The Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972.
The Pioneer 11 was launched in 1973.
Nowadays, the two they go in the deep space and its paths are showing an unusual and unexpected behavior.
It happens that something has been throwing of them, or pushing them, doing that they accelerate.
The resultant acceleration is low, 1nm/s2, some ten thousand millionth part of the gravity in the surface of the Land, but was sufficient to deviate al Pioneer 10 some 400.000 kilometers out of its original course.
The NASA lost contact with the Pioneer 11 in 1995, but to that moment was experiencing exactly the same deviation that her probes twin. What is what the cause?
Bruce Bassett, of the University of Porstmouth, has suggested that the anomaly of the Pioneer has something to do with alpha, the constant one of the fine structure. To = e2/20hc = 1/137,03599976 approx. 1/137 certainly that to is not the unique constant one that maintains al universe being just as is: we have to c, the velocity of the light; we have to G, the Constant one of Newton of the universal gravitation; we have me, the mass of the electron... we have many. I sense since my ignorance that the more constant they be these “constant” better for us.
They form, in severity, the skeleton of the universe around which the theories of the physics are articulated.
The constant they define the same framework of the reality.and they are like they are, therefore nobody has been capable of explaining or to predict the value of none of them. Newton did not he have neither the smaller notion by what the value of G is of 6,673 x 10-11; Einstein never could be explained why c is equal to 299.792.458; Bohr never managed to imagine why motive totals me exactly the figure of 9,10938188 x 10-31; neither the very same Avogadro knew never why the Number of Avogadro is of 6,02 x 1023..
The cause of so much ignorance is that the constant have values that continue no discernible boss or, al less, none that the science be capable to identify. What yes is insurance is that if a, several or all the constant of the physics changed of value, although were in a minimum measure, a structure as complex as an atom of carbon would be converted immediately in an unrecognizable brainchild by the physical laws, by speak not of a cell or an upper mammal.
For me is a mystery the reason the universe has selected exactly this play of constant with those strange values. And me would not surprise to finish discovering that in truth there is a possible only universe with some only laws and constant possible... and that coincidentally these they are ours.
It more sensitive to the changes of the value from to that exists in the universe are the nuclear reactions of fusion in the interior of the stars. Al normal value from to, the fusion only can be produced to so high temperatures that be capable of pushing the nuclei of the atoms one against the other, conquering in this way the forces of repulsion.if to surpasses the value from 0,1 the fusion will become a mathematical impossibility. The stars will be put out as a candle, and will be physically impossible to light them again.
Now I have just informed that two physicists English J.Barrow and J.Webb they say to have verified that alpha has suffered an increase of the 1% since the Big Bang, and at present they are found in phase of corroboration, they affirm that "A change from to of only the 4% would affect the levels of energy of the nuclei of the atoms of carbon to a point such that the production of this Interior of the stars would stop for always".
XILATUM
The following is an encapsulation of a series of discussions on the 'Pioneer Anomaly' It is rare, insofar as it proposes a commonsense-logical solution
Newton versus NASA
It is now quite well known that scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have encountered what they regard as an anomaly. This is that the trajectories of their space-probes do not obey the ordinary rules of orbital dynamics. This anomaly is generally known as the ‘Pioneer anomaly’, since it first became evident with NASA‘s ‘Pioneer’ probes, numbers ten and eleven. This was during thirty years of those probes journeying between planets of the solar system, after which they now travel far off into interstellar space. In the following study we address this anomaly with a view to providing a simple – emphasise simple – logical solution, as opposed to what commonsense regards as esoteric.
* * *
All the NASA space-probes have to spin in order to maintain their orientations with respect to the earth and the other objects they visit. The total magnitude [*] of their angular momentum is therefore the sum of their spin angular momentum and their orbital angular momentum.
The law of conservation of angular momentum rules that, barring any externally applied force (ignoring the tiny adjustments to maintain its spin that have to be made en route) the magnitude of the angular momentum of the probe remains the same, regardless of the proportion of its spin angular momentum to its orbital angular momentum. This means that any increase in the spin angular momentum of the probe, has to be compensated by a decrease in its orbital angular momentum, and vice versa.
In standard dynamics, any reduction of the orbital angular momentum of the probe with respect to the earth, Jupiter, Saturn or whatever, entails a reduction in the radius of its orbit with regard to that centre. In the space between these planets the primary centre of orbit for the probe is, of course, the sun. With its reduced angular momentum (due to its spin) the probe has to orbit on a trajectory which, again by standard dynamics, is nearer to the sun, with a velocity and kinetic energy greater than if it were not spinning. This ‘acceleration towards the sun’ is precisely what the NASA scientists have discovered with their spinning space-probes.
Where, then, is the ‘anomaly’? It is in the Newtonian orbital dynamics that NASA applies to the trajectories of its space-probes, which, typically, takes no account of their spin. All that counts in that Newtonian theory is the invisible ‘gravitational force of attraction’ between bodies, which is the product of their masses and the inverse-square of their distance apart in a constant relation, G, which is the same, whether or not those masses are spinning.
The ‘anomaly’, then, resides nowhere but in the theory that is currently taken as standard for orbiting bodies. To upgrade that Newtonian theory would be simply, 1)to replace ‘gravitational attraction’ with angular momentum; 2) to think of that angular momentum as combining both orbital and spin and, 3) to treat G as a constant only for the special case of orbiting bodies that are without spin, and as a variable for orbiting bodies with spin. With those three slight modifications to the existing theory, the ‘anomaly’ vanishes and Newton’s spinless ’falling apple’ becomes NASA’s spinning space-probe. No revolutionary ‘New Physics’ is needed to explain the ‘Pioneer anomaly’. All that is needed are these few minor adjustments to the standard Newtonian theory to bring that classic seventeenth century theory into our modern, twenty-first century space age.
Viv Pope www.vivpope.org
[*] ‘Magnitude’ is stressed, here, because, despite the constancy of the amount, or magnitude of the angular momentum, its vectors can add or subtract, changing the spin-to-orbit ratio of an orbiting body, with the consequences described in Chapter 7 of Light-speed, Gravitation and Quantum Instantaneity, by A. D. Osborne and N. V. Pope.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NB.: Applying this upgraded Newtonian physics to the spins of the spiral galaxies and of just about everything else in the universe, obviates any need of esoteric theories such as those of ‘dark matter’, ‘dark energy’ and so on to explain the so-called ‘missing mass anomaly’. All that is ‘missing’ is any account of spin in the unmodified Newtonian equations in which the constancy of G is taken as sacrosanct.
Newton versus NASA
It is now quite well known that scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have encountered what they regard as an anomaly. This is that the trajectories of their space-probes do not obey the ordinary rules of orbital dynamics. This anomaly is generally known as the ‘Pioneer anomaly’, since it first became evident with NASA‘s ‘Pioneer’ probes, numbers ten and eleven. This was during thirty years of those probes journeying between planets of the solar system, after which they now travel far off into interstellar space. In the following study we address this anomaly with a view to providing a simple – emphasise simple – logical solution, as opposed to what commonsense regards as esoteric.
* * *
All the NASA space-probes have to spin in order to maintain their orientations with respect to the earth and the other objects they visit. The total magnitude [*] of their angular momentum is therefore the sum of their spin angular momentum and their orbital angular momentum.
The law of conservation of angular momentum rules that, barring any externally applied force (ignoring the tiny adjustments to maintain its spin that have to be made en route) the magnitude of the angular momentum of the probe remains the same, regardless of the proportion of its spin angular momentum to its orbital angular momentum. This means that any increase in the spin angular momentum of the probe, has to be compensated by a decrease in its orbital angular momentum, and vice versa.
