Believe me, I sympathize. You are in possession of a truly incredible breakthrough that offers the prospect of changing the very face of science as we know it, if not more. The only problem is, you’re coming at things from an unorthodox perspective. Maybe your findings don’t fit comfortably with people’s preconceived notions, or maybe you don’t have the elaborate academic credentials that established scientists take for granted. Perhaps you have been able to construct a machine that produces more energy than it consumes, using only common household implements; or maybe you’ve discovered a hidden pattern within the Fibonacci sequence that accurately predicts the weight that a top quark would experience on Ganymede, expressed in femtonewtons; or it might be that you’ve elaborated upon an alternative explanation for the evolution of life on Earth that augments natural selection by unspecified interventions from a vaguely-defined higher power. Whatever the specifics, the point is that certain kinds of breakthroughs just aren’t going to come from a hide-bound scholastic establishment; they require the fresh perspective and beginner’s mind that only an outsider genius (such as yourself) can bring to the table.
Yet, even though science is supposed to be about being open-minded, and there’s so much that we don’t understand about how the universe works, it’s still hard for outsiders to be taken seriously. Instead, you run up against stuffy attitudes like this:
If there are any new Einsteins out there with a correct theory of everything all LaTeXed up, they should feel quite willing to ask me for an endorsement for the arxiv; I’d be happy to bask in the reflected glory and earn a footnote in their triumphant autobiography. More likely, however, they will just send their paper to Physical Review, where it will be accepted and published, and they will become famous without my help.
If, on the other hand, there is anyone out there who thinks they are the next Einstein, but really they are just a crackpot, don’t bother; I get things like that all the time. Sadly, the real next-Einsteins only come along once per century, whereas the crackpots are far too common.
And that last part is sadly true. There is a numbers game that is working against you. You are not the only person from an alternative perspective who purports to have a dramatic new finding, and here you are asking established scientists to take time out from conventional research to sit down and examine your claims in detail. Of course, we know that you really do have a breakthrough in your hands, while those people are just crackpots. But how do you convince everyone else? All you want is a fair hearing.
Scientists can’t possibly pay equal attention to every conceivable hypothesis, they would literally never do anything else. Whether explicitly or not, they typically apply a Bayesian prior to the claims that are put before them. Purported breakthroughs are not all treated equally; if something runs up against their pre-existing notions of how the universe works, they are much less likely to pay it any attention. So what does it take for the truly important discoveries to get taken seriously?
Happily, we are here to help. It would be a shame if the correct theory to explain away dark matter or account for the origin of life were developed by someone without a conventional academic position, who didn’t really take a lot of science classes in college and didn’t have a great math background but was always interested in the big questions, only for that theory to be neglected because of some churlish prejudice. So we would like to present a simple checklist of things that alternative scientists should do in order to get taken seriously by the Man. And the good news is, it’s only three items! How hard can that be, really? True, each of the items might require a nontrivial amount of work to overcome. Hey, nobody ever said that being a lonely genius was easy.
So let’s begin at the beginning:
1. Acquire basic competency in whatever field of science your discovery belongs to.
In other words, “get to know what is already known.” If you have a new theory that unites all the forces, make sure you have mastered elementary physics, and grasp the basics of quantum field theory and particle physics. If you’ve built a perpetual-motion machine, make sure you possess a thorough grounding in mechanical and electrical engineering, and are pretty familiar with the First Law of Thermodynamics. If you can explain the cosmological redshift without invoking an expanding universe, make sure you know general relativity and have mastered the basics of modern cosmology and astrophysics.
Just as an example, if fundamental physics is your bailiwick, Gerard ‘t Hooft has put together a list of subjects you should get under your belt, complete with bibliography! Many of them are online lecture notes; some of them are by me. So start reading! It may seem like a daunting collection at first; but keep in mind, this kind of curriculum is completed by hundreds of graduate students every year. Most of whom are not singular geniuses who will transform the very face of science.
Now, you may object that steering clear of such pre-existing knowledge has played a crucial role in your unique brand of breakthrough research, and you would never have been able to make those dazzling conceptual leaps had you been weighed down by all of that established art. Let me break it down for you: no. There may have been a time, in the halcyon days of Archimedes or maybe even Galileo and Newton, when anyone with a can-do attitude and a passing interest in the fundamental mysteries could make an important contribution to our understanding of nature. Those days are long past. (And Galileo and Newton, let us note, understood the science of their time better than anybody.) We’ve learned a tremendous amount about how the universe works, most of which is “right” at least in some well-defined regime of applicability. If you haven’t mastered what we’ve already learned, you’re not going to be able to see beyond it.
