Existence of the physcial laws

[greylorn]

So you have a science degree that is greater than a PhD (Einstein was awarded a PhD from Zurich before his seminal papers were published, albeit the same year)? I have never heard of such a higher science degree. Or are you saying that you have a professional doctorate, such as a Medical-related Doctorate (optometry, pharmacy, etc)?

I have only a BS. However, it included all of Einstein’s theories and proofs, the QM theories and experiments done subsequently, plus at least an introduction to Q.E.D. theory, and Hubble’s observations indicating the expansion of the universe. Obviously I knew more than Einstein— but so what?

The same is true for you, including the “so what?”

I could earn a Ph.D if there was a school teaching, “Integration of Theology and Science,” but to the best of my knowledge I am the only person around who is pursuing that particularly unpopular field of inquiry with even a remote level of competency, and no schools offer so much as an undergrad program on such a subject.

I am trying to challenge the paradigm that galactic cosmic rays come from supernova remnants, pretty sure that’s antithetical to the current “dogma” in this field.

When you grow up you will discover that your topic is simply another irrelevant “topic of the day” in astronomy, and will go on the vast astronomical library shelves under “ordinary student theses.” It should end up on the shelf just above the tome on photomultiplier sensitivity, because it actually deals with astrophysics rather than observational technology. I realize that while you will be proud of it, it still represents grunt-work science. Lots of grunts and work, but little by way of pardigm-shifting insights, as befits one who does not accept the existence of such things and prefers the shmoo approach to scientific research. I have no doubt that you will become an esteemed perfesser, with tenure, whose job will be to insure that incoming perfessers adhere to rigorous standards of intellectual mediocrity.

You’ll find that a dilute solution of H[sub]2[/sub]O[sub]2[/sub] will keep your tongue white.

I’d be extremely interested in learning the real sources of cosmic rays and the mechanisms which generate them, but I honestly don’t give a hoot about where they do not come from. The topic seems outside the confines of this forum, but you can PM me or post it on PhysicsForums.com for general consideration.

I wasn’t aware that CAF supported superscripts. I still think that it’s petty and a dumb thing to get upset about & nitpick. t*t = t^2 = t[sup]2[/sup]. It’s really a matter of preference. If I had a LaTeX editor available on this forum, I’d have used the itex format.

Don’t BS around your failure to open a help screen to actually learn something about the site on which you are posting.

It’s great that you know LaTeX. So do I. And if it were available on CAF for some unimaginable reason, I’d first look for simpler notational protocols. Nitpicking? Maybe so, but I’ve learned that it is the irrelevant nitwits who blow off helpful little details and get ornery when called up on their general sloppiness. That is the first sign of a dogmatic, irrelevant mind incapable of critical thinking. People with intellectual integrity want their nits picked.

 

[greylorn]

Wasn’t it Galileo who dropped the balls of the tower in Pisa?

More likely that story is post-Galilean folklore.

He documented his work thoroughly, yet left no record of dropping balls from any tower. He left extensive records of his inclined-plane experiments.

A Pisa experiment would have been scientifically inconclusive, since timing would have been difficult. Yet, it sounds like fun. Galileo employed various young men to assist in his experiments, as technicians. I can easily imagine them impressing some girls by dropping balls.

 

[greylorn]

Greylorn:

I honestly would like to read your book.

What is the title?

Thanks!

I genuinely appreciate your interest, yet, I want to retain my personal anonymity, for the protection of others who do not appreciate the sensitivity of programmed humans to ideas which threaten their beliefs.

My next book will be out shortly and will be published under the name I use here. I’ll make it a point to PM you with details when that happens. Despite my earlier comment, you show the persistence which seems to be a requirement of the genuinely curious mind. When you get the book, spend no less than one month on each chapter. Distrust and research everything I write.

It will address your questions about the physical laws and the space within which mathematics truly lives. If I interpret your previous posts correctly, you will agree with at least the mathematical notions. A current conversation with “Spock” on, I think, the Wine and water thread, got into this subject yesterday. You might want to join in.

 

[Jim_Baur]

greylorn

Thank you!

 

[jdwood983]

I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of Ph.Ds, most of them in your field. About 10% of them actually had interesting minds. Most were mediocre, and about 40% weren’t competent enough to do anything except teach their field at the “1a” level to non-scientists, thereby preventing those non-scientists from even thinking that science might be interesting.

Your style of “politeness” is the smarmy, condescending sort I’ve come to associate with the bottom 40%.

Ad hominem. And it is completely based off nothing.

