Mass Explained By Someone who knows about Science

[Pappa]

I trust you will take a similar line with those who direct personal attack against me Pappa.

Of course. Everyone's treated equally (as best we can). If there's anything we've missed, please report it using the report feature.

[Brain Man]

Is that a real appraisal of his work or being selective ? If we were to pull out all farsights references (i.e. from his book) would the majority be reputable or not ?

errr… you wanted to pull out farsight's quotes.

Now you want us to do something else.

Well get to that. first of all its necessary to assemble all major and reasonable criticism of johns work so a review can take place in one sitting.

You assemble them. I don’t give a ratz arse for farsight’s comic book. I’m here for the beer humour content

I don’t gotta do shit massa. I a free man.

You do your bit first i.e. this

... pull out all farsights references (i.e. from his book) would the majority be reputable or not ?

That’s what you imply should be done. You do it. You think it’s important.

Then maybe someone else might look at whatever you want to do next.

I’m fucking sure I won’t. A long time ago I was gullible enough to buy and read 'The Bermuda Triangle' by a clever con-man who made a lot of money out of naivete.
I’m not going to make the same mistake again! not on your say so.

I don't want you to do anything. I'm interested in this for myself. I'm objectively interested in

A. What is there about Johns take on physics that makes the subject easier. Does relativity+ provide an easy route into physics.

B. Are the claims of relativity+ so outlandish. So far they appear to me like an integration of some interesting and not unreasonable ideas.

C. I am also interested in whether there is a groupthink problem today. i.e. Is a new theorist actually given a fair hearing or not. Thats why i am trying to define what the primary problems are above.

My aims are objective. There remains a problem of who can be independent reviewer of general content. There are some amazon reviews to get started.

[Twiglet]

we are handing over money to a training system which can facilitate knowledge to be written into us, best as the state of knowledge is at that time. In fields like engineering its more solid, and i would rather have an engineered car than a kit car.

In fields like physics we still dont know half of whats going on, so its fair game, open season and all that.

I don't agree with that at all Brainman.

Physics is the seed of sciences, the kernel from which other disciplines grow. Engineering is applied mechanics. Newtons laws, stress, stain, compression, with a focus on modelling derived from those principles. A physics course puts focus on how to derive the equations engineers use to model real world situations.

Electronic engineering and computer programming use the results from electromagnetic theory and quantum physics to design everything from circuits to microchips. The concepts and methods supplied by physicists find their application in real world products. If the physics was unsound, the designs arising from them wouldn't work.

Computers are at core just collections of transistors, and the application of quantum physics and our understanding of how electrons works is fundamental to their design, more so in each passing year as quantum considerations have practical implications for the size of junction which can be built, and the materials used to build it.

Chemistry can be understood, and in fact, the periodic table can be predicted based on the application of quantum theory. The shell model (which is fairly basic) does this very effectively. Quantum theory has also predicted the existence of previously unknown elements arising in "islands of stability" which have later been found in a lab. More trivially, things like Hunds law arise from QP.

I think you need to drastically re-evaluate what you think physics is brainman. Special relativity is not some airy-fairy fair game piece of philosophy. It is used as an assumption in the design of equipment which would fail, were those assumptions to be wrong.

Dont you like the feeling that if you choose to you can rage to master any subject ? Often for professional uses, that means being educated by a body you can pay for results.often it does not. i.e. You ask yourself the question, how important is it for me to recieve social approval of my ability, and do i want to be completely supervised and fork out 20-40,000 quid for the privelage of that.

The test of whether you have mastered a subject is whether you can apply it practically and solve problems with it. You can talk yourself up as a coder all you like, but that's a different skill to writing a program which works.

[lpetrich]

A. What is there about Johns take on physics that makes the subject easier. Does relativity+ provide an easy route into physics.

Shouldn't correctness play a part?

Being easy to understand may be an excuse for some oversimplification of some difficult subject, but it is no excuse for something blatantly erroneous. Does one believe in Aristotelian physics because it is easier to understand than Newtonianism or relativity or quantum mechanics?

B. Are the claims of relativity+ so outlandish. So far they appear to me like an integration of some interesting and not unreasonable ideas.

Look at it this way: is there any reason to suppose them to be true?

C. I am also interested in whether there is a groupthink problem today. i.e. Is a new theorist actually given a fair hearing or not. Thats why i am trying to define what the primary problems are above.

