Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[Farsight]

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

I know what field means. I've been telling you guys about the electromagnetic field remember? You know, putting Clinger straight on his electric field and his magnetic field, that aren't fields, but instead just the linear and rotational forces that result from electromagnetic field interactions. You know I'm right about that. You cannot offer any criticism of Maxwell and Minkowski's screw nature of electromagnetism. So don't try to suggest I'm guessing. I'm not, and you know it.

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.

Sure thing. And guess why? Because it's a quantum field structure with a definite three-part substructure. It's more complex than the electron.

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).

Nor do quarks. Searching for structure is like probing a whirlpool with a barge pole and saying whatever's in the middle of this must be really small, because I can't feel anything. There isn't anything in the middle!

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 the electron's field is not just part of what it is, it's what it is. It isn't a point particle.

...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)

I know how it works. Everything is field, or wavefunction if you prefer. The electron is not some point-particle billiard-ball thing with a mystical field tacked onto it, as if that field could somehow be taken away. It isn't just an "an excitation of the electron field". It's a particular field configuration with a topology and geometry. Go use TQFT to describe that. It definitely isn't some point-particle. When you see a dot on the screen you might think that it is, but it isn't. And again: the electron's field is what it is.

Now I really must go.

 

[ctamblyn]

I know what field means.

OK, shoot. Let's see if your definition is consistent with the one used in physics, or with your claims.

 

[ctamblyn]

For the record: After my rebuttal of the last attempt to defend the claim that the AB effect is explained by classical electromagnetism, answer came there none, either in the form of counterargument or concession.

 

[ben m]

Nor do quarks. Searching for structure is like probing a whirlpool with a barge pole and saying whatever's in the middle of this must be really small, because I can't feel anything. There isn't anything in the middle!

No, quite the opposite.

A whirlpool-like electron, with "nothing in the middle", would have elastic-scattering cross sections that vary like 1/q^2 F(q^2), where F(q^2) is a "form factor" describing the size and internal structure of the whirlpool. In electron-proton scattering, F(q^2) is approximately 1/(1 + q^2/((1 fm)^2)), which is what QFT predicts for an extended object about 1 fm across.

A pointlike electron would have an elastic scattering cross section that varies like 1/q^2. I.e., it looks like F(q^2) = 1.

LEP has done this experiment. Electron-positron scattering has a cross section that varies like 1/q^2, with no additional F(q^2) cutoff down to 0.00001 fm. The electron is not a whirlpool.

Congratulations on having a mental picture of the electron as a whirlpool, but mental pictures aren't enough. Actual physicists have mental pictures, and mathematical predictions, and experimental tests. The cross section for scattering off of an extended object, like a whirlpool, does NOT have a simple 1/q^2 dependence. Scattering off a point particle DOES have a simple 1/q^2 dependence. This experiment has been done many times, most powerfully by LEP, and your mental picture fails the experimental test.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Oh Perpetual Student. We don't do physics to roll over and give up. In atomic orbitals electrons "exist as standing waves". Do you think the electron that escapes an atomic orbital somehow magically transforms into a point particle? You can diffract it. The wave nature of matter is not some kind of science fiction.
...
...

Oh, Farsight. As I said, "until someone comes up with something better, an electron is the mathematical model provided through QM." No one is giving up. Research continues throughout the world by thousands of physicists at thousands of universities. Nevertheless, at this time, I am of the opinion that there does not exist a macro-intuitive description for fundamental particles, but I would be delighted to learn of some new physics demonstrating otherwise. I will lead the cheers!
Insisting that a electron is only a wave is amply contradicted by experiment -- read ben m's post above and learn some real physics.

 

[BurntSynapse]

Please consult the reference I provided on the history of vector calculus.

Today, vector math is as risk-free as any other part of mathematics. If you wish to argue against that statement, please give us a plain statement of the aspect of vector math you're talking about and the risk you perceive.

As a non-mathematician, I'm not qualified to argue one side or the other nor to assess the 80 pages you ask me to consult without any explanation of where any relevant point might be found therein, nor what such a point might be.

As an information systems project expert however, I am qualified to assess experts who claim such advantages exist, even when in the relatively small-but-famous application area of rotations, which illustrates the larger potential problem with commutativity itself.

In our observed physical world, order matters a great deal. In the overwhelming majority of algebras in use for representation however, commutativity appears to be assumed valid and perfectly without risk for things like addition & multiplication, including when the operands are tensors.

If you want my help, you'll have to answer my questions.

Fine. Now please answer: On what evidence can we reasonably conclude that in looking for sources of risk in physics research, the mathematics we use is the least of our worries?

