Over the weekend, in an attempt to cheer me up, a kind and generous reader sent me a link to a really wonderful site of crackpot science. It's a crackpot theory about how physics has it all wrong. You see, there is no such thing as gravity - it's all just pressure. And the earth (and all other planets) is actually a matter factory - matter is constantly created in the hollow center of the earth, and the pressure of all the new matter forces the earth to constantly expand. And the pressure of expansion creates the illusion of gravity. And according to the crackpot behind it all, the best part is that the math works!
The site is the masterwork of graphic artist Neal Adams. Mr. Adams is a computer animation guy; he's responsible for the obnoxious bumblebee "nasonex" ad. Mr. Adams believes that in addition to drawing comic books and animated TV commercials, he's also a genius who's going to totally reinvent all of physics, and show how all of those bigshot physicists and geologists are all wrong about everything.
According to Mr. Adams, there's really only one kind of particle in the universe, which he calls the "prime matter particle". The prime matter particle is actually made out of two particles, a positron and an electron. But it's all really prime matter particles, because the other two are just half particles. So when he says there's only one particle, he means that there are really two particles, which always come in pairs. Now, all of the universe is completely covered in prime matter particles, jammed up against each other, except when they're broken into electron/positron pairs.
Further, there are only two forces in the universe. One is the attraction of the electron and the positron, trying to get themselves back together into a prime matter particle. And the other is centrifugal force, because, you see, the universe is spinning, and the spinning tries to push everything apart.
In his own words:
This new model says, there is only one Particle, the Prime Matter particle.
- The Prime Matter (the "Ocean" that is our universe.) Which is 1 whole particle (the other two are thrust from this.)
- The Electron. 1/2 particle
- The Positron. 1/2 particle
These single particles fill the universe from edge to edge. An ocean of Prime Matter particles.
Ah, beautiful, isn't it? But why do we ever see the half-particles? If the fundamental force of the universe is electromagnetism holding the two halves of the prime matter particle together, why do we see things with positive or negative charges?
If one of these Matter particles is struck by a photon of energy, it is thrust in half, into two half pieces. These two half particles are the only two basic matter particles of the universe.
D'oh! It gets hit by a photon.
But where'd the photon come from? Good question. Shame he never answers it. But more importantly: how did it get to the prime matter particle in the first place?
Remember: space is completely filled by these PMPs. It's a complete packing of space. So, suppose that in this theory, we can come up with some reason for there being things like the sun that produce photons. How do those photons get to earth? If they hit a PMP, the PMP splits into an electron and a positron. And there is no space between the PMPs.
Every particle of every sort is made of these three, or some combination of them, and the only field in the universe is the field between these two half particles, which is merely trying to bring these particles back together again, JUST as the universe is trying to hold the universe apart. (From spin.)
These Prime Matter particles are invisible to us because their magnetic field is inward facing. A matter particle's (electro)-magnetic field is by comparison to its field like a fly in a baseball stadium. If that same field is flowing only within, the electron shell (bubble) to the positron at the core this is a very small field indeed. Though as strong as an electron positron pairs combined field. And only when a photon strikes a Prime Matter particle and splits it, does its magnetic field blossom out and become revealed and apparent to us, as matter.
Yeah, the magnetic fields are inward facing! That's why we can't see them! Of course!
And here's where it gets really fun. Because, you see, the math works!
Every electron in the universe is matched perfectly, energy for energy, mass for mass, by the single positron that is inside each proton. Commonly it is thought that the proton does not contain a positron ... for a number of reasons ... yet in positive beta decay a positron is ejected. Most would say the positron is produced, but it is truly in there. One day soon ... a collider will pop out, (if it doesn't find an electron first.)
The positron is the "plus one" of the proton. All other particles balance out neutral, unless you 'manage' or 'fudge' the physics. In this theory it has to be there ... it is what built the proton and it provides the 'strong force' that binds it. It had to be in there! All other 919 particles that make up the proton are neutral prime matter "WHOLE" particles.
Why such an odd number as 919?? Well the positron is the 920th (half) particle in the proton. When we add the other half- particle, the electron, we get 920 or...1840 electron 1/2 electron weight!
Just as electrons in shells exchange energy, the Prime Matter particles that make up the Proton and Neutron, exchange energy,...and so are mistaken for, what we call Quarks and such. Still, they are Prime Matter particles. At this level stronger than the electrons exchange rate in atom's shells. Prime matter particles, also, exchange or borrow and share CHARGE. Inner particles need greater charge so they borrow from the particles we call quarks.
Too simple?
It has to be....simple, doesn't it? And first....the math works.
Funny. When I first heard that one of his claims for the validity of his theory was "the math works", at the very least, I expected something like a demonstration of how, using his theory, you can derive equations showing that the PMP theory's fundamental forces can explain gravitational forces... Or even better, some attempt to explain something that the standard model's theories have a problem with - like reconciling gravity with quantum effects. Or even just explaining quantum effects at all.
But no. In fact, when he says the math works, what he means is: if you take any particle in the standard model, by looking at its mass, he can tell you how many PMPs are in the particle. Yes, the math works because he arbitrarily set the "mass" of a PMP as the lowest common denominator of the masses of the basic particles. And that's all that he means by "the math works".
Why is a proton made of 919 PMPs plus one positron and one electron? Why is it that only 919 unbroken PMPs plus one broken PMP is a stable charged particle? Why is there only one stable configuration of PMPs that forms a stable neutral particle? There's no math to explain that. There's no math to explain how gravity works. There's no math to explain why/how PMPs form common matter particles.
Hell, even ignoring that, just think about simple things. What does mass mean here? It's the number of PMPs in something, right? But PMPs are everywhere. In a dense packing, covering every bit of space. So why do some areas of space have mass and inertia? Why is the earth a large body that interacts with photons, gravity, etc., and yet all of the PMPs in space surrounding it don't? Why does a moving body like the earth not get slowed down by pushing all of those PMPs out of the way?
Well, here's his explanation.
Let's say...for a minute we can use our small matter Galaxy as a model of this big super-universe, and some of the same rules apply relative to, say, movement. We say there are some areas of movement that our perception would consider random, (but which is probably not random at all), like the movements of galaxies. We actually see galaxies pass through other galaxies out there.
Let's say a portion of the super universe rides by another portion...like, say galaxies....or the gases on the outer surface of Jupiter. On the surface of Jupiter gases ride BY each other in layers. When this happens the layers are traveling at differing speeds, like trains riding by each other at differing speeds. One train going faster than the other causes a series of whirlpools of air between the trains.
