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6182
From: snodrop, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Major scientific announcement could validate Einstein
URL: http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/10/us/gravitational-waves-announcement-feat/index.html
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[6183] [6184] [6190] [6191] [6186] [6187] [6188] [6189] [6192] [6194] [6199] [6193]
6183
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Gravitational Waves Discovered at Long Last
URL: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160211-gravitational-waves-discovered-at-long-last/
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excerpt: "Ripples in space-time caused by the violent mergers of black holes have been detected, 100 years after these “gravitational waves” were predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity and half a century after physicists set out to look for them. The landmark discovery was reported today by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Advanced LIGO) team, confirming months of rumors that have surrounded the group’s analysis of its first round of data. Astrophysicists say the detection of gravitational waves opens up a new window on the universe, revealing faraway events that can’t be seen by optical telescopes, but whose faint tremors can be felt, even heard, across the cosmos. “We have detected gravitational waves. We did it!” announced David Reitze, executive director of the 1,000-member team, at a National Science Foundation press conference today in Washington, D.C. Gravitational waves are perhaps the most elusive prediction of Einstein’s theory, one that he and his contemporaries debated for decades. According to his theory, space and time form a stretchy fabric that bends under heavy objects, and to feel gravity is to fall along the fabric’s curves. But can the “space-time” fabric ripple like the skin of a drum? Einstein flip-flopped, confused as to what his equations implied. But even steadfast believers assumed that, in any case, gravitational waves would be too weak to observe. They cascade outward from certain cataclysmic events, alternately stretching and squeezing space-time as they go. But by the time the waves reach Earth from these remote sources, they typically stretch and squeeze each mile of space by a minuscule fraction of the width of an atomic nucleus. Perceiving the waves took patience and a delicate touch. Advanced LIGO bounced laser beams back and forth along the four-kilometer arms of two L-shaped detectors — one in Hanford, Wash., the other in Livingston, La. — looking for coincident expansions and contractions of their arms caused by gravitational waves as they passed. Using state-of-the-art stabilizers, vacuums and thousands of sensors, the scientists measured changes in the arms’ lengths as tiny as one thousandth the width of a proton. This sensitivity would have been unimaginable a century ago, and struck many as implausible in 1968, when Rainer Weiss of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conceived the experiment that became LIGO. “The great wonder is they did finally pull it off; they managed to detect these little boogers!” said Daniel Kennefick, a theoretical physicist at the University of Arkansas and author of the 2007 book Traveling at the Speed of Thought: Einstein and the Quest for Gravitational Waves. The detection ushers in a new era of gravitational-wave astronomy that is expected to deliver a better understanding of the formation, population and galactic role of black holes — super-dense balls of mass that curve space-time so steeply that even light cannot escape. When black holes spiral toward each other and merge, they emit a “chirp”: space-time ripples that grow higher in pitch and amplitude before abruptly ending. The chirps that LIGO can detect happen to fall in the audible range, although they are far too quiet to be heard by the unaided ear. You can re-create the sound by running your finger along a piano’s keys. “Start from the lowest note on the piano and go to middle C,” Weiss said. “That’s what we hear.” Audio Player Emily Lakdawalla Audio: LIGO spokesperson Gabriela González played the audible sound of gravitational waves during today’s announcement. Physicists are already surprised by the number and strength of the signals detected so far, which imply that there are more black holes out there than expected. “We got lucky, but I was always expecting us to be somewhat lucky,” said Kip Thorne, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology who founded LIGO with Weiss and Ronald Drever, who is also at Caltech. “This usually happens when a whole new window’s been opened up on the universe.” C. Henze/ NASA Video: A simulation of two black holes merging and the resulting emission of gravitational radiation. Eavesdropping on gravitational waves could reshape our view of the cosmos in other ways, perhaps uncovering unimagined cosmic happenings. “I liken this to the first time we pointed a telescope at the sky,” said Janna Levin, a theoretical astrophysicist at Barnard College of Columbia University. “People realized there was something to see out there, but didn’t foresee the huge, incredible range of possibilities that exist in the universe.” Similarly, Levin said, gravitational-wave detections might possibly reveal that “the universe is full of dark stuff that we simply can’t detect in a telescope.” The story of the first gravitational-wave detection began on a Monday morning in September, and it started with a bang: a signal so loud and clear that Weiss thought, “This is crap. It’s gotta be no good.” Fever Pitch That first gravitational wave swept across Advanced LIGO’s detectors — first at Livingston, then at Hanford seven milliseconds later — during a mock run in the early hours of Sept. 14, two days before data collection was officially scheduled to begin. The detectors were just firing up again after a five-year, $200-million upgrade, which equipped