 

[Perpetual Student]

As a non-mathematician, I'm not qualified to argue one side or the other nor to assess the 80 pages you ask me to consult without any explanation of where any relevant point might be found therein, nor what such a point might be.

As an information systems project expert however, I am qualified to assess experts who claim such advantages exist, even when in the relatively small-but-famous application area of rotations, which illustrates the larger potential problem with commutativity itself.

In our observed physical world, order matters a great deal. In the overwhelming majority of algebras in use for representation however, commutativity appears to be assumed valid and perfectly without risk for things like addition & multiplication, including when the operands are tensors.

As a non-mathematician, why do you believe there is a "larger potential problem with commutatively itself"? Some operations are commutative and some are not. What is the problem? Stop talking in riddles and try to be precise.

Fine. Now please answer: On what evidence can we reasonably conclude that in looking for sources of risk in physics research, the mathematics we use is the least of our worries?

All of our knowledge of existence outside of ourselves and including ourselves is filtered through our use of logic. All of these considerations and discussions assume logic. What do you think mathematics is? It is extended and elaborated LOGIC. If the math were wrong contradictions would become evident. Thousands of mathematicians and thousands of physicists working throughout the world finding no contradictions in the mathematics underlying physics make it as risk free as any human endeavor. You are really out of your element here!

 

[The Man]

In our observed physical world, order matters a great deal. In the overwhelming majority of algebras in use for representation however, commutativity appears to be assumed valid and perfectly without risk for things like addition & multiplication, including when the operands are tensors.

Well the natural numbers are both ordinal (designating order) and cardinal (designating size). So both ordering and size (amount) can be taken into account (pun intended) mathematically. Whether one is dealing with order, size or even both really just depends on the application, the operators though still have the same properties.

 

[Reality Check]

It's electrons, it's optics, it's classical electromagnetism. It isn't quantum mechanics.

It's electrons, it's optics, it's electromagnetism. It is quantum mechanics: Aharonov–Bohm effect

The Aharonov–Bohm effect, sometimes called the Ehrenberg–Siday–Aharonov–Bohm effect, is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which an electrically charged particle is affected by an electromagnetic field (E, B), despite being confined to a region in which both the magnetic field B and electric field E are zero. The underlying mechanism is the coupling of the electromagnetic potential with the complex phase of a charged particle's wavefunction, and the Aharonov–Bohm effect is accordingly illustrated by interference experiments.

Exactly what I learned from my textbooks!
And Farsight has never heard of Wikipedia or textbooks before !

This is really simple, Farsight.
You have an electron say in a region where there is no magnetic field and there is no electric field. According to Maxwell's classical equations, this electron cannot be affected by a change in the fields outside of the region because there is no magnetic or electric field in the region (the Lorentz force is zero) !
Now do the experiment.
Whoops - the electron is affected by the change of a magnetic or electric field outside of that region.

 

[Reality Check]

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

So can anyone: Here you go - every book in Google Books containing the word classical !

This is the crackpot mistake where they cite sources that say that they are wrong.
Here you claim that the Ehrenberg–Siday–Aharonov–Bohm effect is a classical effect (i.e. no waves as in QM applied).
But this book states "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 x (path difference)." (my emphasis added).

The original papers treated the effect semi-classically.
Modern physics treats the effect entirely within quantum electrodynamics, i.e. the more physically accurate theory that replaced classical electrodynamics.

 

[Vorpal]

In our observed physical world, order matters a great deal. In the overwhelming majority of algebras in use for representation however, commutativity appears to be assumed valid and perfectly without risk for things like addition & multiplication, including when the operands are tensors.

I don't understand what you're referring to. At all. The linear algebras we get from vector spaces are pretty trivially not commutative, except by having some smaller subalgebra that happens to be so. Rotations in more than 2D are a very obvious example of this.

Slightly more physically, noncommutativity of the algebra of observables can be thought of as the essential mathematical property of quantum physics. An very wide class of those algrebras, whether commutative or not, is representable as linear operators on some Hilbert space (which is of course a vector space), as per the Gel'fand-Naǐmark theorem. It's been about nine decades since it's been known that noncommutativity and quantum mechanics are essentially linked. So please understand my utter confusion about your claims about how scientists are unjustifiably assuming commutativity because there's plenty of noncommutativity in linear algebras used in physics.

 

[Reality Check]

In atomic orbitals electrons "exist as standing waves".

