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Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 2019 Volume 152 Part 1 Numbers 471 & 472 “... for the encouragement of studies and investigations in Science Art Literature and Philosophy ...” THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES OFFICE BEARERS FOR 2019 Patron Her Excellency The Honourable Margaret Beazley AO QC Governor of New South Wales President Emeritus Professor Ian Sloan AO FRSN PhD (UCL) FAA Vice-Presidents Emeritus Professor D Brynn Hibbert AM FRSN PhD (Lond) CChem FRSC FRACI Mr John Hardie FRSN FHEA FGS MACE Ms Judith Wheeldon AM FRSN BS (Wis) MEd (Syd) FACE Hon. Secretary (Ed.) Emeritus Professor Robert Marks FRSN MEngSci ResCert PhD (Stan) Hon. Secretary (Gen.) Mr Bruce Ramage MRSN Hon. Treasurer Mr Richard Wilmott MRSN Hon. Librarian Dr Ragbir Bhathal FRSN PhD (UQ) FRAS FSAAS Hon. Webmaster Emeritus Professor Lindsay Botten FRSN PhD (Tas) Councillors Dr Mohammad Choucair FRSN PhD (UNSW) Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy AM FRSN PhD (Mon) FRACP FRCPSC Dr Laurel Dyson BSc(Hons) BA(Hons) PhD (Syd) MRSN Dr Donald Hector AM FRSN BE(Chem) PhD (Syd) FIChemE FIEAust FAICD Professor Nalini Joshi AO FRSN PhD (Prin) FAAS The Honorable Virginia Judge FRSN Mr Stuart Midgley MRSN Emeritus Professor Bruce Milthorpe FRSN BA PhD (ANU) Grad Dip Ed Dr Susan Pond AM FRSN DSc (UQ) FRACP FTSE FAHMS FAICD Honorary Professor Ian Wilkinson FRSN PhD (UNSW) Southern Highlands Ms Anne Wood FRSN Branch Representative Executive Office The Association Specialists EDITORIAL BOARD Em. Prof. Robert Marks FRSN MEngSci ResCert MS PhD (Stan) – Hon. Editor Prof. Richard Banati FRSN MD PhD Prof. Michael Burton FRSN MA MMaths (Cantab) PhD (Edinb) FASA FAIP Dr Donald Hector AM FRSN BE(Chem) PhD (Syd) FIChemE FIEAust FAICD Em. Prof. David Brynn Hibbert AM FRSN PhD (Lond) CChem FRSC FRACI Dr Michael Lake BSc (Syd) PhD (Syd) Dr Nick Lomb BSc (Syd) PhD (Syd) FASA FRSA Prof. Timothy Schmidt FRSN BSc (Syd) PhD (Cantab) Website: http://www.royalsoc.org.au The Society traces its origin to the Philosophical Society of Australasia founded in Sydney in 1821. The Society exists for “the encouragement of studies and investigations in Science Art Literature and Philosophy”: publishing results of scientific investigations in its Journal and Proceedings; conducting monthly meetings; awarding prizes and medals; and by liaising with other learned societies within Australia and internationally. Membership is open to any person whose application is acceptable to the Society. Subscriptions for the Journal are also accepted. The Society welcomes, from members and non-members, manuscripts of research and review articles in all branches of science, art, literature and philosophy for publication in the Journal and Proceedings. 2 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 152, part 1, 2019, pp. 1–4. ISSN 0035-9173/19/010001-04 Editorial: paradigm shifts Robert Marks Economics, University of New South Wales, Sydney E-mail: [email protected] his issue includes the 14 papers presented tions amongst the establishment scientists in Tat the 2018 Forum, “Towards a prosper- Australia suggests that Max Planck’s obser- ous yet sustainable Australia — what now vation was correct. The scientists’ birth and for the Lucky Country?”, a submitted paper death dates are included in Moyal’s paper to by Ann Moyal1 on the reception of Charles emphasise Planck’s point. Darwin’s The Origin of Species among scien- For a paradigm shift to occur there must tists in nineteenth-century Australia, six Ph. be an existing paradigm. A paradigm is a way D. dissertation abstracts, and an obituary on of thinking or seeing, not so much a way of the late Distinguished Fellow, Noel Hush doing. This rules out such new technolo- (1924–2019), by Don Hector. gies as sound recording and television and Darwin’s argument that the emergence radar with no antecedents, and also such of new species from old occurs through the revolutionary technologies as double-entry mechanism of natural selection — evolu- bookkeeping in 1494 (single entry), steam tion — was an archetypal paradigm shift, to engines (horse power), photography (paint- use Thomas Kuhn’s (1962) term: a paradigm ing), and the telegraph (semaphore etc.). The shift is a fundamental change in the basic following list for the most part does not concepts of a scientific discipline. But para- include new technology. digms are not easily shifted: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its Examples of other possible paradigm shifts opponents and making them see the light, 628– the formulation of zero as the tenth but rather because its opponents eventually 1202 symbol in the Hindu-Arabic decimal die, and a new generation grows up that is numerical system with positional familiar with it.” according to Max Planck notation, promoted in Europe by (1858–1947).2 And the evidence of the reac- Fibonacci, replacing Roman numer- als (although perhaps this is new 1 Ann