
Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system - sampo
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system
======
Systemic33
I loved the ending: "He has never been tempted to buy a television, but was
persuaded to watch The Big Bang Theory last year, and said he wasn't
impressed."

The show is despite what some think, not a celebration of science, but a
ridicule of science, and takes the stereotypes to new levels.

Edit: I also watch the show, but as the article that GuiA links to mentions,
the show wnats you to laugh at the nerds, and not the actual jokes they make.
You could argue its a Star Trek vs. Star Wars kinda thing, but i personally
liked Community far more, because it really captured the fun in being nerdy,
and didn't put nerds in one big collective box.

PS. I don't dress up, play fantazy card games, go to cosplays, read comics,
etc. I'm an engineering student, i get drunk in the weekends, I code in .NET
and Python, I love coffee, wine, cars, motorcycles, etc. Not anywhere near the
steretypical hollywood nerd.

~~~
GuiA
Re: Big Bang Theory, I enjoyed this post:

[http://butmyopinionisright.tumblr.com/post/31079561065/the-p...](http://butmyopinionisright.tumblr.com/post/31079561065/the-
problem-with-the-big-bang-theory)

~~~
avrilkiki
The purpose of TBBT is not to entertain nerds, it's to acclimatize everyone
else to the new normal where nerds hold a form of status. In 2013 nerds can be
very rich, their fields can be very influential, and their intelligence can be
useful to normals.

Normals, however, don't understand how to relate to nerds in a post-high
school environment. Their previous social training has been to simply
ostracize and bully. TBBT teaches normals a new way of relating to nerds:
tolerate them, make friends with them, turn a blind eye to their social
awkwardness and weirdness, and trade your cultural capital for the nerd's
intellectual and financial capital.

Nerds can be useful to normals. Nerds can be good friends if you understand
how to handle and bracket their awkwardness. They can even be good boyfriends
if you understand how to handle them--Leonard can benefit Penny with his
intelligence, devotion, and wealth even if he isn't cool.

TBBT isn't aimed at nerds, it's a primetime mainstream TV show.

The author is right that the public is laughing at the nerds not with them.
However TBBT still represents a sea change in the public representation of
nerds--now nerds are not to be ostracized, rather they are to be tolerated.

~~~
vorg
The word _nerd_ doesn't mean nowadays what it meant 20 or 30 yrs ago. It's
been appropriated by business sorts as a label so they can pass themselves off
as creators of genuine stuff as part of their sales routine. Look at most of
the _nerds_ nowadays and ask if these people are really "persons of above
average intelligence who don't care about their appearance"? Real nerds tend
to use the _aspie_ label nowadays.

~~~
insertnickname
>Real nerds tend to use the aspie label nowadays.

What...? That's idiotic... You don't have autism just because you're a "nerd".

~~~
vorg
_Aspie_ is short for _Asperger 's_, which is only a very mild form of autism,
not that people calling themselves _aspies_ necessarily have Asperger's
syndrone, though some do. Many _aspies_ have appropriated the term, however,
because they know the business sorts calling themselves _nerds_ will be
repulsed by the term, and won't want to steal it from real aspies anytime
soon.

~~~
insertnickname
Calling it a "mild form of autism" is not really accurate.

------
ChristianMarks
Higgs isn't alone in remarking that he would not have had the time today to
conduct the kind of work he did in the 1960s. Brian Greene has remarked that
today’s grant-driven academia would not have allowed Einstein the luxury of a
decade in which to develop his General Theory of Relativity.

Eric Weinstein wrote that, "We have spent the last decades inhibiting such
socially marginal individuals or chasing them to drop out of our research
enterprise and into startups and hedge funds. As a result our universities are
increasingly populated by the over-vetted specialist to become the dreaded
centers of excellence that infantilize and uniformize the promising minds of
greatest agency." [1]

Weinstein's "deviants and delinquents" include "von Neumann [skirt chasing],
Gamow [hard drinking], Shockley [bigoted], Watson [misogynistic], Einstein
[childish], Curie [slutty], Smale [lazy], Oppenheimer [politically
treacherous], Crick [incompetent], Ehrenfest [murderous], Lang [meddlesome],
Teller [monstrous] and Grothendieck [mentally unstable]."

Higgs's observation suggests that the systematic stamping out of non-
conscientious non-conformists is a byproduct of over-scheduling them.
(Scheduling has to be considered independently of effort, ability and
experience. [2]) Weinstein's deviants benefited from a historical period
during which they had sufficient time and freedom to pursue their greatest
work (von Neumann, who didn't need any time, is an exception).

