usenet weirdness

Am Mittwoch000011, 11.03.2026 um 10:54 schrieb Gerhard Hoffmann:

Well it's a pretty old joke and not particularly funny.

What you apparently want and actually demand, that is conformity with some sort of mainstream.

That is actually very useful in traffic, but is not a scientific requirement.

Science has just one thing in mind and that is truth, whether you like what is true or not.

There ain't no such thing as conformity in science, because it is entirely irrelevant, what the masses want or think.

You may think otherwise, but are wrong, because especially physics can't take care about what you want or regard as useful.

Also your profession is irrelevant and how you earn your bread.

Even less important is politics, believes or the mindset of your particular peer-group.

What matters in science is truth alone.

TH

A human mind is the only* device capable of distinguishing between truth and false. Thus, if all human won't like it and say "false!" - there is no possibility of objecting. Surprising? Well, but that's the truth, whether you like it or not.

So you are calling yourself an idiot?

Euclid was always three dimensional, and he did talk about three dimensional geometry - his "Elements" lists the Platonic solids. Euclidean geometry - as taught - is points and lines a on a plane. The more complex stuff is there if you look for it, but how often do people talk about icosahedrons?

Human brains don't seem to be well adapted to coping with geometry of a four-dimensional space time which gets distorted by gravitational fields. Most of us can comprehend the effects and write computer programs that can let us see how the ideas play out.

Some unfortunate people aren't willing to go that far. You seem to be one of them.

Euclid certainly knew that the Earth was spherical. He must also have known that Euclidean geometry in three dimensions applies. The Greeks also knew about Babylonian astronomy. Not writing about it doesn't imply not knowing about it.

AFAIK Einstein did not adopt complex time. There is no need for it anyway, and it isn't really useful. You can discuss the Poincare group without.

It evolved out of practical sciences, such as surveying. And of course it also applied in three dimensions.

There were very few physicists around to begin with. (Seen it estimated at ~1000, of all kinds, in 1900) Those who mattered were capable of following it. (Lorentz, Ehrenfest, Sommerfeld, and young Pauli) In all, at least several dozen. Those 'only three people who understand' was just a joke.

There just is no alternative, and confirmations run into the decimals.

Their aim is to object to begin with...

Jan

Also at judging engineering. He was the best patent clerk they ever had, according to his boss. He was good at understanding inventions. (and later had some patents of his own)

That is a counter-indication even. Depends on where she was limited to verbal thinking.

The crackpots here completely miss the function of the scientific literature at the time. People really used publications to communicate. (rather than to stake out claims, or to run up scores) Printing saved them the trouble of letter writing.

He wrote for people who would understand...

Jan

Not really. It is usually based on Lord Kelvin, who said a lot of stupid things late in life. (but he was also trolling a bit)

However, Kelvin also noted that apart from the clear skies above there were two 'black clouds' on the horizon: the problem of black body radiation and the problem of the world-aether. (so right on the spot)

And most of it is not used to do theoretical physics.

People 'studying problems that strike them as interesting'? Where have you been those last decades?

The circumstances where you could become an Einstein, a Dirac, or a Feynman by doing that just no longer exist. PhD students these days go into a PhD factory where they work out a planned detail problem in a project of their advisor. The problem to be solved is described in advance, as a project, and it is practically certain that it can be solved in the time set. This is the way that science funding has been set up. (yes, I know, there are some exceptions) If they want to 'think for themselves' they will have to do it in their spare time.

It is not just absence of talent. It is active destruction of the possiblities to do good science,

Jan

Spreading the incompetence, eh?

Jan

Of course there will be a (very small) tide in the sun, and of course it will not be completely non-dissipative. That doesn't mean that it is in any way relevant.

Imagining is always easy.

Indeed. Those in fusion research know all to well.

That is a misunderstanding on your part. I am telling you that you are behaving like one.

It is not about what you are, it is about how you are behaving, (on this particular point)

Jan

But there's no easy way of proving something "scientific" is true. Popper wanted to reduced that to "not yet falsified"

That's where Popper was heading, but the reality is that consensus matters. The masses don't come into it - they don't know enough to have a useful opinion.

I'm not a member of any of social groups of about 150 people who dominate particular areas of physics, so in that sense you are absolutely right. None of them are going to waste their time posting here. Conforming - more or less - to their collective point of view does matter. Your research proposals won't get funded if you don't.

