FSME idea: science interviews

I've been thinking about adding some interesting to the Science & Technology forum, like the serialized threads of the Space Exploration forum. I came up with the idea of conducting email/chat interviews with scientists in all different fields of science. The members of ATS would also be able to submit questions.

Now, I want some feedback on this idea. Do you like it? Is it possible? Do you have some suggestions? If you like it, I would also like to hear some ideas for people to interview. I doubt it'll be possible to get very well-known scientists, but I still think we should be able to some very interesting guests.

This is a great idea, but this should be in the Disc forum. Unless you wanted feedback form non-disc members...

Originally posted by TheBandit795
Unless you wanted feedback form non-disc members...

I did want feedback from non-DISC members. Those from DISC will not be the majority of those reading the interviews. I want to know if the normal member thinks this is a good idea.

i think it's a great idea!

I think it's a great idea too.
It would be interesting to get some professional opinions on the various topics discussed here.

This is a bit of a strange topic, but read this article about the Papp noble gas engine.

You may wonder what this has to do with interviewing scientists because Papp is dead, and my reply is, "Shut up, I'm not to the point yet."

Dr. Nolan (the guy mentioned about 2/3 into the article who wrote a report about it somewhere in Oklahoma) lives in my hometown and works as a University professor. I found out about him when I was talking to my brother about it and he said he had a professor who spoke of analyzing the engine while working at Phillips Petroleum. I e-mailed him a couple of weeks ago and he hasn't replied. My guess is that he doesn't like computers, he's switched addresses, or possibly not working at the university anymore (his address was through the Uni). I'm planning to go to the University and directly talk to him about it soon, and failing that I'll try to call him. I don't know exactly what to ask him myself. Maybe you have something you'd like to ask about what he saw and what kind of results the tests showed? I don't think the problem is that he doesn't want to be bothered about it, because he spoke about the engine in his classes openly, according to my brother.

Not a lot of credible information on this is available even on the internet. You can read Papp's most notable patent by clicking here.

Definitely a great idea!

Maybe it would also be a good idea to have that done like a periodic magazine: something like every month, the publication of an interview, and during that month, people could discuss who for the next month, and what questions? Or maybe inviting the persons into the ATS chat?

Originally posted by shbaz
I don't know exactly what to ask him myself. Maybe you have something you'd like to ask about what he saw and what kind of results the tests showed?

Yes, I would like to know the test procedures and the results. Maybe you can also ask if he tried making one himself.

The journal Nature does something like this no? They have short little questionares that scientists fill out, in this case usually the questions are...interesting. I don't know that anyone is going to want to become embroiled in some debate tho, thats the problem I can see right off the bat. However there are a few active researchers who post to ATS, perhaps they can be the guinea pigs so to speak? And maybe if it works out with them, you can recruit some others by posting to the sci.* heirarchy newsgroups to see if there are any takers. Maybe post the questionaire itself along with a return address (properly modified to defeat spam and noted that such modification has been done of course) to some of those groups? There are definitly a number of active researchers who are also very active on different types of forums on the internet, like weblogs, newsgroups, discussion forums and such.

Once the questionaires are completed, whats done with them tho? People will respond to them, sort of like news articles?

The most interesting ones would be the ones where the respondant participates in some of the discussion. I am sure that there are a number that would like to do so, especially since ATS is, what, the 4th biggest discussion forum on the web no?

Excellent suggestion! It has my approval and if you'd like to do this, I'll pin a special thread to the top of the messages here for you to post in!

i agree with the ATS who regard this as a excellent idea, sounds great as you said it would be very hard to get very well-known scientists, but a scientist in a specilized field is bound to have a positve effect

hope this comes to life

rynaldo

This is the kind of interview I had in mind. Something with interesting information and not scared to be technical sometimes.

The article itself is also an interesting read. Physicist Sean Carroll answers a few questions on alternatives to general relativity and testing general relativity.