But I imagine that time is a luxury even for the deviants and delinquents who
find themselves displaced from academia into startups. So what is really
needed is a startup culture that provides for years of uninterrupted
development and focus. (Not to mention a hiring process that actively selects
for displaced deviants, but that's another post.)

[1] [http://www.edge.org/responses/q2013](http://www.edge.org/responses/q2013)
Edge 2013 : WHAT _SHOULD_ WE BE WORRIED ABOUT?

[2] [http://www.nber.org/papers/w16502](http://www.nber.org/papers/w16502)
_Don 't Spread Yourself Too Thin: The Impact of Task Juggling on Workers'
Speed of Job Completion._ Decio Coviello, Andrea Ichino, Nicola Persico. NBER
Working Paper No. 16502

~~~
rtpg
> So what is really needed is a startup culture that provides for years of
> uninterrupted development and focus. (Not to mention a hiring process that
> actively selects for displaced deviants, but that's another post.)

Years? a lot of great research is done as the culmination of baby steps, and
papers can be published at midpoints. Even Einstein, from his patent office
published at least 5 papers in 7 years. That's a pretty decent rate
considering it wasn't even his fulltime job, and a PhD student working as such
would probably be considered proficient(then again, I'm not aware of the paper
rate of physicists).

I've met a lot more people in research who would just do nothing without
deadlines than hidden geniuses that are hindered by their deadlines. Granted,
I've met few geniuses too.

I'm really curious as to what task really requires years of uninterrupted work
that cannot be segmented and presented for feedback.

~~~
sampo
Of Adrew Wiles (of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem fame), Wikipedia says:

 _" He dedicated all of his research time to this problem for over 6 years in
near-total secrecy, covering up his efforts by releasing prior work in small
segments as separate papers."_

------
paul
I feel like the inability to focus for long periods of time is holding back
progress in many areas. If we can't even stay away from email for a few days,
how can we clear our minds of conventional thinking?

~~~
kulkarnic
A few days? People get upset if you haven't replied in an hour.

Seriously though, long periods of solitude is not what we need. I'd not be
productive if I became a hermit, but I'd be a lot more productive if I had
periods of quiet time, punctuated by moments of discussion. This is how
thinkers and artists (and hackers) worked for a long time, before we wrongly
convinced ourselves that being interruptible improves productivity.

~~~
paul
It's not about solitude so much as the ability to control the contents and
direction of our thoughts. Being responsive on email often requires giving up
that control, fragmenting our attention and preventing the formation of larger
thoughts. It provides short term gains, but we don't see what we're losing.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
perfectly put

------
dekhn
I attended grad school at one of the most prestigious institutions that
exists. After I finished my PhD, I mentioned to somebody I had attended there
and it had taught me to do science well.

THe person I was speaking to looked at me funny and said, "Oh no. You went
there to learn how to write grants that get funded, so that you can manage a
lab that carries out the next set of experiments, so you can write grants that
get funded.". They were right: the value of my training program was in how to
get funded, so I could do research.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall (grant funding for biomedical sciences
doubled in a short period of time in the early to mid 90s, which greatly
increased the rate of minted PhDs, which dramatically increased competition
for slowly growing faculty positions).

I looked around, evaluated my options, and left for industry. I never
regretted it. i still collaborate with academia, and write papers and do
research, but my compensation structure and the options I have vastly outweigh
those has I stayed in academia and become a soft-funded researcher.

Ultimately if your goal is to do blue-sky theoretical research you're going to
have to work very hard to succeed. Maybe it's possible to do good theory and
also be good at grantsmanship. I honestly don't know. But I decided not to
play that game: there are LOTS of options out there.

Don't be stubborn and insist on your blue-sky theory job. Instead, be
realistic and figure out what you want to do, and how to obtain the time to do
it.

~~~
dominotw
>i still collaborate with academia, and write papers and do research

May I ask what you do for living?

~~~
dekhn
software engineer for google. I built Exacycle:
[http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/millions-of-
core-...](http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/millions-of-core-hours-
awarded-to.html) [http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/04/1-billion-core-
ho...](http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/04/1-billion-core-hours-of-
computational.html)

some of those projects have papers on their way to print.

------
mattmanser
I'm a little disappointed that the article didn't address the obvious
question.

If he didn't publish any papers after that, what did he actually do?

