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Null Physics anyone?

sol invictus said:
Another anonymous first time poster comes in and says something good about Witt. How odd and unprecedented!
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Is this the troll in Sol making this statement? :eek: Every poster has a first post. Hardly unprecedented if its another!
Given that 99% of posters of this forum are anonymous, using the names of mythical gods, kings, emperors, gladiators,cute furry animals and miscellaneous nom de plumes to hide behind.

I believe that Witts detractors actually do more good for Null Physics than the odd poster who see's something positive in Null Physics.
This thread has had close to 50,000 views world wide and most of the posts are from a handfull of detractors.
Not bad advertising for Null Physics.
 
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Skwinty said:
This thread has had close to 50,000 views world wide and most of the posts are from a handfull of detractors.
Not bad advertising for Null Physics.
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You appear to be assuming that most casual viewers of this thread have the same difficulties with the comprehension of information as Witt's more ardent supporters.
 
Paul said:
You appear to be assuming that most casual viewers of this thread have the same difficulties with the comprehension of information as Witt's more ardent supporters.
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I am not assuming anything, merely stating the obvious.
Even bad publicity is good publicity.:rolleyes:
 
Skwinty said:
Is this the troll in Sol making this statement? :eek: Every poster has a first post. Hardly unprecedented if its another!
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There's nothing unprecedented about it at all - that was precisely my point! Many times in this thread new accounts have posted some kind of glowing endorsement of Witt's book and then disappeared without a trace. Almost as if someone were registering multiple accounts to try to prop up his or her crackpottery...

Given that 99% of posters of this forum are anonymous, using the names of mythical gods, kings, emperors, gladiators,cute furry animals and miscellaneous nom de plumes to hide behind.
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But 98% of those posters are not trying to sell a book and/or promote some kind of woo (OK, 98% might be an overestimate).

I believe that Witts detractors actually do more good for Null Physics than the odd poster who see's something positive in Null Physics.
This thread has had close to 50,000 views world wide and most of the posts are from a handfull of detractors.
Not bad advertising for Null Physics.
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I don't think the "all publicity is good publicity" thing goes here. This book is heavily advertised in major media, so it already has much greater exposure than could be provided by this thread. Most of the viewers probably come here after a google search they made based on an ad, read enough to realize the book is garbage, and leave without another thought. It's hard to imagine anyone reading this thread and coming away with a more positive impression than they arrived with.
 
sol invictus said:
But 98% of those posters are not trying to sell a book and/or promote some kind of woo (OK, 98% might be an overestimate).
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I must agree with you here. I find it hard to even read some of the twaddle one finds in the paranormal,conspiracy,religion and philosophy sections.
Even bad science is more palatable but then thats only my opinion.
As far as Null Physic's is concerned, at least Witt is making corrections as he goes along. He has retracted his galactic core luminosity prediction.
 
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Skwinty said:
I must agree with you here. I find it hard to even read some of the twaddle one finds in the paranormal,conspiracy,religion and philosophy sections.
Even bad science is more palatable but then thats only my opinion.
As far as Null Physic's is concerned, at least Witt is making corrections as he goes along. He has retracted his galactic core luminosity prediction.
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I would say that he has not gone as far as retracting the prediction. The last that I remember from the NP forum (it has been unavailable for the last few days while it is updated) is that his team is trying to find some way of hiding the radiation from his galactic core. His cosmology collapses if there are no galactic cores, e.g. one at the center of our galaxy. It also collapes if the core is not hot enough to "disassociate" compound nuclei into hydrogen (280,000K according to the OUU calculations).
His prediction was wrong due to the many observations of our galactic center. So now he and his team is trying to fix it by either shifting the peak of the radiation to an unobserved bit of the spectrum or creating a new gravitational effect that hides the radiation.

If his forum was up I would tell him about another problem with galactic cores - we do not observe the impact of the vortical inflow on the surface of the core. As page 333 of OUU states the Milky Way's total vortical inflow is ~18 solar masses per year. All of this mass hits the surface of the galactic core - a body with a mass of 3.7 million solar masses and a radius just over that of the Schwarzschild radius. The energy released in the impact is not small and would not be constant (we would expect the occasional actual star to hit the core).
 
Reality Check said:
I would say that he has not gone as far as retracting the prediction.
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If you look at the errata part of the web site he says he has removed this from his list of predictions and moved it to calculations.
Wasn't it you who gave him credit for making corrections?
 
