Physics Communication Idea - Prove Me Wrong

[chrismenino]

Physics Communication Idea - "Prove Me Wrong"

I had an idea that i thought would be interesting to try.

I have been wishing lately to make proposals of certain ideas I had about how certain things in the universe may work. I wanted a way to tell them to someone more knowledgeable than myself so that they could prove me wrong. I always have a bunch of crazy ideas about how things like gravity or wormholes might work and I wanted to see why they wouldn't.

The exciting part about this is that many people could participate and maybe new truths could be discovered just from curious people asking questions. Of course, knowledgeable people would also have to participate so that theories could be proven wrong or right.

I just want to know everyones thoughts and also maybe try it out right here in the forums. Also I just joined this forum, solely for the purpose of this post so be gentle, thanks. -Chris

 

[DaveC426913]

I had an idea that i thought would be interesting to try.

I have been wishing lately to make proposals of certain ideas I had about how certain things in the universe may work. I wanted a way to tell them to someone more knowledgeable than myself so that they could prove me wrong. I always have a bunch of crazy ideas about how things like gravity or wormholes might work and I wanted to see why they wouldn't.

The exciting part about this is that many people could participate and maybe new truths could be discovered just from curious people asking questions. Of course, knowledgeable people would also have to participate so that theories could be proven wrong or right.

I just want to know everyones thoughts and also maybe try it out right here in the forums. Also I just joined this forum, solely for the purpose of this post so be gentle, thanks. -Chris

Hrm, as gently as possible:

I'm afraid you have the wrong forum. PF does not support personal theories and speculation. This is part of the rules you agreed to when you registered.

"...it is against our Posting Guidelines to discuss, in most of the PF forums or in blogs, new or non-mainstream theories or ideas that have not been published in professional peer-reviewed journals or are not part of current professional mainstream scientific discussion..."

Speculation outside currently-accepted science will be locked.

 

[Pengwuino]

If you really care about learning and hopefully (or well, not hopefully...) be proven wrong, the obvious thing to do is to learn... physics! There are many books out from books to the lay person all the way to well... i suppose serious texts on general relativity and the like. Find out where in the middle you stand and see what is generally accepted in the scientific community.

 

[edpell]

Yes I am looking for the same thing. I understand this is not that place. Anyone have ideas on where such a discussion is being held? Thanks.

 

[DaveC426913]

Well, don't misunderstand. Feel free to ask any questions you wish. We will fall all over each other to answer. (You could even ask "why is X not so?")

What we don't do is entertain claims of "X is so. Prove me wrong."

 

[edpell]

My very first post was censored as being in the" X is so" class. So I re-posted just a small piece that I thought was in the "so what happens in this case" class. It was censored with the warning that the censor knew I would post the other parts of my initial post as a reply to myself. This is in fact not true. I would like to hear peoples answer to the question. But I dare not re-re-post at this point. Is there another place where we can speak more freely about science?

 

[DaveC426913]

Is there another place where we can speak more freely about science?

Not here, no.

Best thing to do is ask how things do work, not why your ideas don't work.

 

[russ_watters]

Hrm, as gently as possible:

I'm afraid you have the wrong forum. PF does not support personal theories and speculation. This is part of the rules you agreed to when you registered.

To amplify a little, the reason we don't allow this is "prove me wrong" is not a productive way to learn. Thousands of scientists have contributed to the body of knowledge that comprises our current understanding of physics over 500 years. Even if you are smarter than all of them, you could only reproduce an insignificant fraction of the knowledge they have contributed over the past 500 years.

It is much more productive to simply open your mind to the knowledge already generated and absorb it as is.

 

[edpell]

Dave I understand not here. Do you know of other places on the web or elsewhere?

 

[edpell]

I have found several yahoo groups that look promising.

 

[vanesch]

Just to add a bit. The reason why we don't like the "prove me wrong" kind of text, is that one of the hallmarks of this forum is that we keep crackpots out. In a way this is sad, because science should have "open communication" and all that, but the practical result is that crackpots are noisy and sometimes nasty flooders, and they make true scientific communication, unfortunately, totally impossible (look at the news group sci.physics).

We've tried different tactics here, several of which failed, and the closest we come now is the "independent research" subforum. So in a way we are sorry that we can't allow for "new ideas", but it has proven not to work out.

