Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[Farsight]

A while back, I de-lurked and observed that, instead of using the scientific method, most crackpots that visit JREF use a bogus method that could be called hermenueutical scholasticism. This consists of deduction based on textual interpretation of Great Works rather than induction based on observation of nature.

There could not be a more perfect example than the following:

...See the Minkowski quote from Space and Time...:

"Then in the description of the field produced by the electron we see that the separation of the field into electric and magnetic force is a relative one with regard to the underlying time axis; the most perspicious way of describing the two forces together is on a certain analogy with the wrench in mechanics, though the analogy is not complete"..

This is Farsight's "I'm with Minkowski" dance, and he has used this passage, taken in splendid isolation from the rest of Space and Time, as a sword and a shield for years - attacking his JREF interlocutors for "ignoring Minkwoski" and defending his own deductions as supported by Minkowski.
But what about the rest of Space and Time? If Minkwoski's work supports Farsight's deductions, surely this passage, in context with the rest of the work, also supports Farsight's deductions? It's not just this single sentence that can be twisted, on it's own, into something it was never intended to express, right? Minkowski's work really does support Farsight's deductions, right?

Right. In the real world, we have the right-hand rule. We use it for the current-in the wire. And guess what, we also use it for screw threads. And in this real world, our test particles move linearly and rotationally.

So, apart from that single, mis-interpreted sentence, this particular Great Work does not support Farsight because it does not demonstrate Farsight's deductions about time.

This is a single example, but it applies to all of Farsight's deductions. Every time he cites a Great Work, he is doing the same thing. Not just crackpottery, but deceptive and willfully dishonest crackpottery.

I'm not the one being deceptive or dishonest or crackpot. Now how about you try another ad-hominem concerning Maxwell:

"A motion of translation along an axis cannot produce a rotation about that axis unless it meets with some special mechanism, like that of a screw".

Note Maxwell's page title.

Edited by LashL: 

Edited for civility.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

A while back, I de-lurked and observed that, instead of using the scientific method, most crackpots that visit JREF use a bogus method that could be called hermenueutical scholasticism. This consists of deduction based on textual interpretation of Great Works rather than induction based on observation of nature.

There could not be a more perfect example than the following:

Farsight posted an even more perfect example immediately below yours. The highlighting is mine, but the bold face is Farsight's:

You need to read the introduction, ct:

WHEREAS in light optics the refractive index of a medium is in the first instance an experimental datum, and its accurate value is the basis of any detailed discussion of the performance of optical instruments, all geometrical electron optics is entirely contained in Lorentz’s equation for the forces acting on a moving charge. As a result, all equations for trajectories can be derived directly from that equation by specifying the electric and magnetic fields. Thus the role of the refractive index in electron optics is far less obvious than that of its counterpart for light, and in fact different authors have proposed essentially different values of the refractive index for the same field without arousing much perturbation (Glaser 1933, 1937, Opatowski 1943). Only through the persistent use of the refractive index, however, is the optical character of electron optics fully brought out, the flow of reasoning maintained and in fact greatly simplified, and the way opened for a wave optical treatment of electronic problems, such as the resolving power of the electron microscope....

It's electrons, it's optics, it's classical electromagnetism. It isn't quantum mechanics. And lpetrich has learned something new today.

Farsight wants us to read this passage, but he doesn't want us to notice Ehrenberg and Siday's mention of the magnetic fields Farsight's been denying.

This is a single example, but it applies to all of Farsight's deductions. Every time he cites a Great Work, he is doing the same thing. Not just crackpottery, but deceptive and willfully dishonest crackpottery.

 

[ben m]

You need to read the introduction, ct:

It's electrons, it's optics, it's classical electromagnetism. It isn't quantum mechanics. And lpetrich has learned something new today.

