Chapter 26 Chapter 23 Maxwell and the "Science Dork"

There are many types of mindset.The stereotypes of ethnic groups, the national and religious stereotypes of various countries, the perception of gender and the priority of men and women, the stereotypes of the perception of the time of birth in the year (solar sign astrology), the perception of occupations patterned.The most permissive explanations for these stereotypes attribute them to a kind of mental inertia: instead of judging people on their merits or weaknesses, they focus on bits and pieces of information about them, which they then attribute to Into the cognitive framework that was originally established in a small number.

Doing so saves you the trouble of thinking, but it comes at the cost of deep bias on many issues.Laziness in thinking also prevents people from contacting most people, and the way of thinking is incompatible with the diversity of people's thinking.Even though stereotyped thinking works in many situations, it is bound to fail in many individual situations.Human types follow a bell curve.The averages show people of each different character, while the very special few are distributed at the extremes of the curve. Some patterns are formed as a result of not controlling for various variables and forgetting other possible contributing factors.For example, stereotyped thinking often assumes that there are few women in science.Many male scientists are quite clear about this: This situation proves that women are incapable of doing science.Temperamentally, science is not for them, it is too difficult for them, science requires a kind of intelligence that women do not have, they are too emotional to seek objective things.Can you imagine any great female theoretical physicist? ...and so on and so forth.Since then, however, this misconception has been dispelled.Women today hold positions in most fields of science.In my field of astronomy and planetary studies, the recent emergence of women, discovery after discovery, has been a much-needed breath of fresh air for astronomy.

In the 1950s and 1960s and earlier, all the famous male scientists declared with such authority that women were intellectually deficient. What information were they missing?Frankly speaking, society keeps women out of science and then blames them for not being able to do science.They confuse cause and effect: Do you want to be an astronomer?Miss?Sorry. why can't youBecause you are not suitable. How do we know you're not a good fit?Because no woman has ever been an astronomer. So bluntly, these words sound ridiculous.The cunning of prejudice is indeed deceitful.Despised groups are shut out by flimsy evidence, sometimes with such confidence and contempt that some of us, including some of the victims themselves, fail to recognize these self-made hoaxes .

A simple observation of a meeting of skeptics, a casual glance at the list of members of the Committee for the Scientific Research of Paranormal Phenomena, and you will see the overwhelming predominance of men.Others claim that women believe in astrology in far greater numbers than men (there is astrology in most "women's" magazines but almost none in "men's" magazines), crystal balls , extrasensory perception, etc.According to some commentators, men are particularly skeptical.The man is aggressive, competitive, ready to face anything, and has a serious mind.Women, they say, are more receptive to viewpoints, more likely to agree with one another, and less interested in challenging conventional wisdom.But from my experience, women scientists are as keenly skeptical as their male counterparts.This is part of the quality of a scientist.This kind of criticism of women, if it exists, is telling the world in a common and clumsy cover-up: if you don't inspire women to understand what skepticism is, and don't teach them the basic viewpoints and ways of thinking of skepticism , then, there is no doubt that it is impossible for a woman to be skeptical.Open the door and let them in, and they'll be as skeptical as anyone else.

Science is among the occupations that have been stereotyped about occupations.Scientists are dull "nerds", socially awkward, delving into arcane problems that would interest no normal person (even if they were willing to spend the time it takes) nor sane people to do such a job.You may also say to the scientists: "Live a normal life!" I once asked an expert I've known for 11 years to provide a detailed description of the contemporary characteristics of "science nerds."What I want to emphasize is that she is only narrating her own feelings, and she does not necessarily subscribe to traditional prejudices.

The "nerds" wear the belt just under the rib cage.Their tank tops are filled with awesome colorful pens and pencils in the protective covers.The programmable calculator is housed in a special leather case.They both wore thick glasses with broken nose bridges taped up with Bondi.They lack the basic skills of social interaction, and they are indifferent and indifferent to this lack of skills.When they laugh, they make a snorting sound.They spoke to each other in an obscure language.They will jump at the chance to earn more praise in all classes except PE.They dismiss ordinary people, and ordinary people laugh at them.Many "science nerds" have Norman-like names (the Norman Conquest was the invasion of England by a bunch of "nerds" with high belts, protective covers, calculators, and broken glasses).There are more male "nerds" than female "nerds", but there are quite a few of both. The "nerds" never dated.If you're a "nerd," you can't be too dashing, and vice versa.

This is of course a stereotyped understanding.There are also many scientists who are elegantly dressed and have a smart manner, and many people are eager to date them, and they will not go to social events with a calculator in their arms.If you invited them to your house, you would not think of them as scientists. But some scientists do more or less fit this model.They are rather awkward socially.Scientists are more likely to be "nerds" than bulldozer drivers, fashion designers, or highway patrol cops.Maybe scientists are more dull than barmen, surgeons or fast food cooks.Why is this so?Perhaps people who are not gifted in dealing with other people seek their niche in nonhuman careers, especially mathematics and physics; It is difficult to have the leisure to learn the knowledge of social life.Perhaps there are two reasons for this.