Put it this way: it’s a matter of respect. By asking scientists to take your work seriously, you are asking them to respect you enough to spend their time investigating your claims. The absolute least you can do is respect them enough to catch up on the stuff they’ve all made a great effort to master. There are a lot of smart people working as scientists these days; if a basic feature of your purported breakthrough (“the derivation of the Friedmann equation is wrong”; “length contraction is a logical contradiction”) is that it requires that a huge number of such people have been making the same elementary mistake over and over again for years, the fault is more likely to lie within yourself than in the stars. Do your homework, first, then get back to me.
2. Understand, and make a good-faith effort to confront, the fundamental objections to your claims within established science.
Someone comes along and says “I’ve discovered that there’s no need for dark matter.” A brief glance at the abstract reveals that the model violates our understanding of perturbation theory. Well, perhaps there is something subtle going on here, and our conventional understanding of perturbation theory doesn’t apply in this case. So here’s what any working theoretical cosmologist would do (even if they aren’t consciously aware that they’re doing it): they would glance at the introduction to the paper, looking for a paragraph that says “Look, we know this isn’t what you would expect from elementary perturbation theory, but here’s why that doesn’t apply in this case.” Upon not finding that paragraph, they would toss the paper away.
Scientific claims — whether theoretical insights or experimental breakthroughs — don’t exist all by their lonesome. They are situated within a framework of pre-existing knowledge and expectations. If the claim you are making seems manifestly inconsistent with that framework, it’s your job to explain why anyone should nevertheless take you seriously. Whenever someone claims to build a perpetual-motion device, scientist solemnly reiterate that the law of conservation of energy is not to be trifled with lightly. Of course one must admit that it could be wrong — it’s only one law, after all. But when you actually build some machine that purportedly puts out more ergs than it consumes (in perpetuity), it does a lot more than violate the law of conservation of energy. That machine is made of atoms and electromagnetic fields, which obey the laws of atomic physics and Maxwell’s equations. And conservation of energy can be derived from those laws — so you’re violating those as well. If you claim that the position of Venus within the Zodiac affects your love life, you’re not only positing some spooky correlation between celestial bodies and human affairs; your theory also requires some sort of long-range force that acts between you and Venus, and there aren’t any such forces strong enough to be relevant. If you try to brush those issues under the rug, rather than confronting them straightforwardly, your credibility suffers greatly.
For example, imagine you say, “I have a method of brewing a magical healing potion that bypasses the ossified practices of your so-called `medicine,’ and I’ve personally known several people who were miraculously cured by it, and also there was a study once in some journal that didn’t conclusively rule out the possibility of an effect, and besides you don’t know everything.” No non-crackpot person is going to pay a whit of attention to you, except perhaps to poke fun in between doing serious work. But now imagine you say “It’s true that my claimed magical healing potion appears to violate this famous law of chemistry and that well-established principle of medicine, which have been painstakingly developed and stringently tested against experimental data over the course of many decades, and it’s natural that you would be skeptical of such a claim — but here is the empirical evidence that is dramatic enough to overcome that skepticism, and this is the reason why there might be a loophole in those laws in this particular circumstance.” People will be much more likely to take you seriously.
3. Present your discovery in a way that is complete, transparent, and unambiguous.
What we’re getting at here is that scientific discoveries, unlike sonnets or declarations of love, are universal rather than personal. They belong to everyone, and once they are presented to the world, they can be explored equally well by anybody. By almost any standard, I understand general relativity better than Einstein ever did. (Most parts of it, anyway.) Not because I’m anywhere nearly as smart as Einstein, but because we’ve learned a lot about GR since Einstein died. Once the theory was invented, he didn’t have a monopoly on it; it was out there for anyone to understand and move forward with. Even if he had repudiated his own theory, it would have had no effect on whether or not it was correct.
Your discovery should be the same way. If it’s a revolutionary new theory, it should be a theory that anyone can use. That means it needs to be clearly expressed and unambiguous. I’ve had more than one long and fruitless discussion with alternative scientists who would say “You tell me the experimental result, and I will explain it with my theory.” That’s not the way it works. Your theory should have a life of its own; it should be a machine that I (or anyone) could use to make predictions. And if it’s a physics theory, let’s face it, it’s going to involve math. In this day and age, nobody is going to be moved by a model of elementary particles that comes expressed as a set of three-dimensional sculptures constructed from pipe cleaners.
