Scientific wager
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A scientific wager is a wager whose outcome is settled by scientific method. It typically consists of an offer to pay a certain sum of money on the scientific proof or disproof of some currently-uncertain statement. Some wagers have specific date restrictions for collection, but many are open. Wagers occasionally exert a powerful galvanizing effect on society and the scientific community.
Notable scientists who have made scientific wagers include
Stanford Linear Accelerator has an open book containing about 35 bets in particle physics
dating back to 1980; many are still unresolved.
Notable scientific wagers
 | This section is in prose. is available. (September 2016) |
- In 1870, Alfred Russel Wallace bet a flat-Earth theorist named John Hampden that he could prove the flat Earth hypothesis incorrect. The sum staked was £500 (equivalent to £51,000 in 2019).[1] A test (now known as the Bedford Level experiment) involving a stretch of the Old Bedford River, in Norfolk, was agreed on: Wallace measured the curvature of the canal's surface using two markers separated by about 5 km (3 mi) and suspended at equal heights above the water's surface. Using a telescope mounted 5 km from one of the markers, Wallace established that the nearer one appeared to be the higher of the two. An independent referee agreed that this showed the Earth's surface to curve away from the telescope, and so Wallace won his money. However, Hampden never accepted the result and made increasingly unpleasant threats to Wallace.
- In 1975, Penthouse for Thorne against four years of Private Eye for him that Cygnus X-1 would turn out to not be a black hole. In 1990, Hawking acknowledged that he had lost the bet. Hawking's explanation for his position was that if black holes did not actually exist much of his research would be incorrect, but at least he would have the consolation of winning the bet.[2]
- In 1978, chess chess programin a ten-year span from 1968 to 1978.
- In 1980, Julian Lincoln Simon that the price of a portfolio of US$200 (equivalent to $700 in 2023)[3] of each of five mineral commodities (copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten) would rise over the next 10 years. He lost, and paid the amount the total price had declined: $576.07 (equivalent to $1,300 in 2023).[3] See: Simon–Ehrlich wager
- In 1997, Thorne-Hawking-Preskill bet
- In 2000 roughly 40 physicists made a bet about the existence of supersymmetry, to be settled in 2011, but because the Large Hadron Collider was delayed the bet was extended to 2016. As of Summer 2016 there had been no signs of superparticles, and the losers delivered "good cognac at a price not less than $100" each to the winners (equivalent to $130 in 2023).[5][3]
- In 2000,
- From 2000 to 2003, scientists placed bets on the number of
- In 2005, British climate scientist James Annan proposed bets with global warming denialists concerning whether future temperatures will increase. Two Russian solar physicists, Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev, accepted the wager of US$10,000 (equivalent to $15,000 in 2023)[10] that the average global temperature during 2012–2017 would be lower than during 1998–2003.[11] The bet ended in 2017 with a win to Annan. Mashnich and Bashkirtsev did not honour the bet.[12] Previously, Annan first directly challenged Richard Lindzen. Lindzen had been willing to bet that global temperatures would drop over the next 20 years. Annan says that Lindzen wanted odds of 50–1 against falling temperatures. Lindzen, however, says that he asked for 2–1 odds against a temperature rise of over 0.4 °C.[13] Annan and other proponents of global warming state they have challenged other denialists to bets over global warming that were not accepted,[14] including Annan's attempt in 2005 to accept a bet that had been offered by Patrick Michaels in 1998 that temperatures would be cooler after ten years.[15] Annan made a bet in 2011 with Doctor David Whitehouse that the Met Office temperature would set a new annual record by the end of the year. Annan was declared to have lost on January 13, 2012.[16]
- In 2005, The Guardian columnist George Monbiot challenged Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to a £5,000 bet (equivalent to £7,000 in 2019)[1] of global warming versus global cooling.[17]
- On July 8, 2009, at a the Azores, Antony Garrett Lisi made a public bet with Frank Wilczek that superparticles would not be detected by July 8, 2015.[18] On August 16, 2016, after agreeing to a one-year delay to allow for more data collection from the Large Hadron Collider, Frank Wilczek conceded the superparticle bet to Lisi.[19]
- In 2012, Stephen Hawking lost $100 (equivalent to $130 in 2023)[3] to Gordon Kane of the University of Michigan because of the Higgs boson discovery.[20]
- Zvi Bern has won many bets connected to quantum gravity.[21]
- In 2016 David Gross lost a wager about supersymmetry, but he continues to believe in the theory.[5]
- In 2017, RSA-2048 factoring challenge no later than 2033.[22] In 2023, John Preuß Mattsson bet $2,050 that the challenge will withstand quantum computing until at least 2050. Daniel J. Bernstein, John Sahhar, Daniel Apon, and Michele Mosca accepted the bet.[23]
- In 2021 Alexander Kusenko lost a $10,000 wager to Derek Muller over the possibility of sailing directly downwind faster than the wind as documented on Muller's channel, Veritassium.[24][25][26]
See also
- Long Now Foundation § Long Bet Project
- The efforts of photographer Eadweard Muybridge to capture the motion of a galloping horse were not part of a wager, contrary to popular opinion.