So why not the "prove me wrong" kind of "question" ? Simply because it would be an open door for crackpots to come in again, and then defend themselves that they were just "asking for people to prove them wrong". It is not because at the end of a totally bogus piece of creative "science", you add the simple phrase "can someone prove me wrong ?" that this changes anything to the undesirable flooding effects of crackpottery.

Of course, you can ask "prove me wrong" kinds of questions on specific issues, like:
"look, I've calculated this such and so, and I arrive at *this*, but according to theorem such and so that's not possible, so where am I wrong ?"

But not: "I think gravity is in fact due to wobbling pinhole bottles made out of green paste flying around at 3 times light velocity in 7-dimensional quantum space, prove me wrong".

 

[russ_watters]

There are numerous places. You might try sciforums.

One note, though: I assure you that you will find no better place on the web to learn physics than here. I can also assure you that with the "prove me wrong" method and more importantly, the closed-minded attitude that goes with it, you will be wasting your time and you will not learn physics.

 

[sagan]

I had an idea that i thought would be interesting to try.

I have been wishing lately to make proposals of certain ideas I had about how certain things in the universe may work. I wanted a way to tell them to someone more knowledgeable than myself so that they could prove me wrong. I always have a bunch of crazy ideas about how things like gravity or wormholes might work and I wanted to see why they wouldn't.

The exciting part about this is that many people could participate and maybe new truths could be discovered just from curious people asking questions. Of course, knowledgeable people would also have to participate so that theories could be proven wrong or right.

I just want to know everyones thoughts and also maybe try it out right here in the forums. Also I just joined this forum, solely for the purpose of this post so be gentle, thanks. -Chris

No, what a horrible misconception of how science works. In science, we start or atleast try to start with conception that everything we know or experience is wrong until proven otherwise by experiment. I claim there is a small teapot orbiting Mars at a height of 2 Mars radii, I ask you Chris, Please PROVE ME WRONG!

 

[vanesch]

I claim there is a small teapot orbiting Mars at a height of 2 Mars radii, I ask you Chris, Please PROVE ME WRONG!

mmm, might be. Last time I've been to Mars, I've lost indeed a tea pot... I was hoping nobody found out about it... :tongue:

 

[xxChrisxx]

No, what a horrible misconception of how science works. In science, we start or atleast try to start with conception that everything we know or experience is wrong until proven otherwise by experiment. I claim there is a small teapot orbiting Mars at a height of 2 Mars radii, I ask you Chris, Please PROVE ME WRONG!

Erm, you've got the wrong end of the stick. He's not making claims as fact, his OP clearly reads like he just has an idea and wants a knowledgabe eye to critique it, not that he is claiming to have reinvented science.

There is a difference between:

"I think that black holes should suck everything in the Universe, how come they don't?"

and

"Black holes man, light can't escape so nothing can. This doesn't happen so science is clearly wrong they aren't gravitational bodies they are really aliens hiding behind a big black piece of cardboard."

The first is a legitimate quiestion, the second is crackpottish.To OP: Whether a thread gets locked depends greatly on how you post and the wording of the question. Dave has already pointed this out.

Well, don't misunderstand. Feel free to ask any questions you wish. We will fall all over each other to answer. (You could even ask "why is X not so?")

What we don't do is entertain claims of "X is so. Prove me wrong."

 

[twofish-quant]

To amplify a little, the reason we don't allow this is "prove me wrong" is not a productive way to learn.

Also, it puts the burden of proof on the wrong people. Before people will look at your ideas seriously, you have to have shown some effort at proving yourself wrong. Once you've become sort of familiar with the literature, you'll find a lot of "yes that's an interesting idea, but people thought of that 10/20/50 years ago, and after several years of thinking about it, we came to the conclusion that it won't work because of X."

There's also the problem that some models are hard to prove wrong because they are much, much too vague. For example, the idea that particles might be some distortion in space-time. Interesting idea, but unless you try to be much, much specific, there isn't enough detail there to be useful. (And once you try to be specific, you'll find that it won't work.) One problem with non-specialists is that they often do not have the mathematical ability to state a model in a way that is specific enough to be amenable to calculation.

Finally, a lot of theory is not a matter of right and wrong, but of interesting and uninteresting or useful and not useful. Good theorists come up with ideas that are *interesting* and are *useful* even if they turn out to be wrong. All models of the universe are incomplete and wrong. Some models are interesting and useful.

It is much more productive to simply open your mind to the knowledge already generated and absorb it as is.