Like the image of a scientist who is almost crazy in people's minds, the stereotype of a "nerd" scientist is also very common in our society.Is there anything wrong with making some good-natured jokes about the "nerdy" behavior of scientists?Whatever the reason, if people don't like what people think of as "nerdy" scientists, then they're no better off supporting the cause of science.Why fund geeks for stupid and incomprehensible research projects?The answer we can give is that science is supported because it brings special benefits to people at all levels of society.I have talked about this earlier in this book.So those who find "nerds" a bit of a nuisance, are at the same time hungry for scientific results.They are in conflict.An attractive solution is to direct the behavior of scientists, not just to give them money to do weird things with money, but to tell them what we need, to make this invention or to do that research.Money should not only be used to satisfy the curiosity of "nerds", but to benefit society.This seems to be very simple.

The trouble we have is that you can't arrange someone to work on a particular invention, and even if it costs a lot and no one opposes it, you can't guarantee that you will get the result of the invention.Without a holistic understanding of knowledge, the idea of ​​invention cannot form in your mind.The history of science tells us that it is usually difficult for a person to invent and create according to the overall needs of society in a certain direction.Inventive ideas may arise in the idle reveries of lonely young men in the backcountry.They are even ignored or dismissed by other scientists, sometimes not discovering these new ideas until a new generation of scientists grows up.Incentivizing a great deal of real-world invention at the expense of research out of curiosity has often backfired.

Hypothetical: By God's grace, you became Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and a defender of the Faith during the greatest age of the British Empire.Your jurisdiction extends to every corner of the planet.The British Red Fleet can be seen everywhere on the world map.You command a world-class technological force.The steam engine was perfected in Great Britain, largely due to Scottish engineers whose technical expertise in trains and steamships bound the British Empire together. Suppose you had a visionary idea in 1860, and your bold idea was rejected by Jules Verne's publisher.You want a machine that carries your voice, that transmits pictures of the splendor of the Empire to every home in the Empire.In addition, sound and image are not transmitted from pipes or wires, but somehow travel through the air so that people at work and in a certain venue can receive immediate messages designed to ensure loyalty and professional ethics. Inspirational speech.In the same way the Gospel reaches all ears.Electrical equipment required by other societies is also readily available.

Thus, with the Chancellor's backing, you summon the Cabinet, the entire staff of the Imperial Headquarters, and the Empire's most eminent scientists and engineers.You'll allocate a million pounds and tell them that was a lot of money in 1860, and if they need more money just reach out to you and you don't care what they do.Ah, yes, the project is called the Westminster Project. Some useful inventions—"derivatives"—may emerge from such a large investment.They always come when you invest a lot of money in technology.But the Westminster plan almost fell short, why?Because the basic scientific work has not been done. In 1860 the telegraph already existed.However, you can imagine how much money it took to install telegraph equipment in every home, and only those who had telegraph equipment could transmit messages in Morse code.But that's not what the Queen asked for.She had radio and television in mind, but those things were far from possible. In the real world, the physics needed to invent radio and television came from a direction no one could have predicted. James Clerk Maxwell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1831.At the age of two, he discovered that he could use a tin plate to reflect sunlight onto furniture and make it dance on walls.When his parents came by, he yelled, "Look at the sun, I caught it with a tin sheet!" As a child, he was fascinated by bugs, chrysalis, stones, flowers, lenses and machines .His aunt Jane later recalled: "It was kind of embarrassing not to be able to answer so many questions from such a young child." He was naturally