
Janus cosmology: what is negative mass? - GorgeRonde
http://www.januscosmologicalmodel.com/negativemass
======
atemerev
This is an interesting phenomenon.

On the first glance, this is a modestly interesting bimetric theory of
gravity, one of the many. These theories are usually considered valid science,
not without issues, but at least offering some new insights. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimetric_gravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimetric_gravity).

On the other hand, this particular theory comes from this person:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-
Pierre_Petit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Petit). Even if it
would have been a blinding light of scientific truth (and it isn’t), he would
have a hard time convincing other scientists in its validity, because of
his... other convictions.

~~~
seppel
He seems to be somewhere on the schizophrenia spectrum, or at least
susceptible to conspiracy theories.

But he presents his theories in a logically consistant way, or lets say at
least in a way that it can be checked whether it is logically consistant. He
also has many peer-reviewed publications in cosmology. The Janus stuff is
properly published [1].

I don't think one easily dismiss his theory because of his other stuff.

[1] Petit, J.-P. (April 1995). "Twin universes cosmology". Astrophysics and
Space Science 227 (2): 273–307.

~~~
EnderViaAnsible
Certainly plenty of prominent scientists have had extremely odd views, and
this does not much change the validity of their work. It appears his work has
been peer reviewed, although how often and by whom would be an excellent
question.

The most troubling assertion is that of plagiarism. If he has really
plagiarized Sabine Hossfelder, he is both foolish (plagiarizing someone so
prominent would be noticed) and dishonest (which might suggest a more
pervasive intellectual dishonesty).

The difficulty of course is that valid equations might be independently
derived. I am curious to read why the accusations were made. I assume if they
are credible that independent derivation is considered unlikely for some
reason.

Incidentally, the UMMO cult is an interesting one. They're one of the more
believable of the New Age-esque UFO channeling cults that sprang up in the
aftermath of various New Thought (think Christian Scientists or Unity Church)
and Seventh Day Adventist movements.

It's highly likely that UMMO originated as a fraud perpetrated principally by
a Spanish psychologist, although there is strong evidence for other help and
some evidence for the involvement of intelligence agencies, although with what
motives it is difficult to say. Intelligence agencies frequently infiltrate or
utilize such groups (see Richard Doty), but as there are a number of possible
motivations it is impossible to suss out why in most cases.

UMMO is one of two UFO religions I'm aware of-- the other being Urantia--
where reasonably technical and somewhat correct scientific information is
given at length by a channeled source. Both religions of course claim
prophetic success, such as Urantia's claims about the star system Wolf 424.

They are somewhat unique in this respect, as while many other UFO religions
utilize scientific concepts or language, it is not usually anywhere close to
correct (or even comprehensible, sometimes).

The relevance here is that both religions have, in part because of this, and
in part because they were promulgated within professional communities,
attracted a disproportionate number of technically minded converts: computer
scientists, engineers, physicists, and such. (Although notably few that
_directly_ study the field of the claims. A physicist, for example, is not
necessarily more informed about Would 424 than other physical science
professionals, and is _not_ equivalent to an astronomer or astrophysicist,
despite some overlap.)

~~~
GorgeRonde
He's also translating his youtube videos in english. Here's a playlist of
videos about his model that have been dubbed by humans [1] if you ever want to
dig deeper.

If you're more interested in what he has to say about Hossfelder (and I think
he's the only source on this story) you can watch the last ten minutes of his
latest video [2]. Funny comics included.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYIurRmmnsU&list=PLfdj8oy5ze...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYIurRmmnsU&list=PLfdj8oy5zeoHJohMx_VLaK0-2_A_TQrKB&index=1)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQRS0aF2G9M&t=29m55s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQRS0aF2G9M&t=29m55s)

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gvx
Crackpot website design sensibilities have come a long way since TimeCube!

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jdashg
This very much feeds the part of my brain that loves worldbuilding!

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Causality1
Yeah, nah. I'm not going to read something titled "Proof Donald Trump is
Actually the Best President" if the link goes to "DonaldTrump.com"

First-party punditry of scientific claims is a red flag the size of Alaska. If
it has the slightest whiff of merit there ought to be a neutral third-party
expert willing to bang out an article about it.

~~~
GorgeRonde
Check out [http://constructortheory.org/](http://constructortheory.org/) by
David Deutsch.

Unfortunately I cannot find the video/article where he states he's marketing
this theory via a website because it's met with indifference, like any other
theory: it takes times – years, sometimes decades – for a theory to be heard,
let alone be opposed.

~~~
Causality1
It takes years for an idea to gain momentum in the scientific community. It
does not take years to get an article on a half-creditable site like Ars
Technica or Space.com. Marketing an idea directly to the public, i.e., people
who can't do math, is suspicious as hell.

~~~
GorgeRonde
The author has published papers on his model in various peer-reviewed
journals. Check out the bottom of the home page. As I said, he theorized, went
through the peer-review ping pong session, published and then set up this
website, which is why I compare him to Deutsch, who went through the same
steps.

~~~
Causality1
So why is the link going to his personal site instead of the paper or to a
neutral article covering the paper?

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laretluval
This is not a presentation format that inspires confidence that this is not
crackpottery

~~~
rosser
Speaking only for myself, I am vastly more interested in seeing commentary on
the content, than on its formatting.

~~~
whatshisface
Why is this going to the public before being accepted by scientists? This
format is appropriate for things that have been known to be true for twenty
years, not random models. Taking your ideas straight to the public before
obtaining wide expert agreement is actually one of the signs of physics-themed
crackpottery.

~~~
a-nikolaev
I'd say that a discussion and criticism by experts must be required, not
really wide acceptance. In theoretical physics, there can be many competing
models that could be hard to verify or proof wrong. "Science advances one
funeral at a time", progress is made quite slowly to make everyone accept a
new theory. Edit: So, I'd like to see a peer-reviewed article by the author,
and some responses by people in the field. That could be enough for a new
theory.

~~~
etatoby
If you look at the bottom of every page, including the homepage, the author
references his own relevant peer-reviewed articles.

I'm not saying his theory is right, or that the presentation doesn't smell a
bit of crackpottery (it does), but at least he's referencing some real science
he's done and that has apparently been accepted.

~~~
a-nikolaev
Yeah, that's good, thank you.

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2littleOTPosted
A little OT, but there was a XKCD-comic about a 'space-layer' made of a
'polygone-structure' \- and I for for the abstract first thought, 'Randall
better had written about a (for the 2D-shema) five-sided-(pentagon)-layer',
cos if you think -just for a moment - about measuring and data-gathering-
structures for mapping space maybe... - after you measured the size, temp,
coordinates, and maybe 'relations' (for an example: possibility for water -in
a survival-scenario... it was about astronomy) - I realized, the pentagon-
figure 'shrinks' in a triangle, but 'You better have one more data-point open
-for maybe future purposes'

Now I feel a bit _fuzzie_ cos just 5 Minutes ago there was a posting here on
HN someone saying something like: 'Somebody made an UI and for years it became
the main theme... ' (-;

