Is Wubbo Ockels a crank or a genius?
May 16, 2010 12:50 AM Subscribe
Wubbo Ockels blew up my brain. Does anyone who actually understands physics have an an educated take on his theory of time and gravity?
I'm referring to his TED talk, here. I'm just smart enough that what he's saying seems to make sense, but just ignorant enough that it really doesn't. I'm curious to hear what the physicists in the audience have to say about it. Is this really a valuable set of insights, or is Ockels just a highly gifted and charismatic crank?
I'm referring to his TED talk, here. I'm just smart enough that what he's saying seems to make sense, but just ignorant enough that it really doesn't. I'm curious to hear what the physicists in the audience have to say about it. Is this really a valuable set of insights, or is Ockels just a highly gifted and charismatic crank?
Best answer: I'm not a particle physicist, but my science instincts say intelligent crank for a few reasons.
He discusses in handwave-y terms his notion of the central nervous system creating the sensation of time as an abstract philosophical idea, but organisms of a range of complexity have evolved biochemical "clocks" that coordinate cellular activities, which doesn't necessarily require a nervous system.
Secondly, most particle physicists are trained mathematicians and can provide a basic mathematical framework for their hypotheses, even to a crowd of laypeople. I don't recall seeing that here, though I may have missed it.
Thirdly, aside from particle physics, experimental physics provides some demonstration of an experiment or experiments performed. I do not recall the speaker showing a design of an experiment that would buttress his claims, let alone any results. At the very least, plant life persists its circadian rhythms in space without regard for gravity conditions, and so this piece of evidence would seem to conflict with his main hypothesis.
Just my 2c. It's also possible I don't understand his hypothesis.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:46 AM on May 16, 2010
He discusses in handwave-y terms his notion of the central nervous system creating the sensation of time as an abstract philosophical idea, but organisms of a range of complexity have evolved biochemical "clocks" that coordinate cellular activities, which doesn't necessarily require a nervous system.
Secondly, most particle physicists are trained mathematicians and can provide a basic mathematical framework for their hypotheses, even to a crowd of laypeople. I don't recall seeing that here, though I may have missed it.
Thirdly, aside from particle physics, experimental physics provides some demonstration of an experiment or experiments performed. I do not recall the speaker showing a design of an experiment that would buttress his claims, let alone any results. At the very least, plant life persists its circadian rhythms in space without regard for gravity conditions, and so this piece of evidence would seem to conflict with his main hypothesis.
Just my 2c. It's also possible I don't understand his hypothesis.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:46 AM on May 16, 2010
Best answer: I think TED has seriously jumped the shark here.
Now, we all know that time is, in fact measured by entropy not gravity. Time exists in low gravity environments, because chemical reactions still move from low to high entropy states.
What's interesting is the research being done on the Holographic principle, sometimes called the "holographic universe" I'm not going to try to explain it myself because I'm sure I would butcher it. But you should definitely check out this lecture about if you find these things interesting.
But one of the ideas that comes out of all of this is that gravity itself is caused by entropy, sort of like how entropy itself causes an elastic band to contract (basically, there are more possible arrangements of the molecules in a way that the band is short then arrangements where the band is long, so as the band randomly changes between states, it has a tendency to get shorter)
It's all somewhat speculative, but I would think that we are much more likely to see gravity as an emergent property, while time as a fundamental property then the other way around.
posted by delmoi at 1:55 AM on May 16, 2010 [2 favorites]
Now, we all know that time is, in fact measured by entropy not gravity. Time exists in low gravity environments, because chemical reactions still move from low to high entropy states.
What's interesting is the research being done on the Holographic principle, sometimes called the "holographic universe" I'm not going to try to explain it myself because I'm sure I would butcher it. But you should definitely check out this lecture about if you find these things interesting.
