Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[ctamblyn]

W.D.Clinger is correct, of course

Since (for an infinite rod) the system has translational symmetry along the rod direction (let's call that z) and rotational symmetry about the rod, we know (due to Noether's theorem) that the z-component of a test particle's momentum is conserved, as is the z-component of angular momentum. Since the force between rod and particle is attractive, exactly helical orbits will be possible.

In this particular case the force goes as 1/r, so the orbits will in general be either aperiodic or unstable (due to Bertrand's theorem). The orbiting charge would also radiate and, as you note, the rod would be finite. However, you could get a helical-looking path for while, which was all the photo showed.

 

[ctamblyn]

You keep neglecting the highlighted word above (presumably because it is the very thing which disproves you), but even if Berry had supported your position (he doesn't, as your quote itself demonstrates), it would have been irrelevant since the original paper itself contradicts you.

I haven't neglected it, I gave the full quote some days ago. You're flogging a dead horse, it says classical, you've lost this argument, stop clutching at straws, move on.

Without the essential context. ETA: In fact, no you didn't. I just went back and read through your posts, and not once did you quote the passage I just did.

Farsight: Regarding the highlighted response: I mixed that up. You did indeed quote Berry before just as fully you did above, including the word "almost" - though either you still don't grasp what that "almost" implies, or your choosing to deliberately misrepresent him.

For some reason while writing my post I thought you were referring to the excerpt from the E+S paper which followed (E+S being the main subject of my post), which, like the rest of their paper, gave the lie to your argument very clearly, and which you apparently chose to ignore (along with most of my post, it seems).

My apologies for any confusion that I may have caused.

I stand by all my other points. In particular, your "argument" still amounts to nothing more than the fact that the word "classical" makes an appearance in the paper. You obviously don't actually understand the physics they describe, or you'd never have claimed that their treatment of the electron (involving explicit calculations of de Broglie wavelength and shifting of interference fringes, for Feynman's sake) was classical.

 

[Roboramma]

One time I went to the ocean. I stayed in the water almost completely submerged for more than an hour.

Why am I not dead?

 

[TjW]

Clearly, it's because contrary to mainstream theory, humans can breathe water.

 

[lpetrich]

(magnetic monopoles...)

They’ve been predicted for a long time now, edd. It’s like a hundred years, more if you go back to “effluvia”. That sounds like phlogiston, doesn’t it?

Bad analogy. Magnetic monopoles could exist, but be too massive to be produced in our accelerators, and be too dilute for us to have any chance of detecting them. The first possibility would arise if GUT symmetry breaking produces monopoles, and the second if cosmic inflation happens after GUT symmetry breaking -- the inflation would dilute the monopoles.

But I have to say “an electron has an electric monopole” is just a figure of speech that arises from E and B are separate fields thinking.

That is absolute nonsense.

An electron and a positron can move linearly together, and they can circle each other too.

Why don't you work out the math some time? You may use these simplifications: the Newtonian limit and electrostatic-only interaction.

There are no charged particles which only move linearly together. There are no particles which have electric fields only.

Work out how particles with the same sign of electric charge behave near each other. You may use the simplifications I'd mentioned earlier.

Hence charged particles aren’t really “electric monopoles”. Hence it’s misguided to think magnetic monopoles may exist.

That's dumb.

Farsight, have you ever worked out a multipole expansion?

That apart, having read a bit about Dirac, I have to say I think he was lucky to get credit for predicting the positron. The Dirac sea, the holes, the negative energy, they’re all very different to the positron having the opposite chirality. It’s as if he shifted his position in response to experimental results.

He didn't. In fact, at first, he thought that protons are electrons' antiparticles, and proposed that in 1930. But it turned out that electrons and protons would quickly run into each other and annihilate if that was the case. So he reconsidered and he concluded that the electron's antiparticle was an unknown one with the mass of an electron, publishing his proposal in 1931. The next year, Carl Anderson discovered that particle.

There is, edd. For a magnetic monopole to exist, a region of space would have to be rotating freely, like a roller-bearing.

That's NOT what makes a 't Hooft-Polyakov monopole, for instance. That kind of monopole is made from GUT symmetry breaking.

Space just isn’t like that. Instead you get frame-dragging. That’s essentially what the electromagnetic field is.

Except that that's not what the electromagnetic field is -- it's separate from space-time, even though it is a function of space-time. Yes, space-time, like what Minkowski and Einstein and Feynman said.

So the magnetic monopole contradicts the whole ethos of what electromagnetism is all about.

Ethos???

I’m sorry edd, but there are no charged particles which only move linearly together. It’s that simple.

