Tuesday, June 9, 2009

I don't understand this

And the fun part is, that I can't understand it. Why? Because even though I'm in college, I can't read or understand Physics papers. The learning curve is too steep.

Learning curve for physics too steep? Just pick up a book about it and read it!

Sure, and to understand the physics involved from the basics, I must learn the math involved. And once I've gone through 3 books for the math, I'd still not be able to understand peer-reviewed physics papers.

What's left? What more do you need to know?

To dive into a peer-reviewed paper, I need to be familiar with the language and syntax that they use. It's almost unreadable to a newcomer to the field. Is it just this paper or does every paper use such convoluted language and bury the facts in irrelevant claims, fancy language and dramatic bold text?

If I somehow get used to that stuff, I need to be familiar every paper of the 5 kazillion or so that it references. Especially so when it references other papers by the same author.

Bah. Anyway, I was trying to read some of the papers published by the people guy at Black Light Power. To see for myself what kind of credence to associate with his claims.

And they're just impossible to read.

I do not like hand-waving, and I do not like pretty pictures or videos. I would like my questions to be answered, or given the means to answer them myself. Papers are supposed to be a way to do that, and I can't. So I don't know what to make of his extraordinary claims.

In case you were wondering what his claims were, he's just about claiming that 40 years of QM is inaccurate because they cannot reconcile with some of his experimental observations (which have been published in peer-reviewed papers, not that I trust anything unless I can see the arguments for myself). Now, this would be something revolutionary, but there's too much such stuff going around, and it's difficult to differentiate the physicists from the crackpots.

All in all, I don't have a clue. He's right that people have a hard time getting away from their dearest theories, and I have been embarrassed by the fact that QM is one thing that no one learns, but rather "Accepts" in school and through college since the Math involved isn't taught at that level.

But really, the only way to challenge something as widely-accepted as HUP, you need a mountain of evidence (Occam's Razor and all that).