Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[DeiRenDopa]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Watch my lips: the Earth goes round the Sun. That isn't blathering, that's what happens. All GR says is that you're free to use a geocentric coordinate system. That doesn't mean the Sun goes round the Earth. Just as when you're on a roundabout it doesn't mean the universe is revolving around you. Because I'm on a roundabout too, and it can't be revolving around the both of us, now can it?

Yeah yeah. You are ignorant of scripture, and consequently not in a position to have any opinion on the preachings of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. I bought the T-shirt.

No they aren't. Time and distance are both defined using the motion of light, and mass ratios are dimensionless just like harmonics. Are you ever going to stop and think about this? Will you even look at the the watt balance section of the wikipedia kilogram article? Did you spot the bit that says "The Planck constant defines the kilogram in terms of the second and the meter. By fixing the Planck constant, the definition of the kilogram would depend only on the definitions of the second and the meter"? And how do you define the second and the metre? Using the motion of light. But sigh, this is hopeless. If I can't get you to understand the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content, no way am I going to get you to understand this.

I haven't embarrassed myself. You have. You think the Sun goes round the Earth. And that The Sky is Falling In. And if anybody challenges what you think via a reasoned counterargument backed by evidence and explanation and Einstein, you don't respond in kind, you just dismiss it as irrelevant cherry-picking nonsense, because it doesn't square with what you think you know. You just won't listen, you offer no counter argument, no counter evidence, and no counter nothing. Why is there so much crackpot physics? Because of suckers like you.

(bold added)

Here's the thing, Farsight: I am unaware of anyone, any JREF member, who has posted in response to what you have written here, who has said, in effect, "You know what Farsight, you're right! Golly gosh, how could I have been so ignorant all this time?!?"

As far as I know, no one has ever said anything like that (but please, if you have evidence to the contrary, I'd love to be shown to be wrong).

And why is that? Why is it that you have (it would seem) failed, so ... spectacularly at communicating what you have said (repeatedly) is really quite simple? In a way that at least one other JREF member has been able to understand?

What is it? Is it the way you are communicating? Is it the lack of any meaningful reference to the mathematical heart of the general theory of relativity? Is it, perhaps, the in-your-face approach you take? Or perhaps the non-answers you give when asked simple, honest questions (about the content of what you write)?

Whatever the reason, don't you think - given the apparent complete and total failure to communicate - that you should modify your message?

Try this: You said "Watch my lips: the Earth goes round the Sun. That isn't blathering, that's what happens."

OK, I watched your lips, and I have a simple, honest question: what leads you to the conclusion that the Earth goes round the Sun?

[Kwalish Kid]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Yes there is. The "experts" are feeding you drivel like the sky's falling in and the universe revolves around the Earth, and you're lapping it up. So much so that when I offer Einstein's relativity instead, you dismiss it as cherry-picking crackpot physics. You have a mysterious psychological drive to cling to woo. And I have a not-so-mysterious psychological drive to teach you to be skeptical about it. If don't do this, you are doomed to be a Perpetual Student forever, like some kid who never graduated from high school.

Given the myriad mathematical mistakes that you have made on Einstein's work without gravity, how do you know that you have Einstein correct on gravity? You don't seem able to compare what the experts write with what Einstein wrote.

Honestly, have you spoken to a psychologist about this? If you have read other parts of this forum, you must have been exposed to the accounts of people who have irrational beliefs.

[Perpetual Student]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Watch my lips: the Earth goes round the Sun. That isn't blathering, that's what happens. All GR says is that you're free to use a geocentric coordinate system. That doesn't mean the Sun goes round the Earth. Just as when you're on a roundabout it doesn't mean the universe is revolving around you. Because I'm on a roundabout too, and it can't be revolving around the both of us, now can it?

There is no doubt that having the earth revolving around the sun provides a simpler and more intuitive picture. I find it disturbing that GR does not confirm that preference and so I continue to study GR in the hope I can resolve this for myself. Arrogantly proclaiming that your intuition trumps the understanding of thousands of physicists throughout the world may satisfy your naive approach to physics, but not mine. I have had a number of discussions about this aspect of GR over the last four years. If you had something at the level of genuine physics to offer I would pay attention. But you provide nothing but empty assertions.

Quote:

Yeah yeah. You are ignorant of scripture, and consequently not in a position to have any opinion on the preachings of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. I bought the T-shirt.

I can't improve on Giordano's above comment.

Quote:

No they aren't. Time and distance are both defined using the motion of light, and mass ratios are dimensionless just like harmonics. Are you ever going to stop and think about this? Will you even look at the the watt balance section of the wikipedia kilogram article? Did you spot the bit that says "The Planck constant defines the kilogram in terms of the second and the meter. By fixing the Planck constant, the definition of the kilogram would depend only on the definitions of the second and the meter"? And how do you define the second and the metre? Using the motion of light. But sigh, this is hopeless. If I can't get you to understand the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content, no way am I going to get you to understand this.

As you point out, "Since 1967, the second has been defined to be the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom..."
That standard is used because it is reproducible, not because there is anything fundamental about 9,192,631,770. What is the speed of light if we used 7,000,000,000 periods of the radiation of cesium? The origins of the second are astronomical, for example: the fraction 1/31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year for 1900 January 0 at 12 hours ephemeris time. The second is an arbitrary unit of time. Think man!

Quote:

I haven't embarrassed myself. You have. You think the Sun goes round the Earth. And that The Sky is Falling In. And if anybody challenges what you think via a reasoned counterargument backed by evidence and explanation and Einstein, you don't respond in kind, you just dismiss it as irrelevant cherry-picking nonsense, because it doesn't square with what you think you know. You just won't listen, you offer no counter argument, no counter evidence, and no counter nothing. Why is there so much crackpot physics? Because of suckers like you.

Rubbish!