called "little fool" at school - the British English word "daft" (fool--annotation) is used to describe someone who is a little stupid.He was a very handsome lad, but he always dressed casually, seeking comfort rather than style.The Scottish intolerance in his manner was also a reason for his ridicule.Especially when he entered university, he was ridiculed more often.In addition, he has some unusual interests. Maxwell is a "nerd". He has a better relationship with his teachers than with his classmates.At that time, he wrote such a slightly sentimental two-line poem: Years go by, and the days of anticipation fly by. Boys who are flogged will be charged with crimes. Years later, in his 1872 inaugural address to accept the post of Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge University, he also referred to this "dumb" mode: It was not so long ago that those who devoted themselves to geometry, or engaged in scientific investigations of lasting applied value, were regarded as averse to social intercourse, as persons bound to renounce human interests .They are absorbed in abstractions from the world of life, and their actions are immersed in the things and responsibilities that have great attraction for them and bring them joy. I suspect that "not so long ago" refers to Maxwell's recollection of his youth, and he goes on to say: Today, people who practice science are no longer viewed with awe or suspicion.They may be seen as having achieved some kind of harmony with the material spirit of the age, and they formed a progressive radical group of intellectuals. We are no longer living in an age of unbridled optimism about the benefits of science and technology.We feel that people's expectations of science are falling.The situation today is more like the one Maxwell remembered as a child. He made great contributions to astronomy and physics.His contributions ranged from convincingly illustrating the composition of tiny particles in Saturn's rings, the elastic properties of solids, to the basic principles of what is now called gas and the kinetic theory of molecules in statistical mechanics.He was the first to show that countless tiny molecules are in perpetual motion, colliding with each other and bouncing elastically, not chaotically, but according to precise statistical laws.The properties of this gas are predictable and known (the bell-shaped curve describing the speed of the molecules in the gas is now called the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution rate).He proposed a hypothetical object, now known as the "Maxwells demon", whose motion created a problem for modern information theory and quantum mechanics. The nature of light has been a mystery since ancient times.Whether it is a particle or a wave has long been bitterly debated.The common definitions form a stereotype: "Light is something that illuminates darkness." Maxwell's greatest contribution is that he established the classic electromagnetic theory, and the combination of electricity and magnetism produces light.It is now generally recognized that the electromagnetic spectrum-the arrangement of various electromagnetic waves in the order of wavelength or frequency, and its bands include Y-rays to X-rays, ultraviolet rays, visible light, infrared rays, and radio waves, all thanks to Maxwell.With his inventions, we would have radio, television and radar. But that's not what Maxwell was after.He was interested in the mutual transformation between electricity and magnetism.I am tempted to describe the research that Maxwell did, but his historical achievements are based on deep mathematical theory.In such a short few pages, I can only scratch the surface for you at best.Sorry if you don't fully understand what I'm saying.We can't appreciate everything Maxwell did if we didn't use a little mathematics. Mesmer, the inventor of "hypnosis", thinks he has discovered a magnetic current. "Almost like an electric current," this magnetic current permeates all objects.On this point, his point of view is wrong.We now know that there is no particular magnetic current, and that all magnetism—including that found in bar magnets or horseshoe magnets—is produced by electricity in motion.The Danish physicist Hans Oersted once did a small experiment. When the current passed through the coil, the nearby small magnetic needle deflected and swayed, but the coil and the magnetic needle were not actually connected.The great English physicist Michael Faraday performed yet another highly acclaimed experiment: the movement of a cutting