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Actual paper at author's web site: http://www.helsinki.fi/~aannila/arto/light.pdf http://www.helsinki.fi/~aannila/arto/light.pdf. I have to say that a brief per
by gjm11 15y ago
Actual paper at author's web site: http://www.helsinki.fi/~aannila/arto/light.pdf http://www.helsinki.fi/~aannila/arto/light.pdf. I have to say that a brief perusal sets off my crank alarms, although the author does appear to be a real physicist. ... Oh. On googling a bit more, I find that the author has also claimed a proof that P != NP [EDITED to add: available at http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.1084 http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.1084]. The signs aren't looking good.
- splat 15y agoAnother good rule of thumb is not to put too much stock in any papers typeset in Microsoft Word rather than LaTeX (as this one was). Perhaps I'll give it a closer look if it ever gets any citations, but I wouldn't put much money on that happening.
- tzs 15y agoConsidering that some top journals (such as Nature and Science) require or recommend Word format, your rule of thumb is ridiculous.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- splat 15y agoIn astronomy, anyway, LaTeX is the default. It's probably different in other fields which is why the broader journals use Word.
- Jabbles 15y agoWell he starts off by considering the kinetic energy of light...
- lutorm 15y agoa brief perusal sets off my crank alarms That's what I was going to say, too. And I got more convinced the further down I got. The weird, convoluted wording was a big tipoff. And then this sealed it: When a star explodes and its mass is combusted into radiation, conservation requires that the number of quanta stays the same, whether in the form of matter or radiation. There is no conservation law limiting the number of photons. This is obviously observed any time you turn on a light bulb.
- splat 15y agoIf I were being charitable I might think that he was referring to conservation of baryon number or lepton number...but all other indicators point to him not knowing what he's talking about. I'm actually pretty surprised that this paper was accepted. MNRAS is a fairly prestigious journal.
- lutorm 15y agoThat would take a significant amount of charitability (?) since he says ...whether in the form of matter or radiation
- Plimsoll 15y agoyes the author is real physicist but it should be noted that he is a professor of biophysics. So cosmology is not exactly in his field of specialty.