7 ms·

Speaking only for myself, I am vastly more interested in seeing commentary on the content, than on its formatting.

by rosser 7y ago

whatshisface 7y ago
Why is this going to the public before being accepted by scientists? This format is appropriate for things that have been known to be true for twenty years, not random models. Taking your ideas straight to the public before obtaining wide expert agreement is actually one of the signs of physics-themed crackpottery.
- rosser 7y ago
  We may be talking past one another here with the word "format". I read and responded to what seemed yet another round of irrelevant (or at least low-signal), "This site looks terrible on mobile" style noise, which HN discussions are sometimes entirely too full of. Now, however, I think you (and possibly the grandparent comment) may have been talking about addressing the content to a general audience, instead of peer review. If that's the case, I apologize for my own noise. EDIT: Even so, that The Fine Article is (potentially) directed at an inappropriate audience doesn't tell me much about its "crackpottery", except in a mildly Bayesian kind of way. I like to pay attention to the discussions on physics articles that cross the HN front page because I more often than not learn something by reading the conversations between the people who understand the material better than I do. That remains the kind of discussion I want to see.
- a-nikolaev 7y ago
  I'd say that a discussion and criticism by experts must be required, not really wide acceptance. In theoretical physics, there can be many competing models that could be hard to verify or proof wrong. "Science advances one funeral at a time", progress is made quite slowly to make everyone accept a new theory. Edit: So, I'd like to see a peer-reviewed article by the author, and some responses by people in the field. That could be enough for a new theory.
  - etatoby 7y ago
    If you look at the bottom of every page, including the homepage, the author references his own relevant peer-reviewed articles. I'm not saying his theory is right, or that the presentation doesn't smell a bit of crackpottery (it does), but at least he's referencing some real science he's done and that has apparently been accepted.
    - a-nikolaev 7y ago
      Yeah, that's good, thank you.
  - GorgeRonde 7y ago
    This is the main point he's upset about. Because of his interest in the UFO phenomenon in the 70s and 80s he has been ostracized from the wider french community (mostly the state-run National Center of Scientific Research aka the CNRS). It's not a subject he wants to talk about anymore. His main grief is not that his genius theory is not understood , but that he cannot discuss it with his colleagues for the reason above. People have set up a petition [1] so that he present his ideas during a seminary (he's indeed quite popular with videos on youtube frequently reaching more than 100k views). To give you a more concrete example, he stumbled upon a paper by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder [2] which presents a very similar approach to the Janus model but with a broader, more abstract framework Petit is not able to understand. He reached out to her and was accused of plagiarism ! He tried to play it cool, saying she would be remembered as the 21st century's Einstein (her paper predates his by a decade), telling her she should invest energy into this (she published that paper in 2008 and did not follow this track further) offering her to collaborate as friends on the subject. Result: she declined because of his background. Now, what background are we talking about ? IIRC he published a paper in the 90s where he thanked M. Bazoof. What you have to know is that Petit has been personally involved in the UMMO affaire [3]. Along with several people, mostly from Spain, he received letters and phone calls by people that claimed to be from another planet. These letters were full of scientific content and he's written multiple books about it (the latest, from last year, is jokingly subtilted "How far can we think to far ?"). Back to M Bazoof: "What ? He is citing an alien ? Is he kidding us ?" => that's Petit that imitates his colleagues' reaction back in the days, and then he burst in laughter. Serious again: "But that's the truth, alien or trickster, I received UMMO messages without which I would not have thought of the Janus model. A stuff life this, this is is insane, you have no idea. It brings you into a life-long adventure. It's like my life is the script to a Spielberg movie. And I suppose I'm Doc from back to the future ! laughs". "If it's not fun, it's not really serious" is one of the maxims he lives by. [1] https://www.mesopinions.com/petition/sante/droit-debat-nouvelle-cosmologie/47327 https://www.mesopinions.com/petition/sante/droit-debat-nouve... [2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.2838.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.2838.pdf [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_objects_proposed_in_religion,_astrology,_ufology_and_pseudoscience#Ummo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_objects_proposed_in_...
- pdonis 7y ago
  > Why is this going to the public before being accepted by scientists? The usual reason for someone doing that is that they know their model won't be accepted by scientists. That's what I'm betting on here.