magnetic field line caused an electric current to flow in a nearby wire.Changing current seems to produce magnetism and changing magnetism seems to produce electricity, which is the so-called "electromagnetic induction".It sounds as unfathomable as magic. Faraday pointed out that a magnet has an invisible "field" of force extending into the surrounding space. The closer the magnet is, the stronger the field is, and the farther it is, the weaker it is.You put some small iron filings on a piece of paper, and wave a magnet underneath, and you'll find a magnetic field.Likewise, brushing your hair in dry weather often creates an electric field that emanates from your hair in an invisible state, and it can even make small bits of paper move on their own. We now know that electricity in wires is generated because submicroscopic charged particles called electrons move in response to an electric field.Wires are made of materials such as copper because copper contains a large number of free electrons that are not bound to atoms and can move.However, unlike copper, most substances, such as wood, are not good conductors, they are called insulators or "dielectrics".In these substances, only a relatively small number of electrons can move freely under the action of an external electric or magnetic field, which is not enough to generate an electric current.Of course, there is also some movement or "displacement" of the electrons, and the stronger the electric field, the more frequent this displacement will be. Maxwell devised a method to record his understanding of electricity and magnetism at that time, which accurately summarized the experimental results of wires, currents, and magnetism.The result is four Maxwell's equations for the behavior of electricity and magnetism: ▽·E=ρ/ε ▽·B=O ▽×E=-B ▽×B=μj+μεE Really understanding these equations requires a few years of physics at university.These equations were written using a branch of mathematics known as vector integrals.Quantities written in uppercase are quantities that have both magnitude and direction—vectors.60 miles an hour is not a vector, but 60 miles an hour due north on Hwy 1 is. E and B represent electric and magnetic fields, respectively.The inverted triangle is called "Nabra" (because it is very similar to the qinqin called Nabra in the ancient Middle East), and it represents the change of electric or magnetic field in three-dimensional space.The "point product" and "cross product" behind Nabul indicate two different spatial changes. E and B represent the temporal rate of change of the electric and magnetic fields. j stands for current.The lowercase Greek letter ρ denotes charge body density, ε (pronounced "epsilon zero") and μ (pronounced "Mu zero") are not variables, but quantities of matter properties in which E and B are measured.ε and μ in vacuum are two constants in nature. The simplicity of these equations is surprising, considering the number of different quantities aggregated into them.It would have taken several pages to convey these meanings, but it didn't. The first equation in Maxwell's equations states how the electric field varies with distance as a function of the density of electric charge (such as electrons).The farther the distance, the weaker the electric field, but the greater the charge density (that is, the more electrons there are in a given space), the stronger the electric field. The second equation tells us that there is no analogue in magnetic theory, because what Mesmer calls magnetic "quantities" (or magnetic "monopoles") do not exist: sawing a magnet in half and you neither It is possible to get an isolated "south" pole and an isolated "north" pole, with each magnet having its own "south" and "north" pole. The third equation tells us how a changing magnetic field produces an electric field. The fourth equation describes the opposite, how a changing electric field (or current) produces a magnetic field. These four equations are the culmination of generations of laboratory experiments, mainly by French and British scientists.I'm only describing it roughly and qualitatively here, but the equation itself is described precisely and quantitatively. Maxwell then asked himself a strange question: what would these equations look like in space without a medium, in a vacuum, in a place where there is no electric charge and no electric current?We might well think that there are no electric or magnetic fields in a vacuum.However, Maxwell believed that the electromagnetic behavior in a vacuum should have the form of the