In standard dynamics, any reduction of the orbital angular momentum of the probe with respect to the earth, Jupiter, Saturn or whatever, entails a reduction in the radius of its orbit with regard to that centre. In the space between these planets the primary centre of orbit for the probe is, of course, the sun. With its reduced angular momentum (due to its spin) the probe has to orbit on a trajectory which, again by standard dynamics, is nearer to the sun, with a velocity and kinetic energy greater than if it were not spinning. This ‘acceleration towards the sun’ is precisely what the NASA scientists have discovered with their spinning space-probes.
Where, then, is the ‘anomaly’? It is in the Newtonian orbital dynamics that NASA applies to the trajectories of its space-probes, which, typically, takes no account of their spin. All that counts in that Newtonian theory is the invisible ‘gravitational force of attraction’ between bodies, which is the product of their masses and the inverse-square of their distance apart in a constant relation, G, which is the same, whether or not those masses are spinning.
The ‘anomaly’, then, resides nowhere but in the theory that is currently taken as standard for orbiting bodies. To upgrade that Newtonian theory would be simply, 1)to replace ‘gravitational attraction’ with angular momentum; 2) to think of that angular momentum as combining both orbital and spin and, 3) to treat G as a constant only for the special case of orbiting bodies that are without spin, and as a variable for orbiting bodies with spin. With those three slight modifications to the existing theory, the ‘anomaly’ vanishes and Newton’s spinless ’falling apple’ becomes NASA’s spinning space-probe. No revolutionary ‘New Physics’ is needed to explain the ‘Pioneer anomaly’. All that is needed are these few minor adjustments to the standard Newtonian theory to bring that classic seventeenth century theory into our modern, twenty-first century space age.
Viv Pope www.vivpope.org
[*] ‘Magnitude’ is stressed, here, because, despite the constancy of the amount, or magnitude of the angular momentum, its vectors can add or subtract, changing the spin-to-orbit ratio of an orbiting body, with the consequences described in Chapter 7 of Light-speed, Gravitation and Quantum Instantaneity, by A. D. Osborne and N. V. Pope.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NB.: Applying this upgraded Newtonian physics to the spins of the spiral galaxies and of just about everything else in the universe, obviates any need of esoteric theories such as those of ‘dark matter’, ‘dark energy’ and so on to explain the so-called ‘missing mass anomaly’. All that is ‘missing’ is any account of spin in the unmodified Newtonian equations in which the constancy of G is taken as sacrosanct.
Viv,
I note that you ignored my reply in another thread on the same topic. At the risk of repeating myself, you have ignored the mechanism by which a probe's spin changes and have blamed the resultant changes in (orbital) angular momentum on some mysterious effect, when the real cause is a lot more obvious - rockets firing, for example.
I note that you ignored my reply in another thread on the same topic. At the risk of repeating myself, you have ignored the mechanism by which a probe's spin changes and have blamed the resultant changes in (orbital) angular momentum on some mysterious effect, when the real cause is a lot more obvious - rockets firing, for example.
Viv,
You have also ignored my two requests for clarification of your ideas on quantum entanglement.
edward
You have also ignored my two requests for clarification of your ideas on quantum entanglement.
edward
Three new crank's topics about the Pioneer Anomaly within a week...
My explanation: a governmental agency tries to prevent someone from finding another topic about the Pioneer Anomaly on this same forum.
My explanation: a governmental agency tries to prevent someone from finding another topic about the Pioneer Anomaly on this same forum.
QUOTE (Enthalpy+Jun 23 2008, 04:58 PM)
Three new crank's topics about the Pioneer Anomaly within a week...
My explanation: a governmental agency tries to prevent someone from finding another topic about the Pioneer Anomaly on this same forum.
I thought that this was a forum for progressive new ideas. Every significant advance in science has been met with responses such as yours. Galileo got it from the Church and so did Copernicus. Indeed, you might say, from a study of history, that accusations of 'crankiness' are the measure of the the worth of a theory to progressive science.
So, if you are against 'crankiness', then you are against progress. So, what's your interest in a site such as this? As it is well said: 'If you don't like the smell of bread, then stay away from the bakery'.
Don't forget, that with truly honest researchers, disrespect such as yours is not respected.
Viv Pope.
PS,
Any further postings from you relevant to mine I shall studiously ignore.
My explanation: a governmental agency tries to prevent someone from finding another topic about the Pioneer Anomaly on this same forum.
I thought that this was a forum for progressive new ideas. Every significant advance in science has been met with responses such as yours. Galileo got it from the Church and so did Copernicus. Indeed, you might say, from a study of history, that accusations of 'crankiness' are the measure of the the worth of a theory to progressive science.
So, if you are against 'crankiness', then you are against progress. So, what's your interest in a site such as this? As it is well said: 'If you don't like the smell of bread, then stay away from the bakery'.
Don't forget, that with truly honest researchers, disrespect such as yours is not respected.
Viv Pope.
PS,
Any further postings from you relevant to mine I shall studiously ignore.
QUOTE (barakn+Jun 22 2008, 06:05 PM)
Viv,
I note that you ignored my reply in another thread on the same topic. At the risk of repeating myself, you have ignored the mechanism by which a probe's spin changes and have blamed the resultant changes in (orbital) angular momentum on some mysterious effect, when the real cause is a lot more obvious - rockets firing, for example.
I'm sorry if I seem to have 'ignored' your post 'on another thread'. I have two excuses for this: one is that I'm one of the older guys and having hell fumbling with computers and the Internet. Things my grandsons are familiar with are as mysterious to me as my teenage experience of the wartime air-raids is to them. Another excuse is simply that in my ineptitude I happened to offend officials of this forum who put me 'off line' for seeming to be commercial. This must have been when you sent the posting in question.
Anyway, to deal with your question of the 'mechanism' by which a probe's spin changes. Suppose I were to ask you what is the 'mechanism' by which the water molecules in the cylinder a steam engine, although their motions are entirely random nevertheless obey, to the letter, the law of the conservation of energy. Ludwig Boltzmann, like Laplace, believed that 'in God's eyes' the tracks of these particles were mechanically determinate. Then with the later emergence of quantum stochasticity, that mechanistic, God's-eye-view of causality was abandoned. Boltzman's Second Law of Thermodynamics was re-cast in statistical fom, according to which the prime cause of anything lies not in the autonomous motions of particulas but in the laws relating to wholes.
If you understand that, then you will understand why, in my thesis, what you regard as 'the mysterious effects of the resultant changes in orbital angular momentum' are 'caused', not by anything 'mechanical' but simply by the Law of Conservation of angular momentum itself. I hope that this is now clear.
Viv Pope
I note that you ignored my reply in another thread on the same topic. At the risk of repeating myself, you have ignored the mechanism by which a probe's spin changes and have blamed the resultant changes in (orbital) angular momentum on some mysterious effect, when the real cause is a lot more obvious - rockets firing, for example.
I'm sorry if I seem to have 'ignored' your post 'on another thread'. I have two excuses for this: one is that I'm one of the older guys and having hell fumbling with computers and the Internet. Things my grandsons are familiar with are as mysterious to me as my teenage experience of the wartime air-raids is to them. Another excuse is simply that in my ineptitude I happened to offend officials of this forum who put me 'off line' for seeming to be commercial. This must have been when you sent the posting in question.
Anyway, to deal with your question of the 'mechanism' by which a probe's spin changes. Suppose I were to ask you what is the 'mechanism' by which the water molecules in the cylinder a steam engine, although their motions are entirely random nevertheless obey, to the letter, the law of the conservation of energy. Ludwig Boltzmann, like Laplace, believed that 'in God's eyes' the tracks of these particles were mechanically determinate. Then with the later emergence of quantum stochasticity, that mechanistic, God's-eye-view of causality was abandoned. Boltzman's Second Law of Thermodynamics was re-cast in statistical fom, according to which the prime cause of anything lies not in the autonomous motions of particulas but in the laws relating to wholes.
If you understand that, then you will understand why, in my thesis, what you regard as 'the mysterious effects of the resultant changes in orbital angular momentum' are 'caused', not by anything 'mechanical' but simply by the Law of Conservation of angular momentum itself. I hope that this is now clear.