[ben m]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Watch my lips: the Earth goes round the Sun. That isn't blathering, that's what happens. All GR says is that you're free to use a geocentric coordinate system. That doesn't mean the Sun goes round the Earth. Just as when you're on a roundabout it doesn't mean the universe is revolving around you. Because I'm on a roundabout too, and it can't be revolving around the both of us, now can it?

We had a whole thread about this, in which people who know GR discussed the merits of various viewpoints, including a viewpoint resembling yours, in an intelligent and polite discussion that involved none of your overbearing browbeating.

To recap that discussion, you're being sloppily intuitive about what you mean by "around". The Sun, the Earth, and you have coordinate labels in some system. The intuitive description of "X goes around Y", translated into physics, can only mean that X has a coordinate label that increase continuously, in the manner of an angle. In this sense: consider the labeling convention in which the Earth "goes around" the Sun. This is, objectively speaking, the simplest such convention, and the only one in which, asymptotically far from the Solar System, the laws of coordinate-motion are themselves coordinate-dependent. So there is a reason to "prefer" this coordinate convention. However, given that space is curved near the planets, the laws of coordinate-motion are always coordinate-dependent, so you'd better get used to it. The coordinate system in which "the Sun goes around the Earth" is, objectively, no weirder and no less symmetric than the systems in which "free-falling objects move towards the ground" or "the Space Shuttle catches up to ISS because its orbit is lower". (Try to explain *that* to an ISS astronaut who wants to say that his capsule's internal, free-falling, rectilinear coordinate system is the "real" one.)

More generally, your attitude is typical of people who know less about GR and coordinates than they think they do. Many people seem to arrive at this attitude with a mental picture of a "real" snapshot of the solar system---a photo whose coordinates are what they are---and imagine that GR just gives you different ways of drawing gridlines on this snapshot. "well, sure, those gridlines are valid things to draw, but erase them and you can see the real photo"; this seems to be the attitude. Sure, that's close enough to the truth if you're drawing cover art for a Star Trek DVD box, but it's missing the actual meaning of coordinate-system-freedom by a mile and a half.

[Perpetual Student]

Originally Posted by ben m

We had a whole thread about this, in which people who know GR discussed the merits of various viewpoints, including a viewpoint resembling yours, in an intelligent and polite discussion that involved none of your overbearing browbeating.

To recap that discussion, you're being sloppily intuitive about what you mean by "around". The Sun, the Earth, and you have coordinate labels in some system. The intuitive description of "X goes around Y", translated into physics, can only mean that X has a coordinate label that increase continuously, in the manner of an angle. In this sense: consider the labeling convention in which the Earth "goes around" the Sun. This is, objectively speaking, the simplest such convention, and the only one in which, asymptotically far from the Solar System, the laws of coordinate-motion are themselves coordinate-dependent. So there is a reason to "prefer" this coordinate convention. However, given that space is curved near the planets, the laws of coordinate-motion are always coordinate-dependent, so you'd better get used to it. The coordinate system in which "the Sun goes around the Earth" is, objectively, no weirder and no less symmetric than the systems in which "free-falling objects move towards the ground" or "the Space Shuttle catches up to ISS because its orbit is lower". (Try to explain *that* to an ISS astronaut who wants to say that his capsule's internal, free-falling, rectilinear coordinate system is the "real" one.)

More generally, your attitude is typical of people who know less about GR and coordinates than they think they do. Many people seem to arrive at this attitude with a mental picture of a "real" snapshot of the solar system---a photo whose coordinates are what they are---and imagine that GR just gives you different ways of drawing gridlines on this snapshot. "well, sure, those gridlines are valid things to draw, but erase them and you can see the real photo"; this seems to be the attitude. Sure, that's close enough to the truth if you're drawing cover art for a Star Trek DVD box, but it's missing the actual meaning of coordinate-system-freedom by a mile and a half.

I think it's easy enough to grasp the equivalence of coordinate systems treating them geometrically. It's when all the necessary forces are introduced that the physics seems to prefer a heliocentric approach. But that's for another thread and time... My understanding of GR is very much a work in progress but I do believe I'm getting there.

[ben m]

Originally Posted by Farsight

No they aren't. Time and distance are both defined using the motion of light

They're defined, to start with, using arbitrary human choices---the 18th century decision that a "meter" is yea big and the medieval decision that a "second" is about yea long in human terms. Those are honest to goodness arbitrary definitions. Starting with those definitions, the speed of light turns out to be 3x10^8 French-distance-unit per medieval-time-unit. Alternatively, the French-unit turns out to be 3x10^-9 light-medieval-units. Or, the medeival-time-unit turns out to be the time it takes light to travel 3x10^8 French-distance-units.

After you pick an arbitrary time, you can define distance using light.

After you pick an arbitrary distance unit, you can define time using light.

You can't do both.

Quote:

"The Planck constant defines the kilogram in terms of the second and the meter. By fixing the Planck constant, the definition of the kilogram would depend only on the definitions of the second and the meter"?

"Fixing the Planck constant" is the same thing as "picking the number 299000000, calling it the speed of light, then letting that define the meter"

This is what physicists have been doing for a century, Farsight. "Natural units", an arbitrary human choice to say G=c=h=1, are the most common such choice, and they result in new distance-unit/time-unit/mass-unit. Another arbitrary choice, to say c=hbar=1, results in different new units.

Once again, you're pointing at Freshman-level physics knowledge you don't understand, hinting that no one but you knows it (!), further hinting that it contradicts the other Freshman-level physics you don't understand.

Quote:

If I can't get you to understand the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content, no way am I going to get you to understand this.

Everybody understands that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content. Including Peter Higgs. Including Einstein. You are making inferences far beyond "mass is a form of energy", you're doing so using your error-ridden scholastic technique, and you're getting these inferences wrong. I agree with E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4, and I disagree with your interpretation of it.

[Perpetual Student]

Originally Posted by ben m

...
After you pick an arbitrary distance unit, you can define time using light.

You can't do both.



