4 ms·

> Those theories look to me like a tangled beard, just waiting for Occam's Razor Well then, get in there and show those career physicists what you know

denton-scratch 5y ago
I've already said that physics and cosmology are not my game. I'm just interested. But perhaps it's worth noting: a cosmologist that wants to argue against e.g. DM is putting his career at risk. If your career is cosmology or physics, and you want to rock the boat, you had better have some pretty surprising research, or you're going to have trouble. Look at the trouble Roger Pensose stirred up for himself; he's a big fish, but got seriously trashed over OR. An interested bystander like me doesn't face those problems (except here).
- deleted 5y ago
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- raattgift 5y ago
  > a cosmologist that wants to argue against e.g. DM is putting his career at risk Academia doesn't work like that in all countries, at the very least. Putting together a single-author or maybe two-author theoretical paper in gravitation or cosmology is commonplace, and getting it published is usually a lot easier than stopping oneself from throwing it out because of unsolved problems that almost inevitably creep up when one sets out to write down a non-trivial theory. You don't really have to take my word for it. Start here: https://arxiv.org/list/gr-qc/new https://arxiv.org/list/gr-qc/new and observe the large number of one-and-two-author papers. Then let's try https://arxiv.org/search/?query=mond&searchtype=all https://arxiv.org/search/?query=mond&searchtype=all which by default sorts newest-first. The first four digits of the identifers are YYMM. You can see for yourself whether there are only few papers dealing with Milgromian/Modified-Newtonian-Dynamics gravitation, and work out some median author count. If you do an in-browser search on that second results page you'll see "Famaey" a lot. Benoît Famaey's career in academia has hardly come to a dead end because of his many explorations of MOND over the past fifteen years or so; he's a Belgian working in Germany and France and indeed has grad students and a research team (cf. https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/deebea0f https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/deebea0f ), although not just for MOND to the exclusion of other areas of galaxy astrophysics. I think Famaey in his mid-50s or so, but I am not an especially good judge of people's ages. Whether he could have had this sort of career in private universities in the U.S.A. is a sociological or political question that I decline to speculate about. With minor effort at searching, you can certainly follow the publication lists and careers of his many collaborators, if you are tempted to argue that he is an especially rare or lucky individual to have avoided "hav[ing] trouble" or being "seriously trashed". I would not read too much (bearing in mind I did not search deeply) into his recent coauthors being almost all from European universities, even if tempted into speculating about cross-juridictional comparative academy. Finally, I'll end by pointing to Stacy McGaugh, an American at a U.S. university https://astronomy.case.edu/faculty/stacy-mcgaugh/ https://astronomy.case.edu/faculty/stacy-mcgaugh/ , has coauthored specifically about MOND alternatives to General Relativity and Dark Matter with Famaey and it does not seem to have wrecked his career, and neither have his rather forceful blog statements at https://tritonstation.com/ https://tritonstation.com/ .
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    I'm a layman! I rarely read research papers, and generally only in fields I have a smattering of competence in (computing matters) It's interesting that single-author research in those fields is easy to get published. I'm surprised. I'd never heard of MOND. I'll do some digging into MOND and Famaey. Thanks.

denton-scratch 5y ago

I've already said that physics and cosmology are not my game. I'm just interested. But perhaps it's worth noting: a cosmologist that wants to argue against e.g. DM is putting his career at risk. If your career is cosmology or physics, and you want to rock the boat, you had better have some pretty surprising research, or you're going to have trouble. Look at the trouble Roger Pensose stirred up for himself; he's a big fish, but got seriously trashed over OR. An interested bystander like me doesn't face those problems (except here).

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
raattgift 5y ago
> a cosmologist that wants to argue against e.g. DM is putting his career at risk Academia doesn't work like that in all countries, at the very least. Putting together a single-author or maybe two-author theoretical paper in gravitation or cosmology is commonplace, and getting it published is usually a lot easier than stopping oneself from throwing it out because of unsolved problems that almost inevitably creep up when one sets out to write down a non-trivial theory. You don't really have to take my word for it. Start here: https://arxiv.org/list/gr-qc/new https://arxiv.org/list/gr-qc/new and observe the large number of one-and-two-author papers. Then let's try https://arxiv.org/search/?query=mond&searchtype=all https://arxiv.org/search/?query=mond&searchtype=all which by default sorts newest-first. The first four digits of the identifers are YYMM. You can see for yourself whether there are only few papers dealing with Milgromian/Modified-Newtonian-Dynamics gravitation, and work out some median author count. If you do an in-browser search on that second results page you'll see "Famaey" a lot. Benoît Famaey's career in academia has hardly come to a dead end because of his many explorations of MOND over the past fifteen years or so; he's a Belgian working in Germany and France and indeed has grad students and a research team (cf. https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/deebea0f https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/deebea0f ), although not just for MOND to the exclusion of other areas of galaxy astrophysics. I think Famaey in his mid-50s or so, but I am not an especially good judge of people's ages. Whether he could have had this sort of career in private universities in the U.S.A. is a sociological or political question that I decline to speculate about. With minor effort at searching, you can certainly follow the publication lists and careers of his many collaborators, if you are tempted to argue that he is an especially rare or lucky individual to have avoided "hav[ing] trouble" or being "seriously trashed". I would not read too much (bearing in mind I did not search deeply) into his recent coauthors being almost all from European universities, even if tempted into speculating about cross-juridictional comparative academy. Finally, I'll end by pointing to Stacy McGaugh, an American at a U.S. university https://astronomy.case.edu/faculty/stacy-mcgaugh/ https://astronomy.case.edu/faculty/stacy-mcgaugh/ , has coauthored specifically about MOND alternatives to General Relativity and Dark Matter with Famaey and it does not seem to have wrecked his career, and neither have his rather forceful blog statements at https://tritonstation.com/ https://tritonstation.com/ .
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  I'm a layman! I rarely read research papers, and generally only in fields I have a smattering of competence in (computing matters) It's interesting that single-author research in those fields is easy to get published. I'm surprised. I'd never heard of MOND. I'll do some digging into MOND and Famaey. Thanks.