Now let me show another example of nasty academic you may find in the USENET: the Prof. Steve Carlip.
Off-line, the professor Carlip has got certain fame due to his continued but conventional insights in the field of classical and quantum gravity. Nobody doubts that but that is just the 'side-A' of this old academician. On the 'side-B', Carlip has obtained certain nasty fame in the Internet, being mostly cited in dictionaries and encyclopedias illustrating the so-called “flame wars”
Flaming (Internet)flamingThis academician is probably the more dangerous specimen you may find in the Internet; this is a smart and refined specimen with lots of academic credentials. You may be prepared to beat this kind of dangerous specimen.
Next I reproduce a flame that Prof. Carlip decided to launch against me some time ago. You may learn a lot from it. Learn how he elegantly dismissed his mistakes whereas emphasizing those of others. Learn also as you may be saying something like
A equals 2
and flamers will attacking you in public with something as
A equals 59? You are wrong!
. Remember this was also a main tactic by professional liars to confound readers. Check
academic liarVisit also
http://www.canonicalscience.org/en/miscellaneouszone/guidelines.htmlfor some recommendations in dealing with that kind of nasty people.
Carlip flame was relatively elaborated and as follows —I will split his message and will be inserting comments and corrections between—
Briefly (since I don't have a lot of time to waste on cranks):
This started the hostility...
Juan R. has been shown mathematically rigorous derivations of the
Newtonian limit of general relativity.
Except by a detail, Carlip never showed me any rigorous work. For instance Carlip cited next works
Frittelli and Reula, Commun. Math. Phys. 166 (1994) 221; Rendall, Commun. Math. Phys. 163 (1994) 89; Iriondo et al., J. Math. Phys. 39 (1998) 1555.
I replied that part of Frittelli and Reula 1994 paper was based in conjectures not proofs. Carlip accepted that in another part
Right. They give most, but not all, of a proof. You will find more in the other references I've cited.
But neither Rendall nor Iriondo et al. address the precise mathematical and physical questions, about convergence, boundaries, locality, and dynamical evolution that I was asking.
If Frittelli and Reula, Rendall, and Iriondo et al. are not providing rigorous derivations then why did Carlip cite the papers like if they were doing it?
Carlip also provided several plain wrong derivations from himself. My most recent work has rigorously showed that General Relativity does not reduce to correct Newtonian form in
any limit and that usual general relativists' claims about the limit are not acceptable. Next is an excerpt by expertise in equations of motion in curved spacetimes, Eric Poisson; this is from a discussion I had with him regarding Newtonian limits
And you seem to want a Newtonian limit to GR that gives you a) the correct field equation for phi, b) the nonzero acceleration, and c) a flat spatial metric. This simply does not happen in GR
Since Newtonian theory contains correct equations for phi, nonzero accelerations, and flat metric, all at once, it is clear that General Relativity does not reduce to Newtonian gravity. An anonymous referee from a top journal on General Relativity went beyond and admitted in a referee report that
Strictly speaking, Newton's theory is not contained in GR, and there is no reason why it should be.
Therefore, General Relativity textbooks are incorrect when they state that General Relativity reduces exactly to Newtonian gravity. But, as many general relativists, Steve Carlip does not like the notice and pretends to kill the messenger.
Eric Poisson, the anonymous referee, and me, the three still disagree on the meaning of the lack of Newtonian regime. E.g. Poisson believes that impossibility to reduce General Relativity to exact Newtonian gravity has not real consequences for the physics of gravitation.
But others think the contrary. We think that impossibility to reduce General Relativity to exact (non-trivial) Newtonian limit is at the heart of several contemporary problems of General Relativity regarding many-body motion, the notorious failure to quantize it, or the problem of anomalous accelerations at galactic scale.
But let us continue with Carlip flame
He doesn't like them because
they require a choice of coordinates to get the standard form of
Newton's equations. (General relativity is generally covariant,
while the form of Newton's equations that he likes isn't, but he
apparently believes that taking the limit c->infinity should
magically pick out a coordinate system.)