On Jupiter we see the same thing. Two streams of gas side by side, one is faster than the other and so BETWEEN THE LAYERS we see rolling balls of gas. (The same thing happens to initiate the eddies that become the suns in a galaxy like ours.
In the super-universe one of those spinning balls of gas is our universe.
See, we're sort of the three dimensional version of the great red spot on Jupiter. The drag of all of those PMPs moving past each other in currents produces eddies, which turn into balls which are planets and stars. And in a larger version of the same effect, our universe is just a larger eddy.
And "the math works".
Within the eddies, gravity, according to him, is magnetic effects of broken PMPs:
It's a mighty tug of war between and on these 'lines')
This one small ball of ...universal spin makes 'our' universe.....! That's all.
Though this, our, universe is NOTHING (to our perception). The spin pulls outward at this nothing.
But this....NOTHING doesn't 'want' to be" thinned out",...IT RESISTS!
THE PULLING WINS! But we don't get one big bubble of less emptiness. Planke sees to that. Billion upon billions of tiny bubbles are created, stretched out. Held by tendrils of force, (The same stuff, stretched out. The magnetic "lines" are the stretched stuff in-pulling. the spaces between the lines are the tear-aparts and they are negative.
See, he can invoke names of smart people like Planke, and wave his hands around, shouting "the math works! I'm a genius"
This asks the question, do the magnetic line around the Sun hold the planets "ON" the lines, or does the space between the lines "PUSH" the planets to the lines? (Or both?)
Each bubble holds a portion of that pulling apart....At the core OF each bubble is the "Attracting" in-pulling point object. We call it a positron.
See, that's what replaces gravity. The earth orbits the sun because there's a magnetic line holding it there. 'course, that "magnetic line" is invisible, and unmeasurable. In fact, all orbits are just things stringing along magnetic lines. Can he explain how, for instance, the shuttle maneuvers in orbit? Well, apparently, there must be an infinite number of these magnetic lines, because we can alter orbits of spacecraft and satellites in almost infinitessimally minute ways, and they behave pretty much exactly how newtonian gravitation and relativity predict that they should. Does he have any math to support this?
No.
He's got one more tiny bit of math in there, explaining how awful the standard model is, and how much more perfectly brilliant his system is:
Solid reasoning says...if there's a way we can use Positrons, Electrons and prime matter particles, to make all the other particles then we can show and prove there are only two basic particles.
It turns out that all these particles can be constructed from Electrons, Positrons and prime matter particles. Anti particles simply need a positron.
Even if this were only an outside possibility, this is far more valid and logical than the standard model...which REQUIRES NEW particles of unknown origin and fantasy far-out theory.
Two simple examples, the muon and the tau, (and their anti-particles).
The Muon: weighs 207 times the mass of an Electron.
It has 4 layers of prime Matter particles with 5 added to each corner .9 extended by the field.
That's 64 with 40 added (5 per each corner equals 104 (times) 2, (electron/positron ) minus 1, that's 207.The Tau: Is an electron with 14 layers (in successive cube layers of prime matter particles with corner particles limited by the same field and ending abruptly.
That's 92 from each corner, times 8 corners
That's 726 Prime Matter particles which totals
2018 prime Matter particles. Double that and you get
4036 Electron weight.Anti-particles, remove the core electrons and replace with positron.
Neutrinos:....Remove electrical.
All protons and neutrons have a core positron and 919 Prime Matter particles. The neutron has an added Electron.
That's 1838 wt. for the proton and 1840 for the neutron.
More of the same. His theory must be correct, because the math works. And what the math works means is nothing more than the fact that he can say how many PMPs are in any of the particles. That works, right, so the entire theory must be dead-on.
Comments
The New England Skeptical Society interviewed Adams on their podcast, The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. You can get the podcast at http://www.theskepticsguide.org/skepticsguide/podcastinfo.asp?pid=51, which also has an extended email conversation between NESS president Dr. Stephen Novella and Adams.
All of this -- all of Adams's cosmology -- is to handle the fact that he just can't accept plate tectonics.
Be warned, the interview gets quite painful to listen to.
Posted by: James | December 19, 2006 10:19 AM
Wow/woo. I'm not sure I was ready for something so scary, this early in the morning. Need some coffee now.
Posted by: bioephemera | December 19, 2006 10:25 AM
Planck. Max Planck. (Against the rules of German orthography, BTW.)
Posted by: David Marjanović | December 19, 2006 11:06 AM
Obviously, the reason my head is spinning now is because of the Coriolis effect due to the rotating universe, jam-packed with PMPs.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | December 19, 2006 12:14 PM
A pity, since at one time I liked Neal Adams' naturalistic style in his comics. But artists seems often afflicted by kookery, as engineers from the other side of an imagined cultural divide. Perhaps it is the same psychological mechanisms behind, a strong "can do" attitude.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | December 19, 2006 12:21 PM
So let me get this straight:
If I propose that the entire universe is in fact made out of, say, squirrels and nuts, and that one squirrel has a mass of 1/1840th of the proton weight, then I can wave my hands and say "the math works!" and my entire theory - including all the wacky bits about gravity being the inherent attraction that squirrels have for nuts, and any repulsive force being the nuts trying to get away - is proven?
Wow, this fundamental particle physics is easier than I thought. I wonder if I can get a research grant for building a squirrel accelerator...
Posted by: Al Davidson | December 19, 2006 12:29 PM
Waitaminnit, this guy's a graphic artist? No wonder his CGI work is so awful.
Posted by: Brian X | December 19, 2006 12:52 PM
Fortunately, the basic prototype technology necessary to build a squirrel accelerator is already in place, though it is not (ahem) completely reliable.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | December 19, 2006 1:07 PM
Ahhh, Thompson, Dirac, and Anderson were so close! If only they had been clever enough to predict/find the PMP! What a drag :(
Posted by: jarvisjd | December 19, 2006 1:53 PM
Hey, these last few articles (this one and nullity) are really bumming me out. Mainly because about halfway through the article I say to myself "Well, It could work." and then feel incredibly dumb for considering it by the end of the article. (and i still say on this one that it could be true but he hasn't actually provided any evidence for it. or perhaps I want it to be true because it's so much simpler than the standard model, much like string theory.)
But the articles have also kinda bummed me out because I always liked the idea that one guy with a crazy idea could be right (i.e. Einstein). You got any of those type articles (the ones that involve theories that are long shots but are actually reasonable) laying around?
Posted by: Jon | December 19, 2006 2:16 PM
Torbj&oml;rn:
People who fall for things are often termed "suggestible". I have a suspicion that "suggestible" is just a form of "creative".