Farsight, yes: this Wikipedia article atomic orbitals includes the phrase "exist as standing waves".
But what your quote mining excludes in Atomic orbital is

Wave-like properties:

1. The electrons do not orbit the nucleus in the sense of a planet orbiting the sun, but instead exist as standing waves. The lowest possible energy an electron can take is therefore analogous to the fundamental frequency of a wave on a string. Higher energy states are then similar to harmonics of the fundamental frequency.
2. The electrons are never in a single point location, although the probability of interacting with the electron at a single point can be found from the wave function of the electron.

Particle-like properties:

1. There is always an integer number of electrons orbiting the nucleus.
2. Electrons jump between orbitals in a particle-like fashion. For example, if a single photon strikes the electrons, only a single electron changes states in response to the photon.
3. The electrons retain particle like-properties such as: each wave state has the same electrical charge as the electron particle. Each wave state has a single discrete spin (spin up or spin down).

Do you think the electron that escapes an atomic orbital somehow magically transforms into a point particle?

Do you think that anyone thinks this?
High school students know abut wave/particle duality!

The point )) is that electrons in modern physics are treated as point particles and that produces both wave and particle properties.

 

[The Man]

I don't understand what you're referring to. At all. The linear algebras we get from vector spaces are pretty trivially not commutative, except by having some smaller subalgebra that happens to be so. Rotations in more than 2D are a very obvious example of this.

Slightly more physically, noncommutativity of the algebra of observables can be thought of as the essential mathematical property of quantum physics. An very wide class of those algrebras, whether commutative or not, is representable as linear operators on some Hilbert space (which is of course a vector space), as per the Gel'fand-Naǐmark theorem. It's been about nine decades since it's been known that noncommutativity and quantum mechanics are essentially linked. So please understand my utter confusion about your claims about how scientists are unjustifiably assuming commutativity because there's plenty of noncommutativity in linear algebras used in physics.

OK, thanks Vorpal I was a bit confused myself about what he was referring to. Still it seems perceiving a problem that specifically isn't and basically wasn't there.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

As a non-mathematician, I'm not qualified to argue one side or the other nor to assess the 80 pages you ask me to consult without any explanation of where any relevant point might be found therein, nor what such a point might be.

You cited the Heaviside-Tait debates, claiming both sides were aware of risks inherent in the use of vector math, but you failed to name any such risk. Your belief that those debates documented an actual risk is incorrect. The 80-page paper I cited summarizes those debates. It also describes the history of an actual error that was made long after those debates had ended and had some influence on the crackpot interpretation of those debates. If you are unable to tell whether that error has anything to do with your argument, and are unable to explain what the Heaviside-Tait debates have to do with your argument, then I suggest you cease to cite risks that exist only within your imagination.

I asked you to give us a plain statement of the aspect of vector math you're talking about and the risk you perceive. I assume this is the best you could do:

As an information systems project expert however, I am qualified to assess experts who claim such advantages exist, even when in the relatively small-but-famous application area of rotations, which illustrates the larger potential problem with commutativity itself.

Quaternion multiplication is non-commutative. Matrix multiplication is non-commutative. If there were a "larger potential problem with commutativity itself", quaternion representations would be just as problematic as matrix representations.

All four advantages of quaternions listed in the Wikipedia section you cited are matters of computational convenience, numerical stability, and efficiency. None of those pragmatic issues are relevant to a theoretical development of Maxwell's equations or any other laws of physics.

Even with respect to the pragmatic issues cited in that Wikipedia section, the sections that follow describe transformations between quaternion and matrix representations, warn against the potential problems, and describe practical solutions to those potential problems. Programmers may be out of their depth here, but that's why programmers of numerical computations should consult numerical analysts, who deal with such things all the time.

In our observed physical world, order matters a great deal. In the overwhelming majority of algebras in use for representation however, commutativity appears to be assumed valid and perfectly without risk for things like addition & multiplication, including when the operands are tensors.

You're quite wrong about that. Addition is normally commutative because mathematicians prefer not to use the word "addition" for operations that aren't commutative, and multiplication is commutative for fields, commutative rings, and abelian groups, but multiplication is not assumed to be commutative for rings or groups in general.

In particular, the exterior (aka wedge) product on tensors is anti-commutative, not commutative.

Fine. Now please answer: On what evidence can we reasonably conclude that in looking for sources of risk in physics research, the mathematics we use is the least of our worries?

Perpetual Student and Vorpal have already answered that question. I will quote them and add a few comments of my own.

All of our knowledge of existence outside of ourselves and including ourselves is filtered through our use of logic. All of these considerations and discussions assume logic. What do you think mathematics is? It is extended and elaborated LOGIC. If the math were wrong contradictions would become evident. Thousands of mathematicians and thousands of physicists working throughout the world finding no contradictions in the mathematics underlying physics make it as risk free as any human endeavor. You are really out of your element here!

