3 ms·

Are you trying to suggest here that Baez isn't aware of the existence of virtual particles? He's done lots of work in quantum field theory.

• readerrrr 12y ago
  He dismissed the idea in a very arrogant way, just look at the wording, because someone used a incompatible word. Yet, the experiments gave a result; but he doesn't like that, and instead of using arguments he used ridicule, which doesn't show any credibility.
  • idlewords 12y ago
    If you find his tone objectionable, try to look past it. Baez is a fellow worth listening to. He makes a number of substantive arguments why this looks and smells like crank science (for example, the contradictory statements about whether the experiment was done in a vacuum). It's perfectly legitimate of him to point out some social cues that you would not expect from a serious scientist making this kind of claim. The faster-than-light neutrino experiment gave a result, too, but in these cases the onus is massively on the people making the wild claims, and rightly so.
  • TTPrograms 12y ago
    The wording used indicates that the writers have no understanding of the current state of the field, which is extremely highly correlated with crackpottery in physics. It's not a comment on the experiment, it's a comment on the fact that the hand-wavy theoretical explanation doesn't pass the sniff test to anyone who's taken QFT.