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Science > Physics |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
13 Mar 2005 08:07:18 PM |
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Who is Halton Arp? |
I mentioned Halton Arp in a recent post of mine decrying the corrupting
influence of mathematicians on scientific fields. I figured some of
you might not know who he is, so here's a link to his own website:
http://www.haltonarp.com/
Now I list Arp as an example of a noted physicist and astronomer who
has basically been howled down by the masses of astronomers for daring
to question their claims about the distances of various stellar objects
from us.
Astronomy is kind of like mathematics in certain areas as it's hard to
determine what is actually true, as like, we can't easily measure how
far these distant objects are.
So, like in "pure" mathematics, where things are hard to test, in
astronomy, bogus ideas and pet theories can dominate.
It's a sad state of affairs which I think occurs in any discipline not
adequately policed where people can figure out they can as a group make
up things, and get away with it, at least for a while.
Then they just ignore or villify the naysayers, like Dr. Halton Arp.
James Harris
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| User: "David Cross" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
13 Mar 2005 08:41:47 PM |
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<jstevh@msn.com> wrote in message
news:1110766038.946774.303350@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
I mentioned Halton Arp in a recent post of mine decrying the corrupting
influence of mathematicians on scientific fields. I figured some of
you might not know who he is, so here's a link to his own website:
Without mathematics, chemistry and physics would be quite lacking in their
descriptions of nature. For this reason, mathematics is a very valuable tool
in getting things done in these sciences, as I have discovered after
subjecting myself to bashing my head against such things as vector calculus,
linear algebra and differential equations.
Now, if your complaint is a lot less broad-sweeping than this, I could agree
with you if the intention of your statement is that the abtruse and
theoretical nature of mathematics sometimes gets in the way of understanding
the physical significance of the results, which is MHO in respect to linear
algebra and the way it is taught. This does not mean I deny that the use of
eigenvalues and eigenvectors has proven to be enormously helpful in
understanding quantum mechanics and even classical mechanics (think moment of
inertia). It is just that my linear algebra class made no attempt to link
these abtruse concepts to any physical significance, such as the allowed
energies of molecular orbitals and the contributions of each atom to the MO at
that energy
Somehow, though, I doubt that your complaint is grounded in much of anything
close to being valid, considering that you're apparently the counting primes
guy that Uncle Al rather strongly excoriated.
I shall be much less strong in my excoriation; I will simply say that my
doubts exist as to the validity of your apparently rather broad complaint.
--
David Cross
dcross1 AT shaw DOT ca
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
14 Mar 2005 08:41:29 PM |
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David Cross wrote:
<jstevh@msn.com> wrote in message
news:1110766038.946774.303350@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
I mentioned Halton Arp in a recent post of mine decrying the
corrupting
influence of mathematicians on scientific fields. I figured some
of
you might not know who he is, so here's a link to his own website:
Without mathematics, chemistry and physics would be quite lacking in
their
descriptions of nature. For this reason, mathematics is a very
valuable tool
in getting things done in these sciences, as I have discovered after
subjecting myself to bashing my head against such things as vector
calculus,
linear algebra and differential equations.
Now, if your complaint is a lot less broad-sweeping than this, I
could agree
with you if the intention of your statement is that the abtruse and
theoretical nature of mathematics sometimes gets in the way of
understanding
the physical significance of the results, which is MHO in respect to
linear
algebra and the way it is taught. This does not mean I deny that the
use of
eigenvalues and eigenvectors has proven to be enormously helpful in
understanding quantum mechanics and even classical mechanics (think
moment of
inertia). It is just that my linear algebra class made no attempt to
link
these abtruse concepts to any physical significance, such as the
allowed
energies of molecular orbitals and the contributions of each atom to
the MO at
that energy
Huh?
My point is that mathematicians can basically just lie with
mathematical statements which are completely bogus.
Since they judge their own work as a group, they can get away with it.
Why do so?
Well, mathematics is hard. It's difficult to make major advances, so
people who spend their lives getting frustrated, surrounded by other
people who do so, can learn to just make things up, and feel some
satisfaction.