"Fixing the Planck constant" is the same thing as "picking the number 299000000, calling it the speed of light, then letting that define the meter"

This is what physicists have been doing for a century, Farsight. "Natural units", an arbitrary human choice to say G=c=h=1, are the most common such choice, and they result in new distance-unit/time-unit/mass-unit. Another arbitrary choice, to say c=hbar=1, results in different new units.

Once again, you're pointing at Freshman-level physics knowledge you don't understand, hinting that no one but you knows it (!), further hinting that it contradicts the other Freshman-level physics you don't understand. ...

How is this not obvious to even the most casual reader?

[a_unique_person]

How about real scientists who don't accept global warming?

[Sideroxylon]

Originally Posted by a_unique_person

How about real scientists who don't accept global warming?

They need to get back to doing geology and leave climate science to the experts.

[W.D.Clinger]

Originally Posted by a_unique_person

How about real scientists who don't accept global warming?

I'm not aware of any connection between that and crackpot physics.

Some of the AGW-denying blogs may incorporate crackpot physics into their denials, but those blogs aren't written by real scientists. The relatively small number of real scientists who still don't accept global warming may have good reasons (which wouldn't be crackpot physics) or poor reasons, but it looks to me as though the poor reasons are more likely to be mistakes and misunderstandings than crackpot science of any sort. If you know of real scientists who don't accept global warming because they accept or advocate crackpot physics, then I hope you'll discuss them in this thread.

[tsig]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Watch my lips: the Earth goes round the Sun. That isn't blathering, that's what happens. All GR says is that you're free to use a geocentric coordinate system. That doesn't mean the Sun goes round the Earth. Just as when you're on a roundabout it doesn't mean the universe is revolving around you. Because I'm on a roundabout too, and it can't be revolving around the both of us, now can it?

Yeah yeah. You are ignorant of scripture, and consequently not in a position to have any opinion on the preachings of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. I bought the T-shirt.

No they aren't. Time and distance are both defined using the motion of light, and mass ratios are dimensionless just like harmonics. Are you ever going to stop and think about this? Will you even look at the the watt balance section of the wikipedia kilogram article? Did you spot the bit that says "The Planck constant defines the kilogram in terms of the second and the meter. By fixing the Planck constant, the definition of the kilogram would depend only on the definitions of the second and the meter"? And how do you define the second and the metre? Using the motion of light. But sigh, this is hopeless. If I can't get you to understand the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content, no way am I going to get you to understand this.

I haven't embarrassed myself. You have. You think the Sun goes round the Earth. And that The Sky is Falling In. And if anybody challenges what you think via a reasoned counterargument backed by evidence and explanation and Einstein, you don't respond in kind, you just dismiss it as irrelevant cherry-picking nonsense, because it doesn't square with what you think you know. You just won't listen, you offer no counter argument, no counter evidence, and no counter nothing. Why is there so much crackpot physics? Because of suckers like you.

Equating science to scripture says a lot about why you are wrong.

Equating yourself to Einstein is even more wrong.

[The Norseman]

I am well and truly puzzled at some people's insistence on the New Mathematics of "physics = Einstein" as if one man is the end-all, be-all of physics.

Einstein was a dude who got some things right and who also got some things wrong. He built upon others' work just as his work is in turn built upon. He came up with some ideas that turned out to be true. No need to elevate him to godlike status or repeat everything that the man ever did or said with mind-numbing adulation.

[sol invictus]

Originally Posted by The Norseman

I am well and truly puzzled at some people's insistence on the New Mathematics of "physics = Einstein" as if one man is the end-all, be-all of physics.

Einstein was a dude who got some things right and who also got some things wrong. He built upon others' work just as his work is in turn built upon. He came up with some ideas that turned out to be true. No need to elevate him to godlike status or repeat everything that the man ever did or said with mind-numbing adulation.

It's particularly bizarre in Farsight's case, because what he claims Einstein meant bears very little relation to what Einstein actually thought (or said, for that matter). Part of the reason is that if you can't follow Einstein's math, you can't understand what he did - because all of what he did was based on mathematics.

[catsmate1]

Originally Posted by edd

Farsight clearly thinks a large proportion of his claims are exactly what Einstein thought.

Wooster behaviour so classic it's on the Crackpot Index.

Originally Posted by Farsight

I understand this stuff really well.

No. You have demonstrated time and again you have very little understanding of physics or mathematics.

Originally Posted by Farsight

Yeah yeah, dismiss Einstein.

What have your ramblings got to do with Einstein? And I take it from your answer you dismiss the work done in physics since Einstein?

Originally Posted by Farsight

I just gave one. And I explained why the maths applies. Sorry about the typos. All you ever do is snipe.

Nope. If by "snipe" you mean "point out the nonsense you post" then yes I do.

Originally Posted by sol invictus

It's particularly bizarre in Farsight's case, because what he claims Einstein meant bears very little relation to what Einstein actually thought (or said, for that matter). Part of the reason is that if you can't follow Einstein's math, you can't understand what he did - because all of what he did was based on mathematics.

Again, classic wooster behaviour. Worth 30 points

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by Giordano

I just need to point out that if you were ignorant of scripture, you would certainly not be in a position to offer any opinion about scripture, and you would be at a major disadvantage in offering an opinion on the preachings of the Holy Roman Church as they applied to scripture. If I never read (or even looked at) a book, could I form a legitimate opinion about it?

When people are preaching nonsense at you that doesn't stand up to logical analysis and has no evidential support, you don't need to be an expert in scripture to call ********.

Originally Posted by Giordano

Not understanding quantum field theory DOES prevent you from having a legitimate opinion about quantum field theory and about any theory in physics that is based on quantum field theory.

********. I understand quite enough physics to give a legitimate opinon on those aspects of QFT that could be improved. But not that I haven't been particularly critical of QFT. I don't go round saying QFT is all wrong.

Edited by LashL:

Edited to properly mask profanity. Please see Rule 10 re: the auto-censor.

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by DeiRenDopa

...Whatever the reason, don't you think - given the apparent complete and total failure to communicate - that you should modify your message?