Moyal was a veteran historian of science and technology) inaugural winner of the RSNSW History and Phi- 1543 from Ptolemaic to Copernican losophy of Science Medal in 2014. Les A. Murray, the cosmology late poet, dedicated his poem, “The Tube,” to Ann, as I found in my copy of Murray (1993), after his recent 1610 using the new technology of the “tel- death. Ann died on 21 July 2019, aged 93. escope,” Galileo observed the moons 2 “Eine neue wissenschaftliche Wahrheit pflegt sich of Jupiter which disproved the belief nicht in der Weise durchzusetzen, daß ihre Gegner in the immutability of the heavens überzeugt werden und sich als belehrt erklären, of Aristotelian cosmology, and also sondern vielmehr dadurch, daß ihre Gegner allmäh- led to the adoption of Copernicus’ lich aussterben und daß die heranwachsende Gen- eration von vornherein mit der Wahrheit vertraut heliocentric view gemacht ist,” in Planck (1949). 1 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Marks — Paradigm shifts Examples of other possible paradigm shifts Examples of other possible paradigm shifts 1686 Newton’s three laws of motion (and 1935 John Maynard Keynes argued against his earlier theory of gravity) built on Say’s Law (which implied that under- work by Galileo and Kepler, against employment and under-investment Aristotle’s notions were virtually impossible) and derived 1783 Lavoisier’s theory of chemical reac- effective demand, and counter-cycli- tions and combustion in place of the cal fiscal policy (macro-economics) phlogiston theory 1953 the discovery by Crick and Watson 1826 the discovery of non-Euclidean of the double-helix structure of 5 6 hyperbolic geometry by Gauss and DNA — they used simulations of Taurinus physical models (their “stereochemi- cal experiments”) — against Pauling’s 1859 Darwin’s theory of the evolution of triple helix species through natural selection 1964 the discovery by Penzias and Wilson 1866 our own William Stanley Jevons3 of cosmic microwave background (and, independently, Carl Menger radiation (the residual of the Big and Léon Walras) derived neoclassi- Bang) led to the demise of the cal value theory in which individu- steady state theory (Hoyle, Gold, als maximising utility is the way of and Bondi)7 and the triumph of understanding market behaviour: Lemaître’s and Gamow’s Big Bang the marginalist revolution of micro- theory in cosmology eonomics (against Mill’s and Marx’s classical approach) 1964 the proposed existence of Gell- Mann’s quarks, and the Standard 1905 quantum mechanics replaced classi- Model of particle physics8 cal mechanics at microscopic scales (Planck and Einstein) 1965 the acceptance of Wegener’s conti- nental drift as plate tectonics in geo 1876– the transition from luminiferous dynamics 1905 æther pervasive in space to electro- magnetic radiation in spacetime 1998 the accelerating universe, Brian (Einstein) Schmidt DistFRSN: the expansion is speeding up, not slowing down 1919 from Newtonian gravity to Einstein- ian general relativity 5 They celebrated their discovery in The Eagle, my 1929 the expanding universe, the Hub- local in Cambridge. ble-Lemaître Law4 6 As they were well aware, simulation can derive suf- ficiency, but not in general necessity: was theirs the only possible structure? 7 I remember Thomas Gold and Herman Bondi with Harry Messel on the televised International Science School in the 1960s; I met Thomas Gold at the Santa Fe Institute decades later, and reminisced 8 Although this took some years and many experiments. At the Santa Fe Institute in March 1993 Murray Gell- 3 See Castles (2016) and Marks (2016). Mann (1929–24 May 2019) was not amused at a 4 See Burton (2018). lunch-time quip of mine. 2 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Marks — Paradigm shifts In the future, the eventual reconciliation of in papers from the Forum being published quantum mechanics with general relativity which, as editor, I would not myself have (and gravity) may well need a paradigm shift, included in the Journal, for various reasons. when it is devised.9 In recent news, we have observed the You might agree or disagree with this “shadow” of a black hole,11 and we have con- selection, not meant to be exhaustive.10 tinued to monitor gravity waves from the Two earlier developments might also stand LIGO/Virgo observatories. There is now an as paradigm shifts: the inventions of writing app, Gravitational Wave Events,12 that will systems and particularly the invention of notify you when a new observation is con- the alphabet (using symbols to record the firmed, using its GW chirp on your smart sounds, phonemes, of words, rather than the phone. And recent DNA analysis has shown whole word or phrase), but their details and that grapes used by the Romans 2,000 years impacts are lost in prehistory. And anyway ago are strongly related to today’s pinot noir we might look on the alphabet as a new and syrah varieties, meaning that the same technology.
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