equation system: ▽ E=0 ▽·B=O ▽×E=-B ▽×B=μεE He set p to zero, indicating no charge, and he also set j to zero, indicating no current.But he did not remove the last term μ0ε0E in the fourth equation, which represents the weak displacement current in the insulator. Why not remove it?From the equations you can see that Maxwell's intuition preserves the symmetry between electric and magnetic fields.He believed that even in a vacuum state, in the absence of electricity at all, a changing magnetic field can generate an electric field, and vice versa.The equations represented properties of nature, which Maxwell believed to be beautiful and delicate. (To use more technical language, there is also a displacement current retained in a vacuum, which will be omitted here.) This kind of judgment depends partly on the feelings of "nerd" scientists, except for a few other Little known outside of professional scientists, it has done more to our civilization than ten presidents and prime ministers in recent years. Simply put, Maxwell's equations in a vacuum state that: (1) there is no charge distribution in a vacuum; (2) there are no magnetic monopoles in a vacuum; (3) a changing magnetic field produces an electric field; and (4) the reverse is also true. When Maxwell put his equations in this form, he could easily show that electric and magnetic fields propagate through space like waves.Furthermore, he could also calculate the wave speed, which is the reciprocal of the square root of the product of μ and ε.But μ and ε have been measured experimentally.If you plug in the numbers, you will be surprised to find that the electric and magnetic fields in a vacuum travel at the same speed as the measured speed of light.This speed is so consistent that it cannot be purely coincidental.Electricity and magnetism were suddenly and quietly integrated with the properties of light. Since it is now known that light behaves like waves and is derived from electromagnetic fields, Maxwell called them "electromagnetic".Those less clear experiments with batteries and wires have to do with how bright the sun is, and how we see and what kind of light it is.Reflecting on Maxwell's discoveries many years later, Albert Einstein wrote: "There are very few people in the world who have had this experience." Maxwell himself was troubled by these conclusions.The vacuum seemed to act like a dielectric, which he said could be "electrically polarized."Living in an age of mechanization, Maxwell always felt obliged to provide some mechanical mode for the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a pure vacuum.He therefore imagined space filled with a mysterious substance called "ether," which supports and contains electromagnetic fields that change over time, like a vibrating but invisible bliss permeating the universe.The vibrations of the ether are what cause light to pass through it, just as water waves travel through water and sound waves travel through air. But this ether must be a very peculiar substance.It's very thin, ghost-like, with little definite shape.Sun and moon, planets and stars move through it without slowing down and unnoticed.At the same time, it must be strong enough to support all these waves traveling at incredible speeds. The word "ether" indicates a still existence in a loose form.In use, in English, it mainly refers to the relatively inert substances existing in ether.It has a somewhat similar meaning to the more modern sense of "space", "outside space".In the early days of radio broadcasting, when people said it was on the air, it was common to say "on the air" and what they had in mind was ether (the Russian term is etymologically closer to "in the ether", v efir).But in fact radio waves are easier to propagate in a vacuum, which is one of Maxwell's important conclusions.Radio waves do not need air to travel.If it spreads in the air, it will be hindered. The whole idea of ​​light and matter moving through the ether led to another 40 years of research, leading to Einstein's special theory of relativity, E=mc2, and other important achievements.Relativity and the experiments that led to the theory showed that there is no ether supporting the propagation of electromagnetic waves. Einstein stated this conclusion in an excerpt from his famous paper. I have already discussed his theory in Chapter 2. explained.Waves are self-propagating.A changing magnetic field produces an electric field, and a changing electric field produces a magnetic field, and they are interconnected by their own strength. Many