The entire article actually seems to undermine his point.

~~~
AimHere
He was a professor of physics at Edinburgh University, and he certainly showed
up on the campus there. I saw him around, but I don't recall witnessing him
doing any work since I didn't study much physics.

I'm guessing what he did was teach classes and supervise graduate students,
put out the occasional paper now and again, just like any other professor.
Also, his name would allow Edinburgh University to say 'We have that famous
Professor Higgs working for OUR Physics department' to any passing Science
Funding Authority or Corporate R&D department thinking of handing out a
research grant in physics, or to any rich foreign parents looking for
somewhere to send their physics-inclined offspring.

I'm sure he was pretty good value for money just for his name alone...

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _I 'm sure he was pretty good value for money just for his name alone..._ //

That may be true but it's such a sad indictment of how science funding works
if it is true that I sincerely hope it isn't.

A professor of physics's value is in research and teaching, it's their
capacities and abilities that make them valuable as physicists.

Who let the marketeers take over management of scientific progress??

------
indigent
I feel slightly validated for leaving academia after reading this article.
When I was in grad school I was working with an adviser who was in the final
phase of applying for tenure. She was under immense pressure to publish, and
she totally passed all that pressure on to me and her other grad student at
the time. It was the worst two years of my life. Ultimately we both left her
charge, and she was denied tenure.

The "publish or perish" atmosphere at most institutions is toxic. I remember
running some in-vivo experiments using our system and looking for data that
validated our hypothesis, but when I found none I was ordered to "find
anything" and rewrite the hypothesis to match it. This was so that we had
something positive to submit to journals, regardless of what it was. The
papers were utter trash, and I was ashamed to put my name on them. The
absolute focus on publishing ends up creating what is essentially "journal
spam."

I don't want to say that research is dead, but it's definitely in the doldrums
at this point.

------
Create
"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years
in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified
to find other possibilities?" \-- H. Schopper

The numbers make the problem clear. In 2007, the year before CERN first
powered up the LHC, the lab produced 142 master's and Ph.D. theses, according
to the lab's document server. Last year it produced 327. (Fermilab chipped in
54.) That abundance seems unlikely to vanish anytime soon, as last year ATLAS
had 1000 grad students and CMS had 900.

In contrast, the INSPIRE Web site, a database for particle physics, currently
lists 124 postdocs worldwide in experimental high-energy physics, the sort of
work LHC grads have trained for.

The situation is equally difficult for postdocs trying to make the jump to a
junior faculty position or a permanent job at a national lab. The Snowmass
Young Physicists survey received responses from 956 early-career researchers,
including 343 postdocs. But INSPIRE currently lists just 152 "junior"
positions, including 61 in North America. And the supply of jobs isn't likely
to increase, says John Finley, an astrophysicist at Purdue University in West
Lafayette, Indiana, who is leading a search to replace two senior particle
physicists. "For the most part, I don't think departments are looking to grow
their particle physics programs," he says.

[http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previou...](http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2013_08_29/caredit.a1300185)

A warning to non-western members about values at CERN:

"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices
in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value
of Y)" [where Y>X]

source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report

ISBN: 9290831693
[http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264](http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264)

------
alan_cx
I think this sort of problem starts at the top, with our time limited
democracies. Democratic governments find it hard to implement long term
thinking because its unlikely the current government will ever get credit for
it. This results in policies which are short term enough to promote re-
election. This bleeds down to the rest of society. Where it does happen, it
tends to be compromised because one side has to make sure the other side
carries the project on. This leads to committee style compromises.

So, in general, from what I can see, long term thinking in western democracies
is rare, and where it exists, compromised.

Implication being that Chinese long term strength lies in its ability to plan
in the very long term, which they do. I think the west needs to find a way in
which we can also effectively and flexibly plan long term.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Can we please stop promoting the "democracy sucks" meme? It's not as if the
Chinese are _actually_ planning in that long a term; they're using markets now
like everyone else.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _It 's not as if the Chinese are actually planning in that long a term;
> they're using markets now like everyone else._ //

So, how long term are they planning, in years?

In the UK we get [a few] plans that encompass maybe the next 10-15 years at
most. So presumably they've got that at least.

~~~
PeterisP
The problem is not with doing planning, the problem is with implementing
tradeoffs after such planning - in democracy, you can't take actions that hurt
you in this year but will benefit 10 years afterward, if it is not completely
obvious to uninformed laymen. If you do, they get reversed after the next
elections anyway.

