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Offline Tom Bishop

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Skeptic.org.uk article on the Universal Accelerator
« on: September 09, 2021, 05:54:01 PM »
Dave Hahn, PhD., recently wrote an article called The Bewilder Gambit: a conspiracy theorist tactic designed to distract

The Lorentz equations of Special Relativity are nonsense designed to distract, apparently.

"The formula is not just something that I do not know, but I also don’t know where I begin to look it up."

I didn't have that problem.

From the Wiki:

https://wiki.tfes.org/Universal_Acceleration



From the first result of the google search 'lorentz factor and the speed of light':

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-physics/chapter/relativistic-quantities



Same equation. Embarrassing.

And if you are trying to educate people on the incorrectness of your opponents why even make the "you can't travel faster than the speed of light so UA can't work" claim without doing the bare amount of research into the possibility that you might be wrong?

Quora knows:


https://i.imgur.com/JX2En1Z.png

Stephen Hawking knows:


https://i.imgur.com/QrDDwhP.png

Even Reddit knows:


https://i.imgur.com/0g5AFBf.png
« Last Edit: September 09, 2021, 06:04:07 PM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Skeptic.org.uk article on the Universal Accelerator
« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2021, 06:12:36 PM »
Wow, that was an embarrassing show.

He seems to accuse us of trying to "bewilder" people. Is it just me, or is the exact opposite happening in actuality? Here we have a supposedly educated man who openly admits to having no working understanding of maths (to the point of marvelling at the fact that 0.2*50=0.5*20 - in other words, multiplication is remarkable) or high-school physics (to the point of seeing a delta and going "Egads! I am out of my depth!" rather than at least being able to say "ok, that probably means 'change'"). With a straight face, he tells us "No, no, ignore these equations, don't listen to the arguments! They're just here to confuse you, that's their gambit, you see!"

Isn't it pretty gosh-darn transparent? The real gambit here is that coming from Dr. Hahn. He encountered something he doesn't understand, but he knows he's supposed to disagree. Thus, the easiest way for him to drop his rhetoric is to accuse his opponent of "causing bewilderment".

What's next? Should I dismiss his article because my English is poor and because I don't know what it means to "bewilder" someone?

This is an excellent example of the RE mentality gone wrong. I wonder if it might be worth us writing an article in response and pushing it to our homepage (via Announcements).

As an aside, the final quote is particularly funny:
We know that Earth is round; we don’t need to know the intricacies of relativity to prove it.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2021, 06:33:50 PM by Pete Svarrior »
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Offline jimster

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Re: Skeptic.org.uk article on the Universal Accelerator
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2021, 12:35:59 AM »
Sometimes my reaction to FE is bewilderment, although that is about what FEs belive aned how their minds work, not bewilderment at pages of math formulas, science jargon, and referemces to long ago scientic quotes, etc/ <y reaction to that is somewhat the same as the author you criticize, but I would characterize it differently. I took physics in college, double majored in math/computer science and at that time (1975) understood the prof explaining the calculus of relativity. Became a software architect and never did any math much beyond simple algebra.

So if I read something abut Lorentz equations, to actually understand it I would have to dredge up 50 year old knowledge and practice my math. I am, on the other hand, a generally well informed and knowledgeable person with analytic and critical thinking skills. This leaves me, like the author, with the prospect of a daunting project to understand what is being said, while at the same time we are aware of: north star/sextant/latitude, gyrocompass. ships appear to sink over the horizon, different stars in southern hemisphere, ring laser gyroscope 15 deg/hour, tide and moon phase, equatorial telescope mount, ham radio moonbounce, etc etc etc, and my personal favorite, southern cross is visible directly south of Capetown SA and Tierra Del Fuego at the same time. Plot that on the FAQ map, complete opposite direction. So the question is "Why try to inderstand the FE article and the math and the theory behind that particular math?" - when you know from the above mentioned reasons, and the impossibility of some small number of people hiding the truth from 8 billion (professors, scientists, engineers, navogators, etc etc, etc), when gps works, airliners get where they are going, etc.

So I will be happy to spend the time to study the details of posts like this one when you can explain how the southern cross can be seen all over the southern hemisphere, always directly south, and not in the northern hemisphere, the "unknown forces" and "unknown equations" from the wiki page on Electromagnetic Acceleration explaining why north star direction is consistent with RE geometry and latitude, for instance.

