Merged Relativity+ / Farsight

[Senex]

Apart from pair production and electron diffraction and magnetic moment and atomic orbitals and Einstein-de Haas and Aharonov-Bohm and annihilation.

All of which are predictions of mainstream physics, which not only demands that the above phenomena occur but also gives us quantitative predictions we can compare with experiment.

As for your model, it is quite apparently incapable of making any quantitative predictions whatsoever. You think I'm wrong? Then show us how your model can meet this essential requirement. Show us how - in a world in which electrons magically acquire electric charge despite being composed of neutral particles, in which electrons magically acquire fermion statistics despite being composed of bosons - show us how that model can tell us anything quantitative about Coulomb scattering, or branching ratios in e⁺e^- annihilation, etc.

Otherwise your model is not even wrong.

Did Einstein have to prove his models? Did he go to Australia during the eclipse? Did not he have an army of interns doing his math because he didn't make it through the 4th grade math curriculum? Did he have doubters? Did people read his papers and not understand?

Are there double standards at play here?

 

[phunk]

he didn't make it through the 4th grade math curriculum?

No, that common myth is complete nonsense.

 

[Giordano]

Did Einstein have to prove his models? Did he go to Australia during the eclipse? Did not he have an army of interns doing his math because he didn't make it through the 4th grade math curriculum? Did he have doubters? Did people read his papers and not understand?

Are there double standards at play here?

I understand that Einstein did very well in math his entire life. Yes to the rest, although the people who didn't understand his papers were usually not the audience he directed them too.

 

[ctamblyn]

Did Einstein have to prove his models? Did he go to Australia during the eclipse? Did not he have an army of interns doing his math because he didn't make it through the 4th grade math curriculum? Did he have doubters? Did people read his papers and not understand?

Are there double standards at play here?

Farsight doesn't need to do the experimental work himself. The problem with his position is that he cannot use his model to make testable, quantitative predictions - not even incorrect ones. In fact, no-one can use Farsight's model to make testable predictions, because it is simply a collection of vague sentences.

Einstein, on the other hand, produced a concrete mathematical model that did allow testable, quantitative predictions to be made (and he himself made such predictions).

 

[Senex]

No, that common myth is complete nonsense.

I understand that Einstein did very well in math his entire life. Yes to the rest, although the people who didn't understand his papers were usually not the audience he directed them too.

Farsight doesn't need to do the experimental work himself. The problem with his position is that he cannot use his model to make testable, quantitative predictions - not even incorrect ones. In fact, no-one can use Farsight's model to make testable predictions, because it is simply a collection of vague sentences.

Einstein, on the other hand, produced a concrete mathematical model that did allow testable, quantitative predictions to be made (and he himself made such predictions).

I think we all here realize, because of the uncertainty principle, no one knows where the next great particle physicist will come from. Maybe from one of the guys at your local early 1900's patent office, maybe someone from a more modest job today yet one who plugs away studying at night. Lots of nights. Just because a guy doesn't have a shmancy degree doesn't mean he can't do the job. I know how impossible it is to join the "club" of PHD's who get allowed to have their papers published.

I'm just saying don't become an unwitting pawn of Big Physics who keep the ideas from people who didn't go to their schools from sharing their ideas. The catch is if you play their game and go to their schools you'll be brainwashed and start conforming to their thinking. Einstein wouldn't learn by rote like the conventional thinking was at the time. He changed the world by not playing by the rules.

You wouldn't stifle Einstein would you?

 

[thedopefishlives]

I think we all here realize, because of the uncertainty principle, no one knows where the next great particle physicist will come from. Maybe from one of the guys at your local early 1900's patent office, maybe someone from a more modest job today yet one who plugs away studying at night. Lots of nights. Just because a guy doesn't have a shmancy degree doesn't mean he can't do the job. I know how impossible it is to join the "club" of PHD's who get allowed to have their papers published.

I'm just saying don't become an unwitting pawn of Big Physics who keep the ideas from people who didn't go to their schools from sharing their ideas. The catch is if you play their game and go to their schools you'll be brainwashed and start conforming to their thinking. Einstein wouldn't learn by rote like the conventional thinking was at the time. He changed the world by not playing by the rules.

