I broke the laws of Physics (and don't know how to put it back)

[Nucleonics]

The people most curious about physics, but don't know about it enough, will hang on to every word self-professed experts say because they are the next Galileo.
Would it be all right if these people, and well as their crackpot teachers, were told to go visit PF so Zapper can set them straight?

OK, so it won't always be Zapper who has to set them straight, but he'll still have to end up locking the thread they make :)

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Most of those sorts of people that come here wind up not listening to anything anyone says to correct their misunderstandings. And those are the ones that inevitably post irrate threads about how everyone here are a bunch of dogmatic closed minded fascists. Ofcourse I think that you should still send anyone here that you think could benefit from PF. If it turns out they can't then they will just eventually leave or get themselves banned.

 

[G01]

Yeah I agree with Ape. It won't help. But it does annoy me. People like that who think they know everything are very annoying to say the least.

 

[Moonbear]

We don't usually have much success in the crackpot reform department, but if you know some folks who are not really crackpots, but just uninformed and prone to believing the crackpots, we might be able to help educate them if they aren't too far gone. I'm sure Zz appreciates the vote of confidence though.

 

[Pengwuino]

We don't usually have much success in the crackpot reform department, but if you know some folks who are not really crackpots, but just uninformed and prone to believing the crackpots, we might be able to help educate them if they aren't too far gone. I'm sure Zz appreciates the vote of confidence though.

haha not much success in the crackpot reform department? Didn't we turn QT into a crackpot?

 

[Dawguard]

haha not much success in the crackpot reform department? Didn't we turn QT into a crackpot?

Yeah, but QT left a little while ago, didn't he? After Ivan Seeking locked the gazzillionth crackpot thread he started. I think unless people are willing to admit that they're wrong, odds are they aren't going to last long. I know some people I tried to get here took one look at the physics section and never came back.

 

[JasonRox]

Yeah, but QT left a little while ago, didn't he? After Ivan Seeking locked the gazzillionth crackpot thread he started. I think unless people are willing to admit that they're wrong, odds are they aren't going to last long. I know some people I tried to get here took one look at the physics section and never came back.

He's a unique little fellow.

We got some crackpotters growing at work.

 

[scott1]

I used to be believe in a crack pot theory(I won't say what is this I don't want to go against PF anti-crackpot police).Good thing I stopped believing it If I believed for one more day I prob ally everyone on PF and real life would think I'm crazy.
PF needs to do more about crackpot theory not just ban them but explain why there not true explain how to identify them(I think crackpot theorist use similar vocabulary to one another ex:"Einstein was worng..." or "this could because..." or "I can not prove this an experment...").I also think that some other physics forums(not this one) websites are making it worse I once this on physics forum where they had a crackpot theory(which there a thread about on it was posted PF and then locked)and the adim/mod's didn't even lock it so what happend...Crackpot theorist got some supporters(there were sane people on it trying to explain why it wasn't true but it didn't work) and then one of the supporters thought it would go idea to spread the word and this supporter thought it was good idea to post on PF(that just what I think I'm not sure which came first).I think we should start contacting other physics/science forums to try to get them to ban these crackpot theory so that it won't speard as easily.

 

[Moonbear]

We tried the patient, explain what's wrong with the theory approach, and it just took too much time with no effect...they were going to insist they were right if it killed them. So we gave up and sent them all away.

 

[G01]

haha not much success in the crackpot reform department? Didn't we turn QT into a crackpot?

I actually looked forward to his posts. They followed a very illogical flow that many crackpot threads follow and you can learn a lot about crackpot posts from the way that kid acted.

Part 1- Enter the Crackpot to Be

Hey guys I'm no physicist or Phd or anything but I believe I just proved Einstein wrong...Proceeds to explain his thinking in a manner that does not help him.

Part 2- Enter the Educated Physicist

Physicist refutes the Crackpot to Be's idea, with logical thought. Usually the problem comes because the Crackpot to Be thinks he can understand General Relativity completely without ever taking an actual Intro to Physics Course.

Part 3- Crackpot to Be Refuses to Agknowledge the Fact That Someone else May Know More Than Him

The Crackpot starts spewing theories of consperacy in the sciences that work to prevent any new theories from becoming acepted. All scientists are motivated by politics and other rediculous stuff.

It is here where mainstream science takes on the role of the X-Files Cigarrette Smoking Man in the CrackPots Mind.

Part 4- Enter other Members

The Crackpot doesn't get the message and provokes a flame war.

Part 5- Enter Mentor

Lock/Ban

 

[Pengwuino]

haha it alllllways comes down to general relativity! Love it! And they never have any decent math background. You also need to toss in the vague quotation from some famous physicist that said something that could convey the idea that the crackpot is right if taken far enough out of context.

 

[Nucleonics]

(I think crackpot theorist use similar vocabulary to one another ex:"Einstein was worng..." or "this could because..." or "I can not prove this an experment...")

Perhaps PF could implement a filter on certain phrases that would result in said post being automatically posted under a "Crackpot theories" section. This way we never have to see them unless we wanted to. These tagged phrases could include:
"To quote Einstein, "
"FTL signalling device"
"If nothing could actually travel faster than light, "
"My perpetual motion machine"
"because mainstream scientists are close-minded"
and finally, "quantum hyperdimensional Paradigm shift" (OK, I made that one up)

Einstein. Crackpots sure enjoy quoting this man to "prove" their theory even though he was supposedly so "wrong".

 

[G01]

Perpetual motion machines. Seriously, this one I don't get. I can see how a lay person can misunderstand realtivity and thus have that spawn is crackpot theory. But energy cmon! Its common knowledge that energy is conserved. Everyone knows this. This fact and the fact that friction takes energy away from a system means that a machine that contsantly runs off a single amount of energy or even creates energy are completely impossible. This is just common knowledge. I mean everyone has to take a physical science course in High School at some point.

Sigh. People will believe what they want to believe I guess...