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Old 3rd September 2014, 01:32 AM   #2721
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I found liqiudspacetime's reuse of Einstein's e=mc^2 into his own A=Mc^2 particular elucidating.

He had constantly been badgered for an equation to make predictions for his theory, and he probably took the only one he knew and changed it for his own use - completely without understanding the consequences.
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Old 3rd September 2014, 04:43 AM   #2722
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And parts of physics are pretty dry and dull so if our Woo Slinger is using the good old fashioned techniques of Word Salad, Wall 'O Text, or the Gish Gallop (as most are want to do) combined with the content of these massive walls of nutty text not being words or sentences but equations or snippits of technical descriptions taken out of context it becomes almost too much to even bother to argue against.
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Old 3rd September 2014, 05:19 AM   #2723
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Originally Posted by steenkh View Post
I think this is the best analysis of the making of a crank theory. It is a pity we cannot find a crank (or a reformed crank, if they exist?) to support it.
That's an interesting point actually. We see quite a few people who used to believe in conspiracies, or believed they were psychic, or whatever, but have since educated themselves and are now much more skeptical not just of that original belief but just in general. However, I can't recall ever seeing something similar from a physics crackpot. From time to time you see someone declare how stupid they were to believe in an electric universe when clearly expanding hollow Earth is the correct belief, but I don't think I've ever seen someone go from believing in an electric universe to actually accepting real physics.
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Old 3rd September 2014, 06:37 AM   #2724
Craig B
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Originally Posted by Cuddles View Post
... From time to time you see someone declare how stupid they were to believe in an electric universe when clearly expanding hollow Earth is the correct belief, but I don't think I've ever seen someone go from believing in an electric universe to actually accepting real physics.
If I wanted to be naughty I'd cite John Gribbin and The Jupiter Effect.
Quote:
In April 1982, Gribbin and Plagemann published a lesser-selling book, The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered. In it they theorized that the effect had actually taken place in 1980, despite the lack of planetary alignment then, and that had triggered the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens.
In his book, The Little Book of Science (pub. 1999), Dr. Gribbin admitted about his "Jupiter Effect" theory "...I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jupiter_Effect
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Old 3rd September 2014, 06:48 AM   #2725
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Originally Posted by Cuddles View Post
That's an interesting point actually. We see quite a few people who used to believe in conspiracies, or believed they were psychic, or whatever, but have since educated themselves and are now much more skeptical not just of that original belief but just in general. However, I can't recall ever seeing something similar from a physics crackpot. From time to time you see someone declare how stupid they were to believe in an electric universe when clearly expanding hollow Earth is the correct belief, but I don't think I've ever seen someone go from believing in an electric universe to actually accepting real physics.
How about Hossein Turner: Critical Issues for Electric Universe Proponents. Here's the last para:

Originally Posted by Hossein Turner
On the whole, the EU has some serious issues to resolve and questions to answer if it wishes to recover or even build-up its credibility within the global scientific community. For now, it gives me the impression that the majority of EU proponents spend most of their time selectively attacking or promoting pieces of other peoples' work, without doing enough analytical or problem-solving work of their own. It also seems to be a group that attracts the naivety of the layman who may be too easily persuaded by novel and original niche theories with little quantitative meat on the bones of the theory. In reality, astrophysics is a hard science that requires many hours of detailed study and an aptitude for interdisciplinary learning. This apparent (and often counterintuitive) difficulty however, should not put people off in their endeavours to further their understanding of our mysterious and complex universe.
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Old 3rd September 2014, 06:50 AM   #2726
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How does one account for the occasional accomplished professional who strays outside of his/her own field to advocate crackpot ideas? Linus Pauling and vitamin C come to mind. Does it not seem to be a manifestation of narcissism re-enforced (in this case) by a Nobel prize?
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Old 3rd September 2014, 06:55 AM   #2727
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Originally Posted by Perpetual Student View Post
How does one account for the occasional accomplished professional who strays outside of his/her own field to advocate crackpot ideas? Linus Pauling and vitamin C come to mind. Does it not seem to be a manifestation of narcissism re-enforced (in this case) by a Nobel prize?
We see this a lot in the conspiracy theory area: Engineers tend to be susceptible to this, for reasons we have discussed at length in that forum. In some cases it may well be narcissism, in other cases it may be a predilection for engineers to latch on to a mental problem and try to solve it using the principles that they know. In the case of conspiracy theories, many times, the principles that they know form an incomplete picture of the actual intricacies involved in the "questionable evidence" they are purporting to debunk, resulting in arrival at the wrong conclusions. So it seems to be with crackpot physics: Someone in a tangentially related field knows enough about, say, electromagnetism to be dangerous; but with no knowledge of real quantum physics, his theory of nuclear binding via Coulomb attraction falls flat on its face.
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Old 3rd September 2014, 07:29 AM   #2728
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Originally Posted by Giordano View Post
In physics, there is a lot more emphasis on broader theories that explain stuff. So there may be more of an interest among crackpots to create a theory in physics in the absence (or despite) actual experimental evidence, whereas very few biologists do that.
Yeah I think its certainly a factor at least.