Also understanding something doesn't mean believing it. The other thing is that helps being productive is to stay away from "crackpot fodder." There are certain topics that seem to attract crackpots and certain topics that don't. I don't know of many crackpots in turbulence, combustion physics, ocean physics, or condensed matter physics, even though these areas have as many mysteries as the big bang.

 

[twofish-quant]

One thing that people don't get is that a lot of physics involves taking the seemingly mundane and extending it. Much of the knowledge on the big bang involves rather ordinary gas physics, and a lot of high energy physics has concepts from condensed matter.

If you want to understand the beginning of the universe, don't think about the beginning of the universe since that gets you nowhere. You can say pretty much anything you want about wormholes since I don't have one close to me, so if you make a statement about wormholes, it's pretty impossible to disprove.

Wormholes are pink. Maybe they are. I don't have one nearby to see.

Now if you make statements about candle flames or ocean waves...

Candle flames are pink. No they aren't. I have one next to me and it doesn't look pink.

 

[Moonbear]

Yes I am looking for the same thing. I understand this is not that place. Anyone have ideas on where such a discussion is being held? Thanks.

As others are suggesting, you should consider the classroom first. Seriously. Instead of bothering people who have taken time to get a formal education in the subject with poorly considered ideas that you KNOW are flawed (why else would you ask to be shown what's wrong if you don't know something is wrong?) as a round-about way to get an education on the topic, just put that time into classes so you can learn the science correctly and figure out for yourself what's wrong with your ideas.

 

[DanP]

I had an idea that i thought would be interesting to try.

I have been wishing lately to make proposals of certain ideas I had about how certain things in the universe may work. I wanted a way to tell them to someone more knowledgeable than myself so that they could prove me wrong. I always have a bunch of crazy ideas about how things like gravity or wormholes might work and I wanted to see why they wouldn't.

-Chris

Id rather go out and destroy another N thousands of my neurons in a weekend long binge drinking session. You are welcome to join, and talk about everything which crosses your head, but the drinks will be on you.

 

[DaveC426913]

Instead of bothering people who have taken time to get a formal education in the subject with poorly considered ideas that you KNOW are flawed

Hm. I thought we'd been doing a pretty good job of steering him in the right directon without being quite so harsh about it...

I wouldn't want anyone to come away thinking that they were a "bother".

 

[twofish-quant]

As others are suggesting, you should consider the classroom first.

Classrooms have their limits. The one big problem with classrooms is that they make science seem like fact and theory memorization whereas prove this crazy idea wrong gets people to think scientifically.

One question that I ask my students on an intro astronomy test, is "how do we know that the moon is not made of green cheese?" (quick answer: because we've been there). "O.K. how do we know that Pluto's moon Charon is not made of green cheese?" Or a bonus question. Suppose there is an alien cow civilization on Alpha Centauri, what's the largest piece of green cheese that they can put in the vicinity of the solar system without anyone noticing.

As a round-about way to get an education on the topic, just put that time into classes so you can learn the science correctly and figure out for yourself what's wrong with your ideas.

People don't learn science in the classroom.

The other reason that I'm not too harsh is that I've known Nobel prize winners with truly *crazy* ideas about how the world works. There are two Nobel laureates that are totally convinced that black holes don't exist. I have a few crackpot ideas of my own, which I try not to think about too much.

 

[pzona]

Erm, you've got the wrong end of the stick. He's not making claims as fact, his OP clearly reads like he just has an idea and wants a knowledgabe eye to critique it, not that he is claiming to have reinvented science.

There is a difference between:

"I think that black holes should suck everything in the Universe, how come they don't?"

and

"Black holes man, light can't escape so nothing can. This doesn't happen so science is clearly wrong they aren't gravitational bodies they are really aliens hiding behind a big black piece of cardboard."

The first is a legitimate quiestion, the second is crackpottish.

This is what I thought when I read the OP's idea. Honestly I thought that if presented properly, this could be a good idea. It's definitely not a good way for the OP to learn physics, but I'm not sure this is necessarily about that. I think it's meant more as an experiment trying to replicate/understand the thought processes behind the original discoveries of physical laws. I could be wrong though

 

[Moonbear]

Hm. I thought we'd been doing a pretty good job of steering him in the right directon without being quite so harsh about it...

I wouldn't want anyone to come away thinking that they were a "bother".