I will simply add that I have no idea of from where Carlip got that thought. His message followed
Juan R. uses a coordinate x^0=ct, where t is the Newtonian time,
That is also wrong, the “t” here is not the concept of time in Newton theory. In Newtonian theory time is not a dimension but an evolution parameter. I already corrected Carlip about this specific mistake from him, e.g I did in my previous message
In the limit c--> infinity, one CANNOT obtain a spacetime
(t, x) as Carlip claims, because t is NOT a dimension in
Newtonian limit, t is a parameter. Taking 'my' STANDARD convention
(1 -1 -1 -1) or spacetime (ct, x), in the limit c--> infinity x^0
collapses like a dimension, and the only physical dimensions are
x, y, and z. One can prove that in the limit c --> infinity
dtau = ds/c transforms into a parameter of the trajectory and
this parameter is Newtonian theory one.
My knowledge has increased since I wrote that. Now I would do some remarks about that message, but the basic ideas continue to be the same. In short, the “t” on GR spacetime is not Newtonian time, but the “tau” defined above may play the role of Newtonian evolution parameter (at least it does under certain restrictions).
That is, you can see that Carlip was corrected about this specific point of Newtonian time before, but Carlip preferred to ignore the corrections and clarifications that were made and continues think that t is Newtonian time. Still poor, Carlip is lying about that with his
Juan R. uses [...] ct, where t is the Newtonian time
... As showed above I never said that t was Newtonian time. Indeed, I said is not!
Ignore now Carlip lie and focus on the technical aspects. Similar thoughts to mine are expressed in
(Toshifumi & Yousuke, 2007) where a similar concept of Newtonian time is introduced, see equation 10 on their
Living reviews paper
{tau = {epsilon * t}}
I do not completely agree with them on the identification of that “tau” with, in their own words,
Newtonian dynamical time
but at least Toshifumi & Yousuke are able to notice some difference between the concept of time on Newtonian theory and the “t” in the spacetimes of General Relativity. Carlip never understood that, in despite of my efforts to educate him about basic aspects of the physics.
Carlip still think that difference between equations containing “tau” and equations containing “t” is merely aesthetic and continued his flame in next terms
and thinks this makes sense even in the limit c->infinity. Of
course, in this limit, t=x^0/c->0 for every finite value of x^0,
and all derivatives with respect to x^0 go to zero. He has
been told how to take the limit properly, even in his coordinates
(start with a large but finite value of c, multiply by an appropriate
power of c so that the c->infinity limit makes sense, and then take
the limit), and has been shown how this process gives the correct
Newtonian limit, but he doesn't like that, either.
To start to analyze above, I wold first remark that the choice (x^0 = ct) is a standard convention,
http://syrte.obspm.fr/IAU_resolutions/Resol-UAI.htmRelativist Charles W. Misner also uses this choice for x^0 in his papers. C. W. Misner also studies some aspects of the Newtonian limit on
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9504050Many textbooks on relativity use the convention I use, for instance readers may check the well-known volume by Möller.
I remark this because part of Carlip attempt was to suggest that his choice of coordinates was standard whereas the mine was not.
I will not repeat the several corrections to Carlip wrong postings about the issue of time and the choice of coordinates. I will be simply noticing that the first time I wrote a metric structure for (ct, r), Carlip replied a laughable
Second, your g_00 is wrong. There's an extra c^2:
g_00 = c^2(1 - 2GM/rc^2)
Carlip, an 'authoritative expert' on relativity, unnoticed that I was using a standard convention where the c^2 term is already included in the zeroth coordinate.
In fact, the formal expression for the metric is
ds^2 = (dx^0)^2 * g_00 + ...
therefore the components of the metric depend on the choice of coordinates. This is easy to check
ds^2 = dt^2 * c^2 * (1 - 2GM/rc^2) + ...
