Hmmm...., it seems to me that before one has the right to brag about Cal
Tech, one needs to at least have graduated from Cal Tech. How does one get
off bragging about Cal Tech when one dropped out of Cal Tech.
"Hey look all you puny Vorticians, bow before me, the EXPERT. You ain't
smart enough since you did not take a class under Feynman so you can't
understand Relatvity. I did, so I'm the expert in all thing Physics. Blah
blah blah ... Feynman, blah blah blah ... Cal Tech, blah blah blah ....
e=mc2. There you go, I'm an expert in Relativity."
LOL ....
Do they even teach Relativity to freshmen? I don't believe one who dropped
out after the 1st term of his Junior year would even have the mathematical
background to even begin to understand Relativity. I know in my 5-year
Engineering degree, we did not even cover advanced partial differential
equations until late the 3rd year, let alone Metric Tensors, both of which
are fundamental mathematical skills one needs to even begin to understand
Relativity. Heck, I know some Physics professors who do not even have
complete understanding of the intricacies of Relatvity. But lo and behold,
a college dropout is lecturing a Chemical Engineer about Relativity.
LOL....
Jojo
----- Original Message -----
From: "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 4:51 AM
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Miley, et al - 62M Neutrons within 5 minutes - dangerous?
At 12:43 PM 8/21/2012, David Roberson wrote:
I suggest that the statement about the average Vortician is not called
for. Who placed you in a category above the others of the collective?
Enough said.
I suppose it's too much to expect....
To make this clear, people here have the right to say whatever silly thing
comes to mind. Or not-silly. And others have the right to say it's silly
or not-silly. "Silly" is primarily about ideas.
What I wrote was this:
Well, I suppose it's too much to expect for the average Vortician to
understand relativity.
We can also say that Vortex is a collection of looney-tunes. Like me, for
example. Or not, whatever.
The comment in question, and I'm not calling up the name of the person who
wrote it, [not yet, I later looked] because that's not my point, was about
relativity, and it demonstrated a major ignorance of the meaning of time
dilation in relativity. What I'd hope is that the person would realize
that there are some, ah, defects in their knowledge, and they would go and
learn about it, or even .... nah, that's too much to expect for the
average Vortician!
Ask.
By the way, I'm sometimes considered an expert on LENR. That's because I
wrote about it, over and over, starting in 2009 when I knew little except
for a general physics and chemistry background (from school, long ago, and
continued general interest). Eventually I came to the point where I was
writing for and with true experts, and I continue to learn, because some
kind people actually point out my errors, when I'm lucky.
If I'm making errors, of any kind, on the level of that error about
relativity, I sure hope someone will point it out!
Having said that, David, are you pointing out an error? What error? I'm
not "in a category above the others of the collective." All of us are free
to "correct" each other, rightly or wrongly. Do you think I don't feel
that way?
In any case, David, thanks for presenting the opportunity to clarify this,
in case it wasn't clear.
Okay, now I look at the original message. It was from David Roberson
himself. Bad sign.
Look, I went to Cal Tech. This was a collection of the smartest kids in
North America, all jammed together, a few hundred of us at most. (at least
smart by certain test measures, there are other forms of intelligence and
by some of them, we might have been pretty stupid). How did we talk with
each other?
"Warm body!"
A warm body can tell the difference between light and dark, that was the
formal definition. It means being of minimal intelligence. A "moron" would
be a lot smarter.
Nowadays, it would likely be more colorful. I've spent some time hanging
out with students on a wiki, some of them quite "smart," and how they talk
with each other and anyone within reach would be blood-curdling to someone
expecting ordinary social courtesies.
Sensitivity to being called "ignorant" is not characteristic of
intelligence, it is characteristic of someone insecure about their own
position. Were David defending someone else, which is what I thought at
first, it would be another matter. But, no, he's defending himself.
Ah, well, I suppose it's too much to expect....
Vortex has always been a bit of a free-for-all. I have no particular
history with David, no collected prejudice. I had to look at his
contributions to the list to see them as appearing to begin about a year
ago. (I joined Vortex in 2009, when I'd been researching cold fusion for a
few months.)
'Nuff said, indeed.