Have you demonstrated it mathematically?

All the traditional formulations and all the mathematical statements in the world isn’t going to give you charged particles which only move linearly together. Because charge is topological. Not magic.

What makes charge topological? Work out the mathematics, because topology is a well-established field of mathematics.

Throw a charged particle through that electric field only. Watch it loop around. So much for your electric field only.

Work out the mathematics for us. Mathematics like what Newton and Maxwell and Einstein and Minkowski and Feynman had used.

I'm not confused at all. See this picture I linked to above? Note the helical path? You don't get that sort of motion from electrostatics. It's a helical path. Because of the screw nature of electromagnetism. You know, the thing Maxwell and Minkowski talked about?

Work out the mathematics for us. Book-thumping isn't going to prove anything to us.

 

[ctamblyn]

Clearly, it's because contrary to main stream theory, humans can breathe water.

ftfy

 

[Aepervius]

One time I went to the ocean. I stayed in the water almost completely submerged for more than an hour.

Why am I not dead?

Your body was under the influence of an oxygen field ? Or maybe a magnetic one.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

delete

 

[Perpetual Student]

I suspect that underlying all of the characteristics of crackpots discussed above, is their inability to follow a logical argument. That's probably why they are crackpots in the first place.
How many times have we seen a crackpot, who is asked to answer a simple question, respond with irrelevant comments, quotes, and other non-sequiturs? In spite of their capacity to develop a technical vocabulary, recall ideas from others, even quote mathematical expressions, they cannot put it all together with logical connections.
A recent discussion on another thread about the fundamental constants and the cosmological question of fine-tuning has made this abundantly clear to me.
If a crackpot cannot follow the logic of a simple scientific argument, it's rather hopeless.

 

[Farsight]

(magnetic monopoles...) Bad analogy. Magnetic monopoles could exist, but be too massive to be produced in our accelerators, and be too dilute for us to have any chance of detecting them. The first possibility would arise if GUT symmetry breaking produces monopoles, and the second if cosmic inflation happens after GUT symmetry breaking -- the inflation would dilute the monopoles.

I'm telling you magnetic monopoles can't exist, and explaining why.

That is absolute nonsense.

No it isn't. The electron has its electromagnetic field. Saying "an electron has an electric monopole” does arise from thinking that E and B are separate fields. See the wiki article on electric charge? See how it says Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when close to other electrically charged matter. That's referring to the linear force which E denotes. And there are no particles for which the rotational force, denoted by B, does not apply. None. It's that simple, lpetrich. I can't make it any simpler.

Why don't you work out the math some time? You may use these simplifications: the Newtonian limit and electrostatic-only interaction.

Because it doesn't help anybody to understand this. There's oodles of mathematics out there, but Clinger still thinks you create a magnetic field just by moving.

Work out how particles with the same sign of electric charge behave near each other. You may use the simplifications I'd mentioned earlier.

We've done experiments to find out how those particles behave. We know how they behave.

That's dumb.

No, magnetic monopoles are dumb. As dumb as unicorns and fairies.

Farsight, have you ever worked out a multipole expansion?

No. And what good would that do? We're talking monopoles here. We're talking about the electron and why you cannot have a particle with an electric field that doesn't start to look like a magnetic field when you simply move.

He didn't. In fact, at first, he thought that protons are electrons' antiparticles, and proposed that in 1930. But it turned out that electrons and protons would quickly run into each other and annihilate if that was the case. So he reconsidered and he concluded that the electron's antiparticle was an unknown one with the mass of an electron, publishing his proposal in 1931. The next year, Carl Anderson discovered that particle.

I've read the history. See hole theory which mentions Weyl pointing out the proton issue.

That's NOT what makes a 't Hooft-Polyakov monopole, for instance. That kind of monopole is made from GUT symmetry breaking.

Seen one recently? Seeing as ‘t Hooft’s paper dates from 39 years ago, and that kind of monopole still hasn’t been seen, best not talk about “that kind of monopole” just yet.

Except that that's not what the electromagnetic field is -- it's separate from space-time, even though it is a function of space-time. Yes, space-time, like what Minkowski and Einstein and Feynman said.

Spacetime is an abstract thing, a static mathematical "space". The electromagnetic field is real. It’s essentially frame-dragged space [SNIP]. Only unlike the frame-dragging of gravitomagnetism, it is vicious.

Ethos???

Character. The characterizing feature of the electromagnetic field is its screw nature. It has a screw nature, not a rollerball nature. Hence no magnetic monopoles.

Have you demonstrated it mathematically?

Nope.