In my mind I keep coming back to something. Think back on this board to the Woo Slingers that... well there's this wonderful turn of phrase from someone and I've blanked on who exactly but it defined a "fanatic" as someone that couldn't change their mind and wouldn't change the subject. Yeah think of those charming individuals we have and have had on this board that hijack every topic with their pet idea. Usually they fall into two broad catagories, physics Woos or philosophy Woos. And it's all because of the broadness of the topics as they define it.

If your Woo is in certain very broad topics, like physics or "philosophy" then you can waltz into pretty much any thread and in your mind not hijack it.

It's a terrible perversion of Carl Sagan's "In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first make the universe" addage, but twisted into "You can't talk about this article about a new view on subatomic particle interaction until you address my idea that the universe is a giant snot bubble."
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Old 5th September 2014, 04:47 PM   #2729
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Here is some more physics crackpottery from a century ago:

Source: Simon Newcomb, The reminiscences of an astronomer, 1903, pp. 381, 383-384 -- at books.google.com

He had a lot of experience with anti-gravity crackpots, like one who seemed very indignant at its acceptance, starting a long and impassioned speech with "It seems to me that the astronomers of the present day have gravitation on the brain". But he once encountered one who was relatively reasonable:

AGCP: I would like to see Professor Newcomb.
SN: Well, here he is.
AGCP: You Professor Newcomb?
SN: Yes
AGCP: Professor, I have called to tell you that I don't believe in Sir Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation!
SN: Don't believe in gravitation! Suppose you jump out of that window and see whether there is any gravitation or not.
AGCP: But I don't mean that. I mean --
SN: But that is all there is in the theory of gravitation; if you jump out of the window you'll fall to the ground.
AGCP: I don't mean that. What I mean is I don't believe in the Newtonian theory that gravitation goes up to the moon. It doesn't extend above the air.
SN: Have you ever been up there to see?
(There was an embarrassing pause, during which the visitor began to look a little sheepish.)
AGCP: N-no-o
SN: Well, I haven't been up there either, and until one of us can get up there to try the experiment, I don't believe we shall ever agree on the subject.
(That ended the conversation)
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Old 8th September 2014, 07:19 PM   #2730
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Sometimes crackpots can be amusing (from another thread):

Quote:
The question that troubles me the most is why do primary colors exist? Is it that photons (or the quanta within them) spin only in any one of precisely three exact directions? Are these directions the fixed three dimensions of space known as the x,y,z axes? Are translucent objects slightly shifted onto the fourth dimension? So a translucent red glass has its electrons ‘fixed’ on the x axis, but on the y and z axis it has been shifted out of our three dimensions of space? If we could see into the fourth dimension, would we then require four primary colors? And in doing so, would transparent objects then have this fourth primary color?
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Old 23rd November 2014, 10:59 AM   #2731
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Originally Posted by stevea View Post
The scientific method is not about discovering 'truth', and it's a massive error to assume it ever does.
An easy mistake, in that the scientific method is supposed to help individuals find a model that is most true to known facts and demonstrable evidences.

The purpose of the Scientific Method is to construct an accurate, reliable, self-consistent, (true) non-arbitrary representation (model) of the world (physical universe).

