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To be fair to Stephen Crothers, these are slides, and he bolded some of his conclusions for emphasis. I think it is unfair to raise the issue of crackpotism bec

by nyc111 8y ago

To be fair to Stephen Crothers, these are slides, and he bolded some of his conclusions for emphasis. I think it is unfair to raise the issue of crackpotism because he bolded some sentences. You can see in the video that he does not yell at all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCmEyK4YLdI&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCmEyK4YLdI&t=2s But I personally believe that no evidence can ever disprove Special Relativity or General Relativity. They are so entrenched in academic physics that physicists will call any contradicting evidence "an anomaly", name it with a clever name and make it an academic field of study on its own without ever discontinuing SP. But for any anti-Einstein idea to be taken seriously a very high ranking and prominent physicist need to write papers on the topic. But no physicist will ever question Einstein. For them this is textbok stuff. Physicists can only test Einstein to prove him right one more time :) An outsider has no chance even if, as you say, he comes with experimental evidence.

drdeca 8y ago
Why do you believe that no evidence could ever convince them? What evidence would be sufficient to convince you that they would be convinced given sufficient evidence (other than seeing them be convinced by evidence)? Imagine if a prediction market were in place about the outcome of various expiraments. Whose models do you think would be used by the traders who do the best in such a market?
- nyc111 8y ago
  > Why do you believe that no evidence could ever convince them? Looking back at the history of physics, can you give me an example of an established physics theory that was discarded by experimental evidence? The worst that can happen is that disproven theory will be rebranded as “classic” and will continue to exist and taught as if it were never disproved. > Imagine if a prediction market were in place about the outcome of various expiraments. Whose models do you think would be used by the traders who do the best in such a market? Good question. So if I understand correctly, various experiments are conducted on the same subject and physicists look at the outcomes and choose the experiments that makes the best prediction. Or the experiment that matches the model best. This is a very idealized view of physics. Most experiments in academic physics are academic experiments. The experiment is set up to give one result and one result only and all the successive experimenters do is to try to lower the experimental error.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    > Looking back at the history of physics, can you give me an example of an established physics theory that was discarded by experimental evidence? The aether theory, which was discarded due to the null result of the Michaelson-Morley experiment. > The worst that can happen is that disproven theory will be rebranded as “classic” and will continue to exist and taught as if it were never disproved. That's true of things like Newtonian physics, which are still approximately true (in fact, asymptotically true), and therefore still useful in many environments. It's absolutely not true of things like the aether theory. Now, if you want to argue that Special Relativity would fall into the second camp, even if this guy's theory is correct, that would be reasonable - Special Relativity is clearly right enough that particle accelerators work and atom bombs explode. But to say as blanket statements the things you said in your first paragraph? No, I can't agree.
    - nyc111 8y ago
      > The aether theory... Good example. But physics has a way to bring back old theories under new names, thus “New ether theories”: http://vixra.org/pdf/1708.0318v1.pdf http://vixra.org/pdf/1708.0318v1.pdf It can also be said that Einstein substituted “space-time” for “ether”. But you are right my blanket statement turns out to be too general. > Special Relativity is clearly right enough that particle accelerators work... Unfortunately, I don’t agree that SP is a useful theory. Physicists include branded labels in their equations to save their theories and then when it comes to do actual calculations they eliminate those labels and use numerical methods. And then they say their theories work. This is my own view and I concede that I no longer have the energy to talk about such contentious physics issues. I don't like to argue on "theories" level because in physics all theories including Special Relativity are merely names given to a huge collection of statements. This collection will include contradictory statements as well. So if you argue with a physicist about Special Relativity he will simply pick and choose suitable arguments from the available legal arguments and prove his points. Some other physicist may choose other legal arguments and prove just the opposite point. Both arguments would be legal in physics. So when you say "Special Relativity is clearly right enough that particle accelerators work and atom bombs explode..." for me this is problematic because no term called "special relativity" enters any calculations in particle physics. They may use philosophical concepts associated with the theory and then eliminate those philosophical terms. But if we try to enter into specifics here we'll be lost in detail. I wish Stephen Crothers good luck and I hope he will succeed. This will be good for physics. But as an outsider his chances to succeed is minimal. If he were a prominent physicists lots of people here would have read and discussed this paper. But now it is dismissed because he bolded some sentences.

by nyc111 8y ago

drdeca 8y ago

Why do you believe that no evidence could ever convince them? What evidence would be sufficient to convince you that they would be convinced given sufficient evidence (other than seeing them be convinced by evidence)? Imagine if a prediction market were in place about the outcome of various expiraments. Whose models do you think would be used by the traders who do the best in such a market?

nyc111 8y ago
> Why do you believe that no evidence could ever convince them? Looking back at the history of physics, can you give me an example of an established physics theory that was discarded by experimental evidence? The worst that can happen is that disproven theory will be rebranded as “classic” and will continue to exist and taught as if it were never disproved. > Imagine if a prediction market were in place about the outcome of various expiraments. Whose models do you think would be used by the traders who do the best in such a market? Good question. So if I understand correctly, various experiments are conducted on the same subject and physicists look at the outcomes and choose the experiments that makes the best prediction. Or the experiment that matches the model best. This is a very idealized view of physics. Most experiments in academic physics are academic experiments. The experiment is set up to give one result and one result only and all the successive experimenters do is to try to lower the experimental error.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  > Looking back at the history of physics, can you give me an example of an established physics theory that was discarded by experimental evidence? The aether theory, which was discarded due to the null result of the Michaelson-Morley experiment. > The worst that can happen is that disproven theory will be rebranded as “classic” and will continue to exist and taught as if it were never disproved. That's true of things like Newtonian physics, which are still approximately true (in fact, asymptotically true), and therefore still useful in many environments. It's absolutely not true of things like the aether theory. Now, if you want to argue that Special Relativity would fall into the second camp, even if this guy's theory is correct, that would be reasonable - Special Relativity is clearly right enough that particle accelerators work and atom bombs explode. But to say as blanket statements the things you said in your first paragraph? No, I can't agree.
  - nyc111 8y ago
    > The aether theory... Good example. But physics has a way to bring back old theories under new names, thus “New ether theories”: http://vixra.org/pdf/1708.0318v1.pdf http://vixra.org/pdf/1708.0318v1.pdf It can also be said that Einstein substituted “space-time” for “ether”. But you are right my blanket statement turns out to be too general. > Special Relativity is clearly right enough that particle accelerators work... Unfortunately, I don’t agree that SP is a useful theory. Physicists include branded labels in their equations to save their theories and then when it comes to do actual calculations they eliminate those labels and use numerical methods. And then they say their theories work. This is my own view and I concede that I no longer have the energy to talk about such contentious physics issues. I don't like to argue on "theories" level because in physics all theories including Special Relativity are merely names given to a huge collection of statements. This collection will include contradictory statements as well. So if you argue with a physicist about Special Relativity he will simply pick and choose suitable arguments from the available legal arguments and prove his points. Some other physicist may choose other legal arguments and prove just the opposite point. Both arguments would be legal in physics. So when you say "Special Relativity is clearly right enough that particle accelerators work and atom bombs explode..." for me this is problematic because no term called "special relativity" enters any calculations in particle physics. They may use philosophical concepts associated with the theory and then eliminate those philosophical terms. But if we try to enter into specifics here we'll be lost in detail. I wish Stephen Crothers good luck and I hope he will succeed. This will be good for physics. But as an outsider his chances to succeed is minimal. If he were a prominent physicists lots of people here would have read and discussed this paper. But now it is dismissed because he bolded some sentences.