------
tokenadult
Thanks for submitting this. This was a good introduction to Higgs. It was
reading the comments here after reading the article that reminded me of a
paper by Leif D. Nelson, Joseph P. Simmons, and Uri Simonsohn, "Let's Publish
Fewer Papers,"

[http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/papers/fewer.pdf](http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/papers/fewer.pdf)

suggesting that psychology, and maybe other disciplines, could be improved if
scholars published less often than they now do. "We agree that it is
impractical, but it is just a thought experiment. Still, we stand behind the
notion that the ideal is much closer to 'a paper a year' than to 'publish as
many papers as you can.'"

------
spikels
The issue is Volume versus Quality. The conservatives (not political but
professional) administering our research infrastructure find it much easier to
greenlight an incremental (or inconsequential) project versus anything truly
revolutionary. We need more Higgs and less incremental academic researchers -
industry can do that better.

~~~
sushirain
Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration. \--
Thomas Edison

If smart people are not expected to get incremental results we may lose both
incremental progress and ingenious leaps.

------
anaphor
On the other hand, with total freedom to think, most of us might not get much
done, see:
[http://www.pitt.edu/~druzdzel/feynman.html](http://www.pitt.edu/~druzdzel/feynman.html)

------
hacknat
I think the reality is that more and more bright people avoid the Academy
these days. I'm not saying I'm particularly bright, but I started out thinking
I was going to be an Academic, but when I saw that I would have to deal with
the same BS, politics, and hoop jumping that people in business deal with, I
went with the option that was the same, but offered more money.

I think that's what the majority of the Academy has become for people now. If
two jobs are pretty much equal, except in pay, which one will you take?

------
scotth
Sounds like he was taking advantage of the system. I think I would've felt the
same as the university: sack him if he doesn't win the Nobel.

------
3327
Stagnation is not only a manifestation of economy but every other field such
as science. We have seen rapid growth in the past century and some forces be
it policy, or expectation and pressure for faster growth will ultimately
contribute to a stagnant period in terms of growth vs growth to the prior.

------
_of
He seems to be such a humble person.

------
amerika_blog
School is an obedience/memorization test, the exact opposite of the real-world
applied thinking skills that are needed.

Private schooling is bad; public schooling is even worse. That's where
ideology substitutes for academics as well.

Memorizing 20 ways to do something, and then finding a way to cram in each one
on a test in an "applied" situation, leads to indiscriminate use of technique
and poor debugging skills.

~~~
purringmeow
I am interested in what kind of alternative are you offering? How do you give
basic knowledge to the majority of people?

~~~
adamnemecek
Because you can criticize things only if you have a better alternative.

~~~
drdeca
No, but I would think that it is often useful to indicate when one does not
know of a better option than the one one is criticizing.

Because "this is a bad choice" has a connotation that that is not the one that
should be made, but that a different known one should be made instead, I
think.

Of course, the indication can be implicit, or from context, etc.

And there might be exceptions, But I think this generally holds?

~~~
purringmeow
Exactly. And I really want to hear his/her opinion, because it interests me.
My goal isn't to attack in a passive-aggressive manner.

------
a3voices
We're not genetically different from early Man, who got nothing done except
for basic survival and raising a family. Being unproductive is the default.

------
fargolime
> He doubts a similar breakthrough could be achieved in today's academic
> culture, because of the expectations on academics to collaborate and keep
> churning out papers.

The opposite of an Einstein or Higgs. Academia no longer tolerates deep,
unconventional thinking. Physics used to be a hobby, now its an industry to be
protected from major change. For example, if you have basic knowledge of
relativity you can go to [http://finbot.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/dark-energy-
obviated/](http://finbot.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/dark-energy-obviated/) and
use the steps there in conjunction with generally accepted equations (from the
Usenet Physics FAQ) to see that free objects launched upward from Earth at
close to the speed of light must accelerate away from us, solving the big
mystery of dark energy. But even assuming this idea is valid it couldn't make
it into a respected peer-reviewed journal today. Ideas for hunting dark energy
particles, however, would be welcomed, since those could lead to lucrative
grants.

~~~
jbri
Reading your link, it appears that the author just flatly assumes that space
is not expanding, and everything else stems from that assumption.

The author provides another article to attempt to support that assumption, but
their argument for that is incomplete, and while their alternative appears to
offer explanations for some observations, it ignores other things (like
cosmological redshift). Add in the fact that that the article appears targeted
towards laypeople and there's no scientific paper to be found suggests that
it's more psuedoscience and thought experiments than actual scientific
investigation.