- atemerev 7y ago
  He managed to publish this theory in some peer-reviewed venues, so there’s that. However, it is a minor hypothesis on the verge of fringe science (but not quite there), not some blinding glimpse of genius.
- GorgeRonde 7y ago
  He has been publishing elements to this theory for the last 40 years. See the bottom of this page: http://www.januscosmologicalmodel.com/ http://www.januscosmologicalmodel.com/. Some of his latest papers have been published in Astrophysics and Space Science, Modern Physics Letters A & Progress in Physics [1] [1] https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?hl=fr&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=JP+Petit+janus+cosmological&btnG= https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?hl=fr&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=JP+Pe...
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Watch out - he's publishing a model, not facts. In physics you are allowed to publish "random models," so to speak, on nothing other than the hope that at some point in the future someome will identify them as true or false. There's a huge difference between a paper about a model being published, and the model being accepted as a true fact.
    - GorgeRonde 7y ago
      Agreed. Now what's more interesting is that his model is close enough to the one developed in a paper from 2008 by Sabine Hossenfelder [1]. Close enough to be accused of plagiarism when he reached out to her. We discussed this article 5 months ago: "'Dark fluid' with negative mass could dominate the universe" [2]. Experiments are currently being setup to see how antimatter behaves in a free-fall situation [3]. The lead scientist says it will fall up, while Petit asserts it will fall down. So it's not like this model is totally isolated from what is being done in physics, although he has developed it on his own. He's into bimetric models of gravity like many other people in his field, and as far as I can tell, this is Occam's bush growing we are seeing here. Let's not hasten to use the razzor. [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.2838.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.2838.pdf [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18609375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18609375 [3] https://cerncourier.com/does-antimatter-fall-up/ https://cerncourier.com/does-antimatter-fall-up/
pdonis 7y ago
Just skimming, I find two obvious issues with the proposed model: First, saying that spacetime, considered as a 4-d hypersurface, has "two sides with two metrics" won't work. The metric of one side fully determines the metric of the other side since both sides belong to the same surface. That's why spacetime in standard Einstein GR only has one metric (which, btw, does not mean that spacetime in standard GR has only one "side", as the article claims). Two different metrics would have to describe two different, disjoint surfaces, which would have no connection to each other, which would mean the second one, being unobservable, would be scraped right off the model by Occam's razor. Second, saying that negative mass would induce "opposite curvatures" as compared to positive mass, in the same spacetime, won't work. One spacetime can only have one curvature at any given ponit. Considering the simpler example of a 2-d surface should make this intuitively obvious--the same surface can't have two different curvatures at the same point.
- nkoren 7y ago
  Also just skimming, and furthermore not a physicist, but I'm not sure your critique works: > Two different metrics would have to describe two different, disjoint surfaces, which would have no connection to each other, which would mean the second one, being unobservable, would be scraped right off the model by Occam's razor. The theory states that the two surfaces are not disjoint: > What is important to note however, is that the two field equations are coupled, i.e. a mass always creates a positive curvature in spacetime according to its own metric (where the mass appears visible), and it also always induces a negative curvature in the conjugate metric (where the mass appears invisible). I do find it confusing why this would be called two metrics, however, since it seems to be describing a unified spacetime "surface". As for your second critique: > One spacetime can only have one curvature at any given ponit. Considering the simpler example of a 2-d surface should make this intuitively obvious--the same surface can't have two different curvatures at the same point. But if the surface has two sides, can it not? Consider the classic "gravity well" demonstration of a heavy ball placed on an elastic membrane. It forms a concave surface. Now turn your head upside down and look at the membrane from underneath. You'll see a convex surface. Same membrane, different curvatures. Anyhow, I'm certainly not equipped to analyse this theory, but I do like that it attempts to make falsifiable predictions. I guess it's an attempt to explain dark energy? It would appear to leave problems of dark matter unaddressed, however.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Speaking only for myself, I am vastly more interested in seeing commentary on the content, than on its formatting.

by rosser 7y ago

Speaking only for myself, I am vastly more interested in seeing commentary on the content, than on its formatting.