What makes charge topological? Work out the mathematics, because topology is a well-established field of mathematics.
Work out the mathematics for us. Mathematics like what Newton and Maxwell and Einstein and Minkowski and Feynman had used.
Work out the mathematics for us. Book-thumping isn't going to prove anything to us.

Hard scientific evidence doesn’t prove anything to you, [SNIP]. And other people have tried to give people like you the mathematics, but guess what? They can’t get it into a journal like Foundations of Physics. Edited by ‘t Hooft. But what’s there instead? Why, it’s a paper by Max Tegmark. You know, the multiverse man. About the universe being literally made of mathematics. Tell me again about why there’s so much crackpot physics, [SNIP].

Edited by kmortis: 

Revmoved personal information

 

[steenkh]

I'm telling you magnetic monopoles can't exist, and explaining why.

I your own mind, perhaps. Nobody else here think so.

Because it doesn't help anybody to understand this. There's oodles of mathematics out there, but Clinger still thinks you create a magnetic field just by moving.

We've done experiments to find out how those particles behave. We know how they behave.

No, magnetic monopoles are dumb. As dumb as unicorns and fairies.

No. And what good would that do?

Spacetime is an abstract thing, a static mathematical "space". The electromagnetic field is real. It’s essentially frame-dragged space [SNIP]. Only unlike the frame-dragging of gravitomagnetism, it is vicious.

Nope.

Hard scientific evidence doesn’t prove anything to you, [SNIP]. And other people have tried to give people like you the mathematics, but guess what? They can’t get it into a journal like Foundations of Physics.

It is quite pathetic to see you squirm like this when asked to do the math. Your steadfast refusal only confirms that you cannot do so. Why not simply admit it?

Edited by kmortis: 

Removed previously moderated content

 

[Farsight]

Clinger/ctamblyn: there are no rods in the picture I posted. And that helical path was in a uniform magnetic field. Like I was saying, the thing we call a magnetic field is where we have two electromagnetic fields and the linear force is in balance but the rotational force isn't. In similar vein the thing we call an electric field is where the rotational force is in balance and the linear force isn't. And all you do to change that balance is: move.

By the way, the motion of your test particle down the rod sounds like the flip side of the current in the wire. So I imagine your test particle also circles the "magnetic field lines", and your helical path is doubly helical. Like you take a very long spring and form it into a helix round a pole. I could be wrong about that, I have to go now and can't check. But note that as the test particle initially passes over the top of the wire it "sees" a magnetic field because as far as it's concerned E is time-varying. Ditto as its helical path decays. So your helical path will have some extra helical component to it. Because of the screw nature of electromagnetism!

 

[ctamblyn]

Clinger/ctamblyn: there are no rods in the picture I posted.
...

If you say so. So what? Your original claim was:

Note the helical path? You don't get that sort of motion from electrostatics. It's a helical path.

You were wrong.

By the way, the motion of your test particle down the rod sounds like the flip side of the current in the wire. So I imagine your test particle also circles the "magnetic field lines", and your helical path is doubly helical.

Well, you imagine wrong. The B-field is identically zero in the rod's rest frame, and so it's a pure electrostatics problem. You can pretty easily write some software to numerically integrate the equations of motion if you want to study general trajectories (basically it's the same problem as motion in a 1/r potential in 2D), but by the geometry of the situation and Noether's theorem, the test particle's z-components of linear and angular momentum are conserved and so (since the force is attractive) there exist helical (not "doubly helical") paths. It's elementary classical mechanics.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

. So I imagine your test particle also circles the "magnetic field lines", and your helical path is doubly helical.

If you knew mathematics, then you could actually figure it out directly. But you have never, ever learned physics properly. What it means to be skeptical of physics is to actually study how it works and it works through mathematical details. If you cannot provide these, you provide nothing.

 

[Perpetual Student]

If you knew mathematics, then you could actually figure it out directly. But you have never, ever learned physics properly. What it means to be skeptical of physics is to actually study how it works and it works through mathematical details. If you cannot provide these, you provide nothing.

I think the problem is deeper than that.

 

[tsig]

One time I went to the ocean. I stayed in the water almost completely submerged for more than an hour.

Why am I not dead?

I'm surprised the water didn't soak thru the holes in your skin and drown you. We know water comes out of the skin (sweat) so it stands to reason that it should go into the skin./crackpot off

 

[tsig]

I suspect that underlying all of the characteristics of crackpots discussed above, is their inability to follow a logical argument. That's probably why they are crackpots in the first place.
How many times have we seen a crackpot, who is asked to answer a simple question, respond with irrelevant comments, quotes, and other non-sequiturs? In spite of their capacity to develop a technical vocabulary, recall ideas from others, even quote mathematical expressions, they cannot put it all together with logical connections.
A recent discussion on another thread about the fundamental constants and the cosmological question of fine-tuning has made this abundantly clear to me.
If a crackpot cannot follow the logic of a simple scientific argument, it's rather hopeless.