To expand on that: If the math used to state Maxwell's equations (or any other physical laws) were wrong, then at least some of the mathematical consequences of those equations would be wrong as well. Those mathematical consequences have been tested by countless experiments, and are the basis for routine engineering design and manufacturing of transistors, computers, cell phones, and thousands of other artifacts we take for granted. If the mathematics were wrong, those artifacts wouldn't work. Someone would have noticed.

Slightly more physically, noncommutativity of the algebra of observables can be thought of as the essential mathematical property of quantum physics. An very wide class of those algrebras, whether commutative or not, is representable as linear operators on some Hilbert space (which is of course a vector space), as per the Gel'fand-Naǐmark theorem. It's been about nine decades since it's been known that noncommutativity and quantum mechanics are essentially linked. So please understand my utter confusion about your claims about how scientists are unjustifiably assuming commutativity because there's plenty of noncommutativity in linear algebras used in physics.

BurntSynapse: I asked you to explain why you regard use of vector math (or mathematics in general) as a risk. You answered by describing your own misunderstandings of quaternions, vectors, algebra, and commutativity. Your personal failure to understand the relevant math is not shared by physicists, so your own personal mistakes do not create any risk for physics as a discipline. When physicists use quaternions or vectors properly, that mathematics is the least of your worries.

 

[lpetrich]

Check your facts, lpetrich. What we know as the Aharonov-Bohm effect was predicted by Ehrenberg and Siday in their 1949 paper The Refractive Index in Electron Optics and the Principles of Dynamics. It's a classical electromagnetism paper.

Like I said, it's a classical electromagnetism paper. And it's one field, the electromagnetic field, and one potential, known as four-potential. Pay attention next time I explain electromagnetism, because it's crystal clear that you don't understand it either.

It's still a quantum-mechanical effect. The phase shift caused by going through an electromagnetic potential is

(phase) = (charge)/(hbar) * (- integral of V over t + integral of A over x)
V = scalar potential
A = vector potential
(part of one 4-vector potential)
t = time
x = position
(part of a 4-vector position)

In the classical limit, (phase) goes to infinity, thus giving the classical limit. But when (phase) is small enough to observe without much trouble, what's happening is clearly a quantum-mechanical effect.

I've never said "perversion of Maxwell's revealed truth". The problem with the Heaviside's vector version is that it leads to people like Clinger believing in a cargo-cult version of electromagnetism wherein the forces that result from electromagnetic field interactions are themselves fields.

In other words, Heaviside's version is a perversion of Maxwell's revealed truth, because it is misleading about the nature of the electromagnetic field.

(Maxwell and Minkowski book-thumping snipped...)

Hermann Minkowski^WP was the one who showed how special relativity leads to the notion of a space-time continuum.

The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.

So if you deny space-time, you deny Hermann Minkowski.



More seriously, the idea of space-time makes absolute hash out of the notion that motion is somehow more fundamental than 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.

He was trying to think of some non-mathematical analogy for something that's easy to describe mathematically.

I understand electromagnetism a whole lot better than you do Clinger.

Don't make me laugh. Do you understand the mathematics of it? Like the mathematics of electromagnetism as a gauge theory.

From Jackson's great tome:

"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?

It's like talking about E instead of Ex, Ey, Ez, or like B instead of Bx, By, Bz.

You should read up on this ben. For example, here's Michael berry calling it a semi-classical paper. ...

Except that semiclassical refers to quantum-mechanical calculations that make some use of the classical limit.

 

[lpetrich]

A side note about the Eric Weinstein affair. I haven't found *anything* new on him since his second talk at Oxford a few weeks ago. In fact, I haven't found much on that either. Seems like an annoying case of science by press conference.


Notation and equation form do matter. As I pointed out earlier, they can clarify or obscure various features, even if the content is ultimately the same. There's a reason why most physicists nowadays use 18th and 19th cy. statements of Newtonian mechanics rather than Newton's original -- those statements are *much* easier to work with. We also use Leibniz's notation for the calculus instead of Newton's, I may add.

Maxwell's equations have been stated in four forms so far:

• Component by component - Maxwell
• Quaternions - Maxwell
• 3-Vectors (space and time: 3+1) - Heaviside
• 4-Vectors and related (space-time together) - Minkowski

Heaviside's and Minkowski's versions have been the most convenient ones, it seems to me.

Some papers by Hermann Minkowski: The principle of relativity; original papers by A. Einstein and H. Minkowski. Translated into English by M.N. Saha and S.N. Bose; with a historical introd. by P.C. Mahalanobis : Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive (scanned book)
Space and Time (Wikisource) - Wikisource, the free online library
The Fundamental Equations for Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies - Wikisource, the free online library
Wikisource also has the original versions, which were in German.