Viv Pope
As its name tells, this forum is for physics, not cranks.
I'm not the Church. Physicists are open-minded and quickly accept new ideas if they're good. The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories are being debated and accepted or rejected depending on predictions and observations.
Relativity for instance wasn't a revolution against all scientific beliefs, but one possible answer to observations that went against prevailing theories. Within a decade, it went from the status of an exotic theory impossible to prove to a theory confirmed by several observations, which means that many physicists had worked on it meanwhile.
So no, rejection doesn't tell by any means that a proposal is good.
Pity, your frenzy is immediately recognizable as crank stuff and certainly not the product of a honest researcher.
I'm not the Church. Physicists are open-minded and quickly accept new ideas if they're good. The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories are being debated and accepted or rejected depending on predictions and observations.
Relativity for instance wasn't a revolution against all scientific beliefs, but one possible answer to observations that went against prevailing theories. Within a decade, it went from the status of an exotic theory impossible to prove to a theory confirmed by several observations, which means that many physicists had worked on it meanwhile.
So no, rejection doesn't tell by any means that a proposal is good.
Pity, your frenzy is immediately recognizable as crank stuff and certainly not the product of a honest researcher.
QUOTE (Enthalpy+Jun 24 2008, 03:51 PM)
As its name tells, this forum is for physics, not cranks.
I'm not the Church. Physicists are open-minded and quickly accept new ideas if they're good. The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories are being debated and accepted or rejected depending on predictions and observations.
Relativity for instance wasn't a revolution against all scientific beliefs, but one possible answer to observations that went against prevailing theories. Within a decade, it went from the status of an exotic theory impossible to prove to a theory confirmed by several observations, which means that many physicists had worked on it meanwhile.
So no, rejection doesn't tell by any means that a proposal is good.
Pity, your frenzy is immediately recognizable as crank stuff and certainly not the product of a honest researcher.
Viv Pope replies:
My dear 'Enthalpy'.
Thanks for your reply. which I assume was directed at my ideas on Relativity. Unfortunately for you, if I am a 'crank' then so was Professor Sir Herman Bondi who was in complete agreement with me that Relativity can, and should, be upgraded in the way I have described. 'Cranks', also, are some very fine people, such as Professor Alan Winfield of UWE Bristol whose blog on 'Dangerous Ideas' puts mine at the top of the list as one which he says, has radically changed his way of thinking. And, not least a 'crank', was Einstein himself, whose correspondence with this 'crank' in 1954 set him on the research trail hat he has been on ever since. That correspondence has been featured recently on a TV programme entitled 'Prize Possessions and has been valued at several thousand pounds. It is now held in safekeeping, as a treasured item in the local county archives, where it is kept in atmospherically controlled conditions and can be inspected on request but only under supervision. This correspondence has also been featured, over the years. in various newspapers and journals, both scientific and popular. Again, on the strength of some long correspondence on this subject with the eminent philosopher of science. Professor Sir Karl Popper, my wife and I were invited as guests to his 75th birthday celebrations at the Austrian Institute in London, and then to his home in Buckinghamshire, where he warned me of the sort of resistance to my idea that I should expect from the likes. Sir, of your own good self. If you doubt this, then my name can be found on the list of Popper's correspondents published on Internet.
It seems, then, that you would regard all these good people, not forgetting my colleague, Doctor Anthony Osborn. in our long association at Keele University on this very same subject, are 'cranks'!
Thanks, anyway, for giving me this rare opportunity of taking my light from 'under a bushel and shining it around. It gives me an opportunity to show you and others like you, just what you are treating with such lofty contempt.
To gain respect you have to give respect.
Viv Pope.
I'm not the Church. Physicists are open-minded and quickly accept new ideas if they're good. The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories are being debated and accepted or rejected depending on predictions and observations.
Relativity for instance wasn't a revolution against all scientific beliefs, but one possible answer to observations that went against prevailing theories. Within a decade, it went from the status of an exotic theory impossible to prove to a theory confirmed by several observations, which means that many physicists had worked on it meanwhile.
So no, rejection doesn't tell by any means that a proposal is good.
Pity, your frenzy is immediately recognizable as crank stuff and certainly not the product of a honest researcher.
Viv Pope replies:
My dear 'Enthalpy'.
Thanks for your reply. which I assume was directed at my ideas on Relativity. Unfortunately for you, if I am a 'crank' then so was Professor Sir Herman Bondi who was in complete agreement with me that Relativity can, and should, be upgraded in the way I have described. 'Cranks', also, are some very fine people, such as Professor Alan Winfield of UWE Bristol whose blog on 'Dangerous Ideas' puts mine at the top of the list as one which he says, has radically changed his way of thinking. And, not least a 'crank', was Einstein himself, whose correspondence with this 'crank' in 1954 set him on the research trail hat he has been on ever since. That correspondence has been featured recently on a TV programme entitled 'Prize Possessions and has been valued at several thousand pounds. It is now held in safekeeping, as a treasured item in the local county archives, where it is kept in atmospherically controlled conditions and can be inspected on request but only under supervision. This correspondence has also been featured, over the years. in various newspapers and journals, both scientific and popular. Again, on the strength of some long correspondence on this subject with the eminent philosopher of science. Professor Sir Karl Popper, my wife and I were invited as guests to his 75th birthday celebrations at the Austrian Institute in London, and then to his home in Buckinghamshire, where he warned me of the sort of resistance to my idea that I should expect from the likes. Sir, of your own good self. If you doubt this, then my name can be found on the list of Popper's correspondents published on Internet.
It seems, then, that you would regard all these good people, not forgetting my colleague, Doctor Anthony Osborn. in our long association at Keele University on this very same subject, are 'cranks'!
Thanks, anyway, for giving me this rare opportunity of taking my light from 'under a bushel and shining it around. It gives me an opportunity to show you and others like you, just what you are treating with such lofty contempt.
To gain respect you have to give respect.
Viv Pope.
QUOTE (Viv Pope+Jun 25 2008, 05:22 PM)
Thanks for your reply. which I assume was directed at my ideas on Relativity. Unfortunately for you, if I am a 'crank' then so was Professor Sir Herman Bondi who was in complete agreement with me that Relativity can, and should, be upgraded in the way I have described. 'Cranks', also, are some very fine people, such as Professor Alan Winfield of UWE Bristol whose blog on 'Dangerous Ideas' puts mine at the top of the list as one which he says, has radically changed his way of thinking. And, not least a 'crank', was Einstein himself, whose correspondence with this 'crank' in 1954 set him on the research trail hat he has been on ever since.
An appeal to authority... A fine tautology from a supposed philosopher o science...
An appeal to authority... A fine tautology from a supposed philosopher o science...
QUOTE (MjolnirPants+Jun 26 2008, 05:47 AM)
An appeal to authority... A fine tautology from a supposed philosopher o science...
Have you checked this new crank Pope's website out yet?
This loser has delusions of adequacy
Have you checked this new crank Pope's website out yet?
This loser has delusions of adequacy
QUOTE (N O M+Jun 26 2008, 04:49 AM)
Have you checked this new crank Pope's website out yet?
This loser has delusions of adequacy
Viv Pope replies:
Here are three items which will show you just how profoundly wrong you are.
First is something I sent earlier to someone with the same mental stricture as yourself. Since you obviously haven’t read it, here it is again. Sorry folks if it is a reiteration.
This loser has delusions of adequacy
Viv Pope replies:
Here are three items which will show you just how profoundly wrong you are.
First is something I sent earlier to someone with the same mental stricture as yourself. Since you obviously haven’t read it, here it is again. Sorry folks if it is a reiteration.
QUOTE (Enthalpy+ Jun 24 2008, 03:51 PM)
As its name tells, this forum is for physics, not cranks.
I'm not the Church. Physicists are open-minded and quickly accept new ideas if they're good. The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories are being debated and accepted or rejected depending on predictions and observations.