Nnnno. They treat the electron as a wave. The only law of physics that allows you to treat an electron as a wave---when you know darn well it's detected strictly in 1.6x10^-19 Coulombs and 9x10^-31 kg subunits---is called "quantum mechanics", and the wave equation is called "the Schrodinger equation". There is no classical wave equation for the electron, and this fact was so obvious to Ehrenberg (and their audience at the time) as to hardly be worth mentioning.

 

[Farsight]

Probably not. Simple ignorance, by itself, does not explain stubborn advocacy of crackpot physics. A crackpot's stubborn conviction that he understands the science better than those who have devoted their lives to advancing that science allows the crackpot to reject genuine physics even after errors in their crackpot physics have been identified and explained to them...

I understand electromagnetism a whole lot better than you do Clinger. Calling me names and throwing out a snowstorm of ad-hominems isn't going to rescue you from your schoolboy faux pas regarding magnetic fields being "generated".

Oh, and by the way, see section 1.2 of Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics where he says this:

"Although the thing that eventually gets measured is a force...

and

"At the moment the electric field can be defined as the force per unit charge acting at a given point..."

Then see section 11.10 where he says

"one should properly speak of the electromagnetic field Fuv rather than E or B separately..."

So I'm right and you're wrong. Now what was that you were saying about stubborn?

LOL.

 

[ctamblyn]

You need to read the introduction, ct:

It's electrons, it's optics, it's classical electromagnetism. It isn't quantum mechanics. And lpetrich has learned something new today.

Er, no. Perhaps you should read the whole paper.

 

[Farsight]

Nnnno. They treat the electron as a wave. The only law of physics that allows you to treat an electron as a wave---when you know darn well it's detected strictly in 1.6x10^-19 Coulombs and 9x10^-31 kg subunits---is called "quantum mechanics", and the wave equation is called "the Schrodinger equation". There is no classical wave equation for the electron, and this fact was so obvious to Ehrenberg (and their audience at the time) as to hardly be worth mentioning.

You should read up on this ben. For example, here's Michael berry calling it a semi-classical paper. And look at the page heading: Aptly named Aharonov-Bohm effect has a classical analogue, long history. Berry's views on Ehrenberg and Siday may be a little coloured by his association, see http://abb.iopconfs.org/ , but that's by the by.

 

[D'rok]

I'm not the one being deceptive or dishonest or crackpot.

You dismiss all but one single sentence (and naturally all the math) in a very important physics paper and then claim the paper supports your deductions, and anyone who challenges your interpretation of that single sentence is denying Minkowski. Who's being dishonest? You do the math...pun intended.

 

[ctamblyn]

You should read up on this ben. For example, here's Michael berry calling it a semi-classical paper. And look at the page heading: Aptly named Aharonov-Bohm effect has a classical analogue, long history. Berry's views on Ehrenberg and Siday may be a little coloured by his association, see http://abb.iopconfs.org/ , but that's by the by.

When in a hole, stop digging.

From the site you linked to:

...
Second, Ehrenberg and Siday's semi-classical approximation - essentially applying the Dirac magnetic phase factor to electrons traveling on either side of the flux - implies a wavefunction that is multivalued and therefore not the correct solution of Schrodinger's equation. The lack of a single-valued wavefunction leaves their prediction open to doubt.
...

Do you know what a semi-classical approximation is? Hint: it's not something you do in pre-quantum physics.

ETA: Read that paper yet?

 

[D'rok]

Farsight posted an even more perfect example immediately below yours. The highlighting is mine, but the bold face is Farsight's:


Farsight wants us to read this passage, but he doesn't want us to notice Ehrenberg and Siday's mention of the magnetic fields Farsight's been denying.

Clearly, Ehrenberg and Siday must not be familiar with Maxwell.

