Amateur Science

AN!Wiki :: Amateur Science

Home Science; People who made a difference outside the lab.

Thoughts to ponder

• What separates an 'amateur' from a 'professional', sheer size of funding and lab space?
• Have all the 'low hanging fruit' in the world of science really been picked?
• Science, innovation, and ingenuity in the home or garage helped win WWII during a time of great need for anything and everything

They came first for the chemists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a chemist.

Then they came for the electronics designers, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an electronics designer.

Then they came for the computer security experts, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a computer security expert.

And then they came for me, And by that time no one was left to speak up.

Quotes

• "Amateur Science allows people to delve into the unknown, unrestricted by their school or labs and what not. That is what true science should be, entering into a mindset that is new and different."
• "To criminalize the necessary materials of discovery is one of the worst things you can do in a free society," - Shawn Carlson
• "People who want to make meth will find ways to do it that don’t require an Erlenmeyer flask. But raising a generation of people who are technically incompetent is a recipe for disaster." - Bill Nye

Chemistry

• Amateur chemistry should not be confused with clandestine chemistry
• Amateur chemistry is in a legal gray-area, with no laws expressly outlawing it exist (though restrictions on certain chemicals and fire safety exist), no laws (and likely little case law) exist to help legitimize it either

• Notable chemists
  • Charles Goodyear - Invented rubber vulcanization on his stove by mixing uncured rubber with sulfur powder.
  • Marie Curie - Discovered radiation in her barn.
  • Charles Martin Hall - Co-inventor of the Hall-Héroult process for aluminum extraction from aluminum oxide/ore, developed in a garden shed
• Further reading
  • http://sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2005/2005-08-12/backscatter/index.html
  • http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry.html
  • http://www.amazingrust.com/Amateur_Science/Amateur_Science.html

Rocketry

• Armadillo Aerospace
  • Initially amateurs interested in rocketry, formed a startup company
  • http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/FAQ
  • Developed a concept lunar lander independent of government funding, winning the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge level 1 and 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Lander_Challenge)
  • Currently innovating in orbital flight systems

Astronomy

• Amateur astronomers helped provide worldwide skyward facing telescopes and observatories to aid NASA in tracking the Apollo 13 mission.
• Amateur Astronomers
  • George Alcock, discoverer of comets and novae.
  • Thomas Bopp, shared the discovery of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1995 with unemployed PhD physicist Alan Hale.
  • Robert Burnham, Jr., author of the Celestial Handbook.
  • Andrew Ainslie Common (1841 – 1903), built his own very large reflecting telescopes and demonstrated that photography could record astronomical features invisible to the human eye.
  • Robert E. Cox (1917–1989) who conducted the "Gleanings for ATMs" column in Sky and Telescope magazine for 21 years.
  • John Dobson (1915), whose name is associated with the Dobsonian telescope, a simplified design for Newtonian reflecting telescopes.
  • Robert Owen Evans is a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia and an amateur astronomer who holds the all-time record for visual discoveries of supernovae.
  • Clinton B. Ford (1913–1992), who specialized in the observation of variable stars.
  • Will Hay, the famous comedian and actor, who discovered a white spot on Saturn.
  • Walter Scott Houston (1912–1993) who wrote the "Deep-Sky Wonders" column in Sky & Telescope magazine for almost 50 years.
  • Albert G. Ingalls (1888–1958), editor of Amateur Telescope Making, Vols. 1-3 and "The Amateur Scientist". He and Russell Porter are generally credited with having initiated the amateur telescope making movement in the U. S.
  • David H. Levy discovered or co-discovered 22 comets including Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, the most for any individual.
  • Sir Patrick Moore, presenter of the BBC's long-running The Sky at Night and author of many books on astronomy.
  • Leslie Peltier was a prolific discoverer of comets and well-known observer of variable stars.
  • John M. Pierce (1886–1958) was one of the founders of the Springfield Telescope Makers. In the 1930s he published a series of 14 articles on telescope making in Hugo Gernsback's "Everyday Science and Mechanics" called "Hobbygraphs".
• Russell W. Porter founded Stellafane and has been referred to as the "founder"[1][2] or one of the "founders" of amateur telescope making."[3]
  • Isaac Roberts, early experimenter in astronomical photography.
  • Grote Reber (1911—2002), pioneer of radio astronomy constructing the first purpose built radio telescope and conducted the first sky survey in the radio frequency.

Source: wikipedia

Amateur Radio

• Experimentation throughout the years expanded upon capabilities of radio broadcasts

Computer Science

• Daily innovations, open source projects
• Fill this section in

 

Any questions, feedback, advice, complaints or meanderings are welcome.
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