Complaining about the supposed close-mindedness of mainstream scientists has never demonstrated ANY theory. However, many pseudoscientists and crackpots seem to think that it does.

[Farsight]

Shouldn't correctness play a part?

Yes. Nobody suggested otherwise.

Being easy to understand may be an excuse for some oversimplification of some difficult subject, but it is no excuse for something blatantly erroneous.

But my Mass Explained isn't blatantly erroneous. If it was you'd be able to point out those errors, and you can't. Instead this thread is blatantly erroneous. It portrays mass as the result of the Higgs Field, when in fact it's responsible for only 1% of mass.

Look at it this way: is there any reason to suppose them to be true?

Yes. The scientific evidence of pair production, low-energy proton-antiproton annihilation, electron spin angular momentum and magnetic dipole moment, Einstein-de Haas effect, Stern-Gerlach, Shapiro, GPS. The list goes on and on.

Complaining about the supposed close-mindedness of mainstream scientists has never demonstrated ANY theory. However, many pseudoscientists and crackpots seem to think that it does.

The scientific evidence demonstrates the theory. You're dismissing it and making allegations, clearly directed against me, to distract from this fact. You cannot offer counter-evidence or counter-argument to show where mine is incorrect, and thus instead you seek to discredit.

[lpetrich]

Instead this thread is blatantly erroneous. It portrays mass as the result of the Higgs Field, when in fact it's responsible for only 1% of mass.

Farsight, you keep on misunderstanding on what is meant by the mystery of particle mass. Although elementary-fermion rest masses are only 1% of the mass of baryonic matter, nearly all of that mass resides in protons and neutrons, which are composites of other particles.

None of the known Standard-Model particles have mass terms that are consistent with unbroken electroweak symmetry, and that is why the Higgs particle was proposed. I can show you some of the mathematics behind that contention if you want.

Or you can check out Standard Model (mathematical formulation) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia though it does not give the reasoning behind the unbroken form of it.

Look at it this way: is there any reason to suppose them to be true?

Yes. The scientific evidence of pair production, low-energy proton-antiproton annihilation, electron spin angular momentum and magnetic dipole moment, Einstein-de Haas effect, Stern-Gerlach, Shapiro, GPS. The list goes on and on.

All of which are 100% consistent with mainstream physics. Furthermore, mainstream physical theories can predict many numbers associated with these effects, while your theories cannot. In fact, you don't even seem to think that it is worth doing, as judged from your continual use of qualitative verbal arguments and continual non-use of mathematics.

You cannot offer counter-evidence or counter-argument to show where mine is incorrect, and thus instead you seek to discredit.

I have. What do you think that I've been doing?

[Brain Man]

we are handing over money to a training system which can facilitate knowledge to be written into us, best as the state of knowledge is at that time. In fields like engineering its more solid, and i would rather have an engineered car than a kit car.

In fields like physics we still dont know half of whats going on, so its fair game, open season and all that.

I don't agree with that at all Brainman.

Physics is the seed of sciences, the kernel from which other disciplines grow. Engineering is applied mechanics. Newtons laws, stress, stain, compression, with a focus on modelling derived from those principles. A physics course puts focus on how to derive the equations engineers use to model real world situations.

Electronic engineering and computer programming use the results from electromagnetic theory and quantum physics to design everything from circuits to microchips. The concepts and methods supplied by physicists find their application in real world products. If the physics was unsound, the designs arising from them wouldn't work.

Computers are at core just collections of transistors, and the application of quantum physics and our understanding of how electrons works is fundamental to their design, more so in each passing year as quantum considerations have practical implications for the size of junction which can be built, and the materials used to build it.

Chemistry can be understood, and in fact, the periodic table can be predicted based on the application of quantum theory. The shell model (which is fairly basic) does this very effectively. Quantum theory has also predicted the existence of previously unknown elements arising in "islands of stability" which have later been found in a lab. More trivially, things like Hunds law arise from QP.

I think you need to drastically re-evaluate what you think physics is brainman. Special relativity is not some airy-fairy fair game piece of philosophy. It is used as an assumption in the design of equipment which would fail, were those assumptions to be wrong.

Dont you like the feeling that if you choose to you can rage to master any subject ? Often for professional uses, that means being educated by a body you can pay for results.often it does not. i.e. You ask yourself the question, how important is it for me to recieve social approval of my ability, and do i want to be completely supervised and fork out 20-40,000 quid for the privelage of that.

