Re: Does anyone know available PhD position about biophysics?

John Schutkeker wrote:
Andy Resnick <andy.resnick@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<snip>

I sincerely doubt that there's a GR correction to GPS. You're thinking of special relativity, which has applications in a gazillion different branches of electronics. I used to work on a relativistic e-bean device.

I don't have time to do an exhaustive search, so here's this, from:

http://www.oakland.edu/physics/mog28/node12.html

'We learned from Neil Ashby that while GR corrections were available to GPS, the necessary circuitry was not turned on initially (maybe because a highly placed, powerful individual was not convinced the corrections were needed). After the satellites were in orbit, it was, more or less, immediately determined that the system was not working. Only after the GR circuits were switched on, did GPS live up to its promise.'

<snip>

And while all professional scientists, to some degree, buy into the fantasy that a Good Scientist takes a vow of poverty not unlike a
monk- the modern research university descends in a clear line from monastaries, after all- the reality is that money is not evil, and
that receiving a monetary reward for using your brain not a Bad Thing.


Honestly, I think that the reverse is true these days. Since Reagan was president, everybody has become obsessed with getting rich. If you're really determined to get rich, science is not the way to do it. It's a lot easier to make your fortune by dreaming up a new, but still simple, household gizmo, and then get it onto the shelves at Home Depot. Sales volumes in those places are so massive that, you can still make a killing, even if your widget only costs $5.

Find me a scientist who has never said "If I wanted to make money, I'd be in another line of work". My point is precisely as you say: people don't go into science to make money. My speculation is that it's because of the origin of the research university.

Even so, witness the rise of the "tech transfer" offices, and the symbiotic relationship between NIH's budget-doubling period with the growth of biomedical research at medical schools. Universities, as institutions, are scrambling to get more and more money.

The days of a single scientist, toiling away in solitary confinement making some spectacular breakthrough are over, by the way. Solving Fermat's Last Theorem was interesting, but not particularly useful. Useful research costs mega-bucks, the costs of which are increasingly spread out by creating research consortiums.


It's not that money is a Bad Thing, but that it's a myopic view of what's important in life. The scientists who changed the History of Thought hardly ever made a nickel, not counting the endowed chair they got at a good university, and their fat lecture fees.

Look at Weinberg, Salam and t'Hooft and their string of Nobel Prizes for quark theory. There's no commercial market for quark factories, only government research markets, which are all focussed on making history, not money.

Again, that's a myth. First off, those scientists were never motivated by making a fortune through their work, as I pointed out above. Of course, the same thing can be said for members of, for example, the History department. The universities they work for, on the other hand, are definitely primarily interested in making money- from government research grants, corporate partnerships, private investments. "Prestige" is at best a secondary concern now. Young faculty members need to demonstrate they can establish a *fundable* research program in order to get tenured. Like it or not, winning awards is not the way to establish a career in science.

But we didn't get into science thinking we could obtain worldly trappings, right? Our reward comes later, perhaps after we are dead, when our work is recognized as being timeless and shedding the light of truth upon the world... ;)

<snip>
Yeah, but the man on the street is typically as dumb as a rock, and fortunately the taxpayer don't decide directly who gets the research $$. Congress and the NSF decide who gets the money, and for all their faults, those people are a thankfully lot smarter than Joe Six-Pack.

This is a really bad attitude, and one you would be well-served to adjust. "Joe Six-Pack" pays 100% of my salary. In a real sense, he is my boss. Taxpayers can indeed change the amount of research $$ available, and who gets it. If you don't believe me, look at NASA. Look at birth control programs. Look at stem cell research.

<snip>


--
Andrew Resnick, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Case Western Reserve University
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Does expansion predict a maximum redshift?
    ... and then contrasts that with ... Einstein's _Relativity_. ... Science has progressed beyond Leibniz what passed for science then ... <snip, excuses for failings> ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: RJ11 RJ45 connectors
    ... any more than there is with distance. ... Money, yes. ... Science, ...
    (uk.telecom.broadband)
  • Re: Uncle assAl: (SR) Lorentz t, x = Intervals
    ... > and find lists of experiments purporting to support relativity. ... > would disagree with the GPS clock? ... to this day GPS satellites ... <Snip my ignored reasoning.> ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Uncle assAl: (SR) Lorentz t, x = Intervals
    ... > and find lists of experiments purporting to support relativity. ... > would disagree with the GPS clock? ... to this day GPS satellites ... <Snip my ignored reasoning.> ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Uncle assAl: (SR) Lorentz t, x = Intervals
    ... > and find lists of experiments purporting to support relativity. ... > would disagree with the GPS clock? ... to this day GPS satellites ... <Snip my ignored reasoning.> ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
Loading