On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 5:16 PM, Kevin O'Malley <kevmol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck > > Max Planck: > > A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and > making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, > and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. > > > The irony is that not only is this not true, and that cold fusion is seeing it work the other way, but Planck himself is a counter-example. Some pathological beliefs, like N-rays and the planet vulcan, only really disappeared when the believers died. In cold fusion, the strongest and most active proponents are still the ones that were there from the beginning (There are some exceptions like Duncan and Zawodny). Cold fusion is likely to continue to fade away by attrition, although it clearly has a surprising staying power. Planck was slow to accept the idea of photons, but he did not have to die to increase their acceptance: about 10 years after Einstein introduced them, Planck came around. And of course, all the architects of modern physics, including Planck, were alive and well before they could conceive of relative time or discrete energy. So, the statement really doesn't fit reality, and I suspect he said it in jest.