physicists were deeply disturbed by the negation of the role of the "light propagating" ether, and they needed some kind of mechanical model to make the whole concept of "light propagating in a vacuum" plausible and convincing And easy to understand.But it is something that emerges as a search for support for one's own theory, a response to the difficulties we face, and it shows that common sense no longer works in the realm of exploration.Physicist Richard Feynman described it this way: Today, we have a deeper understanding of the equations themselves than of the patterns used to derive them.We might just have to ask if these equations are correct.This can be answered experimentally, and countless experiments have confirmed Maxwell's equations.If we remove the brackets on which these equations were built, we find that Maxwell's tall and magnificent edifice still stands tall in its own right. But what exactly are these time-varying electric and magnetic fields that permeate space?What's the point?We're far more comfortable with concepts like touching, shaking, pushing, and pulling than with "fields" magically moving objects a certain distance away, or purely abstract mathematical concepts.But, as Feynman points out, the senses we get through at least in everyday life we ​​can rely on solid, sensible physical contact to explain when you pick up a butter knife it reaches you Hands and such, but the feeling is just a misunderstanding.What does physical contact mean?What happens when you pick up a knife, push a swing, or beat rhythmically on a water bed to create waves?When we dug deeper, we found that there was no physical contact here.In effect, the charge in your hand affects the charge in the knife, swing, or water bed, and vice versa.Regardless of everyday experience or general perception, there is really only the interaction of electric fields and no physical contact of any objects. No physicist is initially bored with concepts in the usual sense and expects to replace them with some mathematical abstraction that can only be understood by a very few advanced theoretical physicists.In fact, they started out with the same comfortable, standard, and usual concepts as all of us.The problem is that nature does not obey people's wishes.If we stop holding on to our ideas of how we think nature should behave, and instead approach nature with an open and receptive mind, we discover that common sense is wrong.Why is it wrong?Because our understanding of the laws of nature, whether innate or learned, was formed over millions of years when our ancestors lived in groups and hunted.The usual feeling in this situation is one of unreliable guidance, since hunting herds do not guide their lives by an understanding of changing electromagnetic fields.There is no penalty in evolution for not knowing Maxwell's equations.But in our day and age, things are different. Maxwell's equations show that a rapidly changing electric field should generate electromagnetic waves. In 1888, the German physicist Heinrich Hertz discovered a new kind of radiation wave-radio wave in his experiments.Seven years later, scientists in Cambridge, England, transmitted radio signals over a distance of 1,000 meters.By 1901, Marconi in Italy was using radio waves to communicate across the Atlantic. The extensive economic, cultural, and political connections of modern society through broadcast towers, microwave relay, and communication satellites arose directly from Maxwell's judgment that displacement currents were included in his equations for the vacuum state.Television, too, arose from his discovery that it wasn't quite perfect for guiding our lives and providing entertainment.Radar became a decisive factor in Britain's fight against aggression and crushing the Nazis in WWII (the invention of the man we think of as always at odds with society affects the future and saves those who make him very uncomfortable descendants).The control and navigation of airplanes, ships, and spacecraft, radio astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and important roles in the electricity and microelectronics industries are all due to Maxwell. In addition, Faraday's and Maxwell's concepts of fields had a major impact on the understanding of the atomic nucleus, quantum mechanics, and the fine structure of matter.His idea of ​​unifying electricity, magnetism, and light into a continuous mathematical whole prompted the final attempts—some successful, some still preliminary—to integrate all aspects of the physical world , including gravitational