You seem to be speaking of Truth in a non-relativistic, absolutist manner that is more appropriate to personal beliefs/philosophia than to science. There are no universal, absolutist Truths known in the scientific understanding of the universe, just many conditionally true observations that we try to fit together to model the universe we observe and experience.
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Old 19th March 2015, 08:34 AM   #2732
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This is interesting:
http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/01/0...s-and-physics/

This is a great quote:

Astrogarden says:
January 9, 2012 at 3:00 pm
I think Carl Sagan’s quote said it best when he said: “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out."
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Old 19th March 2015, 08:49 AM   #2733
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Originally Posted by Perpetual Student View Post
This is interesting:
http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/01/0...s-and-physics/

This is a great quote:

Astrogarden says:
January 9, 2012 at 3:00 pm
I think Carl Sagan’s quote said it best when he said: “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out."
This article parallels many of my own thoughts about it. Nicely summarized, too!
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Old 19th March 2015, 08:56 AM   #2734
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Originally Posted by Perpetual Student View Post
This is interesting:
http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/01/0...s-and-physics/

This is a great quote:

Astrogarden says:
January 9, 2012 at 3:00 pm
I think Carl Sagan’s quote said it best when he said: “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out."
This article parallels many of my own thoughts about it. Nicely summarized, too!

I particularly agree that a crank is one who doesn't comprehend the detailed basis of physics as it is now understood, but believes that the problem is with physics and not with the crank. And that this is very different from non-cracks, who may realize that they do not understand the detailed basis of current physics, but recognize that this reflects their own limitations, and that they could understand if they were willing to devote more effort (perhaps a lot of effort) into studying physics, but may be perfectly happy instead to accept a simplified summary of the established physics, rather than to challenge it from their uninformed position.

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Old 20th March 2015, 12:31 AM   #2735
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Why is there so much crackpot physics? This certainly has something to do with it:

-- The Electric Universe DVD’s: vary from $20 and $29 per DVD

-- The Electric Universe Books: $25 per book

-- EU Workshop (2014): Registration is $750 per person

-- EU Conference (2015): Registration is $345 per person


The average Electric Universe enthusiast is routinely bilked out of $1000 or more each year. Crackpot physics can be a very profitable business.
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Old 20th March 2015, 08:23 AM   #2736
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Originally Posted by Slings and Arrows View Post
Why is there so much crackpot physics? This certainly has something to do with it:

-- The Electric Universe DVD’s: vary from $20 and $29 per DVD

-- The Electric Universe Books: $25 per book

-- EU Workshop (2014): Registration is $750 per person

-- EU Conference (2015): Registration is $345 per person


The average Electric Universe enthusiast is routinely bilked out of $1000 or more each year. Crackpot physics can be a very profitable business.

Welcome, Slings and Arrows. I agree with this very much and think this is the reason the free EU videos on youtube have such high production values, full of glitzy CGI. They're a form of advertisement. It wouild be interesting to know if the production costs get written off as a business expense; I'd be surprised if they aren't.
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Old 20th March 2015, 11:19 AM   #2737
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Originally Posted by ferd burfle View Post
I agree with this very much and think this is the reason the free EU videos on youtube have such high production values, full of glitzy CGI.
I avoid EU/PC youtube videos whenever possible, but I've never seen anything that couldn't have come from an 18-year-old with a copy of iMovie and a lot of free time. Isn't it all "comet image downloaded from NASA, pan and scan with voiceover, add text, fade to next NASA image"? I can't recall ever seeing a custom-made EU animation, for example. No pretty CGI electric comets, no animated explanatory line art, etc.

Anyway, can you imagine an EU/PC "expert" trying to hire a graphic artist?
  • EUer: So for this sequence, we want to see the comet flying by and getting destroyed by electric discharges.
  • Artist: Sounds good. <begins laying out storyboard.> Tell me more about what that looks like.
  • EUer: So the comet is surrounded by electricity.
  • Artist: Neat. Just spitballing here, but I see glowing blue, dancing lightning, like a Palpatine Zaps Luke effect?
  • EUer: No, it looks like a comet, you should see cold gas jets and craters.
  • Artist: So, uh, just a standard comet illustration?
  • EUer: No, the comet and jets are electric. There are field lines. Can you draw field lines?
  • Artist: Yes, now we're getting somewhere. Lines where?
  • EUer: I don't know.
  • Artist: Um? Can you sketch it?
  • EUer: No. Um, maybe there's a paper or a YouTube video that shows the lines. I never really thought about it.
  • Artist: I thought I was illustrating your scientific theory. Is there a paper written up on this, maybe with a diagram? If you have a mathematical description of the lines I can use that too.
  • EUer: No. Listen, why don't you draw something, and I'll look at it and tell you whether it looks electric.
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Old 20th March 2015, 12:29 PM   #2738
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The physics crackpots are even making music videos now (presumably to appeal to the young MTV generation). Here is one of my all time favorites, written and preformed by physicist and rock ‘n’ roll legend Bill Gaede:

