Talk:Stochastic electrodynamics

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Contents

[edit] To Learn More About Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED)

There is an element unfamiliar with cutting edge quantum physics who ruthlessly surpresses all mention of SED, never realizing that such surpression is in itself a form of pseudoscience.

In 1994 Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED) was explored by Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff who published the hypothesis that inertia may be the result of interactions between the electromagnetic zero-point field resident in the quantum vacuum and the quarks and electrons constituting ordinary matter (Phys. Rev. A, 49, 678, 1994). This paper suggested that Newton's equation of motion (F=ma), which is widely accepted as a postulate of classical physics, would be derivable from Maxwell's equations when applied to the electromagnetic zero-point field.

Since then the hypothesis has been examined in greater depth and extended to include gravity. While not yet confirmed beyond all doubt, this brilliant piece of work is definitely not pseudoscience, and has been published in peer reviewed scientific literature. The scientific community has accepted this as a viable scientific hypothesis that is promising, though not fully tested.[User: I] 13:30 18 February, 2006

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.2.100.33 (talk • contribs) (aka the ph.cox.net anon, geolocated Phoenix, AZ)

-Comment-

The above piece (which I have now edited because I originally wrote it to begin with) was "transplanted" without my permission by User:Hillman/CH from another Wikipedia discussion page having nothing whatever to do with Stochastic Electrodynamics. The context was entirely different and much more informal and speculative than this arena.

User:Hillman/CH indicates that the piece was "—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.2.100.33 (talk • contribs) (aka the ph.cox.net anon, geolocated Phoenix, AZ)". But I signed the piece as I always do, [User: I]. User:Hillman/CH also had his facts wrong with regard to my location as well. I like to comment on various topics and use a variety of means to guard my privacy, some of which include methods to prevent tracing.

This business of tracking users who obviously want some privacy is reprehensible and smacks of the same sort of arrogance and disregard for the law characterized by the recent "warrentless surveillance" of millions of innocent American's telephone calls. The fact that User:Hillman/CH had no problem in doing this shows how far he is prepared to go to damage the reputations of others.

[User: I]

-End Comment-

Note that calphysics.org is the website of California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics, apparently founded by Bernard Haisch. The website is registered to Haisch in Redwood City, CA, in the Southern Bay Area. See also Haisch (talk · contribs), who apparently also has edited as the pltn13.pacbell.net anon geolocated in San Jose, CA, which is also in the Southern Bay area. Note that this domain has also been suspected of having been used by Jack Sarfatti. ---CH 09:09, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
The ''ph.cox.net anon wrote "this brilliant piece of work is definitely not pseudoscience, and has been published in peer reviewed scientific literature. The scientific community has accepted this as a viable scientific hypothesis that is promising, though not fully tested." Well, that certainly is not how I see it! ---CH 09:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea who wrote the above. It was certainly not me.
Haisch 19:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I didn't mean to imply that it was. Haisch doesn't even reside in the Phoenix area, but, as he has apparently implicitly acknowledged elsewhere, he did edit here as anon using IPs corresponding to an ISP in Bay Area (where he does reside), before he registered a user account under his own name. Several of these early edits raised a concern related to apparent "wikishilling" for his recent book, which was presumably part of the context for my 25 May comment. FWIW, I am now inclined to attribute that episode to newbie fumbling, and I think Haisch now realizes why these early edits could have appeared worrisome to those concerned with the integrity of information presented in the Wikipedia.---CH 16:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factual Correction

User:Hillman/CH has a very pronounced tendency to engage in character assassination while attempting to maintain the appearance of a neutral editor. Just look at the way he wrote his comments above. His prose is loaded with emotional overtones and personal attacks. His is unquestionably NOT a NPOV and is not even factually correct.

I want to state for the record that Haisch DID NOT write the above piece - I did. It is of no concern to me what User:Hillman/CH thinks about anything. But I take great exception to his use of my words to damage the reputation of another who doesen't deserve this kind of attack. If User:Hillman/CH continues to engage in this sort of behavior, he may find himself facing legal action - and deservedly so.

