Who is your favorite Physicist?

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

I need the precise quote and source, as I don't trust your understanding of it. As stated, it makes absolutely no sense to me. In particular, there's no such thing as a real "stationary observer", as I explained. Nothing in this universe is at rest.

I already posted both the words and the link, Ollie, and I told you where to look.

Of course nothing's at rest. That doesn't mean you can't deny that, and pretend otherwise, for the purpose of doing calculations in a mathematical theory, though. That's all SR is--pure math. It doesn't describe reality, but is is useful for making calculations of limited data that are accurate in very limited circumstances.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

You're inventing your own "science" here. I'm sure it's a load of fun for you to pull stuff out of your own anus but I derive no benefit whatsoever from it.

Completely typical of you to either positively assert, or loudly deny, propositions based strictly on what you want to believe, eh, Ollie. As always, this is despite (or maybe I should say especially when) you are shown contrary evidence.

You just believe, on faith, whatever you want to believe. Why you even care, other than to know what's true, is a mystery. If I have an interest (which I don't) in the big bang theory, and there are arguments both for and against it, I would want to read them all. It wouldn't matter to me which I ended up finding more persuasive. It aint my theory. Apart from the knowledge involved, I don't give a damn if it's right or wrong.

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@Susmariosep,

Maybe you're hanging around with the wrong crowd.

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@layman,

Harvard physics professor David Morin wrote:

• The speed of light has the same value in any inertial frame.

I don’t claim that this statement is obvious, or even believable. But I do claim that it’s easy to understand what the statement says (even if you think it’s too silly to be true)

A statement can be both false and silly, but still have logical implications. This is a point I've made in the past, but that many seem to overlook. For example:

Take this claim, and assume it is true, even if you don't believe it: "All Zebras are blue." It aint true, but, again, that's irrelevant to logic.

Now I tell you this: "The animal in my barn is a zebra."

Now, given this second statement, it is perfectly valid (although unsound) to conclude, as a matter of logic, that: "The animal in my barn is blue."

Logically valid, yet obviously silly and untrue. Like math, logic has nothing to do with "truth," as such.

Just like SR, don't, ya know?

Like Morin says, it easy to understand what's being said when I claim that "all zebras are blue," but that doesn't mean it's an empirical fact.

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@Susmariosep,

Quote:

That kind of a topic allows empty-minded posters to drop names and drop technical terms forever and ever, without having to do any personal genuine thinking from their own brain resources, founded on their experiences in life.

You got that right, Susie, sho nuff!

No one else who is actively posting in this thread (which excludes honest, open-minded, intelligent, and thoughtful posters like Leddy) seems to realize that, and yet they call YOU a "troll" for pointing it out.

Don't let them sway you (I trust you won't).

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@layman,

You know you got this guy Morin's quote wrong. That's why you won't produce the original.

You're right about one thing though: SR is not about whether Chicago or LA are moving or are at rest. (they aren't at rest because nothing is)

SR is not about the marvels of train or boat or plane travel. Not really. That's just an image, a metaphor... that's what I've been telling you all along. Your error is that you take these metaphores too literally.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

You know you got this guy Morin's quote wrong. That's why you won't produce the original.

For at least the third time, Ollie, you're wrong.

I have posted both his actual words, and a link to the source, right here in A2K in the past, AND I have given you a link to that thread, if you're not too lazy to pursue it.

There's a couple of reasons I haven't reproduced them, for your personal convenience, in this thread:

1. As I said, that thread, which discusses a contemporary empirical experiment pertaining to relative motion, contains a lot of discussion about the theoretical disinctions (and the experimental evidence in either support, or disconfirmation, thereof) between alternate theories of relative motion. You should read the entire thread, and ONLY THEN try to throw in your two cent's worth, if you want to engage in informed discussion.

2. #1 is the main reason, but secondly, I can't repeat the same damn thing, ad infinitum, every time some "new" poster comes in and questions something. I'll just point them to where it's already been explained rather than endlessly repeat it.

As I've already suggested to you, Ollie: Educate yourself.

You REFUSE to do that, and instead accuse ME of making deliberately false statements in order to accomodate your biased preconceptions and your own laziness. That is par for the course with you, and your ilk, I'm afraid.

1 Reply

@layman,

Haha... so predictable.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Haha... so predictable.