What are you on about? This is no complete and total failure to communicate. We've been having some nice physics conversations.

Originally Posted by DeiRenDopa

...Try this: You said "Watch my lips: the Earth goes round the Sun. That isn't blathering, that's what happens." OK, I watched your lips, and I have a simple, honest question: what leads you to the conclusion that the Earth goes round the Sun?

Observation. Go and read up on the Copernican Revolution. It only took a hundred years.

[edd]

Originally Posted by Farsight

When people are preaching nonsense at you that doesn't stand up to logical analysis and has no evidential support, you don't need to be an expert in scripture to call ********.

I might agree with this in principle but I don't think it applies in this case. There's not much 'preaching of nonsense' going on from your opponents.

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by Kwalish Kid

Given the myriad mathematical mistakes that you have made on Einstein's work without gravity, how do you know that you have Einstein correct on gravity? You don't seem able to compare what the experts write with what Einstein wrote.

Get real. I haven't made myriad mathematical mistakes. And I'm the guy who puts up what Einstein wrote and points out how different it is to what the experts write. Here's one example: post 607 on the Higgs thread.

Originally Posted by Kwalish Kid

Honestly, have you spoken to a psychologist about this?

LOL. Honestly, I don't need to.

Originally Posted by Kwalish Kid

If you have read other parts of this forum, you must have been exposed to the accounts of people who have irrational beliefs.

I've had a great deal of exposure to that. I've had long "conversations" with Young-Earth Creationists and Muslim Fundamentalists, and others. And as you are to them, so am I to you.

[Giordano]

Originally Posted by Farsight

When people are preaching nonsense at you that doesn't stand up to logical analysis and has no evidential support, you don't need to be an expert in scripture to call ********.

********. I understand quite enough physics to give a legitimate opinon on those aspects of QFT that could be improved. But not that I haven't been particularly critical of QFT. I don't go round saying QFT is all wrong.

Edited by LashL:

Edited to properly mask profanity. Please see Rule 10 re: the auto-censor.

The whole point is that you DO NOT understand enough physics to give a legitimate opinion, even though you believe you do.Liisten to what the others here are trying to teach you! Think about the saying, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." It explains why your partial and distorted knowledge of physics leads you to dismiss widely accepted concepts held by the top experts in the world.

[Giordano]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Observation. Go and read up on the Copernican Revolution. It only took a hundred years.

I think you are working yourself up into a tizzy because you are imagining that people are telling you the earth holds still and the sun rotates around it.

Let me try an explanation as to the sun around the earth problem. Neither actually rotates around the other, but around their common center of mass. If both were the same mass, the common center of mass would be mid way between them. Given the much larger mass of the sun, the common center of mass I believe is within the sun itself, but displaced from the actual center of the sun. So when people are telling you that it is equally legitimate to view the sun as rotating around the earth as visa versa, they are not envisioning the earth staying "still" and the sun whipping around it. Nor, when someone says the earth rotates around the sun are they saying the sun holds still and the earth whips around it. They are both saying that the sun and earth rotate around this common center of mass, and that you can view it from either end of this pivot. Further, neither view is more correct than the other.

Okay?

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

There is no doubt that having the earth revolving around the sun provides a simpler and more intuitive picture. I find it disturbing that GR does not confirm that preference and so I continue to study GR in the hope I can resolve this for myself. Arrogantly proclaiming that your intuition trumps the understanding of thousands of physicists throughout the world may satisfy your naive approach to physics, but not mine. I have had a number of discussions about this aspect of GR over the last four years. If you had something at the level of genuine physics to offer I would pay attention. But you provide nothing but empty assertions.

I haven't. I've told you how it is. You are free to use any coordinate system you like. You're free to use a geocentric coordinate system, but that doesn't mean the sun goes round the earth. You are free to use a foldup paper map of the Earth, but that doesn't mean the earth is flat and rectangular. It's that simple. The map is not the territory. Go look it up. I'm not giving you some arrogant personal intuition, I'm giving you knowledge. Use it.

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

I can't improve on Giordano's above comment.

Giordano's idea of "free speech" belongs in a medieval theocracy, not a skeptics forum.

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

As you point out, "Since 1967, the second has been defined to be the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom..."
That standard is used because it is reproducible, not because there is anything fundamental about 9,192,631,770. What is the speed of light if we used 7,000,000,000 periods of the radiation of cesium?

Whatever you say it is. And you've totally missed the point. See this post. You might care to raise that when you next have discussions about GR. The point is that when you use the motion of light to define the second and the metre, which you then use to measure the motion of light, you have doomed yourself to tautology that contradicts Einstein, and then you will never understand GR.

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

The origins of the second are astronomical, for example: the fraction 1/31,556,925.9747 of the tropical year for 1900 January 0 at 12 hours ephemeris time. The second is an arbitrary unit of time. Think man!

I am thinking. Any unit of time you care to adopt is based on something moving.

Re: I haven't embarrassed myself. You have. You think the Sun goes round the Earth. And that The Sky is Falling In. And if anybody challenges what you think via a reasoned counterargument backed by evidence and explanation and Einstein, you don't respond in kind, you just dismiss it as irrelevant cherry-picking nonsense, because it doesn't square with what you think you know. You just won't listen, you offer no counter argument, no counter evidence, and no counter nothing. Why is there so much crackpot physics? Because of suckers like you.

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

Rubbish!

There you go, instant dismissal. I rest my case.

[edd]

I think it's actually more complicated than that Giordano.

[edd]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Whatever you say it is.

Would it be too optimistic of me to think that this means you accept that your formula for the proton/electron mass ratio was clearly incorrect?

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by ben m

We had a whole thread about this, in which people who know GR discussed the merits of various viewpoints, including a viewpoint resembling yours, in an intelligent and polite discussion that involved none of your overbearing browbeating.

Please link to the thread. I'd be interested to see an intelligent and polite discussion here on JREF.