Carlip chooses (x^0 = t) and then gets
g_00 = (c^2 * (1 - 2GM/rc^2))
But if alternatively one chooses (x^0 = ct) the result is
g_00 = (1 - 2GM/rc^2)
This is obvious, is not? Well it was not that obvious for the 'expertise' and during subsequent exchanges Steve Carlip tried to trivialize the discussion with unfair and wrong accusations like
If you "obtained [above g_00] from the literature," you misread the literature, presumably by starting with books and papers which used units c=1 and not putting back all of the factors of c.
This is elementary.
Well, it is elementary that my g_00 = (1 – 2GM/rc^2) was right. It is also elementary that Carlip was doing a new mistake. As anyone can see something as
g_00 = {1 - 2GM/rc^2}
contains a c squared in the denominator. Can you see the c in above expression? Well, I can see it and other people I have asked also can. Surprisingly Carlip could not see the c and incorrectly assumed that above g_00 was only valid in a system of units with (c = 1). Which is plain wrong. After several days of boring insistence from my part Carlip recognized his notorious mistake when wrote
If, as you prefer, you set x^0=ct, then g_{00}=1 - 2Gm/rc^2, and the
derivative on the right-hand side goes as 1/c^2.
Well! Let us revise the history of this nasty episode for learning some flamer tactics from it.
Initially Carlip blamed his initial
your g_00 is wrong
, then he passed to posting the unfair
you misread the literature
and from that one Carlip finally accepted my initial g_00 as being right. Steve Carlip never apologized by his nasty attitude; he never wrote some
I am sorry, I was initially wrong and you right
... but sincerely I did not wait either.
Above was only one of many misunderstandings and unfounded accusations Carlip —the academic flamer— did during our amusing exchange. You may be aware of this kind of tactics and learn how to beat them; use my experience and do not repeat the same mistakes I did. A useful collection of recommendations are available on
http://www.canonicalscience.org/en/miscellaneouszone/guidelines.htmlLet us learn more by continuing to analyze Carlip flame
Juan R. has apparently casually read a paragraph or two about
Cartan's formulation of Newtonian gravity as a spacetime theory
with a preferred time, and has misinterpreted what he read. In
particular, it is an easy calculation that in the Cartan formalism,
the spatial curvature at a fixed time is zero, but the spacetime
curvature is not; he has made the beginner's mistake of confusing
spatial and spacetime curvature (much as, in the post I'm replying
to here, he seems to confuse the scalar curvature with the curvature
tensor). See, for example, J. Christian, arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9701013.
Where again Steve Carlip starts with a complete
misreading, next
ignores technical details, and finally
accuse others from misunderstanding literature.
The reason which I had cited above arxiv preprint during discussion was because Christian worked the topic of Newtonian limits with some detail, and emphasized some difficulties are hidden in usual treatments. Carlip continued
Juan R. does not understand the role of boundary conditions. In
particular, he thinks that the need to impose boundary conditions
to obtain a Newtonian potential is somehow "unphysical" (basing this
largely, it seems, on an out-of-context quote of Christian). This
is again apparently related to his belief that the Newtonian limit
of a generally covariant theory should magically produce the right
coordinate system.
Where you can see more of the same flaming attitude by Carlip: misread, ignore, and accuse.
I am not saying that “the need to impose boundary conditions was unphysical”. I
never said that. In fact, I am saying one needs impose boundaries but I emphasized that the specific boundaries that Carlip and other general relativists impose are unphysical. Of course, I am not the first one noticing this fact; Christian, Penrose, and others already noticed the unphysical character of the boundaries used by Carlip. E.g. Christian wrote:
However, physical evidence clearly suggests that we are not living in an 'island universe' (cf. Penrose 1996, 593-594) - i.e., universe is not 'an island of matter surrounded by emptiness' (Misner et al. 1973, 295). Therefore, a better procedure [...] is not to impose such a strong and unphysical global boundary condition
As other general relativists, Carlip just want to ignore the well-known fact that the boundaries he uses are not supported by physical evidence. Carlip want to ignore that and react very violently when this fact is reminded.