So predictable that you would resolutely persist in your willful ignorance and attempt to "justify" your laziness and lack of knowledge by trying to mock anybody who challenges it, ya mean, Ollie?

Have you even looked at the thread I cited for you?

Let me take a wild-ass guess, eh?: HELL, NO, AND YOU NEVER WILL!

I guess what kinda surprises me is that, given your penchant for making decisions and reaching conclusions based solely on your emotional desires, you refuse to even consider Poincare's views on the topic of SR.

We all know that, being the chauvinistic Frog that you are, you generally praise and defend ANYTHING Poincare says.

Don't get me wrong, I respect Poincare. As I've said, he was way ahead of Einstein, in terms of both sophistication and historical priority, on the subject of relative motion (and many others subjects--he was a far more accomplished mathematician than Al, for example)>

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@layman,

layman wrote:

layman wrote:
It is for just such reasons that your homeboy, Poincare, refused to accept SR. Poincare had already made the same observation, years before Einstein, but he rejected it as a viable theory since it was based on mandatory ignorance and misperception

Poincare said something to the effect that such an approach would give you a "subjective" theory of relativity, i.e., one based on subjective errors. He did not, however, find such a fucked up theory to be meaningful or useful.

If I'm not mistaken, Poincare published these thoughts, and the reasoning/data underlying them, in 1901, 4 years before Al published "his" theory. Al later acknowledged that he had studied Poincare's thought.

Einstein was not the first to consider "his" theory, Poincare was. Al was merely the first to present it to the world as a supposedly reasonable theory. Poincare always refused to take that step--because he knew better.

Until the day (years later) that he died, Poincare always rejected the "truth" of SR.

1 Reply

@emmett grogan,

Dear emmett, you tell me:
"@Susmariosep, Maybe you're hanging around with the wrong crowd."

And I want to tell you, that you BE outside that crowd.

What do you say, about my proposal to the crowd here? [See Annex below for my proposal to the crowed and now to you also, assuming that you dare to be outside the crowd.]

It is really very disappointing that the crowd here are ever on and on and on talking to the silly objective of name dropping and technical terms dropping, for the love of silly vanity: never taking on the solid endeavor to do their very own personal thinking, basing themselves on their experiences in life, and factoring in truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence.

Now that I have met the crowd, everywhere I appear sooner than later I end up the only one still around, but the empty-headed posters making up the crowd they have all gone elsewhere, to indulge again in their silly pursuit of pseudo intellectual discourse, which is nothing but their unprofitable to readers game of name dropping and technical terms dropping.

Okay, dear Emmett, what do you say, do you have the same impression as I have, with the generality of posters in web forums, namely, a crowd of basically name droppers plus technical terms droppers, instead of genuine thinkers on their own experiences in life - and I add to your ad nauseam, they grounding themselves on truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence.

Annex

Quote:

• Post: # 6,476,650 • Susmariosep • Wed 2 Aug, 2017 12:19 pm

@layman,
Dear everyone here, I am most keen to learn from posters here who can talk from their own experiences in life, instead of dropping names and dropping technical terms.

Part of learning from others is the risk of being shown oneself to be wrong, and I am most receptive to being shown that I am wrong with my thinking, though I want to believe that I am grounding myself on truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence.
_____________________

Max says: “This argument really is about the importance of education to understanding Physics.”
Tue 1 Aug, 2017 06:25 pm Post: # 6,476,085

What about dear Max, let us consider first whether experience comes before education, I mean formal education.

Now, I like to ask you, Have you ever had the experience of being in a sailing boat i.e. moving on the surface of the sea, and you have a view of the shore, I ask you, Is the shore moving at all, or it is at a standstill, while the boat is moving on the surface of the sea?

Dear readers here, I am trying to get posters here to first get their experiences factored into everything they are into talking about.

The way I see what a lot of posters do in a thread, it is to drop names and drop technical terms, in connection with as in the present thread, “Who is your favorite physicist?”

That kind of a topic allows empty-minded posters to drop names and drop technical terms forever and ever, without having to do any personal genuine thinking from their own brain resources, founded on their experiences in life.

I submit that though satisfying to their vanity it is better that they do their own personal thinking, making use of their experiences in life, as to come to concur on an issue they are exchanging views on, so as to achieve a common position, that is however is grounded on truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man’s conscious intelligence.