Why is this going to the public before being accepted by scientists? This format is appropriate for things that have been known to be true for twenty years, not random models. Taking your ideas straight to the public before obtaining wide expert agreement is actually one of the signs of physics-themed crackpottery.

rosser 7y ago
We may be talking past one another here with the word "format". I read and responded to what seemed yet another round of irrelevant (or at least low-signal), "This site looks terrible on mobile" style noise, which HN discussions are sometimes entirely too full of. Now, however, I think you (and possibly the grandparent comment) may have been talking about addressing the content to a general audience, instead of peer review. If that's the case, I apologize for my own noise. EDIT: Even so, that The Fine Article is (potentially) directed at an inappropriate audience doesn't tell me much about its "crackpottery", except in a mildly Bayesian kind of way. I like to pay attention to the discussions on physics articles that cross the HN front page because I more often than not learn something by reading the conversations between the people who understand the material better than I do. That remains the kind of discussion I want to see.
a-nikolaev 7y ago
I'd say that a discussion and criticism by experts must be required, not really wide acceptance. In theoretical physics, there can be many competing models that could be hard to verify or proof wrong. "Science advances one funeral at a time", progress is made quite slowly to make everyone accept a new theory. Edit: So, I'd like to see a peer-reviewed article by the author, and some responses by people in the field. That could be enough for a new theory.
- etatoby 7y ago
  If you look at the bottom of every page, including the homepage, the author references his own relevant peer-reviewed articles. I'm not saying his theory is right, or that the presentation doesn't smell a bit of crackpottery (it does), but at least he's referencing some real science he's done and that has apparently been accepted.
  - a-nikolaev 7y ago
    Yeah, that's good, thank you.
- GorgeRonde 7y ago
  This is the main point he's upset about. Because of his interest in the UFO phenomenon in the 70s and 80s he has been ostracized from the wider french community (mostly the state-run National Center of Scientific Research aka the CNRS). It's not a subject he wants to talk about anymore. His main grief is not that his genius theory is not understood , but that he cannot discuss it with his colleagues for the reason above. People have set up a petition [1] so that he present his ideas during a seminary (he's indeed quite popular with videos on youtube frequently reaching more than 100k views). To give you a more concrete example, he stumbled upon a paper by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder [2] which presents a very similar approach to the Janus model but with a broader, more abstract framework Petit is not able to understand. He reached out to her and was accused of plagiarism ! He tried to play it cool, saying she would be remembered as the 21st century's Einstein (her paper predates his by a decade), telling her she should invest energy into this (she published that paper in 2008 and did not follow this track further) offering her to collaborate as friends on the subject. Result: she declined because of his background. Now, what background are we talking about ? IIRC he published a paper in the 90s where he thanked M. Bazoof. What you have to know is that Petit has been personally involved in the UMMO affaire [3]. Along with several people, mostly from Spain, he received letters and phone calls by people that claimed to be from another planet. These letters were full of scientific content and he's written multiple books about it (the latest, from last year, is jokingly subtilted "How far can we think to far ?"). Back to M Bazoof: "What ? He is citing an alien ? Is he kidding us ?" => that's Petit that imitates his colleagues' reaction back in the days, and then he burst in laughter. Serious again: "But that's the truth, alien or trickster, I received UMMO messages without which I would not have thought of the Janus model. A stuff life this, this is is insane, you have no idea. It brings you into a life-long adventure. It's like my life is the script to a Spielberg movie. And I suppose I'm Doc from back to the future ! laughs". "If it's not fun, it's not really serious" is one of the maxims he lives by. [1] https://www.mesopinions.com/petition/sante/droit-debat-nouvelle-cosmologie/47327 https://www.mesopinions.com/petition/sante/droit-debat-nouve... [2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.2838.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.2838.pdf [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_objects_proposed_in_religion,_astrology,_ufology_and_pseudoscience#Ummo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_objects_proposed_in_...
pdonis 7y ago
> Why is this going to the public before being accepted by scientists? The usual reason for someone doing that is that they know their model won't be accepted by scientists. That's what I'm betting on here.
atemerev 7y ago
He managed to publish this theory in some peer-reviewed venues, so there’s that. However, it is a minor hypothesis on the verge of fringe science (but not quite there), not some blinding glimpse of genius.
GorgeRonde 7y ago
He has been publishing elements to this theory for the last 40 years. See the bottom of this page: http://www.januscosmologicalmodel.com/ http://www.januscosmologicalmodel.com/. Some of his latest papers have been published in Astrophysics and Space Science, Modern Physics Letters A & Progress in Physics [1] [1] https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?hl=fr&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=JP+Petit+janus+cosmological&btnG= https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?hl=fr&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=JP+Pe...
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Watch out - he's publishing a model, not facts. In physics you are allowed to publish "random models," so to speak, on nothing other than the hope that at some point in the future someome will identify them as true or false. There's a huge difference between a paper about a model being published, and the model being accepted as a true fact.
  - GorgeRonde 7y ago
    Agreed. Now what's more interesting is that his model is close enough to the one developed in a paper from 2008 by Sabine Hossenfelder [1]. Close enough to be accused of plagiarism when he reached out to her. We discussed this article 5 months ago: "'Dark fluid' with negative mass could dominate the universe" [2]. Experiments are currently being setup to see how antimatter behaves in a free-fall situation [3]. The lead scientist says it will fall up, while Petit asserts it will fall down. So it's not like this model is totally isolated from what is being done in physics, although he has developed it on his own. He's into bimetric models of gravity like many other people in his field, and as far as I can tell, this is Occam's bush growing we are seeing here. Let's not hasten to use the razzor. [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.2838.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.2838.pdf [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18609375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18609375 [3] https://cerncourier.com/does-antimatter-fall-up/ https://cerncourier.com/does-antimatter-fall-up/

