Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: PmbPhy on 20/01/2015 00:11:28
-
JD has ruined this thread with wild and shameful speculations so I'm removing anything associated with me.
-
I think it's ethical because by and large the public have funded physics.
I'm a member of the public, and I pay taxes. I pay for physics. But I'm not happy with funding physics, and then being told that if I want to see the results of that funding, I have to pay some journal. A journal is essentially a magazine. Why should magazines control physics? They aren't paying for it. I am. And others like me of course, but you catch my drift. Elsevier don't fund physics. They make money out of it. They squeeze money out of physics, so there's less of it for physicists.
-
Why should they have to go to a library? This is the twenty first century. We have this little thing called the internet.
Oh, and if we're talking of ethics, it isn't too ethical to pimp your own website, which includes a forum, on another forum.
-
Because you're not the one paying for the research that goes into physics.
Yes I am. I'm paying through my taxes.
You're not the one who wrote a textbook on the subject and sells it.
No, I didn't. But oh look, if I want to buy a hardback copy of MTW it will cost me £385 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gravitation-Physics-Series-Charles-Misner/dp/0716703440).
That's what textbooks and journals do. Otherwise they're no motivation to write those articles and journals.
They make money. And sometimes they get in the way of scientific progress. The guy who wrote the textbook is a "leader in the field", and he's the editor of the journal. There are issues, see for example this study (http://phys.org/news/2014-12-peer-breakthrough-manuscripts.html).
Don't be an ass
You started it.
membership to my forums is not open to the public. To be a member requires receiving an invitation to join, i.e. only the people I invite are members.
You've been poaching people from this forum. Only you won't invite me because I will correct you.
-
[FEATHER-SPITTING AD-HOMINEM OUTRAGE SNIPPED]
...Your understanding of physics isn't good enough to correct me...
Yes it is. Stick around, and I will demonstrate.
Poacher.
-
Another good study here into how two nice people can fall out over very little, each step amplifying things from the previous to a ridiculous degree. Please make it up quickly - you're both high quality.
-
No time to hunt backwards, but I'll keep a look out for future action.
-
There are two opposing views. Pete takes the view that to advance you must adhere to known physics before testing a new hypothesis. That way you have a good grounding. John's view is that some fundamental things are wrong with the current view of physics and he bucks the trend. Both approaches can either be positive or negative. The only true test is in experimental evidence. Pete has a lot of experimental evidence to back him up. However there are still some puzzles that have not been solved and this is the type of thing that John pursues.
The more productive way is really to meet in the middle. Point scoring gets us nowhere. I follow my own path and it is hard. However I also always listen and am willing to be corrected on points I haven't understood properly. I always have to verify this advice myself and this means I can look at various sources and weigh them up. It is a pity that such scuffles break out. It tends to waste time.
-
There are two opposing views. Pete takes the view that to advance you must adhere to known physics before testing a new hypothesis. That way you have a good grounding. John's view is that some fundamental things are wrong with the current view of physics and he bucks the trend. Both approaches can either be positive or negative. The only true test is in experimental evidence. Pete has a lot of experimental evidence to back him up. However there are still some puzzles that have not been solved and this is the type of thing that John pursues.
I don't think it's quite like that actually. I usually refer to Einstein / Minkowski / Maxwell / the hard scientific evidence to back up what I say. Then I sometimes find myself in conflict with people who will dismiss Einstein etc and say "that's not mainstream" because it isn't in their textbook bible.
The more productive way is really to meet in the middle.
True. But every time I try to be civil, Pete starts a fight.
-
True. But every time I try to be civil, Pete starts a fight.
That's clearly a lie as anyone can see merely by looking at any post of mine. You come in and either post something which is totally wrong and insult me when I correct you or when I post something and you claim I'm wrong and claim that my counter argument is wrong and then insult me when I prove you wrong.
-
Neither of you make a good impression in this thread.