 

[The Man]

Certainly a common thread in much crackpot physics is at least some dissatisfaction with current physics. Exacerbated in part by physicists themselves openly and honestly critiquing their own fields and works. What you might call a “grass is greener” kind of effect. If things are so bad on this side of the fence perhaps we need to look for ‘alternatives’ over the fence. Sure the grass on the other side may be greener but when you actually step over the fence you find the yard full of dog crap. Which is what makes that grass just look better and the yard not very practical for a picnic or a game of tackle football. Of course in order to get the same usefulness out of some other yard it is going to have to be a lot like our yard. So there are limits to how far such ‘alternatives’ can deviate and still be compatible with current observations. Heck, I’d be happy if we had a unified or just more complete model but certainly wouldn’t be disappointed or surprised if we never do and just looking over the fence wishing our yard looked that good ain’t gonna reseed some of the dead spots or get rid of the dandelions. It seems to me that the expectation that results in a lot of crackpot physics is that the universe is or should be easily and intuitively understandable. Unfortunately, that the universe is independent of our expectations means that there is absolutely no reason it should be understood by or even understandable to us. Again, barring omnipotence, there will always be some limit where our understanding breaks down and having a set of models, incompatible at some limit(s), that cover most of it may be the best we can ever even hope to accomplish.

 

[godless dave]

Some in this forum seem to disagree with the view that physics is failing to deliver the kind of large scale synthesis and consolidation within models providing testable predictions.

I definitely disagree with that view, and I am very curious what evidence you have that supports that view.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Probably not. Simple ignorance, by itself, does not explain stubborn advocacy of crackpot physics. A crackpot's stubborn conviction that he understands the science better than those who have devoted their lives to advancing that science allows the crackpot to reject genuine physics even after errors in their crackpot physics have been identified and explained to them.

I also doubt whether you can credit Farsight (for example) with having done much reading. Although Farsight has been quoting John David Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics "forever", that textbook is full of mathematics, and it's highly unlikely that Farsight has been able to read it. I doubt whether he even owns a copy. I suspect he found the prooftext he's been citing "forever" by Googling:


If Farsight had actually read Jackson's book, he'd have noticed that section I.1, at the very beginning of the book, begins with these equations:


That is, of course, the standard undergraduate-level vector version of Maxwell's equations in differential form.

Despite Farsight's frequent citation of Jackson as an authority, Farsight condemns Jackson's vector formulation of Maxwell's equations:


Farsight was unaware that Jackson refers to B and H as magnetic fields. Those symbols occur throughout Jackson's book, and every occurrence of those symbols refers to a magnetic field. Farsight remains unaware of this even though I pointed it out just two days ago.

So Farsight's been quoting Jackson without reading Jackson, and he's been ignoring Jackson's words even when I highlighted those words for him.

If those who advocate crackpot physics were sincerely interested in learning physics, they'd pay more attention when their mistakes are explained to them.


Crackpots like pictures, partly because they can look at pictures without understanding the relevant math, and partly because they can pretend pictures support their crackpot physics. Some of the vector fields found by that Google Images search are pictures of magnetic fields, whose existence Farsight is denying.

Why would someone direct our attention to pictures of the vector fields he denies? Because Farsight himself doesn't know what magnetic fields look like, and has only the foggiest understanding of basic vector math.

When Farsight sees pictures of magnetic fields that have been generated directly from solutions of Maxwell's equations, as at the web page Farsight cited, he doesn't recognize them as magnetic fields. He doesn't even recognize them as vector fields.


Those who advocate crackpot physics often cite their own error-infested posts as evidence of their understanding.

I believe ignorance of mathematics is at the core of much (not all) crackpot thinking. Sadly, their passion for physics is apparent. It's hard to tell if crackpots read or skim through their so-called reading of scientific papers. In either case, they focus on the words, the diagrams and the pictures while searching for analogies. Many of these crackpots demonstrate prolific reading (skimming?) of important papers. If they understood the mathematics, much of their misunderstanding might not happen at all.
In my own case (as a layman), when I have an interest in some narrow area of physics, I bore in and struggle (sometimes for many days) with the math until I get it -- because the math is accessible for me. If the math were out of my reach, what would I do? Probably simply rely on the opinions of the experts and leave it at that. I would find reading some paper and looking at the pictures and making up my own version of the authors conclusions quite useless and silly.
When I was a pre-school kid, my grandmother -- who could not read English -- would sit me in her lap and "read" the Sunday comics to me. She would make up stories to suit the pictures, much to the amusement of the eavesdropping family. It seems to me that this is quite analogous to crackpots' reading of physics papers.