The test of whether you have mastered a subject is whether you can apply it practically and solve problems with it. You can talk yourself up as a coder all you like, but that's a different skill to writing a program which works.

I appreciate all that. I took physics as part of my degree in computing science, precisely because it was important part of understanding computer engineering.

There are two sides to some sciences. Applied and pure as you know. Applied sciences often involve resources, agreed standards and collective responsibility. Physics is also part of the natural pure sciences, and these are/should be accessible to all.

People want to understand how the natural world works, and seeing as we still dont really know, then its fair game for anybody who wants to give it a go. Even more so considering the natural world belongs to everybody (although some will argue about that), so everybody should have access.

Fact is that vast majority of people doing degrees, are talking on that kind of debt and training to operate in the practical realm. Most university work is not a good preparation for doing natural/pure science. You actually have to figure out how to do that kind of thing in spite of the university process.

[Brain Man]

A. What is there about Johns take on physics that makes the subject easier. Does relativity+ provide an easy route into physics.

Shouldn't correctness play a part?

Being easy to understand may be an excuse for some oversimplification of some difficult subject, but it is no excuse for something blatantly erroneous. Does one believe in Aristotelian physics because it is easier to understand than Newtonianism or relativity or quantum mechanics?

B. Are the claims of relativity+ so outlandish. So far they appear to me like an integration of some interesting and not unreasonable ideas.

Look at it this way: is there any reason to suppose them to be true?

C. I am also interested in whether there is a groupthink problem today. i.e. Is a new theorist actually given a fair hearing or not. Thats why i am trying to define what the primary problems are above.

Complaining about the supposed close-mindedness of mainstream scientists has never demonstrated ANY theory. However, many pseudoscientists and crackpots seem to think that it does.

Of course whether something is right matters.

It is important to discern whether we are more close minded than we were previously in scientific history, Because if we are as the news suggest we are, then we (or I) need to update our appraisal system to take this into account.

Basically what i'm trying to figure, is how to cut through whats a modern reaction, and what a valid criticism these days. There doesn't appear to be any payoff in being open minded today.

e.g. Log on to an internet forum, natural group tendencies will mean that our instincts drive us to conform to criticizing theories, as there are too many payoffs for doing so, and too few for not doing so.

[Twiglet]

I appreciate all that. I took physics as part of my degree in computing science, precisely because it was important part of understanding computer engineering.

There are two sides to some sciences. Applied and pure as you know. Applied sciences often involve resources, agreed standards and collective responsibility. Physics is also part of the natural pure sciences, and these are/should be accessible to all.

I think it's more accurate to say that some branches of physics are much more theoretical than others. The core of physics is (IMO) Maxwells field equations, QM and Relativity. The main focus of study is the application of those theories to practical problems, and the testing of those theories by experiment.

Applied science like engineering tends to take theories and use them for modelling.

It's imperfect, but that serves as a reasonable working definition between pure and applied science. Pure is coming up with theories and trying to work out how well they hold. Applied is taking theories which hold well, then using them to build products or do stuff.

As distinct from soft science which looks to identify patterns of behaviour not derived from first principles, but using the scientific method to analyse those patterns - like Biology often does, and arguable economics.

The topics under discussion - relativity, mass and the photoelectric effect - are all laboratory and product "applied science" Brainman - you can, if you like, do some navel gazing about "man, um, like, what is Mass man, I mean...yeah...." but it really belongs in philosophy unless you want to quantify what you think mass is, in a form which can be tested in a lab, in a way which agrees with the body of experimental evidence, and which predicts something that existing theories don't, preferably.

People want to understand how the natural world works, and seeing as we still dont really know, then its fair game for anybody who wants to give it a go. Even more so considering the natural world belongs to everybody (although some will argue about that), so everybody should have access.

People can understand on whatever terms they like, but, like coding, the ability to say "what a marvellous piece of code" or "isn't world of warcraft pretty" doesn't make someone a coder. Nor does randomly complaining (see any gaming forum) that such-and-such a feature would be "easy to code" make it so.

Scientific information is very readily available in libraries. The will to read it and understand it are in much shorter supply in the general population.

Fact is that vast majority of people doing degrees, are talking on that kind of debt and training to operate in the practical realm. Most university work is not a good preparation for doing natural/pure science. You actually have to figure out how to do that kind of thing in spite of the university process.