them with new noise-damping mirror suspensions and an active feedback system for canceling out extraneous vibrations in real time. The upgrades gave Advanced LIGO a major sensitivity boost over its predecessor, “initial LIGO,” which from 2002 to 2010 had detected “a good clean zero,” as Weiss put it. When the big signal arrived in September, scientists in Europe, where it was morning, frantically emailed their American colleagues. As the rest of the team awoke, the news quickly spread. According to Weiss, practically everyone was skeptical — especially when they saw the signal. It was such a textbook chirp that many suspected the data had been hacked. William Widmer for Quanta Magazine From left: A four-kilometer arm of the LIGO Livingston Observatory, the control room, and a schematic diagram of the detector’s “optical layout.” Mistaken claims in the search for gravitational waves have a long history, starting in the late 1960s when Joseph Weber of the University of Maryland thought he observed aluminum bars resonating in response to the waves. Most recently, in 2014, an experiment called BICEP2 reported the detection of primordial gravitational waves — space-time ripples from the Big Bang that would now be stretched and permanently frozen into the geometry of the universe. The BICEP2 team went public with great fanfare before their results were peer-reviewed, and then got burned when their signal turned out to have come from space dust. When Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist at Arizona State University, got wind of the Advanced LIGO detection, “the first thought is that it was a blind injection,” he said. During initial LIGO, simulated signals had been secretly inserted into the data streams to test the response, unbeknownst to most of the team. When Krauss heard from an inside source that it wasn’t a blind injection this time, he could hardly contain his excitement. On Sept. 25, he tweeted to his 200,000 followers: “Rumor of a gravitational wave detection at LIGO detector. Amazing if true. Will post details if it survives.” Then, on Jan. 11: “My earlier rumor about LIGO has been confirmed by independent sources. Stay tuned! Gravitational waves may have been discovered!” The first gravitational wave signal was observed seven milliseconds apart on Sept. 14 at Advanced LIGO’s Hanford and Livingston detectors. The team’s official stance was to keep quiet about their signal until they were dead sure. Thorne, bound by a vow of secrecy, didn’t even tell his wife. “I celebrated in private,” he said. The team’s first step was to go back and analyze in excruciating detail how the signal had propagated through the detectors’ thousands of different measurement channels, and to see whether anything strange had happened at the moment the signal was seen. They found nothing unusual. They also ruled out hackers, who would have had to know more than anyone about the experiment’s thousands of data streams. “Even the team that does the blind injections have not perfected their injections well enough not to leave behind lots of fingerprints,” Thorne said. “And there were no fingerprints.” Another, weaker chirp showed up in the weeks that followed. The scientists analyzed these first two signals as even more swept in, and they submitted their paper to Physical Review Letters in January; it appeared online today. Their estimate of the statistical significance of the first, biggest signal is above “5-sigma,” meaning the scientists are 99.9999 percent sure it’s real. Listening for Gravity Einstein’s equations of general relativity are so complex that it took 40 years for most physicists to agree that gravitational waves exist and are detectable — even in theory. Einstein first thought that objects cannot shed energy in the form of gravitational radiation, then changed his mind. He showed in a seminal 1918 paper which ones could: Dumbbell-like systems that rotate about two axes at once, such as binary stars and supernovas popping like firecrackers, can make waves in space-time."...... |
Responses:
[6184] [6190] [6191] [6186] [6187] [6188] [6189] [6192] [6194] [6199] [6193]
6184
From: Nasirah, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
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How long will it be before eartone/body sensitive deluded folk here will claim that they can also detect black hole mergers 1.3 billion light-years from Earth... "The numbers look bald on paper, but it's when you try to imagine the scenario being described in those numbers that you rock backwards. Imagine two monster black holes spinning down on each other in space. One has a mass which is about 35 times that of our Sun, the other roughly 30. At the moment just before they coalesce, they're turning around each other several tens of times a second. And then, their event horizons merge and they become one - like two soap bubbles in a bath. David Reitze, executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatories (LIGO), described it thus: "Take something about 150km in diameter, and pack 30 times the mass of the Sun into that, and then accelerate it to half the speed of light. Now, take another thing that's 30 times the mass of the Sun, and accelerate that to half the speed of light. And then collide [the two objects] together. That's what we saw here. It's mind boggling."" |
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6190
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