Consider a typical (non-hoax) alien abduction "victim", for example. Someone has a real physiological experience. (Let's say a seizure in the temporal lobe, which is one common theory.) It's a bit traumatic, as you'd expect. And the brain gets some sensations which it doesn't understand.
Now imagine that you're the sort of person who is constantly inspired by what you see to create things (i.e. an artist). A weird, traumatic experience like that is going to set your brain off creating things.
In many respects this is no different from the hundreds of paintings that Van Gogh painted when he was manic. It's tempting to say that "artists are mad", which might be slightly true in a metaphorical sense, but it's no more true than it is for engineers. Engineers are also creative, for the most part.
For the record, I have no evidence for this theory. Not being trained in psychology or psychiatry, I have no idea how one would go about testing it or even stating it formally. I haven't, shocking though it may seem, even checked if the math works.
Posted by: Pseudonym | December 19, 2006 4:04 PM
Actually, I think it's unfair to both Einstein and physics to use the one-guy-with-a-crazy-idea story. That's a creation of the popular press, not a scientific reality. The idea that curved-space geometries might be relevant to physics was current in the 19th century already; Gauss actually did some surveying between mountain peaks to find out whether we were living in a flat or curved space, and mathematicians like Clifford (yay for bivectors!) were, IIRC, speculating about gravity as a curvature.
Einstein was in a position to bring that concept to fruition, because he'd already (in special relativity) made use of a metric tensor (Minkowski flat metric for SR) for the spacetime action; substituting the metric for a curved spacetime then gives you an action where the geodesics are gravitational trajectories. I should stop now, as I'm getting out of my depth, but it would be great if MCC could write something qualitative about GR. Hint, hint :)
Posted by: Stephen Wells | December 19, 2006 4:09 PM
Well, I wasn't just talking about general relativity, but the man as a whole (or rather, special relativity, general relativity, and the photoelectric effect) and the fact that he was working in a patent office at the time.
I'll admit that it might be a little unfair to term him 'one guy with a crazy idea', and I imagine much of his popculture status was fabricated both by the media and himself, but unless I'm grossly mistaken he wasn't exactly a model of the 'traditional' scientist. Another example might be Leibniz (actually I might be thinking of someone else who was described to me as an attorney and an amateur mathematician who made some fairly influential mark on mathematics.)
My point was that the focus of this article (other than "the math works lolol") almost seemed to be "well, he's an artist, so obviously he can't have any good ideas." Again, maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I'd like to believe people can still make important contributions to mathematics and science without having to be specialist in the given technical field they are contributing to. But I suspect those days are long gone.
Anyway, yeah, if not, a nice general relativity piece would do.
Posted by: Jon | December 19, 2006 7:04 PM
OK, the positron-electron thing may be nuts, but I believe the centrifugal force idea is worthy of the type of serious discussion it receives here: http://xkcd.com/c123.html
Posted by: Jud | December 19, 2006 7:34 PM
Jon:
In math, there is the fascinating case of the Indian mathematician Ramanujan. He was a completely self-taught mathematician living a life of poverty in India. He ended up sending letters to several famous mathematicians containing some of his number-theory proofs. At least two of the receivers just ignored it because they couldn't understand
what he'd written. Fortunately, one of the receivers recognized what he'd done, and realized that the proof sketched in the papers was well beyond the ability of any of the great mathematicians of the day.
This leads to one of my favorite quotes in all of mathematical history: "a single look at them [Ramanujan's equations] is enough to show that they could only be written down by a mathematician of the highest class. They must be true, for if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them."
Hardy arranged for Ramanujan to come to Cambridge. Unfortunately, Ramanujan didn't stay there longer, and died of TB shortly after moving back to India.
Ramanujan is remembered as a mathematician on a par with the very greatest mathematicians in history.
I'll try to do some research to gather more information about him, and put together a post. He's a fascinating person who deserves to be remembered, and definitely *the* pre-eminent example of the lone genius toiling in isolation.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | December 19, 2006 7:43 PM
Re Stephen Wells
Actually, the most pertinent mathematical work for the predecessor to general relativity was by the French Mathematcian Poincare' and the German Mathematician Riemann who both developed the field of geometry now known as Riemannian geometry.
Posted by: SLC | December 19, 2006 8:24 PM
Jon said: "My point was that the focus of this article (other than "the math works lolol") almost seemed to be "well, he's an artist, so obviously he can't have any good ideas.""
I would say that the disdain that science-types have for the Neil Adams types comes more from the fact that such people usually demonstrate only the shallowest comprehension of the subject they profess to have attained complete understanding of. It's not that his being an artist means he has no good ideas, it's more that without knowing all the subtleties of the work done before, one can't expect to make meaningful contributions. Artists and musicians would feel similar annoyance with a person who had claimed to create the 'next great art revolution' without any knowledge of art history and technique.
Working alone isn't the problem, as MCC's example of Ramanujan illustrates - it's working in isolation/ignorance which is discrediting. On a related note, I often tell people about what I call 'crazy old man syndrome', in which a respected thinker goes into isolation and comes out with ideas that are dated, irrelevant, or simply bat$#!+ insane. Two examples that come to mind are Descartes (and his line of reasoning after, 'I think, therefore I am'), and Wolfram's 'A New Kind of Science'.
Posted by: gg | December 19, 2006 11:43 PM
My theory of everything in the universe being carried around by rabbits must be correct, then.
Since the math works. And no, it's a secret, you can't see it, you'll just have to take my word for it. Or else my rabbit will get you.
Posted by: Tina | December 20, 2006 9:12 AM
There is such copious writing on the life and work of Ramanujan, that I wonder what Mark can say that is new. Switching from extreme youth to a puzzling take on the elderly:
I believe that "gg" insufficiently appreciates Descartes, as the example given is naive. Similarly, I had a low first impression of Wolfram's NKS, until an insighful review by Dr. Rudy Rucker, in the American Mathematical Monthly, convinced me to re-read it. That interested me enough to have had a poster session at the most recent Wolfram NKS Conference.
Wasn't Perelman a "a respected thinker goes into isolation and comes out with ideas that..." turned out to solve the Poincare conjecture?
Wasn't Linus Pauling?
How about Wittgenstein, a deeply, almost cultishly respected philosopher? He, late in life, rejected his earlier theory, and wrote a new Big Book.
Should Einstein not even have tried to find a unified field theory?