Likewise, if your breakthrough is an experiment, it had better be a dramatically obvious one — and the more you are violating cherished scientific beliefs, the more dramatic the effect had better be. If what you’re claiming requires a re-arrangement of the energy levels in organic molecules, in flagrant disregard of the Schrödinger equation, you are going to need much more than a two- or three-sigma effect. And, equally importantly, you have to be up front about what the apparatus is, so that anyone can reproduce the experiment. No fair saying “Well, if you come into my lab, I’ll turn it on and show you how it works.” And “This experiment was done in the ’70’s in a secret underground lab in Gdansk, and the KGB has suppressed the lab notebooks” isn’t any better. If you’re actually playing the role of a scientist, share your procedure with everyone, so that they can become true believers themselves. If, on the other hand, you just want to make money, then by all means don’t tell anyone; just start producing the free energy (or amazing stretchy widgets, or whatever) and sell it on the open market. The millions of dollars that will doubtless flow your way will be very comforting as you rail against the establishment for failing to appreciate your genius.
So there you go! Modesty aside, this post might be the single greatest favor that has ever been done for the loose-knit community of non-traditional scientists. We’ve been very explicit about what is expected, if you want to get the recognition you believe is your due. Three simple items, start checking them off!
Also, one last thing. Don’t compare yourself to Galileo. You are not Galileo. Honestly, you’re not. Dude, seriously.
An interesting follow-up to this post would be to give some examples of researchers who have done significant work and garnered recognition and respect in the relevant field(s) without conventional academic affiliations, at least at the early stages of the work in question. One example that comes to mind is Julian Barbour. (Note that Barbour did earn what would be considered the minimally required academic credentials for a serious researcher in physics or the history and philosophy of science—a Ph.D., from the University of Cologne.)
Van wrote
Thank you very much for your question.
I do not use the concept of radiation pressure in my theory. I promote or advocate a concept which might be called “radiation attraction” which as far as I know only my experiments have been able demonstrate. They show that radiation, more particularly spreading infrared radiation is attractive.
When a new moon is facing us, it is very difficult to see the dark side. Nevertheless, this dark side is emitting infrared radiation which, as I have said, my experiments seem to demonstrate a slight (gravitational) attractive force.
This infrared radiation varies inversely as the square of the distance from most large astrophysical bodies that have a temperature. As I have tried to get across in my paper the amount of the attractive force produced by the spreading infrared luminosity from an astrophysical body that has a temperature does not have to be much. The attractive force from this radiation needs only to be enough to sufficiently activate the “powerful inner lever” that resides in most large astrophysical bodies.
If strong>Seanis so interested thwarting crackpots or promoting physics outreach to us poor amateurs who are possessed with such limited vision why does not he use his fine education and skills in communicating to demonstrate that the obvious faulty logic of my one or two equations which indicate quite clearly to me that there is a powerful inner lever inside every astrophysical body. After all my main equation only involves three variables multiplied together with none of them raised to a power. And this one main equation employs well understood physics that has been adequately confirmed by observations.
Peter Fred,
Does the side of the moon facing the Earth not also emit infrared radiation? How do you account for the gravitational attraction of humans and other small objects towards the Earth? What about man-made satellites? I think you need to do a little more thinking….
a friend of mine told me to read cosmicvariance. this post, in particular, the first i have read, is quite interesting. but how does a newbie with a legitimate alternative theory protect himself against mainstream scientists who are “theory-thieves”, if i may use the term? i don’t think anybody would get published, anyway, without the requisite degrees when the paper passes through the hands of the peer-reviewers.
that’s just my two-cents worth. i may be wrong, but i would really appreciate being enlightened.
I find this tremendously insulting.
This brings back memories of reading certain unmoderated physics Usenet groups, e.g., sci.physics.particle and sci.physics.relativity. Because of the lack of moderation in such forums, there is nothing to inhibit someone from putting out alternative ideas of their own for discussion. Sometimes the person is genuinely interested in criticism that inevitably comes when someone with limited physics background (e.g., at the level an electrical engineer receives, or less) proposes a highly speculative or nonstandard idea, and so the exchange is productive — the person comes away with an appreciation that developing a new theory is a highly nontrivial task, one that takes a lot of knowledge that only comes with serious study as Sean has pointed out. Sometimes it seemed their interest in physics is deep enough to persist and study it at the university level.