Some additional comments are worth. Somewhat as Carlip confounds Newtonian time
tau with spacetime coordinate
t, he also confounds spacetime coordinate
r with Newtonian concept of interparticle distance
R.
Newtonian potentials have a functional expression φ(R,(τ)), whereas the gravitational potentials derived from General Relativity are of the local form φ(r,t).
When I first remarked the difference between both functions Carlip wrote me a concise
I have no idea what this sentence means, I'm afraid.
I may agree with Carlip at this point! In that and in subsequent exchanges Carlip, the 'expertise', showed a complete ignorance of the mathematical and physical differences between the AAAD-potentials of the theory of Newton and the metric potentials of General Relativity. This is not really strange because all general literature I know confound both functions and just write an ambiguous φ.
The functions are different like also are their respective limits. The potentials in Newtonian theory may be fixed after selecting acceptable values for arbitrary constants. For example, the next choice is usual
φ(R(τ)) = 0 when R --> infinity
And this technical remark from mine generated next Carlip response
Excellent! Now, look at what this means. You have assumed that as
R->infinity, space is empty -- if there were matter there, U
couldn't go to zero. In other words, you've assumed that we are
living in an 'island universe,' that the universe is 'an island
of matter surrounded by emptiness.'
For most cases -- for example, if you're interested in planetary motion
in the Solar System -- this is, in fact, a pretty good approximation.
And it's exactly the boundary conditions needed to obtain the standard
Newtonian limit from GR.
Which is all wrong. There is not island universe assumption in the limit (R --> infinity). Once again Steve Carlip confounds the functions φ(R,(τ)) and φ(r,t) and their respective limits.
The mathematical and physical interpretation of above limit is completely different from the boundary condition for the metric potentials of General Relativity
φ(r,t) = 0 when r --> infinity
Carlip is unable to notice the differences between both limits. The limit (r- --> infinity) fixes a spacetime boundary for the field/metric associated to the potential φ(r,t).
However, the limit (R --> infinity) does
not fix a spacetime boundary but fixes the phase space behavior of the
nonlocal energy functional φ(R,(τ)) for particles.
Of course there are neither fields nor boundaries in Newtonian AAAD theory. Carlip, as many other general relativists, does not understand the fundamental differences between AAAD and metric theories and then goes over that and submit many nonsense.
Over his misunderstandings Carlip tried to trivialize the rest of the discussion, often with more lies and ad hominems. Next is another example of very unfair comment by this famous flamer,
Juan R. does not think that the solution of the Poisson equation is
really the Newtonian potential. He also thinks that the Minkowski
metric should apply even to Newtonian gravity (!).
Contrary to Carlip accusation, I said that the Newtonian potential satisfies the Poisson equation.
Those are the facts. Carlip wrote his unfair accusation of above the 11 Nov. But some months before, exactly the day 30 Sep, I wrote a formal Poisson equation for the Newtonian potential. Carlip knows that I wrote that because he replied to my message here (I assume Carlip read posts before replying them)
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/53edc8cdfdf185dcAnd, again, I remarked that the Newtonian potential —then I used the notation U(R(t)) instead the recent φ(R,(τ))— is a solution to the Poisson equation in a reply addressed to Carlip on the day 14 Oct; this time in another newsgroup and thread but equally available
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.research/msg/8754617c6f5d7185In the last message I wrote the
Poisson equation for the Newtonian potential, and also cited
relevant literature with the Newtonian Poisson equation. For instance, I wrote:
That spacetime quantities are wrong in the Newtonian limit is clearly seen from the Poisson equation for stationary states -See for example Handbook of molecular physics and quantum chemistry; John Wiley & Sons Ltd: West Sussex, 2003; Volume 2, Chapter 21, equation 25-
Grad^2 U = 4 pi delta(x-y)
solving it the non-relativistic potential is U = U(R(t)) NOT U = U(x, t) which is also the criticism of authors of PRE 1996 53(5), 5373.