It's not just that the can't follow logic they also make the most illogical connections between very disparate points and claim it's a great breakthru.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

I suspect that underlying all of the characteristics of crackpots discussed above, is their inability to follow a logical argument. That's probably why they are crackpots in the first place.
How many times have we seen a crackpot, who is asked to answer a simple question, respond with irrelevant comments, quotes, and other non-sequiturs? In spite of their capacity to develop a technical vocabulary, recall ideas from others, even quote mathematical expressions, they cannot put it all together with logical connections.
A recent discussion on another thread about the fundamental constants and the cosmological question of fine-tuning has made this abundantly clear to me.
If a crackpot cannot follow the logic of a simple scientific argument, it's rather hopeless.

It's not just that the can't follow logic they also make the most illogical connections between very disparate points and claim it's a great breakthru.

Another way to look at this is this: suppose that there is something deep, insightful, even revolutionary in what 'the crackpot' has found. Suppose the crackpot sincerely wishes to convey this new, perhaps rather subtle, understanding to others, so that they too may share the new understanding. Suppose they choose to do so by posting in threads in this section of JREF.

Wouldn't you expect that the crackpot would devote a rather large amount of effort to trying to succeed in communicating the new idea?

If so, why is it that no such crackpot has - to the best of my knowledge - ever succeeded? And perhaps more fundamentally, why is it that - apparently - all such crackpots fail to even acknowledge (recognize?) that they have failed so utterly in perhaps the most important communications task of their (ideas) life?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

With my highlighting:

Note the helical path? You don't get that sort of motion from electrostatics. It's a helical path.

You were wrong.

By the way, the motion of your test particle down the rod sounds like the flip side of the current in the wire. So I imagine your test particle also circles the "magnetic field lines", and your helical path is doubly helical.

Well, you imagine wrong. The B-field is identically zero in the rod's rest frame, and so it's a pure electrostatics problem. You can pretty easily write some software to numerically integrate the equations of motion if you want to study general trajectories (basically it's the same problem as motion in a 1/r potential in 2D), but by the geometry of the situation and Noether's theorem, the test particle's z-components of linear and angular momentum are conserved and so (since the force is attractive) there exist helical (not "doubly helical") paths. It's elementary classical mechanics.

All of this is freshman-level physics (or sophomore-level at some schools).

Why must Farsight rely on his imagination here? Because he shows no sign of ever having taken a college-level course on electromagnetism (or any other college-level course in physics).

Why would someone who knows so little physics pretend to be an authority on the subject? Answering that question would go a long way toward answering this thread's titular question.

I could be wrong about that, I have to go now and can't check. But note that as the test particle initially passes over the top of the wire it "sees" a magnetic field because as far as it's concerned E is time-varying. Ditto as its helical path decays. So your helical path will have some extra helical component to it. Because of the screw nature of electromagnetism!

Yes, Farsight is wrong about that. He's wrong about essentially all of that.

Crackpots are often wrong about this sort of thing because they can't do the math. Without doing the math, they can't understand even the freshman-level basics of electromagnetism.

When you do the math, you don't have to guess. When you combine Newton's laws of motion with Maxwell's equations and the initial conditions described in our spoilers, and do the math, you learn that a purely electric field, with zero magnetic field, can result in helical motion.

In short, you learn that Farsight's wrong about basic electromagnetism. Again. After all, crackpots tend to repeat their errors.

 

[Reality Check]

Throw a charged particle through that electric field only.

You obviously did not read what I wrote so here it is again, Farsight:

But you can have an electric field only, e.g. if you are at rest w.r.t. an electric charge then there is no magnetic field.

(my emphasis added)
Ther eis only an electric field when you are at rest with respect to a charged particle

Oh you have got to be kidding me

No I am not kidding you, Farsight.
Look in any EM textbook, and you will see that there are electric fields, magnetic fields and electromagnetic fields.
Treating an electromagnetic field as a whole or as an electric field plus a magnetic field is equally valid.
Try learning about Maxwell's equations (oh look E and B fields!) or Mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic field which starts off with E and B fields, shows how to rewrite the equations mathematically in terms of potentials and currents and then transforms to the ABS formulation (one equation where F is basically the electromagnetic field).

The difference between the two treatments is mathematical, not physical.