Unfortunately, these sincere questioners often seemed to be in a minority on free-for-all forums like Usenet. The most visible people are those who loudly proclaim that they have things figured out, and that Establishment Physics has been too blind to see, or too stubborn to believe, what is very clear to them. They are on a mission. They confidently meet every objection to their ideas with a hand-waving explanation, often vague, and will often give a uninformed explanation of why experiments that disagree with their ideas are incorrectly designed or are interpreted incorrectly. They show definite signs of believing that conventional scientists are gullible or even idiots. Usually they show no visible evidence that they actually understand the objections in any depth. If they encounter a serious objection, one they cannot readily explain away, they usually simply refuse to answer the objection and pretend it doesn’t exist. If pressed hard enough, they can become verbally abusive, or simply disappear from sight for awhile. When they eventually resurface (and they usually do) they say most of the same things they said before, showing no evidence of having learned anything at all from previous exchanges. Check out crank.netfor a good summary of many of these guys.
One can view all of this as a study in human nature. On the one hand you have the Missionary, the Man With A Purpose, who is sure he has figured out something very important that a lot of very smart people have somehow missed. (The missionary always seems to be a guy.) On the other hand you also have some very sincere people trying to reason with the Missionary who, frustratingly, doesn’t seem to be fully understanding the real objections. They continue trying to reason with him, hoping that maybe if they can phrase their objections in the right way then the Missionary will see his mistake. This can go on for some time, with others joining in for the pure sport of it, relishing the chance to heap ridicule on a missionary. The Missionary seems to relish all this attention, apparently believing that he is succeeding in getting people to seriously consider his non-mainstream ideas, that others are actually listening to what he has to say. He feels like he is Making A Difference. The ones who offer only ridicule seem to feed the Missionary too since, after all, great minds have always encountered serious opposition from mediocre minds. One might even conclude that getting all this attention is the real goal of the Missionary, although he is probably sure that this is not his deeper motivation.
What is really fun to watch is when two “alternative theorists” get into an argument. They both are sure they are right, but they disagree and neither one is willing to budge in his position. They may even call each other crackpots. Alas, crackpots of a feather rarely seem argue together, so one has to be lucky to see it happen.
At a different level, the whole spectacle is truly sad. The damage the Man On A Mission does goes well beyond obnoxious spamming of Usenet groups or blogs. The visibility of these people, and their unwillingness to respond reasonably to reasoned argument can cast a dark shadow over the genuine, sincere attempts to arrive at alternative ideas, even ones that are developed while playing by the rules of science. For example, it can be scary for a physics grad student to propose an idea that is somewhat unconventional because most professors have already heard way too many nonsensical, alternative ideas from people they don’t even know that they are bound to have less patience for nonstandard ideas that haven’t already been thoroughly thought out. And yet the whole point of bringing up a nonstandard idea with a professor or other expert is to get early feedback before wasting a lot of time on a dead-end idea. No grad student wants to be thought of as a crackpot; it would be the death of their future in science.
“For example, imagine you say, “I have a method of brewing a magical healing potion that bypasses the ossified practices of your so-called `medicine,’ and I’ve personally known several people who were miraculously cured by it, and also there was a study once in some journal that didn’t conclusively rule out the possibility of an effect, and besides you don’t know everything.” No non-crackpot person is going to pay a whit of attention to you, except perhaps to poke fun in between doing serious work.”
False. No non-crackpot *doctor* is going to pay a whit of attention to you. You still might become a bestselling author, convince millions of people, and earn scads upon scads of money. (See, eg, Kevin Trudeau).
Van,
All sides of the moon, all sides of the earth and all sides of the sun emit infrared radiation. I dare say even in a Cavendish type experiment where G is determined both the small and big mass emit infrared radiation on all sides.
Some of my experiment show that if you have an infrared heat source at the “center” of hollow hemisphere there will be a gravitational force of attraction towards that source. 10^17 joules of sunlight are received and re-radiated as infrared radiation from the earth every second. My experiments indicate this re-radiated infrared radiation is going to place a gravitational force on the surface of the earth which points toward its center.
