'Enemies' in science

Perhaps you can hardly imagine the very wise scientists with close-up glasses and the white shirt that bicker in the lab. Conflicts in the scientific world are profound and persistent. Sometimes, to fight and defend their views, scientists must sacrifice their lives.

The "war" in science

The big controversy between Shapley and Curtis

The controversy between astronomers Shapley and Curtis is "loud" that the astronomers use the phrase ' The big controversy ' when it comes to it.

On April 26, 1920, Shapley participated in the 'big controversy' with Heber D. Curtis about the scale of the universe. Shapley objected to the Sun's thesis at the center of the Milky Way , while arguing that spherical star clusters and 'spiral nebulae' are all part of the Milky Way. Shapley was right when the Sun was not located in the center of the Milky Way.

However, since the figures for the size obtained are larger than the reality, Shapley was wrong to conclude that the 'spiral nebulae' are also in the Milky Way, but they are not independent star systems. Curtis was right to conclude that the "Andromeda Nebula " (exactly the Andromeda galaxy) is an independent star system outside the Milky Way. At the end of 1924, Edwin Hubble proved Curtis's thesis.

Newton and Leibniz fiery controversy

Isaac Newton is not a pleasant person. His relationships with other scholars are notorious; much of the later part of his life was associated with fierce disputes.

A rather 'scandalous' dispute occurred between him and the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in 1711. Both Leibniz and Newton developed (independently of each other) the mathematics of calculus (Calculus). Then there was a row of controversy surrounding who was the first person to develop this mathematics. When the quarrel was large, Leibniz made a big mistake by calling on the Royal Society to settle; Newton, who was president of the Royal Society, appointed an 'unbiased' council to examine the matter. This council 'coincidentally ' includes all of Newton's friends. In 1711, John Keill, writing in the Royal Society magazine, accused Leibniz of stealing micro-calculus from Newton. Mathematicians from 1900 onwards admitted Leibniz innocence, and pointed out the important differences between the two integrals of Leibniz and Newton.

Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman

In a debate, perhaps you will easily prevail if your opponent is 'hidden '. This is a case of debate between Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman. Freeman - a New Zealand anthropologist - disagrees with Margaret Mead's 'Cultural Theory ' - a famous American cultural anthropologist. But Freeman only publicly criticized this theory five years after M. Mead died (1983).

M. Mead's theory of cultural determinism suggests that the psychological development of adolescents is governed by cultural factors of each region; meanwhile, Freeman - a supporter of ' biological theory' with the view that it is the biological-related factors that play a decisive role. The problem so far has not really fallen, but M. Mead's contributions are great for the school of Culture and personality, for affirming the special role of culture in formation and development. psychological development, human personality.

The war of black holes between Hawking and Susskind

Hawking and Susskind, the two ' giants' in theoretical physics , ' fought ' one more and more about whether the information swallowed by black holes will be lost forever once these black holes pick up. Steam or not.

In 1983, Hawking hypothesized that 'the information would be lost in the evaporation of black holes' . With Susskind, a quantitative theorist, this is not correct because the central principle of quantitative industry is that information will be preserved; It can never be turned into nothing. If Hawking is right, the foundations of the quantitative industry are destroyed. The war persisted for more than 20 years, and Hawking finally admitted that he had lost after the work of holography.

Cope and Marsh in 'The War of Bones'

Edward Drinker Cope (1840 - 1897) and Othniel Charles Marsh (1831 - 1899) were two famous paleontologists in the 19th century. In the hunt for fossil dinosaur skeletons , the two men also took a long time. time to fight with each other, so much so that contemporaries called disagreements between the two men ' The war of bones'.

There was a time Marsh even bribed the people in Cope's excavation team to let them face his boss and give Marsh the fossils they found.

They also regularly criticized the results of the enemy's research whenever there was an opportunity.

Both of them, no one suffered from anyone, made hunts and excavated dinosaur fossils throughout North America. Perhaps thanks to the fierce competition of the war they worked tirelessly, and discovered fossils of 130 different dinosaurs.

Edison and Tesla in 'The battle between electric currents'

The dissonance between Edison and Tesla was very popular at the time, known as the ' War of electric currents'. At that time, Edison had more than 100 power stations in the US, providing unidirectional electricity to consumers. To overcome the power loss during transmission, Nikola Tesla , then an employee of Edison, proposed the idea of ​​using alternating current but Edison did not approve. To refute Tesla's idea, Edison insisted that alternating current was potentially lethal.

In 1903, a circus elephant, named Topsy, suddenly went crazy and killed three people. It is immediately considered a threat to eliminate. Edison saw an opportunity to prove the danger of alternating current, so he proposed killing the elephant with alternating current. Topsy was fed carrots laced with cyanide, then killed with an electric current of 6,000 volts.

However, after that, the outstanding advantages of alternating current still prevailed; generators, power transmission networks (AC) and AC motors that we use today are the hard work of Tesla.

The profound 'feud' between Galileo and the church

Galileo's defense of Copernicus' heliocentrism caused intense controversy in his life. At that time, the Geocentric view had dominated since Aristotle. When Galileo presented the heliocentric theory, it made the Roman Catholic Church angry and banned propaganda because it was not proven, experienced at that time and contrary to the meaning of the Bible. Because of this project, he was sentenced to prison; This ruling was later changed to house arrest; along with the prohibition of publishing all his works, including works he could write in the future.

In March 2008, the Vatican restored Galileo's reputation through building a statue of him inside the Vatican walls.