I wasn't being harsh at all, just realistic. He's already admitted he knows his ideas are flawed, so then go get the education to understand why. It will be less of a bother to ask for more specific explanations of the things taught in class that he doesn't understand than to go tossing out random nonsense and asking people to attempt to debunk it.

And, of course classrooms have their limits, two-fish. That's why they aren't where you END with science, they are where you BEGIN. If you haven't learned any science in the classroom, then I'm sorry that you had such lousy teachers.

 

[Neo_Anderson]

I just want to know why PF doesn't have a crackpot forum. Is it me? Or do the crackpots entertain and amuse to no end? I mean, you got the crackpot nicknamed Archimedes Pluto at Oxford university posting on-line 'theories' about the known universe; his prevailing theory is that the universe is actually an enormous plutonium atom (hence the crackpot's name), and that he has a single plutonium atom in the middle of his brain that gives him "A level of intellectual sophistication that is superior to any minds of the human species."
LOL!
Bring on the crackpots, I say!

 

[xxChrisxx]

Neo there are about a million crackpot forums out there, it's kind of nice to have a safe haven from it.

 

[twofish-quant]

And, of course classrooms have their limits, two-fish. That's why they aren't where you END with science, they are where you BEGIN. If you haven't learned any science in the classroom, then I'm sorry that you had such lousy teachers.

I don't think that science education begins in the classroom at all. You can't really learn science in a classroom, any more than you can learn to ride a bicycle through lectures.

This results in the fact that most people don't learn any real science until they get into graduate school. You learn science either in a laboratory, or in some late night study session, or in front of a computer. Science is a culture and a philosophy, and you really only learn it by interaction with people. You really can't even *BEGIN* to learn science in a classroom. You begin to learn science by watching an apple drop and wondering to yourself why that happens.

I can pretty honestly say that I went through four years of undergraduate work without learning very much science in any classroom that I went to. I suppose that's why MIT is considered such a lousy school for learning physics, and why they scrapped the lecture format for teaching physics just recently.

 

[twofish-quant]

It's definitely not a good way for the OP to learn physics, but I'm not sure this is necessarily about that.

Personally I think it's a great way of learning physics. It's what I do all the time... (Hey, I have this cool idea for using iron core collapse calculations to calculate the mass of the tau neutrino. What's wrong with it? Well, the problem is that cosmological limits on tau neutrinos are in the eV range, whereas taus in iron core collapse are MeV. Well what about flavor mixing? Well you *might* be able to get somewhere if you have something happen between the neutrinosphere and the shock...)

The problem is the "customer service problem." If you want to know why people at the other end of the telephone are rude, it's because you are the 1000th caller with exactly the same problem, which gives them a very different outlook you since you are the first person with the problem. The way of dealing with that is "yes, you are the 100th person to come up with that idea" here are some websites where people have come up with that idea, spent a decade figuring out where it is wrong, and if after reading that, you can come up with something original, then we can talk.

I think it's meant more as an experiment trying to replicate/understand the thought processes behind the original discoveries of physical laws.

Which is how you learn physics. You don't want people to be dependent on experts and authorities for the answers since experts can be idiots.

 

[DanP]

Well, with the advent of internet, you can find lectures all over the place. Lectures in basic physics, quantum mechanics, relativity, molecular biology, physiology, whatever. You can buy all the textbooks you need from Amazon, you can surf endless sites with *high* quality information. You only need to discern good things from bad things, and tbh, this is easy. In fact you can find more information than in any class you may take at a university.

You can learn almost anything you want by your own. There is no much difference in listening at a lecture at University or listening to it on your computer or DvD player. You can still work out problems, and refer to forums like this one for help.

The only thing which is different is that you are not graded. Hence it is hard to truly evaluate your knowledge since humans usually do a garbagety job at self evaluation. And that you need papers / diploma to actually get a job somewhere. But this is not about knowledge, those are realities of life where you have to play the game :P

I can say that is perfectly possible to get all the knowledge you get in 3 years of undergraduate studies alone nowadays. It's not like 25 years ago when you practically had no other choice than go to lectures at a university. The world has changed, and information becomes more and more easily available.

There is no difference in listening video lectures or reading them to what happens in class where some big shot professor lectures, but hardly ever stops to answer any questions. Yeah, yeah, there are some recitation sessions too..

 

[daveg360]

I suspect the clue was in the original post... wormholes. Step away from star-trek/Star Gate etc etc etc