He also provides a fine example of the difference between a real Ph.D and a hack. Lots of astronomy grad students came through our lab. One’s Ph.D thesis was to develop a way of mapping the sensitivity of a photomultiplier (PM) tube, each of which was different. (Obviously this was before Aikens learned how to use CCD’s for precision astronomy.) The grad student figured out a protocol using detailed sensitivity experiments on a given tube, to produce a crude cardboard xyz model of the characteristics. It took 3 weeks per tube, yielded 20% results.

Not everyone’s thesis can be as illuminating as de Broglie’s thesis. I agree it’s a bad PhD dissertation, but if a reputable university signed off on it, who’s to say he shouldn’t have earned the PhD associated with it? Where is this kid now, doing real research or teaching at a community college as a non-researching instructor?

The same Laboratory Director introduced me to Bored of the Rings, as well as Charles Fort’s interesting books which I’d never have read otherwise. You would not like any of them so don’t bother.

Never heard of Bored of the Rings, I may pick it up after I finish Rational Universe which I’ll continue after my topic defense next week.

I would expect exactly that of you, or anyone incapable of paradigm-changing thought. I expect that you’ll earn your Ph.D through lots of grunt-work, and by kowtowing to the profs on your exam committee, but not by the imaginative thought which is what the big degree was originally about. You’re an agreement-monger who will never have an imaginative thought, because you’re afraid of it. Bleaching your tongue won’t help.

You do realize that Kuhn’s idea of paradigm-changing is that the paradigm shift is about every 50 years, right? You want every PhD to be a paradigm changer, but they can’t, mathematically. And this is why Kuhn is wrong (probably why he left the field too, because he couldn’t be the paradigm changer) and Toulmin is right: science changes daily not in half-century intervals.

You probably never heard of Max Planck, paradigm changer. You probably think that the guys who invented modern thermodynamics were “official” scientists, instead of smart guys trying to figure out how things worked. You forget that when Einstein published his four major papers, he was a patent clerk, not a “scientist.” You establishment people are all alike, no different from minor military officers wearing a pressed uniform emblazoned with braid, insignia, and little mickey-mouse ribbons who’ve never killed an enemy in combat.

Planck wasn’t much of a paradigm changer. Yes he introduced the idea of quantized energy, but he assumed the implications were a “mathematical formality” and not truly quantization. He also later rejected the Copenhagen interpretation. Sounds like a real paradigm changer. I am also fully aware that most scientists prior to the 1900s were not actually PhDs.
You also seem to forget that Einstein’s job at the patent office was to review patent requests for electromagnetic devices–pretty sure that’s the job of a scientist. While reviewing patents for wireless transmitters, Einstein came up with most of his gedanken experiments. It seems to me that you want scientists to be wearing lab coats and in a laboratory; I can tell you for sure that not all scientists do that (most astronomers/astrophysicists don’t)

What happened to the whole, “I can guess someone’s education level with 70% accuracy??” You assume I don’t know generally known things to 2nd year physics undergrads, even when I told you that I am getting a PhD.

 

[jdwood983]

I have only a BS. However, it included all of Einstein’s theories and proofs, the QM theories and experiments done subsequently, plus at least an introduction to Q.E.D. theory, and Hubble’s observations indicating the expansion of the universe. Obviously I knew more than Einstein— but so what?

The same is true for you, including the “so what?”

Wait, are you trying to change the comment? Your exact statement was highlighted in bold and read, Einsteins degree was inferior to mine. Einstein had a PhD, earned before becoming famous. You have a BS where you learned the stuff half a century (or more) afterwards and so you’re now saying you know more than him?
Well of course you would! You had half a century (or more) of advances in physics available to you. You should be able to do better than this: just admit you don’t have a degree that is superior to Einstein’s PhD and claim you made a mistake.

I could earn a Ph.D if there was a school teaching, “Integration of Theology and Science,” but to the best of my knowledge I am the only person around who is pursuing that particularly unpopular field of inquiry with even a remote level of competency, and no schools offer so much as an undergrad program on such a subject.

The Jesuits have been doing it for a very long time.

When you grow up you will discover that your topic is simply another irrelevant “topic of the day” in astronomy, and will go on the vast astronomical library shelves under “ordinary student theses.” It should end up on the shelf just above the tome on photomultiplier sensitivity, because it actually deals with astrophysics rather than observational technology. I realize that while you will be proud of it, it still represents grunt-work science. Lots of grunts and work, but little by way of pardigm-shifting insights, as befits one who does not accept the existence of such things and prefers the shmoo approach to scientific research.

My topic is very “topic of the day,” and I have zero qualms about it. Read Toulmin’s Human Understanding, it is infinitely superior to Kuhn’s ambiguous thoughts on scientific evolution. It is for the reasons in Toulmin’s book that the PhD’s you meet aren’t paradigm changers: because there are none. Even going back to the early years of QM, there really wasn’t anything drastic about how it came about. It wasn’t an overnight success, it was a 10+ year change.