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I used to discuss these kind of theories online. Or, rather, these kind of people would visit the forums/boards I used to visit, and then present their "great g
by maaaats 11y ago
I used to discuss these kind of theories online. Or, rather, these kind of people would visit the forums/boards I used to visit, and then present their "great ground shaking theories". As the author here states, most of these theories had fundamental flaws. New particles named after themselves that didn't explain anything the model of physics does today. Or the theories weren't consistent with observations, for instance they failed to explain how pushing one object of 1kg into another object would end up.
Most of these people were old, many engineers (edit: which the article agrees with) with a former basic knowledge of physics. They kinda reminds me of the old professor in the movie "Proof", that has lost grip on reality and invented his own "proofs". Or the movie "A beautiful mind" when he's on his worst. It's a bit sad, really.
- bitJericho 11y agoI tried to argue with a crackpot once and even recommended psychiatric help if needed and all it did was make me feel terrible, it did not convince the crackpot. Needless to say I've now resigned to just ignoring them altogether.
- vixen99 11y agoNice segue from 'a crackpot' to 'them'. They have labels pasted all over them so no difficulty in crossing to the other side of the street.
- bitJericho 11y agoWell crackpots are different from me, in that I don't believe I'm one, so yes there is indeed a difference between myself and "them". Sorry if I'm not politically correct enough for you. Just to clarify, I have no issue with crackpots, mentally ill people, whatever you want to call them. My only point is that trying to convince someone that they are a crackpot is not going to work, at least over the internet!
- JadeNB 11y agoI think the claim is not so much that you are or might be a crackpot, as that it's too easy to misdiagnose a genuine revolutionary as a crackpot. The canonical example for mathematicians is Ramanujan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan); Hardy would have been perfectly justified in thinking him a crackpot and throwing away his letters, and one of the most valuable collaborations in number theory would never have happened.
- EGreg 11y agoI love something about this comment. But what!
- tormeh 11y agoA prof at a small college I know apparently found something wrong with relativity. Tried to publish, but got brushed off in the peer review. The troublesome thing was that his reaction was "fine, I'll go back to teaching, then". A little bitter, but he just gave up. Maybe he was just wrong, but he's smart and definitely not fanatical.
- nitrogen 11y agoThere is always the Internet.
- tormeh 11y agoNo, that's the point. He doesn't care enough to try to make others pay attention. He just went on with his life. Unusually mentally healthy crackpot? Perhaps.
- badpenny 11y agoOr maybe he was just wrong.
- tormeh 11y agoYeah, probably. I just like it more when wrong people are angry. Calm, reasonable but also wrong people make me uneasy. Say that you encounter a conspiracy theorist. When you point out that his theory is crazy, you don't want him to propose to agree to disagree, right? At that point, I feel like I might be wrong, because I'm the most argumentative. Get what I mean?
- chriswarbo 11y agoIt might not be of interest to cutting-edge researchers, but I think it's still important from a pedagogical perspective to see what mistakes are made by intelligent, educated, non-crackpots who think they've found a glaring error, or some fantastical consequence. Usually it would be some common mistake/misconception, eg. applying special relativity in a non-intertial reference frame, but occasionally it might give a real insight into the analogies and methods used to teach a concept.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoWhy is it sad? At least they're doing something they enjoy doing with their time.
- DanBC 11y agoSmegal posted this link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9544163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9544163 If you read that the person involved doesn't seem to be enjoying the experience; they frequently attack others; they take up quite a lot of time; etc.
- tfinniga 11y agoI imagine it's very frustrating for them. It also wastes quite a bit of other people's time. And, they're wrong, so the whole thing is a waste. Just take up fishing or something. Or if you really want to get into physics, enrol in a PhD program, or even some online courses. Physics is weird and unintuitive, but that's just because we're living in a simulation which was sloppily coded by the lizard people.
- darkmighty 11y agoI really like this principle from cryptography: "Anyone can make a cryptosystem that he himself cannot break."