Who is your favorite Physicist?

In re Galileo's ship experiment… I just contributed this comment to the Google forum of a sort.

Quote:

No one has undertaken a factual experiment of getting someone to climb up the mast top of a ship and dropping a steel ball, and another person on the deck at one end of the ship taking a movie filming of the steel ball dropping on the ship deck below, and still a third person on the shore taking a movie filming of the steel ball dropping down on the ship deck.

What will the two films show?

This experiment is so easy to carry out today!

And I have not read any account of such an experiment at all.

Here below is the comment above appearing in the net, and the link thereto.

Quote:

https://plus.google.com/

Marius Dejess Public: In re Galileo's ship experiment…

No one has undertaken a factual experiment of getting someone to climb up the mast top of a ship and dropping a steel ball, and another person on the deck at one end of the ship taking a movie filming of the steel ball dropping on the ship deck below, and still a third person on the shore taking a movie filming of the steel ball dropping down on the ship deck.

What will the two films show?

This experiment is so easy to carry out today!

And I have not read any account of such an experiment at all.

https://plus.google.com/

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

Alas, we might anticipate that had laymen got the brains he claims to have, he might attempt to counter by citing Einstein's own reliance on 'thought experiments' and 'self education'. But we are not really dealing with 'physics acumen' here (if any)...we are dealing with 'chip on the shoulder' manifesting as a psychological need for assertion heavily reliant on blatent Freudian projection.

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@maxdancona,

If you don't think I know what I'm talking about, why not respond (and by that I mean address in a relevant way) to my questions or claims? Your incessant lectures on what it takes to "know" physics are non-responsive, boring, and presumptuous, not to even mention simplistic. Just answer the damn question, fool, and if I challenge your answer, make a reasonable response to that.

1 Reply

@fresco,

I am not attacking Layman's intelligence. There is a difference between education and intelligence, and the issue here is one of education.

It is a fact that modern Physics is inaccessible to anyone without a college science education. Physics has advanced too far, and the concepts are based so much on advanced mathematics... it is impossible to understand without an going through several years of college math and science study. The problem is that that there are well-intentioned attempts to simplify these issues, and express them in normal English phrases that people can imagine... but the problem is that this almost always leads to misunderstanding. The only way to really understand is to spend the years required to study the math and science.

Layman has pushed me (I think intentionally) into taking an elitist tone (he said "condescending"). And this is unfortunate. But there is no other way. Physics can not be democratized... it is inherently an elitist practice that can only be grasped by people with resources and time to study it. Writing on the past couple of pages makes me a little uncomfortable, particularly given the fact that Physics is in the hands of people with wealth; there are uncomfortable issues of race and class.

But that doesn't change the fact that education is crucial to understanding modern science. There is no way around that.

1 Reply

@layman,

Come on Layman. You and I have been through pages and pages of back and forth on this. Either I am failing to explain it properly, or you are not willing to change your mind, or something else is going on.

I can't read your mind... I don't know if you are really trying to approach this with an open mind or not. You can't read my mind, so you will have to trust me. I have sincerely tried to walk you through the basic physics in a way that will show you what you are getting wrong in your assumptions. I feel like I have tried to be patient. You keep on missing the basic points I am trying to show you.

Either way, in spite of all the effort, I am not successfully showing you where you are wrong. That doesn't change the fact that there are right answers in Physics, and that you are somehow not getting them.

0 Replies

@Susmariosep,

Susmariosep wrote:

https://plus.google.com/

That link doesn't lead me anywhere in particular--just a general "homepage"

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Max, you pompous ass, if I wanted to learn physics from an expert (and I have) it certainly wouldn't be you.

1 Reply

@layman,

layman wrote:

Max, you pompous ass, if I wanted to learn physics from an expert (and I have) it certainly wouldn't be you.

Sure, there are plenty of other experts from whom you can learn. They will make same points I am making (core Physics is pretty well set, we all agree), but maybe if they are less pompous you can learn from them.

Sorry. I have suggested in the past that you take a Physics course in a local college. If you wanted to learn, that would be a good first step.

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Alas, we might anticipate that had laymen got the brains he claims to have,

I've never made any claims whatsoever to having "brains." I leave that kinda insecure crap to poseurs like you, Fresky.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Sure, there are plenty of other experts from whom you can learn.

"Other" experts? I think you missed the gist of my post. After seeing hundreds of your posts here, I don't consider you to be any kind of "expert" at all, sorry.

Sorry if that doesn't comport with your own inflated estimate of your "expertise."

0 Replies

@Susmariosep,

The object falling from mast experiment (and others) that Galileo relied on was done by one of his contemporaries and acquaintances, Pierre Gassendi:

Quote:

Several ship experiments performed by Pierre Gassendi in 1640 decided whether Galileo’s theoretical experiment on the movement of bodies in a cabin of a ship was correct....

The heights of the mast were approximately 25 m of which 20 m were accessible, thus the free fall from the mast lasted approximately 2 seconds while the ship was swiftly rowed a distanceof about 10m. Thus the falling stone would be carried away 10m towards the stern. Gassendi wrote in his letter, however, that the impact of the stone was right at the foot of the mast- a very impressive contradiction to the movement theories of Aristotle as well as “impetus” and thereby a major defeat for the entire medieval scholar system of "Scholasticism."