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I'm not sure why you find it so easy to dismiss the idea of human 'earth sensitivity'. There is plenty of academic evidence to suggest human health is effected by our nearby star. If our bodies are responding, it's hardly a surprise that humans can have an awareness of it. Why assume that just because science has not yet come up with a grand theory of human sensitivity, it must be bogus. That's the same kind of argument religious folks use when it comes to the origin of human dna on earth. Scientists still haven't figured out how or why it's here. Religious fundamentalists insist that mystery is proof that it was magically divined. No, it just means we haven't figured it out yet. Here are a few sources, but there might be better ones out there. Be a little curious. http://www.izmiran.ru/~obridko/papers/377.pdf Potential effects of solar and geomagnetic variability on terrestrial biological systems "The physiological and cardio-health states of human beings are not immune to their environment. Regulation of human homeostasis is not only endogenic but also exogenic. There is an increasing amount of evidence linking biological effects to solar and geomagnetic conditions. The possible relationship between regular and sharp changes in the space weather and the development of “irregular” cardiovascular-diseased states has always inspired curiosity among physicians and scientists. This Section looks at the direct measurable indicators that may suggest that the human physiological state is affected by the space weather. In Section 3 the cardio-health state is considered." ---------------- http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/03/12/rspb.2 012.0324.full Are stress responses to geomagnetic storms mediated by the cryptochrome compass system? http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/editorial-board ——————————————— http://www.livescience.com/14694-humans-sixth-sense-magnetic- fields.html Humans May Have 'Magnetic' Sixth Sense suggests human physiology seems to be designed to detect magnetic fields. Why not gravitational waves? |
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[6191]
6191
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: spooky action at a distance
URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/spooky-action-distance.html
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excerpt: "HOW WE THINK OF SPACE If there is space between two objects—if there are two birds in the sky and one is way off to your right and the other is way off to your left—we can and do consider the two objects to be independent. We regard them as separate and distinct entities. Space, whatever it is fundamentally, provides the medium that separates and distinguishes one object from another. That is what space does. Things occupying different locations in space are different things. Moreover, in order for one object to influence another, it must in some way negotiate the space that separates them. One bird can fly to the other, traversing the space between them, and then peck or nudge its companion. One person can influence another by shooting a slingshot, causing a pebble to traverse the space between them, or by yelling, causing a domino effect of bouncing air molecules, one jostling the next until some bang into the recipient's eardrum. Being yet more sophisticated, one can exert influence on another by firing a laser, causing an electromagnetic wave—a beam of light—to traverse the intervening space. Or, being more ambitious, one can hypothetically shake or move a massive body (like the moon), sending a gravitational disturbance speeding from one location to another. To be sure, if we are over here we can influence someone over there, but no matter how we do it, the procedure always involves someone or something traveling from here to there, and only when the someone or something gets there can the influence be exerted. img tag Quantum entanglement brings to mind voodoo (here, a voodoo idol from Benin, West Africa). But the scientific evidence that it exists is overwhelming, Greene says. VOODOO REALITY Physicists call this feature of the universe locality, emphasizing the point that you can directly affect only things that are next to you, that are local. Voodoo contravenes locality, since it involves doing something over here and affecting something over there without the need for anything to travel from here to there, but common experience leads us to think that verifiable, repeatable experiments would confirm locality. And most do. But a class of experiments performed during the last couple of decades has shown that something we do over here (such as measuring certain properties of a particle) can be subtly entwined with something that happens over there (such as the outcome of measuring certain properties of another distant particle), without anything being sent from here to there. Intervening space does not ensure that two objects are separate. While intuitively baffling, this phenomenon fully conforms to the laws of quantum mechanics, and was predicted using quantum mechanics long before the technology existed to do the experiment and observe, remarkably, that the prediction is correct. This sounds like voodoo; Einstein, who was among the first physicists to recognize—and sharply criticize—this possible feature of quantum mechanics, called it "spooky." But the long-distance links these experiments confirm are extremely delicate and are, in a precise sense, fundamentally beyond our ability to control. Quantum connections between two particles can persist even if the two particles are on opposite sides of the universe. THE TWAIN SHALL MEET Nevertheless, these results, coming from both theoretical and experimental considerations, strongly support the conclusion that the universe admits interconnections that are not local. Something that happens over here can be entwined with something that happens over there even if nothing travels from here to there—and even if there isn't enough time for anything, even light, to travel between the events. This means that space cannot be thought of as it once was: Intervening space, regardless of how much there is, does not ensure that two objects are separate, since quantum mechanics allows an entanglement, a kind of connection, to exist between them. A particle, like one of the countless number that make up you or me, can run but it can't hide. According to quantum theory and the many experiments that bear out its predictions, the quantum connection between two particles can persist even if they are on opposite sides of the universe. From the standpoint of their entanglement, notwithstanding the many trillions of miles of space between them, it's as if they are right on top of each other. Numerous assaults on our conception of reality are emerging from modern physics. But of those that have been experimentally verified, I find none more mind-boggling than this recent realization that our universe is not local." Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University. He is the author of The Fabric of the Cosmos, from which this essay was excerpted and on which the four-part NOVA series premiering in fall 2011 is based. Greene is also the author of The Elegant Universe, the subject of a three-part NOVA series that aired in 2003, and The Hidden Reality. |
