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Voodoo Science
''Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud'' is a book published in 2000 by physics professor Robert L. Park, critical of research that falls short of adhering to the scientific method. Other people have used the term "voodoo science", but amongst academics it is most closely associated with Park. Park offers no explanation as to why he appropriated the word ''voodoo'' to describe the four categories detailed below. The book is critical of, among other things, homeopathy, cold fusion and the International Space Station. Ed Regis. (2000"Theres One Born Every Minute [sic]" ''The New York Times''. Categories Park uses the term ''voodoo science'' (see the quote section below, Page 10) as covering four categories which evolve from self-delusion to fraud: * pathological science, wherein genuine scientists deceive themselves * junk science, speculative theorizing which bamboozles rather than enlightens * pseudoscience proper, work falsely claiming to have a scientif ...
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Robert L
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be use ...
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Pathological Science
Pathological science is an area of research where "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions."Irving Langmuir, "Colloquium on Pathological Science," held at the Knolls Research Laboratory, December 18, 1953. A recording of the actual talk was made, but apparently lost, though a recorded transcript was produced by Langmuir a few months later. transcript is availableon the Web site of Kenneth Steiglitz, Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University. But see also: I. Langmuir, "Pathological Science", General Electric, (Distribution Unit, Bldg. 5, Room 345, Research and Development Center, P.O. Box 8, Schenectady, NY 12301), 68-C-035 (1968); I. Langmuir,Pathological Science, (1989) ''Physics Today'', Volume 42, Issue 10, October 1989, pp. 36–48 The term was first used by Irving Langmuir, Nobel Prize-winning chemist, during a 1953 colloquium at the Knolls Research Laboratory. Langmuir said a pathological science ...
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Martin Fleischmann
Martin Fleischmann FRS (29 March 1927 – 3 August 2012) was a British chemist who worked in electrochemistry. By Associated Press. Premature announcement of his cold fusion research with Stanley Pons, regarding excess heat in heavy water, caused a media sensation and elicited skepticism and criticism from many in the scientific community. Personal life Fleischmann was born in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, in 1927. His father was a wealthy lawyer and his mother the daughter of a high-ranking Austrian civil officer. Since his father was of Jewish heritage, Fleischmann's family moved to the Netherlands, and then to England in 1938, to avoid Nazi persecution. His father died of the complications of injuries received in a Nazi prison, after which Fleischmann lived for a period with his mother in a leased cottage in Rustington, Sussex. His early education was obtained at Worthing High School for Boys. After serving in the Czech Airforce Training Unit during the war, he moved ...
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Stanley Pons
Bobby Stanley Pons (born August 23, 1943) is an American electrochemist known for his work with Martin Fleischmann on cold fusion in the 1980s and 1990s. Early life Pons was born in Valdese, North Carolina. He attended Valdese High School, then Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he studied chemistry. He began his PhD studies in chemistry at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, but left before completing his PhD. His thesis resulted in a paper, co-authored in 1967 with Harry B. Mark, his adviser. ''The New York Times'' wrote that it pioneered a way to measure the spectra of chemical reactions on the surface of an electrode. He decided to finish his PhD in England at the University of Southampton, where in 1975 he met Martin Fleischmann. Pons was a student in Alan Bewick's group; he earned his PhD in 1978. Career On March 23, 1989, while Pons was the chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Utah, he and Fleischmann announced the ex ...
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Cold Fusion
Cold fusion is a hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. It would contrast starkly with the "hot" fusion that is known to take place naturally within stars and artificially in hydrogen bombs and prototype fusion reactors under immense pressure and at temperatures of millions of degrees, and be distinguished from muon-catalyzed fusion. There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur. In 1989, two electrochemists, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, reported that their apparatus had produced anomalous heat ("excess heat") of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes. They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium. ("It is inconceivable that this mount of heatcould be due to anything but nuclear processes... We realise that the results reported here raise more questions than they provide a ...
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Blacklight Power
Brilliant Light Power, Inc. (BLP), formerly BlackLight Power, Inc. of Cranbury, New Jersey, is a company founded by Randell L. Mills, who claims to have discovered a new energy source from observing that electron in a hydrogen atom can drop below the lowest energy state into a "hydrino state". The claims lack corroborating scientific evidence despite claims of experimental verification, and the proposed hydrino states are unphysical and incompatible with key equations of quantum mechanics. BLP has announced several times that it was about to deliver commercial products based on Mill's theories but is yet to deliver a working product. Mills has self-published a closely related book, ''The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics'' and has co-authored numerous articles on hydrino-related phenomena. (Self-published) Critical analyses have been published in the peer reviewed journals ''Physics Letters A'', ''New Journal of Physics'', ''Journal of Applied Physics'', and '' Journal of ...