[User: I]

[edit] Apparent conflict of interest

An anon using IP 69.107.99.133 (talk · contribs), aka the pltn13.pacbell.net anon in San Jose, CA has added a link to a paper coauthored by Haisch. This domain has apparently been used by Haisch (talk · contribs), who is apparently Bernard Haisch in real life. See also Talk:Zero-point energy and note the recent flap over edits by Ibison (talk · contribs), in real life Michael Ibison, an employee of Earthtech in Austin, TX, a company apparently founded by Harold Puthoff. Note that Haisch, Rueda, and Puthoff have coauthored at least one paper on stochastic dynamics. Some of this might represent newbies who hadn't thought enough about how this activity might appear, but the situation bears close monitoring. ---CH 09:01, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

If I were to edit the SED page, it would be far more conservative than the present post, which is inaccurate and misleading. --Mike 23:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I haven't forgotten my promise to read (re-read) the preprints we were disussing in Polarizable vacuum, which of course should help me offer a more valuable opinion here too. I hope to get to this later today. ---CH 02:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Just to add an obvious but important point: from his choice of "handle", User:Haisch cannot have been attempting to disguise his identity, so these edits, which I think may have been in questionable taste, probably result from thoughtlessness rather than from an attempt to shill. I've probably been a bit "oversensitized" by several recent incidents I've noticed which were far more sinister. ---CH 02:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

You mean Haisch personally got involved in Wikipedia on his own theory? He put a reference to his own peer-reviewed paper? Reminds me of some fellow who about 100 years ago sent in his "Relativity" theory to be published. The nerve of these people, actually promoting their own ideas. What are you going to do, CH? Try starting here -> prozac
---66.245.254.117 (talk · contribs) (the dslextreme.com anon, apparently geolocated in the San Francisco area)

User:66.245.254.117, you should probably review WP:NPA. ---CH 16:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stochastic mechanics vs Stochastic Electrodynamics

There is a respectable attempt to derive quantum mechanics from underlying stochastic dynamics. The name of this research program is "stochastic mechanics" and it was initiated by Edward Nelson[[1]] (and it does not have a Wikipedia article of its own). I would think that stochastic electrodynamics is an offshoot of Nelson's stochastic mechanics, one in which enthusiasts for zero-point energy are now writing the papers and grabbing the attention. If this subject is to be written up properly, I think the following topics need to be addressed:

  • Nelson's stochastic mechanics - its postulates, its motivations, how it has fared theoretically and academically.
  • The place of stochastic electrodynamics within the larger research program (probably central).
  • How Hal Puthoff got involved (he may deserve his own page, given his 1970s career as a parapsychologist). The general relationship between SED and the broader desire to 'tap the ZPE'.

Mporter 15:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

That would be good, though it's a lot of work and research. One of the SED papers I glanced through did mention Nelson and "the wider research program of stochastic mechanics". - mako 01:05, 19 February 2006 (UTC)


These two terms actually refer to fundamentally different approaches.

Stochasitc Mechanics is essentially an attempt to cast Quantum Mechanics in the form of a diffusion theory. Since the straight foreward approach, which had been attempted by others already in the 1920's, did not work, Edward Nelson [[2]] introduced additional hypothetical inputs. His basic idea was to consider two diffsion processes, one forewards in time, the other backwards. As a formalism, it seems to work. As physics it is as mysterious as QM! What is a backwards diffusion process?

Stochasitc Electrodynamics is founded on the hypothetical input that there exists electromagnetic background radiation with a Lorentz invariant (in a particular sense) power spectrum. This is basically all there is to SED. Most publications deal with an application of this hypothsis to a particular physical phenomenon or problem. The hope of its proponents has been that in this way all effects presently explained by QM, could be explained alternately using this hypothesis.

The work by Haisch et al. can also be seen as only an application of SED, albeit a very fundamental one. But, its success or appeal (or lack thereof) must be considered separately from SED per se.

