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THE KNOWN WORLD
to do it but had enough doubts about
the process to test the safety of their
machine. “Accordingly, Dr. Dudley,
with his characteristic devotion to
the cause of science,” explained the
report, “lent himself to the experiment.”
They taped a coin to one side
of his head, placed a photographic
plate on the other, and exposed him
to the X-ray machine for an hour.
The experiment produced no
useful outcome, but it may have
spared the child. “The plate developed
nothing,” they reported. But
three weeks after the experiment,
Dudley lost all of his hair in the area
where the X-rays had been directed.
“The spot is perfectly bald, being two
inches in diameter,” they noted. “We,
and especially Dr. Dudley, shall watch
with interest the ultimate effect.”
THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS
START ORGANIZING
Twelve full months passed before
the scientific community began to
develop a coherent approach to the
study of X-rays. The key article is a
report from the American Institute
of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) that
appeared in December 1896. “We
were very much surprised, something
like a year ago, by this very great discovery,”
the report begins, “but we
cannot say that we know very much
more about it now than we did then.
The whole world seems to have been
working on it for all this time without
having discovered a great deal with
respect to it.”
This report also reveals much
about the nature of scientific practice
at the time. It was a record of a discussion
among a half-dozen senior
scientists, all of whom lived within
easy travel distance to New York and
could easily congregate there for a
meeting. Most important, they represented
most of the major research
universities and, among them, knew
most of the scientists who could
contribute to the field. When they discussed
and debated ideas, they were
speaking for an entire community.
COMPUTER
The report is strong and detailed
but a little cautious as none of the participants
wished to offend the others
or give a conclusion that might be
disproved later. The majority of the
group concluded that X-rays were a
form of electro-magnetic radiation
and that they “most likely consist of
vibrations of such small wavelengths
as to be comparable with the distances
between molecules of the most
dense substances.” That hypothesis
would be the basis for the serious
study of X-rays.
The flood of papers
has continued to rise,
as scientists from
laboratories near and
far try to make a name
for themselves.
THE POWER OF PUBLICATION
Scientific periodicals have always
had a central role in the process that
turns chaos into order, although that
role has often changed. At the time
of Röntgen’s discovery, the editors
of the oldest and most prestigious
scientific journal in the English language,
the Philosophical Transactions,
stated that they selected articles for
publication because of “the importance
and singularity of the subjects,
or the advantageous manner of
treating them.” At the same time,
they rejected the idea that they
were validating or proving the science
of any article that appeared in
the Transactions. They didn’t pretend
“to answer for the certainty of the
facts, or propriety of the reasonings
contained in the several papers so
published,” they explained, “which
must still rest on the credit or judgment
of their respective authors.”
The editors could take such a stand
because the scientific community
was still relatively small. Readers had
other information to help them assess
the articles. Moreover, they actually
knew most of the people and laboratories
engaged in active research and
contributing to the field.
The role of periodicals changed
substantially over the next 50 years.
By the middle of the 20th century,
scientific periodicals were acting as
validators—institutions that verified
scientific research. “Science is
moving rapidly,” noted the editor of
the journal Science. He argued that scientific
periodicals “in every discipline
should take their responsibilities with
respect to critical reviews” of every
paper submitted to them. As an editor
of a leading journal, he felt that Science
needed to set the standard for
scientific publication and regularly
published articles that described
the process of peer review, the rules
that should guide reviewers, and the
kinds of judgments that editors should
make.
At the same time it was promoting
peer review, Science’s editor acknowledged
that the expansion of scientific
research was making it difficult for
editors to validate every article that
reached their desks. “With the great
flood of manuscripts that today’s
editors receive, in every scientific
discipline, it is not possible to spend
so much time and effort debating
details,” he wrote. And as the century
progressed, the flood of manuscripts
only increased.
THE ORIGINAL COLD FUSION
As the waters rose, so rose the calls
for scientific periodicals to test and
validate the papers that they published.
These calls reached a high
point in 1989, when a pair of researchers
announced to the public that they
had made a discovery every bit as dramatic
as the story of X-rays a century
before. Two chemists “started a scientific
uproar last month by asserting
that they had achieved nuclear fusion
at room temperature,” reported The
New York Times. The writer added,
“Many scientists remain skeptical.”
The story of cold fusion lived
for two years as laboratories
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