Thursday, February 11, 2010

A PUZZLE

There is a famous paper with only one illustration, below. Name the author and name of this paper that changed the world as few others.

9 comments:

Jérôme Chauvet said...

My intuition and my 6th sense both tell me it has something to do with Maxwell and the electro-magnetism.

Steven Colyer said...

Name and paper please? :-)

Jérôme Chauvet said...

Unfortunately, I don't have Maxwell's articles in my own articles compilations, and I haven't found a convenient open archive where to check if it is in what I am thinking of.

It'll need some chance to get the paper (where the hell did you find this one Steven?).

Best,

Steven Colyer said...

Jérôme, you are SO close, but do you really want me to lead you by the hand and explain exACTly where to go to find an answer? I mean I could, and I will, in 24 hours, if you wish, but in the meantime ...

There are such things in this world as Google and Wikipedia. May I suggest Wikipedia? You have 24 hours to guess the correct subject to lead you to the promised land. The paper is QUITE famous, and it's out there in PDF format.

Good luck!

Jérôme Chauvet said...

I think it is therein, though I didn't find the exact diagram (too many pages).

Right?

Steven Colyer said...

Yes, you are correct! It's on page 17 of the 54 page PDF, or page 475 of the text.

Jérôme Chauvet said...

What do I win?

If I was to choose, I would say a ticket in a plane to the USA + Hotel + Restaurant (we are four: I, my wife and my 2 daughters)

Personnally, I need a waiter and four stars standard.

When do we fly?

Steven Colyer said...

You win the joy of being correct, which is a tremendous joy.

You can stay with me, I'll give you a tour of Princeton, the town, University, and IAS. The Fusion labs are up the street, and the lake Einstein sailed in. His house on Mercer of course. Then of course there's Times Square in NYC. I have no money for plane tickets.

I'm thinking of wiping the comments here for new people to guess. It'll be a while, though.

Rodrigo Capucho Paulo said...

There are no 'famous scientific papers'. There IS Einstein's famous E=mC-squared equation and that's an unsolvable puzzle too!