How To Distinguish Between Credible Authors?

chiro

If you are interested in how the holographic stuff works physically you should get something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Basics-Hologra.../dp/0521002001

Bacle2

I wonder if a quality to look for is that of an author qualifying their statements and

addressing critiques to their theory; maybe even better, seeing the

author trying to falsify their own theory and seeing the theory come out alive.

harrylin

If you read not-so-old (but not so new as to be unknown!) textbooks on physics by well known authors such as Feynman, then you'll have a good basis. However, be aware that non-physics in physics books, such as described history of physics and metaphysical interpretation, are often inaccurate and/or mere opinion (for that you can consult other books by established historians and philosophers!).

As to a quick first opinion of such books as the one you mention, you could copy my very simple approach: I looked at commentaries at Amazon.com, noticed mention of amazing observations concerning MPD and "googled" for those - only to be directed back to that same book. That took me less time than to write this message. At the best those amazing observations are not widely known, at the worst they are exceptions due to chance and/or misreporting. So, if I had already bought the book, I would check out a few of the references to form a more solid opinion, before, perhaps, wasting more of my time on fantasies.

tejas777

I can imagine how that could be possible. Can you please provide a list of active physicists that fall in this category? I am curious to learn more about such cases.

f95toli

No, not in public forum. If you want historical examples I could name Heisenberg and to some extent Einstein as two examples. Tesla would be an even more extreme example, although he wasn't a physicist.
If you want an example of a now active physicist who supports an extremely controversial (i.e. no supporting evidence) theory I could name Penrose and his "quantum brain".

harrylin

Publicly claiming that physicist so-and-so is a crank, and even making a crank list, is BAD behaviour which can result in prosecution (and rightly so!). - http://www.netslander.com/
However, we cannot do harm to dead people. A case you could start with is Dingle, who was a physics professor.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Dingle

To get back to the discussion, we should distinguish between credible/less credible books - authors are not equally good on all topics and they can change as well.

twofish-quant

I'd rather not for several reasons:

1) There are a lot of nice, pleasant cranks. One of the professors that I know that has crankish views has a good sense of humor about them, so I don't see any point in embarassing him.

2) They may have changed their minds.

3) They may be *right*. You need a little craziness to do theoretical physics, and one thing that I've noticed is that people that are cranks in one field but brilliant in another are doing exactly the same thing in both fields. In one field, they go against conventional wisdom, are incredibly obsessed over an idea, and then lightning strikes to prove them right. In another field, it doesn't happen.

Also sometimes they might convince you. There was one famous professor that I thought had totally gone off the deep end the first them he mentioned the anthropic principle. However, over time, he's convinced me that it's not a totally crazy idea, so I'd no longer put that idea in the "crank" category.

Ascendant78

Well, thanks again for all the information. Based on all the feedback, I think my best bet at this point is to stick with the handful of best known authors for now, at least until I start to get more of a foundation in the history and accepted truths of physics. Once I have that foundation and can more effectively interpret what I am reading, then I would love to branch out to the more profound theories. I mean after all, though I know some of them may seem very out there, I have no doubt some might at least have portions of it right.