But one of the ideas that comes out of all of this is that gravity itself is caused by entropy, sort of like how entropy itself causes an elastic band to contract (basically, there are more possible arrangements of the molecules in a way that the band is short then arrangements where the band is long, so as the band randomly changes between states, it has a tendency to get shorter)
It's all somewhat speculative, but I would think that we are much more likely to see gravity as an emergent property, while time as a fundamental property then the other way around.
posted by delmoi at 1:55 AM on May 16, 2010 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Yeah, the closest thing to an explanation he gave was that the inner ear detects acceleration while the eyes detect motion. Then some dimensional analysis lets one pull out time. But that doesn't mean that time is a human invention, or that it's human specific, just that we have a combination of hardware that, due to dimensional analysis, is capable of detecting time. To modify a favorite phrase of delmoi's, detection != causation.
I seem to recall some other astronauts getting a bit crack-potty with age... Maybe the enormity of the experience makes it hard to keep one's ideas... um, what's the word here... grounded.
Of course, that said, you can have all the nutty ideas you like about time and space and it won't really hurt anyone. But if you expect people to really listen to them, it needs to be testable, and it needs to actually lead somewhere, at least if it's going to be the underpinning of a revolution in physics. You can do all the philosophy you want, and there's nothing wrong with that, but there's some good reasons that physics and philosophy parted ways as disciplines.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:25 AM on May 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
I seem to recall some other astronauts getting a bit crack-potty with age... Maybe the enormity of the experience makes it hard to keep one's ideas... um, what's the word here... grounded.
Of course, that said, you can have all the nutty ideas you like about time and space and it won't really hurt anyone. But if you expect people to really listen to them, it needs to be testable, and it needs to actually lead somewhere, at least if it's going to be the underpinning of a revolution in physics. You can do all the philosophy you want, and there's nothing wrong with that, but there's some good reasons that physics and philosophy parted ways as disciplines.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:25 AM on May 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I'm a physicist, but I'm not that kind of physicist. This doesn't make any sense.
The body doesn't only detect time with this particular central nervous system technique, it also uses a number of biological oscillators (usually chemical reactions, but also ones in the nervous system). Just like the pendulum of a clock, there is a time scale that the body knows based on the period of an oscillator, the time it takes for the oscillator to leave a particular state and come back to it. Circadian rhythms are just one example. And, of course, even bacteria also keep time that way. Time is clearly a dimension (and a one with a similar rate) that's been around longer than humans, since plenty of organisms have evolved for it LONG before we exist, in ways that don't involve external detection, and at size scales where gravity is totally irrelevant.
Honestly, I can't even address the last half of this, since I don't understand his speed of light discussion at all. I couldn't tell where in his argument he mentions why light (same speed in all inertial reference frames) is different from, say, a baseball (speed changes relative to reference frame).
posted by Schismatic at 7:49 AM on May 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
The body doesn't only detect time with this particular central nervous system technique, it also uses a number of biological oscillators (usually chemical reactions, but also ones in the nervous system). Just like the pendulum of a clock, there is a time scale that the body knows based on the period of an oscillator, the time it takes for the oscillator to leave a particular state and come back to it. Circadian rhythms are just one example. And, of course, even bacteria also keep time that way. Time is clearly a dimension (and a one with a similar rate) that's been around longer than humans, since plenty of organisms have evolved for it LONG before we exist, in ways that don't involve external detection, and at size scales where gravity is totally irrelevant.
Honestly, I can't even address the last half of this, since I don't understand his speed of light discussion at all. I couldn't tell where in his argument he mentions why light (same speed in all inertial reference frames) is different from, say, a baseball (speed changes relative to reference frame).
posted by Schismatic at 7:49 AM on May 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
Don't dismiss him as a crank. Wubbo Johannes Ockels is a Dutch physicist and a former ESA astronaut.
posted by DreamerFi at 9:27 AM on May 16, 2010
posted by DreamerFi at 9:27 AM on May 16, 2010
I was about to post a comment similar to dreamerfi; Ockels is very much a classically trained physicist. He has a PhD in physics and taught subjects in Aerospace at a very reputable university amongst other things.