and nuclear forces, unified into one grand theory.It is no exaggeration to say that Maxwell led us into the era of modern physics. Richard Feynman formulated our view of Maxwell's silent world of varying electromagnetic vectors in the following words: Let's try to imagine what electromagnetic fields look like in the space of this lecture hall.First, there's a fixed magnetic field here, which comes from the fluids inside the Earth -- the Earth's own inherent magnetic field.There are also irregular, essentially electrostatic fields, which may be produced by many people moving their chairs or rubbing their sleeves against the arm of a chair.There are also magnetic fields created by oscillating currents in the wires, which vary at a frequency of 60 cycles per second, synchronized with the generators at Boulder Dam.Even more interesting is that the electromagnetic field changes at a higher frequency.For example, when light travels from a window to a floor and from one wall to another, there are oscillations of an electromagnetic field moving at 186,000 miles per second.There are also infrared waves transmitted from the warm forehead to the cold blackboard.We also forget about the ultraviolet light, X-rays and radio waves that travel through this room. Flying across this room are electromagnetic waves carrying the music of a jazz band.There are many waves modulated by a series of pulses expressing the scene of events happening elsewhere in the world, or the pulses of our imagined aspirin dissolving in the stomach.To confirm the existence of these fluctuations, it is only necessary to turn on the electronic equipment to convert these fluctuations into sounds and images. If we analyze even the tiniest oscillations in more detail, we find tiny, tiny electromagnetic waves that travel to this room from very far away.There are now faint oscillations of the electric field, with peaks a foot apart, transmitted to Earth a million miles away from the Mariner 2 spacecraft, which has just passed Venus.Its signaling devices are loaded with vast amounts of information about the individual planets (gathered by electromagnetic waves propagating from the planets to the spacecraft). Some of the very weak vibrations of electromagnetic fields originate from fluctuations billions of light-years away—from galaxies in the farthest corners of the universe.This fact has now been demonstrated by the method of "filling the room with wires", i.e. building an antenna as large as a room.Such radio waves have been detected from various locations in space that are difficult to observe even with the largest optical telescopes.Even these optical telescopes are mere collectors of electromagnetic waves.What we call stars is merely a conjecture, deduced from the physical facts we have learned from them, from the careful study of the never-ending complex fluctuations of the electromagnetic fields that reach our planet. Of course, it's more the fields created by lightning from miles away, fields and other changes that occur when charged cosmic ray particles zip through a room.What a complex thing is the electric field in the space around you! If Queen Victoria had ever called an emergency meeting of her advisers and ordered them to invent something like a radio or television, it is unlikely that any of them would have imagined that a new system could be achieved through Ampere, Biot, Auster, Faraday's experiment, the four vector differential equations, and the judgment of retaining the displacement current term in a vacuum are used to realize it.I thought, they might get nothing.However, out of mere curiosity, requiring hardly any government funding, and without even realizing that he was laying the groundwork for the Westminster Project, the "nerd" scribbled out an invention.甚至自认无足轻重的、不善交际的麦克斯韦先生是否曾经想到自己正在进行的研究都是值得怀疑的。如果他曾经这样想过，那么，政府很可能会告诉他该思考些什么、不该思考什么，而这不仅无助于反而会阻碍他的伟大发明。 在他的晚年时期，麦克斯韦还真的和维多利亚女王有过一次会晤。在会面之前他还有点担心——主要是担心他是否能够让一个对其专业一窍不通的人了解科学——但是女王似乎有些烦乱，所以会晤没有持续很长时间。与英国近代史上其他四位杰出的科学家麦克尔·法拉第、查尔斯·达尔文、P·A·M·狄拉克和弗朗西斯·克里克一样，麦克斯韦从未被授予爵士称号(虽然莱尔、开尔文、J·J·汤姆逊、卢瑟福、艾丁顿、霍伊尔等下一层次的科学家却都被授予爵士头衔)。对于麦克斯韦来说，甚至都找不到什么理由能够认为他可能持有与英国教会不一致的观点，他是那个时代绝对正规的基督教徒，比大多数人都要虔诚。或许这正是他迟钝而不通世故的一面。 传播媒体——詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦使其成为现实的教育和娱乐工具——从来没有，据我所知——为它的恩人和创立者拍摄过一部短短的系列剧以表现他的生活和思想。换个角度想一下，假如没有电视告诉你，比如戴维·克罗克特、小子皮莱或阿方斯·卡彭的生活和所处的年代，在美国的成长过程中将会遇到多少困难。 麦克斯韦很年轻时就结了婚，但是他的婚姻中似乎既缺少激情也没有孩子。他的热情全都留给了科学。这位现代文明的奠基者死于1879年，死时年仅47岁。就在大众文化几乎将他完全忘记的时候，其它国家知名的射电天文学家们记起了他：他们从地球上发射无线电波，然后从金星上反射回来并探测出微弱的回应，从而发现了金星上的巨型山脉，这些天文学家们以他名字命名了金星上的这个山脉。 