6 ms·

The author is a well-known crank. See post #10 here, for instance: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/strand-model-published.973097/ https://www.physicsforum

The author is a well-known crank. See post #10 here, for instance: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/strand-model-published.973097/ https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/strand-model-published... Proceed with caution.

PrettyPebble 5y ago
No, I'm not. And reading the cited exchange is indeed useful to see this. The topic here was that physics can be summed up in 9 lines. Anonymous ad hominem arguments are worthless in this context - but obviously important to certain people.
logicallee 5y ago
I liked the original post at https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html , except for a couple of words I point out below. After reading your comment I looked at the original post with a view to identifying its basic perspective. https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html was clearly not written by a physicist, as it includes the line "The nine lines contain physics, chemistry, material science, biology, medicine, geology, astronomy, engineering and computer science. It appears that the nine lines contain all natural sciences!" which is not a physics type of statement. Obviously, physics contains everything, just the way "bits contain all software". Observing that doesn't make someone a programmer, in my opinion. Why stop at physics, chemistry, material science, biology, medicine, geology, astronomy, engineering and computer science (list provided). A physicist could correctly state: "Physics contains all aspects of chemistry, Earth science / Geology, Oceanography/ marine science, Meteorology, astronomy, biology, molecular interactions, physiological mechanisms, evolution, botany / plant science(s), Zoology, Ecology, etc." However, it is kind of like saying text comprises all of the words of Shakespeare. Well, sure, but that doesn't mean that you get Shakespearean criticism from writing a text editor. It's two different fields. The author has an interesting outsider view shown in https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html However, the lines "Isn't this incredible?" and "Enjoy searching for answers." are sarcastic and disrespectful to the work actual physicists put into their discipline for decades and the author should be ashamed for this tone. If they want to be a physicist they should observe and learn from physicists at every opportunity. (I'm not one, by the way.) Ignoring the rude sarcasm, we can correctly summarize the document as "Physics governs everything. Period." It's not a physics document. It is (or rather ought to be) a tribute to physicists and the unbreakable laws of physics.
- PrettyPebble 5y ago
  Thank you for your candid feedback. I belong to those working in physics for decades. To avoid such misunderstandings in future, I improved a few lines. One remark: the text is really meant to state that the specific 9 lines given do contain all of physics (and thus all other natural sciences). The argument differs from "words and Shakespeare": the nine line describe nature exactly, within measurement precision. That is the central content of that page. It is not that physics governs everything. It is that those specific 9 lines describe all measurements, all observations, and contain all equations. This is a much stronger statement.
PrettyPebble 5y ago
With several recent PRDs.
- knzhou 5y ago
  The Physical Review is a gigantic set of journals, and like anything of its size, many of its published results are wrong. At this very moment I'm writing a rebuttal to a PRD paper that arrived at nonsensical conclusions due to some basic algebra mistakes.
- spekcular 5y ago
  "Several"? Google Scholar shows two, one of which is an approximately 1-page comment on a rebuttal to the other one. Neither mentions "strand theory," the focus of the criticism in that link.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
knzhou 5y ago
Indeed, the author's 2000-page online textbook, heavily promoted on the internet, is a classic trap for unwary students. It looks alright at first: volume I is light on math, but full of neat examples. But it's full of intuitively plausible but slightly wrong statements which fall apart in more general situations, reflecting the author's lack of technical expertise. This problem steadily gets worse: volume IV is an oversimplified introduction to quantum mechanics which contains almost no math, and serious conceptual errors on almost every page. Volume V covers a bizarre mix of particle physics, consciousness, and sexual reproduction. And volume VI is the author's almost math-free personal theory of everything. Because the change is gradual, a student can get seriously misled without noticing, like the proverbial boiling frog. On HN, people are always asking how to get started self-learning topics like physics. The tragedy is that this has been a completely solved problem for decades: the standard textbooks are excellent. But people don't hear that message because self-promoters pollute the discourse.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hoten 5y ago
  What are the standard textbooks? Could I just look at the curriculum of any physics program of a respected school and go from there?
  - spekcular 5y ago
    Yes. Whatever MIT uses for their OpenCourseWare is going to be fine, for example.
- mncharity 5y ago
  > the standard textbooks are excellent A caveat. Some years ago, at a first-tier university, some physicists and mathematicians were munching. A physics professor described how days earlier he thought he had found a case of a well-respected intro physics textbook saying something wrong. But, after some hours and days of thought, he realized the textbook was very carefully worded so as to not be incorrect. Yay. Most everyone smiled and agreed it was an excellent textbook. A bit later, there was a quiet out-of-band question: So... if you're already an expert on the topic, and do a close read, after thinking about it for days, you will escape being misled... and this is a win?? There's an old physics education research joke: If you think your lectures are working, your assessment also isn't. I've found that to apply to much science education content as well.
awwaiid 5y ago
Further down in the thread, crank or not, I found this note on their 'strand' theory very convincing from a FSM perspective: "Today is the first of April. Imagine strands as fluctuating, scaled-down, uncuttable, massless, endless, knot-free, cooked spaghetti"
- PrettyPebble 5y ago
  More at https://www.motionmountain.net/onresearch.html https://www.motionmountain.net/onresearch.html