Now, I can back up that charge.
The trouble is, the same people who are doing the lying aren't going to
acknowledge the truth just because someone has evidence.
James Harris
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| User: "David Cross" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
14 Mar 2005 10:07:33 PM |
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<jstevh@msn.com> wrote in message
news:1110854489.928699.50270@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Huh?
My point is that mathematicians can basically just lie with
mathematical statements which are completely bogus.
So your complaint -is- about mathematics as a whole applied to science? Rather
sweeping, I say.
Since they judge their own work as a group, they can get away with it.
Why do so?
Well, mathematics is hard. It's difficult to make major advances, so
people who spend their lives getting frustrated, surrounded by other
people who do so, can learn to just make things up, and feel some
satisfaction.
So would you call something like, oh, vector calculus, to be "making things
up"?
Do you consider -any- part of mathematics to be without this taint you ascribe
to mathematicians?
--
David Cross
dcross1 AT shaw DOT ca
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
15 Mar 2005 05:05:22 PM |
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David Cross wrote:
<jstevh@msn.com> wrote in message
news:1110854489.928699.50270@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Huh?
My point is that mathematicians can basically just lie with
mathematical statements which are completely bogus.
So your complaint -is- about mathematics as a whole applied to
science? Rather
sweeping, I say.
No. The problem I think is that mathematics can be very abstruse and
hard to read through to the extent that only a few people bother to do
it.
If those people recognize that it's also VERY difficult to come up with
an original idea and results that are truly important, it can happen
that they basically make up things.
Not necessarily fully consciously lying, but glossing over details in
each other's work, or sometimes even seeing errors, but not seeing
them.
That problem isn't as big in areas where experiments can test, and
flush out the human errors, the human wannabe errors even.
But in areas where experiments can't rule, I think the problem has gone
beyond critical.
So you have cosmology, and theoretical physics with what is basically
junk crap that can't even really be called junk science as it's not
science.
I put string theory in that category, as well as most of modern
cosmology, which is basically a weird fairy tale with no proof for, and
lots against.
Now mathematical works and physics works that are of that type where
experiments can't check them, are checked by committees.
My point is that if they're all in on it, then errors can abound.
Halton Arp's saga is a telling one. Read up on his history, his
ideas--and I don't agree with all of them--and check his evidence.
Then come back and discuss further if you wish.
James Harris
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
15 Mar 2005 05:58:14 PM |
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wrote:
I put string theory in that category, as well as most of modern
cosmology, which is basically a weird fairy tale with no proof for,
and
lots against.
James, I think you're really on to something here. You'd make
a terrific creationist.
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| User: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9_Carlos_Santos?=" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
17 Mar 2005 07:54:18 AM |
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On 15-03-2005 23:05, wrote:
That problem isn't as big in areas where experiments can test, and
flush out the human errors, the human wannabe errors even.
But in areas where experiments can't rule, I think the problem has gone
beyond critical.
Really? Why don't you apply this to your own "work"? Concerning the
thing which you always describe as your "prime counting function" (which
is not a function but an algorithm, but the distinction is obviously
beyond your grasp), you wrote, less than a week ago:
And besides, logically, if you have a method that gets a count as I
describe, it has to lead to the fastest.
So, why don't you run an experiment here? Why don't you program it in a
way which is faster than any other method?
Best regards,
Jose Carlos Santos
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
17 Mar 2005 06:01:49 PM |
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Jos=E9 Carlos Santos wrote:
On 15-03-2005 23:05, wrote:
That problem isn't as big in areas where experiments can test, and
flush out the human errors, the human wannabe errors even.
But in areas where experiments can't rule, I think the problem has
gone
beyond critical.
Really? Why don't you apply this to your own "work"? Concerning the
thing which you always describe as your "prime counting function"
(which
is not a function but an algorithm, but the distinction is obviously
beyond your grasp), you wrote, less than a week ago:
And besides, logically, if you have a method that gets a count as
I
describe, it has to lead to the fastest.
