I was following up a Boyle 🧪 reference to alchemists, and – given the talk of the risk of AI hallucinations – would like to acknowledge that the Google AI tool offered an overview that was suitably nuanced by an acknowledgement of lack of certainty.
Keith Taber
@drkeithstaber.bsky.social
210 followers 109 following 304 posts
Retired former school and college science teacher; science teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge. Interested in HPS, music, photography, peace & justice.
![short incompelte extract from JJ Thomosn's 1899 paper on the masses of 'ions' [actually electrons] in gases at low pressure.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:fkrue2iokhe2cslgnnodlqpa/bafkreidaeom54uwa437qbanuvgv77ystkjtl7oo7bgqt64vrt2bqdeo7ve)
![An example of an analogy used in public science discourse:
"What we did was drill a hole* through the imaging lens [of the microscope] to put the gas in, It's like drilling a hole through a person's heart, because imaging lens is the heart of the machine… even if we had made a fraction of a nanometre error we could have killed the poor machine."
Dame Pratibha Gai, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at York University was being interviewed by Prof. Al-Khalili on an episode ('Dame Pratibha Gai on training atoms to do what we want') of The Life Scientific.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:fkrue2iokhe2cslgnnodlqpa/bafkreiaykuekzs2pkydwa7ms3ewhlck34oppipxei67syi3ae5l7ttu4t4)
