The Emergence of Crackpots from the SciForums Space-Time
- Thread starter BenTheMan
- Start date
- Status
ScottMana said:
What is this appeasement? To devalue the scientific research done in this field to the point of "it's his opinion versus mine" is ridiculous. To assume that all opinions carry the same weight in this debate is ludicrous---this is the point of the post.
And I will address him in the same manner that he addresses me. If he wants to make hollow threats, then he should know that I will respond in kind.
Unless you have some proof that makes your opinion worth more then his, yes, it has no more of value than his. I can support either way, but on this subject, there is not science that says one opinion is greater than the other.
I don't put MateKron down as he could very well be right. On the other hand, I have some people that state they do not know, but it is their opinion. Each has it's own value, but either is has dramatic weight to crush the other.
For now I think HIV probably is, but I also see millions of dollars and man hours have not been able to prove that this is a fact. Perhaps because it is not.
And if you want to approach science with a redneck level of understanding, feel free. How do you do six-dimensional calculus counting on your fingers, your toes, and your penis?
Don't bitch about the way that I talk to you. You started it with a personal attack.
MetaKron:
You have a one track mind, like most other crackpots. Also, you have little tolerance when people start pointing out your errors. Instead, you respond with ad hominem attacks.
Ben is talking about physics. What that has to do with HIV/AIDS baffles me. I can only assume that your AIDS crusade is the only thing you can talk about.
You have a one track mind, like most other crackpots. Also, you have little tolerance when people start pointing out your errors. Instead, you respond with ad hominem attacks.
Ben is talking about physics. What that has to do with HIV/AIDS baffles me. I can only assume that your AIDS crusade is the only thing you can talk about.
Also, that line up there about "crackpots" is a personal attack.
Bells
Staff member
So you're participating in it because of....?
Actually never mind. I don't want to know.
Pirates are stronger than Ninjas?
I question this because it has about as much relevance to science as any "Good vs Evil" statement. Science is Knowledge and Knowledge is neither Good nor Evil. It's only how knowledge is used that would reflect any relationship to Good or Evil purposes and that's actually more political.
If your "AID's isn't caused by HIV" debate is anything to go by then you could suggest that you haven't used "Science". You might of surfed round the internet looking for articles to misquote or selectively quote, however it's hardly a truly scientific approach.
You might suggest that because you don't have a wonderfully white lab coat, a nice little ID pass and access to a local universities research laboratory is obviously undermining your progress but there are other ways for you to progress. Since some Quacks feel the old peer review methods is outdated, then perhaps they and perhaps yourself should look closely at how "Open Source Projects" work.
It's been stated that "Open Source Projects" often work to far tighter guidelines than their Corporate counterparts. Usually involving Planning, Documentation, Peer review and of course branching. Why not get yourself some "Open Source project management" software and attempt to get a volunteer contribution system running, where scientific research is conducted openly as opposed to programming software.
I guess it can be also suggest though, that for the most part some theories/projects would never get that far into such an "Open Science" project if the evidence you look for doesn't actually exist. However this shouldn't stop you documenting your attempt and failure properly, so others don't have to duplicate your mistakes "Again". In fact not doing a properly documented version of events for such a failure would be itself very "Arrogant" and "self-serving".
Scott---I will base my opinions about HIV/AIDS on the following:
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm
Whatever other crackpot conspiracy theory websites you may read are up to you.
(And, I don't know about you MetaKron, but toes+fingers+penis=11.)
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm
Whatever other crackpot conspiracy theory websites you may read are up to you.
(And, I don't know about you MetaKron, but toes+fingers+penis=11.)
przyk: thanks for engaging.
I'd say I am putting most emphasis on what I see here. But not totally. I think there are genuine problems in physics when it comes to peer-review and non-mainstream theories.
The above is an illustration of the problem. You're saying "your ideas have no substance" without examining them, then attempting to justify your irrational unscientific position by denigrating those ideas and their authors.
Of course mathematics makes a difference. But this is merely a forum, you wouldn't expect complete and well-defined theories to emerge fully developed. Things have to start somewhere, and its unreasonable to assert that a lack of mathematics equals nonsense.
Perhaps. "Self-evident" can be rather subjective.
Try reading RELATIVITY+ and challenging it. Try to say why I'm wrong about time, energy, mass, or gravity. It's the most important contribution to physics for a hundred years, here, in front of your face. There are about four Nobel prizes in it, to be shared. But you won't look at it rationally, you won't engage in an open conversation about detail or merits or flaws. Instead you cloak your lack of objectivity and rigour, and your ignorance, with abuse.
No? I didn't think so.
I rest my case.
Two, including my sister-in-law who works in radiological protection.
I'd say I am putting most emphasis on what I see here. But not totally. I think there are genuine problems in physics when it comes to peer-review and non-mainstream theories.
The above is an illustration of the problem. You're saying "your ideas have no substance" without examining them, then attempting to justify your irrational unscientific position by denigrating those ideas and their authors.
Of course mathematics makes a difference. But this is merely a forum, you wouldn't expect complete and well-defined theories to emerge fully developed. Things have to start somewhere, and its unreasonable to assert that a lack of mathematics equals nonsense.
Perhaps. "Self-evident" can be rather subjective.
If only. Try this example: The constancy of c is not true. It's self evident to me, but you're likely to dismiss my claim as nonsense without trying to understand it.
