLeod, Colin, 117–18
Macmillan’s Magazine, 81–82
Macroevolution, 20
Magnetic resonance imaging, functional (fMRI), 98, 99, 290n
Maillet, Benoît de, see de Maillet, Benoît
Maimonides, Moses, 62
Malmquist bias, 259
Malthus, Thomas, 29, 275n
Manchester, University of, 241
Markham, Roy, 136
Marx, Karl, 7
Mass extinctions, 20
Massey, Harrie, 204
Mathematics, 7, 80, 104, 166, 242, 260, 263, 270
of age of Earth and Sun, 65, 71, 76, 78, 82–83, 87, 92
of blending versus Mendelian heredity, 40–41, 47, 57, 58
at Cambridge, 68, 279n
of cosmological constant, 224, 257, 252, 298n, 301n
Darwin’s weakness at, 44–45
in DNA research, 128, 155–56
of general relativity, 189, 199, 221, 239–40, 247–48
of selection bias, 267
teaching methods in, 281n
of X-ray crystallography, 118
Maxwell, James Clerk, 69, 281n
Mayr, Ernst, 36
McCarthyism, 128–31, 142
McCarty, Maclyn, 117–18
McCrea, William, 245, 249
McGill University, 93, 98
Meaning of Relativity, The (Einstein), 237–38
Mechanics
of chromosomal exchange of genetic material, 58
quantum, see Quantum mechanics
statistical, 169
Medical Research Council, 145
Mei long, 275n
Mendel, Gregor, 42, 47, 49–58, 43, 46, 102, 115
Mendeleyev, Dmitry, 160, 293n
Meredith, R. W., 275n
Meselson, Matthew, 143, 150
Metaphysics, 262,
Meyer, Julius Lothar, 293n
Microevolution, 20
Microraptor gui, 275n
Milky Way galaxy, 167, 184, 201, 204, 222, 226, 260, 261
Milne, Edward Arthur, 185, 263
Milner, Peter, 98
Minnesota, University of, 97
Mirsky, Alfred, 104–5, 285n
Miserables, Les (Hugo), 5
Mitchell, Joni, 178
Moe, Henry Allen, 134
Molecular biology, 33, 114–15
Molecular dynamics, 287n
Molnar, Peter, 95
Moore, James, 82
Moreau de Maupertuis, Pierre-Louis de, 20
Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 58, 102, 116
Mount Palomar Observatory, 202
Mount Stromlo and Siding
Spring Observatory, 253
Mount Wilson Observatory, 169, 193
M-theory, 261
Mullard electronics company, 208, 209
Multiverse concept, 257, 259, 261–63
Mysterium Cosmographicum (Kepler), 260
My World Line (Gamow), 232–33
Nabokov, Vladimir, 23
Nanotechnology, 161
Napoléon, Emperor of France, 7
Narlikar, Jayant, 212–14, 218
National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of, 104, 113
National Institute of Standards and Technology, 226
Natural selection, 18–21, 26–35, 38–39, 48, 269
hereditary processes in, 41–44, 47, 49–50, 52, 54, 162
Jenkin’s criticism of, 39–41, 48–49, 58
Kelvin’s objections to, 80, 85, 210, 282n
tautological arguments against, 32–33
Natural Theology (Paley), 273n
Nature, 40, 49, 86, 90, 92, 146–48, 150
Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals, The (Pauling), 115
Navy, US, 235–26
Bureau of Ordnance, 233
Nazism, 182
Nernst, Walther, 249
Neuroses, female, 7
Neutrinos, 255
“New Genesis” (Gamow), 175–76
Newlands, John, 293n
Newton, Isaac, 9, 16, 36, 83, 246–48, 281n, 300n
on age of Earth, 64–65