You may had not notice that there are some people around here that are messing up in all threads and are gaining popularity by acussing everyone they dont understand for beeing crackpots, cranks, idiots...., they are like some parasites which cant provide something sensible but trying to make everything they dont understand looking as crackpot. They are arrogantly self-proclaiming themselves for experts and superficial people that do not have serious physics knowledge and education are blindly following them. This ruins any kind of serious research or theoretical work bacause these people are always going to say that this is bullshit. Not that I had not make some errors, but does that means that everything I post is a bullshit? Anyway I do not approve and the other opposity for a total informational chaos, when any kind of absurd ideas and unprovable theories are flourishing and there are so much crap that the perespective ideas had no chance to emerge from this sea of shits. So, lets try to define which theory is a crackpot and which is a physics break-through? Everyone is free to give its criterias and rules for determining who is crank and what is bullshit. If we dont draw the line, if we dont set some rules, some people driven only from their sick mania for greateness, are going all the time to ruin everyones efford for sensible discussion, flooding the webspace with bullshits and offends. What are your crackpot criteria and rules?
In general, I would say someone is a crackpot if they: 1. Don't have any academic credentials (at least a bachelor’s degree). and 2. Are pushing a "theory" that substantially contradicts known scientific principles. It is possible (although usually unlikely) for someone to learn about an advanced field of science without any formal training. It is also possible (although very unlikely) for someone with formal training to come up with an earth-shattering new idea that changes all of our scientific paradigms. However, the odds of someone without formal training coming up with an improved version of relativity (or a perpetual motion machine, or any of the other unlikely things that crackpots here like to push for) is basically zero.
There's the standard crackpot index: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html I am more equipped to find the mathematical crackpot than a physics one, they're more rare in this forum. The standard signs: 1. self taught and fear of anyone 'brainwashed' at universities 2. they're proven something that contradicts what's already known (eg. "proven" pi is rational) 3. they make up their own terms, or use standard terms to mean something far removed from the usual convention 4. usually the crackpot won't claim proof to one unsolved or difficult problem, but several (hey I've just proven the riemann hypothesis, goldbachs conjecture, the existance of bright green flying rhinos, ...) 5. no knowledge of the field is present, but many diagrams are (who needs complex analysis to understand RH when you can draw triangles) 6. an unwillingness to accept the possibility they are wrong 7. no clue on what counts as an acceptible proof (assuming pi is rational is not a good way to "prove" pi is rational) 8. an inability to present ideas in a clear and legible manner, such as LaTeX. Microsoft Word equation editor rules! 9. believe the world is out to get them because they don't have a degree or are already famous (their ideas would somehow be less laughable if Gauss had come up with them) that's just off the top of my head. Not all are required to have their work end up in my "crackpot files", and any one of these does not guarantee admission.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What do you say in support of your "odds" theory regarding useful information when some one you assign "0" contributes to the enhancement of science? So what if the scenario does not result in an "earth shattering" model by your standards? So what? Measure the universal energy content and then report back to us with proof there is insuficient energy available to drive a perpetual motion machine. Otherwise, keep you garbled academic biases and dislkes off of this forum and to yourself.What if the person/author never went to school? Suppose the person is right, and correctly states an accurate and original conclusion? Is this conclusion discarded as factually untrue based on analysis of the author's academic credentials? What is the policy of seeking views outside the mainstream of your academic institution? I have spent the morning reviewing some 'redshift' materials and the controversey surrounding the redshift issue. The Arp view (vocal and minority) is that redshift analysis of spiral galaxy expansion shows Quasar formation in pairs with new or higher redshift values inconsisent with the age of the galaxy. The mainstream view of the cosmological significance being centered on redshifts interpreted as motion in the expansion of the universe. The Arp Controversey Revisited - The Morphology of the Universe Here is the blurb alongside the photograph in the link above. Do these words generate a claim of "crock pot" charges? Is the blurb below controversial? "Galaxy NGC4319 photo by David Strange Seldom can so much theory have hinged upon an observation. Halton Arp's new book, reviewed here by N Kollerstrom, features a paradigm-shattering colour photo of this galaxy plus quasar. The photograph was taken by David Strange, a Dorset amateur astronomer, clearly showing ( figure opposite) the 'luminous bridge' between them . Does this picture reveal the secret of the universe, that galaxies bud to form quasars of higher redshift?" Cannot the redshift issue be scrutinized rationally? An amateur took the photograph. Who would discard what they see above because the photographer wasn 't paid by an academic institution for his effort? Who would deny a man these things that