Only a very few authors have attempted to motivate the quantum formalism as such using SED. De La Pena and Cetto in their book: The Quantum Dice, ISBN: 0-7923-3818-9, survey most of them, including their own. In my personal view, my efforts are the most systematic attempt in this direction. See 'Found. Phys. Lett. 12 (2) 441-453 (1999)' for the key idea and refs. It is my view that no diffusion process can account for quantum phenomena. Diffusion processes are described (regualted by) parabolic differential equantions, whereas the Schroedinger Equation is a hyperbolic differential equation. The solution spaces are topologically different and a special physical hypothetical input is needed to move from one equation to the other. Thus, I argue, both SM and SED alone, without additional input into the axiomatic foundations, must fail to account for all of QM, in particualr the wave-like aspects. User:Kracklauer 11:30 (CET) 23.06.06

[edit] Pseudoscience

I tagged this article as pseudoscience. Since it is clear that this will now result in an edit war, I may as well state my reasons:

  • Claims in the article about Gravity, Atomic structure, and the uncertainty principle are fundamentally wrong.
  • References to Vigier, Hal Putoff, etc. indicate that the subject matter is tied to infamous cranks.
  • The preprints available on-line are ... cranky. As typical of crank papers, they mix high and low concepts as if they were on equal footing.

linas 17:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Tsk tsk, You aren't giving any good arguments on why this qualifies as pseudoscience. Please name at least one real pseudoscience criteria you think this field satisfies. Also, 'fundamental wrongness' in the article does not mean that those in the field make the same mistakes. Infamous cranks, sure. Cranky papers, sure. However, all of the journal articles cited come from highly respected journals. Stating your assessment that these peer-reviewed papers are cranky is not an argument. At the very least, these papers have gone through the established channels of the scientific process. Regardless of how cranky you feel they are, this is good evidence suggesting that the field is legitimate, to some degree at least. Please don't incite edit wars without first giving good reason! -- Intangir 19:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Let me second what Intangir said. Linas, I don't think you can claim greater authority than the reviewers of a number of highly respected journals. You have cited absolutely no sources for your assertion that this is a "pseudoscience" or "crank" science or whatever. Bringing up the supposed bad reputation of Puthoff (for which you have also failed to cite a source) is a pure ad-hominem attack, it has no place in a serious debate. It is immaterial even if true, there are a lot of famous physicists with an "interesting" reputation (Nobel winner Brian Josephson comes to mind). If you insist on your position without citing any sources or any evidence, that will indeed result in an edit war. ObsidianOrder 21:21, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Argh. I'm sorry, but this is entirely stupid. I don't have the time to single-handedly fight off this kind of non-sense in wikipedia; pseudoscience is already rather invasive here. I think you guys are either playing dumb for a reason, or actually believe in this drivel. You play a very dangerous game, to the detriment of Wikipedia in particular, and to the reputation of science and scientists in general. This kind of attitude and credudulous, non-critical thinking is exactly what allows things like intelligent design to enter our school system. I just spent the entire day removing all of the crank science in the Casimir effect and in virtual particles and am horribly disappointed to find this snarky mess here. Please, grow up, get an education, use your head, question authority, and develop your own opinion. Try practicing distinguishing between science fiction and science fact. Learn to ask yourself "am I believing this because I think I understand it, or because it sounds sexy, or because people will think I'm cool", or "because it is right". Don't ignore your heart. Don't allow yourself to get swindled. The world depends on your being truthful. Advancing crooked beliefs is evil and unwholesome, and we've got enough evil in the world already. Good night.linas 02:52, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Linas - it is not a matter of "believe". I have read the papers, I can follow the math, and while there are obvious problems with this theory, they are about as serious as the problems with the standard theory (if you consider QED to be the standard). SED has a very high vacuum energy density - so does QED. At least here there is a plausible reason for why that energy density would not gravitate. I find the explanation of the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass in particular to be very elegant and therefore appealing on those grounds - but of course as you may have noted there is a pesky off-by-a-factor-of-two in that calculation. SED also doesn't explain gravitational lensing. Do I "believe" it? No, but I think it should be studied further, so that someone someday comes up with a better theory. ObsidianOrder 03:13, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
The real question is whether it is pseudoscientific as you claim. I fail to see the reasoning. Nobody is trying to present this as a well established theory of anything. Pseudoscience is what you have when there is a discrepancy between claims and reality (for example, claiming a theory predicts something it does not, or that an experiment produces a result it did not), or when the scientific method (however defined) is not followed. Where do you see that? ObsidianOrder 03:13, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
P.S. I am surprised at the very emotional tone of your post. "playing dumb", "this drivel", "very dangerous game", "don't ignore your heart", "evil and unwholesome"... are we talking about physics? Take a deep breath, calm down, and come back with a logical argument. Incidentally, yes, I saw your work on the Casimir effect article, it is very good. ObsidianOrder 03:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and if you think "Foundations of Physics" is a "highly respected journal" ... well, news-flash -- its not. You should at least read about what its own editorial board states about its editorial policy. linas 02:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