It seems unreasonable to claim that academia would reject the idea out of hand
when no-one's even written a paper to attempt to submit to a peer-reviewed
journal. I suspect the reason academia ignores the supposition is not
commercial interest like you claim.

~~~
fargolime
I've been a student of that blog. It doesn't ignore cosmological redshift.
Rather, the dark energy solution notes that space measurably expands, but in a
relative (it depends on the observer) way as opposed to the absolute (observed
by all observers) way that is generally accepted today. When space measurably
expands (whether relative or absolute) you have cosmological redshift.

Space itself not expanding is the absence of an assumption. Today it's
generally accepted that space itself expands, an assumption.

> Add in the fact that that the article appears targeted towards laypeople and
> there's no scientific paper to be found suggests that it's more
> psuedoscience and thought experiments than actual scientific investigation.

Thought experiments _are_ scientific investigation. Nothing in the rest of
your point actually suggests pseudoscience.

~~~
jbri
It seems unreasonable to claim that academia would reject the idea out of hand
when no-one's even written a paper to attempt to submit to a peer-reviewed
journal.

If you showed me scientific papers that had been rejected by peer reviewers,
then you might have a point. But if it's entirely articles targeted at
laypeople and no scientific papers, it's pseudoscience.

~~~
fargolime
It's not pseudoscience for that reason alone. You're using the definition
incorrectly, even if yours is the definition commonly improperly used. For
example Einstein's _Relativity of Simultaneity_ thought experiment is targeted
at laypeople and is both scientific and a logical proof. Had he put the idea
into a blog and nothing more it still would've been an advance of physics,
regardless whether anyone else paid it mind.

(I probably won't say anything more because I get tired of this type of
discussion.)

~~~
mikeash
You're right, of course. It's not pseudoscience because it's a blog targeted
at a non-scientific audience. It's pseudoscience because it's complete
nonsense.

~~~
fargolime
I've seen many people say that, but none who proved it scientifically. After
all, it simply uses generally accepted equations to make its point. As the
author suggests, I've plugged the equations into Excel to get the same charts.

My favorite part is this:

\- The Relativistic Rocket site reports that a rocket accelerating /
decelerating at 1 Earth gravity can travel from Earth to the Andromeda galaxy,
2 million light years away and arriving at low speed, in 28 years on the
crew’s clock. Then the rocket’s crew would observe a beacon floating at the
midpoint between the galaxies recede 1 million light years in the 14 years
after they pass it.

That's an unassailable conclusion, and it follows that the beacon would
accelerate away from the crew as they observe, since the beacon moved away
from them at an average rate greater than that the rate at which they passed
it. That's the explanation for dark energy in a nutshell.

~~~
mikeash
Since 1 million light years in 14 years is way faster than the speed of light,
and relativity doesn't allow you to exceed the speed of light by acceleration,
clearly this is something other than regular old F=ma "acceleration".

Additionally, the fact that we don't see things 14 light years away
accelerating to a million light years away very quickly, despite being under a
constant 1 gee acceleration, would seem to indicate that this is not what
actually happens.

Putting numbers into equations and getting other numbers out doesn't mean
anything by itself. I can use the standard d = 1/2at^2 equation to
"demonstrate" that combining one apple and three tangerines produces 4.5
dandelions, and you would get the same result putting those numbers into the
equation, but it doesn't mean the exercise makes any sense.

I will be honest: I don't understand enough about physics to point out exactly
what is wrong with the proposed theory. But I understand enough to realize
that it is very wrong, and point out some obvious flaws.

