Junk Science Alert!

The Chronicle of Higher Education ^ | 1/31/03 | ROBERT L. PARK

[mikegi]

2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.

This specific part is bogus. Almost all new theories face stiff resistance from the old school. I agree with the part about companies buying up patents to suppress inventions like "water-powered" cars, etc.

7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation. A new law of nature, invoked to explain some extraordinary result, must not conflict with what is already known. If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong.

Well, this would rule out all breakthrough physical theories. For example, quantum mechanics certainly required new laws and significant changes to existing laws.

Of course, I'm a junk scientist! I believe that QM is the worst physics theories in history. Ask a QM proponent about the size and shape of a "photon". Ask them to describe how a photon and electron physically interact. For a theory that's purportedly so accurate that it can describe nature to 12 places, these should be easy questions to answer. Instead, all you'll get a sophisticated version of "sh-t happens".

If you want a hard and fast rule to determine whether a new theory is junk science or not, see if that theory requires or predicts instantaneous-action-at-a-distance (IAAAD). If it does, then the theory is completely junk science. QM predicts IAAAD and people are actually claiming to see it in action in recent experiments. Junk!

[PatrickHenry]

Junk science ping.

[This ping list is for the evolution -- not creationism -- side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. To be added (or dropped), let me know via freepmail.]

[Diogenesis]

Park is often inaccurate, interested only in selling his book
and Clintonism and antiscience, rather than science.

Perhaps it is from the tree that hit him.

[Doctor Stochastic]

And equally valid: just because someone thinks something is possible, doesn't necessarily make it so.

[IncPen]

ping for science

[Doctor Stochastic]

QM predicts IAAAD and people are actually claiming to see it in action in recent experiments.

No. QM predicts no such thing, nor has it been seen.

[CharacterCounts]

For us nonscientific minded, could you post a layman's example of IAAAD?

[Telit Likitis]

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H. Duell

Duell was commissioner of the U S Patent Office in 1899.

[Cboldt]

the PTO might grant a design patent for the shape of a magnet without granting a patent for a ZPE machine in its entirety.

The author of the article is dead wrong on (at least) one point. I've read the entire patent in question, and it says quite plainly that the device converts magnetic energy to electricty, with the magnetic energy comning from a permanent magnet, and the permanent magnet becoming de-magnetized (or less magnetized) in the process.

You are also correct, design patents are available, but design patents are only enforcible for the ornamental aspect of an object, and are not useflu to protect any functional value.

[js1138]

Einstein was a lowly patent clerk who worked largely alone and suddenly turned physics on its head. Then again he did have a good physics education and published first in a good journal.

Worth repeating.

[mikegi]

No. QM predicts no such thing, nor has it been seen.

Well, what in the heck are all these QM nonlocal experiments claiming? Please explain it to me.

[VOA]

bump...back for later reading...

[RightWhale]

the device converts magnetic energy to electricty, with the magnetic energy comning from a permanent magnet, and the permanent magnet becoming de-magnetized (or less magnetized) in the process.

Thanks for reading the patent and commenting. That part, the conversion of energy to another form of energy is okay, although whether this particular operation would be commercially useful seems doubtful. A physicist might do that in the lab to measure some magnetic phenomenon. But remagnetizing the permanent magnet would be necessary to repeat the cycle. Lots of things have been patented that didn't turn out to be particularly useful. I was thinking of another magnetic machine 25 years ago where the patent was for the design of one of the magnets, not for the whole machine. Certain people are attracted to magnets, perhhaps an excess of iron in the blood.

[Doctor Stochastic]

IAAAD (Instantaneous Action At A Distance) would be some mechanism for transmiting a signal (or energy or mass) at a speed greater than that of light.

There are non-material things that move faster than light, but no signal can be sent with these. An example would be a (very bright) flashlight beam swinging in a solar system sized arc. The locus of the light spot would travel faster than light, but the photons moving from the flashlight to the spot would not.

[Xenalyte]

Verrry interesting!

[CharacterCounts]

Thank you.

[js1138]

1. Almost all new theories face stiff resistance from the old school.

2. Well, this would rule out all breakthrough physical theories. For example, quantum mechanics certainly required new laws and significant changes to existing laws.

3. If you want a hard and fast rule to determine whether a new theory is junk science or not, see if that theory requires or predicts instantaneous-action-at-a-distance (IAAAD). If it does, then the theory is completely junk science.

4. I agree with the part about companies buying up patents to suppress inventions like "water-powered" cars, etc.

Point one pretty much contradicts point two. QM was accepted in a matter of years, despite it's weirdness. I guess you have Einstein on your side in point three, but then he is the one who gave us EIR to test the hypothesis, and QM passed the test. You would be correct to say that "action-at-a-distance" does not allow information to travel faster than light. That would be junk science. As for point four, classic quackery.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Physicist could explain it much better. What happens is that correlations are different in QM than in the ordinary Boolean algebraic interpertations of probability theory.

For example, one might put either the Spade Ace or Heart Queen in a sealed mayonaise jar and place it on the steps of Funk and Wagnalls; the other card would be placed in sealed envelope and given to Price Waterhouse to place in a NASA launched space probe. If the mayonaise is later opened and has the Ace, one can be sure the probe has the Queen. One knows something about things far away, but there has been no information transmission.

Similar things happen with entangles states in QM. It's more complicated as the measurements are not as simply described as looking at a card.

[js1138]

I think he's referring to quantum entanglement. Which still doesn't allow information to be sent faster than light.

[Doctor Stochastic]

QM was accepted quickly because it explained so many results: atomic spectra, radioactive decay, light diffraction, black-body radiation, photoelectric effect, and the periodic table, to name a few.