You wouldn't stifle Einstein would you?

No, but Einstein would (and as a matter of historical fact, did) publish papers that could be tested and confirmed. Farsight has done no such thing. He has presented eminently untestable hypotheses.

 

[ben m]

. I know how impossible it is to join the "club" of PHD's who get allowed to have their papers published. I'm just saying don't become an unwitting pawn of Big Physics who keep the ideas from people who didn't go to their schools from sharing their ideas. The catch is if you play their game and go to their schools you'll be brainwashed and start conforming to their thinking. Einstein wouldn't learn by rote like the conventional thinking was at the time. He changed the world by not playing by the rules.

You wouldn't stifle Einstein would you?

"I know how impossible it is to join the "club" of runners who are allowed to finish the New York Marathon. I'm just saying don't become an unwitting pawn of Big Marathon who keep the runners who didn't run a qualifier from running in New York. The catch is if you run their qualifiers you'll start running at their pace."

We're not rejecting Farsight because he didn't get a Ph.D. or because he works in a patent office. We're rejecting Farsight because his ideas are wrong.
Do you understand that some ideas are wrong, some are untested, and some are right? Farsight's ideas are usually in the category of wrong or sometimes in the category of pure daydreaming---"Oh, I drew this picture of a torus, that's all I did, but surely someone can add some details and it'll turn out to be important."

Do you understand the concept of "wrong"? That some ideas are incorrect and not worth following up on? If you disagree, well, never mind. Gotta run! If I run this computer too long the electrons gum up and turn to ether. Anyway I have an excess of phlegmatic humors and my barber recommended a radon water because prime-numbered elements work well when the moon is in Taurus.

 

[lpetrich]

Referring to what Einstein said isn't "irrelevant Einstein thumping".

It's treating his writings as sacred books and Einstein as an inspired prophet. That's not how science works. It's how theology often works, however. You are supposed to discuss theories without treating their authors as inspired prophets.

This really is getting absurd. Everybody know's about Dirac's belt:

"In contrast, the Mobius strip is a non-orientable surface, because a right-handed figure, moved continuously around the loop until arrive back at its starting point, becomes left-handed. An object must be translated around the loop twice in order to be restored to its original position and chirality. In this sense a Mobius strip is reminiscent of spin-1/2 particles in quantum mechanics, since such particles must be rotated through two complete rotations in order to be restored to their original state".

This is an ANALOGY.

What happens with a spin-1/2 particle is that when one rotates it 360 degrees, its wavefunction reverses sign. One has to rotate it another 360 degrees to get the original wavefunction sign back again. This is true of system with half-odd spins in general. For integer spins, a 360-degree rotation yields the original wavefunction sign.

One gets this result by working out the *mathematics* of rotational symmetry and quantum-mechanical angular momentum. If math is OK for general relativity, it ought to be OK for here also.

 

[Senex]

No, but Einstein would (and as a matter of historical fact, did) publish papers that could be tested and confirmed. Farsight has done no such thing. He has presented eminently untestable hypotheses.

Maybe it's just not testable today because the guy who can invent the right tool doesn't have the right degree and has to work at the laundry.

"I know how impossible it is to join the "club" of runners who are allowed to finish the New York Marathon. I'm just saying don't become an unwitting pawn of Big Marathon who keep the runners who didn't run a qualifier from running in New York. The catch is if you run their qualifiers you'll start running at their pace."

But the marathon people don't care what school you went to or who taught you to run. The next winner of the New York city Marathon could be someone like Forest Gump who self taught himself to run while avoiding bullies.

Did you know Bobby Fischer didn't play in the qualifying tournament for his famous chess match? He wouldn't play by the commie rules. The American who qualified gave up his place because he knew it should be Fischer's. We all know how that turned out.

We're not rejecting Farsight because he didn't get a Ph.D. or because he works in a patent office. We're rejecting Farsight because his ideas are wrong.

You see what you did there? You admit to rejecting Farsight not his ideas. It's because he lacks a degree isn't it?

What's ideas look wrong today may be gospel truth tomorrow.