But you can see Carlip decided to falsify the facts when launched the flame against me. This is understandable because Carlip lacks any other argument; his math is wrong and his physics inadequate.
In my reply to Carlip I cited a recent paper of year 1996 on Physical Review E . The authors of this article state about the solutions of the Poisson equation the same technical remark I did. They write, using another notation, that
In the stationary state the D’alembert equation is transformed
into the Poisson equation, whose solution is an implicit time-dependent
function f(R(t)). Nevertheless, the conventional theory does not explain
in detail how the function g(r,t) is converted into an implicit
time-dependent function f(R(t)) (and viceversa) when the steady states
problems are studied
Which is right, however the so-called 'expertises' as Steve Carlip continue confusing both functions; the function φ = φ(R(τ)) is the Newtonian potential and satisfies the Newton Poisson equation; whereas the function φ = φ(r,t) is the metric potential obtained from General Relativity which may satisfy the Hilbert Einstein field equations.
Of course, I am aware that the weak field limit of the Hilbert Einstein field equations may look as the Newton Poisson equation but this is only apparent. The apparent similarity does not really confuses to expertise eye, only 'expertises' as Carlip are confused.
Carlip finished his flame with prose
And, of course, Juan R. believes that his brilliant insights about
very elementary General Relativity have somehow been missed by all
of the physicists who have worked on the subject for the last 90 years.
Steve Carlip
It is interesting that so praised 'expertises' are completely wrong about φ(R(τ)) and φ(r,t) and about τ and t, and about (r --> infinity) and (R --> infinity) but I am sorry to reveal you may find many 'expertises' of those during your life.
What is really odd, and cannot be excused by any means, is how Carlip, the academic flamer decides to attack others with his false accusations and lies, such as those are reproduced in this blog article.
As noticed in previous article
http://canonicalscience.blogspot.com/2008/08/some-samples-of-usenet-fauna-iv.htmlOften academic liars have club of 'fans' (e.g. students) that will assist them during discussions in online forums.
It is fascinating that recently Hans de Vries just submitted a post of this kind, and I can cite it here as example!
But first a bit of context. Hans is one guy who pretends that Schrödinger, Dirac, Barut, Breit, Feynman, and others are wrong regarding the issue of velocity of an electron in Dirac theory. For instance Hans named Feynman computation of the velocity of an relativistic electron
a trick
.
Paul Strange states in his celebrated textbook on
Relativistic Quantum Mechanics that the components of velocity for Dirac relativistic theory of electrons do not commute and thus cannot be observable at same instant. Well, this is a well-known quantum mechanical result is related to existence of spin but Hans does not like this picture of Nature and want substitute it by his own vision. Hans was warned about several mistakes and unrigorous procedures he is doing, but he does not want heard a word about that. Hans already decided how Nature may be!
For instance, at one instant of discussion Hans was warned that alpha matrices do not commute and, therefore, according to basic principles of quantum theory, the vector composed by three alpha matrices
v = cα_x + cα_y + cα_z
cannot be considered a physical observable (this is a similar situation to angular momentum in atoms see below) but Hans replied as follows
[ alpha_x, alpha_y ] =/= 0
but
[ psi* alpha_x psi, psi* alpha_y psi ] = 0
That is: The components of v do commute like they should !
even though the components of the velocity operator do not
commute. Matrix operators do not behave the same as constants.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/d3fe50e0db32788aMaybe Hans had a flash therein. Therefore, I offered a second chance when I insisted that, according to standard quantum theory, operators that do not commute cannot be measured at same instant t. It was then proved that above reply by Hans was not a flash because he replied in the same terms but now with more hostility
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/ce176f6231a5d5af> The 3D vector velocity in Dirac theory is not observable.
