Conversation

What’s the cheapest scientific instrument that can get an average amateur to the bleeding edge of discovery work? So not just scutwork that the pros with billion dollars instruments like CERN or Hubble indulgently farm out.
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There’s always been grinder tasks like variable star period tracking that has been available to masses of amateurs with low-end tools, lots of time, and a sort of eager sincerity. But I think increasingly, stuff with nontrivial likelihood of big impact is accessible….
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…but almost all of it is computing opportunities with publicly released datasets. Primary experimental work with instruments is still I think always the preserve of the most expensive equipment.
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This is an uncomfortable topic because amateurs have historically had an awestruck, deferential relationship with pros. And pros have historically conducted themselves with a sort of intellectual noblesse oblige grace towards them. But I think the relationship is too respectful.
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I suspect many apparent structural-organizational problems with institutional science would just melt away if we had a way to sort off break up the natural monopolies around high capex bleeding-edge instrumental resources.
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