It didn't matter to Einstein that Ernst Mach hated his ideas. Max Planck and his cronies liked them.

Certainly true fro anybody posting here. If your profession puts you into the charmed circle that dominates a particular branch of science it can matter, but that would make you too busy to post here.

It's not your peers who matter, but rather the 150-odd people who all know one another and collectively dominate your particular academic environment, evaluate each other's papers and research grants and work out who will get into the charmed circle as the older members die off or retire. If they become your peers, you have made it.

But "truth" is frequently inaccessible.

Some human minds may have that capacity. Some clearly don't. You need to access a tolerably large number of minds - Robin Dunbar says about 150 - that you personally know, and know to be knowledgeable enough in the area to have an opinion that's worth knowing.

As far as I can see, science is currently organised into areas run by such groups, and uses conferences to make sure that the members of those groups stay personally acquainted.

And it's currently designed to express opinions that questioner will like. It hallucinates. The large language models on which it relies do include a lot of nonsense.

A couple of my acquaintances use it professionally, but very carefully.

And what was the question you wanted answered?

A proper clock - wearing my engineers hat - is one that does what the people who buy it want it to do.

Orbiting GPS hardware that drifted out of sync with clocks in different orbits and clocks on the ground wouldn't tell people where they were.

Correcting a predictable error is a very different operation from resynchronising a clock which has accumulated random errors.

I can understand why you snipped my "and much more predictable, effects. Only an idiot would pretend to confuse them."

Your response is a lot more obviously foolish now that I've put it back.

You definitely aren't inconsistent in your idiocy, and you do seems to be foolish enough to persist with an obvious idiocy.

You are free to think that. I wouldn't go around telling other people that you think that - it would suggest that you had a rather poor grasp of reality

Lots of people were happy to claim him as being Jewish after he got famous.

You logic may be simple, but it looks very much as if most of it is wrong.

And you have just posted one.

Science is a complicated mechanism and you're dumb. Explaining you what it is doing would be hopeless. Anyway, if f all human won't like it and say "false!" - there is no possibility of objecting.

So do humans.

Why do you think that?

Very little. Your name suggests that you aren't a native speaker of English, and your English is fluent and correct, but if your father picked your name, English could easily be your mother tongue. Your ignorance of the way the GPS clocks work suggest that you haven't had a technical education, but I wasn't taught about them when I got my Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry - they didn't exist back then.

The one you have snippeed some times already.

And the clocks designed by some morons to fulfill some moronic prophecies of their insane guru - definitely are not "proper clocks". The proper clocks keep indicating t'=t, with the precision of an acceptable error, just like they always did. Anyone can check GPS, or any other timekeeping system. Common sense has been warning the idiot.

Too bad:( Common sense has been warning the idiot.

Didn't pendulums have quite predictable errors?

No you can't.

And still your insane religion can't enforce its "proper" clocks idiocy on sane people. Anyone can check GPS, or any other timekeeping system.

Was enough, however, to slander that I'm someone that"hasn't had the kind of education". Why not? You're a knight of The S*it's Truth, The One And The Only Truth. Who opposes you opposes The Truth, why not slander him?

Your name suggests that you aren't a native speaker of

It's not my ignorance, it's yours. Sorry.

There is -simply- no triangle on a sphere, it's a flat figure. Since there is no triangle - there is no right triangle without Pythagorean property on a sphere. Spherical triangle is no more a triangle than a tasmanian devil is a devil. And

Just a paragraph above you said it was always two dimensional.... Not that any consequence, logic, honesty or dignity can be expected from someone like you.

Popper didn't understand much about how real science is done. Hence he always complained about how 'irrational' real scientists behaved. (that is, in not following his prescriptions) Ironically Popper himself was just as irrational when clinging to his own untenable ideas.

That's why Imre Lakatos makes more sense than Popper. Lakatos focusses on progressing 'research programs', which are unavoidably carried by groups of scientists.

Not quite right. (before your appearance here) some scientists of note did post in this SPR. (and also in TO) Amusement value of crackpots isn't restricted to non-scientists.

Mach was a nitwit, philosophically speaking. (he originated naive positivism) Max Planck already made mincemeat of him. BTW, your idea of 'cronyism' really doesn't fit here.

But, otoh, peer review doesn't always work as desired. Whole groups may go off the rails. When that happens only funding agencies can stop them,

Jan