How many of these articles are published in "Foundations of Physics"? Two. How many are published in other journals? Thirty or so (not a complete list either). What does the board say about policy anyway? All I can find is "... emphasizes the logical, methodological, and philosophical premises of modern physical theories and procedures. A distinguished editorial board, including several Nobel laureates, selects articles of interest to oriented physicists and other scientists who are sensitive to the crucial and often controversial issues that underlie current studies in the physical sciences" [3]. You're grasping at straws (and also continuing to make reputation-based attacks which really doesn't help your case). ObsidianOrder 03:27, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Murray Gell-Mann, Chen-Ning Yang, Philip W. Anderson, Steven Chu, Brian David Josephson, Kazuhiko Nishijima make "Foundations..." one of the most reputable physics and philosophy of physics journals out there. Stop making a fool of yourself. I understand you've had a long day, battling pseudoscience and inaccuracy and I for one appreciate your excellent rewrites of the casimir and virtual particle articles. However, this simply isn't pseudoscience! It is just an as-yet imperfect, but philosophically interesting theory which is still being developed. --Intangir 04:32, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Intangir and Obsidian: you're certainly not helping your case by mentioning Brian Josephson, since he is widely regarded as a crank! Foundation of Physics is not nearly as impressive a venue as you want to claim. They do seem to publish a lot of stuff which can't be published elsewhere. I wouldn't call it an out and out crank journal like Galilean Electrodynamics, though. In any case, it is clear the stochastic dynamics must succeed or fail on its own merits, not on the basis of some of imagined "reflected glory", on the one hand, or some kind of "guilt by association", on the other. IOW, FoP's respectability (or lack of it) is proably a bit of red herring here. ---CH 09:25, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Bah. I've seen too many arguments veer off into journals and names. I'll say my piece. When I see the term "zero-point energy" being thrown around I can't help but be suspicious of this SED stuff. The theoretical side may be okay (I'm not qualified to judge), but parts of this business are definitely fringe-y. Most of these papers are being served from the "Calphysics Institute", which says things like: "If the zero-point energy is real, there is the possibility that it can be tapped as a source of power or be harnassed (sic) to generate a propulsive force for space travel." We've all heard this before in various forms and guises, and it's a nice idea, but as always, TANSTAAFL. Anyway, the "phenomena explained" section currently makes some rather specious, odd and circular claims. Let's see something more substantive, as it currently reads like pseudoscience to me. - mako 23:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
mak - the idea that "zero-point energy can be tapped as a source of power" probably first came from a paper by Robert L. Forward (Phys. Rev. B, vol. 30, pg. 1700-1702, 1984). Speculative? Sure. Pseudoscientific? I really don't think so. If you must find fault, it should be with my writing and not the theory itself. I am sorry if my admittedly imprecise "phenomena explained" section seems specious to you. I'm pretty sure everything I wrote in there is sourced in the bibliography, but since it is not couched in precise mathematical terms I can understand if it seems hokey. This article started as a very minimalistic stub, it's still not very much more than that. ObsidianOrder 01:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Hello all. As a current student in physics, and researcher of stochastic electrodynamics, I appreciate your efforts to write a scientifically accurate article on SED. I also appreciate your stance against linas, who clearly did not do his homework with regard to this subject. However, I do see some technically vague and/or inaccurate statements about what SED claims. First, the statement that, "Stochastic electrodynamics (SED) is a theory derived from quantum mechanics..." is incorrect. SED is a modification of classical electrodynamics that attempts to DERIVE quantum mechanics, not the other way around. Additionally, the statements regarding HRP's theory of inertia in SED, should be qualified with the following paper, pointing out technical problems in HRP's original calculations in their 1994 paper:
"Calculations on Electromagnetic Zero-Point Contributions to Mass and Perspectives,"
D. C. Cole, Proceedings of NASA conference, "Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program," Cleveland, Ohio, Aug. 12-14, 1997, NASA/CP-1999-208694, pp. 72-82, January 1999. Part of this article was published in an article on the conference entitled, ``NASA Explores Space Travel Concepts," by C. A. Yost, in Electric Spacecraft 23, pp. 20-38, March 11, 1998.
http://www.bu.edu/simulation/publications/dcole/PDF/DCColeMillisConf1997.pdf
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.49.7.123 (talk • contribs) (aka the sinc.sunysb.edu anon from State University of New York, Stony Brook)
The statement on gravity should read the following, "It has been suggested by Puthoff that gravity is an electomagnetic induced dipole shielding effect similar in nature to the Van der Waals force." However, this is not a sentiment shared by most SED theorists, as you can see from the 2001 paper, "Stochastic nonrelativistic approach to gravity as originating from vacuum zero-point field van der Waals forces". You could perhaps make a reference to Hal Puthoff's Polarizable Vacuum approach to General Relativity as a possible, but speculative new direction:
H. E. Puthoff, E. W. Davis, and C. Maccone, "Levi-Civita Effect in the polarizable vacuum (PV) representation of general relativity," General Relativity and Gravitation, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 483-489 (March 2005).
It's important to understand however that such talk about gravity as a ZP fluctuation force, while interesting and plausible, is still very much premature, given the theory's difficulty in explaining atomic physical phenomena first.
You also cite a few papers by one of my advisors, Daniel C. Cole, in reference to statments about atomic structure and zero-point energy. It may be helpful to cite the specific accomplishments of SED in this area, such as reproducing the quantum mechanical probability density distribution of hydrogen without any fitting parameters; the derivation of the Schrodinger wave equation and Heisenberg uncertainty principle:
Derivation of quantum mechanics from stochastic electrodynamics
L. de la Peña-Auerbach and A. M. Cetto
Instituto de Física, UNAM, Apartado Postal 20–364, México 20, D. F.,Mexico
http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JMAPAQ000018000008001612000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes
As well as its failures, i.e., atomic spectra, particle-pair creation, gravity, mass, etc.
On the question of energy extraction from the ZPE, this is not at all crackpottery. Please refer to the following papers:
D. C. Cole and H. E. Puthoff, "Extracting Energy and Heat from the Vacuum," Phys. Rev. E 48, 1562 (1993). See also Fusion Facts 5, No. 3, 1 (1993).
"Energy and Thermodynamic Considerations Involving Electromagnetic Zero-Point Radiation,"
D. C. Cole, Proc. of Space Technology and Applications International Forum - 1999 (STAIF 99), AIP 458, ed. by :::::M. S. El-Genk, pp. 960-967 (1999).
http://www.bu.edu/simulation/publications/dcole/PDF/staif1999Final.pdf
H. E. Puthoff, S. R. Little and M. Ibison, "Engineering the Zero-Point Field and Polarizable Vacuum for :::::Interstellar Flight," J. British Interplanetary Society 55, 137-144 (2002).
http://www.earthtech.org/publications/JBIS_55_137-144.pdf
F.B. Mead and J. Nachamkin, “System for converting
electromagnetic radiation energy to electrical energy”,
U.S. Patent No. 5,590,031, 1996.
Best of luck on improving this article. - M [10:05 PM, 06 January 2006].
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.147.3 (talk • contribs) (aka the dyn.optonline.net anon, apparently geolocated near Poughkeepsie, NY; possibly intermingled with edits of preceeding NY anon)

