Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[Kwalish Kid]

That is like saying "any attempt to explain climate is climatology". If anything is by definition, considered physics, then everybody is a physicist. Which makes the term "physicist" meaningless as a useful term.

No, because a physicist is someone with a profession or at least an academic specialization of some sort.

Of course it also means I am now a physicist, which is amazing. Unless I used some bad reasoning, but since even bad reasoning is reasoning, I am now also a reasonable reasoner.

Unsurprisingly, you used bad reasoning.

 

[r-j]

We still haven't defined what "physics" is. If anything is physics, that is like saying anything is math. 2+2=5 isn't crackpot math. It's not even bad math, it's just wrong.

Why is anything somebody types considered physics?

 

[The Man]

That is like saying "any attempt to explain climate is climatology".

It is climatology. It may not be good or even useful climatology, heck it could even be crackpot climatology but it is climatology as the focus is on and the area of concern is, well, the climate.

If anything is by definition, considered physics, then everybody is a physicist. Which makes the term "physicist" meaningless as a useful term.

Could be why no one here has claimed "anything is by definition, considered physics".

Of course it also means I am now a physicist, which is amazing. Unless I used some bad reasoning, but since even bad reasoning is reasoning, I am now also a reasonable reasoner.

Only if you consider bad reasoning to be reasonable, which would of course be some bad reasoning in and of itself, making you perhaps an unreasonable reasoner.

We still haven't defined what "physics" is. If anything is physics, that is like saying anything is math. 2+2=5 isn't crackpot math. It's not even bad math, it's just wrong.

Being mathematically wrong is bad math and professing such bad math to be some generally overlooked or great mathematical insight is crackpot math. So it takes more than being just wrong to be a crackpot, mathematically or otherwise.

Why is anything somebody types considered physics?

Again, no one here, other than apparently just you, has claimed “anything is physics”.

 

[r-j]

Anything that attempts to explain physical phenomena is physics

Again, no one here, other than apparently just you, has claimed “anything is physics”.

It seems anything one types somehow becomes fact.

 

[The Man]

It seems anything one types somehow becomes fact.

Why does it seem that way to you?

Can you see the difference between what I wrote and your assertion of "Anything is physics" (just to give you a hint it is between "Anything" and "is physics")?

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Can you see the difference between what I wrote and your assertion of "Anything is physics" (just to give you a hint it is between "Anything" and "is physics")?

My guess is that he cannot.

 

[The Man]

My guess is that he cannot.

Evidently or he just thought typing it would make it a fact.


I'm sure, as you know, that just because we (among others here) try to address just about anything people type, that doesn't make them facts (even in the area of physics). All to often the assertions, by many here (even the professional physicists), are that they are, in fact, not facts or perhaps just irrelevant facts. Perhaps that's the conflation r-j may be making, between physics (a particular field of study or discussion) and facts?

 

[lpetrich]

I think that many physics crackpots honestly believe that they've made some great discovery.

What happens next is another story. If they discover that this discovery is rejected by the mainstream scientific community, they have two main possible actions.

Decide that they are mistaken. We don't learn much about that.

Decide that it is contrary mainstream theories that are mistaken. That can lead to a career in crackpottery. They often decide that the reason that mainstream scientists reject their wonderful theories is because those scientists are closed-minded orthodox oxen.


As to physics crackpottery, Martin Gardner had a nice selection of it in Fads and Fallacies, though it's over half a century old. It's hard to compete with George Francis Gillette's zaniness, though Archimedes Plutonium and the Time Cube gentleman seem like they could. GFG in action:

Each ultimote is simultaneously an integral part of zillions of otherplane units and only thus is its infinite allplane velocity and energy subdivided into zillions of finite planar quotas of velocity and energy.

In all the cosmos there is naught but straight-flying bumping, caroming and again straight flying. Phenomena are but lumps, jumps, and bumps. A mass unit's career is but lumping, jumping, bumping, rejumping, rebumping, and finally unlumping.

His "backscrewing theory of gravity": "Gravitation is the kicked back nut of the screwing bolt of radiation.", "Gravitation and backscrewing are synonymous. All mass units are solar systems ... of interscrewed subunits.", "Gravitation is naught but that reaction in the form of subplanar solar systems screwing through higher plane masses."

Not surprisingly, he complained about what "orthodox oxen" mainstream physicists were for not accepting his wonderful theories.

Martin Gardner also noticed two phases of physics crackpottery:
1. Anti-Newton
2. Anti-Einstein with defenses of Newtonian physics
What might a third phase be? "Back to Einstein"?

