Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2022 November 23

= November 23 =

Truth of claims
All Indian school books continuously tell school kids that Jagadish Chandra Bose first proved that life exists in plants

https://twitter.com/ParveenKaswan/status/1595246772191784962

https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/jagadish-chandra-bose-plants-life-322594-2016-05-10

and he independently invented radio wave receiver.

https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/jagadish-chandra-bose-839079-2016-11-30

https://theprint.in/features/j-c-bose-father-of-radio-science-who-was-forgotten-by-west-due-to-his-aversion-to-patents/552556/

Does American, European science community accepts this? 2402:3A80:1A42:7664:DCB1:A557:55EC:9355 (talk) 03:33, 23 November 2022 (UTC)


 * It is rather unclear what the statement means. Therefore it is not possible to say whether any scientific community accepts this. You might as well say that early Indian astronomers proved that the Moon exists in the sky. The second link states: "Before the advent of the 20th century, science did not acknowledge the vitality of trees and plants." Bose is credited with showing this botanical vitality. But any farmer, since prehistoric times, was aware of the vitality of plants. If by "vitality" the concept of the theory of vitalism is meant, then you should be aware of the fact that in today's scientific consensus this is a bogus theory, and "proving" it does not earn one credit. Long before Bose, Erasmus Darwin, a grandfather of Charles Darwin, argued in his book Zoonomia that vegetable life and animal life sprang from a common source and were not fundamentally different. What is certain is that Jagadish Chandra Bose was the first to propose the theory that plants have an internal signalling system, as laid down in his book The Nervous Mechanism of Plants. While the significance of the theory is acknowledged, I think that the consensus is that his experiments did not establish his precise claims, in particular the existence of signalling pathways in plants conveying electrical signals carrying messages. Instead, plants use phytohormones, which are chemical compounds. --Lambiam 07:50, 23 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Regarding the radio wave claim... For some reason, many people want to claim the "inventor of the radio" for their country. (See Talk:Guglielmo Marconi and the archives thereof.) My reading of our (detailed) article invention of radio is that:
 * The early theoretical work on radio waves in general was mostly Hertz/Maxwell
 * Many prototypes of detection apparatus were created in the 1890s, by many researchers. Yes, that includes Bose, but also others with roughly equal contribution (Branly, Lodge, Popov).
 * The first working long-range communication devices were definitely Marconi’s.
 * Tigraan Click here for my talk page ("private" contact) 12:36, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * And don't forget the contributions of Nikola Tesla. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:22, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Year 2038 problem
Will my computer suffer the Year 2038 problem? 67.215.28.226 (talk) 20:43, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Will you still have the same computer in 16 years time? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:50, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe... 67.215.28.226 (talk) 20:52, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * And assuming I do have the same computer in 16 years, my computer is a Windows 11 with a 64-bit operating system. 67.215.28.226 (talk) 21:15, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The Year 2038 Problem can manifest itself at any time when dates after 2038-01-19 03:14:07 are considered; you don't actually have to wait until then. OR, but I am already aware of an instance where a company (or perhaps their legal department) requested a 20-year software license key - and it failed as expired. catslash (talk) 21:45, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay. 67.215.28.226 (talk) 22:28, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My friend experienced a somewhat similar problem in late 1990's: at some point the results of periodical work-related medical examinations of his employees started to be automatically invalidated by the HR system due to expiration, as a result of 'wrapping' a year last-two-digits representation from the range 2000 .. 2002 into 1900 .. 1902. :) --CiaPan (talk) 00:26, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The Year 2038 problem affects systems which store time as seconds since 1970 in a signed 32-bit integer. This format originated in Unix systems, although it's possible that some parts of some older Windows systems also do this. But a 64-bit Windows 11 system almost certainly doesn't store time in a 32-bit variable anywhere in the operating system. The only problem would be if you are running a particular application which stores time this way. CodeTalker (talk) 23:49, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, good! Thank you. 67.215.28.226 (talk) 02:28, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If you wish, it is possible to do the experiment now merely by setting your computer's clock to a few minutes before the timestamp you are worried about, switching off its automatic timing updates, if it has them, and seeing what happens. I know that this was how some IT folk tested whether their systems were going to hit the Year 2000 problem and they would need to do something about it. Mike Turnbull (talk) 18:13, 24 November 2022 (UTC)


 * This isn't for the computing desk huh? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 10:25, 24 November 2022 (UTC).