 

[Farsight]

Do you know what a semi-classical approximation is? Hint: it's not something you do in pre-quantum physics.

Sure I do. And I can refer to other references to "classical". Here you go. And by the way, in this post ben m said "The electron is, according to all well-tested theory and all experiment, a point particle". It isn't, now is it?

ETA: Read that paper yet?

Yep. Years ago. If you've got a hose on a reel, turn it on and watch carefully.

You dismiss all but one single sentence (and naturally all the math) in a very important physics paper and then claim the paper supports your deductions, and anyone who challenges your interpretation of that single sentence is denying Minkowski. Who's being dishonest?

You are. I'm the one referring to Minkowski and Maxwell and Heaviside and frame-dragging and spinors and Ehrenberg & Siday and the right hand rule and all the rest. It's me giving the physics lessons here. You're just playing the naysayer, and you aren't very good at it.

Edited by LashL: 

Edited for civility.

...Sure the grass on the other side may be greener but when you actually step over the fence you find the yard full of dog crap...

It's the wrong analogy I'm afraid. The true state of affairs is that the yard is full of dog crap, and I'm cleaning it up. It's a tough old job, but hey, somebody's got to do it.

 

[Farsight]

In my own case (as a layman), when I have an interest in some narrow ar.ea of physics, I bore in and struggle (sometimes for many days) with the math until I get it

No, you don't get it.

Edited by LashL: 

Edited for civility.

If the math were out of my reach, what would I do? Probably simply rely on the opinions of the experts and leave it at that.

That's you to a tee. Then you dismiss Maxwell and Minkowski and Einstein and electromagnetism and everything else I tell you about. And you cling to rubbish justifications like "out of context" or "you don't understand the maths".

Edited by LashL: 

Edited for civility.

 

[Perpetual Student]

No, you don't get it.

Edited by LashL: 

Edited for civility.

That's you to a tee. Then you dismiss Maxwell and Minkowski and Einstein and electromagnetism and everything else I tell you about. And you cling to rubbish justifications like "out of context" or "you don't understand the maths".

Edited by LashL: 

Edited for civility.

...

On the contrary, Maxwell, et al and their successors are exactly those on whom I rely. It is an exhilarating feeling to follow the mathematics and comprehend the insights these geniuses have given us -- from time to time I have been fortunate enough to have had this experience. Whatever you claim you "tell (me) about" is just so much home spun drivel -- not unlike my grandmother reading the Sunday comics to me when I was three years old.
But it's not too late. There are many on-line lectures dealing with the mathematics you so desperately need. You would actually gain much more satisfaction from your interest in physics than your current marginal understanding could possibly provide. Why waste a lifetime on this current path when the real thing is out there waiting to be grasped -- and at no cost, other than your time? For your own sake, consider my words.

 

[ctamblyn]

Sure I do. And I can refer to other references to "classical". Here you go.

Here we see yet another source being quoted which does not support the crackpot theory (in this case, the theory being that the ESAB effect is classical). The source actually supports the counter argument:

It is interesting to note that the reasoning of Ehrenberg and Siday was based almost wholly on classical mechanics, the only wave-optical notion being the elementary interference relation that phase difference = k * (path difference).

(My highlight.)

Every source cited so far makes it clear that Ehrenberg and Siday's analysis was based on a quantum-mechanical model of the electron treated in a semi-classical approximation. Ehrenberg and Siday's original paper itself clearly uses a quantum-mechanical model of the electron treated in a semi-classical approximation, and what is more points out that there is no ESAB effect in classical electromagnetism in the introduction.

