Chapter 15

The Disappearing Spoon Chapter 15

Summary

     In this Chapter, it discusses the finding of pathological Scientist such as William Crooke who invented the radiometer. The background of Crooke is that he was born to a tailor who was the first of sixteen children. He later had 10 children of his own and still managed to join the Royal Society even though he wasn't brought up from a genius family line. 

     In addition, there is the study of manganese with the Megalodon which stuns researchers and Megalodon Romantics to this day. The element Manganese is used to determine how long fossil/bone has existed. Then there is the possibility of Cold Fusion that engages many people to actually discover the subject that has made fools of one particular duo, Pons and Fleischman. 

Reflection

     One interesting thing I learned from the chapter is the possibility of Cold Fusion and how it would work to stop the world's worry of energy consumption. I would want to figure out a way to solve the mysterious of Cold Fusion in College but as the chapter mentioned not all discoveries are that simple and they can lead to embarrassing moments marked in history if you are not careful enough. The invention of Crooke was one device that I see to be something odd and something I would have to experience to believe it. But one person I found to go above and beyond is William Rontgen who was able to discover the X-ray and believed himself to be Mad. 

Guideline Questions

1. What is Unique about William Crookes is that he was born to a tailor in London, not a professor. Then he made it into the royal society even though he had ten kids of his own. The discovery he made was a scientific device to monitor the susurrus of wandering spirits in the candlelit rooms, the radiometer. 

2. The Megalodon is similar to Bigfoot because people believe they exist but the difference is that there is scientific prove the Megalodon once existed a long time ago and it all happened with the help of Manganese. 

3. What it means to be a Pathological Scientist is that the person has devoted themselves to find a spiritual, paranormal, or unknown subject with their Knowledge in Science. 

4. Cold Fusion is clean, cheap energy. Although it is similar to perpetual motion machines by its ability to work with Palladium to store lots of energy, not to have infinite energy. 

5. William Rontgen discovered the X-Ray by his fascination of finding invisible rays. But unlike Pons and Fleischman, who right away wanted to get fame and not realize trail and error, he instead did not leap to the convenient conclusion that he’d discovered something radically new, and assumed he’d made a mistake somewhere.