Finally, since the equations are well understood, if this really does explain
"dark energy" then it should be possible to put in real-world numbers for
things like the gravitational field of the Earth and get numbers out for the
accelerating expansion of the universe which match real-world observations?
Has the author actually done this and compared the results with observations?
I can see no indication of this, even though it should be an easy exercise.
This is another major indication that this is all nonsense, if it is in fact
the case that this analysis has not been done.

~~~
fargolime
> Since 1 million light years in 14 years is way faster than the speed of
> light, and relativity doesn't allow you to exceed the speed of light by
> acceleration, clearly this is something other than regular old F=ma
> "acceleration".

As the blog notes, the speed of light limit in relativity theory applies only
to observers in free fall or observers measuring things passing right by them.
The rocket's crew isn't in free fall and the thing they're measuring is
distant.

> Additionally, the fact that we don't see things 14 light years away
> accelerating to a million light years away very quickly, despite being under
> a constant 1 gee acceleration, would seem to indicate that this is not what
> actually happens.

That's because our 1g field drops off quickly with distance. The rocket's crew
has a uniform 1g field all the way to the beacon.

> I can use the standard d = 1/2at^2 equation to "demonstrate" that combining
> one apple and three tangerines produces 4.5 dandelions, and you would get
> the same result putting those numbers into the equation, but it doesn't mean
> the exercise makes any sense.

That's because you're using the equation illogically, by mixing labels. The
blog uses the equations properly.

> But I understand enough to realize that it is very wrong, and point out some
> obvious flaws.

OK, I've been a student of the blog for years and can likely always show the
flaw in your arguments.

> I can see no indication of this, even though it should be an easy exercise.

It wouldn't be easy. As the blog notes, it's not just the Earth's
gravitational field, it's also the Milky Way's and more. When observing
supernovae in distant galaxies we're talking about a much larger g-field than
the Earth's.

> This is another major indication that this is all nonsense, if it is in fact
> the case that this analysis has not been done.

That's unscientific as hell, like saying Newton's _Principia_ is crap because
he didn't include a calculation that used his equations to weigh the Earth
(which Cavendish "easily" did much later).

~~~
mikeash
"It wouldn't be easy."

Nonsense. The mass of galaxies is reasonably well known. Put the numbers in
and see how well they match reality. The numbers are uncertain? Then put on
appropriate error bars and see if reality falls within them.

~~~
fargolime
We know the mass of each of millions of galaxies? I doubt the galaxies
involved have even been counted. But never mind, because ideas aren't proven
invalid when they aren't applied in some way you desired.

~~~
mikeash
No, but when a quantitative theory isn't compared with reality then there is
absolutely no reason to pay attention to it until it is.

~~~
fargolime
Special relativity should've been tossed in the bin, then.

~~~
mikeash
No, because special relativity had plenty of quantitative corroborating
evidence for it, gathered both before and after the theory was actually
proposed.

Seriously, this is insane. You have a theory that makes quantitative
predictions but when I ask whether those predictions line up with reality you
protest that it's just _too hard_ to actually come up with any numbers. You
_loved_ equations and graphs before, but now, perish the thought of actually
looking at _quantities_ , let's just _wave hands_ and pretend that this theory
is _definitely right_ even though we _can 't be bothered to check_.

You have a few blog posts with no quantitative reasoning whatsoever even
though all of the math is present and straightforward, no actual papers, no
evidence, no nothing, and you're _sure_ that this is proof that academia is
suppressing new ideas, not, say, proof that the author is a complete crackpot.

Sure.

~~~
fargolime
Special relativity as published included no experimental confirmation. None of
its quantitative predictions in the original publication were "lined up with
reality" by Einstein. What came after the theory was published, experiments
done by others, is obviously irrelevant to the point you're making.

The blog proves that general relativity predicts that sufficiently high-
redshift supernovae accelerate away from us, the 1998 observation of which is
currently a mystery. The blog offers the same level of corroborating evidence
as special relativity did when it was published, both offering solutions to
observational mysteries. Neither Einstein nor the blog author lined up
anything with reality numerically in their original publications.

Yet you insist (at a minimum) the blog author add up the masses of all the
millions (trillions?) of galaxies within a sphere centered on the Earth and
whose radius extends to those supernovae, billions of light years from the
Earth, to make a numerical prediction of the rate those supernovae are
accelerating away from us. You suggest that not doing such a calculation means
the blog is hand-waving. Well I say again that's unscientific as hell. Yes by
your standard, special relativity as published would be junk and Einstein
would be a crackpot.

(I probably won't say anything more because I get tired of this type of
discussion. You seem to be done with scientific attempts to discredit the
blog.)

~~~
mikeash
It doesn't look that way to me:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_special_relativity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_special_relativity)

In particular, the Lorentz transformation at the heart of relativity was
derived from experiments years before.

------
AKifer
Something I noticed 'An atheist since the age of 10, he fears the nickname
"reinforces confused thinking in the heads of people who are already thinking
in a confused way. If they believe that story about creation in seven days,
are they being intelligent?"' How someone [intelligent enough to get the Nobel
prize] who knows relativist equations better than the average could argue that
creating the universe in 7 days is stupid ? Didn't we know since Einstein
discovered it that time can expand and compress depending of the environment ?
And who can say that Earth local time is the norm ? Better back to pre-
Gallileo time then, when everyone though Earth is the center of the Universe.