Skwinty said:
If you look at the errata part of the web site he says he has removed this from his list of predictions and moved it to calculations.
Wasn't it you who gave him credit for making corrections?
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I don't remember giving him credit for corrections - your comment was the first that I heard of this.
I have found his errata document:
Page 359, Milky Way Core’s luminosity
The Milky Way core’s luminous properties were calculated in Chapter 16, but unlike the other quantified predictions in Appendix A, they currently have no corroborating theoretical or observational evidence. As such, core luminosity should be considered a calculation, not a prediction, and should not be included in the list.
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and he is wrong. A calculation from a theory is a prediction of that theory. That is the definition of a prediction.
The fact that there is no "corroborating theoretical or observational evidence" is a problem with the prediction and does not make it a printing error. If the core does not have the luminosity as calculated then it does not exist and null cosmology is wrong.
 
Skwinty said:
My apologies, it was Zosima who gives him credit for making corrections.
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Are you talking about this post:
zosima said:
Howdy, ya'll

I think I should try to steer clear of Witt's site for a while, we're starting to get on each others' nerves.

If nothing else I'm impressed that he learned the value of the internet after just one encounter with JREF. I guess he figured that rather than persuade people on these forums he had the resources to manufacture consensus by building his own forum.

One thing that's got me is where did that The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada quote come from? Is this published somewhere or is it just something that someone told him over the phone. From what he's said about FIT, its pretty obvious that Witt is willing to exaggerate the amount of praise and consensus that there is for the theory.

ETA: To Witt's credit, he could have used his powers of moderation to silence opposition on the forum and he hasn't. The whole time I've been posting there I've been just cringing in expectation of the moment the BanHammer comes down and it hasn't. (Which is more than I can say for many more 'respectable' sites like BoingBoing).
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Then the credit is about the NP forum not corrections to his book.
 
Reality Check said:
Are you talking about this post:

Then the credit is about the NP forum not corrections to his book.
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Nope, this one.

"*I think the fact that he has shifted his position somewhat is actually a good thing. Modifying and improving a theory in response to criticism is always good, no matter how wild the theory is."

post 424
 
Skwinty said:
I believe that Witts detractors actually do more good for Null Physics than the odd poster who see's something positive in Null Physics.
This thread has had close to 50,000 views world wide and most of the posts are from a handfull of detractors.
Not bad advertising for Null Physics.
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I don't get it. How is it doing him any good? Sure bad publicity is still publicity, but if he isn't trying to make money how are there any positives in this?
 
Tubbythin said:
I don't get it. How is it doing him any good? Sure bad publicity is still publicity, but if he isn't trying to make money how are there any positives in this?
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Well, I think people talk about it, even if they say derogatory things about it and it probably will generate more sales because of peoples curiosity.
I recall this being the case with other books of this type.
People are curious and may buy the book just to see if it is as bad as others say.

Thats is all I mean. No hidden agenda.
 
Skwinty said:
Well, I think people talk about it, even if they say derogatory things about it and it probably will generate more sales because of peoples curiosity.
I recall this being the case with other books of this type.
People are curious and may buy the book just to see if it is as bad as others say.

Thats is all I mean. No hidden agenda.
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But if his aim is not to make money, what good are the extra sales? They're not going to make people more likely to take him seriously.
 
Tubbythin said:
And..? That's good how?
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The motives of Witt are known only to him.
What perhaps is pathetic is the fact that his detractors seem to be obsessed with "bringing him down"and branding him as a crank.
Why?
If he is as wrong as his detractors say, then he should pose no threat to the current paradigm.
Is it jealousy of his financial success or because he has the audacity to question and refer to perceived failings of modern science?

Show me any scientist who has been 100% correct in any of his work.
Now be honest about Witt, sure he has made some mistakes according to the current paradigm, but is he 100% wrong? I cant judge either way because I am not qualified, only interested in the subject.

If you say that he is 100% wrong, then I would assume that you have analysed his work extensively. If you haven't , then you are blowing hot air.

Do you think that bad publicity affected the sales of Peter Woits "Not even Wrong" or Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics" and I believe there was lots of bad publicity associated with both books
.
These books can be seen in any bookstore world wide and they must be selling or they wouldn't be there. Now you can say that only dodos or morons buy them, but then not everyone can be as clever as Witts detractors and they themselves may well be morons in other fields.

Then consider what publications or peer reviewed papers have his detractors credited to their names. If there are any, are they providing links or references to them?

The point is that is easy to anonymously post criticism's of other peoples work, but at least he has the courage to to say this is who I am and this is what I think, whats your opinion of my work?
 
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