"Relativity Blues – The Stephen Crothers Song"
w_w_w.youtube.com/watch?v=99T7d_OYOw8

[Sorry, can’t post links yet]
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Old 20th March 2015, 12:57 PM   #2739
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Originally Posted by ben m View Post
I avoid EU/PC youtube videos whenever possible, but I've never seen anything that couldn't have come from an 18-year-old with a copy of iMovie and a lot of free time. Isn't it all "comet image downloaded from NASA, pan and scan with voiceover, add text, fade to next NASA image"? I can't recall ever seeing a custom-made EU animation, for example. No pretty CGI electric comets, no animated explanatory line art, etc.

Thanks Ben, you are right of course. Lots of glitz and eye-candy to give the impression of substance but it's not CGI.
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Old 20th March 2015, 01:48 PM   #2740
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Originally Posted by Slings and Arrows View Post
The physics crackpots are even making music videos now (presumably to appeal to the young MTV generation). Here is one of my all time favorites, written and preformed by physicist and rock ‘n’ roll legend Bill Gaede:

"Relativity Blues – The Stephen Crothers Song"
w_w_w.youtube.com/watch?v=99T7d_OYOw8

[Sorry, can’t post links yet]
YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.
I AGREE


Jesus Christ, that's terrible- the guy's not only a crank "physicist," he's a crank musician. (If it got any better after about 2:00, I'll never know)
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Old 20th March 2015, 09:02 PM   #2741
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Originally Posted by turingtest

Jesus Christ, that's terrible- the guy's not only a crank "physicist," he's a crank musician. (If it got any better after about 2:00, I'll never know)

Sorry about that, I should have issued a warning: "Caution, this music video contains images and sounds known to scare children and frighten horses."
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Old 3rd April 2015, 03:00 PM   #2742
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These days, if you don't reach a new theory via the use of mathematics, then your theory is considered to be nothing but pure rubbish created by a crackpot.

In other words, if you use only the smarts of your mind, rather than the external tool known as math, you are seen as being a crackpot.

I myself made a few interesting observations concerning "motion", and I was laughed at. But I continued onward in my attempt to fully understand "motion" and I eventually ended up independently deriving all of the Special Relativity equations, and thus independently discovering SR itself. Not bad considering I have no education in physics.

To watch videos 1>9, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKAwp...vFbeBh-Mq7HdoQ

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Old 3rd April 2015, 04:49 PM   #2743
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Originally Posted by MINISTERofTRUTH View Post
These days, if you don't reach a new theory via the use of mathematics, then your theory is considered to be nothing but pure rubbish created by a crackpot.
If someone pops up and says "check out my new theory", the first relevant questions are "let's apply consistency checks to it" and "let's generate your theory's predictions/postdictions for a standard suite of experiments".

If you can't do consistency checks and can't make experimental predictions, your theory is garbage. It's hard to avoid that conclusion. (This is different than "testability". Numerous mainstream, controversial-to-crackpots physics topics---string theory, dark energy, QM interpretations---are in fact great at consistency-checks and postdiction/prediction power but weak on testability.)

If you can do consistency checks and make experimental predictions, then your theory may be shown to be either wrong or right---maybe not by you, but by people who can read your theory and think of tests for it.

The problem with anti-math crackpots is that "stop demanding math" is really their defensive way of saying "I'm not going to let you test my theory". The Electric Comet people want to look at photos, convince themselves that comets are electric, and they want you to believe them. They don't want you to sit down with an electromagnetism textbook and figure out where an electric comet's field lines are pointing, or how it would look under x-rays, or whether it makes sense. They did some mental consistency checks themselves, and that's all there is ever going to be. Same with all crackpottery.

But they're not stupid enough to say that in those words; they adopt a sideways transfer of hostility to math itself. "Bah, you keep talking about Maxwell's Equations because you're irrationally stuck in mathworld!"

