So you've got a pet theory you wish to share....

I've seen more than one person comment in threads in various subforums about how they aren't allowed to post their pet theories in this subforum for whatever reason. Such people include wlminex and Pincho Paxton, both of whom I've seen complain about this state of affairs several times.

So why not? After all, if something had to be mainstream to be considered by the mainstream the mainstream would never evolve and develop. Well let me put forth a necessary but not necessarily sufficient condition for your pet theory being allowed in this forum.

The reason is based on a pretty simple question. If two people were to read all you've written on your pet theory and were then separated, asked to develop the theory themselves and given as much time as they desired to work on it then would they end up reaching compatible conclusions?

We can assume these two are mathematically capable, extremely well read and have endless enthusiasm for working on your ideas. Would they reach the same conclusions?

For example, if you give two such people the 2 postulates of special relativity they would both eventually derive Lorentz transforms. It would not be the case one comes up with Lorentz transforms and another Galilean ones. This demonstrates that if Einstein had been hit by a bus the morning he'd written down those two postulates while doing his work then someone else could have picked up the baton and carried on.

Now let's consider the work of people like Pincho. All words and photoshop. No one could reasonably claim they could be sure to reach the same conclusions as PP if they works separately from him. Likewise wlminex. This also applies to people like Farsight. I've asked him plenty of times to give a derivation of a working model from some base postulates but he cannot provide.

This is part of what separates science from opinion. It should not depend on who really does the work, the conclusions at the end of the day should be 'impersonal'. Special relativity isn't so successful because Einstein did it but because it's accurate. People don't accept Hawking's black hole entropy results because he's a smart guy in a wheelchair but because he shows the derivations and others have worked through the details on their own and reached the same results.

It's easy to knock out ideas which seem plausable in principle. As a (naive) kid I dreamt up some notion of tachyons allowing the universe to create itself like a self fulfilling prophecy. Was I doing science? No, of course not. If I'd made some pictures to go with it would I have been doing science? No, of course not. Pictures are great in aiding an explanation, perhaps they can even be part of a proof of some mathematical relationship, but they do not science make.

This is the reason why "I've come up with the concepts, someone else can fill in the mathematics/details" doesn't fly. If you cannot prove your first few ideas lead to your supposed conclusion how can you be sure they do? Without going through the specific details you can make invalid conclusions.

For example, here's some simple statements which I call collectively my 'theory' :

a) Humans have 2 legs
b) Men are humans
c) Dave is a man
d) Dave has 3 arms
e) Dave has 4 legs

Now most people would say there's something wrong here. If we combine a) and b) and c) then we get a contradiction with e). So it's easy to make statements which aren't consistent. However, which is wrong? If I drop any one of the 4 statements it might be consistent. But I haven't stated which, if any, of these are postulates and which are conclusions. If they are all conclusions I don't derive anything, I just state it. To build something more robust and developable I should state what are my assumptions and what are conclusions.

So I can update it to saying a,b,c are postulates and d,e conclusions. Now we can say e) is false objectively. Any person working from a,b,c will reach a conclusion negating e). So we're beginning to get the sembelence of something which can be independently developed, something with fewer assumptions.

Then there's d), a statement which doesn't actually follow from a,b,c. Thus it isn't a prediction/conclusion, it is actually a postulate. So we've now gone from a set of inconsistent assumptions to something a bit more formal.

Pretty much all of the pet theories put forth on these forums fail to reach even this simple level of formality. Some explicitly avoid it in order to consider the 'big picture', without being bogged down by the details. I've seen more than one person claim to be an 'ideas person', then imply everything else is just (in my words) for monkeys to crank the maths handle and pop out the formal details.

Let me make it clear, no one here is prevented from posting their pet theories due to some 'fear' from those of us who've spent years formally learning the mainstream. If I had a disprove of something in the mainstream, like a proof something like QCD is internally inconsistent I'd try to publish it so far it'd make my fingers bleed from high speed typing. Science, as well as people's personal understanding, develops fastest when mistakes are highlighted.

No one in the scientific community would lose their job if the conclusion of their last paper was found to be not compatible with new experiments. Do we strip Newton of his accomplishments 300 years after he died because we know he wasn't exactly right about mechanics and gravity? Of course not. If anything funding increases when mistakes are found. The head of a division of the LHC group (the bearded guy from the Walter Wagner episode of The Daily Show, John Ellis) tells people his job is proving theoreticians wrong, to find things they didn't expect. There are comments to that effect in several news stories about the LHC Higgs results from this week. If the Standard Model got killed tomorrow it'd leave the field wide open for a new generation to make their name.

And to conclude, "Yes" being the demonstrable answer to the question I gave above is a necessary but by no means automatically sufficient condition for something to be even possibly scientific or worthy to be posted in this forum.

Since wlminex and PP are the two main people complaining about their supposed relegation to the non-mainstream forums if they wish to make their case then let's hear it.

 

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AN: Thanks for the reference and advice. . . . . when I have a few minutes, I'll take you up on your offer . . . .!