在麦克斯韦预言无线电波之后不到一个世纪的时间内，人类开始了第一次对于外星球中可能存在的文明世界的探索。从那时起，人类进行了多次太空探索，其中有些探索我已在前面提到过，这些探索主要通过探测星际空间的电磁场来研究与我们完全不同的生物。在他们的历史中，他们有时也从他们自己的詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦的深刻理解中受益。 1992年10月，在莫哈韦沙漠，在波多黎各喀斯特岩溶洞谷，我们开始了一项迄今为止最有希望、最强有力并最全面的对外星智能生命的搜索计划。美国航空航天局第一次组织并参与这项计划。我们将在长达十年的时间内，使用最为敏感的仪器和最高的频率对整个太空进行探测。如果在组成银河系的4000亿颗恒星中有一颗星上有生命给我们发射无线电信号，我们将有极大的可能接收到。 仅一年后，国会毁掉了这项计划。外星智能生命搜索计划并非十分重要，利益有限，代价过高。但是人类历史上每一次文明的进步都投入了大量的资金用于研究宇宙深层次的问题，很难想象还有什么比“我们是否是孤独的文明形式”更为深刻的问题。即使我们永远破译不了那些信息内容，但是，收到这样的信号也能够传送出我们关于宇宙和我们自身的观点。如果我们能够理解来自先进技术文明世界的信息，那么，其现实益处将是前所未有的。外星智能生命搜索计划并非基础薄弱，它受到了科学界的热烈支持，也根植于大众文化之中。公众对于这项事业的热情是广泛而持久的，而且认为开展这项研究是值得的。此外，这一计划也并非代价昂贵，其费用每年仅约一架军用直升机。 我感到奇怪的是，那些关心费用的国会议员们为何不更多地关注一下国防部。随着苏联解体和冷战结束，所有的费用应该符合和平时期的要求，而国防部每年仍要花掉3000多亿美元的费用(政府内的其它机构还要为改善生活增加福利而实施的计划)。当我们的后代回顾我们这个时代时可能会对我们的所作所为感到惊异——我们拥有探测其它生命的技术，但是我们对许多有益建议却充耳不闻，反而一味坚持花费大量的国家财富来使我们免于遭受到实际上并不存在的敌人的袭击。 加利福尼亚工科大学的物理学家戴维·古德斯坦指出，几个世纪以来科学几乎一直呈指数增长，它不可能继续保持这种增长，因为到那时候地球上每一个人都将成为科学家，那时增长就不得不停止。他作出推测是基于这个原因，而不是因为对科学本身的冷淡与疏远，但在过去的几十年中科学经费的增加已大大减缓。 尽管如此，我关心的是，研究经费是如何分配的。我担心取消对外星智能生命搜索计划的政府资助仅仅是这种对科学研究削减经费的发展趋势的一个组成部分。政府一直对国家科学基金会施加压力，迫使其将经费支持重点从基础科学研究转向支持技术、工程及应用。国会建议取消美国地理勘查局，削减对于地球易受损害的环境研究的财政支持。国家航空航天局对于已获数据进行研究和分析所需的财政支持正在受到越来越多的限制。很多青年科学家不仅找不到经费开展研究，他们甚至连工作都找不到。 近年来，美国各公司的工业研究和开发经费全面削减。政府用于研究和开发的经费同期也在下降(80年代，只有军事研究和开发经费在增长)。在年度支出中，日本是世界上对民用研究和开发投资最多的国家。在计算机、通讯设备、航空航天、机器人、科学精密设备等领域，美国在全球出口份额的比例下降，日本的份额在上升。同一时期，美国在大多数半导体技术中的领先地位让位给了日本。美国的彩电、录音机、电唱机、电话机及机械工具的市场份额也急剧下降。 基础研究领域是科学家自由追随其好奇心和探索自然的地方，不要求在短期内获得可见的实际效果，而是探索知识本身的真谛。科学家当然对基础研究有着浓厚的兴趣。这是他们乐于从事的事业，从许多方面来说，这也是使他们成为科学家的首要因素。但是支持基础研究是为了社会的利益。这也是为什么有利于人类的重大发明大量涌现的原因。少数规模宏大的、野心勃勃的科学研究计划是否就应该获得比数量众多的小型研究计划更多的投资，这是一个值得研究的问题。 我们在开展以促进经济和保卫我们的生活为目的的发明研究时深感力不从心。这是由于我们历来缺乏基础研宪。事实上，我们对自然的广泛探索，产生了我们从来没有想到过的可应用成果。当然这种成果并不经常出现，但出现的次数已经足够。 把钱给麦克斯韦这样的人似乎是对纯属“靠好奇心驱动的科学”所进行的最荒唐的鼓励行为，也被认为是实际立法者的草率判断。为什么现在要把钱送给那些只会讲普通人难以理解的胡言乱语的“书呆子”科学家，让他们满足其嗜好，而同时却有许多国家急需却得不到解决的问题无人理睬？根据这一观点，我们可以很容易理解为什么将科学放置到另一个地位的原因。科学团体只不过是另一种压力集团，他们急切地希望保持资金不断投入，这样，科学家不必整天去艰苦工作就可以领到工资。 当麦克斯韦第一次得出四个基本电磁方程式时，他并没有想到收音机、雷达和电视；当牛顿首先了解了月球的运动规律时，他从没梦想到过太空飞行或通讯卫星；当伦琴研究一种被他称为X射线的神奇的穿透性辐射时，他并未打算用于医疗诊断；当居里夫人辛苦地从数以吨计的沥青铀矿中提炼出含量极少的镭时她没有想到过癌症的治疗；当弗莱明注意到一株细菌菌落周围长满霉菌的现象时，他没有打算用抗生素来拯救无数人的性命；当沃森和克里克对X射线对DNA衍射产生的结果感到迷惑不解时，他们没有想到过这个发现可用于遗传疾病的治疗；当罗兰和莫里纳开始研究卤素在平流层光化学中的作用时，他们并没有指出氟利昂对臭氧层的破坏作用。 国会议员和其他政治领导人不时忍不住对那些要求政府资助的看起来很费解的科学研究建议进行嘲笑。甚至于像哈佛大学的毕业生——威廉·普鲁克斯米尔这样有才华的议员也有偶尔颁发“金毛羊”奖的习惯——很多是为了纪念一些表面看起来毫无用处的科学工程的奖——包括外星智能生命搜索计划。我猜想以前的政府可能也有同样的想法：弗莱明先生只是希望研究发臭乳酪中的虫子；一位波兰妇女只是想从数以吨计的中非矿石中筛炼出极少量的她说能在黑暗中发光的物质；开普勒先生也只是想听听行星们所唱的歌。 这些发现以及其它大量的发现为我们这个时代增添了光彩并构成了我们这个时代的特征，我们应该感谢这些发现，是这些发现使我们过上现在的生活。这些发现完全是那些有机会按照自己的思考进行研究的科学家创造的，是在他们的同行们严格的检验下进行的，是对自然进行基础研究获得的结果。在最近20年中，日本在工业可应用的发明方面取得了很好的成就。但是可应用的发明是如何获得的？它们来自基础研究，来自对自然本质问题的研究。只有通过这些基础研究，我们才能获得用于发明实用技术的新知识。 科学家们有义务，特别是当他们要申请大笔经费的时候，就更需要非常明确而诚实地说明他们要进行的研究。超导超级对撞机(SSC)可能是我们这个世界上探究物质的细微结构和早期宇宙本质的重要工具。它的造价估计在100亿到150亿美元之间。1993年，这个工程在花费了近20亿美元之后被国会取消了，这个结果无论对科学家还是对政府来说都是最糟糕的。但是这场争论的结果却不是最糟糕的。我认为，争论主要告诉了我们政府对科学支持的兴趣日益降低。国会中几乎无人知道现代高能加速器的作用。它们不是用来制造武器的。它们没有实际应用价值。在很多人看来，它们是用来产生令人担忧的称做“阐释万物的理论”的东西。这种理论包括各种对夸克、吸引力、气味、颜色等物质存在形态的说有，听起来物理学家似乎很聪明。至少是在那些我曾与之交谈过的国会议员们看来，整个事情说明“一帮'书呆子'在发疯”。我想这是一种描述建立在探究精神基础上的科学的不大宽容的方式。如果没有人知道什么是希格斯玻色子，也就不可能有人会为此而掏钱。我曾经读过一些试图说明建造超导超级对撞机必要性的材料。在说明其最终用途上，有些材料写得还不错，但是没有任何文章是真正为那些具有相当高的知识水平、虽然不是物理学家但却不乏怀疑精神的人写的。如果物理学家们申请100到150亿美元去建造一个毫无实用价值的机器，那么他们至少应该花大力气，用复杂的图形、术语和可以使用的英语来说明他们的建议的合理性。我想，资金管理不善，财政有限和政治上的不称职，这些都是导致超导超级对撞机计划失败的关键因素。 现在越来越多地出现了有一种关于人类知识自由市场化的观点，这种观点认为，基础研究不应该依靠政府资助，而应与社会其它机构和寻求资金的人展开竞争。如果他们的研究得不到政府资助，必须参与他们所处的那个时代的自由市场经济的竞争。那么，在我的名单上罗列的任何科学家都不可能进行其基础性研究。现在基础研究的费用要比麦克斯韦时代大得多，这些费用不仅用在理论研究上，尤其用在实验研究中。 即使是基础研究要参与自由市场竞争，但是自由市场的力量是否能支持基础研究？如今仅有10%的值得称赞的医学研究申请课题获得了经费。花在庸医上的钱比用于所有的真正医学研究上的钱却要多得多。如果政府不支持医学研究将会出现什么结果？ 基础研究的必要性就在于它在未来将产生其应用效果，这种应用价值在几十年、甚至几百年之后才会显示出来。另外，没人知道基础研究的哪些领域会具有或不具有实用价值。如果科学家都不能作出这种预测的话，政治家或实业家们可能作出吗？如果自由市场的力量只注重于短期效益——正如美国的公司中进行的大部分研究必然会大幅度衰退一样——这种解决问题的方式不就等于放弃了基础研究吗？ 砍掉基础性的、按照科学家的兴趣所进行的科学研究无异于吃掉玉米种子。今年冬天我们可能还会有一点吃的，但是明年我们将拿什么去种植，以使我们和子孙后代们能有足够的玉米以度过下一个冬天呢？ 当然，我们的国家和人类正面临着许多急需解决的难题。但是减少基础科学研究不是解决问题的办法。科学家并不构成一个选举集团，他们也没有可以有效地向议员进行游说的团体。然而，他们的许多工作都是为所有人谋福利的。放弃基础研究将会对科学家的勇气、想象力造成挫折，使我们未竟的美好研究项目毁于一旦。它还可能会沉重地打击那些我们曾描绘过的假设的外星生命，它们再也看不到未来。 Of course we need literacy work, education, employment, adequate health care and national defense, environmental protection, security for the elderly, balanced budgets, and many, many other things.However, our society is rich, can't we cultivate the Maxwell of our age?As a token example, can we really not afford to pay what is worth an attack helicopter (the equivalent of buying corn seeds) to hear voices from alien life?