If you want to present a nonmathematical theory, well, are you doing it for that standard crackpot reason? Is it just a crackpot excuse for why your theory is uncheckable and predictionless?

In your case, I clicked through to your videos and saw you using geometry and math to organize your reasoning through a theory. Insofar as your reasoning is valid, it's knowable that it's valid because you kept it in a checkable form using math. Insofar as anyone has a reason to believe you, it's not going to be because "you can't put two extremes into the same function", or whatever that verbal description was at the beginning---people will believe you because at the end you arrive at x' = gamma (x - v t) and that's recognizable as a paradox-free and experimentally-tested idea.
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Old 3rd April 2015, 05:29 PM   #2744
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Originally Posted by ben m View Post
If someone ..... In your case, I clicked through to your videos and saw you using geometry and math to organize your reasoning through a theory. Insofar as your reasoning is valid, it's knowable that it's valid because you kept it in a checkable form using math. Insofar as anyone has a reason to believe you, it's not going to be because "you can't put two extremes into the same function", or whatever that verbal description was at the beginning---people will believe you because at the end you arrive at x' = gamma (x - v t) and that's recognizable as a paradox-free and experimentally-tested idea.
I sure am hoping that no one will "believe me". That would be sad.

Believers/Dis-Believers are not the brightest people of this planet. They are quite happy with beliefs and disbeliefs, despite the fact that one only need be dependent upon beliefs and disbeliefs if one is located at a distance from the truth in the first place. Located at a distance from the truth, the Believers/Dis-Believers are located within the zone of less than truth, thus in turn they are quite happy with less than truth. Thus if you hand truths to them, they just can't see them.

The being point made within the videos was that just about anyone can discover Special Relativity on their own. All you have to do is look in the direction of truth, rather than look off to the sides toward mere beliefs and disbeliefs.
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Old 3rd April 2015, 08:27 PM   #2745
jsfisher
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Originally Posted by MINISTERofTRUTH View Post
The being point made within the videos was that just about anyone can discover Special Relativity on their own. All you have to do is look in the direction of truth, rather than look off to the sides toward mere beliefs and disbeliefs.
That is not the point your videos make at all. Instead they show someone misunderstanding very simple things like dimension analysis and then exploiting equivocation for a tour de force of arriving at the desired result.

The videos are garbage.
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Old 4th April 2015, 02:35 PM   #2746
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Originally Posted by jsfisher View Post
That is not the point your videos make at all. Instead they show someone misunderstanding very simple things like dimension analysis and then exploiting equivocation for a tour de force of arriving at the desired result.

The videos are garbage.
Face it, the procedure is flawless. Your comments can not change that. No physicist has argued against it.

By the way, and I am sure that you will try to use this against me, I have no education in physics. The outcome of my work, such as the SR equations, was entirely the independent result of a logical analysis of "motion". No where else will you find the derivation of these equations done in the same manner. However, at a later date, I was tickled pink to find out that my equations were identical to those known as the SR equations when I borrowed a physics book to see if I was on track.
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Old 4th April 2015, 02:58 PM   #2747
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Originally Posted by MINISTERofTRUTH View Post
Face it, the procedure is flawless. Your comments can not change that.
Oh, where to begin...where to begin. How about with the total disregard for the difference between speed and position? Can you reproduce your result without the arbitrary shifts in the meaning of the horizontal axis?

My personal favorite, oh, let's call it an anomaly, though, is with how for anything in motion, some parts vanish into the past and some into the future.

Quote:
No physicist has argued against it.
They have. So have mathematicians. You are not listening.
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Old 4th April 2015, 03:06 PM   #2748
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Originally Posted by jsfisher View Post
Oh, where to begin...where to begin. How about with the total disregard for the difference between speed and position? Can you reproduce your result without the arbitrary shifts in the meaning of the horizontal axis?

My personal favorite, oh, let's call it an anomaly, though, is with how for anything in motion, some parts vanish into the past and some into the future.

They have. So have mathematicians. You are not listening.
Please present your proof. Perhaps you do not understand the brilliant use of simultaneous geometric stacking of both motion vectors and length scalars.
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Old 4th April 2015, 03:40 PM   #2749
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Originally Posted by MINISTERofTRUTH View Post
Please present your proof. Perhaps you do not understand the brilliant use of simultaneous geometric stacking of both motion vectors and length scalars.
You use that phrase differently then the rest of us do.

