Galileo, Thomas Young, Oppenheimer

[Mike Moloney <Michael.J.Moloney@ROSE-HULMAN.EDU>]

> The story gives a thorough account of the position of prominence that Galileo
> was held within the Roman Catholic intelligencia as well as the world, at
> large.  However, there were individuals with whom he had embarrassed with his
> gift of argument that returned the barbs when issues of heresy arose.

The sentences above could apply to Thomas Young and to Oppenheimer as well as to
Galileo.

In 1800 Young wrote a review of a paper by a gentleman from Scotland,  being
somewhat more severe in his criticism than he needed to be. He followed this
with a review of a book on Harmonics by some noted authority, pointing out that
although the book was huge, it contained much less genuine information than one
would have expected.

The Scot and his friends were incensed at the first and probably the second of
these. They founded a magazine right at that time which became very influential
(the Scot would later become Lord Chancellor of England). When Young's epochal
work on the interference of light came out in 1802 or 1803, this publication
said something to the effect that Young's work was devoid of any species of
merit !

Oppenheimer massively and savagely embarrased Lewis Strauss in the late forties
when Strauss proposed some scheme for nuclear power.  In the early 50's when the
security clearance business came up, Strauss got his revenge. In the late 50's
when Strauss was casting about for the first head of the International Atomic
Energy Commission, Rabi remarked to Strauss, 'We know who killed Cock Robin,
don't we?', or words to that effect.

Mike