 

[TjW]

I think that many physics crackpots honestly believe that they've made some great discovery.

What happens next is another story. If they discover that this discovery is rejected by the mainstream scientific community, they have two main possible actions.

Decide that they are mistaken. We don't learn much about that.

Decide that it is contrary mainstream theories that are mistaken. That can lead to a career in crackpottery. They often decide that the reason that mainstream scientists reject their wonderful theories is because those scientists are closed-minded orthodox oxen.


As to physics crackpottery, Martin Gardner had a nice selection of it in Fads and Fallacies, though it's over half a century old. It's hard to compete with George Francis Gillette's zaniness, though Archimedes Plutonium and the Time Cube gentleman seem like they could. GFG in action:

His "backscrewing theory of gravity": "Gravitation is the kicked back nut of the screwing bolt of radiation.", "Gravitation and backscrewing are synonymous. All mass units are solar systems ... of interscrewed subunits.", "Gravitation is naught but that reaction in the form of subplanar solar systems screwing through higher plane masses."

Not surprisingly, he complained about what "orthodox oxen" mainstream physicists were for not accepting his wonderful theories.

Martin Gardner also noticed two phases of physics crackpottery:
1. Anti-Newton
2. Anti-Einstein with defenses of Newtonian physics
What might a third phase be? "Back to Einstein"?

Yep. In fact there have been several threads on this forum where Einstein quotes are deconstructed as supporting the poster's unaccepted-by-the-mainstream theory. Einstein's math, not so much.

 

[Perpetual Student]

I'm not a physics major, nor do I have a degree, or read physics magazines or do whatever physics people do. My question is where do you see or hear these crackpot physics? I don't ever see them on TV, or in the papers. Nor on the internet news sites, or even entertainment sites. In fact where does a crackpot physics even exist?

Five years ago, I came across an ad in a science magazine (Scientific American or Science News?) touting a book called "Our Undiscovered Universe" by Terence Witt. Later, I saw the same ad again in another periodical, so my curiosity was peaked, I did an internet search and came across this thread here in the JREF. That event marked my introduction to both crackpot physics and the JREF. I am not a physicist but I have a background in mathematics and I do have an avid interest in physics. Since that time I have seen may other crackpots come and go here in JREF touting anti-Einstein, Electric Universe, iron sun, anti-QM and a variety of other crackpot notions. These are very serious people dedicated to their own brand of crackpottery. They write books, organize conventions, have blogs and websites and regularly populate forums like this one. It seems to me that the relatively uninformed could easily be swayed by these characters. You might take a look at that thread if you are interested in getting a feel for the nature of crackpot physics.

 

[lpetrich]

I love lurking in the physics cranks threads. If there's one thing that seems to unite them all, it's that every crank uses some variation of the same epistemological method: hermeneutical scholasticism.

In other words, science as textual (mis)interpretation coupled with deductive logic based on those (mis)interpretations.

That is, research by literary interpretation. Although I would not say that it is *universal*, it is rather common. Creationists' quote mining is a well-known form of it, but others also do it.

Arguing like a theologian is a form of research by literary interpretation. It involves interpreting books that one considers sacred. A certain someone here is well-known for making that sort of argument.

 

[ben m]

That is, research by literary interpretation. Although I would not say that it is *universal*, it is rather common.

Yeah, there's a certain subspecies of crackpot that works this way. Farsight is our local specimen, representing the Relativity subspecies.

There used to be---I forget who they were---a bunch of free-energy crackpots who did the same thing with Maxwell. "Maxwell got electrodynamics right, then Heaviside reorganized the equations into the popular forms ... and accidentally discarded Maxwell's esoteric truths in the process!"

But it's not all of them. Many crackpots think they're "starting from scratch" and quote no sources whatsoever, primary or otherwise. They figure that if Einstein could write new laws of physics by performing pure thought-experiments, then by gum *they* want to write new laws of physics by performing pure thought-experiments.

 

[lpetrich]

There used to be---I forget who they were---a bunch of free-energy crackpots who did the same thing with Maxwell. "Maxwell got electrodynamics right, then Heaviside reorganized the equations into the popular forms ... and accidentally discarded Maxwell's esoteric truths in the process!"

Farsight himself has expressed a similar view in some posts here. When someone noted that he does not seem to do any calculations, he responded

Because I'm explaining the reality that underlies the mathematics. You can't do this with mathematics. Remember that it was your challenge to me to start this thread on the electromagnetic field. It's the experimental evidence and the logic that delivers understanding of what the mathematics means. What you consider to be "Maxwell's Equations" were recast by Heaviside into vector form, discarding the dualism that is vital for understanding the underlying geometry that then takes you places.