> Only its
> magnitude is observable and this is computed
> in page 207.
Wrong conclusion.
[ alpha_x, alpha_y ] =/= 0 but
[ psi* alpha_x psi , psi* alpha_y psi ] == 0
And therefor the components of v do commute
and v *is* an observable.
Regards, Hans
These thoughts by Hans generated several laughs. Next is the amusing reply by Massé
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/9568dbdec37f477d> Wrong conclusion.
> [ alpha_x, alpha_y ] =/= 0 but
> [ psi* alpha_x psi , psi* alpha_y psi ] == 0
> And therefor the components of v do commute
> and v *is* an observable.
Ah! I had all wrong:
[x,p] != 0.
But... tada...
[<x>,<p>] = 0,
And qm is all of a sudden easy.
And this was mine own, something more formal,
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/bec98f1f53796e22A more detailed discussion about non-observable vectors and magnitudes in quantum theory is available in next message; where I also offer a basic review of the quantum theory of angular momentum and spin in response to one moderator's query
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/9ef0875937cc06deHans interrupted our discussion for maintaining that authors like Paul Strange or Richard Feynman were supporting his own bizarre ideas about the Dirac electrons
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/dfe1fec5ac440988but it was all a gross misreading of literature. Full paragraphs of Strange and Feynman books are cited next
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/d3a38640a1eed4a1and you can see Feynman and Strange (as Schrödinger, Dirac, Barut, and many others) state clearly that in Dirac theory the instantaneous speed of an electron is c due to
Zitterbewegung. More misreading by Hans followed here
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/8da5b3798be5fda5and more full quotations were provided by me
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/8f47d6e49d0f40e2After reading the full quotations from the textbooks now Hans turned from his previous kindly behavior into his real face when deleted almost all of my message, including quotes, and formulae and submitted the next flame
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/d932d5ecc3993d00full of insults, off-topic rants, several ad hominem... and a passionate defense of Steve Carlip. Of course, as any truly passionate Hans judged
before reading the data...
Surprisingly, the same moderator who approved that flame (I suspect he was Hans accomplice: C.F.) also closed the thread.
UPDATE: my previous suspicions was confirmed. Next article in this series contains Charles Francis justification for the approval and several quotes from users denunciating Charles unfair attitude, biased moderation, and bad manners.
After a formal complaint to the moderator board, the thread was reopened and I was able to post a clarification to one of Hans misreadings. Hans wrote next erroneous
Steve Carlip is "completely wrong" according to
and you claim the speed of gravity is infinite...
But if you read I wrote you may easily see that I never claimed that. Indeed you may find zero times the word “infinite” in my writings. What happened then? Unsurprisingly, it is just another misunderstanding by Hans that follows from his ignorance of physical theory. This is very easy to show as done below.
It seem pretty obvious that Hans read the word “instantaneous” in my message and, using the field-theoretic relation for retardation time Δt = R/c, concluded that retardation is zero, for arbitrary distances, only when c --> infinite. Then, as many other amateurs Hans, incorrectly concluded that the speed is infinite...
But that is completely wrong. The new dual (Chubykalo and Smirnov-Rueda) and DPI theories cited in my message are
not based in fields, and the field-theoretic expression Δt = R/c does
not apply. This is showed with mathematical rigor in the literature cited, the same literature that Hans did not read before writing his ad hominems and wrongs claims...
As you can see all along this series the criticism of papers and books
before reading them first is a common unscientific attitude between trolls, crackpots, liars, flamers...
References:(Toshifumi & Yousuke, 2007)Living Rev. Relativity 2007, 10, 2.Toshifumi Futamase; Yousuke Itoh.
Next MICRO-THOUGHT: Some samples of USENET fauna, vi) the biased moderator
Labels: crackpots, guidelines, USENET
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