Talk:Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev

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I added a few biographical details to this article, based mostly on writings by V.I. Moroz and J. Shklovsky, who are actual respected Soviet scientists. Kozyrev deserves an article without question, but this page, in its original form, leans toward supporting his findings which had one food in astronomy and one foot in crank science. Moroz (the leading spectrscopist of the Soviet Union -- and no wikipedia page for him yet!) clearly respected him as a man but thought his work was often doubtful.

I've tried to fix up this page, which started out focusing mostly on crank science. Kozyrev deserves better, even though most of his theories are highly doubtful. It's a pity that of all the great Soviet scientists, the only ones who end up getting a Wikipedia page are the ones who wrote about UFOs or crank gravity theories. DonPMitchell 04:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

At least, Kozyrev and a few more physicists have presented a theory, including Gravitation, which seems to work fine with the findings at the quantum level. If we call them 'crank' what should we call to the current 'standard model' of physics, which has not been able to explain Gravitation or even, among other things such as electrostatic spin, to predict the mass-ratios of elementary particles found in the accelerators (when those "cranks" have been explaining both a long ago). And such an innoperative 'standard model' claims to possess the truth about how the Cosmos begun, big bang!?, and its future fate, big crunch!?, or even about the formation of the solar system (except its unsolved angular momentum!!!) !? LOL. About the Sun not being powered by (hot) nuclear fusion, as stated by Kozyrev, he is not the only serious physicist (see Harold Aspden), that you may call "crank", with published work based upon algebraic equations and integral calculus, to state exactly the same conclusion (not to speak of innumerous religious, metaphysical and philosophycal systems, from ancient times till current-day, whose teachings about the planes of existence and the conception of the Cosmos support this conclusion too). Cheers.

It's simple. To a physicist, 'crank' simply means 'outside the current paradigm (the standard model)'. Dicklyon 05:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, thank you for your clarification. :) This issue makes me recall a commentary made by Prof. Neal Grossman (PhD in the history and philosophy of science), that goes like this:

Resistance to paradigm change: Ever since the publication of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the concept of a paradigm has been a familiar, useful, albeit sometimes controversial, tool. The concept of a paradigm helps us considerably in understanding scientific revolutions, when dramatic changes occur involving deep-rooted assumptions about how things are or how things must be. All academics matriculate within the context of a specific discipline that trains its practitioners to think in terms of the currently operating paradigm. Once the operating paradigm has been internalized in the mind of the individual, other competing paradigms appear wrong and/or foolish. To one who has internalized a paradigm, this way of approaching things appears to be right, reasonable, objective, and sensible. The paradigm itself is rarely questioned. It is the very water in which the academic philosopher swims, which is why it is so difficult for one who is immersed in the paradigm to see it as a paradigm, rather than as the way things "must be." Someone operating out of a different paradigm appears to be out of touch with reality, irrational, and so on. [1]

Kozyrev's theories have nothing to do with quantum mechanics or field theories. He was trying to explain the internal heat of planets, without knowing of the discovery of atomic energy. It is true that when a radical new theory is proposed, there is skepticism. But if the theory has merit (like relativity or quantum mechanics), it will prevail. However most new theories turn out to be wrong.

Few people would say that Kozyrev was a Crank, although many of his ideas were hasty and turned out to be incorrect. That doesn't make him an uninteresting scientist.

However, there is such a think as Crank Science. People who don't learn real science or math often try to elevate themselves or become deluded by a false sense of enlightenment. This is the attraction of crank science of course, the false sense of enlightenment by people who have not made the effort to learn real science.DonPMitchell 04:58, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I've expanded on his astronomical work. This article still needs work. In its original form, it contained no biographical or scientific information, but was based on a fuzzy connection of Kozyrev to psychic research and crank graviation theories. Links and references still need to be cleaned up.

After reading the biography of Kozyrev in his Selected Works, I added some details about the famous dispute over his causal-mechanics theory, including the findings of the special commission of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. DonPMitchell 23:49, 19 November 2006 (UTC)