So, why don't you run an experiment here? Why don't you program it in
a
way which is faster than any other method?
Best regards,
Jose Carlos Santos
I'm going to answer here, and notice what happens next.
What I do basically is break up the job of counting composites into
steps equal to the number of primes less than the square root of the
number, which you are doing the prime count on.
For instance, counting primes up to 100, my methods would use 2, 3, 5,
and 7, so you have 4 steps in the process.
Now each step is a count of composites that have the prime associated
with that step as a factor, but NO primes less than it as a factor.
Like for that count up to 100, at the third block, where you have 5 as
a factor, you have a count of composites that don't have 2 or 3 as a
factor, for instance, 25 gets counted, while 30 does not, at that
block.
My quoted statement was noting that if you have the fastest possible
counts at each block, then you have the fastest prime counting
possible.
Guess what is a fast equation for the first block?
floor(x/2) - 1
as the first block is the count of even composites, and I dare anyone
to put up a faster formula.
What is the fastest equation for the second block?
floor((x-3)/6)
is the count of odd composites that have 3 as a factor, and again, I
dare anyone to put up a faster formula.
Now I break up the problem of counting primes into discrete steps and
can prove best algorithms at each point, if the research is done to
determine them, but I got bored with it at 7, so I have two more
formulas I could show, and then that'd basically be it.
But as little as I did, I wrote a Java program called PrimeCountH.java,
which you can track down using Yahoo!, and it is so fast that you can
compare it to Mathematica's prime counting software, which I did a few
years ago when I wrote it. Actually an employee of Wolfram Research
did the Mathematica timing tests for me, and no, he wasn't doing it for
the company as Wolfram has ignored me to my knowledge.
It was just one of those things that I happened to be in email
conversation with one of their employees, but I digress.
The point is that I threw together a Java program from my ideas that
could count on a level close to commercial software with just a little
effort, and you know what the sci.math'ers say with regard to that?
They dismiss it.
From them, only if I build the very fastest prime counting software out
there should I say anything as basically they're not rational people.
My favorite example--a telling one in terms of the inconsistency of
mathematicians--is about quantum computing where headlines were made
when it factored--15.
Yet, I can write software with my ideas that stands up quite well, when
you're reasonable, and the sci.math'ers act like only if its the
fastest IN THE WORLD should I dare to say anything, as basically
they're not rational people.
And how can they be? How do you go AFTER a person for finding a nifty
way to count prime numbers?
The math people can and do just that, as look at them go, after me.
Now we're way off the subject of this thread which is Dr Halton Arp.
He's an establishment figure who has been labeled negatively by people
who don't like his ideas.
You know it can be done. You know that there are people who will
attack valid results just because...
The history in this area is clear, major discoverers who challenge the
status quo face hostility.
It was true centuries ago; it is true today.
James Harris
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| User: "Jim Spriggs" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
17 Mar 2005 06:56:39 PM |
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wrote:
...
Guess what is a fast equation for the first block?
floor(x/2) - 1
as the first block is the count of even composites, and I dare anyone
to put up a faster formula.
What is the fastest equation for the second block?
floor((x-3)/6)
These aren't equations. And even if they were, in what sense can an
equation be called "fast"?
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
13 Mar 2005 09:05:31 PM |
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Jim--if you really have a paper at Princeton as you stated
earlier--this post is an example of why you don't get serious
consideration. Let Halton Arp carry his own banner if he feels the
need--your "example" proves nothing other than to demonstrate that Dr
Arp has a great looking website.
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| User: "Nick" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
13 Mar 2005 08:17:30 PM |
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God forbid they might think they don't understand
something. Parade evidence for our lack of understanding and they will
go into denial.
What they know is wrong?
Not possible.
Closed minded physicists don't like to find
out they really don't know.
Right on Jim.
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| User: "Sam Wormley" |
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| Title: Re: Who is Halton Arp? |
13 Mar 2005 10:50:33 PM |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp
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