Pathological Physics : Tales from "The Box" - YouTube - 1 hour long, repeats itself
Pathological physics - its slides
"The Box" contains a big collection of physics crackpottery that physicists at California Polytechnic State University have collected. Dr. David Dixon discusses this big collection.
Crazy. Incoherent with loose associations and little or no overall sense. Could some of these theorists be mentally ill?
Naive. Unfamiliar with a lot of important concepts. Lots of concept mixing.
Stubborn. The most interesting type. They like to create and do:
Theories of everything
"What a great genius I am and what great theories I have"
Lack of disproof = proof
Specious precision, like 30+ digits
"Deriving" fundamental constants, like the fine-structure constant
Convenient redefinitions
For some reason, many physics crackpots are engineers, including retired engineers.
Why do this? To explore common misconceptions. Debunking them can be a good exercise.
Some physics crackpots have organized the Natural Philosophy Alliance | A New Vision for the Universe (The "Real Science" Alliance)
Answers to audience questions:
Physics crackpots don't usually criticize each other's work, unlike mainstream scientists.
They usually think that physics before 1900 is OK. It's relativity and/or quantum mechanics that they often have trouble with. I note that that's a big contrast to 19th-cy. physics crackpottery, which was often anti-Newton.
They aren't very interested in experimental tests, mostly theorizing: Just So Stories and cherry-picking experimental results.
They often seem to believe in the Lone Genius theory of scientific progress.
Pathological physics - its slides
"The Box" contains a big collection of physics crackpottery that physicists at California Polytechnic State University have collected. Dr. David Dixon discusses this big collection.
Crazy. Incoherent with loose associations and little or no overall sense. Could some of these theorists be mentally ill?
Naive. Unfamiliar with a lot of important concepts. Lots of concept mixing.
Stubborn. The most interesting type. They like to create and do:
Theories of everything
"What a great genius I am and what great theories I have"
Lack of disproof = proof
Specious precision, like 30+ digits
"Deriving" fundamental constants, like the fine-structure constant
Convenient redefinitions
For some reason, many physics crackpots are engineers, including retired engineers.
Why do this? To explore common misconceptions. Debunking them can be a good exercise.
Some physics crackpots have organized the Natural Philosophy Alliance | A New Vision for the Universe (The "Real Science" Alliance)
Answers to audience questions:
Physics crackpots don't usually criticize each other's work, unlike mainstream scientists.
They usually think that physics before 1900 is OK. It's relativity and/or quantum mechanics that they often have trouble with. I note that that's a big contrast to 19th-cy. physics crackpottery, which was often anti-Newton.
They aren't very interested in experimental tests, mostly theorizing: Just So Stories and cherry-picking experimental results.
They often seem to believe in the Lone Genius theory of scientific progress.
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=264137&goto=newpost
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