Why NASA's BPP lost its funding?
Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 @ 22:30:17 UTC by vlad
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On Mar 13, 2005, Dr. Hal Puthoff [HP] wrote: Kay zum Felde,
I've seen some of the emails going back and forth between you and Jack Sarfatti. Unfortunately, Jack misrepresents the PV approach quite significantly.
Jack likes to emphasize that "PV is proven wrong because it disagrees with certain GR predictions and experiments" and that "certain GR theorists don't like it." Actually what they don't like is the claim (put out by Jack, not by me) that PV is meant to replace standard GR.
Dr. Jack Sarfatti [JS] writes: This is not true. Also how would you know Hal you were not there when I spoke to Cliff Will, Bill Unruh, Matt Visser about PV. I never said you wanted to replace GR. I hardly said anything! They ALL had strong prior negative opinions about your PV theory. I hardly said anything. I just listened. Now even Mike Ibison has WRITTEN that your PV theory is not consistent with Diff(4) GCT. Do you deny that? I have his e-mail to that effect I think I still have it. Probably Saul-Paul does.
[HP]: However, what most theorists realize (except for Jack, apparently) is that PV is not meant to replace standard GR because it is a limited version of GR that has certain domains of applicability where it is extremely efficient
[JS]: That's baloney. Give even one detailed example of that. I dare you. Point out explicitly the ADVANTAGE of PV over GR.
[HP]: but, being a scalar theory, does not apply to all cases (e.g., gravitational radiation, frame dragging).
[JS]: Yeah, like all the HOT TOPICS now being tested for.
[HP]: The latter are not addressable, BY DESIGN, because of the scalar constraint/diagonal tensor element requirement.
[JS]: I shall not repeat Matt Visser's language on that particular since there are ladies present! You make a virtue of a vice Hal! ;-)
[HP]: And it is this that Jack references as to why PV is a "wrong theory." But the price paid to gain efficiency in domains of applicability is well worth it, in my opinion.
[JS]: Hal, in that case you are as deluded as Zielinski! Several of these guys at GR 17 indicated they had a hand in cutting Marc Millis's NASA funding because he was promoting PV and other flaky stuff. This surprised me as I did not mention NASA BPP, they raised the issue when I mentioned YOU! You know the Wheeler people run NASA, NSF, DOE, none of them approve of your approach - none of them. Not even one.
[HP]: And, again, Jack's colleagues who do not "like" PV, in actuality simply do not like Jack's claim that it is meant to replace standard GR.
[JS]: Again Hal, you are deluding yourself on this. What makes you think I used those words?
[HP]: The PV approach has a rich literature going back to the 20's, at least, and its merits are appreciated by those who access this literature. Unfortunately, Jack has not done so, and just sees it as a threat to standard GR (which it is not).
[JS]: Cliff Will knows all that and he does not like how you distorted the proper domain of PV as a test bed for GR only in the weak field post-Newtonian domain not in the strong field case that you claim, i.e. where 2GM/c^2r >> 1.
[HP]: Where PV has its domain of applicability, results can be obtained quickly, and agree with standard GR for which the math is much more drawn out.
[JS]: All TRIVIAL CASES of no great importance! Hal, the people at GR consider your use of PV as some kind of bad joke and NOT because of anything I said. They ALL had STRONG PRIOR OPINIONS. I hardly had to say anything. Mentioning "PV" "Hal Puthoff" was like showing a red flag to an Angry Bull.
[HP]: Where PV's domain of applicability does not apply (e.g., gravitational radiation), amazingly enough PV still yields 2/3rds of the known result - - not bad for a theory being used as a heuristic engineering tool.
Best regards,
Hal Puthoff
[JS]: Baloney. You cannot show even one example of that where PV has any advantage over plain vanilla GR.
One can see that Hal is trying to create a face-saving myth here.
1. He was not there at GR 17 so he has no knowledge at all what my actual words were.
2. It is preposterous to suppose that World-Class Physicists like Cliff Will, Matt Visser and Bill Unruh would even proffer an opinion on Hal's PV theory simply based on ANYTHING I would say to them without their having read Hal's papers beforehand. Hal has basically accused these three men of intellectual dishonesty and lack of ethics! Think about it. Why would they even discuss it with me if they knew nothing about Hal's PV theory at the time? What Hal suggests here is obviously ludicrous on close examination. I suppose I should be flattered that Hal thinks my opinion is so effective on these three powerful men in the world of spacetime physics. Would that it were so. :-)
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