I think it's really entertaining that people are continually re-inventing the wheel in their basements. Sure, there all loads of "think tanks" all over the world where people share ideas for a common goal and make greater collective strides as a result, but how/why does someone decide they're gonna stay in their basement, especially if they know about the think tanks?
Yeah, it is entertaining. Your example is interesting - I don't know anything about Raman, but I think you could argue that 1900-1915 is pretty much the last period when it could have been possible in either science or social science for somebody to make a real paradigm-shifting discovery without leaving the basement, so to speak. The late nineteenth century is the era of the professionalization of science and the forcing out of the amateurs - my work on the Archives of Useless Research focused on this turning point. After 1910 or so the degree of specialization is so great that it's really hard to imagine somebody outside the scientific community coming up with something really significant.
The field of role-playing game design, of course, is not quite so developed as particle physics.
As God as my witness, I though Heartbreakers could fly.
I think it's really entertaining that people are continually re-inventing the wheel in their basements. Sure, there all loads of "think tanks" all over the world where people share ideas for a common goal and make greater collective strides as a result, but how/why does someone decide they're gonna stay in their basement, especially if they know about the think tanks?
Yeah, it is entertaining. Your example is interesting - I don't know anything about Raman, but I think you could argue that 1900-1915 is pretty much the last period when it could have been possible in either science or social science for somebody to make a real paradigm-shifting discovery without leaving the basement, so to speak. The late nineteenth century is the era of the professionalization of science and the forcing out of the amateurs - my work on the Archives of Useless Research focused on this turning point. After 1910 or so the degree of specialization is so great that it's really hard to imagine somebody outside the scientific community coming up with something really significant.
The field of role-playing game design, of course, is not quite so developed as particle physics.
...YET!