pdonis 7y ago

Just skimming, I find two obvious issues with the proposed model: First, saying that spacetime, considered as a 4-d hypersurface, has "two sides with two metrics" won't work. The metric of one side fully determines the metric of the other side since both sides belong to the same surface. That's why spacetime in standard Einstein GR only has one metric (which, btw, does not mean that spacetime in standard GR has only one "side", as the article claims). Two different metrics would have to describe two different, disjoint surfaces, which would have no connection to each other, which would mean the second one, being unobservable, would be scraped right off the model by Occam's razor. Second, saying that negative mass would induce "opposite curvatures" as compared to positive mass, in the same spacetime, won't work. One spacetime can only have one curvature at any given ponit. Considering the simpler example of a 2-d surface should make this intuitively obvious--the same surface can't have two different curvatures at the same point.

nkoren 7y ago
Also just skimming, and furthermore not a physicist, but I'm not sure your critique works: > Two different metrics would have to describe two different, disjoint surfaces, which would have no connection to each other, which would mean the second one, being unobservable, would be scraped right off the model by Occam's razor. The theory states that the two surfaces are not disjoint: > What is important to note however, is that the two field equations are coupled, i.e. a mass always creates a positive curvature in spacetime according to its own metric (where the mass appears visible), and it also always induces a negative curvature in the conjugate metric (where the mass appears invisible). I do find it confusing why this would be called two metrics, however, since it seems to be describing a unified spacetime "surface". As for your second critique: > One spacetime can only have one curvature at any given ponit. Considering the simpler example of a 2-d surface should make this intuitively obvious--the same surface can't have two different curvatures at the same point. But if the surface has two sides, can it not? Consider the classic "gravity well" demonstration of a heavy ball placed on an elastic membrane. It forms a concave surface. Now turn your head upside down and look at the membrane from underneath. You'll see a convex surface. Same membrane, different curvatures. Anyhow, I'm certainly not equipped to analyse this theory, but I do like that it attempts to make falsifiable predictions. I guess it's an attempt to explain dark energy? It would appear to leave problems of dark matter unaddressed, however.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]