Originally Posted by ben m

To recap that discussion, you're being sloppily intuitive about what you mean by "around". The Sun, the Earth, and you have coordinate labels in some system. The intuitive description of "X goes around Y", translated into physics, can only mean that X has a coordinate label that increase continuously, in the manner of an angle. In this sense: consider the labeling convention in which the Earth "goes around" the Sun. This is, objectively speaking, the simplest such convention, and the only one in which, asymptotically far from the Solar System, the laws of coordinate-motion are themselves coordinate-dependent. So there is a reason to "prefer" this coordinate convention.

May I politely remind you that a coordinate system is not something that actually exists. It's an abstract thing associated with measurement and motion.

Originally Posted by ben m

However, given that space is curved near the planets, the laws of coordinate-motion are always coordinate-dependent, so you'd better get used to it.

Space isn't curved near the planets. I thought we'd settled this on the Black Holes thread. A gravitational field is associated with curved spacetime rather than curved space.

Originally Posted by ben m

The coordinate system in which "the Sun goes around the Earth" is, objectively, no weirder and no less symmetric than the systems in which "free-falling objects move towards the ground" or "the Space Shuttle catches up to ISS because its orbit is lower". (Try to explain *that* to an ISS astronaut who wants to say that his capsule's internal, free-falling, rectilinear coordinate system is the "real" one.)

Objectively? A coordinate system is not an objective thing that actually exists. It's not as if you can point up to the clear night sky and point one out.

Originally Posted by ben m

More generally, your attitude is typical of people who know less about GR and coordinates than they think they do. Many people seem to arrive at this attitude with a mental picture of a "real" snapshot of the solar system---a photo whose coordinates are what they are---and imagine that GR just gives you different ways of drawing gridlines on this snapshot. "well, sure, those gridlines are valid things to draw, but erase them and you can see the real photo"; this seems to be the attitude. Sure, that's close enough to the truth if you're drawing cover art for a Star Trek DVD box, but it's missing the actual meaning of coordinate-system-freedom by a mile and a half.

I know about coordinate independence. My attitude isn't like your description at all. Let's see if I can try to demonstrate that:

Check out the wikipedia spacetime page and see the bit of the caption under the picture that says "The grid lines do not represent the curvature of space but instead the coordinate system". Also have a look at John Baez's website, where you can read this: "Similarly, in general relativity gravity is not really a 'force', but just a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime. Note: not the curvature of space, but of spacetime. The distinction is crucial." I think a good way to understand this is to go back to basics and imagine you've placed parallel-mirror light clocks at various locations through an equatorial slice through the Earth and the surrounding space. You start all the clocks, wait a good long while, then stop all the clocks and collect them. Then you plot all your measurements on a "spacetime chart" or coordinate system, which ends up looking like the depiction of Newtonian gravitational potential on wiki. It's similar to the depiction on the wiki spacetime page, and all those pictures of a bowling ball on a rubber sheet. The slope at some location indicates the gravitational force at that location, in that the steeper the slope the faster you start to fall. The curviness of the slope indicates tidal force, which relates to what's called the Riemann curvature tensor, which is the defining feature of a gravitational field. Basically, that curviness is spacetime curvature. It's the curvature of your spacetime chart aka coordinate system rather than the curvature of space.

The curvature on your coordinate system is there because those clocks really did run at different rates. Erasing grid lines or whatever won't make them all run at the same rate.

[Perpetual Student]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Whatever you say it is. And you've totally missed the point. See this post. You might care to raise that when you next have discussions about GR. The point is that when you use the motion of light to define the second and the metre, which you then use to measure the motion of light, you have doomed yourself to tautology that contradicts Einstein, and then you will never understand GR.

I am thinking. Any unit of time you care to adopt is based on something moving.

OK, indulge me in pursuing this question. I read your post 607 and I'm not clear what point it is you are attempting to make. Try responding in a non bombastic manner.
The second is defined as so many vibrations of a physical system, not the motion of light. Then, we use the speed of light and the second to define length. Were is the tautology?
Let's see if it is possible to have a civil discussion with you.

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by edd

Would it be too optimistic of me to think that this means you accept that your formula for the proton/electron mass ratio was clearly incorrect?

No, sorry edd. But what I do accept is that it's very difficult to get people to follow step-by-step logic and evidence and admit that they're happy with each step. It was difficult enough explaining Einstein's E=mc². To explain something novel that doesn't have any authoritative backing is much more difficult. I wish I hadn't raised it, it's become a distraction.

Gotta go.

[edd]

Originally Posted by Farsight

No, sorry edd. But what I do accept is that it's very difficult to get people to follow step-by-step logic and evidence and admit that they're happy with each step. It was difficult enough explaining Einstein's E=mc².

You know, a number of us who take issue with that utterly incorrect formula of yours not only understand but can derive E=mc² and all of the rest of special relativity from its founding postulates without a moments hesitation - we don't need it explaining.
However, I think I'd have been kicked off any physics course long before ever learning those skills if I'd ever persistently claimed that m_p/m_e = 3 pi / c^0.5 approximately.

[Kwalish Kid]

Originally Posted by Farsight

When people are preaching nonsense at you that doesn't stand up to logical analysis and has no evidential support, you don't need to be an expert in scripture to call ********.

Again I ask, how do you know that the physics that you are calling nonsense is actually nonsense when you cannot actually determine what the physics says? You seemingly have admitted to not being able to do the relevant mathematics and you have demonstrated incredibly poor mathematics skills. Why do you feel that in the absence of a good grasp of the relevant physics and its statements that you can make such sure claims?

Quote:

********. I understand quite enough physics to give a legitimate opinon on those aspects of QFT that could be improved. But not that I haven't been particularly critical of QFT. I don't go round saying QFT is all wrong.

You do go around saying that GR, at least as practiced, is all wrong. You denigrate the actions of scientists that use certain solutions to the Einstein Field Equation and you attack those who determine how much dark matter there is in given physical systems. Yet you show no signs that you actually have read and understood how to do these things. You have never shown where these solutions or determinations fail and it is likely that you yourself know that you are unable to give a proper analysis of these activities. So why continue to be so firm in your convictions?

