[Info-vax] Where is EISNER:: and who funds it?

[alanfe...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, December 28, 2021 at 6:09:53 AM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2021-12-28 kl. 03:04, skrev alanfe... at gmail.com: 
> > On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 6:50:50 PM UTC-5, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote: 
> >> Den 2021-12-27 kl. 22:28, skrev alanfe... at gmail.com: 
> >>> On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-5, Scott Dorsey wrote: 
> >>>>> alanfe... at gmail.com wrote: 

[...]

> > That AFAIK, the U.S. has manufactured more new elements than other countries.
> And the practical usage is, what? 

Sorry for the late answer. Here are uses for at least two of them. There might be more. Sorry, but I don't want to leave the impression that these manufactured elements are all devoid of practical use, even though this was asked 4 weeks ago. And I musn't miss any chance I get to promote basic scientific research!

Americium-241 is used in smoke detectors and equipment testing:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=americium-241+uses

Californium is used in portable metal detectors:

https://www.google.com/search?q=californium+uses+in+everyday+life&newwindow=1&client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=AOaemvJL7SdN1Odl-QrSr5AGllMYpd35Yg%3A1643101452639&ei=DL3vYYO1Ju2nptQPpPOe4AI&oq=californium+uses&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMYATIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjoHCAAQRxCwAzoHCAAQsAMQQzoGCAAQBxAeOgYIABAFEB46BAgAEA06CAgAEA0QBRAeOggIABAIEA0QHjoFCAAQhgM6BggAEA0QHkoECEEYAEoECEYYAFD_A1jkLGCHOWgCcAJ4AIABkgKIAcgHkgEGMTAuMC4xmAEAoAEByAEKwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz

or type this into your favorite search engine:

californium uses in everyday life

and check out this one:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-californium-used-for-in-everyday-life.html

> > Maybe I'm wrong about that... 
> 
> Maybe not. It is not that surprising that there were some side-effects 
> from the Manhattan project and other nuclear work. I just do not see 
> how it matters and what the real-life usage is. Apart from proving that 
> it *can* be done. That might matter for some, of course.

You would have said the same about lots of basic research, which decades later produced technological benefits. Take the ozone hole. How do you think it was discovered? How do you think anyone even learned that ozone protects us? By basic research (!), which you would have similarly pooh-poohed at the time.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3137/ao.460101

I could probably write a book about all the apparently useless discoveries in science and how they later, sometimes decades later, provided big benefits that are useful even to this day. The most important are probably the electric generator, transformers and the like, lasers, and transistors and the like. Oh, add medical advances to that, like proton therapy, MRI, PET, etc., none of which would have come to fruition without prior basic scientific research.

I've already said more about this. See my post time-stamped Dec 28, 2021, 1:29:14 PM EST. (UTC-0500)