Is Tina referring to "Harvey" or to Fibonacci? Fibonacci is much MUCH more important than his rabbit sequence indicates. In a sense, he launched a Singularity in 1202 A.D., and a mini-renaissance in Europe, through his books, his introducing Arabic Numerals to Europe (see my entry on Arabic numerals at MathWorld) and his work at the court of the intellectual powerhouse Emperor Frederick II.
Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | December 20, 2006 10:58 AM
Pseudonym:
It is all ad hoc, of course. Convenient 'explanations' are exactly that, coat hangers for 'facts' that are induced from a few examples. I think I can state as much, without checking the math.
Oh, and to sketch my ad hoc fully, I also include the isolation effect gg discuss but in the form of isolation from facts. Ie kooky engineers and artists are often discussing ideas (such as convenient ad hocs ;-) where they don't get the feedback from observations that a 'can do' shot gun approach needs in order to give results.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | December 20, 2006 1:10 PM
As Ramanujan's name has been brought up, this isn't totally off-topic:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6194731.stm
Although it doesn't belong in teh "bad maths" category.
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | December 20, 2006 2:52 PM
Vos Post wrote: "Wasn't Perelman a "a respected thinker goes into isolation and comes out with ideas that..." turned out to solve the Poincare conjecture?"
Certainly you can find people who go into isolation and still solve important problems. It just seems to be extremely unlikely, and my impression is that a researcher does their work no favors by ignoring all that has/is being done in the field, or cherry-picking the stuff that they like (as Adams seems to have done). If the field is stagnant (because the researchers are stumped), than one isn't necessarily losing ground. If the field is vibrant and active, a single researcher is almost certainly losing ground, and may end up 'discovering' truths that have been common knowledge in the community.
I didn't think my comment about Descartes was particularly 'naive' - I don't know anyone who really feels his philosophy really proved the existence of God and the universe. Of course, it was quite influential, and he made massive, massive contributions throughout the sciences.
Finally, my comment was not meant to be an attack on elderly scientists (the term 'crazy old man syndrome' is admittedly inappropriate) - my former thesis advisor is over 80 now and still doing great work. And the examples I used to illustrate are/were not particularly old men at the time of their writings. I just don't feel the need to respect the efforts of people who ignore and/or don't understand (as in Adams' case) the work of their supposed peers.
Posted by: gg | December 20, 2006 3:02 PM
It's a shame to see Neal Adams spending time on this nonsense (or making obnoxious commercials, for that matter). He is an extremely talented creative artist who revitalized comic art by bringing in a modern commercial illustration style, and almost single-handedly raised the standard of artistic expertise in the field. And he was also a pioneer in organizing comics workers to gain more artistic and financial independence at a time when they were virtually peons of the big publishers.
Posted by: tgibbs | December 21, 2006 11:52 AM
Dear gg,
Thank you for what I accept as a friendly amendment.
One of my Math teachers, the amazing Tom Apostol at Caltech, 82, is now Professor Emiritus for over a decade, publishing more than ever, and winning awards from AMS for his papers.
It is clearly NOT true, as sometimes taught by the romantically deluded, that Mathematics is a young person's game. You can even start abstract Math in middle age, as was the case of another of my teachers, Dick Dean, who had been a meteorologist who didn't know that Group Theory existed until his 40s.
And look at the prodigious Euler accomplished as an old man -- and blind to boot!
Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | December 21, 2006 12:35 PM
Hey, give this guy a break, PMPing ain't easy!
Jon - "I want it to be true because it's so much simpler than the standard model"
The only reason it is simple is because it doesn't explain anything (and thus really conveys no information). Working out the math on theories which actually predict things tends to be more involved.
Posted by: random lurker | December 21, 2006 3:43 PM
Vos Post: 'Thank you for what I accept as a friendly amendment.'
Hey, I couldn't possibly claim that math & science are a young person's game - I'm well into my 30's and am having an increasingly difficult time thinking of myself as a 'young professional'!
There are a lot of myths about physicists and mathematicians and the way their work is done that get kind of irksome. One is the notion of these fields being a "young person's game", another is indirectly the subject of this post, the "genius outsider" - someone who comes from outside and produces a major revolution. Of course it happens sometimes, but the general public love this story so much that they will believe someone like Neal Adams simply because he ISN'T a physicist or mathematician.
Posted by: gg | December 21, 2006 5:09 PM
"People who fall for things are often termed "suggestible". I have a suspicion that "suggestible" is just a form of "creative".
I think as some truth in that. An artist (generally) needs to basically respond to gut feelings, because he or she is actually in the business of portraying feelings. In that context, critical analysis is probably counterproductive, if a creation 'works' then it is good.
Now there is nothing to keep an artist from 'switching gears' and getting into analytical scientific mode, but not that many people can easily make the jump (in either direction)
Posted by: jayh | December 22, 2006 9:13 AM
Another discussion of solitary versus social research.
Groups, Graphs, and Erdös Numbers
Ivars Peterson
Science News online
Week of June 12, 2004; Vol. 165, No. 24
"Mathematical research is generally thought to be a solitary pursuit. And some mathematicians do indeed spend their professional lives in lone contemplation of a single problem."
"The dramatic announcement in 1993 by Andrew Wiles of Princeton University that he had proved Fermat's last theorem appeared to belong to this category of discovery. Wiles had isolated himself from the rest of the mathematical community for nearly 8 years to work on the problem. Only a select few were aware of what he was trying to accomplish."
"Nonetheless, Wiles relied heavily on the work of mathematicians who had previously tackled the same problem. He occasionally tested his ideas on a handful of trusted experts in areas of mathematics relevant to his approach. When reviewers later discovered a flaw in his original chain of logic, Wiles obtained help from one of his former graduate students, Richard Taylor, to fill in the gap and complete the proof."
"In general, mathematical research is a remarkably social process. Colleagues meet constantly to compare notes, discuss problems, look for hints, and work on proofs together...."
Since the rise of email, the web, and blogs, this "working together" need not be face-to-face. More and more of my coauthors are people that I never see in meatspace, or only years after we start collaboration.
The internet is, to me, primarily collaborationware.
How sad for somee otherwise creative people to isolate themselves in a dead-end comic book cosmos.
Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | December 24, 2006 12:45 AM
I understand that Neal Adams never finished high school.
What bothers me most about his geology and physics theorizing is the adolescent, hyperbolic style of his writing: embarrassingly narcissistic and unsophisticated. And, because of Neal's professional backgound as a comics artist, it does nothing to dispel the false impression that graphic stortytelling (comic books) is an essentially childish effort.
When I first heard of Neal's science quackery about ten years ago I was disappointed; I've been a fan of his comics work all my life, and in fact his stuff was the first, biggest influence in the development of my own drawing abilities when I was a child.
