Empirical invention

Provisional Specification.—I, Albert Baur of Gispersleben, in the Empire of Germany, Doctor, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows —... 

Sometimes there are problems for which no empirically validated strategies exist. These situations challenge therapists and counselors to develop creative approaches to addressing unusual problems. On the one hand, it is very important to use an empirically validated approach to correct a problem if such an approach exists, because it makes little sense to reinvent the wheel when a radial tire may already be available to you. However, if the wheel has not been invented or tested, therapists and counselors still have to do something. 

If we think about other and later changes in symbols, vocabulary, and imagery, the struggle for invention and control of language, and thereby of theory, is obvious, whether in controversies over atomic symbols (spheres or letters ), molecular formulas (O = 8 or 16 ), functional groups ("radicals" or "residues" ), or names of compounds ("rational" or "empirical" ). 

Quoted in Kathleen Neils Conzen, German-Americans and the Invention of Ethnicity, in Frank Trommler and Joseph McVeigh, eds., America and the Germans An Assessment of a Three Hundred Year History (Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), vol. I, p. 136. On nonwhite responses to American empire, see Willard Gatewood, Black Americans and the White Man s Burden, 1898-1903 (Urbana University of Illinois Press, 1975) Amy Kaplan, Black and Blue on San Juan Hill, in Amy Kaplan and Donald Pease, eds., The Cultures of US Imperialism (Durham Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 219-236. 

Some historians date the Iron Age to around 1200 bc, when the Hittite empire was destroyed and its smiths were dispersed, spreading the knowledge of ironworking. But man-made iron artefacts existed before 2500 bc. The Iron Age, along with the earlier Bronze and Stone Ages, is an invention of nineteenth-century archaeologists and of questionable value today. 

How do we explain this difference from the fate of empires in Europe It was the task of nationalism to invent the new nation-states for the post-1945 world, but was this nationalism a different beast altogether from that of Europe Could we imagine nationalism in Europe sanctifying the multi-ethnic borders created by the Hapsburgs, Romanovs and Ottomans, as we do in Asia for the empires of British, Dutch, Spanish, French and Manchus If Asian nation-states were to perform this transformation from the immense variety and antiquity of their ethnic, political and civilisational forms, without fragmenting the leviathans of imperial construction, they would require a kind of magic—the imperial alchemy of my title. The base metal of empire would have to be transmuted into the gold of nationhood. 

It was Clar [5] who invented a novel usage of the circles and arrows on the Kekule structure of aromatic hydrocarbons to represent the stability of the molecule and local aromatic characters based on his own numerous experimental results and empirical rules [6], but not on sophisticated quantum-chemical treatment. According to his scheme the ground state of I and II can well be represented by the following Clar formulas, Ic and lie,... 

Classically, catalysts of all kinds were discovered more or less empirically [45]. Heterogeneous catalysts were generally invented or discovered by mixing the elements or their salts or oxides, heating the mixture, and running on feed. If the catalyst was active, then variations in composition, temperature regime of formation, and addition of inert materials were tried empirically to improve the catalyst. 

The second factor considers the nature of the invention and the type of disclosure contained in the application. Some inventions by their very nature may be more conceptual in nature, and others require more instruction on how to actually make and use the claimed invention. For example, some mechanical inventions might need nothing more than a blueprint to allow one to make and use the invention.31 In other words, sometimes little more than a look or inspection of a drawing can allow one to comprehend not only the invention and that it would work but also that it can be made and used without additional comment or instruction from the inventors. The sum total of the disclosure plus the knowledge already available in the art enable the invention. In contrast, many areas of chemistry are more empirical in nature. Absent specific instruction regarding exactly what reagents are used, reaction times required, temperatures employed, etc., a chemical process may fail and/or a composition may not be produced at all or, even if successful, the final result may require a large amount of experimentation to get it to work. 

Feb. 20,1844, Vienna, Austria - Sep. 5,1906 in Duino, Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Italy) is justly famous for his invention of statistical mechanics. At different times in his fife he held chairs in theoretical physics at Graz, and in mathematics at Vienna. He also lectured in philosophy. His principal achievement, and the trigger for innumerable vitriolic attacks from the scientific establishment, was his introduction of probability theory into the fundamental laws of physics. This radical program demohshed two centuries of confidence that the fundamental laws of Nature were deterministic. Astonishingly, he also introduced the concept of discrete energy levels more th an thirty years before the development of quantum mechanics. 

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