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Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also reports on related subjects such as technology, communications, science, politics, and law. It is based in Jersey City, New Jersey. Competitors in the national business magazine category include ''Fortune'' and ''Bloomberg Businessweek''. ''Forbes'' has an international edition in Asia as well as editions produced under license in 27 countries and regions worldwide. The magazine is well known for its lists and rankings, including of the richest Americans (the Forbes 400), of the America's Wealthiest Celebrities, of the world's top companies (the Forbes Global 2000), Forbes list of the World's Most Powerful People, and The World's Billionaires. The motto of ''Forbes'' magazine is "Change the World". Its chair and editor-in-chief is Steve Fo ...
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The Energy Machine Of Joseph Newman
Newman's Energy Machine was a DC motor which the inventor, Joseph Newman, claimed to produce mechanical power exceeding the electrical power being supplied to it. In 1979, Newman attempted to patent the device, but it was rejected by the United States Patent Office as being a perpetual motion machine. When the rejection was later appealed, the United States district court requested that Newman's machine be tested by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). The NBS concluded in June 1986 that output power was not greater than the input. Thus, the patent was again denied. The scientific community has rejected Newman's ideas about electricity and magnetism as pseudoscientific and his claims as false. Claims by the inventor By adding rolls to the armature of a motor, a larger and larger counter-electromotive force is generated on the motor. Newman outlined his claims about there being a fundamental electromagnetic interaction in all matter ultimately derived from only one type of for ...
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Garabed T
Karapet or Garabet or Garabed is a common Armenian given name. They may refer to: *a pre-Christian Armenian thunder-god, Karapet Religion *Karabet ( hy, Կարապետ, link=no) or Garabed (Western Armenian), the Armenian name for '' prodromos'', referring to John the Baptist *St. Karapet, a church of the Noravank monastery * Saint Karapet Monastery, at Glak, a 4th-century Armenian monastery *Karapet, a church of the Khtzkonk monastery near Ani * Saint Karapet Church, Tbilisi, Armenian church in Tbilisi, Georgia Given name Karapet * Karapet II of Armenia (died 1729), Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church (1726–1729) *Karapet Chobanyan (born 1927), Armenian scientist *Karapet Karapetyan (born 1982), also known as Karapet Papijan, Armenian-Dutch kickboxer *Karapet Mikaelyan (born 1969), Russia-born Armenian football (soccer) player *Karapet Rubinyan (born 1957), Armenian politician * Karapet Utudjian (1823–1904), Armenian Ottoman journalist, publicist, and writer *Karap ...
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Robert Fludd
Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus (17 January 1574 – 8 September 1637), was a prominent English Paracelsian physician with both scientific and occult interests. He is remembered as an astrologer, mathematician, cosmologist, Qabalist and Rosicrucian. Fludd is best known for his compilations in occult philosophy. He had a celebrated exchange of views with Johannes Kepler concerning the scientific and hermetic approaches to knowledge. Early life He was born at Milgate House, Bearsted, Kent, not too long before 17 January 1573/4. He was the son of Sir Thomas Fludd, a high-ranking governmental official (Queen Elizabeth I's treasurer for war in Europe), and Member of Parliament. His mother was Elizabeth Andrews Fludd. A collage of 12 Coats of Arms of Fludd ancestors are shown in the painting above his right shoulder. His paternal arms goes back to Rhirid Flaidd whose name originates from Welsh meaning bloody or red wolf. Education He entered St John's Col ...
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Fringe Physics
Fringe science refers to ideas whose attributes include being highly speculative or relying on premises already refuted. Fringe science theories are often advanced by persons who have no traditional academic science background, or by researchers outside the mainstream discipline. The general public has difficulty distinguishing between science and its imitators, and in some cases a "yearning to believe or a generalized suspicion of experts is a very potent incentive to accepting pseudoscientific claims". The term "fringe science" covers everything from novel hypotheses which can be tested by means of the scientific method to wild ad hoc hypotheses and mumbo jumbo. This has resulted in a tendency to dismiss all fringe science as the domain of pseudoscientists, hobbyists, and quacks. A concept that was once accepted by the mainstream scientific community may become fringe science because of a later evaluation of previous research. For example, focal infection theory, which hel ...
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Free Energy Suppression
Free energy suppression (or new energy suppression) is a conspiracy theory that technologically viable, pollution-free, no-cost energy sources are being suppressed by government, corporations, or advocacy groups. Devices allegedly suppressed include perpetual motion machines, cold fusion generators, torus-based generators, reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology, anti-gravity propulsion systems, and other generally unproven, low-cost energy sources. Claims The alleged suppression (or weakening) is claimed to have occurred since the mid-19th century and allegedly perpetrated by various government agencies, corporate powers, special interest groups, and fraudulent inventors. The special interest groups are usually claimed to be associated with the fossil fuel or nuclear industry, whose business model would be threatened. Claims of suppression include: * The claim that the scientific community has controlled and suppressed research into alternative avenues of energy generat ...
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