Posted by: Norm Breyfogle | December 26, 2006 9:44 PM
What if he's right?
Do the continents of earth, really, actually, fit together seemlessly on a smaller globe, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? If this is true then the Earth grew; 600 million years for the first doubling, 65 million years for the second doubling (of size)
and to top it all off, at this rate, 6 million years from now, it will double it's size again.
Neal Adams theory of PMP's is his explanation of why the planet is growing. Can any of you come up with a conventional theory as to explain how this could happen? Perhaps fission or something.
Posted by: lunk | February 4, 2007 4:08 PM
lunk:
That depends on just what kinds of manipulations you're willing to permit.
The conventional (and extremely well-supported) theory does have the continents fitting together
in a single supercontinent called Pangea at some point in the past. They do fit - provided you're willing to allow a variety of twist, bends, stretches and compressions of the land-masses.
So if you're willing to allow a bit more twisting, bending, stretching, and compressing, you can make it almost fit together on a smaller globe.
But that doesn't prove anything. Because you can also twist and bend and fit them perfectly onto a flat disk; or onto the surface of a cube, or onto a section of a sphere.
The key question about things like this is mechanism. Neal Adams' theory is a complete crock of nonsense that doesn't make sense, and cannot possibly work. The fact that it can explain something that doesn't need explaining doesn't help it. If there were some actual evidence that the earth used to be smaller, that would be fine - but his only evidence for a smaller earth is his PMP theory - which doesn't actually make sense when you look at it. But when you look for evidence against an expanding earth, you find huge amounts of things that are inconsistent with it - ranging from the stability of the orbits in the solar system, to the observations of moving continental plates, to fossils... It's simply completely inconsistent with the real evidence.
And even it's math is wrong. The only thing he gets right is a kind of simple summing - which is manipulated to make it work, with no reason for the manipulations other than the fact that they make it work in a trivial way. But the math of gravity, of orbital mechanics, of basic physics, particle interaction, motion, relativity - they all utterly fall apart under his theory - his math is completely inconsistent with real observations.
It's a crock.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | February 4, 2007 6:28 PM
Yes, they fit roughly. But that is predicted from plate tectonics. When the continental plates are stretched by movements in the fluidlike hot mantle beneath, they eventually break apart. Thus the fit.
That doesn't follow. Either one of the plates are pressed beneath the other (subducted) where the plates meet, and becomes recycled when it melts in the mantle. Or they collide instead, for a while, in which case the plates push up to become new mountain ranges. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics )
This recycling or rebounding of plates explains the fit on collide sides. Grinding explains the fit on slide sides. If there is ever a theory where everything fits, this is it! :-) :-) :-)
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | February 4, 2007 10:08 PM
At one time, it was said that oil and water don't mix (on earth) The reason given was very complex. Now it turns out that if the oil and water is degassed first, they do mix.
The science was wrong.
There must be a way of testing this theory of Neal Adams' growing earth by exact measurments of this planet over time...or something.
What sort of test could prove or disprove this theory?
Posted by: lunk | February 5, 2007 2:43 AM
Mark noted: "But the math of gravity, of orbital mechanics, of basic physics, particle interaction, motion, relativity - they all utterly fall apart under his theory - his math is completely inconsistent with real observations."
A load of tests disproving it, right there.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | February 5, 2007 6:34 AM
MY EXPERIMENT:
I just took a globe of the Earth, traced and cut out (on thin paper) all the continents on the planet and taped them back together, and get this, they fit perfectly, next to each other, without the oceans! Now, I have a much smaller globe.
What are the odds of all these different shapes fitting together without gaps or overlap on a smaller ball?!?
Do this experiment yourself.
CONCLUSION: THE EARTH MUST HAVE GROWN. The oceans are the "stretch marks" of its' expantion.
My next question is: How?
Posted by: lunk | February 6, 2007 8:34 AM
Something quote close to 100%.
You see, the continents do not fit together perfectly. You are lying if you say that you actually did cut out the shapes of the continents, and fit them together. Because they don't fit.
They do fit together if you model them as being slightly elastic - so they can bend, stretch, and compress slightly.
So, you can push them all together into a single land mass, provided that kind of elasticity. And if you do that, the way that continental drift theory says you should, you find a single large landmass at one point in history. And because of the elasticity, you'll also find that any landmass creating by pushing them together will be roughly roundish.
Now - take any roughly roundish shape, and wrap it around a ball with approximately the same surface area. Surprise! If it's slightly elastic, then you can fit it so that it covers the surface of the ball.
Now - take away the elasticity. The shapes do not fit together. Neither continental drift nor Neal Adams expanding earth work.
Adams' theory explains nothing that isn't already explained by drift. And Adams' theory is wildly inconsistent with gravity, with orbital mechanics, with fossil records, with geological records, with relativity, with, well, just about everything. It's hard to name a single field of science which doesn't include something which is inconsistent with Adams' nonsense.
I also need to comment that your prose style is remarkably similar to that of Adams on his website. Dare I suggest that you're a sockpuppet?
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | February 6, 2007 8:59 AM
To me it looks like there may be small parts of the theory which Adams' espouses (it's not all Adams' theory, btw) that could argue for a growing planet. For instance, some of the larger lifeforms (particularly insects) of hundreds of millions of years ago don't appear adequately explained to me by atmospheric differences (though I don't really feel qualified to judge). But some of the physics stuff is clearly and obviously a ridiculous fabrication, as Mark CC illustrates above.
I can't say I thoroughly understand the essence of the original theory (which deals with how geodes grow and how this relates to planetary growth), but it seems clear that, even if such growth were assumed, any radically increased Earth mass difference since the very recent (geologically speaking) age of the Dinosaurs can't be accounted for by geode growth (such a rate of growth, extrapolated backwards, would make for a zero diameter planet BILLIONS of years later than the actually known time period of the first formation of the earth).
Btw, I don't think that the physics (which Mark CC rightly excoriates) were in the first multi-decades-old theory.
Posted by: Norm Breyfogle | February 6, 2007 1:28 PM
"You see, the continents do not fit together perfectly. You are lying if you say that you actually did cut out the shapes of the continents, and fit them together. Because they don't fit."
Did you try this experiment?
I'm working in 3 dimentions (globe) not 2(paper).
I used the continental shelves as my cutout lines and I estimated the cut in areas like Northern Canada where techtonic stretching is taking place. The main problem I had was the larger continents wrinkled the most when I wrapped them around my smaller globe and taped them together.
TIP: cut the larger continents into smaller parts along the mountain ranges.