Relativity for instance wasn't a revolution against all scientific beliefs, but one possible answer to observations that went against prevailing theories. Within a decade, it went from the status of an exotic theory impossible to prove to a theory confirmed by several observations, which means that many physicists had worked on it meanwhile.
So no, rejection doesn't tell by any means that a proposal is good.
Pity, your frenzy is immediately recognizable as crank stuff and certainly not the product of a honest researcher.
Viv Pope replies:
Thanks, friend, for your lovely reply. Why project your mental inadequacies on me? The following are three items which should reveal to all just how profoundly wrong you are. First is my reply to another ill-considered comment from someone like yourself:
My dear 'Enthalpy'.
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately for you, if I am a 'crank' then so was Professor Sir Herman Bondi who was in complete agreement with me that Relativity can be upgraded in the way I have described. So, also are some very fine people, such as the scientist recently featured on TV and in the Sunday Times Supplement, Professor Alan Winfield of UWE Bristol whose blog on 'Dangerous Ideas' lists mine at the top of the list as one which, he says, has radically changed his own way of thinking. And, not least, someone you would have to regard as a 'crank' would be Einstein himself, whose correspondence with this 'crank' in 1954 set him on the research trail that he has been on ever since. That complimentary correspondence has been featured recently on a TV programme entitled 'Prize Possessions' and has been valued at several thousand pounds. It is now held in safekeeping as a treasured item in the local county archives, where it is kept in a vault in atmospherically controlled conditions and can be inspected on request but only under supervision.
This Einstein correspondence has also been featured, over the years’, in various newspapers and journals, both scientific and popular. Again, on the strength of some long correspondence on this subject with the eminent philosopher of science. Professor Sir Karl Popper, my wife and I were invited as guests to his 75th birthday celebrations at the Austrian Institute in London where we met with and discussed with all sorts of other scientists, including Professor Bondi Then we were invited to Popper's home in Buckinghamshire, where he warned me of the sort of resistance to my idea that I should expect from the likes. Sir, of your own good self. If you doubt this, then my name can be found on the list of Popper's correspondents published on Internet.
It seems, then, that you would regard all these good people, not forgetting my colleague, Doctor Anthony Osborn. in our long association at Keele *University, on this very same subject, as 'cranks'!
Thanks, anyway, for giving me this rare opportunity of taking my light from 'under a bushel' and shining it around. It gives me an opportunity to show you and others like you, just what you are tangling with.
To gain respect you have to give respect.
Viv Pope.
Here is item number 2:
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2006
Quite dangerous ideas
I came across the Edge website last week, whose home page declares the rather grand aim:
To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.
It appears that the Edge asks an Annual Question, "What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything", that sort of thing, and then publishes the answers by the contributing illuminati.
The 2006 question is "What is your dangerous idea?".
So it was with some excitement that I started to read the assembled responses of the great and the good. Very interesting and well worth reading but, I have to say, the ideas expressed are, er, not very dangerous. Quite dangerous, one might say, but by and large not the sort of ideas that had me rushing to hide behind the sofa.
So, I hear you say, "what's your dangerous idea?".
Ok then, here goes.
I think that Newton's interpretation of his first law of motion was wrong and that there is no such thing as a force of gravity. Let me say right away that this is not my idea: it is the result of a lifetime's work by my friend Science Philosopher Viv Pope. But I have played a part in the development of this work, so I feel justified in evangelising about it.
Recall your school physics. Newton's first law of motion states that every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. In other words, that the 'natural' state of motion is in a straight line. Of course in an abstract sort of way this feels as if it is right. Perhaps that is why it has not been seriously challenged for the best part of 400 years (or it could be because Newton's first law has become so embedded in the way we think about the world that we simply accept it unquestioningly).
Consider an alternative first law of motion: the natural (force less) state of motion is orbital. I.e. that bodies continue to orbit unless an external force is applied. Now the Universe is full of orbital motion. From the micro-scale - electrons in orbit around nuclei, to the macro-scale - moons around planets, planets around stars, rotating galaxies etc. If this alternative first law is true, it would mean that we don't need to invent gravity to account for orbital motion. This appeals to me, not least because it leads to a simpler and more elegant explanation (and I like Occam's Razor). It would also explain why - despite vast effort and millions of dollars worth of research - no empirical evidence (gravity waves or gravity particles) has yet been found for how gravity propagates or acts at-a-distance. A common-sense objection to this idea is "well if there's no such thing as gravity what is it that sticks us to the surface of the earth - why don't we just float off?". The answer is (and you can show this with some pretty simple maths), that the natural (force less) orbital radius for you (given the mass of your body), is quite a long way towards the centre of the earth from where you now sit. So there is a force that means that you weigh something, it's just not a mysterious force of gravity but the real force exerted by the thing that restrains you from orbiting freely, i.e. the ground under your feet.
This has all been worked out in a good deal of detail by Viv Pope and mathematician Anthony Osborne, and its called the Pope Osborne Angular Momentum Synthesis, or POAMS.
Now that's what I call a dangerous idea.
Posted by Alan Winfield at 12:09 PM
Labels: physics
And here is item number 3. It is addressed to everyone on this forum.
Forums, My ****
Is there a sporting chance that one or another of these so-called ‘science’ forums can be mobilised to fulfil their stated aim to do some really progressive science? Those I have been engaged in, so far, seem to be nothing more than provisions for people who like to pretend they are doing science, whereas in fact, they are no more than playing games with it in a grandiose, ‘let’s pretend’, ‘Walter Mitty’ way.
Surely, the aim of any forum aimed at challenging mainstream science is there, not to vandalise it but to advance it, and this can only be done in the way it has always been done, which is by intelligent rational dialogue. Instead, one finds that, for the most part, any attempt to do science in that truly progressive way is met immediately by an egotistical ‘Who the hell does he think he is!’ kind of reaction. This points the irony that so many of those who claim to be moving science on are the very ones who, as history attests, are holding it back. This they do by sticking like glue to earlier theories about such things as ‘electrons’, ‘photons’, ‘the Big Bang’... and so on as though these were not theories which are there to be challenged but irrefutable facts.
In this way, earlier interpretations of physical phenomena become millstones to be hung round the necks of any radically newer ones, so that these people narroe-mindedly assume that the only way of achieving scientific ‘progress’, if it is not purely an advance in pure technology, is by bolting new ideas onto those older ones in which they were schooled. Any revolutionary suggestion of replacing those old ideas entirely, with less conventional and more logical ones is treated as heresy – even by those who, in these forums, may presume to be ‘heretics’ themselves.
In this way, contributing to scientific ‘progress’ is no more than dragging an accumulating mass of conceptual junk through generations and generations of those science students who are educated, almost solely, to become defenders of the norm. Thus the continuity of academic tradition is maintained at the cost of logical continuity. Any idea, for instance, of replacing, say, conventional
‘gravity’ theory, or ‘electrodynamics’, with some wholly different concept-system is immediately and unthinkingly suppressed. However, true progress in science may require a complete ‘quantum jump’ in the conceptual interpretation of phenomena. Old and even current concepts of “the neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories” and ‘electrons’ for instance (Perish the thought!) might have to be replaced by some more logical and neologistic interpretation of the same phenomenon. ‘Electromagnetic waves’ may need to be replaced by something like ‘action-at a distance’, say, and the ‘Big Bang’ dogma may need to be radically revised in favour of something far less bizarre.
Any such radical replacement requires a complete change of mindset, and anyone who does not have the mental facility of considering radically new ideas cannot be anything but a hindrance to true scientific progress. They should therefore, strictly speaking, not be encouraged to join forums such as these, far less act as summary judges and executioners of revolutionary new concept-systems. These logically structured concept-systems , or Gestalten as perception psychologists call them – ‘lateral thinking’ alternatives, as Edward de Bono identified them – require a capacity of creative imagination which, so far as I have seen, is a rarity in these sorts of forums. What we have, instead, are people who, if they don’t instantly understand the significance some idea, if it is one that doesn’t square straightaway with their own ingrown precepts, then they bray out ‘Rubbish!’, or else respond with tired witticisms delivered in the form of insolent one-liners.