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6186
From: Quartz, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
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While I'm skeptical about many of the body sensitive claims, too, there isn't anything indicating they haven't. They just didn't have a term or pattern that they'd be able to articulate. Culturally speaking, I've heard many claims that autism didn't exist before the 1940s. Of course it existed, and judging by the literature from the time period I've skimmed over about asylums and such, in higher numbers than today when you actually look at the symptom clusters. But it didn't have a name and no one was looking for a pattern, just institutionalizing "crazy" relatives or casting them in the streets, or killing them by way of casual neglect locked in the attic, and denying for the sake of their family name and reputation that said relatives even existed. People like me were anathema filth, our existence denied, and no one was comparing notes to look for patterns, made difficult even now because of terminology differences between different institutions and with today's terminology. I agree that in this case I don't think body sensitives can detect gravity waves, given the magnitude of forces involved. But, I'm not going to say that it's impossible, and it could well be that they've been sensing it all along but not having terminology or a recognized pattern set to pin it to. |
6187
From: Nasirah, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
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Higher functionung people with autism have made valauble contributions to science and culture even befoe the term autism came about as word describing a cluster of symptoms - as there's no such thing as a simple blood test to diagnose the condition. So while I agree a lot of folk with autism & severe learning difficulties would have been categorised and placed into institutions, it seems that some have achieved a great deal in mainstream society before autism was recognized in the 20th century. Referenced list of 175 famous people diagnosed as autistic or subject of published speculation about autism/Asperger syndrome (AS) John Couch Adams (1819-1892) Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) David Bellamy OBE (b. 1933) Robert Boyle, The hon. FRS (1627-1691) Henry Cavendish FRS (1731-1810) Charles Darwin FRS (1809-1882) Marie Curie (1867-1934) Paul Dirac OM, FRS (1902-1984) Albert Einstein FRS (1879–1955) Dian Fossey (1932-1985) Rosalind Frankin (1920-1958) Sir Francis Galton FRS (1822-1911) Temple Grandin (b.1947) Irene Joliot-Curie (1897-1956) Alfred Kinsey (1894–1956) Barbara McClintock (1902-1992) James Clerk Maxwell FRS (1831-1879) Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) Sir Isaac Newton FRS (1642–1726) Charles Richter (1900-1985) etcetera etcetera http://incorrectpleasures.blogspot.co.uk/2006/09/referenced-list-of-famous-or-important.html Anyhow - If the earth 'sensitives' haven't been able to pin reliable significant EQ predictions I really doubt then they are also able to be also gravity wave sensitive. I posted that as these folk claim symptoms after following pseudo scientifically things like sun flares, tsunamis, volcanoes and thunder storms - and as science advances these deluded folk latch onto each new scientific observations to explain their psychosomatic symptoms as if that make them special and lends them air of credibility. How you relate earth sensitives to Autism i don't know uness you believe people with autism are earth sensitives?? which is puzzling as you also seem genuinely sceptical about earth 'sensitives'. Heck why not just randomly link earth sensitives with schizophrenics... |
6188
From: Quartz, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
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I am not seeing how you think I was saying autists were earth sensitives. People frequently draw parallels between two completely different situations not to imply that those two groups share the same characteristics. Just that society as a whole went through a similar process of consideration. I'm dumbfounded that you thought I was saying the two groups were alike, and you completely missed the point of my post. |
6189
From: Quartz, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
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Nevermind. We have nothing more to say, since you're enthusiastic about earth sensitives being whack jobs, and you just put autism and schizophrenia in the whackjob category with your insinuations. Sorry that you consider us all part of the freak show. Nice that you said the words about other autists being bright or clever, but with what you said afterward, you're just playing politically correct lip service. |
6192
From: Nasirah, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
URL: Why I'm donating my brain to science (and why you should too)