Regards,
wlminex

 

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AN, it's an interesting topic. My only comment is that, while theories providing predictions that contradict real-world observation are clearly problematic, a lack of extensive formality is not necessarily problematic of a theory-in-progress. The postulates of SR could be given and, without formalizing things via Lorentz transformations, et al, we could in theory disqualify SR through a simple counter-example (if it existed). In trying to model gravity, we do not start with Einstein's field equations; we start with the inspired notion that gravity seems to be similar to acceleration, and then see where that takes us...

Don't misunderstand; I'm not defending those people that have strange ideas with no ability or intention of fleshing out their ideas through mathematical formalism. I'm just saying that all mature theories today went through many years of adjustment and growth, and there's always that (very) outside chance that the apparent goofball of today is truly on to something. I try hard to evaluate new ideas on their own merits, outside of the popular consensus. Isn't that the very thing that made Galileo and Copernicus scientific heroes?

 

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I never complain, I agree that none science shouldn't go in science threads. I always post that I know the answer so that people can ask in Alternative Theories. But if a theory is unknown in science, then I do post my idea. The thread is Alternative theories by default if nobody knows the answer.

 

Having said that.. Alpha Numeric's analogy is completely wrong. He simply doesn't get my theory. This is him having an off day. I post proofs, he doesn't understand them because they aren't maths.

 

So how many legs does your theory predict that Dave has, then?

 

Unlike Alpha's maths I get 2. I used my own theory to correct his mathematical error. I might draw a picture in Photoshop later to prove it

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Oh, by the way, I also post computer simulations. I've been programming since 1980. I also write computer games....

http://www.youtube.com/user/Pincho333

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=155894&b=8

 

the oddball theory is often found to have merit in 1 form or another. if we didnt have em we wouldnt have the advances in tech for 1 and we would still think earth is the center of the universe... when in reality every person alive is the center of there own universe and each point of view makes a multiverse...

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I start by saying that light travels away from the point in space it was originated, regardless of what the source does during the light travel time.

I end with v=(ct-l)/t

A logical finish to a logical start, that everybody would conclude given the concept that light travels away from the point in SPACE that it was emitted, regardless of what the source does!

 

So does that mean that light actually starts at light speed when it is created? Like being born shot out of a cannon!

 

Yes. At any time t, the distance light traveled IN SPACE (not necessarily relative to the source) is ct.

 

The center of what, infinity???

There is infinite volume. In that volume are points, of which NONE are center points. They are all simply points in an infinite space separated by distance, which is defined as ct!

 

This has been pointed out to you repeatedly, but this is not what is observed so what you think 'should be' is just irrelevent.

 

What isn't observed, that light always travels at c from birth??

Light is born at t=0
At ANY time greater than t=0, light will have traveled ct. Do you deny that and say that that isn't observed?
The very definition of a meter says you are wrong if you don't agree, or say that isn't observed!

 

Been here, done this before.

Often.

 

And despite your claims to be using only 1+(-1)=0 your code requires huge amounts of mathematics/logic to work. I've explained it to you before but you had me on ignore so didn't hear.

For example, you use distances to check spheres colliding. Distances require a metric or norm on a vector space. That's a HUGE amount of mathematics right there.

You may well construct a logically consistent notion but you have a problem in that it doesn't mean it is right. Special relativity doesn't contradict itself. Galilean 'relativity' doesn't either. However, they contradict one another. So which is valid? The one which models reality.

I (or anyone else versed in the principles of deriving SR) can construct infinitely many variates of special relativity, all of whom have the same consistency but all of whom contradict the rest* in some way. For those wondering you define your metric by the Lie group it is left unchanged by and you're done. SR is what you get if you pick SO(1,N). Newtonian mechanics is SO(M). Logical from start to finish so the validity then depends on the validity of the postulates you feed in. Your claims are not consistent with reality and thus either your logic is wrong or your postulates are.

If you want to talk about your work in particular make a thread in the AT or Pseudo forum. Don't turn this thread into a discussion about your claims in particular.

 

Related:
http://contemplativemammoth.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/how-to-argue-with-a-scientist-a-guide/

 

Good link! My personal feeling is that author overplays the veracity of "consensus" and underplays the influence of "bias":

It isn't necessarily the bias of the researcher that is the problem. It's also the bias of the research dollars. Tobacco companies researching cancer is a fine example of gross bias (versus traditional, publicly-funded research). However, I doubt anyone here will deny that more grant dollars are made available for specific issues which are many times political in nature. Call it a "bias of study selection" rather than a "bias of conclusions reached".

Also, this is just a stupid comment:

In 100 years we'll be looking back at all of these "guaranteed things" of today with the same knowing condescension that we currently look back at Flat Earth Theory, Geocentric Universe, Phlogiston Theory, etc, with.

 

I agree with you to a point, but you take it too far. Generally speaking we know the limitations of our current theories and are very clear when communicating with other scientists. This is at least true in physics. It's a given that scientists of all persuasions could do a better job of communicating what they're doing with the public, but that would involve shooting all science journalists which probably wouldn't go down too well...