"The Fundamental Equations for Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies" expresses the electromagnetic field as an antisymmetric 2-tensor in space-time. Given that Minkowski worked out space-time as a unified entity, this is likely the first statement of that representation of the EM field.

 

[ben m]

As an information systems project expert however, I am qualified to assess experts who claim such advantages exist, even when in the relatively small-but-famous application area of rotations, which illustrates the larger potential problem with commutativity itself.

a) What makes you so qualified to assess that?

b) What assessment did you do? Have you read corresponding reports from experts on vectors AND quaternions?

c) The article you cite is talking about computational details, i.e. why a video-game programmer or a satellite engineer might prefer quaternions rather than 3x3 matrix rotations. It says nothing about whether they describe different things, or have different capacities for representation. (They don't.)
Where do you get the (expert) idea that there's a "larger potential problem"?

Fine. Now please answer: On what evidence can we reasonably conclude that in looking for sources of risk in physics research, the mathematics we use is the least of our worries?

a) There's no evidence that there's any point whatsoever in attempting risk-management in this wholly exploratory field.

b) Theoretical physicists are excellent mathematicians and there's tremendous overlap between these fields. In many departments, something like 1/4th of the physics theorists are jointly appointed in math departments. There's a long history of important math discoveries being made by physicists, and vice-versa, and modern physics is well aware of this. In other words, we have this covered.

c) I suspect you have a basically-wrong mental picture of how it's possible to use "the wrong math". Your idea of a mathematical difference between vector and quaternion representations, for example, is nonsense; they're two representations of the same algebra, and physicists use abstract-algebra notation directly and are generally well-versed in the differences between representations. (And there's a huge advantage to matrix representations: you can construct one for ANY Lie algebra or group.) If you have a daydream of physicists doing something wrong analogous to "mistakenly" rejecting quaternions, I think you have the wrong end of the stick entirely.

 

[The Man]

Oops, looks like I missed this tidbit...

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.

Well, it is your dog. So clean up after it yourself, train it better or just keep it in your own yard. The choice remains yours.


Oh, and for your own edification dog crap and yards would still be the same analogy. So don't be afraid of, or put too much stake in, just an analogy.


Seems to be another aspect of crackpot physics. A particular distain for some analogies while a 'rule of law' type of adherence to others. In fact in most cases I've seen it seems to be a perception of physics predominantly by just analogy.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Notation and equation form do matter. As I pointed out earlier, they can clarify or obscure various features, even if the content is ultimately the same. There's a reason why most physicists nowadays use 18th and 19th cy. statements of Newtonian mechanics rather than Newton's original -- those statements are *much* easier to work with. We also use Leibniz's notation for the calculus instead of Newton's, I may add.

Maxwell's equations have been stated in four forms so far:

• Component by component - Maxwell
• Quaternions - Maxwell
• 3-Vectors (space and time: 3+1) - Heaviside
• 4-Vectors and related (space-time together) - Minkowski

Heaviside's and Minkowski's versions have been the most convenient ones, it seems to me.

Yes.

There are at least two more reasons why quaternions have pretty much disappeared from physics and math curricula:

• Vectors generalize to higher dimensions. Quaternions don't. That generalization is needed for quantum mechanics and particle physics.
• Vectors generalize to differentiable manifolds, where the tangent bundle attaches a separate vector space to each point of the manifold. That generalization allows a simple formulation of covariant and contravariant transformations, which are needed for general relativity.

Since vectors are going to be needed for advanced physics anyway, it makes sense to introduce vector methods in freshman-level calculus and physics.

There is no such motivation for teaching quaternions at the freshman level. Quaternions are still taught in some undergraduate-level math courses, mainly because they're the most field-like extension of the complex numbers that can exist.^{[size=-1]1[/size]} Quaternions provide a simple and elegant representation for some practical problems, but their applicability is limited.

Quaternions were more important in the 19th century, when non-commutative multiplication was an interesting new idea and vector analysis had not yet been invented.

[size=-1]^{[size=-1]1[/size]}The word "field" has several meanings, even if we don't count the meaning Farsight's going to invent when he responds to ctamblyn.[/size]

 

[catsmate]

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.

Damn, I missed this when you posted it previously. It's really is an excellent summary of the crackpot/wooster "methodology", used by everyone from IDiots to physics cranks, FOTLers to evolution deniers.

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. <snip>

Of course there's a huge divide between the real physicists, who accept that there are problems with current theories, and the crackpots.

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.

Indeed. I remember the first time I followed the mathematical steps of some prior researchers and say the simple elegance of their work.