paiute
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2004
- Messages
- 1,394
Chemists the world over are not attuned to what is going on in the the 'fringe'. Generally, they're just plodding along in their sphere of speciality.
Back in the day it was not so uncommon to have gifted scientists whose work spanned several fields. Today, not so much. Mills is a bit of a throw back to those times; a renaissance man.
Horse crap. I have been in chemistry, academic and industrial, for several decades. Chemist are not just "plodding along". They are constantly casting about for the next big thing. Something that breaks the accepted views. Busting convention is how you get published, how you get grants, how you spin off small industries and potentially make some cash.
You are correct that chemists nowadays have to be specialized. The depth of information in any particular chemical specialty is much much deeper than "back in the day". These days I see more collaborations. Groups of chemists will get together to work on an idea. They might invite engineers, biologists and other specialists to join the cause.
I have been reading about this Mills fellow for many years. It's always good for a laugh. I worked for a long time with isotopes of hydrogen, and the possibility that this element has the properties that Mills hypothesizes for it are nil.