[edit] Quantum Entanglement?

I have not read the 30+ cited sources about SED, and only have a bachelors degree in physics, so forgive me if this is a ridiculous question, but does SED directly address the "spooky action at a distance", as Einstein called it, caused by quantum entanglement? Considering that not only is actual working devices are being produced that leverage this effect, it seems important that SED correctly account for this phenomenon. - JustinWick 16:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Justin - I think the answer is "nobody knows" ;) The mathematical language of SED is a lot less well developed than that of quantum mechanics, and my sense is that nobody has even tried to tackle entanglement in a simple system using a SED-like description (which would be a pretty tough problem). Taking a step back, one of the most common observables to look at in entanglement is electron spin, and (semi-)classical spin is something which is (a) definitely not well developed in SED and (b) insofar as it can be described in a classical way, it appears that it almost has to be a relativistic effect arising from a SED form of the Dirac equation. And unfortunately "relativistic SED" is something which more or less doesn't exist yet (although people have tried to tackle single particles using such an approach). However, there is one form of "spooky action at a distance" which appears to follow directly from SED, namely a strong version of Mach's principle: inertia is a result of the interaction of a body with all of the rest of the universe, or more specifically, with the ZPF field of the rest of the universe. Sorry if that was a bit of a hand-waving answer ;) ObsidianOrder

