Crackpot, or not

[TinyTree]

Assuming your TOE is true, would you rather be a crackpot, or a reknowned physicist?

It seems like being a crackpot has many advantages, some of which I will list here:

1) You have lots of leisure time to explore the theory, as few comprehend or work on it. Thus, like opening a present you can savor its slow unwrapping.

2) You don't have to worry about society messing with your work or interpretation, as Galileo did (landing him in prison after he published from 35 years after discovery)

3) You are not beholden to any public relations arm or university that has its own agenda

4) You don't have to worry about angry mobs, who disagree with your math, science, or political view, like Hypatia (the mathematician who invented the hydroscope and graduated brass hydrometer) who was killed by an angry mob.

Disadvantages to being a crack-pot

1) The pay is terrible

2) The fame is not exactly the sort of fame you might want, but it is an enjoyable sort nonetheless

3) Your theory doesn't get developed by others who have good ideas

4) You get no respect, except by those who are also genuinely interested in understanding reality and open to ideas.


However, if you are gainfully employed, it seems that a theory coming across as crack-pot is preferable to general acceptance.

What do you think?

[michellemfry]

I think of all the people I admire, most of them are dead, and most of them were treated harshly at some time in history. Do I want to add to that behavior? Tolerance and forgiveness seems a better policy.

[baudrunner]

I think the term we are looking for is CRANK. We specialize in crank physics. We sometimes make waves, and when we do we love it!

I've been thinking of getting a bumper sticker for my beat up old '94 Merc Topaz 2-door standard (the ideal crank mobile!). It would say

I'd rather be a crank..

I can say anything I like!

Which inspires me with an idea. Me first. How can you tell if someone is a crank?

1. He knows absolutely everything - don't argue!

2. He drives a practical automobile, a standard usually over ten years old that he just can't kill (like me)

3. He eats chopped (not boiled - steeped) weiners with boiled eggs and high fibre toast for breakfast

4. He puts mayonaise on everything

5. He usually needs to be told that he needs a haircut

6. He has one cheap suit and never wears it

7. He loves tea - nuthin' like a cuppa

9. He types like a fiend

10. He thinks funerals are for dead people

That's ten, I don't want to give myself away so I'm going to stop right there.

[michellemfry]

You're in a good mood this morning. Top 10 lists should be a regular part of posting.

[baudrunner]

All things are relative,

© ripped off from one of Conrad Black's newspapers

Now here's a fellow who doesn't really qualify as a crank, although I do have a sneaking suspicion that there were times when he might have had a secret wish to be so recognized. I mean, we are all just so cool, and he was definitely one of the coolest dudes around.

To wit...

1.
We recall that Albert Einstein once theorized that the Universe was static, that is, a Universe where everything remained in its place, like some cosmic diorama. When some bright individual challenged the idea by suggesting that gravity would pull everything together into one giant lump in a static Universe he went back to his notes and invented something he called a "cosmological constant", which introduced an anti-gravity component into his relativity equations. That satisfied the community. That is, until Edwin Hubble proved in 1929 through his observations that the Universe was expanding, and Einstein had to recant, saying that this was his greatest blunder.

2.
Einstein won his nobel prize for his explanation of the photo-electric effect. In short, it was observed that ultra-violet light "knocked" the electron from the outer orbital of a sodium atom. The experiment was done using a sealed vacuum jar, a bell jar like the kind of our physics classes. A block of sodium acting as a cathode connected to a battery was placed in the jar and a positively charged receiving anode was placed in the upper portion of the jar completing the circuit. Deflection of a galvanometer needle showed that current flowed when ultra-violet light was directed at the sodium block. He concluded that when a photon is sufficiently excited, it will have the energy to knock an electron out of its orbit. Now, photons are not supposed to have mass and no explanation is given for how something that doesn't have mass can transfer momentum to something that does have mass, however small that mass may be.

In an old fashioned radio vacuum tube such as a diode, or in your TV picture tube, a heater filament is situated behind the cathode. When the circuit is turned on, electrons jump the gap between cathode and anode, which in the TV is represented by the face-plate of the picture tube. This effect does not take place if the filament is not on, like when it is opened or the connection to the filament pin under the tube is broken. It follows that the same effect on the sodium block can be observed if no ultra-violet light is shone on it and it is heated instead. Heat is generated by micro-waves, at the other end of the spectrum from ultra-violet light.

3.
Experiments performed over a hundred years ago confirmed the rate at which the wave front of a beam of light progressed forward, ie. the "speed of light". It was also observed that the wavefront of a beam of light originating from a source on a very fast moving platform travelled forward no faster or slower than the wave front of a beam of light originating from a stationary source. Their rate of propagation is identical. Observation of this phenomenon led to the principle which states that nothing can exceed the speed of light. Einstein went so far as to suggest that time must move slower for a fast moving object, which explained the observations. Now, believe it or not, that was a sheer coincidence, because he happens to be right. But I wonder if he would have drawn the same conclusion so quickly if science had had a complete understanding of the true nature of the way in which light is generated and propagated. I think not, and I will explain this in my next posting about the TOE.

[dleviwing]

It is easy to recognize the cranks and crackpots; they are the people who disagree with YOUR ideas. ("YOUR" is referring to anyone with an idea and not to anyone personally.)

[baudrunner]

Dave,


I understand the collective "your". I use it all the time - hasn't got me in trouble yet!

When are we going to read your TOE theory?


"Brothers in TOE's"

baudrunner