Can this present forum, for instance, mobilise itself to do some real service to science by studying and contemplating new ideas instead of summarily shredding them. Forums like these should be the means of circumventing the mainstream, stick-in-the-mud ‘professionalism’ that inhibits the universities. They should be right at the cutting edge of science, not lagging way behind at its conventional blunt end.
“The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories”, my critic says, “are being debated”. So, evidently, he doesn’t regard this forum as any part of the debate. That “Debate”, he tacitly assumes, is going on in Proper Science, the very same “Mainstream” slow traffic that these forums were designed to pull out and overtake, not to crawl timidly along the verge. So, again, what on earth are these people doing on this forum if they think it is so ineffectual? Quite obviously these individuals are no more than charlatans.
I joined this forum, naїvely assuming that, as a retired lecturer, it might be an effective way of circumventing the now spectacularly failing academic system in which my erstwhile colleagues are still enmeshed. Fat chance, it now seems! Diogenes, in Athens, went around shining a lamp in people’s faces. When asked what he was doing he said he was “looking for an honest man”. Jeez! I now know what he meant!
Now I don't imagine that those individuals I'm talking about will understand a word of what I have written here, so I appeal to anyone on this forum who can understand to assure me that the members of this forum are not all like those I have described. Otherwise, folks, I'm off!
Viv Pope
I'm not the Church. Physicists are open-minded and quickly accept new ideas if they're good. The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories are being debated and accepted or rejected depending on predictions and observations.
Relativity for instance wasn't a revolution against all scientific beliefs, but one possible answer to observations that went against prevailing theories. Within a decade, it went from the status of an exotic theory impossible to prove to a theory confirmed by several observations, which means that many physicists had worked on it meanwhile.
So no, rejection doesn't tell by any means that a proposal is good.
Pity, your frenzy is immediately recognizable as crank stuff and certainly not the product of a honest researcher.
Viv Pope replies:
Thanks, friend, for your lovely reply. Why project your mental inadequacies on me? The following are three items which should reveal to all just how profoundly wrong you are. First is my reply to another ill-considered comment from someone like yourself:
My dear 'Enthalpy'.
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately for you, if I am a 'crank' then so was Professor Sir Herman Bondi who was in complete agreement with me that Relativity can be upgraded in the way I have described. So, also are some very fine people, such as the scientist recently featured on TV and in the Sunday Times Supplement, Professor Alan Winfield of UWE Bristol whose blog on 'Dangerous Ideas' lists mine at the top of the list as one which, he says, has radically changed his own way of thinking. And, not least, someone you would have to regard as a 'crank' would be Einstein himself, whose correspondence with this 'crank' in 1954 set him on the research trail that he has been on ever since. That complimentary correspondence has been featured recently on a TV programme entitled 'Prize Possessions' and has been valued at several thousand pounds. It is now held in safekeeping as a treasured item in the local county archives, where it is kept in a vault in atmospherically controlled conditions and can be inspected on request but only under supervision.
This Einstein correspondence has also been featured, over the years’, in various newspapers and journals, both scientific and popular. Again, on the strength of some long correspondence on this subject with the eminent philosopher of science. Professor Sir Karl Popper, my wife and I were invited as guests to his 75th birthday celebrations at the Austrian Institute in London where we met with and discussed with all sorts of other scientists, including Professor Bondi Then we were invited to Popper's home in Buckinghamshire, where he warned me of the sort of resistance to my idea that I should expect from the likes. Sir, of your own good self. If you doubt this, then my name can be found on the list of Popper's correspondents published on Internet.
It seems, then, that you would regard all these good people, not forgetting my colleague, Doctor Anthony Osborn. in our long association at Keele *University, on this very same subject, as 'cranks'!
Thanks, anyway, for giving me this rare opportunity of taking my light from 'under a bushel' and shining it around. It gives me an opportunity to show you and others like you, just what you are tangling with.
To gain respect you have to give respect.
Viv Pope.
Here is item number 2:
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2006
Quite dangerous ideas
I came across the Edge website last week, whose home page declares the rather grand aim:
To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.
It appears that the Edge asks an Annual Question, "What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything", that sort of thing, and then publishes the answers by the contributing illuminati.
The 2006 question is "What is your dangerous idea?".
So it was with some excitement that I started to read the assembled responses of the great and the good. Very interesting and well worth reading but, I have to say, the ideas expressed are, er, not very dangerous. Quite dangerous, one might say, but by and large not the sort of ideas that had me rushing to hide behind the sofa.
So, I hear you say, "what's your dangerous idea?".
Ok then, here goes.
I think that Newton's interpretation of his first law of motion was wrong and that there is no such thing as a force of gravity. Let me say right away that this is not my idea: it is the result of a lifetime's work by my friend Science Philosopher Viv Pope. But I have played a part in the development of this work, so I feel justified in evangelising about it.
Recall your school physics. Newton's first law of motion states that every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. In other words, that the 'natural' state of motion is in a straight line. Of course in an abstract sort of way this feels as if it is right. Perhaps that is why it has not been seriously challenged for the best part of 400 years (or it could be because Newton's first law has become so embedded in the way we think about the world that we simply accept it unquestioningly).
Consider an alternative first law of motion: the natural (force less) state of motion is orbital. I.e. that bodies continue to orbit unless an external force is applied. Now the Universe is full of orbital motion. From the micro-scale - electrons in orbit around nuclei, to the macro-scale - moons around planets, planets around stars, rotating galaxies etc. If this alternative first law is true, it would mean that we don't need to invent gravity to account for orbital motion. This appeals to me, not least because it leads to a simpler and more elegant explanation (and I like Occam's Razor). It would also explain why - despite vast effort and millions of dollars worth of research - no empirical evidence (gravity waves or gravity particles) has yet been found for how gravity propagates or acts at-a-distance. A common-sense objection to this idea is "well if there's no such thing as gravity what is it that sticks us to the surface of the earth - why don't we just float off?". The answer is (and you can show this with some pretty simple maths), that the natural (force less) orbital radius for you (given the mass of your body), is quite a long way towards the centre of the earth from where you now sit. So there is a force that means that you weigh something, it's just not a mysterious force of gravity but the real force exerted by the thing that restrains you from orbiting freely, i.e. the ground under your feet.
This has all been worked out in a good deal of detail by Viv Pope and mathematician Anthony Osborne, and its called the Pope Osborne Angular Momentum Synthesis, or POAMS.
Now that's what I call a dangerous idea.
Posted by Alan Winfield at 12:09 PM
Labels: physics
And here is item number 3. It is addressed to everyone on this forum.
Forums, My ****
Is there a sporting chance that one or another of these so-called ‘science’ forums can be mobilised to fulfil their stated aim to do some really progressive science? Those I have been engaged in, so far, seem to be nothing more than provisions for people who like to pretend they are doing science, whereas in fact, they are no more than playing games with it in a grandiose, ‘let’s pretend’, ‘Walter Mitty’ way.
Surely, the aim of any forum aimed at challenging mainstream science is there, not to vandalise it but to advance it, and this can only be done in the way it has always been done, which is by intelligent rational dialogue. Instead, one finds that, for the most part, any attempt to do science in that truly progressive way is met immediately by an egotistical ‘Who the hell does he think he is!’ kind of reaction. This points the irony that so many of those who claim to be moving science on are the very ones who, as history attests, are holding it back. This they do by sticking like glue to earlier theories about such things as ‘electrons’, ‘photons’, ‘the Big Bang’... and so on as though these were not theories which are there to be challenged but irrefutable facts.
