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Why is there so much crackpot physics?

Perpetual Student said:
I am smiling at the image of BurntSynapse sitting at the side of Einstein, managing a gedankenexperiment.
;)
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BurntSynapse: "Al, think about dropping a ball in an elevator in empty space accelerating at 9.8 m/s2.;)
Einstein: "Aber Herr. Synapse, ich habe Angst vor Fahrstühlen. Ich werde schwindlig nur daran zu denken":scared:
BurntSynapse: "Al, just give it a try. I'll hold your hand if you get dizzy":cool:
Einstein: "OK, werde ich versuchen, danke.... Warten Sie! Herr Synapse, ich habe eine Idee.:idea:
 
Unzicker interview about "Bankrupting Physics" - YouTube
He complained about the Standard Model and mainstream cosmology being too complicated, and allegedly evidence-less theories like cosmic inflation being taken too seriously. His main idea of a solution was to revisit some old ideas by the likes of Einstein and Dirac and Dicke.

Fairytale of New Physics | Jon Butterworth | Life & Physics | Science | theguardian.com
About "Bankrupting Physics": "The overall impression is of an incoherent rant."

Science Sundays with John Duffield: Bankrupting Physics | Bogpaper.com - he likes it.
 
Well I have no intention of being a physicist, what I got from this thread (I've read half) is that during my lifetime, I at least want to master the material in Halliday + Resnick... :blush:
 
jazz142857 said:
Well I have no intention of being a physicist, what I got from this thread (I've read half) is that during my lifetime, I at least want to master the material in Halliday + Resnick... :blush:
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35 years later, my 2-volume Resnick & Halliday is still less than 10 feet from me . . .
(I have some dim recollection that they switched the name order for some reason. Was Halliday & Resnick a 1-volume book?)
 
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dasmiller said:
35 years later, my 2-volume Resnick & Halliday is still less than 10 feet from me . . .
(I have some dim recollection that they switched the name order for some reason. Was Halliday & Resnick a 1-volume book?)
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My copy is a single volume "Fundamentals Of Physics Extended", 5th edition, and the writers listed on the front (below some nifty lightning) Halliday - Resnick - Walker. It's a fair bit over 1000 pages, 45 chapters.
 
lpetrich said:
I agree. I read the rest of the "Science Sundays with John Duffield" entries in that blog, and much of their content was *very* familiar. Much of the rest of it is lots of bellyaching about how closed-minded and opposed to new ideas the scientific community is, even to the point of calling some forum moderators "secret police": Science Sundays with John Duffield: Secret Police | Bogpaper .com.
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John Duffield posts here as Farsight, right?

His speciality is martyrdom, I think.
 
HighRiser said:
John Duffield posts here as Farsight, right?

His speciality is martyrdom, I think.
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dafydd said:
Is that Farsight? The mind boggles.
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Yep that's him. Interesting rant, it says a lot about someone when they thunk everyone is trying to censor them.

Hellbound said:
[Python]
His chief weapon is Matyrdom.

Martyrdom, and arrogance.

Okay, martyrdom, arrogance, and equivocation.

Shut up, or I'll put you in the illogical argument!
[/Python]
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Don't forget avoid mathematics.
 
ben m said:
Notice the "with no conversions" you have to specify.
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False. I provided the stipulation to prevent confusion which was demonstrated earlier.
ben m said:
Scientists and mathematicians are actually really good at switching conventions when needed.
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This is true in the sense that we have many good examples of scientists and mathematicians switching conventions not only when needed, but even when above ANY expectation we might have.
ben m said:
Notice that we *don't* try to build decimal-logic computers, or force people to do computer-related arithmetic in binary, or to represent the web color space in octal.
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Yes...Please get back to that which was my question, provided we agree reasonable q+a is a virtue in public discussion to gain better consensus...

I'm trying to improve the world I leave behind.

What's your goal?

...if we have incompatible goals, I'm happy not to waste our time.
 
BurntSynapse said:
Yes...Please get back to that which was my question, provided we agree reasonable q+a is a virtue in public discussion to gain better consensus...
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What was your question? "Does management consulting work or not"? Yes, I believe that there is such a thing as good management (and that it contributes to progress.) I also believe that there is such a thing as bad management (and that it hinders progress). I believe that all of this is context-dependent; a management practice might be "good" if applied to the manufacture of V22 Ospreys but "bad" if applied to, e.g., an artists' collective. And vice-versa.

Please recall that "the suits keep their mitts off the creative people" is an honest-to-goodness management strategy that is taken seriously by honest-to-goodness organizations.

I believe that your particular management ideas (insofar as you've explained specifics at all), in the fundamental-physics-theory field where you imagine applying them, constitute bad management, not good management. Your system sounds much worse (i.e. in the sense you care about, less likely to discover the real nature of spacetime) than the system of prioritization panels, anonymous funding reviews, open market of ideas, etc., that we have now.
 
HighRiser said:
John Duffield posts here as Farsight, right?

His speciality is martyrdom, I think.
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dafydd said:
Is that Farsight? The mind boggles.
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catsmate1 said:
Yep that's him.
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If the Farsights of here and elsewhere aren't John Duffield, then they are very close imitations.

Interesting rant, it says a lot about someone when they thunk everyone is trying to censor them.
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That's very common among pseudoscientists and crackpots: that mainstream scientists are closed-minded persecutors of new ideas.

Don't forget avoid mathematics.
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I've seen what Farsight has said about mathematics. Though he sometimes states that it as a legitimate tool, he argues that mathematics cannot be used in the most fundamental sorts of theories because one must define the mathematical terms that one uses.

It must be said that that's awfully convenient, because it enables one to do fancy physics without knowing any math.
 
True, but he claims that that's what he's doing.

Science Sundays with John Duffield: Fairytale Physics | Bogpaper.com
For example relativity is one of the most robust and best-tested theories we’ve got. You can read about that in a paper by Clifford M Will. And yet when you compare what Einstein said with what some celebrity physicist tells you on the Discovery Channel, something doesn’t add up. Space doesn’t fall inwards like a waterfall, and light doesn’t curve because spacetime is curved, it curves because “die Ausbreitungs-geschwindigkeit des Lichtes mit dem Orte variiert”. That’s in section 22 of Einstein’s 1916 book Relativity: The Special and General Theory. It means “the speed of light varies with position”. He said the speed of light was constant in 1905, but retracted that in 1911 and never went back. See The VSL Discussion by Alexander Unzicker. And whilst Einstein did away with the “luminiferous aether” in 1905, he described space as the aether of general relativity in his 1920 Leyden Address. Relativity is no fairytale, but what that celebrity physicist is telling you, is.
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Referring to
[gr-qc/0510072] The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment by Clifford M. Will
Relativity : the Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein - Free Ebook
[0708.2927] The VSL Discussion: What Does Variable Speed of Light Mean and Should we be Allowed to Think About ? by Alexander Unzicker
Albert Einstein - Ether and the Theory of Relativity, 1920, containing his Leyden Address

That's doing scriptural exegesis, sacred-book interpretation, rather than doing science.
 
The problem: Most of 20'th century theoretical physic (relativity, big bang, gravity-only cosmology, black holes, dark matter etc. etc.) is crackpot physics.
 
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