I am unsure about Neal Adams math, but "my experimment" does bring into question the theory of pangea and the forever static size of the Earth.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 7, 2007 7:02 AM
Right... So what you're saying is that if you take the continents on a globe, estimate the edges when they don't fit right, cut landmasses into separate pieces when they don't fit right, and wrinkle the large pieces when they don't fit right, then you can make them fit together on a globe.
How about you go back and read what I wrote in my last post. If you allow elasticity, then you get a roundish supercontinent - and by allowing that same elasticity, you can superimpose any roundish shape onto a globe with equal surface area.
What that means is that the fact that you can fit the pieces onto a smaller globe as long as you permit elasticity means that that fact does not distinguish the expanding earth theory from the continental drift theory. With respect to the shapes of the continents, they make approximately the same prediction.
The only evidence that Adams' theory has is the fit of the continents. Since the drift theory is also completely consistent with it, with respect to that piece of evidence, it's a wash between the two theories.
If you then consider the fact that Adams' theory is inconsistent with pretty much all of physics,
geology, paleantology, and lord knows what else, then it's obvious that Adams' theory is a pile of rubbish. It explains nothing that isn't already explained, and introduces a huge number of new problems that are complete inconsistent with observation.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | February 7, 2007 8:26 AM
Take a robbin egg, smash it, now glue all the pieces back together on a chicken egg- space them out like the continents of Earth on the surface of the chicken egg. This is the Earth, as it is now. Now, un-glue them (use wax) and put them back together again, like they were, but, this is important, on the surface of the same chicken egg. You will find that you can make a shape very similar to pangea on one side of the chicken egg, but, does it fit?
Well, almost, with a lot of manipulation, sliding and shifting around. Why? Because it started as a much smaller robbin egg!
I understand this is what the reasoning is behind Neal Adams' theory. Do you agree?
Posted by: lunk | February 7, 2007 9:42 AM
lunk:
That's roughly Adam's argument. But what he conveniently ignores is that the same idea works in reverse.
Take a chicken egg, and smash it. Take a roundish area of shell pieces with roughly the same surface area as a robins egg. Now, glue those pieces onto the surface of a robins egg. You'll find that you can pretty much cover the entire surface of the robins egg with the pieces. But does it fit?
Well, almost, with a lot of manipulation, sliding and shifting around. Why? Because it started as a roundish section of a much larger chicken egg.
The point is, the geometry of the continents fits both theories: the widely accepted drift theory, and Adams' pile of rubbish. But drift is consistent with geology, gravity, orbital mechanics, relativity, paleontology, etc. Adam's theory is completely
inconsistent with all of those areas.
So Adams' theory is consistent with one piece of evidence, and completely inconsistent with thousands of others. Drift is consistent with the same piece of evidence as Adams', and is also consistent with all of the thousands of pieces of evidence that Adams' is not.
What can we conclude from that? Well, that Adams' stuff is a pile of rubbish that is inconsistent with the overwhelming bulk of the evidence, and that drift is a viable convincing theory supported by all of known evidence.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | February 7, 2007 10:06 AM
Are you saying that if you draw a random shape on the side of a large ball it will always fit perfectly on a small ball?
Posted by: lunk | February 7, 2007 11:33 AM
Mark: You wrote, "The only evidence that Adams' theory has is the fit of the continents."
That isn't accurate. There are three other bits of "evidence" Adams sites (you have to thoroughly read his website to find these). One is the massive size of lifeforms millions of years in the past. Not only with the largest dinosours, but especially with the gigantic insects of earlier ages, we have the difficulty of explaining how they could have supported their own weight (dinosaurs) or breathed and flew, etc. (insects). As I understand it from other magazine article sources that I can't pinpoint from my memory off-hand, theorists today give what amounts to an ad hoc explanation of greater atmospheric pressures to explain the insects and no real explanations at all for the largest dinosaurs.
But this tiny hole in mainstream science seems to amount to a pinprick in comparison to the massive amounts of real evidence going against the growing planets theory (and Adams' physics is just dumb).
And then there's the second bit of "evidence" you missed: Adam's rejection of subduction as a viable geologic process because of his insistence that less dense materials can't be pushed under more dense material. On the face of it, this seems to make some sense ...
The third bit of evidence is the various ages of the ocean floor and how the youngest parts are found progressively nearer to the mid ocean ridges where Adams claims the new matter is welling up from deeper in the earth causing planetary expansion.
I assume modern geologioc theory has little difficulty with the last two bits of evidence and I'd like to hear what a geologist would say about them (or what any of you on this site have to say about them, for that matter).
But I know this is a math site, not a geology site ...
Posted by: Norm Breyfogle | February 7, 2007 11:45 AM
lunk:
No, I'm not saying that if you draw a random shape on the side of a large ball that it will always fit perfectly on a small ball.
I'm saying if you take an approximately round shape on the side of a large ball, and you're allowed to make a small number of convenient cuts and perform elastic distortions on it, then you'll be able to make it fit very well (not perfectly!) on a small ball.
If you look at Adams' theory, the shapes do not fit perfectly. They need to be distorted to fit at all, and then the fit is good, but not perfect.
And you've already admitted that you do need to be able to distort, cut, and crinkle to make it fit.
As I keep saying: look at the shapes and the manipulations you're doing to fit them onto a smaller globe. Do those same kinds of manipulations of the pieces on a larger globe - and you'll find that they fit together at least as perfectly as Adams' claims they fit on the smaller globe. Then look at all of the other evidence: the sheer volume of scientific evidence that is completely inconsistent with anything remotely resembling Adams' theory is positively mind-boggling.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | February 7, 2007 11:50 AM
lunk: What I understand Mark and others are saying here about the continental fitting is not than any and all randomly shaped continents would be equally easily fitted onto smaller globes, but that the continental drift theory already allows for such fitting, based partly on the obvious obsevation that the continents do look like they fit together in places (an observation I also made in 4th grade before I knew about continental drift). In other words, some random shapes would require much more crinkling or cutting than others to fit thusly, sure, but continental drift theory accounts for the continent shapes we actually do have, not just any random shapes.
Posted by: Norm Breyfogle | February 7, 2007 11:57 AM
I should remember to always do a little research before posting on these science sites. I checked with Wikipedia, and convective downwelling easily explains subduction to my satisfaction.
And I found that "continental drift" is passe; it's been incorproated into and superceded by "plate tectonics."
I think the possibility that lunk might be my comics hero Neal Adams caused me to give as much consideration as possible to the growing planets theory in his presence.
(I've never used a pseudonym, myself, btw. Ever. It's a stupid point of pride for me.)