In this way, earlier interpretations of physical phenomena become millstones to be hung round the necks of any radically newer ones, so that these people narroe-mindedly assume that the only way of achieving scientific ‘progress’, if it is not purely an advance in pure technology, is by bolting new ideas onto those older ones in which they were schooled. Any revolutionary suggestion of replacing those old ideas entirely, with less conventional and more logical ones is treated as heresy – even by those who, in these forums, may presume to be ‘heretics’ themselves.
In this way, contributing to scientific ‘progress’ is no more than dragging an accumulating mass of conceptual junk through generations and generations of those science students who are educated, almost solely, to become defenders of the norm. Thus the continuity of academic tradition is maintained at the cost of logical continuity. Any idea, for instance, of replacing, say, conventional
‘gravity’ theory, or ‘electrodynamics’, with some wholly different concept-system is immediately and unthinkingly suppressed. However, true progress in science may require a complete ‘quantum jump’ in the conceptual interpretation of phenomena. Old and even current concepts of “the neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories” and ‘electrons’ for instance (Perish the thought!) might have to be replaced by some more logical and neologistic interpretation of the same phenomenon. ‘Electromagnetic waves’ may need to be replaced by something like ‘action-at a distance’, say, and the ‘Big Bang’ dogma may need to be radically revised in favour of something far less bizarre.
Any such radical replacement requires a complete change of mindset, and anyone who does not have the mental facility of considering radically new ideas cannot be anything but a hindrance to true scientific progress. They should therefore, strictly speaking, not be encouraged to join forums such as these, far less act as summary judges and executioners of revolutionary new concept-systems. These logically structured concept-systems , or Gestalten as perception psychologists call them – ‘lateral thinking’ alternatives, as Edward de Bono identified them – require a capacity of creative imagination which, so far as I have seen, is a rarity in these sorts of forums. What we have, instead, are people who, if they don’t instantly understand the significance some idea, if it is one that doesn’t square straightaway with their own ingrown precepts, then they bray out ‘Rubbish!’, or else respond with tired witticisms delivered in the form of insolent one-liners.
Can this present forum, for instance, mobilise itself to do some real service to science by studying and contemplating new ideas instead of summarily shredding them. Forums like these should be the means of circumventing the mainstream, stick-in-the-mud ‘professionalism’ that inhibits the universities. They should be right at the cutting edge of science, not lagging way behind at its conventional blunt end.
“The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories”, my critic says, “are being debated”. So, evidently, he doesn’t regard this forum as any part of the debate. That “Debate”, he tacitly assumes, is going on in Proper Science, the very same “Mainstream” slow traffic that these forums were designed to pull out and overtake, not to crawl timidly along the verge. So, again, what on earth are these people doing on this forum if they think it is so ineffectual? Quite obviously these individuals are no more than charlatans.
I joined this forum, naїvely assuming that, as a retired lecturer, it might be an effective way of circumventing the now spectacularly failing academic system in which my erstwhile colleagues are still enmeshed. Fat chance, it now seems! Diogenes, in Athens, went around shining a lamp in people’s faces. When asked what he was doing he said he was “looking for an honest man”. Jeez! I now know what he meant!
Now I don't imagine that those individuals I'm talking about will understand a word of what I have written here, so I appeal to anyone on this forum who can understand to assure me that the members of this forum are not all like those I have described. Otherwise, folks, I'm off!
Viv Pope
Viv Pope's postscript to his previous post.
In that post, I apogised for its being a 'reiteration'. Actually, it was not quite that. There were some significant changes in the text, especially towards the end. In the last paragraph I wrote as follows:
I joined this forum, naїvely assuming that, as a retired lecturer, it might be an effective way of circumventing the now spectacularly failing academic system in which my erstwhile colleagues are still enmeshed. Fat chance, it now seems! Diogenes, in Athens, went around shining a lamp in people’s faces. When asked what he was doing he said he was “looking for an honest man”. Jeez! I now know what he meant!
Here is something else I should emphasise. Just think of what this critic is implying:
“The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories”, my critic says, “are being debated”. So, evidently, he doesn’t regard this forum as any part of the debate. That “Debate”, he tacitly assumes, is going on in Proper Science, the very same “Mainstream” slow traffic that these forums were designed to pull out and overtake, not to crawl timidly along the verge. So, again, what on earth are these people doing on this forum if they think it is so ineffectual? Quite obviously these individuals are no more than charlatans.
Now I don't imagine that those individuals I'm talking about will understand a word of what I have written here, so I appeal to anyone on this forum who can understand to assure me that the members of this forum are not all like those I have described. Otherwise, folks, I'm off!
If you've' understood nothing else I've said, then at least, if you can read plain English:
Please dwell on this.
In that post, I apogised for its being a 'reiteration'. Actually, it was not quite that. There were some significant changes in the text, especially towards the end. In the last paragraph I wrote as follows:
I joined this forum, naїvely assuming that, as a retired lecturer, it might be an effective way of circumventing the now spectacularly failing academic system in which my erstwhile colleagues are still enmeshed. Fat chance, it now seems! Diogenes, in Athens, went around shining a lamp in people’s faces. When asked what he was doing he said he was “looking for an honest man”. Jeez! I now know what he meant!
Here is something else I should emphasise. Just think of what this critic is implying:
“The neutron, the neutrino, quantum mechanics, black holes, chromodynamics, black matter, string theories”, my critic says, “are being debated”. So, evidently, he doesn’t regard this forum as any part of the debate. That “Debate”, he tacitly assumes, is going on in Proper Science, the very same “Mainstream” slow traffic that these forums were designed to pull out and overtake, not to crawl timidly along the verge. So, again, what on earth are these people doing on this forum if they think it is so ineffectual? Quite obviously these individuals are no more than charlatans.
Now I don't imagine that those individuals I'm talking about will understand a word of what I have written here, so I appeal to anyone on this forum who can understand to assure me that the members of this forum are not all like those I have described. Otherwise, folks, I'm off!
If you've' understood nothing else I've said, then at least, if you can read plain English:
Please dwell on this.
QUOTE (Enthalpy+Jun 23 2008, 04:58 PM)
Three new crank's topics about the Pioneer Anomaly within a week...
My explanation: a governmental agency tries to prevent someone from finding another topic about the Pioneer Anomaly on this same forum.
Viv Pope replies
Dear 'Enthalpy'
I hope everyone in this forum will read this analysis and heed the warning.
Forums, my grandson’s view
I was pondering over the psychology of these people whose only contributions to these science forums is to issue insulting Clever-Clogs-type ‘witticisms’. When my twenty-six-year-old grandson called, I spoke to him about this and showed him some samples of these responses. These made him angry. He seized my laptop and typed-in as follows:
“The only thing I can liken these people to is the change in some people’s behaviour when they get behind the wheel of a car. Their personality undergoes a transformation into some form of raging beast, who, safe inside the car, feels superior to all others. They hide behind the façade of some pseudonym, alias or profile, so that others are unable to see them face to face. This allows them to say things they are unable to in a normal conversation. In reality, they are likely to be wimps, meek and mild individuals who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. They use the opportunity of these forums to gain some feeling of ‘getting one over’ on someone they feel threatened by.
But if you are going to insult or call someone a ‘crank’, then at least be sure of your argument and be able to back it up with facts. Be sure of what you know and be up for a fight. If you call someone a crank, just to have some input, be prepared to be shot down, both barrels.”
“Yes, William. I said, ‘Its just like poking lions behind bars, It would frighten them shirtless if those bars were removed and they were faced with the lion itself!”
And that’s about it, I reckon. The problem which is confronted by these well-meaning forums for the democratic advancement of science is, somehow, to prevent these sad characters from getting in and vandalizing anything that is of value. It’s an extremely difficult problem for organisers and true subscribers alike
Anyway, thinking it over, it seems that perhaps one solution would be to get rid of these silly pseudonyms that people can hide behind, and make it a rule that they reveal their true identities. If they were in universities or some other erudite organization, they would have to shape-up in this way. I’m not saying that all subscribers to these forums should be graduates, or undergraduates, post-Docs or whatever. Ideally, what these forums are for, is to provide avenues for free thinkers who may not want to be weighed down by all the academic and professional lets and hindrances. But in this liberal pursuit, one doesn’t want to find these conduits clogged, like waste-pipes for those who can anonymously pretend to be scientists but haven’t a hope in hell of engaging in any true scientific discussion.