Do you understand that some ideas are wrong, some are untested, and some are right? Farsight's ideas are usually in the category of wrong or sometimes in the category of pure daydreaming---"Oh, I drew this picture of a torus, that's all I did, but surely someone can add some details and it'll turn out to be important."

Yeah, but Einstein had his wife to do the math for him and make his ideas work and when he became more famous he traded her in for the many math interns that did his math later. Not all of us have math minions.

Do you understand the concept of "wrong"? That some ideas are incorrect and not worth following up on? If you disagree, well, never mind. Gotta run! If I run this computer too long the electrons gum up and turn to ether. Anyway I have an excess of phlegmatic humors and my barber recommended a radon water because prime-numbered elements work well when the moon is in Taurus.

You see, I'm not rejecting your ideas, however eccentric, because of your astrology beliefs. Maybe some day someone will prove there is something to that stuff.

 

[phunk]

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1936731_1936743_1936758,00.html

 

[Farsight]

...On the other hand, your electron model...

As you know full well, it isn't my electron model. That's why I referred to electron models by other people. I'm not some my-theory guy. I've referred to the experimental evidence that demonstrates the wave nature of the electron. And again: you can make electrons and positrons out of light in pair production. And you can diffract an electron. And it's got a magnetic moment. And in atomic orbitals electrons "exist as standing waves". And then there's the Einstein-de Haas effect which "demonstrates that spin angular momentum is indeed of the same nature as the angular momentum of rotating bodies as conceived in classical mechanics". And electron-positron annihilation to photons. The wave nature of matter is beyond doubt.

...Furthermore, though, it makes nonsensical claims about the nature of electrons and photons - e.g. that a photon can enter some mysterious and magical self-trapped state and somehow transform itself from a neutral boson into a charged fermion. The cargo-cult incantations you posted earlier in the thread regarding TQFT etc. do nothing to clarify this mystery; you might as well have quoted ancient Egyptian mythology.

Pair production happens. Two gamma photons can be converted into and electron and a positron. An electron and a positron can annihilate each other to two gamma photons. There's nothing nonsensical or cargo-cult about that. If you want cargo-cult nonsense, look at two-photon physics on wiki and read the given explanation: one of the photons spontaneously transforms into an electron-positron pair, and the other photon interacts with the electron. It's utterly wrong. Photons do not spend their time spontaneously morphing into electron-positron pairs which then magically transform back into a single photon which nevertheless manages to keep on propagating at c. Pair production does not occur because pair production occurs. That's a nonsensical tautology, and people like you defend it.

 

[Senex]

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1936731_1936743_1936758,00.html

Oh, you found a TIME article to use as evidence? I read that article and by their own admission 500,000 google hits have that topic. Smoke no fire I guess. The only evidence the article presents is Einstein and his sister's memory many years after the fourth grade. No copy of a transcript. That transcript must have been destroyed in some mysterious fire.

It's been published in Ripley's Believe It or Not and they heavily vet their stuff.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one. No one is alive today from that class. Let's just end this 4th grade math discussion by saying his wife was brilliant at math and he used graduate students later.

 

[Farsight]

If your argument is simply "quantum field theory is right", well, great. Quantum field theory is right, as far as anyone can tell! Glad you agree.

Yes I do. Remember it isn't me who goes round saying Einstein was wrong or Feynman was wrong. The issue is, as ever, one of interpretation. It's quantum field theory, the electron is field. It isn't some little billiard-ball thing which has a field.

But you think we shouldn't use the word "point particle" when talking about a wavefunction?

Yes. Point particles are a mathematical abstraction. There is no place for them in contemporary physics.

There are two different totally phenomena with separate scales here: (a) the length scale associated with internal degrees-of-freedom of all objects of this type vs. (b) the spatial extent of the object's wavefunction in a given experiment.

Never mind some given experiment. Think of an electron just sitting there in space. The electron is just field. And there is no place where that field stops.

All hydrogen atoms have internal stuff going on a scale of 1A. All lead nuclei have internal structure spread over 8fm. All protons have internal structure spread over 1fm. All C60 buckyballs have internal structure spread over 10nm. A baseball has internal structure over 10cm. This is all visible in experiments. This is the scale you see in scattering experiments.