It's almost as though someone has just searched for the words "classical" and "Ehrenberg", and blindly pasted the links.

And by the way, in this post ben m said "The electron is, according to all well-tested theory and all experiment, a point particle". It isn't, now is it?

In case you missed it: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9237514&postcount=1451

(ETA: that last remark is referring specifically to the question about electron structure, a core component of "Relativity+", and not referring to the AB effect.)

 

[ben m]

And by the way, in this post ben m said "The electron is, according to all well-tested theory and all experiment, a point particle". I

Yep. The electron is a point particle. The probability density for finding this point-particle at various locations comes from a wave equation, the Schrodinger equation. Different types of measurements will cause the wavefunction to collapse into energy, or momentum, or position eigenstates.

Wave-particle duality is explained, at the level you're objecting to, in books like Mr Thompkin Explores The Cub Scout Physics Merit Badge. Are you seriously objecting to the idea that the electron is both a point particle and a wave?

 

[Perpetual Student]

On this question of what an electron (or any other fundamental particle) is, I have come to the conclusion that it is a useless to try to fit its ultimate reality into any macro-intuitive description. I do not accept that it's a particle or that it's a wave or both. An electron is a fundamental object that exhibits certain properties that have been revealed through experiment and is described by certain mathematical models. For some purposes it's convenient to view it as a particle; for others it's convenient to see it as a wave. That's it! Speculating about its ultimate reality is interesting and entertaining, but until someone comes up with something better, an electron is the mathematical model provided through QM.

 

[ben m]

Yes. Seriously. The electron isn't a point particle. You can diffract it. It has its magnetic moment. It has spin angular momentum. Its field is part of what it is. In fact, that's all it is. It's quantum field theory, not quantum point-particle theory.

Seriously, Farsight, you can't derive the properties of QFT by reading its name and guessing what "field" means.

The proton can diffract, has a magnetic moment and angular momentum, and hard scattering experiments show behavior (excitations, breakup, a non-1/q^2 cutoff in the elastic scattering cross section) characteristic of substructure at the 0.1 GeV (1 fm) scale.

The electron can diffract, has a magnetic moment and angular momentum, and hard-scattering experiments fail to show any substructure at any scale up to 10 TeV (0.00001 fm).

Both of these things are perfectly well described by QFT. I can use QFT to describe an electron whose wavefunction extends throughout 100 cubic meters of space, and simultaneously describe what happens when a neutrino passes within 0.001 fm of this electron. I can use QFT to describe an electron passing through a 1-cm-wide diffraction grating, and also depositing all of its energy in a CCD pixel 10 microns across. Learn how it works or ... well, (ETA: self-edited for civility)

 

[W.D.Clinger]

I believe ignorance of mathematics is at the core of much (not all) crackpot thinking.

Agreed, but ignorance of mathematics does not fully explain crackpot thinking.

If the math were out of my reach, what would I do? Probably simply rely on the opinions of the experts and leave it at that. I would find reading some paper and looking at the pictures and making up my own version of the authors conclusions quite useless and silly.

For most people, the mathematics used in modern physics puts physics out of their reach. Very few of them invent their own crackpot physics, or fall prey to crackpot physics invented by others. Even fewer write entire books full of crackpot physics, or post thousands of messages promoting crackpot physics.

When I was a pre-school kid, my grandmother -- who could not read English -- would sit me in her lap and "read" the Sunday comics to me. She would make up stories to suit the pictures, much to the amusement of the eavesdropping family. It seems to me that this is quite analogous to crackpots' reading of physics papers.

Did your grandmother argue about those stories with those who were able to read English? Did she claim to read English better than those who really could?

Crackpot physics does not come from mathematical illiteracy alone, although that's part of it. Crackpots combine ignorance of math with irrational belief in their own superiority and stubborn refusal to learn from those who can actually read math or do physics.