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1008/1008.4239.pdf page 7

0 Replies

@layman,

If you said that the sky is always black, and I responded "naw, it aint, Max. It's blue, at least in the daytime," what would your response be, Max?

You don't have to tell me, I know from vast experience with you. It would be something like this:

I just told you that the sky is always black. You can't seem to comprehend that simple fact. You are a dumbass. I have studied the sky. You don't know **** about the sky. If you can't comprehend that the sky is always black, then you need to get educated.

At no time would you offer any support, whether factual, theoretical, authoritative, argumentative, graphic, or otherwise, in defense of your ipse dixit claim. You would just dismiss anyone who didn't swallow your horseshit as ignorant.

And, if you were presented with hundreds of photographs, theoretical explanations of why the sky appears blue from renowned experts, etc., you would just claim that none of that was relevant to your claim and/or that they were obviously fake or incompetent because.....well, because the sky is always black, by God.

Rational explanation or debate aint your thing. Pontificating dogmatic pronouncements are.

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@layman,

Anybody who thinks they can mess about with Relativity needs what is commonly termed 'brains', given that most of the population, including you, don't understand it. Notwithstanding, Max also has a point about 'training' covered by the Kuhn notes on 'what constitutes specialist scientific ability'. Unlike some other subjects you cannot merely study science from books, especially the control of variables and the ubiquitous mathematics involved in modelling data'. Even Einstein sweated over the maths, and never managed to come up with his dream of a unified field theory. And as for your favored Physicist, Feynmann, what chance have you got now given his pronouncement that 'Nobody understands QM' ?
(Oh and just as an aside, I'd place a bet that 'you don't know **** about color perception', because the physics is a minor aspect of that particular subject.)

2 Replies

Layman is like a kid who would not want to learn how to swim because he's too afraid of the water. Everybody tells him that he has to jump in the water in order to learn how to swim, but he's too scared of drowning. He lacks confidence in himself and in others. Attending a physics class would not help him. He needs to learn to trust others enough to listen to them, give it a try, and jump off his intuitive certainties of "knowing what's really moving" and into the big sea of relativism. And that's a bit scary for sure. Too scary for him.

Also he has built this street wise persona, this posture of the dude who didn't do college but knows better than the kids who attended college. So he can't agree with any of us now, as that would mean his posture is boggus.

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

That caricature rings true, and is perhaps a largely a US social phenomenon.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Anybody who thinks they can mess about with Relativity needs what is commonly termed 'brains', given that most of the population, including you, don't understand it. Notwithstanding, Max also has a point about 'training' covered by the Kuhn notes on 'what constitutes specialist scientific ability'. Unlike some other subjects you cannot merely study science from books, especially the control of variables and the ubiquitous mathematics involved in modelling data'. Even Einstein sweated over the maths, and never managed to come up with his dream of a unified field theory. And as for your favored Physicist, Feynmann, what chance have you got now given his pronouncement that 'Nobody understands QM' ?
(Oh and just as an aside, I'd place a bet that 'you don't know **** about color perception', because the physics is a minor aspect of that particular subject.)

You confuse general relativity with special relativity, Fresky. What a surprise! My (and they're not just mine, there are shared by many prominent, well-respected physicists) criticisms of "relativity" have been directed toward the latter, not the former.

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Layman needs to learn to trust others enough to listen to them, give it a try, and jump off his intuitive certainties of "knowing what's really moving" and into the big sea of relativism.

You have often demonstrated that you base many of your beliefs on "faith," Ollie, and that's OK, but it's not "scientific," sorry.

You seemed disappointed that I didn't fully agree with your earlier claims about inertial motion. I responded with my reasons for disagreeing, and you have said nothing--apart from pretending to make psychological evaluations of me.

Tell me, do YOU think LA comes to me when I board a plane bound there in New York? That the plane just remains absolutely motionless while LA heads my way?

Do you think there's no way to ascertain a reasonable answer to that question?

2 Replies

@layman,

Layman,

You have a basic misunderstanding in how galilean relativity works. You are so busy arguing with it so fervently that you won't let anyone explain what you have wrong. You aren't even criticizing the Physics correctly. Of course your claim that "the plane hangs motionless while LA comes toward you" is ridiculous. It is ridiculous because you made it up. That isn't what Physics actually says.

I have tried to explain to you what Physics actually says, but when I do you call me a dumbass.

There are right answers in Physics. If you took a first year course in Physics, you would learn it.

1 Reply

@fresco,

Feynman made an excellent point in a witty way. As I recall he said (paraphrasing) "Anyone who says they understand quantum mechanics doesn't understand it." This is an excellent point.

But guys like you and Max are just the type that would be likely to say: "I understand QM."

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Layman,You have a basic misunderstanding in how galilean relativity works. you would learn it.

Show me HOW, Max. All you do is repeat your incorrect assertion millions of times over.

I presented you with a short, simple post that ended with the question "Get it?" You haven't uttered a single word in response. Do you care to?

1 Reply

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