Hi Justin (and Obsidian),

The answer to your question is yes, SED does account for quantum entaglement and other apparently nonlocal boson interactions. The formalism, stochastic optics - the counterpart of quantum optics - was developed in the mid '80's by the chief founders of SED - Trevor Marshall, Emilio Santos, Anna Marie Cetto, and Luis de La Pena. It is a local realist interpretation of all nonlocal entanglement phenomena, using the classical zero-point field as a means of supercorrelating light signals undergoing random polarization, in the Wigner phase space representation of "photons".

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v39/i12/p6271_1

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/insref_abs.jsp?key=PROLA&prog=getinsref&id=FNDPA400001800000200018500000M&idtype=cvipa


http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/Pre2001/V02NO4PDF/V02N4FUN.PDF

Incidentally, SO predicts a new additional physical effect from parametric down conversion via a nonlinear crystal, namely, that the down converted signals should be accompanied by an upconverted rainbow whose intensity is only a few percent of the down converted spectrum. There is currently an attempt to do the experiment to look for this rainbow, as it apparently has never been observed before. But this is actually for a lack of trying.

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/%209711030

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/%209711042

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9711046

So, yes, stochastic optics is the only local realist interpretation of entanglement that fully predicts and explains all the tests of Bell's inequalities, as well as qauntum optics. - M [20:22, 06 February 2006].

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.49.7.123 (talk • contribs) (aka the sinc.sunysb.edu anon from State University of New York, Stony Brook)

Beyond the above answers to Justin's question: There are now several articles in respectable physics literature that argue that "quantum entanglement" is ordinary correlation pure and simple. They support the contention that the quantum EPR correlations can be calculated and simulated by extentions of Malus's Law for polarizers. The basic idea is that Bell made a mistake, as Edwin Jaynes was first to spot, in the formuation of what has become known as his "theorem," which, when corrected then admits a fully geometric (i.e., non quantum) understanding of EPR 'entanglement.' See: [[4]] for preprints, reprints, reports, etc. going into all details. This contention has been in the literature for over 12 years and presented at ~30 conferences on the foundations of Physics or Quantum Optics. Inspite of 60+ promisees (threats) from renowned proponents of nonlocality, etc. to write a devastating counter article ("as soon as time permits"), in over 15 years no one has found time! ---Kracklauer 12:15 (CET) 28.06.06

[edit] Local hidden variables are very probably ruled out out by experiments

Stochastic electrodynamic is a hidden variable theory. Is it a local hidden variable theory? The mention of the Wigner representation in this discussion page seems to suggest that it is. Bell's theorem shows that quantum mechanics is incompatible with any local hidden variable theory. To check which corresponds to reality you can use Bell's inequalities on your experimental results: quantum mechanical predictions for some cases do not satisfy the inequalities, while local hidden variable theories must always satisfy them. Many experiments (mostly photon counting) have been conducted, and measurements which do not satisfy Bell's inequalities have been obtained. This would rule out any local hidden variable theories. It is discussed in some detail at Bell's theorem.