Is there any other way in which these forums can be cleared to fulfil the purpose for which they were intended? They should surely be free of, on the one hand those who cannot put aside current scientific conventions – stuck, for instance with concepts like those of ‘electrons and protons’, ‘neutrinos; ‘wave-particles’, and so on, and, on the other hand, those “wimps” my disinterested grandson describes, whose anarchistic urges cannot be expressed in any normal, rational way. Something has to be done if these forums are not to remain, as some serious thinkers now regard them, a standing joke.
Viv Pope
My explanation: a governmental agency tries to prevent someone from finding another topic about the Pioneer Anomaly on this same forum.
Viv Pope replies
Dear 'Enthalpy'
I hope everyone in this forum will read this analysis and heed the warning.
Forums, my grandson’s view
I was pondering over the psychology of these people whose only contributions to these science forums is to issue insulting Clever-Clogs-type ‘witticisms’. When my twenty-six-year-old grandson called, I spoke to him about this and showed him some samples of these responses. These made him angry. He seized my laptop and typed-in as follows:
“The only thing I can liken these people to is the change in some people’s behaviour when they get behind the wheel of a car. Their personality undergoes a transformation into some form of raging beast, who, safe inside the car, feels superior to all others. They hide behind the façade of some pseudonym, alias or profile, so that others are unable to see them face to face. This allows them to say things they are unable to in a normal conversation. In reality, they are likely to be wimps, meek and mild individuals who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. They use the opportunity of these forums to gain some feeling of ‘getting one over’ on someone they feel threatened by.
But if you are going to insult or call someone a ‘crank’, then at least be sure of your argument and be able to back it up with facts. Be sure of what you know and be up for a fight. If you call someone a crank, just to have some input, be prepared to be shot down, both barrels.”
“Yes, William. I said, ‘Its just like poking lions behind bars, It would frighten them shirtless if those bars were removed and they were faced with the lion itself!”
And that’s about it, I reckon. The problem which is confronted by these well-meaning forums for the democratic advancement of science is, somehow, to prevent these sad characters from getting in and vandalizing anything that is of value. It’s an extremely difficult problem for organisers and true subscribers alike
Anyway, thinking it over, it seems that perhaps one solution would be to get rid of these silly pseudonyms that people can hide behind, and make it a rule that they reveal their true identities. If they were in universities or some other erudite organization, they would have to shape-up in this way. I’m not saying that all subscribers to these forums should be graduates, or undergraduates, post-Docs or whatever. Ideally, what these forums are for, is to provide avenues for free thinkers who may not want to be weighed down by all the academic and professional lets and hindrances. But in this liberal pursuit, one doesn’t want to find these conduits clogged, like waste-pipes for those who can anonymously pretend to be scientists but haven’t a hope in hell of engaging in any true scientific discussion.
Is there any other way in which these forums can be cleared to fulfil the purpose for which they were intended? They should surely be free of, on the one hand those who cannot put aside current scientific conventions – stuck, for instance with concepts like those of ‘electrons and protons’, ‘neutrinos; ‘wave-particles’, and so on, and, on the other hand, those “wimps” my disinterested grandson describes, whose anarchistic urges cannot be expressed in any normal, rational way. Something has to be done if these forums are not to remain, as some serious thinkers now regard them, a standing joke.
Viv Pope
That's right crank. It looks much less like the work of a crank when you post in lots of different fonts and sizes.
Why don’t you vary the colour too?
Why don’t you vary the colour too?
QUOTE (Viv Pope+)
Consider an alternative first law of motion: the natural (force less) state of motion is orbital. I.e. that bodies continue to orbit unless an external force is applied.
No. Bodies without a force on them would move in a straight line or not move at all. An orbit is not a straight line. Bodies in orbit have a force acting on them at all times, which is why they're, you know, orbiting.
No. Bodies without a force on them would move in a straight line or not move at all. An orbit is not a straight line. Bodies in orbit have a force acting on them at all times, which is why they're, you know, orbiting.
QUOTE (N O M+)
That's right crank. It looks much less like the work of a crank when you post in lots of different fonts and sizes.
Why don’t you vary the colour too?
How long did that take
Why don’t you vary the colour too?
How long did that take
Viv Pope's Analysis of these strange forum arguments
What one notices about these forums in general is that it is almost impossible to engage in any truly logical exchange of ideas, A truly logical argument is a dialectical process. It is not just a string of opinions, like a bus where you can get off anywhere on request. If you are honest, and if it is truth you are after, then in a logical argument you are on a railway track where, once aboard your the train are consigned to stay on those tracks, wherever they might lead, to whatever places may be strange to you. Any junctions you may encounter on the way have to be taken while sticking to the tracks and not derailing your train.
But take, for instance my argument concerning the so-called ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, on the forum thread I opened-up under that title. The following argument is, surely, irrefutable:
-----------------
Angular momentum is a conserved quantity. The total angular momentum of a freely orbiting body is therefore its orbital angular momentum plus its spin angular momentum. This means that for an orbiting body which is spinning, its orbital angular momentum will be less than if it were not spinning.
NASA’s space-probes spin – they have to, in order to maintain their orientation with respect to earth. So, like any other orbiting body which spins, their orbital angular momentum is less that it would be without the spin.
But NASA computes the orbital trajectories on the basis of Newtonian dynamics, according to which the ‘gravitational; force’ which keeps a body in orbit is dependent solely on the masses of those bodies, which ‘force’ is presumed to be the same regardless of whether or not those bodies are spinning.
It follows, then, that since NASA’s computations take no account of the spin angular momentum of their probes, and since the spin reduces their orbital angular momentum, then when they are in solar orbit, say, since it is the amount of angular momentum which determines their radial distance from the barycenter (in this case, the sun), then the trajectory of the spinning probe will be nearer the sun than it would be without the spin.
But that is precisely what NASA have discovered, and since the dynamics they employ in computing those trajectories is Newtonian, which does not take account of spin, then that tendency of their probes to be accelerated towards the sun will seem an anomaly.
Logically, then, this is a prime logical explanation of the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, that what steers these space-probes off course is their spin.
-----------------------------------------
Now, as I say, that argument is logically irrefutable. However, practically all the responses to on it in this forum have been, by far the most part. negative. Silly ‘Yah-Boo’ reactions are the norm. Names like ‘crank’, ‘liar’ and all sorts of what dwk. has appropriately named ‘spoiling tactics’, seem to be ‘the order of the day’.
The same goes for the logical demonstration, on this thread, of a simpler and more logical approach to relativity. Now why is this? Is it that people don’t understand logic, that it has ceased to be is a part of our education, as a colleague of mine suggests?
Well, maybe so. But what it is mostly, it seems to me, is simply a typical ‘fear of the unknown’. There is great safety and comfort in being able to discuss and argue about things like ‘electrons’, ‘field-forces’, ‘gravity-waves’ and so on, with people who share that same particular language register. They all take in each other’s washing, as it is said. But subject those concepts to a logical analysis, especially one which threatens to remove these familiarities and replace them with something else, and panic breaks out.
But true progress in science is always into the unknown. So how can we ever make progress when it is dragged back by so many frightened people? This I now see as the biggest drawback with these forums, that they provide an outlet for people who like to pose as ‘scientists’ but haven’t a clue as to what scientific progress entails. They are content to go along with whatever happens to be the conceptual ‘going rate’, too afraid of anything, or anyone, threatening to ‘buck the system Having now studied the mindsets of these people I am not optimistic that anything can come of these discussions.
However, I may be wrong. There have been a few responses that reveal a bit more ‘bottle’ than the norm. If the proportion of these more intrepid thinkers to the others were somehow to increase, then we may get somewhere, and I would like think that my input, as a Philosopher of Science, may give some help in that direction.