The only bit of evidence for a growing planet that still sticks with me is the giant lifeforms of past ages, but like I wrote, this amounts to a pinprick in mainstream theory.
Posted by: Norm Breyfogle | February 7, 2007 12:38 PM
Norm:
The three things you cite are all non-issues.
The "size of the dinosaurs" thing is frequently brought up by nutters, particularly the neo-catastrophists and Velikovskians. The thing is, it's not actually a problem. There's nothing inconsistent about the size of early animals - whether dinosaurs or insects. The "insects too large to fly" thing is based on the same line of argument as "physics doesn't explain how a housefly can fly" - that is, misapplication of math. Flys, and most other insects aren't really flying in the common sense aerodynamic way; they're not using shaped wings to generate lift via the Bernoulli principle. You can find details just by searching for stuff about how flies fly.
The "dinosaurs too large" comes from two different sources. One is sort-of legitimate; the other is nonsense.
The legit one is that if you put the animals in the postures that we used to think was correct (i.e., Tyrannosaurus with its body upright, head at a right angle to its spine, and tail down almost dragging on the ground), the skeleton and musculature just didn't work for an animal that size. But when you realize that that posture doesn't work, and you try shifting it, so that the animal runs with its spine essentially parallel to the ground, tail counterbalancing the head, jaw at a more oblique angle so that the head is looking straight ahead in running posture, then everything works - there is no problem with the size, skeletal structure, or musculature. Math and science figured out the error and solved it.
The other source of the "dinosaurs too large" myth is the neo-catastrophists like Ted Holden, and their error is just dreadfully silly. They essentially ignore skeletal structure. Their calculations of how the dinosaurs couldn't have lived in present gravity is based on linearly scaling up the size of present-day creatures, without making any structural changes as they get larger. If you took a human being, and scaled them up by ten times, you'd get a creature that couldn't walk. Because our skeleton and musculature aren't structured for that amount of weight. But look an a dinosaur skeleton in a museum sometime - take a look in particular at the joints, and the structures around them where muscles attached. Dinosaur bones have unbelievable moment arms on the muscular attachment points! Much larger than you would predict by linear scaling. And when you include that - that is, calculate the muscular strength needed to support and move a limb based on the standard strength of muscle and the moment arm provided by the skeletal structure, then you can see that the dinosaurs had absolutely no problem.
This is getting long, so I'll answer the other points in a separate comment.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | February 7, 2007 12:46 PM
With respect to Adams' claim about subduction not making sense... It's just silly, based on an oversimplification of the actual dynamics.
The "new material at ridges" is the silliest mistake of all. Those ridges are the place where we can directly observe the motion of the continental plates - there is new rock coming up there. But it's just melted rock from beneath the earths crust. When one plate slides over another, the plate that's forced down ends up becoming part of the mantle, and eventually could be recycled into part of the new material coming up at the ridges.
A good place to start to find out more about this is http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7100/full/442251a.html,
which has some truly amazing photos of a rift between the plates in Ethiopia. Really a spectacular image.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | February 7, 2007 12:55 PM
Thanks, Mark. I was only pointing out that, unlike you wrote in one of your above posts, Neal Adams refers to more than just continental fitting for his "evidence."
It is interesting that, for whatever reasons, we have no land roaming animals as large as the largest dinosaurs anywhere today (whether mammal or reptile), nor such large insects as in past ages.
Posted by: Norm Breyfogle | February 7, 2007 1:43 PM
Norm:
That's evolution for you. :-)
What worked once in the past in a particular environment - where that environment includes all of the other co-existant species - doesn't necessarily work in other environments.
Why is mega-size no longer advantageous? I don't think anyone knows for sure - but an animal like a Tyrannosaur needs a huge amount of food - and if there isn't enough prey for it, it dies out. Similarly, a huge herbivore like an apatosaurus requires a huge amount of vegitation to sustain itself. Perhaps the modern environment just has too many smaller and faster herbivores, which prevents the giant herbivores from being able to compete; and without the giant herbivores, the giant carnivores can't get enough food.
The question is quite a bit clearer with respect to insects: birds. A huge dragonfly is a wonderful meal for a bird - and birds are considerably faster in flight than large insects. Without birds as a predator, it's a lot easier for a giant insect to thrive; once you get birds on the scene, suddenly, it becomes a whole lot harder - and being smaller and thus faster, more manueverable, and harder to see - becomes a significant advantage. Just look around the world at where there are extremely large insects still around - nothing as large as the the early giant insects, but there are some very large ones - giant cockroaches for example - and you find that they tend to live in places where either birds have a very hard time surviving (e.g., giant scarabs in deserts) or where a large insect can be difficult to see (e.g., giant beatles in the Brazilian rainforests, living primarily in the dense brush.)
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | February 7, 2007 2:04 PM
It's said that an ant can lift 50 times its own weight, I know I can lift my own weight, an elephant can lift a lot but only a fraction of its weight. I was told that King Kong could not exist because there was no structure known that could hold up that much giant gorrilla.
Could the teradactiles fly this day in age?
I heard that they would need 2.5 times as much atmosphere...or maybe, a smaller Earth, where they wouldn't weigh as much.
Posted by: lunk | February 7, 2007 10:10 PM
lunk:
You heard wrong.
It's true that king kong couldn't exist - the muscular and skeletal structure of primates doesn't scale up to that size. If a giant primate were to evolve, it wouldn't look much like an ape - because it would require a different bone structure, with different muscular attachment points. Sorta like the dinosaurs had.
Could pteranodons fly today? Yes - with a major caveat. Pteranodons were, from what we've been able to figure out,
gliders, not true fliers. They don't have the proper anatomy to be a true flier. Could a pteranodon glide in the present gravity and atmosphere? Absolutely, yes.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | February 7, 2007 10:32 PM
Neal Adams here
just a mention .
When I did the globe It was after I had globes in the past just as many other researchers had done in the past . It was a given.
Mine because it had to be the best (Lot of work) I used the marie Tharpe map for geologicaal marking Thre very best .
it exagerates for clarity , the under sea rift and sub rift lines ,
These show clearly Direction of moving spreading plates. like a map . A directional map . they show at least 60 percent of the directional movement , If upland or other fill opaqued the directional indicators I simply continued in the same direction , You can psee it clearly if you look at that ,..ot any map. Really.
Then the popular" Rainbow Map" presented by the USGS
amd others that shows the ages of the deep oceans, from today to 180 million years ago , the oldest age of any known ocean area. This map was compiled by hundreds of researchers and put together in the 80's
The ages of the oceans go backward in time exactly the same as the rift lines , They were a double check as to direction and alignment. I'd like to take credit for figuring out a difficult puzzle.