That isn't a fact. It depends where you live, what grades you got and when you studied. When I went to university, in the uk, very few people went to uni (though a good many went to polytechnic to get a diploma). The local authority and government paid my tuition fees and gave me a grant to study physics. They were just introducing student loans, but back then, they were very small (a couple of hundred pounds) and designed to top up grants. I didn't have to go into debt to study at all, and nor did my peers. It was a low standard of living, we were paid less than someone on welfare, and prohibited from claiming welfare during holidays - but it was nothing like the American system.

The price for that only very high academic achievers qualified to enter the university system, and the best universities (Oxford, Cambridge + various, depending what subject) had a great deal of competition for places.

That system, if you were gifted/lucky/committed enough to get the grades to get in - was very conduceive to following your heart with your studies. People were less worried about "what job will I get". In the old elitist system, you were simply a graduate and by definition, part of the professions, and would end up in charge of something fairly important. That's still true with degrees from the best universities, perhaps a little less so than it used to be, but not by much.

Theoretical physics has almost always been something people study for love. The "how the world works" subjects like Nuclear and Relativity were (and probably still are) considered to be anachronistic. People study them from curiosity rather than the raft of things they can be applied to in industry. (Yes, I know there's a huge nuclear industry, but most of that is around engineering rather than nuclear science). Those courses were still well subscribed when I studied, because people are quite interested in how the world works. Many people took dual degrees Physics with Astrophysics, but astrophysics has almost no application in industry. It's done for the joy of doing it.

Moreover, to study forward in theoretical subjects, only the really really high flyers had the chance to do that, because there was no industry funding. If you wanted to do a Masters in electronics, or optics, or physics of materials, there were huge numbers of places available, but not in stuff industry could see no reason to fund. That's why so much big theoretical science is government funded. Without that, they'd likely get no cash at all.

We aren't living in the days of Maxwell and Faraday where you can do groundbreaking experimental physics in your back shed with a couple of frogs legs. Once in a while, an amazing thing happens (someone accidentally cooked a superconductor), but that is now the exception and not the rule. Many of the better universities and schools go out of their way to make experiments where students can tread the process of discovery, and have some of the joy of walking in others footsteps first hand. It's a big task to get up to speed with even a fraction of what has been discovered. When I found subjects tough, I comfort myself with the reality that something I am being taught in a one hour lecture was quite possibly someone else's lifes work. Even GR only took 20 lectures.

------------

Anyway, relating all this back to the topic in hand... slagging off scienitfic discovery and then claiming to have all the answers yourself - is like a gamer saying he could do a better job of writing the game, despite having no programming experience, going on to assume he knows how the code works. The only people likely to agree with him are fellow gamers who feel the same way.

[Brain Man]

I appreciate all that. I took physics as part of my degree in computing science, precisely because it was important part of understanding computer engineering.

There are two sides to some sciences. Applied and pure as you know. Applied sciences often involve resources, agreed standards and collective responsibility. Physics is also part of the natural pure sciences, and these are/should be accessible to all.

I think it's more accurate to say that some branches of physics are much more theoretical than others. The core of physics is (IMO) Maxwells field equations, QM and Relativity. The main focus of study is the application of those theories to practical problems, and the testing of those theories by experiment.

Applied science like engineering tends to take theories and use them for modelling.

It's imperfect, but that serves as a reasonable working definition between pure and applied science. Pure is coming up with theories and trying to work out how well they hold. Applied is taking theories which hold well, then using them to build products or do stuff.

As distinct from soft science which looks to identify patterns of behaviour not derived from first principles, but using the scientific method to analyse those patterns - like Biology often does, and arguable economics.

The topics under discussion - relativity, mass and the photoelectric effect - are all laboratory and product "applied science" Brainman - you can, if you like, do some navel gazing about "man, um, like, what is Mass man, I mean...yeah...." but it really belongs in philosophy unless you want to quantify what you think mass is, in a form which can be tested in a lab, in a way which agrees with the body of experimental evidence, and which predicts something that existing theories don't, preferably.

People want to understand how the natural world works, and seeing as we still dont really know, then its fair game for anybody who wants to give it a go. Even more so considering the natural world belongs to everybody (although some will argue about that), so everybody should have access.

People can understand on whatever terms they like, but, like coding, the ability to say "what a marvellous piece of code" or "isn't world of warcraft pretty" doesn't make someone a coder. Nor does randomly complaining (see any gaming forum) that such-and-such a feature would be "easy to code" make it so.