Returning to the original topic, here are a couple of places where you can legitimately view physics journal articles for free.
http://arxiv.org/ (http://arxiv.org/)
http://iopscience.iop.org/ (http://iopscience.iop.org/)
-
Sorry burning. But I'm not having this.
That's clearly a lie as anyone can see merely by looking at any post of mine. You come in and either post something which is totally wrong and insult me when I correct you or when I post something and you claim I'm wrong and claim that my counter argument is wrong and then insult me when I prove you wrong.
If this were true you could give some examples. But you can't. The truth is that you cannot bear to be challenged or corrected, and you resort to insults instead of discussing the physics.
All: please note that some of PmbPhy's posts have been deleted. I presume he has deleted them so that you can't see how unpleasant he is.
-
When you get an unpleasant response from someone it often means they're not in the best state of health, perhaps having to fight through a lot of pain in order to get anything done, so it's best to make allowances and try to think the best of them. If they attack you unfairly, everyone else will see that too, so it certainly won't do you any harm. Just let the arrows bounce off and tell yourself that the person shooting them at you might even be you in another life. There is no such thing as free will, so people cannot help what they do; there's no point in getting angry with them as they are victims too, thrown about as they are by the laws of nature and having no real control over anything.
-
All: please note that some of PmbPhy's posts have been deleted. I presume he has deleted them so that you can't see how unpleasant he is.
See? This is a major problem with you. You see someone do something and take a wild guess as to why and then claim its the truth. In this case this thread started to go way off track of its original purpose and I didn't want to be associated with any of it again so I deleted everything I could of what I had posted.
-
When you get an unpleasant response from someone it often means they're not in the best state of health, perhaps having to fight through a lot of pain in order to get anything done, so it's best to make allowances and try to think the best of them.
Nice bit of reasoning my friend. :)
That's been the case in many posts of mine over the years. When my spine got messed up and I was in excruciating pain I was not pleasant in many threads with the unpleasant people here.
-
The best physicists tend to be hard-headed, crotchety, and intolerant of anything that doesn't add up to experimental fact. That's about as close as Pete and I will ever get to greatness, and if Pmb gets up your nose from time to time, there, but for the grace of some ludicrous hypothesis, go I.
As for tax funding, some of the most important discoveries were made by amateurs (Einstein wrote his seminal stuff whilst working as a patent examiner, not a physicist) and commercial contractors (Rumford, Penzias & Wilson....). Very little of any importance turns up in peer-reviewed academic papers.
-
More people than you think have greatness buried within but the fear of ridicule will scare them away. It is best to consider one's self ridiculous, that way you save them all the trouble.
-
We should all have a chance to fart in space, peace may come.
-
Quite so Jeffrey. we need to be loose and adaptive, using imagination as well as logic. As for the rest, I don't know what have happened here? but it's a forum for thoughts, and I promise we will argue. Doesn't matter if one's a 'nota bene certified physicist' or just plainly educated (or maybe not :) laymen.
I trust in that we still will argue :)
-
Just one more thing, don't give up. Use that mind.
-
More people than you think have greatness buried within but the fear of ridicule will scare them away. It is best to consider one's self ridiculous, that way you save them all the trouble.
I don't think there's a lot of greatness out there, but I'll agree that the best ideas are ridiculous. Spherical earth? Heliocentric universe? Relativity? Subatomic particles? Quantum mechanics? Evolution? All patently absurd - ask any contemporary consensus. In this business, you are either a maverick or a nobody.
-
:)
I'm grateful reading your considered response, Sir. As I see it, and as you point out, any idea differing from our five senses sensibility should be evaluated to the best of our abilities, put to the test of ultimate logic. Doing so I'm sure both you and me can agree to the the idea of a 'round earth' must be doomed to fail. As a simple example, why don't we all fall off? And where is up? And 'down'? That you can find a hill now and again I consider no proof, neither the opposite. It's indeed a failure of logic..
with the best of regards, from an anomalous, as well as anonymous, contributor to logic and world wide peace.