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Uh! You raised the subject of autism in realtion to Earth sensitives in some random comparative sense of the top of your head You implied that autistic folk have a bad time "anathema filth, our existence denied / freak show" but when I corrected you with information of positive examples of people on the autistic spectrum you seem to have become all indignant as if you want to be stuck as a maligned minority. So now you seem to be saying that earth sensitves are simply misunderstood and in time there super earth sensitivity powerz will become apparent. Have you browsed through 'Earth Groans ' and read how they try and correlate every ailment & mood to everything and anything external without sign of any significant ability to reliably predict anything. Now you link to random science papers - that simply question if there's any links without any evidence that there is - and even if there was how on earth would all the neurotic earth worriers sieve through all that could be worrying them be earthquake, q wave,rain storm, sun storm. period pain, next door's dog barking in the yard, as their methodology is as useful as a bunch of anxiety prone housewives all trying to outdo each other in attention & sympathy seeking . Maybe the most useful thing earth sensitves can do is to donate their brains to science as they are currently not making much use of their's while alive ;-) |
6194
From: Quartz, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
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Nasirah, as I explained in the second post, and was pretty clear in the first, I was not comparing autism and earth sensitives. I was comparing society's similar developing attitudes toward two completely different groups. Now, Nasirah... I'm going to be setting this debate aside entirely. Your penchant for putting words in people's mouths they never said and making bizarre and outright deeply offensive assumptions about what they meant makes it impossible to debate with you. You are not debating from a point of skepticism or sticking to the facts. You assume. Put demeaning, degrading assumptions in peoples's mouths that they never said. That indicates you're arguing from a position of ego and merely using science and skepticism as a subconscious rationalizations. Not a huge deal, I do that do a degree too, so does everyone on this forum, the entire human race. We all gravitate toward platforms to argue from that feed our egos whether science, religion, or some other ideology. You will probably disagree with me. Whether outright on this thread, or simply in the recesses of your own mind, you'll convince yourself, as usual, that I said the words you think I said. Flip side of this is that I'm going into a PMS phase right now. I get overly emotional, true, and one of the worst things people can do is claim I said bad things that I didn't say. To be honest, I'm stepping out because of that, too. Attributing such horrible things to me, things that even on my good days I consider obscenities...well, I'm not good at dealing with that. I'm actually still being a snivelling little idiot and crying about it. Usually, it leads to long irrational ranting posts...of which there were two I deleted before posting this. Putting words in people's mouths. As enraged as I get about people doing it to me, I realize I do it when I'm pissed, and sometimes when I'm just flaky and careless. Which is another reason I deleted the previous two posts. Pretty sure they involved some accusations of your thoughts and mindset that were as horrible as what you attributed to me, and equally false. I don't think you do it with conscious malice, but the damage you do with making assumptions about what people say and mean is just as bad as if you had. In some ways worse. When I suspect deliberate malice I laugh about it. When I think people really mean it, that quite frankly terrifies me. Please, if you truly care about skepticism and rational discourse, turn it back on yourself. Find out why you have to build huge edifices of misinterpreted meaning that degrade the other person instead of taking and dealing with their words at face value. It's a journey we're all on, and I say that as someone struggling with the same issue. When we do it, it's damaging to not just the people around us, but the very platform of supposed skepticism and scientific inquiry (or, if it's other people, whatever their platform happens to be, religious, political, scientific, or otherwise) that we THINK (falsely, when we engage in such behaviors), we are respecting and promoting. Also, skepticism doesn't mean denial of something. And frankly even when I disagree with a belief system, I would never sink so low as to claim that any group isn't making use of their brains while they are alive and should thus donate them to science. There are groups I truly hate and am disgusted by, but I would never say something that deeply and shamefully offensive about them. Refer to the universal struggles yes, as I have with you and perhaps a bit too harshly, with Candace, as everything I bring up with either of you are the same issues that I struggle with, the same things I try and often fail to excise from myself. But denigrating anyone in the manner you did...that's just wrong. |
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6199
From: Quartz, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
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Actually, given your extreme misinterpretation with all of my posts, you have no comprehension of allegory or metaphor whatsoever. Tell me what I took literally? Nothing. But you seem to. |
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6193
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: But how come the body 'sensitives' didn't detect gravity waves
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I linked the papers, not Quartz. The way I read Quartz’s 1st post was that he/she was simply using autism as an example of a condition which until becoming better understood and recognized as a health issue was a cause for misdiagnosis and stigmatization - i.e. was a cause for being erroneously called “crazy” out of ignorance. |
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