Scientific information is very readily available in libraries. The will to read it and understand it are in much shorter supply in the general population.

Fact is that vast majority of people doing degrees, are talking on that kind of debt and training to operate in the practical realm. Most university work is not a good preparation for doing natural/pure science. You actually have to figure out how to do that kind of thing in spite of the university process.

That isn't a fact. It depends where you live, what grades you got and when you studied. When I went to university, in the uk, very few people went to uni (though a good many went to polytechnic to get a diploma). The local authority and government paid my tuition fees and gave me a grant to study physics. They were just introducing student loans, but back then, they were very small (a couple of hundred pounds) and designed to top up grants. I didn't have to go into debt to study at all, and nor did my peers. It was a low standard of living, we were paid less than someone on welfare, and prohibited from claiming welfare during holidays - but it was nothing like the American system.

The price for that only very high academic achievers qualified to enter the university system, and the best universities (Oxford, Cambridge + various, depending what subject) had a great deal of competition for places.

That system, if you were gifted/lucky/committed enough to get the grades to get in - was very conduceive to following your heart with your studies. People were less worried about "what job will I get". In the old elitist system, you were simply a graduate and by definition, part of the professions, and would end up in charge of something fairly important. That's still true with degrees from the best universities, perhaps a little less so than it used to be, but not by much.

Theoretical physics has almost always been something people study for love. The "how the world works" subjects like Nuclear and Relativity were (and probably still are) considered to be anachronistic. People study them from curiosity rather than the raft of things they can be applied to in industry. (Yes, I know there's a huge nuclear industry, but most of that is around engineering rather than nuclear science). Those courses were still well subscribed when I studied, because people are quite interested in how the world works. Many people took dual degrees Physics with Astrophysics, but astrophysics has almost no application in industry. It's done for the joy of doing it.

Moreover, to study forward in theoretical subjects, only the really really high flyers had the chance to do that, because there was no industry funding. If you wanted to do a Masters in electronics, or optics, or physics of materials, there were huge numbers of places available, but not in stuff industry could see no reason to fund. That's why so much big theoretical science is government funded. Without that, they'd likely get no cash at all.

We aren't living in the days of Maxwell and Faraday where you can do groundbreaking experimental physics in your back shed with a couple of frogs legs. Once in a while, an amazing thing happens (someone accidentally cooked a superconductor), but that is now the exception and not the rule. Many of the better universities and schools go out of their way to make experiments where students can tread the process of discovery, and have some of the joy of walking in others footsteps first hand. It's a big task to get up to speed with even a fraction of what has been discovered. When I found subjects tough, I comfort myself with the reality that something I am being taught in a one hour lecture was quite possibly someone else's lifes work. Even GR only took 20 lectures.

------------

Anyway, relating all this back to the topic in hand... slagging off scienitfic discovery and then claiming to have all the answers yourself - is like a gamer saying he could do a better job of writing the game, despite having no programming experience, going on to assume he knows how the code works. The only people likely to agree with him are fellow gamers who feel the same way.

That sure is a comprehensive answer. Must be somebodies day off. I am aware of the changes in education, as i was educated almost a generation ago, and seen it for myself. It seems to have occurred in tandem with the rise of scientific conservatism in general. I do not know whats driving it, but suspect that its science is seen as a mainstream subject for all kinds of jobs, industries etc.

Tackling the last part first. The generation of young ones who have a new vision, wthout knowhow. We see this all the time, often people have an insight that their better trained elders cannot see due to them being bogged under the weight of having learned so many procedures, cautions and restraints, there is no way to make sweeping conceptual jumps.

We have also seen that individual outsiders can produce revolutionary ideas, outside the system. i.e. Garret Lisi. Such were the restraints in the system he said it was making him jump through too many hoops, so he choose to surf, and take his time over E8 in his camper van.

Why is this ? you would tell me its a fluke..that this just an example of mavericks loving to cite other mavericks. I think there is another reason in human psychology. I don't have the reference here, but recall from a psychology textbook studies that were done on human creative thinking. A test was constructed which measured lateral thinking, and the test was administered first to an individual trying to solve a problem alone, and then more people were added to the problem solving process, one at a time. You know the answer of course. Each time a person was added creativity decreased until after about 6 to 12 people working together it reached a steady state of not much creativity at all.

