Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[Slings and Arrows]

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."

 

[MINISTERofTRUTH]

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=KKAwpEetJ-Q&list=PL3zkZRUI2IyBFAowlUivFbeBh-Mq7HdoQ

 

[ben m]

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.

 

[MINISTERofTRUTH]

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.

 

[jsfisher]

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.

 

[MINISTERofTRUTH]

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.

 

[jsfisher]

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.

No physicist has argued against it.

They have. So have mathematicians. You are not listening.

 

[MINISTERofTRUTH]

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.

 

[jsfisher]

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.

 

[MINISTERofTRUTH]

...... 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

 

[jsfisher]

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?

"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.

 

[Perpetual Student]

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.

 

[MINISTERofTRUTH]

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 !

 

[jsfisher]

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.

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.

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.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

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….

 

[jsfisher]

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.

 

[lpetrich]

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) = {γ_t(v)*{1,w(v)}, γ_x(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 γ_t(v) = γ_x(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.

 

[Perpetual Student]

This was brilliant:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/

 

[MINISTERofTRUTH]

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.

 

[Kid Eager]

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.