Not a problem. Nor is proton diffraction a problem. Nor buckyball diffraction.

You can prepare an atomic hydrogen beam in which the particle positions are uncertain on a scale of 1cm. Or 1mm. Or 1A. Depends on the experiment. You can prepare a proton beam where the wavefunction diffracts through two slits 100um apart. Or 1um. Or 1nm. Depends on the experiment. It's a totally different phenomenon than the scale mentioned in the previous paragraph.

You really do have a deep-rooted point-particle concept don't you? A hydrogen atom is made up of an electron and a proton. Both are just field. And there is no place where that field stops.

On the first observable: scattering experiments cannot find a spatial scale associated with electrons qua electrons. No matter how hard we look. This means there is no such scale down to 10^-18m.

It's like sticking a barge pole into a whirlpool and complaining because you can't feel the billiard ball, then asserting that the billiard ball must be really small.

The standard term for the former quantity is "the size of the particle". If I say "the size of a buckyball is 10nm", I'm referring to the former quantity. You cannot rebut this by pointing out a buckyball diffraction experiment that used 100nm slits---that's referring to the latter quantity.

The standard term will not help your understanding. You have to think waves. For example, think of a seismic wave where the Earth moves back and forth by one metre. How big is it? Not one metre. If this seismic wave rippled across the surface of the Earth between A and B it doesn't only affect the properties on the AB line. It takes many paths. You could plot its size with a large array of detectors and say it extends until it is no longer detectable. Only you can detect it from the other side of the Earth.

I will continue to say "electrons are pointlike", and I'm always referring to the former quantity. Electrons are pointlike in the same sense that hydrogen atoms are 1A wide and protons are 1fm wide. Electrons are wavelike in the same uncontroversial sense that everything is wavelike.

Ben, watch my lips and learn this well: electrons aren't pointlike. And neither are hurricanes.

 

[Farsight]

Did Einstein have to prove his models? Did he go to Australia during the eclipse? Did not he have an army of interns doing his math because he didn't make it through the 4th grade math curriculum? Did he have doubters? Did people read his papers and not understand? Are there double standards at play here?

Yes. And insincerity. What we have here is a bunch of people who patrol JREF trying to stifle skepticism about certain things in physics, like the multiverse, or their assertion that the electron is a point-particle. Note though that I'm not the guy with the model. I'm just the guy who's read about models, and the scientific evidence. Also note this on page 53 of Graham Farmelo's Dirac biography The Strangest Man:

"At that time, Cunningham and Eddington were streets ahead of the majority of their Cambridge colleagues, who dismissed Einstein's work, ignored it, or denied its significance".

He wasn't talking about 1905 or 1915. He was talking about 1923. Einstein was still being dismissed in 1923.

...You wouldn't stifle Einstein would you?

They'd strangle him at birth.

You see what you did there? You admit to rejecting Farsight not his ideas. It's because he lacks a degree isn't it?

They aren't my ideas, Senex. They're rejecting anything that challenges the "Big Physics" that they've been taught. NB: I have a Computer Science degree.

 

[Vorpal]

Did you know Bobby Fischer didn't play in the qualifying tournament for his famous chess match? He wouldn't play by the commie rules. The American who qualified gave up his place because he knew it should be Fischer's. We all know how that turned out.

This is not only of dubious relevance, but manages to the the direct opposite of the facts.

Benko gave up his spot for Fischer because Fischer refused to participate in the 1969 US Championship tournament, which was the qualifying tournament for the Candidates Tournament and hence also the later 1972 World Championship. The main reason he gave in his letter to the US Chess Federation was the same as when he declined to participate in the 1968 US Championship as well: he believed the US tournaments were too short.

For extra irony, in his letter to the US Chess Federation, Fischer cited the Soviet national tournament (among others) as an example of a how a reasonable tournament should be run, as a contrast to how the American one was run. Evidently Fischer felt that the "commie rules" would have suited him better than the American ones. Reading his letter, it's crystal-clear that Fischer was holding his qualification for the World Championship hostage to get the US Chess Federation to adopt the rule changes he wanted to. They didn't fold, and the winner of the US Championship, Benko, gave his place to Fischer.

