On Sat, Apr 23, Levi Pearson wrote: > On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 2:35 PM, Nicholas Leippe <[email protected]> wrote: > >> And despite all the effort gone into the theory and things coming out >> of it, it is still just a theory, and with demonstrable flaws at >> that--yet most physicists refuse to even question it--they *believe* >> it, and consider it a rock-solid foundation to base other stuff on top >> of... The current state of modern physics is essentially that of a >> tightly-controlled religion with a canon of esoteric maths--if you >> dare to question the underpinnings you are belittled, mocked, hushed, >> and/or shunned as a quack--science has all but been left behind. > > I don't know what kind of questioning of underpinnings you're > referring to, but from what I've seen, most of the people who get > dismissed or shunned as quacks are not really offering valid arguments > for their views. Attacking the underpinnings of current scientific > models is not a task to be taken lightly, as they have withstood > attacks by the scientific community for a very long time now, and > their strengths and weaknesses are fairly well known. This is not to > say that new ones couldn't be found, but they fall under the category > of 'extraordinary claims', the likes of which require 'extraordinary > evidence' to justify.
I occasionally come across something that claims to solve one of the fundamental unresolved questions of physics while attacking the standardly accepted models. I still wonder how accurate the ring model of elementary particles might be, but I haven't seen a good description of the "magnetic pinch force" it requires: http://www.commonsensescience.org/spinning_ring.html Unfortunately, it's also combined with rants about the nonsensical nature of quantum mechanics, and the high number of underived experimental constants in the standard model. The former was better attacked by Einstein, who worked through all of the implications to design experiments to show how stupid quantum is; all such experiments have indeed shown the crazy results predicted, and some of them have inspired amazing technological advancements. The latter is only partially addressed by the ring model, but is fully addressed by certain versions of string theory. The universe as an expanding hyperspheric "bubble" also makes some sort of sense, but is also presented as a vague description without any mathematical model. Of course, at the very extreme, there's always the Time Cube... - Eric /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