Why is that ? More recent studies along the same lines show that our brain are group hardwired to facilitate a leader to emerge from ranks and only that person will be allowed to think creatively. A feature of human group behavior is our frontal lobes suppress creativity to switch into group rule abiding mode, and might be one of the reasons (in conjunction with large memories) why we humans have emerged to be so organized, with stable hierarchies and subdivided tasks,jobs for each subdivision etc. The groups of course focus their hierarchy to emerge on what is required as the priority for the good of the group.

So you get the idea i am sure. Science is now becoming the priority for groups, such that even kids in street gangs will drop some science now and then to look smart. So of course hierarchies are naturally forming, and we will only allow people who fit the format of normal hierarchical behavior to think creatively on any given area. Hence ArXiv rejects papers from people outside their field. All fair and well for certain things, but the natural sciences require people who are mavericks.

IT requires an unusual mind to take in everything, without filtering to make creative connections while still thinking in a rational sequence, and to do so for long enough without restraints to produce something of value. Thats the kind of person needed to integrate all the aspects of natural science. Such people are not suited to the current system as Lisi has shown. This and other publications, examples etc i have brought up previously clearly show that science is heading to be a major industry and as a result little of great creative value for integrating natural sciences can be carried out within it anymore.

[Twiglet]

I'm very fond of scientific mavericks, Brainman, real ones that is. Mitch Feigenbaum. Watson and Crick were radical in their day too. So was Einstein. How about Arthur Holmes and plate techntonics?

I think as academia has been forced to turn, cap-in-hand to industry, creativity is naturally stifled as the question becomes "will it provide a payback" and not "is it fascinating". There is still some amazing stuff happening all the same.

The scientific mavericks I can think of, were either the Faraday and Franklin types who pottered around doing clever stuff in private labs, the maths types like Feigenbaum who went off on prolonged flights of fancy down paths nobody has trodden before (maths lends itself to this.. to be a mathematician requires quite a big level of crazy to begin with IMO), or most amazingly, the paradigm shifters - Einstein, Newton, Niels Bohr, Galileo who re-visioned the way nature works.

What all those mavericks have in common Brainman, is they were able to comprehensively put their ideas in a form which enabled them to be tested against reality, starting out with their assumptions and working through to conclusions. Or they were able to demonstrate effects in a laboratory which required such a new explanation. None of the people above were handwavers. None of them were gamers who thought being able to slay Baalzebuub on level 50 with a team of only 7 meant they could do a better job than Blizzard.....

There's a phrase about honesty in the media which goes along the lines of "the media seems to be very honest expect in the 1% of stories where I have some personal knowledge of what happened". That's what triggers my alarmbells with a certain ideas here, expect I know a fair bit more than 1%. When someone posts pictures and quotes which don't support what they are arguing... why would they do that?

Neitszche had a saying: "If you want followers, look for fools. for idiots".

I suppose others might argue that the scientists are the group of fools for following one another. The evidence of the computers, cars, bridges and rockets deny them.

[Brain Man]

I'm very fond of scientific mavericks, Brainman, real ones that is. Mitch Feigenbaum. Watson and Crick were radical in their day too. So was Einstein. How about Arthur Holmes and plate techntonics?

I think as academia has been forced to turn, cap-in-hand to industry, creativity is naturally stifled as the question becomes "will it provide a payback" and not "is it fascinating". There is still some amazing stuff happening all the same.

The scientific mavericks I can think of, were either the Faraday and Franklin types who pottered around doing clever stuff in private labs, the maths types like Feigenbaum who went off on prolonged flights of fancy down paths nobody has trodden before (maths lends itself to this.. to be a mathematician requires quite a big level of crazy to begin with IMO), or most amazingly, the paradigm shifters - Einstein, Newton, Niels Bohr, Galileo who re-visioned the way nature works.

What all those mavericks have in common Brainman, is they were able to comprehensively put their ideas in a form which enabled them to be tested against reality, starting out with their assumptions and working through to conclusions. Or they were able to demonstrate effects in a laboratory which required such a new explanation. None of the people above were handwavers. None of them were gamers who thought being able to slay Baalzebuub on level 50 with a team of only 7 meant they could do a better job than Blizzard.....

There's a phrase about honesty in the media which goes along the lines of "the media seems to be very honest expect in the 1% of stories where I have some personal knowledge of what happened". That's what triggers my alarmbells with a certain ideas here, expect I know a fair bit more than 1%. When someone posts pictures and quotes which don't support what they are arguing... why would they do that?