...

As for the overall point, I honestly can't tell whether your posts are serious, so no comment on that.

 

[Senex]

Did you know Bobby Fischer didn't play in the qualifying tournament for his famous chess match? He wouldn't play by the commie rules. The American who qualified gave up his place because he knew it should be Fischer's. We all know how that turned out.

This is not only of dubious relevance, but manages to the the direct opposite of the facts.

ben m made the metaphor about particle physicists and qualifying running tournaments. I merely took it to its natural conclusion.

Whose facts, your own and conventional wisdom perhaps.

Did you know Bobby Fischer didn't play in the qualifying tournament for his famous chess match?

Vorpal:Benko gave up his spot for Fischer because Fischer refused to participate in the 1969 US Championship tournament, which was the qualifying tournament for the Candidates Tournament and hence also the later 1972 World Championship.

So you proved fact one for me.

Senex:The American who qualified gave up his place because he knew it should be Fischer's.

Vorpal: They didn't fold, and the winner of the US Championship, Benko, gave his place to Fischer.

Two for the good guys.

Senex:He wouldn't play by the commie rules.

You may not know this but conventional wisdom is that Fischer thought commies were rule cheats and Fischer would win draw positions just to stick their noses in the fact he wasn't drawing early to save his energy for later games.

Senex:We all know how that turned out.

This you "forgot" to address -- spoiler alert: the rule breaking Fischer won.
...

 

[thedopefishlives]

Maybe it's just not testable today because the guy who can invent the right tool doesn't have the right degree and has to work at the laundry.

No, it's not testable because it makes no testable predictions. If Farsight were to name even one thing that "his" theory could predict, it doesn't matter if it's testable right now; it would be testable eventually, and that would suffice for our purposes. The problem is that it makes zero predictions that can be tested, now or later. That's not science, that's crackpottery.

 

[Farsight]

...If Farsight were to name even one thing that "his" theory could predict...

I'm not some my-theory guy. I refer to papers and evidence that challenge some of the woo that people try to pass off as serious science. Like people say the electron is a point-particle. But you can make electrons and positrons out of light waves in pair production, and you can diffract electrons. Plus in atomic orbitals electrons exist as standing waves. And they have a magnetic moment, and the Einstein-de Haas effect "demonstrates that spin angular momentum is indeed of the same nature as the angular momentum of rotating bodies as conceived in classical mechanics". How can a point particle have any angular momentum? The wave nature of matter is beyond doubt. How can a something made from a wave with a wave nature be a point-particle? It can't.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

As for the overall point, I honestly can't tell whether your posts are serious, so no comment on that.

Senex's posts are seldom serious.

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1936731_1936743_1936758,00.html

Oh, you found a TIME article to use as evidence? I read that article and by their own admission 500,000 google hits have that topic. Smoke no fire I guess. The only evidence the article presents is Einstein and his sister's memory many years after the fourth grade. No copy of a transcript. That transcript must have been destroyed in some mysterious fire.

It's been published in Ripley's Believe It or Not and they heavily vet their stuff.

Einstein's doctoral dissertation, A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions, is readily available:

Albert Einstein. A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions. Republished in Annalen der Physik (4), 19, 1906, pages 289-306, with corrections in volume 34, 1911, pages 591-592. These publications are available online in PDF.​

They aren't my ideas, Senex. They're rejecting anything that challenges the "Big Physics" that they've been taught.

No, we're rejecting Farsight's numerology, Farsight's endless references to pictorial models that either make no testable predictions or predict consequences known to be false, and Farsight's belief that quoting random things Einstein has said or written can substitute for understanding the mathematics and physics Einstein is discussing.

NB: I have a Computer Science degree.

That's no excuse. Even computer scientists should be able to learn a little physics without advocating crackpot numerology.

 

[thedopefishlives]

That's no excuse. Even computer scientists should be able to learn a little physics without advocating crackpot numerology.

I think his point was that he has a degree, so we're not rejecting him because of a lack of a degree. I have a computer science degree, myself. I even took university physics as one of my general education courses. It's not impossible for a programmer to know physics. It is, however, impossible for a theory that makes no testable predictions to be science.