Interestingly, a search of your recent activity on other science message boards shows you attacking scientists who work on dark matter and your admission that you are "not going to bother" working out the relevant mathematics. Given that the evidence for dark matter is entirely from the results of mathematics (just like the evidence for Newtonian gravity and the evidence for all of Einstein's work), this seems quite a damning admission of a failure to understand the relevant physics.

Originally Posted by Farsight

Get real. I haven't made myriad mathematical mistakes. And I'm the guy who puts up what Einstein wrote and points out how different it is to what the experts write. Here's one example: post 607 on the Higgs thread.

What about the problem with your presentation of the Minkowski metric? What about your serial problem with "0.2" and "0.02"? What about your bizarre determination of physical constants that depends on the units that you chose? These seem like mathematical problems to me; indeed, they seem like the mathematical problem of someone who merely cuts and pastes mathematics without going through the mathematics properly. Do you deny that you made these mistakes?

Quote:

LOL. Honestly, I don't need to.

You may wish to. I know that you have spent some of your own money to publish your book. You spend a great deal of time on message boards promoting your positions (but seemingly none on educating yourself in the relevant mathematics). <SNIP>

Quote:

I've had a great deal of exposure to that. I've had long "conversations" with Young-Earth Creationists and Muslim Fundamentalists, and others. And as you are to them, so am I to you.

The large difference here seems to be that in this situation, I have worked through the relevant science and you, admittedly, have not. Doesn't this worry you?

Edited by Locknar:

SNIPed, breach of rule 0, rule 12.

[ben m]

Originally Posted by Farsight

No, sorry edd. But what I do accept is that it's very difficult to get people to follow step-by-step logic and evidence and admit that they're happy with each step.

You never posted step-by-step logic.

You posted an equation with imbalanced units---a standard physics-novice mistake---and you were magically able to do arithmetic. But people called you out on the unit mistake. Indeed, people other than you showed the arithmetic, step by step, in various units.

You posted that there was an implied "c^-3/2" term---which wouldn't have helped, and which was not present in your first arithmetic---but you were unable to do arithmetic again.

Several people asked for arithmetic---how would a society whose base units are "inches" and "minutes" do your proposed calculation? How would a society whose base units were "light years" and "years" do it? No arithmetic ensued.

You posted great gobbets of stuff about the general science of units, much of which appeared to be confused and hasty cribbing from Wikipedia, and which indicated that you expected some speed-of-light-based cancellation to make your answer work in non-SI units. You were wrong, and you were again unable to do four lines of arithmetic to show any such cancellation.

And now you look back on the above and think that you were showing step-by-step logic, and it's our fault we didn't get it.

[TjW]

For some reason, I'm reminded of this:

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the JREF. The JREF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Please link to the thread. I'd be interested to see an intelligent and polite discussion here on JREF.

I suspect it's this one: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=172265

Originally Posted by Giordano

I think you are working yourself up into a tizzy because you are imagining that people are telling you the earth holds still and the sun rotates around it.

Let me try an explanation as to the sun around the earth problem. Neither actually rotates around the other, but around their common center of mass. If both were the same mass, the common center of mass would be mid way between them. Given the much larger mass of the sun, the common center of mass I believe is within the sun itself, but displaced from the actual center of the sun. So when people are telling you that it is equally legitimate to view the sun as rotating around the earth as visa versa, they are not envisioning the earth staying "still" and the sun whipping around it. Nor, when someone says the earth rotates around the sun are they saying the sun holds still and the earth whips around it. They are both saying that the sun and earth rotate around this common center of mass, and that you can view it from either end of this pivot. Further, neither view is more correct than the other.

Okay?

You might find the above thread worth checking out

[a_unique_person]

Originally Posted by W.D.Clinger

I'm not aware of any connection between that and crackpot physics.

Some of the AGW-denying blogs may incorporate crackpot physics into their denials, but those blogs aren't written by real scientists. The relatively small number of real scientists who still don't accept global warming may have good reasons (which wouldn't be crackpot physics) or poor reasons, but it looks to me as though the poor reasons are more likely to be mistakes and misunderstandings than crackpot science of any sort. If you know of real scientists who don't accept global warming because they accept or advocate crackpot physics, then I hope you'll discuss them in this thread.

There is this paper by Gerlich and Tseuchner.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4.pdf

[DeiRenDopa]

Originally Posted by Farsight

What are you on about? This is no complete and total failure to communicate. We've been having some nice physics conversations.

If you say so ... though you might like to re-consider; many who read this might use words like "fantasy" and "denial".

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeiRenDopa

...Try this: You said "Watch my lips: the Earth goes round the Sun. That isn't blathering, that's what happens." OK, I watched your lips, and I have a simple, honest question: what leads you to the conclusion that the Earth goes round the Sun?

Observation. Go and read up on the Copernican Revolution. It only took a hundred years.

Thank you for your response.

I am puzzled though, so here are some more simple, honest questions:

1) as I understand it, "observation" is an inadequate basis from which to conclude that "the Earth goes round the Sun. That isn't blathering, that's what happens." Or perhaps 'insufficient', rather than 'inadequate'.

Don't you also need some theory, some model, some beyond-observation framework in which to interpret the observations?

Certainly my reading of the source you cite is that such a beyond-mere-observation framework is essential.

2) As the source you cite says, "The Copernican revolution was arguably completed by Isaac Newton whose Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) provided a consistent physical explanation which showed that the planets are kept in their orbits by the familiar force of gravity."

As the General Theory of Relativity (GR) has replaced Newton's theories, don't you think it necessary to re-examine your conclusion?

After all, "observation" - your term - is more consistent with a model (or framework) based on GR than one based on Newton's theories.

3) Does "the Earth go round the Sun", if one uses GR as the basis for models which provide a consistent physical explanation (of the observations)?

[W.D.Clinger]

Originally Posted by a_unique_person

How about real scientists who don't accept global warming?

