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From: zimm@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dylan Yolles)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.bio,sci.chem,sci.med
Subject: Forgotten Entities: Do You Remember Any?
Message-ID: <1990Oct25.232546.12357@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 25 Oct 90 23:25:46 GMT
Sender: zimm@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dylan Yolles)
Organization: AIR, Stanford University
Lines: 27

I'm interested in looking at the "forgotten entities" of science--entities
which were once considered somehow "real" by some or most scientists but
which were later recognized not to exist.

The entities could be particles from physics, cells or viruses from biology,
and so on. Even entities from psychology (eg. the id, to take a silly example)
might be okay.

I'm mostly interested in (relatively) recent examples-- say last 150
years. But anything which reasonably well-respected scientists believed
in would be good.

The *ultimate* example, for my purposes, would be one in which scientists
actually thought they were manipulating an entity (in the way that electrons
are manipulated by means of an electron gun), but later found they were
mistaken (and that, perhaps, the entity didn't exist at all).

Any examples or references would be much appreciated. By all means post
to the net if you think others might be interested (I suspect
that there are some good stories here), but please send me a copy too,
as I don't read most of these groups. Of course, I'll summarize any
responses if there's interest.

Thanks!

Dylan
zimm@portia.stanford.edu