I also hypothesize with some support from observations that the heat which radially conducts itself from the center of the earth outwards enhances or energizes the vibratory modes of the molecules of the earth. I further hypothesize that these vibratory modes become aligned so that they all vibrate collinear with the radii of the earth. This action produces the inward or center directed force. See my paper for more details.
I at least have a way to account for how the gravitational force becomes manifest in a large spherical astrophysical body at the molecular level.
With Newton’s or Einstein’s gravity theory we do not have any clue just how mass is able to attract other mass. As I point out in my paper Newton was worried about this problem.
He wrote
“Gravity must be caused by an agent…but whether this agent be material or immaterial I have left to the consideration of my readers”
With my theory we have something palpable and measureable that transmits from one body to another i.e.infrared radiation.
Tell me, from a mass point of view, what transmits itself from the sun to the planets, besides this operational definition called the field, that “causes” a 10^24 kilogram body such as the earth to revolve regularly around the sun?
How does this yet-to-be defined, inherent property of the mass of the sun go about the process so that its force of attraction acts as though all the mass of the earth were concentrated at its center? What every it is, it going to have to go through solid mass to accomplish this “as though all the mass were concentrated at the center” feat.
Peter, your response in comment #52 suggests that the strength of “radiation attraction” depends on the luminosity of a body. Why, then, is the Moon’s orbit around the Earth so stable and circular? I would think, if the force attracting it to the Earth depends on moon phase, its orbit would be different – it would drift farther away from the Earth at new moon, and closer in at full moon.
Also, why do you make a distinction between infrared and other wavelengths of light? Is there a threshold wavelength below which the “radiation attraction” effect does not work? What about radio waves?
Tell me, from a mass point of view, what transmits itself from the sun to the planets, besides this operational definition called the field, that “causes” a 10^24 kilogram body such as the earth to revolve regularly around the sun?
Read this and report back. Be prepared: there may be a quiz.
The Aether Wave Theory is the quintessence of crackpotism. You can discuss about it here.
http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=8535
Hi Sean:
Thanks for that post! Sometimes I am really suprised by the incredible arrogance that I’ve repeatedly experienced. People who’ve read a book by Einstein and then explain they have just found the TOE (and it’s SO obvious!), yet don’t even know what a fermion is. People who’ve just explained dark matter (and nobody else understands it!) but don’t know what a metric is. And if you tell them, that’s not a theory that’s whishful thinking they get pissed off (I only want to help you!), and accuse me of having an elitary attidute and I only dismiss their ingenious insight because they don’t have a PhD (ivory tower!). I wish they would at least consider that we actually learn something during our education, and that reading a single book (that, btw was published one century ago) maybe isn’t sufficient to understand what’s going on in research today.
I would add a point though, that is if your ‘theory’ predicts exactly the same as some other theory, then it’s probably the same – no matter how you derived it, and whether it looks the same. (I keep getting ‘better’ versions of Special Relativity that upon closer inspection turn out to be exactly the same as Special Relativity).
Oh, and don’t miss Siegel’s Quacks
Best,
B.
Repy to hrm in his comment #59
To answer your questions and have confidence in the answers, a lot of experiments would have to be performed. I have a limited budget and a limited means to perform experiments.
It has been my experience, however, that a powerful source of infrared radiation works best. I have used somewhere around ten 250 watt infrared heating lamps that put out a good deal of visible light and a have gotten a 1-2% decrease in weight with a convex down ~3 foot hollow aluminum hemisphere. It beyond my budget to see if a powerful source of radio waves can produce a gravitational force.
As with phases of the moon question–the distance between the earth and the moon is not that constant over time. Then there is the question of how much more infrared light is there in the reflected light from the moon as opposed to the reradiated infrared radiation that comes from darker parts or phases of the moon.
Just got a email from someone from a physics department who said that my 11% change of force resulting from radiation was a huge change. He thought someone should have noticed this before. An 11% increase in weight is a little difficult to get. But a 1-7% increase or a 1-2 % decrease in weight is not that difficult.
Instead of going on an on about how intransigent crack pots are, I would think there would more people like my emailer the from physics department and would either question my experiments or actually take an interest to try to replicate them.
After all most heavenly bodies ( i.e. suns) emit copious amounts of radiation, and if this radiation is attractive and if there is some semblance to the validity of this inner lever idea of mine–then these two points have quite an implication about our 300 year old beliefs on how gravity actually works.
