So why was this post voted down so far? It appears to be a relevant and informative link to a non-crank source, with no incivility that I could see.
Overconfidence in the assertion. Presumption of a foregone conclusion.
It was a relevant link and I enjoyed doing the background reading finding out just how seriously relevant authorities take this fellow’s stance. He is not a crank but he is someone with a large personal stake. The claim in the article seems to have an element of spin in the interpretations of interpretations as it were.
I did lower my confidence in how well I grasp QM but much of that confidence was restored once I traced down some more expert positions and scanned some wikipedia articles. I focussed in particular on whether MW is a ‘pure’ interpretation. That is, whether it does actually deviate from the formal math.
With an introduction like that, the link should go to a recent announcement in a major scientific journal by a lot of respected people based on overwhelming evidence, not this one guy writing a non-peer-reviewed argument about an experiment ten years ago that AFAICT most physicists see as perfectly consistent with our existing understanding of QM.
It is a source targeted at the general public, which unfortunately does not know enough to hire a competent columnist. John Cramer has used the wrong equations to arrive at an incorrect description of the Afshar experiment, which he uses to justify his own interpretation of QM, which he wants to be correct. The experiment is not in conflict with the known laws of physics.
In general, I advise you to mistrust reports of recent developments in physics, if you have no physics training. I check a number of popular sources occasionally and about half of the articles are either wrong or misleading. For example, you may have recently heard about Erik Verlinde’s theories about entropic gravity. If gravity were an entropic force, gravitational field would cause extremely rapid decoherence, preventing, for example, the standard double-slit experiment. This is obviously not observed, yet this theory is one of the more well-known ones among physics fans.
Incivility gets most of the big downvotes, and genuine insight gets the big upvotes, but I’ve noticed that the +1s and −1s tend to reflect compliance with site norms more than skill.
This is worrying, of course, but I’m not equipped to fix it.
If the stated rule for voting is “upvote what you want more of; downvote what you want less of,” and the things that are getting upvoted are site norms and the things that are getting downvoted aren’t, one interpretation is that that the system is working properly: they are site norms precisely because they are the things people want more of, which are therefore getting upvoted.
Incivility gets most of the big downvotes, and genuine insight gets the big upvotes, but I’ve noticed that the +1s and −1s tend to reflect compliance with site norms more than skill.
:P Skill? What is this skill of which you speak?
This is worrying, of course, but I’m not equipped to fix it.
That isn’t my experience. When in the mood to gain popularity +5 comments are easy to spin while bulk +1s take rather a lot of typing. I actually expect that even trying to get +1s I would accidentally get about at least 1/5th as many +5s as +1s.
Edit: I just scanned back through the last few pages of my comments. I definitely haven’t been in a ‘try to appear deep and insightful’ kind of mood and even so more karma came from +5s than +1s. I was surprised because I actually thought my recent comments may have been an exception.
So why was this post voted down so far? It appears to be a relevant and informative link to a non-crank source, with no incivility that I could see.
Overconfidence in the assertion. Presumption of a foregone conclusion.
It was a relevant link and I enjoyed doing the background reading finding out just how seriously relevant authorities take this fellow’s stance. He is not a crank but he is someone with a large personal stake. The claim in the article seems to have an element of spin in the interpretations of interpretations as it were.
I did lower my confidence in how well I grasp QM but much of that confidence was restored once I traced down some more expert positions and scanned some wikipedia articles. I focussed in particular on whether MW is a ‘pure’ interpretation. That is, whether it does actually deviate from the formal math.
With an introduction like that, the link should go to a recent announcement in a major scientific journal by a lot of respected people based on overwhelming evidence, not this one guy writing a non-peer-reviewed argument about an experiment ten years ago that AFAICT most physicists see as perfectly consistent with our existing understanding of QM.
It is a source targeted at the general public, which unfortunately does not know enough to hire a competent columnist. John Cramer has used the wrong equations to arrive at an incorrect description of the Afshar experiment, which he uses to justify his own interpretation of QM, which he wants to be correct. The experiment is not in conflict with the known laws of physics.
In general, I advise you to mistrust reports of recent developments in physics, if you have no physics training. I check a number of popular sources occasionally and about half of the articles are either wrong or misleading. For example, you may have recently heard about Erik Verlinde’s theories about entropic gravity. If gravity were an entropic force, gravitational field would cause extremely rapid decoherence, preventing, for example, the standard double-slit experiment. This is obviously not observed, yet this theory is one of the more well-known ones among physics fans.
Incivility gets most of the big downvotes, and genuine insight gets the big upvotes, but I’ve noticed that the +1s and −1s tend to reflect compliance with site norms more than skill.
This is worrying, of course, but I’m not equipped to fix it.
If the stated rule for voting is “upvote what you want more of; downvote what you want less of,” and the things that are getting upvoted are site norms and the things that are getting downvoted aren’t, one interpretation is that that the system is working properly: they are site norms precisely because they are the things people want more of, which are therefore getting upvoted.
:P Skill? What is this skill of which you speak?
Ignore it and write comments worth +5. :)
It’s easier to write five yes-man quotes for +1 each than one +5 comment, which seems like a flawed incentive system.
That isn’t my experience. When in the mood to gain popularity +5 comments are easy to spin while bulk +1s take rather a lot of typing. I actually expect that even trying to get +1s I would accidentally get about at least 1/5th as many +5s as +1s.
Edit: I just scanned back through the last few pages of my comments. I definitely haven’t been in a ‘try to appear deep and insightful’ kind of mood and even so more karma came from +5s than +1s. I was surprised because I actually thought my recent comments may have been an exception.
This is what I find, scanning back over my last 20 comments. My last 30 include a +19 so I didn’t even bother.
And of course karma is a flawed incentive system. It’s not meant as an incentive system.
I actually ignored everything that wasn’t exactly a +5 to make the world that much less convenient. :P