Anyway I am available to talk about education that is necessary to understand physics, this is the present proposition of Max.

Okay, dear readers here, let us all sit back and witness whether the posters here will talk about education needed to understand physics, and what is the role of personal experiences, more in particular how the common perennial recurring experiences of mankind count for man to come to know objective reality, that is outside and independent of education at all.

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@layman,

Congratulations layman ! You definately saved yourself at least the first batch of college fees as you would have been thrown when they realised you did not even understand Morin's high school guide!
I've just watched the BBC documentary 'Inside Einstein's Mind' with its excellent animated explanations of SR. How unlucky you were being brought up in a culture which seems to have lacked or sidelined such resources. Listening to you helps a European to undertand why so many loony sects seem to be able to carve a niche in US society each with its belligerently infantile version of 'truth'.

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@fresco,

Quote:

...excellent animated explanations of SR.

Well, now, aint that special, eh?

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@layman,

MY lazyness? YOu are incapable of understanding the simplest children vulgarisation material, you misrepresent them constantly, you never accept your errors, you want me to do your homework, you run away as a coward as soon as you're asked to produce any evideg nce, and you say that I am the lazy one?

Undertstanding things also takes a little bit of courage and love. You are dominated by two emotions: hatred and fear. Man up, layboy, grow up. Also emotionally. And maybe one day you'll find the courage to learn.

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@layman,

Actually, I have already checked your thread and verified that you got it completely wrong in your understanding of Morin. As expected.

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@fresco,

Quote:

Listening to you helps a European to undertand why so many loony sects seem to be able to carve a niche in US society each with its belligerently infantile version of 'truth'.

Interesting. I thought truth was agreement. If Layboy agrees with his anti-science sectarian brothers that SR doesn't work or the earth is the center of the universe, how is their agreement not a form of thruth?

As i said many times, post-modernists such as yourself prepared the ground for the post-truthers.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

If 'truth' were only agreement, you would be right, but the post modernists tend to qualify that with 'truth is what it is good to believe'. Obviously this begs the question of 'good for whom' but in the case of mainstream science we might answer 'good for the majority of scientists''.
I asked the question here some years ago about why N. Americans in particular have so many religious or ideosyncratic groups and was answered (by Setanta of all people) that it was to do with the US social history of being a haven for nonconformists. I would think the right to carry arms is another contributory factor in 'attitude formation' regarding both mental and physical territorial claims. Put these factors together with the fact that only 30% of Americans have passports and we can conjure up a crude backcloth for US parochialism amongst the less educated.

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@fresco,

I AM right. Truth classically was a rapport between theory and facts. It had very little to see with agreement between people (agreement was only a means to establish truth, e.g through replication of scientific experiements). The post-modernists debased that rapport and replaced it with "anything that works for yah"... Layboy and his clique are the result of that.

I lived in the US for ten years. Well, in Manhattan, an island which sits 20mn away from the US... I liked them, by and large, and not just the intellectual type. The barmaid, the construction workers, the neighbours, the chess players in central park... They have a great sense of self, self-fulfilment and self-entitlement, very unlike Europeans who often apologize for being who they are. The thing I didn't like was their frequent obsession with money and status.

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@Olivier5,

As I undeestand it ,cultural NY tends to be the exception which proves the parochial rule. I don't know where layman comes from but I would guess not NY.
Be that as it may, I would say layman's crude 'realism' is as far from the post modernist pragmatism as you can get. Rorty for example rejects the realism antirealism debate as futile. (I don't think I need to labour the related point that 'facts' are human constructions). And it is nonsense to argue that this implies 'anything goes'. The final arbiter is consensus as to contextual utility.

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@fresco,

According to some popes back in the days, it was "contextually useful" that the earth sits at rest at the center of the universe, therefore that was the truth, right?... And according to Layboy and his ilk, it is "contextually useful" that science be debased, defunded and denied.

All that is for the dogs. I'll stick to a classic representation of truth as a good enough fit between mental representation and phenomenal reality.

'Realism' is your vilain, so it's normal that you'd call Lay a 'realist' but to me he lives in lala land. He's inventing his quotes like recently on Morin, even doctering them sometimes. He thinks climate change is a hoax... He is an ideologue who likes to invent his own universe, not a realist.

2 Replies

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