At my home page you can see this cone with a hot plate heating element under it. With the heat element turned on, I can get a 1% increase in weight. The cone is solid and made of crumpled up aluminum foil. The weight change is made with a $100 dollar force sensor and a computer. A lot of high school and undergraduate physics labs have the equipment to do this easy to execute experiment.
i need some help with my Lorentz transforms…..
KundryVolare, see here
Oh wait, I thought you said “low-rent transformer”.
Peter,
I notice in your paper that all of your experiments involve heating the sample from below, with the observation that an increase in weight is measured. Have you tried heating the sample from above? According to your hypothesis, this should result in a decrease in weight.
Also, check if the decrease in weight in this second round of experiments is equal in magnitude to the increase in weight observed in your first results when using the same heating elements in the same arrangement (aside from being reversed vertically).
Re Qubit #38: I think you made the point that the person who develops a theory of everything (ToE) would receive high visibility and pay the price of celebrity for their efforts (this seems obvious). Supposing that they really do have a valid ToE, or at least a partial ToE, and have the means to get it taken seriously (two big hurdles), would there be any method for them to be rewarded for their efforts while being able to remain relatively anonymous? Or would it be better for them to simply donate their theory to humanity via some means and live in the knowledge of a job well done, even if it is a job for which they individually are unappreciated (anonymity), but their theory is revered? I think this was what you thought was the best way to do it but I want to throw these questions out there for clarification.
Hi Peter,
Have you considered that the heat from the heating element may affect your force sensor? Is it possible that you are simply heating the air in your hollow foil hemisphere making it less dense, leading to a small bouyant force (like a hot-air ballon)?
The comments on this thread, taken in totality, are comical.
Thank you all!
Although in a much more primitive form, Peter Fred’s theory reminded me of Le Sage’s theory of gravitation , so similar criticisms apply. It’s an ingenious model of gravitation, but full of bugs.
Hi Mark H
As regards to your comments in #66. I have just placed a picture and graph at my home page that I label Figure 1 and Figure 2 where I show a convex down hollow 0.82 m diameter aluminum hemisphere where I get a ~2.9% decrease in weight. I use 3000 watts some of which flows downward and through the walls of the convex down hemisphere.
It is difficult to get heat to flow downwards. This type of experiment is best done on very cold winter day where all the doors and windows are open. Also the object heated should be shaped as a hollow hemisphere that is convex down and not convex up.
The trouble with this type of experiment is that people will claim “hot air balloon buoyancy effect”. It is hard to conclusively rule out this effect. That why I like to do experiments where an increase in weight is observed. With these type of experiments its hard for other and myself to claim a hot air effect. And besides you can get a much greater change of weight.
Yeah, it’s clear that what’s happening in Peter Fred’s experiments is that the heating element is heating the air below the foil hemisphere making it less dense. This creates a slight downward pressure on the hemisphere, accounting for his measured downward force.
What troubles me is that Peter Fred has still not acknowledged that a blog post on how to do respectable science is still not the place to actually talk about any given example of respectable science. There are literally millions of ideas out there that we could discuss but that isn’t the point, either PF has an enormous capability for continued irony or he just doesn’t get that he hijacked a thread.
Whether or not someone is right or not is not the issue in general. We tolerate wrongness in ourselves and others everyday. This issue is when people try to enforce their wrongness in regions of known rightness. I am all for people at some party talking about their pet theory of the universe. It is only when they compare themselves to people who actually purport to talk about reality that the issues arise.
Peter, can you at least acknowledge that you understand what it means to hijack a thread? In my experience there is a class of person who cannot even do that. Their theory is so deeply embedded into their ego that it would be impossible for them to acknowledge that they are using inappropriate means. For them to do so would require them to break down (emotionally, mentally) completely. I have seen it happen and it is not pretty. So the next question is: why are humans so egotistically that we cannot accept that we are in some respects just plain wrong? This is what I feel is the greatest asset that a postgraduate education, it gives to people an understanding that most of the time you are wrong and that it is ok to admit that you are wrong and then spend 5 years sifting your knowledge for the
Do string theorists satisy Rule #3 (“complete and unambiguous”) of these three requirements?
I hate to contribute to the thread hijacking, but I’ve one comment for PF. The only way to rule out the buoyancy effects of air is remove the air itself. Perform the exact same experiments in a small vacuum chamber. If you still get the same effect, maybe you’re on to something. If not, the laws of physics as we know them still stand.