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Re: Cosmology



At 03:20 PM 6/20/2004, Jack, you wrote:
On Sat, 19 Jun 2004, Brian Whatcott wrote:

> The date of the arbitrary fudge factor
> identified by Planck which reconciles the Rayleigh-Jeans law
> to the experimental black-body curve was 1900.
> It's now initialized with a letter that looks much like an 'h'.
> Hope this straightens out the dateline.
>
> Planck's remained a lonely voice until a patent clerk illuminated
> a clean copper sheet with light of various intensities and
> frequencies and used the same fudge factor to fit the
> response curve. This did snag a Nobel. What year was that?
> Can't recall. [Brian]

Not exactly (see Richtmeyer & Kinnard,Ch. III). Herts reported
the effect in 1887. [Jack]

Details, details. From a secondary reference, too!

1887. This was when Hertz reported that UV emission from
his spark transmitter facilitated sparks in his spark gap
detector. No catastrophe there.

1888. W Hallwachs reduced this complex mix of
electromagnetism and photo electric effect to a more straight
forward photo electric effect by showing enhanced discharge
of a negatively charged zinc disc when it was exposed to UV
light. No catastrophe there either.

1899. Eleven years on, Thomson represented the mechanism
as due to negative charge carriers.

In 1902 Lenard used a carbon arc light, and could
increase the intensity and select different frequencies.
This was apparently a legitimate input for Einstein's cogitations,
unlike the Michelson-Morley interferometer.

There is no causality problem with inflationary theory because no
information is transmitted faster than light. [Jack]

Have I mentioned Causality? I am referring to the convenient
subterfuge of using hyperspeed to make the Big-Bang numbers
come out right. A most pernicious case of fudge-factoring,
in my view.



Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!