Be that as it may, your "stacking" has no basis in mathematics. It is just some arbitrary equivocation you need to get the result you sought.
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Old 4th April 2015, 04:06 PM   #2750
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Originally Posted by jsfisher View Post
...... your "stacking" has no basis in mathematics. ....
Ooy vey, nothing ever changes.

"When you're one step ahead of the crowd you're a genius.
When you're two steps ahead, you're a crackpot." --Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
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Old 4th April 2015, 04:21 PM   #2751
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Originally Posted by MINISTERofTRUTH View Post
Ooy vey, nothing ever changes.
Heard it before, have you? Your "stacking" is just bit of unjustified nonsense? Did you every hear it from a physicist? You know, those people you said had never raised an objection?

Quote:
"When you're one step ahead of the crowd you're a genius.
When you're two steps ahead, you're a crackpot." --Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
If you be two steps ahead of the crowd, you should have no trouble whatsoever justifying this brilliant use of stacking of yours.

Rigor, please. I can handle it.
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Old 5th April 2015, 06:35 AM   #2752
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The gamma function is a consequence of the constancy of the velocity of light and the pythagorean theorem. The mathematics is quite straightforward, involving basic high school algebra.
That the naïve approach of the presentation in that video, which ignores proper dimensional consistency and is flawed by other crackpot notions, stumbles on the gamma funxtion is no surprise and of no value. Not only is it not "brilliant," but it is quite superficial.
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Old 5th April 2015, 02:23 PM   #2753
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Originally Posted by Perpetual Student View Post
The gamma function is a consequence of the constancy of the velocity of light and the pythagorean theorem. The mathematics is quite straightforward, involving basic high school algebra.
That the naïve approach of the presentation in that video, which ignores proper dimensional consistency and is flawed by other crackpot notions, stumbles on the gamma funxtion is no surprise and of no value. Not only is it not "brilliant," but it is quite superficial.
STUMBLES UPON THE GAMMA FUNCTION ??

Oh yeah, I just stumbled upon the ...

1) The Gamma function
2) The Length Contraction equation
3) The Time Dilation equation, and
4) All of the Lorentz Transformation equations.

ARE YOU FOR REAL?

Why do people like you exist who speak to others human beings as though you think of them as having the value of a pile of dog ****.
My work god damn it is bloody brilliant and you bloody well know it. You people and your bloody never ending insults make me sick.
What god damn hell happened to human respect in this bloody world !
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Old 5th April 2015, 02:42 PM   #2754
jsfisher
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Originally Posted by MINISTERofTRUTH View Post
STUMBLES UPON THE GAMMA FUNCTION ??

Oh yeah, I just stumbled upon the ...

1) The Gamma function
2) The Length Contraction equation
3) The Time Dilation equation, and
4) All of the Lorentz Transformation equations.

ARE YOU FOR REAL?
'Stumbled' is not the word I would have used. I would say you backed into it. And, for the most part, got one, got them all.

Quote:
Why do people like you exist who speak to others human beings as though you think of them as having the value of a pile of dog ****.
Perpetual Student made no such statement and no such implication. He did, however, comment on your work and its value.

Quote:
My work god damn it is bloody brilliant and you bloody well know it. You people and your bloody never ending insults make me sick.
What god damn hell happened to human respect in this bloody world !
Rather than this outrage, why not just show us that your brilliant use of stacking is valid. That is only one example of where your derivation takes, um, liberties, but it is a good one to start with.


And again, rigor, please. I can handle it.
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Old 5th April 2015, 05:02 PM   #2755
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Originally Posted by MINISTERofTRUTH View Post
These days, if you don't reach a new theory via the use of mathematics, then your theory is considered to be nothing but pure rubbish created by a crackpot.
In the video, the horizontal axis is labeled “space”; but no units are specified. What units are you using for space?

Then, you draw a line along the horizontal axis and refer to it as a velocity.

Very confusing….
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Old 5th April 2015, 05:34 PM   #2756
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Originally Posted by Slings and Arrows View Post
In the video, the horizontal axis is labeled “space”; but no units are specified. What units are you using for space?

Then, you draw a line along the horizontal axis and refer to it as a velocity.

