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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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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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3rd September 2014, 05:19 AM | #2723 |
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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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3rd September 2014, 06:37 AM | #2724 |
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If I wanted to be naughty I'd cite John Gribbin and The Jupiter Effect.
Quote:
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3rd September 2014, 06:48 AM | #2725 |
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How about Hossein Turner: Critical Issues for Electric Universe Proponents. Here's the last para:
Originally Posted by Hossein Turner
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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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3rd September 2014, 06:55 AM | #2727 |
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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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3rd September 2014, 07:29 AM | #2728 |
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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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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) |
8th September 2014, 07:19 PM | #2730 |
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Sometimes crackpots can be amusing (from another thread):
Quote:
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23rd November 2014, 10:59 AM | #2731 |
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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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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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19th March 2015, 08:49 AM | #2733 |
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19th March 2015, 08:56 AM | #2734 |
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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. |
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. |
20th March 2015, 08:23 AM | #2736 |
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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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20th March 2015, 11:19 AM | #2737 |
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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?
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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] |
20th March 2015, 12:57 PM | #2739 |
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20th March 2015, 01:48 PM | #2740 | |||
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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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20th March 2015, 09:02 PM | #2741 |
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Originally Posted by turingtest
Sorry about that, I should have issued a warning: "Caution, this music video contains images and sounds known to scare children and frighten horses." |
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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3rd April 2015, 04:49 PM | #2743 |
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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. |
3rd April 2015, 05:29 PM | #2744 |
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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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3rd April 2015, 08:27 PM | #2745 |
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4th April 2015, 02:35 PM | #2746 |
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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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4th April 2015, 02:58 PM | #2747 |
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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.
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4th April 2015, 03:06 PM | #2748 |
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Albert Einstein - "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." Proudler - "I respond not to those who cannot see truths." |
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4th April 2015, 03:40 PM | #2749 |
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4th April 2015, 04:06 PM | #2750 |
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4th April 2015, 04:21 PM | #2751 |
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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:
Rigor, please. I can handle it. |
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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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5th April 2015, 02:23 PM | #2753 |
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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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Albert Einstein - "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." Proudler - "I respond not to those who cannot see truths." |
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5th April 2015, 02:42 PM | #2754 |
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'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:
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And again, rigor, please. I can handle it. |
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5th April 2015, 05:02 PM | #2755 |
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5th April 2015, 05:34 PM | #2756 |
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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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6th April 2015, 03:28 AM | #2757 |
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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. |
6th April 2015, 06:49 AM | #2758 |
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7th April 2015, 01:05 AM | #2759 |
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7th April 2015, 01:49 AM | #2760 |
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