One catch, you have to explain what is happening without "unknown forces" and "the experts are lying" conspiracy theories. Otherwise I am not interested. Still don't understand how FEs often encourage FE proselyzation nd get excited over the prospect of spreading FET, yet also say they don't care what I think. Puzzling.
I am really curious about so many FE things, like how at sunset in Denver, people in St Louis see the dome as dark with stars, while people in Salt Lake City see the same dome as light blue. FE scientists don't know or won't tell me.

Re: Skeptic.org.uk article on the Universal Accelerator
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2021, 07:54:42 PM »
Dave Hahn, PhD., recently wrote an article called The Bewilder Gambit: a conspiracy theorist tactic designed to distract

The Lorentz equations of Special Relativity are nonsense designed to distract, apparently.

"The formula is not just something that I do not know, but I also don’t know where I begin to look it up."  [Hahn]

Yes, Dr Hahn did say this, but he was simply being honest up front—as scientists inevitably are.
He didn't attempt to lie about his proficiencies in unfamiliar territory.  So 10/10 for honesty at least.

Quote from: Tom Bishop
I didn't have that problem...

That may well be so, but I'm guessing that you don't know the intricacies of the Lorentz equations either,
as after their illustration in the FE Wiki, the following line says merely "As you can see, it is impossible for
dark energy to accelerate the Earth past the speed of light".  And this is what Dr Hahn actually means when
he says that FEs "seek to bewilder those asking the question with this impressive looking formula".  He not
once said anything to the effect of the Lorentz equations being "nonsense".  That's your wording, not his.

Quote from: Tom Bishop
And if you are trying to educate people on the incorrectness of your opponents why even
make the "you can't travel faster than the speed of light so UA can't work" claim without doing the bare amount
of research into the possibility that you might be wrong?

Well, as you posted, Stephen Hawking's already done the research:



And obviously this immediately falsifies the principle of FE Universal Acceleration (UA), which also relies on some
as yet undefined hypothetical force known as dark energy by scientists, pushing against the "underside" of the
flat planet.  It's of interest here that FE proponents are happy to use two scientific terms to explain UA, that is the
gravitational constant [6.67408 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2]  on a mass, and a hypothetical force posited by astrophysicists.

I have to ask:  why is it that the gravitational constant on the flat earth is identical to that on a spherical earth?  Was
this constant determined independently by any FE scientists (names please), or just conveniently borrowed from RE scientists?

[EDIT:  Added last two paragraphs.]




« Last Edit: December 12, 2021, 08:14:15 PM by Kangaroony »

Offline GoldCashew

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Re: Skeptic.org.uk article on the Universal Accelerator
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2021, 01:14:52 AM »
Dave Hahn, PhD., recently wrote an article called The Bewilder Gambit: a conspiracy theorist tactic designed to distract

The Lorentz equations of Special Relativity are nonsense designed to distract, apparently.

"The formula is not just something that I do not know, but I also don’t know where I begin to look it up."

I didn't have that problem.

From the Wiki:

https://wiki.tfes.org/Universal_Acceleration



From the first result of the google search 'lorentz factor and the speed of light':

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-physics/chapter/relativistic-quantities



Same equation. Embarrassing.

And if you are trying to educate people on the incorrectness of your opponents why even make the "you can't travel faster than the speed of light so UA can't work" claim without doing the bare amount of research into the possibility that you might be wrong?

Quora knows:


https://i.imgur.com/JX2En1Z.png

Stephen Hawking knows:


https://i.imgur.com/QrDDwhP.png

Even Reddit knows:


https://i.imgur.com/0g5AFBf.png


I agree that in the article Dr. Dave Hahn, PhD. wrote it was kind of like he was saying (and I'm paraphrasing): "I don't know how the equation works or how to apply the equation, but I know the Earth is a Globe." So, when I read the article I said to myself why even write an article and use an equation as an example to try and prove something as being incorrect when said person admitted he doesn't even know what the equation means or how to even apply basic maths. It's lazy science and agree that many Round Earthers are guilty of the same.

But, on the flip side it's also fair to say that there are many Flat Earth believers that tend to take the belief of a Flat Earth (including the notion of a space travel conspiracy) at face value without much critical thought or questioning. It's similar to Dr. Hahn where they may not really understand the why's and the how's but they just think it to be true. Perhaps it's because they've been indoctrinated to believe in the many themes Flat Earthers espouse like NASA is evil, NASA are liars, astronauts are actors and liars, the elite are hiding the truth.

While the article by Dr. Hahn to me is lazy science, I would pose the following question: is the Flat Earth belief in the Space Travel Conspiracy lazy Zeteticism?