On the other hand he has been the voice of 'innovation' in the Netherlands in quite a few instances. So that may have led him astray. Or he may be ahead of the pack. Being a crank or genius is all about concurrence and reputation.
posted by joost de vries at 11:03 AM on May 16, 2010
On the other hand he has been the voice of 'innovation' in the Netherlands in quite a few instances. So that may have led him astray. Or he may be ahead of the pack. Being a crank or genius is all about concurrence and reputation.
posted by joost de vries at 11:03 AM on May 16, 2010
Here's a quote from the video, in direct reference to his ideas and presentation, that makes me think he is a self-aware thinker not yet stepping on science's toes:
"As a physicist, people don't talk that way. But as a philosopher, what I've been saying is not all that strange."
But then there's a later quote that really sets off the crank alarm, especially after calling it a "disclaimer":
"I could be totally wrong, but wouldn't that be sad?"
What makes me most suspicious is that his biases as an astronaut and cosmic explorer appear quite heavily in the formulation and application of his ideas. He believes what he does because he wants to be able to communicate with other cosmic explorers, and he sees his idea as the key to making this possible.
posted by abc123xyzinfinity at 12:02 PM on May 16, 2010
"As a physicist, people don't talk that way. But as a philosopher, what I've been saying is not all that strange."
But then there's a later quote that really sets off the crank alarm, especially after calling it a "disclaimer":
"I could be totally wrong, but wouldn't that be sad?"
What makes me most suspicious is that his biases as an astronaut and cosmic explorer appear quite heavily in the formulation and application of his ideas. He believes what he does because he wants to be able to communicate with other cosmic explorers, and he sees his idea as the key to making this possible.
posted by abc123xyzinfinity at 12:02 PM on May 16, 2010
No. He's a crank. His presentation honestly makes no sense. His equation "speed of light / g = 1 year" is idiotic and meaningless. He dismisses the big bang as an illusion in one bullet point, without the least bit of explanation for all the tremendous work that has been done in cosmology. Remember, he is honestly saying that anything before humans didn't happen. His comment on "quantum gravity" is so meaningless that there's not even anything to refute about it. Honestly, this guy sounds like he's trying to sell me some homeopathic remedy. What a waste of 20 minutes.
Just because you did a Ph.D doesn't mean you're right. There are people with astronomy Ph.Ds that are now geocentricists. I believe them just as much as I believe this guy.
posted by kiltedtaco at 1:16 PM on May 16, 2010
Just because you did a Ph.D doesn't mean you're right. There are people with astronomy Ph.Ds that are now geocentricists. I believe them just as much as I believe this guy.
posted by kiltedtaco at 1:16 PM on May 16, 2010
Best answer: My personal bullshit detectors were ringing pretty loud during this talk, but my boyfriend, a particle physicist at a major research university with philosopher parents, was even less impressed. I think we both agreed that it's pretty thin as philosophy, but as physics, the talk was basically meaningless. Since he's an astronaut, I would hope that he has at least a reasonable grasp of astrophysics, but, to quote my resident PhD: "His statements about dark matter and the Big Bang were total crap."
I've tried to get him to define some specifics, but it reduces him to a sputtering nerd rage when trying to address the wrongness of it all.
Bottom line: Scientific concepts don't get to be true just because it would be "sad" if they weren't.
posted by Diagonalize at 3:08 PM on May 16, 2010 [2 favorites]
I've tried to get him to define some specifics, but it reduces him to a sputtering nerd rage when trying to address the wrongness of it all.
Bottom line: Scientific concepts don't get to be true just because it would be "sad" if they weren't.
posted by Diagonalize at 3:08 PM on May 16, 2010 [2 favorites]
Best answer: A friend of mine is a Dutch theoretical physicist and has known Ockels for a while. He says that he ranks high on the Crackpot Index and always has.
His words: "off the scale. I don't know where to begin."
So that's his general reputation even apart from this TED talk.
posted by joost de vries at 12:09 PM on May 17, 2010
His words: "off the scale. I don't know where to begin."
So that's his general reputation even apart from this TED talk.
posted by joost de vries at 12:09 PM on May 17, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by evariste at 12:53 AM on May 16, 2010