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Australian High Court Hears Some Weird Science
mosch writes "In an extraordinarily unusual case, the Australian High Court listened to TJ Rout's arguments that he can make light travel faster than c, due to the properties of division and multiplication by zero. The transcript makes for excellent reading. Next up, the Supreme Court hears the testimony of Time Cube."
It's not a question of x/0 maybe being undefined. It *IS* undefined. A common exercise in undergrad math course is to have 2 functions f(x) and g(x) where g(0)=0 and then show that depending on how you choose f and g the limit of f(x)/g(x) as x tends to 0 can take on ANY value you desire.
Division by zero is completely meaningless. Yes there are cases where division by zero creates a removable singularity, and for continuity's sake you can define a new curve/sequence/function/whatever with the convenient value. But that doesn't make the division meaningful...
Oh well. At least he isn't trying to state a value for log(0) -- there's an essential singularity at that point. (The riemann surface for log is very cool...)
My favorite satire of this attitude is Ed Subitsky's satire of Velikoskyism, "Worlds In Collusion". (Printed in the National Lampoon a long time ago. Don't know where else it's available.) Among other assertions, Subitsky asserts that refrigerators don't really need electricity -- it's all a conspiracy to make you pay your utility bill. If you look in the secret compartment, you'll find the real source of the coolness: ice cubes!
This hearing was, in my mind, as assinine as if the fellow who runs TimeCube managed to get a hearing with the Supreme Court, to try to legislate that there are 4 simultaneous days within each 24 hour earth rotation. How does this happen? Why does it happen? What would happen if the guy had been sane?
It seemed to me to be a real-life version of the urban legend pi === 3 law, except with the judicial branch being abused.
This is far more telling:
"A Dr Hall from the Nuclear Physics Faculty ANU, around 1994, wrote a very nasty letter to me warning me I'd be ostracized by the the Science Establishment if I didn't change my attitude. He meant I had to be subservient, pay homage and grovel to my intellectual and scientific inferiors. People like me are no good at all at being a follower of any religion."
The answer to that one is "no, you shouldn't go calling the head of the Australian Royal Academy of Science a 'bitch' after she warns you that she considers your communications with her threatening."
Like most people who claim to have 'disproven' various laws of physics, they don't understand, or misapply, other laws. He presents zero physical evidence, except a tangle of his own theories and "proofs', none of which can be found. The incredibly poor grammar only helps to confuse the reader- someone get the boy a book on proper grammar and punctuation and tell him to come back in a year. While he's at it, he can publish all these proofs, and give exact references to where his work has been stolen(ie, where has it shown up, please.)
Regardless, if he's threatening/harassing members of the scientific community, then there should be legal action against him, and as part of that, he should be psychologically evaluated.
Please help metamoderate.