Originally Posted by a_unique_person

There is this paper by Gerlich and Tseuchner.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4.pdf

Yes, I think that paper qualifies as crackpot physics, even though it was published in a refereed journal and most of the actual physics in the paper may be correct. As I understand it, both authors are on the faculty of a department of mathematical physics, so it's an especially noteworthy example of crackpot physics.

A full-scale discussion of this 115-page paper would be more appropriate for a new thread, but I should give a few examples to explain why I so readily agree that the paper qualifies as crackpot physics. Sections 3.6 and 3.7 are the core of the paper; the other 93 pages are mostly fluff. Both examples below come from section 3.7.

Originally Posted by Gerlich&Tscheuschner

Climatologic radiation balance diagrams are nonsense, since they
...snip...
4. do not fit in the standard language of system theory or system engineering [160].

Here's their reference [160], in its entirety:

Quote:

[160] Anonymous, “SysML - Open Source Specification Project”, http://www.sysml.org/

In other words, the only basis for their fourth assertion in that list is the web page for a "profile (dialect) of UML". That's like saying all equations that use Einstein's summation convention are nonsense because there's no UML diagram for it.

In section 3.7.4, the authors attack the use of average effective temperature in Arrhenius-style calculations. Immediately following their equation (80), which shows how (T_eff)⁴ is calculated, they say "This is the correct derivation of the factor quarter appearing in Equation (76)." Their equation (81) then calculates T_eff by taking the fourth root of (T_eff)⁴. Immediately following their equation (81), they say

Originally Posted by Gerlich&Tscheuschner

Such a calculation, though standard in global climatology, is plainly wrong.

When I first read that, I laughed. Equation (81) is plainly correct.

As it turns out, however, what they meant to say is that all of their calculations involving T_eff are plainly wrong (because T_eff is a simplification that makes Arrhenius-style back-of-the-envelope calculations feasible). You'd think two professors of mathematical physics would understand the usefulness of spherical cows, but these two don't.

They then devote equations (82) through (94) to showing how the T_eff simplification provides only an upper bound for the true average. From that fact they draw this hilariously incorrect conclusion (with italics as in the original):

Originally Posted by Gerlich&Tscheuschner

Thus there is no longer any room for a natural greenhouse effect, both mathematically and physically:

• Departing from the physically incorrect assumption of radiative balance a mathematically correct calculation of the average temperature lets the difference temperature that defines the natural greenhouse effect explode.
• Departing from the mathematically correct averages of physically correct temperatures (i.e. measured temperatures) the corresponding effective radiation temperature will be always higher than the average of the measured temperatures.

That's like saying there is no longer room for a gravitational field, "both mathematically and physically", because the Newtonian notion of gravitational field neglects terms of higher order that would be present in a fully relativistic calculation of gravity.

Originally Posted by Gerlich&Tscheuschner

In the preceding sections mathematical and physical arguments have been presented that the notion of a global temperature is meaningless.

That's nonsense. It's crackpot physics.

[Perpetual Student]

It's not unusual for crackpots to be professionals, especially from the ranks of professions other than the one in which they demonstrate crackpottery.
Linus Pauling comes to mind.
Some feel that Fred Hoyle became somewhat of a crackpot even though he made major contributions in cosmology. Would DeiRenDopa consider Hoyle to be a crackpot?

[DeiRenDopa]

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

It's not unusual for crackpots to be professionals, especially from the ranks of professions other than the one in which they demonstrate crackpottery.
Linus Pauling comes to mind.
Some feel that Fred Hoyle became somewhat of a crackpot even though he made major contributions in cosmology. Would DeiRenDopa consider Hoyle to be a crackpot?

No.

But then, he's not alive today, is not posting on the internet, is not engaged in sterile exchanges with JREF members (in this part of the forum), ...

In any case, this thread is about crackpot physics, and why there seems to be so much of it (not "crackpots, of the physics kind"): it's the content, not the proponent or advocate we're discussing, and the way such proponents go about promoting (and avoiding discussion of) crackpot physics (I think).

[Tubbythin]

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

Some feel that Fred Hoyle became somewhat of a crackpot even though he made major contributions in cosmology.

He made major contributions to nuclear physics too FWIW.

[edd]

This came up in my feed today - http://telescoper.wordpress.com/2012...correspondent/

[W.D.Clinger]

It might be amusing to follow up on this example of crackpot physics:

Originally Posted by a_unique_person

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4.pdf

I was wondering how that paper could have gotten past peer review. Looking at the table of contents for the issue in which it was published, I see it wasn't a regular research paper at all, but was designated as a "Review" paper. I can only assume that "Review" papers are subjected to a lower standard of peer review (if any), and may well have been invited by an editor. In most journals, reviews are expected to be uncontroversial, even-handed, and well-informed. Not so here.

A rebuttal was published in the same journal more than a year later, accompanied by a response to the rebuttal from the original authors. It will be entertaining, relevant, and possibly even informative to look at what the original paper has to say about mainstream research in climate science, what the rebuttal has to say about the original paper, and what the authors of the original paper have to say about the rebuttal. First, citations:

Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D Tscheuschner. Falsification of the atmospheric CO₂ greenhouse effects within the frame of physics. International Journal of Modern Physics B, volume 23, number 3 (2009), pages 275-364.

Joshua B Halpern, Christopher M Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D Shore, Arthur P Smith, Jörg Zimmerman. Comment on "Falsification of the atmospheric CO₂ greenhouse effects within the frame of physics". International Journal of Modern Physics B, volume 24, number 10 (2010), pages 1309-1332. DOI: 10.1142/S021797921005555X

Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D Tscheuschner. Reply to "Comment on 'Falsification of the atmospheric CO₂ greenhouse effects within the frame of physics' by Joshua B Halpern, Christopher M Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D Shore, Arthur P Smith, Jörg Zimmermann". International Journal of Modern Physics B, volume 24, number 10 (2010), pages 1333-1359. DOI: 10.1142/S0217979210055573

(Warning: Before reading further, remove all liquids from the vicinity of your keyboard and screen.)