Very confusing….
He does the same with the time axis. He is just less obvious about it.

He also talks first about infinite speed through space and through time, but then introduces an arbitrary speed limit. Then he shifts to it not being a speed limit, but a constant: We are always moving at a fixed speed through time and through space, and they are related by the arc he draws.

So, out of nowhere he assert his way to some constant, c, the space velocity, sv, and the time velocity, tv, being related as c^2 = sv^2 + tv^2 (i.e. a formula for a circle).

He then goes on to assert that objects exist perpendicular to their velocity vector. From there, the Lorentz factor follows immediately. Well, almost immediately. Velocity and space and velocity and time need to be "stacked", as he calls it. At some point he further asserts that the speed of light is a constant, that being the same c.

The reason I would say he backed into the Lorentz transformation is that what he asserts are (to some extent) consequences of relativity. So, he's working backwards from the conclusions.

Ironically, had he simply started with the lone assumption that the speed of light was constant for all observers, the rest would all follow without additional assertions nor bogus mathematical methods.
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Old 6th April 2015, 03:28 AM   #2757
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Originally Posted by Perpetual Student View Post
The gamma function is a consequence of the constancy of the velocity of light and the pythagorean theorem. The mathematics is quite straightforward, involving basic high school algebra.
That the naïve approach of the presentation in that video, which ignores proper dimensional consistency and is flawed by other crackpot notions, stumbles on the gamma funxtion is no surprise and of no value. Not only is it not "brilliant," but it is quite superficial.
One can derive the Lorentz boosts in a sort of first-principles sort of fashion. Start out with

B(v) = {γt(v)*{1,w(v)}, γx(v)*{v,1}}

coordinates: (time: t, 1D space: x)
B(0) = identity matrix: {{1,0}, {0,1}}

Impose closure: B(v1).B(v2) = B(function of v1,v2)

Difficult to do in general, but one can take d/d(v2) and then send v2 to 0. That gives us

w(v) = (v - z0)/(z1 + z2*v)

Imposing reflection symmetry gives z0 = z2 = 0, or w(v) = wd*v

Closure gives us γt(v) = γx(v) and I'll make this γ(v):

B(v) = γ(v)*{{1,wd*v}, {v,1}}
where wd is a constant

Also by reflection symmetry, γ(-v) = γ(v). Continuing the solution, I find

γ(v) = (1 - wd*v2)-1/2

and velocity addition law v12(v1,v2) = (v1 + v2)/(1 + wd*v1*v2)

It is associative, as one would expect from matrix mulitplication being associative, and it is also commutative.

Let's see what happens when there is an always-constant speed, c:

v12(v,c) = (v + c)/(1 + wd*v*c) = c

It has solution wd = c-2 -- the Lorentz-boost solution.
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Old 6th April 2015, 06:49 AM   #2758
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This was brilliant:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/
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Old 7th April 2015, 01:05 AM   #2759
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Originally Posted by jsfisher View Post
He does the same with the time axis. He is just less obvious about it.

He also talks first about infinite speed through space and through time, but then introduces an arbitrary speed limit. Then he shifts to it not being a speed limit, but a constant: We are always moving at a fixed speed through time and through space, and they are related by the arc he draws.

So, out of nowhere he assert his way to some constant, c, the space velocity, sv, and the time velocity, tv, being related as c^2 = sv^2 + tv^2 (i.e. a formula for a circle).

He then goes on to assert that objects exist perpendicular to their velocity vector. From there, the Lorentz factor follows immediately. Well, almost immediately. Velocity and space and velocity and time need to be "stacked", as he calls it. At some point he further asserts that the speed of light is a constant, that being the same c.

The reason I would say he backed into the Lorentz transformation is that what he asserts are (to some extent) consequences of relativity. So, he's working backwards from the conclusions.

Ironically, had he simply started with the lone assumption that the speed of light was constant for all observers, the rest would all follow without additional assertions nor bogus mathematical methods.
WOW, you really do see anything but the truth.
Well I'm off. I'll give you a year and see if you can catch up to me.
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Old 7th April 2015, 01:49 AM   #2760
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Originally Posted by MINISTERofTRUTH View Post
WOW, you really do see anything but the truth.
Well I'm off. I'll give you a year and see if you can catch up to me.
All the best! It will be interesting to see how much mathematics you can learn in a year.
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