In the political realm it is clear why the view of an event or person changes with the country or region considered. In Miami Fidel Castro is not well perceived, in Havana it is better perceived, at least by himself. Where is the truth. Is there an effort to distort his image by the CIA? Is the Communist Party of Cuba trying to present a lie?
I have my opinion on this man, but my point here is that different forces produce different versions of the truth.
Does this happens with scientific ideas also?
I believe so.
The Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics was "cooked" by Bohr, and his followers. Alternative views like that of David Bohm, were discarded.
It did not help that Bohr had power, since he helped the US to build a nuclear bomb, and Bohm did not have power because he did not help building the bomb.
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2 comments:
Hi Eduardo!
Maybe you were thinking of Oppenheimer?
Bohr actually had little connection with building the bomb. Heisenberg, head of the German bomb project and his former student, did visit him in occupied Denmark, apparently trying to get his help.
After escaping to England, Bohr passed along a hand-drawn diagram from Heisenberg, purportedly of a nuclear weapon. It was sent to Los Alamos and Hans Bethe recognized it as a crude plan for a nuclear reactor. Bethe said, "What are they going to do? Throw a reactor down on London?"
That has always struck me as profoundly funny. In this case, we were lucky that Heisenberg, like others in the Copenhagen school, was a man full of himself, with a limited imagination. (Later, Bohr and Heisenberg said the maser could not work.)
If Bohm had been able to stay in Princeton, I think they would have made better progress toward peaceful nuclear fusion. He had a deep understanding of the collective actions of charged particles in plasmas, lacked by reductionist physicists.
Best wishes,
Kris
Kris,
No, I was thinking Bohr. I was not there but, but I can imagine how Bohm's ideas had less of an audience, because he had less power.
At the end though, the truth will emerge.
Sorry, for not answering before. Few people choose to post a comment, so I miss the comments. Sorry again.
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