Louise Riofrio is having problems with academics. Check out the previous two posts as well for the whole story.

Louise Riofrio is having problems with academics.

You mean because she thinks that GM = tc^3? I know exactly how she feels. I have a theory that E = (log m)c^3. Einstein said that E = mc^2, but he did not see the whole truth. I have succeeded where Einstein failed. Let me tell you, my conference abstracts have been subjected to the most brutal censorship. What are they afraid of, if I am at worst wrong?

Anonymous person, E=(log m) c^2 is demonstrably wrong. If you can show that GM=tc^3 is wrong, then good, and Louise can move on to other topics of study.

Until then, does she not deserve a chance to be heard? The equation is elegant, and it explains quite a bit, such as the flatness of the universe, without having kludges like Guth's expansion or dark energy.

errrm... that should be that E=(log m)c^3 is demonstrably wrong.

If you can show that GM=tc^3 is wrong

I get it now. The critical mass density formula, times the visible mass in a flat universe, is "her" cosmological theory.

Fine, you are right about E=(log m)c^3, it doesn't really add up. My theory is also that GM = tc^3. Except that it's not that the speed of light decreases with time, it's that Newton's constant increases with time. Slowly, though --- the universe is pretty old.

I don't know if her theories are right or wrong. I do know that, as with Halton Arp, the way the "scientific institutions" are treating her is wrong! Anybody who thinks that scientists are above office politics should look at stuff like this.

This is more of an engineering crowd here, so you might not understand that scientists have to deal with crackpots on a constant basis. A survey of the usual flux gives a standard portrait, so tell me if any of this sounds familiar:

--Author is a self-described genius.

--Author failed in traditional academia because, as they see it, their brilliant work was just too radical and Earth-shattering to be accepted by the "stodgy" theoretical physics community (ROFL).

--Since leaving to pursue their theories independently, they have been persecuted and hounded incessantly by those who do not want The Truth to get out.

--The Truth: That Einstein, Newton, or some other very famous scientist with cultural zeitgeist surrounding their name failed to take into account thus-and-such, and the author has discovered and corrected this error by applying 8th grade physics and elementary algebra.

--Author may claim to have been credentialed elsewhere, but their names fail to appear on any official records of those institutions. Naturally because the nameless persecutor has "gotten to" the records, and maybe to the faculty of the department who cannot recall ever having met the author.

--Thank God for the internet, where The Truth cannot be censored by cruel fools who cannot see genius right in front of them. Where people who have never worked in a scientific field, and have only an amateur's understanding of the concepts involved (if that), can be rallied to the defense of The Truth and give the author the appreciation they could never get from scientists.

Oh, I'm sorry, am I being sadistic?

Riofrio has scientific credentials. She should be allowed to present so her ideas without other scientists resorting to smear campaigns and ad-hominem attacks against her. It only makes scientists look narrow minded and ideologically entrenched when they go out of their way to shut someone up.

"Riofrio has scientific credentials."

So she claims.

"She should be allowed to present so her ideas"

She's perfectly at liberty to share her ideas on her blog, self-publish, or hand out pamphlets on street corners. And if you think any grad student, let alone established scientist, would hesitate to snap up her work in an instant if they thought it might lead them somewhere, then you have absolutely no experience with science.

"without other scientists resorting to smear campaigns and ad-hominem attacks against her"

That she has no credibility is a fact, not a "smear campaign," and characterizing it as such is ludicrous and grandiose.

"It only makes scientists look narrow minded and ideologically entrenched when they go out of their way to shut someone up."

You're condemning an entire community of incredibly gifted, dedicated, and pioneering people because of some rant you read on a blog. A rant whose ultimate connection to reality you have absolutely no clue about, but whose point-by-point paranoia and grandiosity doesn't seem to ring any alarm bells in your estimation. If any scientist believed her conclusions (if they be that) had merit, they would climb over each other to get her on their team so they could expand on her work and claim credit for its ultimate form. What you're saying is PREPOSTEROUS.

I feel for those poor, poor theoretical physicists for having to deal with crackpots. The problem is that those theoretical physicists are also crackpots.

I am defining "crackpot" as a believer in grandiose claims which turn out, on closer inspection, to be unfalsifiable. (I hardly need explain that belief in something which turns out to be merely wrong does not make one a crackpot.)

Riofrio has cited the solar system as an example of a controversy which is now resolved. So let's run with that. Ptolemy had come up with a model for how the system worked. Copernicus came up with a rival model. Both models were falsifiable in their modest goal: to predict where the planets would lie in the heavens in the future.

The important distinction is that Copernicus allows for other orbital patterns other than around the Earth, and also predicts the phases of Venus relative to Earth. These tools were available even to the Babylonians and Maya, who were able to grind lenses and had, actually, observed Venus's "horns". Copernicus was simply the first to state it.

By contrast string theory hasn't given us the tools to prove it right or wrong. We are told that it is a beautiful symmetrical mathematical model. Well isn't that lovely. We're also told that we have to build a supercollider the size of the orbit of Neptune to test it.

Imagine if Copernicus or Galileo had said, "oh, my theory is more elegant. And to test it, you just build a Saturn V rocket, fire the thing at 90 degrees to the ecliptic, and take photographs of the system from above." If they had done this then they, too, would have been cranks.

Brian, whatever you or I think of Riofrio personally is largely irrelevant. What matters is, does her theory have any merit? At least the implications of her theory have the possibility of being tested, which is far more than one can say about dark energy or M-branes.

This is more of an engineering crowd here, so you might not understand that scientists have to deal with crackpots on a constant basis.

You should see some of the email that gets sent to the general delivery mailbox for LiftPort.

Brian Dunbar: "You should see some of the email that gets sent to the general delivery mailbox for LiftPort."

If it's anything like that "Tower of Babel" discussion posted on the LiftPort blog, I'd have a grand old time reading it.