I often despise the phrase “think outside the box” because when I see it on the scienceforums.net boards, it’s usually proffered by a crackpot who is using it to mean “Pay no attention to the violation of the first or second law of thermodynamics behind the curtain.” In that sense, the box is physics, and everything is inside the box. You might find the box is a slightly different shape, or there is something interesting in the corner, but everything is inside the box.<\/p>\n
Here’s a story from an older article. The thinking was inspired<\/em>.<\/p>\n Open minds reap rewards<\/a><\/p>\n The year before, in 1952, Ed Salpeter, a researcher in New York, had pointed out that the beryllium barrier might be leapfrogged if, in the heart of “red giant stars”, three helium nuclei collided almost simultaneously, gluing together to make carbon-12. It was the nuclear physics equivalent of three shopping trolleys colliding simultaneously in a car park. Unfortunately, this process was fantastically unlikely.<\/p>\n Enter Hoyle. His argument, as as far as Fowler could make out, was that the process would be speeded up if, by a bizarre coincidence, carbon-12 had an energy state exactly equal to the energy of three colliding helium nuclei at the 100 million-degree temperature inside a red giant. That energy was 7.65 MeV. The state had to exist, reasoned Hoyle, because life existed and life was based on carbon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Scientific thought like this gives me a hadron.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I often despise the phrase “think outside the box” because when I see it on the scienceforums.net boards, it’s usually proffered by a crackpot who is using it to mean “Pay no attention to the violation of the first or … Continue reading