- Millennium Prize problems– Seven mathematical problems with a US$1 million prize for each solution
- Pascal's wager is not a wager in the sense used in this article, nor is it scientific.
Footnotes
- ^ Gross Domestic Product deflator figures follow the MeasuringWorth "consistent series" supplied in Thomas, Ryland; Williamson, Samuel H. (2018). "What Was the U.K. GDP Then?". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
- ^ Stephen Hawking (1997). Black Holes (VHS). New River Media.
- ^ a b c d e f 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ISBN 978-981-270-916-5.
- ^ a b "Supersymmetry Bet Settled With Cognac". Quantamagazine. 22 August 2016.
- S2CID 132452686.
- PMID 12459753.
- S2CID 5227212.
- PMID 12789304.
- ^ Gross Domestic Product deflatorfigures follow the MeasuringWorth series.
- PMID 16107801.
- Yahoo. Retrieved 2019-07-09.
- ^ Ronald Bailey (8 June 2005). "Reason Magazine – Betting on Climate Change". Reason.com. Retrieved 29 August 2010.
- ^ Annan, James (9 June 2005). "Betting Summary". James' Empty Blog. Retrieved 13 April 2007.
- ^ "Yet more betting on climate with World Climate Report". James' Empty Blog. 24 May 2005. Retrieved 30 December 2008.
- ^ "More or Less, High Speed 2 and Executive Pay". BBC. 2011-01-13. Retrieved 2012-01-13.
Tim Harford ... resolves a four year-old bet on climate change between climate scientist James Annan and astrophysicist David Whitehouse
- ^ Adam, David (19 August 2005). "Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world". London: Guardian. Retrieved 13 April 2007.
- ^ A. G. Lisi (2009-08-08). "Science Pond". Retrieved 2009-12-13.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Surfer physicist wins superparticle bet with Nobel laureate". Retrieved 2016-08-22.
- ^ Interview with the BBC on discovery of the Higgs Boson
- ^ "Betting on the Future of Quantum Gravity". 14 March 2014.
- ^ "Quantum Computing: a new record" (PDF). Retrieved 20 April 2023.
- ^ "$2050 that no quantum computer will break RSA2048 before 2050. Any takers?". NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Mailing List. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
- ^ Muller, Derek Alexander; Kusenko, Alexander (9 June 2021). "Downwind sailing wager agreement". Google Docs. Retrieved 2021-07-01.
- ^ Kusenko, Alexander (22 June 2021). "Discussion of the propeller-assisted straight-downwind land sailing faster than wind". Google Docs. Retrieved 2021-07-01.
- ^ Woodward, Aylin (Jul 28, 2021). "A YouTuber bet a physicist $10,000 that a wind-powered vehicle could travel twice as fast as the wind itself — and won". Business Insider. Retrieved 14 September 2021.