An invisible hand?The Economist, August 19, 2004. An unsigned news story on the Allais effect in physics, which seems to show a pendulum pick up speed during a solar eclipse. Excerpt: "If the effect is real, it could indicate a hitherto unperceived flaw in General Relativity --the current explanation of how gravity works. That would be a bombshell....So attempts to duplicate Dr Allais's observation are important. However, they have had mixed success, leading sceptics to question whether there was anything to be explained. Now Chris Duif, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, has reviewed the evidence. According to a paper he has just posted on arXiv.org, an online publication archive, the effect is real, unexplained, and could be linked to another anomaly involving a pair of American spacecraft." (PS: This is a nice case of a mainstream newspaper reporting an interesting scientific puzzle for lay readers. Would The Economist have noticed the story if the Chris Duif paper had not been OA in arXiv? Maybe yes, maybe no. Would it have linked to the paper for readers who wanted to follow up? No.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/22/2004 08:40:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
