Sunday, June 04, 2006

 

JSH: Same prob in cosmology, wrong academics

For those of you who used to feel proud about working in "pure mathematics" before I pointed out that you are just relying on your judgement and that of other people, hey, don't feel too bad.

Cosmology is one area of science that is as screwed up as number theory.

Physicists have done fun things like disprove the possibility of black holes as most people, who bother to even know much about them, understand them.

But does that change how they are taught? Nope.

Most people haven't a clue, for instance, that physics as we understand it does not allow black holes to be singularities.

And there is, of course, Dr. Halton Arp, cosmology's "crackpot", who it turns out was an assistant to Hubble himself, and is also a distinguished researcher in astronomy.

So, like, they actually treat him both ways: crackpot and tops in his field.

Now that is screwed up.

My analysis is that in areas where it's hard to check people, people screw up, and get defensive about their screwed up ideas.

In mathematics it's hard to check people in "pure math" and in astronomy it's hard to check people on cosmology.

So both areas are full of really wacky crap.

Some of you are so childish in your belief that insults are powerful because in your world, they ARE so powerful. You probably see mathematicians cutting each other down to size all the time with insults of one type or another, or threats of getting the feared "crackpot" label.

So you keep using such social tools on me.

But I know a lot more about history than any of you do. And I also know a lot more about other fields, like cosmology.

There you can be a distinguished researcher AND a crackpot as they are more sophisticated than you people.

It is a fun world. Especially when you actually take time to learn about it versus just relying on "experts".





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