Joseph Kaplan (September 8, 1902 — October 3, 1991) was a Hungarian-born American physicist.
Kaplan was notable for his studies of atmospheric phenomena, for his international activities in geophysics.Kaplan also participated in efforts to launch the first Earth satellite. Kaplan was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, chairman of the U.S. National Committee for the International Geophysical Year, the founder and first director of the Institute of Geophysics at the University of California (later known as the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics), an aerospace adviser to Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon, a recipient of the Smithsonian Institution’s Hodgkins Medal in 1967, the head of the Air Force’s Air Weather Service during World War II, a professor and professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, a fellow of American Geophysical Union, an honorary member of American Meteorological Society, a fellow of American Physical Society, an honorary member of National Association of Science Writers, and a founding member of the International Academy of Astronautics.
The Los Angeles Times said that Kaplan was “a pioneer in the chemistry and physics of the stratosphere”. The Baltimore Sun called him “an expert on auroras and similar lights in the sky”.
Notable awards and distinctions
- the John Adams Fleming Award of the American Geophysical Union (1970)
- the Commemorative Medal for the 50th Anniversary of the American Meteorological Society (1969)
- the Hodgkins Medal and Prize from the Smithsonian Institution
- the Astronautical Award from the American Rocket Society
- the War Department’s Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service (1947)
- the Air Force’s Exceptional Civilian Service Award (1960 and 1969)
- the degree of doctor of science from Carleton College and the University of Notre Dame
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
This is very, very interesting.
And everyone would have forgotten it if it weren’t for AGW.
Greatly appreciated.
…and he was an incompetent physicist, who believed that science as he knew it was settled–so it was, in his mind.
Only 39 1/2 feet to go.
2 issues here:
1) The prediction was over an order of magnitude off.
But more importantly –
2) Melting was occurring back then too (the current situation is not “unprecedented”).
Crap.
Given that the current global warming propaganda wave was recycled bilge from 1957, I guess we can expect the global cooling crap to start hitting the fan next?
That means we only have 4 more years until DC is under water, well it already is “Underwater” intellectually, but we only have 4 more years to put up with the clowns that occupy Washington DC!
Finacially DC is so far under water that no sun light can penetrate.
I was speaking about Mentally underwater, but I agree about the financial condition of DC!
So all those degrees, awards and honors don’t confirm whether the good doctor was completely bonkers or not. Based on his dodgy forecast, I’d say he had too many trips whilst at University and could have been committed to the Dept of the Interior with all the other cultists.
Fenyman’s quote that introduces this blog most assuredly applies to this post.
One of the strongest stories you’ve ever posted. By any and every meaningful standard, Joseph Kaplan qualified as a Boss, a Mensch, a Guru. Yet he was still wrong. In the intervening 56 years since he uttered that prediction, humans have walked on the moon and most of us carry in our pockets a computer more powerful than anything existing in 1957. You might argue that scientists are now more than ever before able to make accurate predictions about geophysics. But the one thing that hasn’t changed, and may even have gone backward a little, is human nature. We are as prone as ever to gullibility, sensationalism, alarmism and distortion. It’s hubris versus humility: good science makes predictions only as a suggested way to disprove a theory.