Truth is I merely followed the map. If I deviated in any way I ran into trouble. Yes it took some figuring.
In little areas. But there are other sources that helped .
Magnetic striping proved that Spain rotaded 35 degrees counter-clockwise opening the Bay of Biskay. Great britian , same-same.
For those who question my credentials , I quite agree.
However I can read. I always loved science and well, I can read . I've found that most areas of research are written about and are relatively easy to find. Finally , I have been working on this problem for 40 years. For 30 of those years I didn't present . I tend to speak only after I do my homework.
What don't I do / Higher math. Quantum Physics and stuff like that ,...but I never found the need . It was Dirac ,..or maybe Chico. who said without higher math science would be held back about a week.
Fact is most Physicists that I speak to have no trouble communicating with me on a reasonable level about complicated matters , colliders Beta decay and such.
You may not like or agree with me in this, but I know a number of reputable physicists who would disagree with you
in this.
Neal Adams
Posted by: Anonymous | February 7, 2007 11:23 PM
Norm:
Mark had great answers at detail. I can fill in some of the breath/pressure thing.
I think it can be true that insects of today can't grow as large as earlier. (Where birds don't see them. :-) "There is a physical limit to the pressure that the walls of the tracheal tubes can withstand without collapsing, even though they are stiffened by bands of chitin, and this is one of the reasons why insects are relatively small." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insects#Internal_anatomy ) But if the partial pressure of oxygen was larger, they could be larger without enlarging tracheal tubes.
And atmospheres change, due to geology and life - our current type is called "the third atmosphere". ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_atmosphere ) But I don't think we have lost much atmospheric pressure since the larger insects. Nitrogen is a mainly inert gas, responsible for 80 % of the pressure.
In this modern atmosphere we loose mainly hydrogen by sputtering from the solar wind, but some should drift back through ionization and the magnetic fields to the polar region I think. Comets and ice asteroids replenish water faster than we loose it IIRC.
We also loose oxygen and carbon dioxide by chemical bindings into rocks. Life and geology replenish both. But a AFAIK continuing carbon dioxide loss is a hint. Earlier atmosphere had at times higher oxygen and carbon dioxide partial pressures, probably due to hotter climate and more biological activity.
That oxygen, and perhaps special adaptions, could permit larger insects. "200 - 250 million years ago, up to 35 percent of the atmosphere was oxygen (bubbles of ancient atmosphere were found in an amber)."
Somewhere above that figure, increasing wood fires is thought to self limit the oxygen production I think.
As Mark says, the status of megafauna is unclear. Mammals and birds had similar periods with comparatively large megafauna, and the discussion why they also disappeared continues.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | February 8, 2007 2:17 AM
Maybe I should've used a pseudonym after all; I wish I could edit my posts on this site.
Ah, well, live and learn ... and these science blog sites are a pressure cooker environment for developing optimal lucidity.
Posted by: Norm Breyfogle | February 8, 2007 4:49 AM
Neal has chosen to question an area of science which is perhaps among the most open for questioning in certain respects. For instance, the depth of the Earth's geologic convection currents is currently unknown, conducting revealing experiments about the Earths interior is very difficult, and satisfactory certainty of the mechanisms of planetary formation remains elusive.
Neal, what bothered me immediately about your discussion of all this on your site (aside from your unnecessary and distracting hyperbolic language) was your assertion that questioning plate tectonics necessaril brings into question all other scientific theories in all other areas (it doesn't). And if you don't feel qualified to deal with the math of particle physics (I don't either), then why do you propose the prime matter particle at all? Even I know that dealing with particle physics in a scientific manner is impossible without a fine grasp of the math (which you admit is your weak point), and this is especially true if you're trying to re-write particle physics.
And in general, science without higher math - especially particle physics and cosmology, but also many other areas - would not be held back only a week; without higher math much or most modern science couldn't exist at all.
Posted by: Norm Breyfogle | February 8, 2007 5:49 AM
Norm
There are many ways to skin a cat . One can function though one may be blind.In my case Call it pertially blind.(lord I hate having to explain myself.) If I can visualize three-dimentionally and immediately see the continents coming together Should I criticize a technologist for not 'SEEING " as well.
No, I think. I should try to show HOW and what I see as best I can. I can't "teach" a lifetime of seeing three dimentionally.
I hold that Physics is not Math. Never was. It's fulcrums and levers and trajectories and time and limits an all the rest. Math is a method of description that can shorten the process of adding and subtracting and that is all. It's not a mystery and I have found it is not an impediment to discovery. In fact the love of math often gets in the way , because instead of talking principles , many talk math.
For a simple example ,..when calculating pressure going down into the earth a math person maths pressure down progressively . ...But it doesn't work like that . pressure for water or air is not the same as pressure in a solid .
Pressure is relieved by structure ,...and shape,... which is similar but not the same . Distribution of weight in an arch of a solid is a portion of the principle of pressure on a sphere . That is, pressure on an arch ...in gravity is downward and outward, It's also upward but that is NOT dealt with, because it has no important function on a practical basis , but outward pressure of a sphere in a self-contained sphere is a function of some great significance . Newton played with this theoretically , but couldn't on a practical basis . BUT if I say if the earth is hollow with a space the size of the moon and say additionally that in this space there is no pressure and no gravity.. all the math-tech gee- heh folks will rise up in righteous wrath .
They will be wrong , and I will be right. Math can prove but principle describes the reasons FOR the math.
I use deduction . (And other principles.) as we all must use, absent sure facts . You needn"t study much history to know that Deduction is the only thing that fills the unknown spaces. I have been doing it for a long time , so I can't give you all the steps , but let's try a few.
Carl David Anderson 'observes the spontanius creation as a "cosmic ray" strikes something and produces a positron.
Within a nano-second the positron attracts/encounters an electron and annhilates it!
CONCLUSION: (of the community) Dirac is validified.
There is an opposite particle to the Electron, and because it annihilates a particle of matter , well forget conservation and also we'll call it ,...let's say ...Antimatter! Cause it destroys matter!
Deduction? No . In my view , stupidity!
Harsh? Let's see.
Several years later other scientists, doing the same experiment discover tha when the positron is spontaniously created , an electron is created.
Consternation at first , then conservation is served , the sum is Electron created , electron destroyed with the created positron , Conservation is preserved . sigh of relief
I don't think so! An electron is created but another Electron is "Destroyed" . If the positron traveled a thousand light years before encounte