Re: Time-travel expert: "Lost" could move the island through time and space

"Victor Velazquez" <k-canute@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:ib-dnRmMgqjFvrbVnZ2dnUVZ_hqdnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Mason Barge wrote:
>> "Victor Velazquez" <k-canute@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> news:s4CdnX9EpqlYZrTVnZ2dnUVZ_uqdnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> Tico wrote:
>>>> Michio Kookoo is an attention whore and a crackpot.
>>>
>>> Cite?
>>
>> I don't think anything Kaku has said can be disproven.  But his whole
>> schtick is to take unproven arcane hypotheses and extend them to
>> entertaining scenarios.
>>
>> I would say he's about halfway to being a crackpot.  His biggest
>> contribution is actually to science fiction, because he likes to
>> bridge the gap between scientific hypothesis and things like time
>> travel.
>> It's not science until it's testable and reproduceable.  Saying that
>> wormholes don't exist is like saying that ghosts don't exist.
>>
>> I think his reputation as an actual scientist is pretty shaky.  The
>> whole thing about Einstein was that his theories of relativity were a
>> solid foundation for experimental verification.   The modern
>> hypotheses that Kaku's career inhabits, like string theory, are (at
>> least today, afaik) incapable of experimentation.
>>
>> He does cross the line to crackpot at some points, though.  Take this
>> statement:
>>
>>> The Casimir Effect and transversible wormholes are real, cutting-edge
>>> science, Kaku says. “The Casimir Effect has to do with the energy of
>>> the vacuum,” he says. “It’s negative energy that has bizarre
>>> properties.”
>>
>> The Casimir Effect is very real, cutting-edge science.  It might even
>> find application in nanotechnology.
>
> To the layperson, how does that statement cross the line?
>
>> Applying quantum mechanics to large-scale phenomena is not, however,
>> "real" science.  The greatest quandry in physics is why  quantum
>> theory works only in very small, particle-size settings.  Saying that
>> moving something the size of an island through time/space by using a
>> phenomenon that appears only in extremely small settings -- and
>> especially, stating that it is "possible" but not "practical" -- is
>> just plain fiction, written in math.
>
> Well, that is a good point.  I mean, hell, I'm an idiot and even I know 
> that quantum effects don't manifest above the quantum level.  I got 
> dragged to that stupid movie What the @[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Do We Know? and I almost
threw 
> my soda at the screen.  But is he saying that one could really apply 
> sub-atomic properties to something like an island or is he just saying 
> it's a fun thing to think about?

That's where he gets his popularity but also where he crosses the line
into 
intellectual fraud, IMO.  He says it's "possible but not practical".  I 
don't really care, but that's what I remember.

Anyway, it's not science, it's mathematically-expressed speculation.  It
has 
roughly the same degree of factual basis as "Jason and the Argonauts".