take from his path but a bit of the lonliness" Anyone looking for a hell week indoctrination into astronomy's most heated debate will want to include the following links in their study. Quasar as an Ejection Phenomenon and the Redshift Controversey and the always necesssary: An review of the redshift issue. These links contain contradictory and supporting materials to the mainstream "cosmological" point of view relating redshift to univsersal expansion.The links are adequately documented. Why not look at and judge from the four corners of one's claims? Use only the reflective merits of science? I mean, judge the claims external to the applied use of dogmatic models assumed error free. Should this approach prove uncomfortable, so be it. For it is dogma that gives birth to the pain in controversey;the reaction force to the refusal to lay out dogma openly to scrutiny and discussion results in an increase in applied torque axially along the helical skewers of one's thought processes. Vertlich! Those claiming that the enhancing contribution to the advance of a current coversation be discarded, or unconsidered, for lack of an arbitrary minimum requisite academic standing can go fuck themselves. Geistkiesel Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Geist, Explain "reflective merits of science" please. The "dogmatic" model (scientific method) you wish to toss, is not error free. Errors occurr all the time, but it is self correcting. Repeatability, peer review, evidence. Science has no pity. What comes out of the method, over time, are extremely well supported and verified objective facts of nature. If a contradiction is found, overwhelming evidence must be presented before foundation stones are blithly yanked out. You can go light some incense, take up the lotus position, and cradle the cosmic mundra for your scientific judgements, but the rest of us will trust the method. It's almost always right.
I completely agree. However, it is the height of foolishness to do the exact opposite. Take someone's word as emminently valuable just because they buck the "system".
To all readers: There appears a very interesting phenomenon in this thread. The thread, as I do understand it, is devoted to analysis of which theory is a crackpot and which is a physics break-through. And just here we got a good example of work ... that can and should be analyzed on that matter. I mean the post of geistkiesel. The story consists of two independent facts. The first one is that very intriguing photograph was taken by David Strange, a Dorset amateur astronomer. The second fact is that some people (may be the very good professionals, may be not so good ones) sees this picture as a proof of some very "non-mainstream" theories, other professionals (mainstream) are rejecting this theory. So what? How these two facts are connected with the ideas of this thread? Who has any doubt that any really enthusiastic one, even in amateur age and even without a deep knowledge and education, can do a phenomenal observation of some event or process in Nature? (I have in mind indeed observation, not be a witness of something happened) Is the thread about such a possibility? Of course, it is not. All of us know that there is astronomy and astro-physics; that anybody can become an astronomer – the guy who spends is leisure time watching the sky in bought or hand-made telescope, some of them rarely but indeed do amazing observations and all these is wonderful… But take a note: nobody non-professional became a radio-astronomer yet. And of course, nobody non-professional can become an astro-physicist! I guess, this geistkiesel's post is a good example of work that has to be analyzed by chroot and shmoe's test-systems... And I am talking not about pearls like this one: but about ideology and method of revealing of it...
It's one thing for someone to weigh in with an opinion on an issue that's still poorly understood or debated. It's another to announce that you've proved the law of conservation of energy to be wrong using an elaborate system of permanent magnets. Of course it hasn't been built yet, but you're sure it will work, and here's a Microsoft Paint diagram proving it... The crackpots here virtually always want to disprove relativity, or quantum physics, thermodynamics, or some other major facet of math/science.
And such are the ways of the lesser mortals. If G is a crackpot, then I am also a crackpot, even though I am a renowned genius in my fields. I do not hold a grudge against Yuriy, he obviously lacks means to communicate on the same level as other members, which is understandable. But SL, he is an obvious fool. And i would rather be called a crackpot and part with G; than stand alongside with SL.
So, you are a crackpot. We all agree. Would to God that you would part along with big G and let us lesser mortals get on with real physics. (BTW I am also a renowned genius in my fields). Bye bye big D.
What are you talking about? So Nasor, Feynman wrote a three volume textbook, "Lectures on Physics" [Feynman, Lleighton and Sands]. I say Chapter 5 in Vol III (a self-contained chapter by the way) is scientific nonsense and that if Feynman was serious when he put this chapter together then he is a fraud, otherwise he turns out to be merely incompetent. Do you care to explore Chapter 5 and clear the air? No one else has taken he challenge. Geistkiesel
I have other of Feynmans books, but not this one. I must now go buy and read. I'm fascinated to see just how stupid RP Feynman is! Can't wait.
I believe I have had some discussion with G. regarding Feyman in the past. In my opinion, Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner, was no idiot. The majority of physicists no doubt would concur. Of course, majority opinion doesn't decide scientific truth. Perhaps G. should attempt to get his refutation of Feynman published in a peer-reviewed journal.