I dismiss Time Travel because I understand time. I dismiss Parallel Universes because "Universe" is derived from Uni as in One and Verse as in Vice-Versa, and means everything. Multiple everythings is a bit of a stretch.
Fairy Tales? Time Travel is Fairy Tales. A length of time is a fantasy.
We're seeing the problem, on this thread and in this post. What objectivity? What rigour? I've seen none here. Would you care to demonstrate some?
Try reading RELATIVITY+ and challenging it. Try to say why I'm wrong about time, energy, mass, or gravity. It's the most important contribution to physics for a hundred years, here, in front of your face. There are about four Nobel prizes in it, to be shared. But you won't look at it rationally, you won't engage in an open conversation about detail or merits or flaws. Instead you cloak your lack of objectivity and rigour, and your ignorance, with abuse.
No? I didn't think so.
I rest my case.
Farsight said:
Is this better than saying "I refuse to study the problem in any detail, and take the liscense to make my own interpretations, irrespective of any connect to reality" and then refusing the advice of those who have studied the problem in some depth?
It is well known that light is not a fundamental constant, but that it can be written in terms of constants describing free space:
$$c^2 = \frac{1}{\mu_0 \epsilon_0}$$
So, if the speed of light changes, then one or both of these constants should also change. But this can be checked by looking at spectral transitions from distant galaxies. In particular, the energy levels of hydrogen can be written as
$$E_n = -\frac{mq^4}{8 h^2 \epsilon_0^2}\frac{1}{n^2}$$
so one could prove the assertion that $$\epsilon_0$$ changes just by looking at the hydrogen lines from distant stars. This of course has been done and $$\epsilon_0$$ is constant.
Second, the fine structure constant can be written as
$$\alpha = \frac{e^2}{2hc \epsilon_0}$$.
The fine structure constant's variation over time has been measured on Earth at the Okubo nuclear reactor (a naturally occuring, self-sustaining fission process in Africa) and has placed tight constraints on the variation of $$\alpha$$ over the past four billion years. Some quasar experiments in Australia (see papers by Webb, et al.) have shown a slight variation in the fine structure constant from very old quasars (~10 billion light years away), but (to my knowledge) these experiments haven't been repeated.
The only way that you could get away with having a changing c is to change $$\mu_0$$, and I don't know (from the top of my head) any experimental limits on the changing of this number. However, because there exists a duality between electric and magnetic fields, especially in free space with no sources, I think that a changing $$\mu_0$$ without a changing $$\epsilon_0$$ is very suspicious, and represents a breakdown in the aforementioned duality.
So Farsight---propose an experiment that shows the variation in c based on the above information. Show me physics, and not "Changing speed of light explained".
Last edited:
BenTheMan: I favour a change in permittivity, but left it open by saying a change in impedance √(μ0/ε0). You cannot measure any change in c directly because light defines time. However you can measure it indirectly via time dilation. Here's your experiment:
Imagine you and I are standing in a lab, each with a transverse metre rule and a light clock. I also have a helmet-mounted video-camera. I go out of the door, and you stand there for seven years counting traverses. You count seven trillion traverses. Then I walk back in.
You know something is up because my hair is still brown whilst yours is speckled with white. I don't have the extra wrinkles, and my beard is only down to my chest. You wonder if I've been somehow frozen, but then I show you my tape recording.
You see us both on the tape at the beginning of the recording. The running time is shown thoughout in the bottom corner. Then you see my departure whereafter you see me enter some other laboratory. This might be some kind of capsule, but you can't tell. The bulk of the tape consists of me standing in my laboratory counting traverses. Then I leave my laboratory, and the closing frames show me entering the original laboratory - and your beard down to your knees.
You have no direct evidence of relativistic travel or high gravity. This is deliberate, to avoid mixing frames. And you are satisfied that whilst time dilation has occured, length contraction has not occured to my transverse metre ruler.
Now, I counted only one trillion traverses, far less than your seven trillion traverses. My traverses add up to one light year, whilst yours add up to seven. So depite the speed of light being the same notional value of 300,000km/s for both of us, it was in some respect different. The crucial factor is that light defines time. My seconds were different to yours for the duration of the experiment. Hence my c was different to yours. And time dilation is a change in c.
Imagine you and I are standing in a lab, each with a transverse metre rule and a light clock. I also have a helmet-mounted video-camera. I go out of the door, and you stand there for seven years counting traverses. You count seven trillion traverses. Then I walk back in.
You know something is up because my hair is still brown whilst yours is speckled with white. I don't have the extra wrinkles, and my beard is only down to my chest. You wonder if I've been somehow frozen, but then I show you my tape recording.
You see us both on the tape at the beginning of the recording. The running time is shown thoughout in the bottom corner. Then you see my departure whereafter you see me enter some other laboratory. This might be some kind of capsule, but you can't tell. The bulk of the tape consists of me standing in my laboratory counting traverses. Then I leave my laboratory, and the closing frames show me entering the original laboratory - and your beard down to your knees.
You have no direct evidence of relativistic travel or high gravity. This is deliberate, to avoid mixing frames. And you are satisfied that whilst time dilation has occured, length contraction has not occured to my transverse metre ruler.
Now, I counted only one trillion traverses, far less than your seven trillion traverses. My traverses add up to one light year, whilst yours add up to seven. So depite the speed of light being the same notional value of 300,000km/s for both of us, it was in some respect different. The crucial factor is that light defines time. My seconds were different to yours for the duration of the experiment. Hence my c was different to yours. And time dilation is a change in c.
- Status