Neitszche had a saying: "If you want followers, look for fools. for idiots".

I suppose others might argue that the scientists are the group of fools for following one another. The evidence of the computers, cars, bridges and rockets deny them.

I dont think we are ever going to agree on this for these reasons.

I suspect you do as you say like your mavericks. So do most scientists, as long as they are in the past, learned about in class and neatly compartmentalized. You said it, mavericks are often crazy, or perceived as such..why..because they have little care for the norms we enforce on each other, for the reasons of human hierarchy i outlined previously that are part of the human brain. Its fine for you to say you like these creatives after they were sanctioned to be good creatives by the time of history and events.

Most people cannot handle creative people in reality. We are difficult, unpredictable, strong minded and troublesome. Best in small doses only, and as somebody you know through somebody else, unless they happen to be perceived to be doing well for themselves. Then everybody is the friend of the emerging creative leader, except the current paradigm holders who are being overthrown.

Another aspect of creativity is that it often breaks bounds of format and presentation. i.e. Todays creatives may present interesting computer models rather than maths. Interesting you talk of Arthur Holmes, there is another geologist called James Maxlow who uses computer models to show that tectonics needs to be modified to include plate expansion. He provides computer models, and mechanisms that don't need fundamental physics to be rewritten (but again so what if they did). Why is maxlow a lone voice. Because its in nobodies interest to think that plates could expand. Its in every geologists interest to make sure they misrepresent his theory to dispose of it as quickly as possible. And thats usually what you see happen. Like Gallielio his colleagues simply refuse to look at his work.

Why ? SImiliar reason to the flat earth problem. Who can actually benefit from such an idea ? There is no jobs, no grants. In fact what would motivate a geologist to take up maxlows work. They could only lose. Colleagues would laugh. What is it motivating the fear which drives such laughter, what is it that people are afraid of when they laugh at a maverick. We've all been there. We are really laughing at our fear that our ingroup information or values might be questioned unexpectedly from a source we did not mutually concede to, but we find reasons to laugh, so we can reassure ourselves everything is really fine with what we have.

http://www.jamesmaxlow.com/main/index.p ... sition=8:8

Does it make a difference that there is Doctorate PHD level work behind the current proponent of expanding earth ? A slight difference. It means that the terms used to laugh it at, need to be altered to accommodate the higher level of Maxlow and dispose of him in that manner, rather than just pigeon him as a loony comic book artist. Thats all the difference is. Thats why John Duffield realises that its not rewarding for him to do too much maths, as all we are doing here in scientific communities is really playing in an information game. Attempting to prove something with maths is just protracted game playing really to show how you can be right about something more than others are. Being a mathematician is the ultimate long payoff game for an absolute social win. The craziness I am beginning to suspect is being involved in the game to such a degree that nothing else matters. Being a scientist is almost a form of psychopathy.

Duffields reasons were too optimistic to begin with, he believed others shared his fascination with trying to integrate physics into a simple resolution, because he like many was taken with these creative mavericks that are our heroes. I suspect he didn't fully grasp the social context, struggle and the type of all out game playing which are part of these people to start with. If he had he would be playing it as a game with tools like everybody else out there. Now he cannot be motivated to win others over with a decade of attempts to prove. TO him its meaningless and unrewarding to even try as its only degrees of not losing you gain. I suspect he has better things to do, so maybe is not so crazy after all.

[Twiglet]

Or maybe it's just easier to allude to ones one sense of deep understanding and genius in the abstract, than commit ones ideas into a concrete form where their validity can be tested....

[Brain Man]

Or maybe it's just easier to allude to ones one sense of deep understanding and genius in the abstract, than commit ones ideas into a concrete form where their validity can be tested....

Of course, doesnt mean he isnt right of course, just means he has other things to do.

Objectively you cant take his work and then say its not true, because he didnt prove it for whatever reason.

[Twiglet]

Or maybe it's just easier to allude to ones one sense of deep understanding and genius in the abstract, than commit ones ideas into a concrete form where their validity can be tested....

Of course, doesnt mean he isnt right of course, just means he has other things to do.

Objectively you cant take his work and then say its not true, because he didnt prove it for whatever reason.

The problem is Brainman, I haven't seen any work. Show me anything that predicts something different from existing theory which can be checked in a lab.