Some of the juicier bits from the original review paper, with italics and bolding as in the original:

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics, such a planetary machine can never exist....By showing that...(b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33° is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, ...(e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, ...the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

....the popular climatologic “radiation balance” diagrams describing quasi-one-dimensional situations (cf. Fig. 23) are scientific misconduct since they do not properly represent the mathematical and physical fundamentals....

Climatologic radiation balance diagrams are nonsense....

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

Rigorously speaking, for real objects Eq. (70) is invalid. Therefore, all crude approximations relying on T⁴ expressions need to be taken with great care. In fact, though popular in global climatology, they prove nothing!

(Equation (70) is the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which is a law of physics.)

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

However, it can be shown that even within the borders of theoretical physics with or without radiation things are extremely complex so that one very quickly arrives at a point where verifiable predictions no longer can be made. Making such predictions nevertheless may be interpreted as an escape out of the department of sciences, not to say as a scientific fraud.

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

Hence, the computer simulations of global climatology are not based on physical laws.

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

In conclusion, the derivation of statements on the CO₂ induced anthropogenic global warming out of the computer simulations lies outside any science.

On to the rebuttal:

Originally Posted by Halpern et al.

In a paper that recently appeared in the International Journal of Modern Physics, Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner claim to have falsified the existence of an atmospheric greenhouse effect.... Here, we show that their methods, logic, and conclusions are in error. The authors describe “problems” that are not really problems, either being not related to the greenhouse effect, or well known and understood minor issues such as the differences between the mechanisms by which a glass greenhouse warms and that by which the greenhouse effect leads to a warmer surface....They make elementary mistakes in doing so.

Originally Posted by Halpern et al.

GT09’s repeated reference to thermal conductivity indicates that they do not understand the relative scales of important processes in Earth’s atmosphere.

Originally Posted by Halpern et al.

These problems are characteristic of the remainder of the paper: First, the authors lack quantitative familiarity with the field they are criticizing; second their incorrect claims of complexity or invalidity, impossibility, and occasionally fraud regarding well-established quantitatively verified analyses of atmospheric processes; and third their extensive diversions on topics that do nothing to further their own argument or a reader’s understanding.

Originally Posted by Halpern et al.

We find that Gerlich and Tscheuschner obtain an absurd result by using a very unphysical assumption, that each part of the planet’s surface immediately cools or heats to reach an equilibrium with the locally impinging solar radiation, thereby neglecting the thermal inertia of the oceans, atmosphere and ground and all other heat transfer processes within the atmosphere and surface. Were this to be the case, all parts of the Earth would immediately drop to almost absolute zero at night, and the discrepancy between Earth’s observed average temperature and the average on this hypothetical Earth would be very large, over 100 K. It is shown here that a uniform surface temperature model gives a more realistic bound on the greenhouse effect, the commonly quoted 33 K. This value is a lower bound on the magnitude of the greenhouse effect and even Gerlich and Tscheuschner’s result for their unphysical case obeys this bound.

Originally Posted by Halpern et al.

The rest of GT09 essentially follows their initial pattern of poor physical intuition, wild claims, and irrelevant diversion.

Originally Posted by Halpern et al.

It is legitimately hard to decide which of these four points is the most preposterous....

Another illustration of their poor physical intuition concerning heat flow processes....

GT09’s wild claims are considerably less amusing in their attack on Stephan Bakan and Ehrhart Raschke on the basis of...(Fig. 13 in GT09). Figure 13 is not the figure in Bakan and Raschke’s paper, but a representation of the top part of that figure....

GT09 is full of such misplaced argumentation, in which Gerlich and Tscheuschner misconstrue an argument or a figure and then present long arguments to show something is wrong that has not been claimed to be true....

GT09 make fundamental mistakes in their arguments about the thermodynamics of the greenhouse effect which are profoundly revealing....

Their view of the Second Law is both clear and clearly wrong....

Originally Posted by Halpern et al.

The citations in GT09 are another problem. Many of the citations are to works of opinion, not climate science. Many of the references are to polemics, anonymous contributions or newspaper articles....

Their reference is to the online Journal of Irreproducible Results, without any page or volume number....

Originally Posted by Halpern et al.

In short, GT09 is beset by serious problems.

As you might expect, Gerlich & Tscheuschner express a different opinion:

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

It is shown that the notorious claim by Halpern et al. recently repeated in their comment that the method, logic, and conclusions of our “Falsification Of The CO₂ Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics” would be in error has no foundation. Since Halpern et al. communicate our arguments incorrectly, their comment is scientifically vacuous.

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

One should keep in mind that we are theoretical physicists with experimental experience and, additionally, a lot of experience in numerical computing. Joshua Halpern and Jörg Zimmermann, for example, are chemists. We are not willing to discuss whether they can be considered as laymen in physics, in particular laymen in thermodynamics.

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

Let us start with Halpern’s favorite object of lust.

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

...global climate models are nothing but a very expensive form of computer game entertainment.

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

Naturally, from our own experience we know — and we often point this out in discussions — that individuals, who — escaped from the science department — flew to and finally got lost in the domains of global climatology often suffer from a barely modest infection by mathematics and physics.

Originally Posted by Gerlich & Tscheuschner

...in physics, an application of formulas is valid only in a finite space-time region.

I hope you enjoyed some of those as much as I did.

[Giordano]

Originally Posted by edd

I think it's actually more complicated than that Giordano.

I recognize that (some of which I understand and much of which I do not).

I was just guessing at what I thought Farsight's visceral, gut-level objection to the sun moving around around the earth viewpoint might be, and I tried to provide a gut-level explanation. I could be wrong in my assumption as to Farsight's objection, in which case I'm sure Farsight will correct me.

By the way, Farsight: I'm not proposing to censor any opinions you might have. You have the right to have and state any opinion you wish. But to have a valid opinion about any topic requires one to first fully understand the topic.