Maxwell's equations have been written in several ways:
Component-by-component: Maxwell himself
Quaternionic: Maxwell himself
3-vector form: Heaviside
4-vector form (general covariant): ???

The quaternionic and 3-vector forms are essentially equivalent.

The 3-vector form is essentially a 3+1 split of the 4-vector form, a split that results from splitting the 4 space-time dimensions into the 3 space dimensions and 1 time dimension.

 

[BurntSynapse]

Hello All,

I'm new to this thread, and appear to meet many of the recently posted criteria for crackpots. I am however, very interested in being corrected if good evidence merits retracting my current opinion on just about anything, I think.

While the certainty implied in Farsight's claim to explain "the reality" underlying current mathematical models inspires skepticism, I do think the existence of such to be more probable than not, simply based on: a) the lack of progress and b) increasing anomalies and other problems in physics the past century, and c) natural observer-centric bias since invention of "the concept", wherever one wants to place that.

Reviews and feedback of the video at trip-dub dot a.ly/7nt would be appreciated.

 

[Pixel42]

Hello All,

I'm new to this thread, and appear to meet many of the recently posted criteria for crackpots.

Hello and welcome.

I am however, very interested in being corrected if good evidence merits retracting my current opinion on just about anything, I think.

In general evidence is required for an opinion. "That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence".

While the certainty implied in Farsight's claim to explain "the reality" underlying current mathematical models inspires skepticism, I do think the existence of such to be more probable than not, simply based on: a) the lack of progress and b) increasing anomalies and other problems in physics the past century, and c) natural observer-centric bias since invention of "the concept", wherever one wants to place that.

Sorry, I don't understand. The existence of what is probable?

Reviews and feedback of the video at trip-dub dot a.ly/7nt would be appreciated.

Most people here are reluctant to look at videos without some clue as to what the video contains.

 

[ctamblyn]

I'm one of those reckless posters that'll click on most things

The link goes through a URL-shortening service, and lands on this YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yu05gAi3UE

However, it seems like it's a bit of a departure from the present topic. Perhaps you should start a thread, BurntSynapse. And welcome to the forum, of course!

 

[Pixel42]

My initial impression of the video is that the speaker is not distinguishing between "it's currently impossible" (meaning "I see no way of doing it with existing technology") and "it's theoretically impossible" (meaning "the laws of physics forbid it"). Interstellar spaceships are currently impossible but we can reasonably hope we will one day have the technology to be able to build one; faster-than-light interstellar spaceships, however, are theoretically impossible so we can't reasonably hope for those.

 

[Cuddles]

a) the lack of progress and b) increasing anomalies and other problems in physics the past century

When it comes down to it, I think this is a perfect demonstration of exactly what leads people to crackpot physics - lack of understanding of actual physics. Physics has progressed far more in the last century than it has in the rest of human history, and there are far fewer anomalies now than there have been at any time in the past. We've discovered the fundamental building blocks of the universe and (mostly) how they interact, we've put men on the Moon and probes on other planets and (maybe) outside the solar system, we can predict the motion of stars and planets with greater accuracy than anyone could previously have dreamed about, and we're communicating right now using methods entirely dependent on a detailed understanding of both relativity and quantum mechanics.

In comparison, a few hundred years ago people hadn't even figured out that the Earth went around the Sun, let alone what they're made of or where they came from and the horse was the pinnacle of communication technology. I've seen some hilarious diagrams of medieval ideas about the laws of motion, including an awesome one showing a cannonball travelling diagonally up in a straight line then dropping vertically, because obviously straight lines are the only possible motion and the only natural motion is dropping straight down. Seriously, that's what people who actually fired cannons for a living thought.

Yet somehow quite a few people manage to get the idea that because we haven't quite worked out all the details of how things behave at a scale that people a couple of centuries ago couldn't even have conceived of, that this means physics must be in a terrible state and in need of fixing at the most fundamental level. Are there anomalies? Of course there are. The more we learn, the more questions we open up. But they're not actually new questions, they're just questions that we previously didn't know enough about to know we should be asking them.

Why is there so much crackpot physics? Because some people are apparently capable of living in the most advanced and fastest advancing period in human history, and somehow seeing only a lack of progress.

 

[r-j]

I'm pretty sure all the "crackpots" who turned out to be right are an inspiration to those seeking to become one of those crackpots who turn out to be right.

History is full of crackpots, but mostly the ones who ended up changing physics. Nobody writes much about the ones who were wrong.

 

[Dancing David]

Care to name the ones that were crack pots who turned out to be right?