PrettyPebble 5y ago

No, I'm not. And reading the cited exchange is indeed useful to see this. The topic here was that physics can be summed up in 9 lines. Anonymous ad hominem arguments are worthless in this context - but obviously important to certain people.

logicallee 5y ago

I liked the original post at https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html , except for a couple of words I point out below. After reading your comment I looked at the original post with a view to identifying its basic perspective. https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html was clearly not written by a physicist, as it includes the line "The nine lines contain physics, chemistry, material science, biology, medicine, geology, astronomy, engineering and computer science. It appears that the nine lines contain all natural sciences!" which is not a physics type of statement. Obviously, physics contains everything, just the way "bits contain all software". Observing that doesn't make someone a programmer, in my opinion. Why stop at physics, chemistry, material science, biology, medicine, geology, astronomy, engineering and computer science (list provided). A physicist could correctly state: "Physics contains all aspects of chemistry, Earth science / Geology, Oceanography/ marine science, Meteorology, astronomy, biology, molecular interactions, physiological mechanisms, evolution, botany / plant science(s), Zoology, Ecology, etc." However, it is kind of like saying text comprises all of the words of Shakespeare. Well, sure, but that doesn't mean that you get Shakespearean criticism from writing a text editor. It's two different fields. The author has an interesting outsider view shown in https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html https://www.motionmountain.net/9lines.html However, the lines "Isn't this incredible?" and "Enjoy searching for answers." are sarcastic and disrespectful to the work actual physicists put into their discipline for decades and the author should be ashamed for this tone. If they want to be a physicist they should observe and learn from physicists at every opportunity. (I'm not one, by the way.) Ignoring the rude sarcasm, we can correctly summarize the document as "Physics governs everything. Period." It's not a physics document. It is (or rather ought to be) a tribute to physicists and the unbreakable laws of physics.

PrettyPebble 5y ago
Thank you for your candid feedback. I belong to those working in physics for decades. To avoid such misunderstandings in future, I improved a few lines. One remark: the text is really meant to state that the specific 9 lines given do contain all of physics (and thus all other natural sciences). The argument differs from "words and Shakespeare": the nine line describe nature exactly, within measurement precision. That is the central content of that page. It is not that physics governs everything. It is that those specific 9 lines describe all measurements, all observations, and contain all equations. This is a much stronger statement.

PrettyPebble 5y ago

With several recent PRDs.

knzhou 5y ago
The Physical Review is a gigantic set of journals, and like anything of its size, many of its published results are wrong. At this very moment I'm writing a rebuttal to a PRD paper that arrived at nonsensical conclusions due to some basic algebra mistakes.
spekcular 5y ago
"Several"? Google Scholar shows two, one of which is an approximately 1-page comment on a rebuttal to the other one. Neither mentions "strand theory," the focus of the criticism in that link.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

knzhou 5y ago

Indeed, the author's 2000-page online textbook, heavily promoted on the internet, is a classic trap for unwary students. It looks alright at first: volume I is light on math, but full of neat examples. But it's full of intuitively plausible but slightly wrong statements which fall apart in more general situations, reflecting the author's lack of technical expertise. This problem steadily gets worse: volume IV is an oversimplified introduction to quantum mechanics which contains almost no math, and serious conceptual errors on almost every page. Volume V covers a bizarre mix of particle physics, consciousness, and sexual reproduction. And volume VI is the author's almost math-free personal theory of everything. Because the change is gradual, a student can get seriously misled without noticing, like the proverbial boiling frog. On HN, people are always asking how to get started self-learning topics like physics. The tragedy is that this has been a completely solved problem for decades: the standard textbooks are excellent. But people don't hear that message because self-promoters pollute the discourse.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hoten 5y ago
What are the standard textbooks? Could I just look at the curriculum of any physics program of a respected school and go from there?
- spekcular 5y ago
  Yes. Whatever MIT uses for their OpenCourseWare is going to be fine, for example.
mncharity 5y ago
> the standard textbooks are excellent A caveat. Some years ago, at a first-tier university, some physicists and mathematicians were munching. A physics professor described how days earlier he thought he had found a case of a well-respected intro physics textbook saying something wrong. But, after some hours and days of thought, he realized the textbook was very carefully worded so as to not be incorrect. Yay. Most everyone smiled and agreed it was an excellent textbook. A bit later, there was a quiet out-of-band question: So... if you're already an expert on the topic, and do a close read, after thinking about it for days, you will escape being misled... and this is a win?? There's an old physics education research joke: If you think your lectures are working, your assessment also isn't. I've found that to apply to much science education content as well.

awwaiid 5y ago

Further down in the thread, crank or not, I found this note on their 'strand' theory very convincing from a FSM perspective: "Today is the first of April. Imagine strands as fluctuating, scaled-down, uncuttable, massless, endless, knot-free, cooked spaghetti"

PrettyPebble 5y ago
More at https://www.motionmountain.net/onresearch.html https://www.motionmountain.net/onresearch.html