But, as my Grandmother used to say, ‘We live in hope if we die in despair!’
Viv Pope
What one notices about these forums in general is that it is almost impossible to engage in any truly logical exchange of ideas, A truly logical argument is a dialectical process. It is not just a string of opinions, like a bus where you can get off anywhere on request. If you are honest, and if it is truth you are after, then in a logical argument you are on a railway track where, once aboard your the train are consigned to stay on those tracks, wherever they might lead, to whatever places may be strange to you. Any junctions you may encounter on the way have to be taken while sticking to the tracks and not derailing your train.
But take, for instance my argument concerning the so-called ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, on the forum thread I opened-up under that title. The following argument is, surely, irrefutable:
-----------------
Angular momentum is a conserved quantity. The total angular momentum of a freely orbiting body is therefore its orbital angular momentum plus its spin angular momentum. This means that for an orbiting body which is spinning, its orbital angular momentum will be less than if it were not spinning.
NASA’s space-probes spin – they have to, in order to maintain their orientation with respect to earth. So, like any other orbiting body which spins, their orbital angular momentum is less that it would be without the spin.
But NASA computes the orbital trajectories on the basis of Newtonian dynamics, according to which the ‘gravitational; force’ which keeps a body in orbit is dependent solely on the masses of those bodies, which ‘force’ is presumed to be the same regardless of whether or not those bodies are spinning.
It follows, then, that since NASA’s computations take no account of the spin angular momentum of their probes, and since the spin reduces their orbital angular momentum, then when they are in solar orbit, say, since it is the amount of angular momentum which determines their radial distance from the barycenter (in this case, the sun), then the trajectory of the spinning probe will be nearer the sun than it would be without the spin.
But that is precisely what NASA have discovered, and since the dynamics they employ in computing those trajectories is Newtonian, which does not take account of spin, then that tendency of their probes to be accelerated towards the sun will seem an anomaly.
Logically, then, this is a prime logical explanation of the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, that what steers these space-probes off course is their spin.
-----------------------------------------
Now, as I say, that argument is logically irrefutable. However, practically all the responses to on it in this forum have been, by far the most part. negative. Silly ‘Yah-Boo’ reactions are the norm. Names like ‘crank’, ‘liar’ and all sorts of what dwk. has appropriately named ‘spoiling tactics’, seem to be ‘the order of the day’.
The same goes for the logical demonstration, on this thread, of a simpler and more logical approach to relativity. Now why is this? Is it that people don’t understand logic, that it has ceased to be is a part of our education, as a colleague of mine suggests?
Well, maybe so. But what it is mostly, it seems to me, is simply a typical ‘fear of the unknown’. There is great safety and comfort in being able to discuss and argue about things like ‘electrons’, ‘field-forces’, ‘gravity-waves’ and so on, with people who share that same particular language register. They all take in each other’s washing, as it is said. But subject those concepts to a logical analysis, especially one which threatens to remove these familiarities and replace them with something else, and panic breaks out.
But true progress in science is always into the unknown. So how can we ever make progress when it is dragged back by so many frightened people? This I now see as the biggest drawback with these forums, that they provide an outlet for people who like to pose as ‘scientists’ but haven’t a clue as to what scientific progress entails. They are content to go along with whatever happens to be the conceptual ‘going rate’, too afraid of anything, or anyone, threatening to ‘buck the system Having now studied the mindsets of these people I am not optimistic that anything can come of these discussions.
However, I may be wrong. There have been a few responses that reveal a bit more ‘bottle’ than the norm. If the proportion of these more intrepid thinkers to the others were somehow to increase, then we may get somewhere, and I would like think that my input, as a Philosopher of Science, may give some help in that direction.
But, as my Grandmother used to say, ‘We live in hope if we die in despair!’
Viv Pope
QUOTE (Viv Pope+Jul 4 2008, 03:54 AM)
[SIZE=7]Names like ‘crank’, ‘liar’ and all sorts of what dwk. has appropriately named ‘spoiling tactics’, seem to be ‘the order of the day’.
But you misattribute that quote sir! I don't recall coining such a phrase!
But you misattribute that quote sir! I don't recall coining such a phrase!
QUOTE (dwk+Jul 3 2008, 06:26 PM)
But you misattribute that quote sir! I don't recall coining such a phrase!
Sorry, dwk, Thinking back, I think it was 'farsight'. But it's a very nice phrase, very suitable for the sentiments I wish to express.
Sorry again
Viv Pope
Sorry, dwk, Thinking back, I think it was 'farsight'. But it's a very nice phrase, very suitable for the sentiments I wish to express.
Sorry again
Viv Pope
QUOTE (Viv Pope+Jun 24 2008, 07:47 AM)
If you understand that, then you will understand why, in my thesis, what you regard as 'the mysterious effects of the resultant changes in orbital angular momentum' are 'caused', not by anything 'mechanical' but simply by the Law of Conservation of angular momentum itself. I hope that this is now clear.
Clear as mud. I don't think you understood my argument well enough to refute it, so you blathered on about steam engines and Boltzmann's Second Law of Thermodynamics instead.
Clear as mud. I don't think you understood my argument well enough to refute it, so you blathered on about steam engines and Boltzmann's Second Law of Thermodynamics instead.
I've been thinking over Viv Pope's theory, wondering if I'd missed something important, something large. Like a planet.
His theory doesn't seem to exclude planets from feeling the POAMS effect. They have enormous angular momentum (perhaps excluding Venus) - their rotation rates are slower than the Pioneers but they more than make up for that with enormous mass and immense radii, and something similar could be said for their orbital angular momentum. They also have eccentric orbits so their orbital angular momentums are changing. Thus there should be a POAMS force on them, which in another thread Viv has stated is always towards the barycenter (which for the solar system is usually found with the volume of the Sun). Thus if it exists we should have been able to see this force at work on the planets in the few centuries where accurate measurements of their positions have been made. My personal guess is that with this additional force in addition to the ordinary 1/r^2, orbits would precess at a faster rate.
No such effect has been seen, as near as I can tell. However, since Viv's theory is only a pseudotheory (not having been expressed mathematically), it is impossible to conclusively state this. I sincerely hope the day when Viv puts his money where his mouth is by replacing his hand-waving arguments with a quantitative argument.
His theory doesn't seem to exclude planets from feeling the POAMS effect. They have enormous angular momentum (perhaps excluding Venus) - their rotation rates are slower than the Pioneers but they more than make up for that with enormous mass and immense radii, and something similar could be said for their orbital angular momentum. They also have eccentric orbits so their orbital angular momentums are changing. Thus there should be a POAMS force on them, which in another thread Viv has stated is always towards the barycenter (which for the solar system is usually found with the volume of the Sun). Thus if it exists we should have been able to see this force at work on the planets in the few centuries where accurate measurements of their positions have been made. My personal guess is that with this additional force in addition to the ordinary 1/r^2, orbits would precess at a faster rate.
No such effect has been seen, as near as I can tell. However, since Viv's theory is only a pseudotheory (not having been expressed mathematically), it is impossible to conclusively state this. I sincerely hope the day when Viv puts his money where his mouth is by replacing his hand-waving arguments with a quantitative argument.
QUOTE (barakn+Jul 3 2008, 05:26 PM)
No such effect has been seen, as near as I can tell. However, since Viv's theory is only a pseudotheory (not having been expressed mathematically), it is impossible to conclusively state this. I sincerely hope the day when Viv puts his money where his mouth is by replacing his hand-waving arguments with a quantitative argument.
Not when he retreats from any challenge to prove it after being given all the relevant data and just spouting on about the "psychology" of the boards. He had his chance, failed to produce anything, and now he just descends into crankdom.
Not when he retreats from any challenge to prove it after being given all the relevant data and just spouting on about the "psychology" of the boards. He had his chance, failed to produce anything, and now he just descends into crankdom.
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