Having said that, there is still some hope for the die-hard local hidden variable pundits. I believe that there are still some loopholes in the experiments (detection efficiency comes to mind) which allow one to claim that local hidden variables have not been ruled out 100%. This does look a bit like special pleading, though. Deuar 15:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Deuar - Stochastic electrodynamics is not a hidden variable theory, since it is not a quantum theory at all ;) It is (semi)classical, with real point particles. A wave-function-like probability distribution and a number of quantum-like effects come from the interaction with a (semi)classical stochastic background field, most of which is at such high frequencies that it cannot be measured or observed directly. ObsidianOrder 01:34, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Obsidian, Ok I seek, that sounds to me like the "hidden variables" are probably the stochastic background field. You mention that the field is semi-classical, so one thing isn't clear to me - does the theory purport to be able to predict all non-relativistic physical behaviour, or is it a convenient way of making a semi-classical approximation of quantum mechanics. If it's just the latter, then my comments above would be off-topic! :) By the way - is it related to a stochastic realization of the Wigner (or truncated Wigner) representation? Deuar 18:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
"the "hidden variables" are probably the stochastic background field" - in a very loose kind of analogy, yes. You might also say that many things which are normally considered fundamental laws or constants are just properties of the background field, so they're not very "hidden". "does the theory purport to be able to predict all non-relativistic physical behaviour" - yes, but not very successfully at present ;) You do get some things, such as a correct description of (for example) the states of a hydrogen atom. Other things, such as a description of a double-slit diffraction experiment, at least as far as I know haven't been handled and would be quite problematic. Still other things such as spin which are non-relativistic in QM appear to be inherently relativistic in SED. See M's comment above about stochastic optics as well. "is it a convenient way of making a semi-classical approximation of quantum mechanics" - also yes, it appears to be an approximation to QM, although as far as the math is concerned it is very in-convenient ;) However, it may well be the other way around: perhaps (some form of) SED more accurately describes physical reality and QM is a convenient way of approximating that... ObsidianOrder 06:24, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Experiments will tell..(one day) :) Deuar 13:09, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

New comment: Since Bell's so called 'theorem' has been brought under doubt (see last paragraph in the preceeding section), its conclusions are not unavoidable. As a consequence, the arguments against "hidden variable theories" must be set aside. This opens the way for SED, where the hidden variables would be those (practically inaccessible) variables pertaining to the random background. The advantage is, that many quantum conundrums in SED have rather straight foreward solutions. Nevertheless, because the SED background also diverges, a most basic question must be considered open. ---Kracklauer18:20 (CET)28.06.06

[edit] History section needed

I just gave this page a quick skim; seems interesting. I'm versed in QED and Maxwell's field equations. What would help me is if this page had a history section, i.e. who "coined" the term, date of first paper, fundamental contributors, etc. Please add this.--Sadi Carnot 18:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New version

This article was very badly organized and blatantly pushed a minority POV (didn't even mention important contribs by other physicists). I have written an almost entirely new version, in which I have tried to separate out the more mainstream speculations from the fringe speculations and also to sketch a historical background as per Sadi.

I moved the "complete bibliography" (which in fact was highly incomplete and slanted toward Haisch, Rueda, and Puthoff) to a subpage and retained only selected papers in the references section. I have tried to separate out the more mainstream speculations from the fringe speculations.

Note that Haisch (talk · contribs), Puthoff (talk · contribs) and Ibison (talk · contribs) (and possibly other users) have all published papers on this topic. ---CH 20:21, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Hillman - interesting version. Yes, the article needed a rewrite, I'm not sure this was quite what it needed. My first impression was that you substituted one POV with another, instead of making a more rigorous article - with math, even ;) It is still an improvement, sort of, and with a number of caveats. I'm gonna give it another read through in a day or two and see how it looks to me then. For now, a few small points:

  • "widely popularized work by Haisch and Rueda (especially as portrayed in various cranky websites) is often considered fringe science." - source?
  • "more or less mainstream physics" - why "or less"? says who? do you have a source?
  • "about 1984, Bernard Haisch and Alfonso Rueda, sometimes joined by Harold E. Puthoff" and "work of Haisch and Rueda" title - actually it is a much larger list, including Ibison, Cole and a bunch of other scientists
  • "original motivation for SED is that it seeks to provide a local realist foundation" - source? it is possible, since I have not read all of the early papers, I just want to know where this was proposed.
  • "mysterious effects" - huh? perhaps "non-intuitive predictions"?
  • "cavity effects" - not sure what you mean
  • "championed the notion" - more like "attempted to construct a theory"
  • "Planck's constant then appears as a kind of typical amplitude for quantum fluctuations in the zero point field." - surely you mean frequency? most of the energy density is close to that, but this may misleadingly suggest there isn't much energy at other frequencies. Also, this sounds a bit like original research.
  • "claim that..." - or equivalent disclaimer phrases are used at least 10 times in just one paragraph - overkill? In any event I think "X claim that Y" to describe a proposed theory is a misnomer, since it implies the scientists in question actually believe Y is true regardless of facts or experimental evidence, rather than simply wishing to explore the possibility that Y is true. A better description would be "have proposed a theory according to which..."
  • "These claims are vigorously disputed by other physicists." - source? I know there were a couple of back-and-forth letters regarding math errors in Haisch/Puthoff "induced dipole shielding gravity" paper only. My understanding was that the final, corrected version of that calculation produced a value of G which is off by a constant factor. I am not aware of anybody disputing any of the other claims in any published paper.
  • "according to Bill Unruh this computation is incorrect" - source? very interesting if true.
  • "appears to incorrectly predict no deflection of light in a gravitational field" - true. However as M pointed out above this is not the only proposal for a SED theory of gravitation - there are curved-space SED theories which also predict the equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass (I'll try to find a cite). I believe the current thinking is that the "induced ZPF polarization" theory is probably wrong, whereas a "ZPF flux in curved spacetime" theory is a more promising line of inquiry.
  • "appears to predict an enormous value for the cosmological constant" - source? on the contrary, it predicts a normal value (if interaction with the ZPF is the cause of gravity, there is no reason to assume the energy in ZPF itself acts as a gravitational mass, inless you can show ZPF interacts with itself in the same way it does with matter - think about it), whereas QED predicts an absurdly large value, hence various proposals of "dark matter".
  • "eagerly promoted at many websites by new energy fans" - this may be true to some extent, but it has original research written all over it.
  • "Fringe physics" category - I think the 20 or so scientists in the biblio may have a few things to say about this

I probably should put a NPOV warning on it until these are fixed... I do hope we can hash this out. The new version is more informative in some regards but it also has major POV issues only some of which are detailed above. If I may bring up some ancient history, Hillman, you have persistently tried to recategorize the article as "pseudoscience" or if not that, then "protophysics" or "fringe physics" or whatever. I don't see anything in the way your version is written that would suggest that might possibly not be the case. So you are in effect writing precisely what you believe, and not necessarily what a NPOV article would require. I tried "writing for the opposition", if you check out some of the stuff I've done here you'll see I pointed out all the big problems with SED (light deflection, cosmological uniformity of ZPE, ...). I have always described it as a speculative theory, as I in fact believe it is (the original said "attempts to explain..." right in the first sentence). You might try a similar exercise and point out all the cases in which SED makes a correct prediction ;) I also really don't get why anyone would be in such a rush to debunk something which nobody is trying to present as an established, definitive "theory of everything"... it is precisely what it is, namely an exploration into whether a certain class of theories can be made to work, which shows that in some important cases they can, but in other cases they still don't work. That is important and encouraging, but obviously not the kind of theory that gets into the standard textbooks. ObsidianOrder 08:50, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S. It seems to me trying to put this in a "pseudo" category comes from a profound misunderstanding of what science is and how it moves forward. Science is a method, not a set of correct answers. There is no "correct" theory, just theories we have a reason to have some (possibly a lot of) confidence in at the moment, and which may be applicable in different circumstances. Many, many theories that scientists earlier thought were ridiculous are now considered well-established, and vice versa (do I even need to give examples?) That doesn't make any of them pseudoscientific - not even the ones which we today think are "wrong" - unless the people involved did not follow the scientific method. The core of "not following the scientific method" is always some form of mis-representation: whether outright making up experimental results, claiming theoretical predictions which the theory does not in fact predict, claiming that experiments support a theory when they do not, or describing a theory as well-established when it is not... that is pseudoscience. Coming up with a theory which very probably contradicts some already known experimental results and seeing to what extent it does so (and how it can be made to fit results, and whether there is any unique testable prediction it makes that might actually support it) is not pseudoscience. Coming up with new theories and testing them is, in fact, the very core of science, regardless of whether they end up being "good" theories. I really don't get exactly why you think this particular theory is pseudoscience. I would appreciate it if you could explain your reasoning. Linas did try to explain (see above in talk) but unfortunately his explanation is completely nonsensical. ObsidianOrder 09:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I can provide sources, and just to be clear, I had numerous papers by Haisch/Rueda/Puthoff at hand while I wrote the new versions. I need to attend to something else but will try to write more later today. (An additional issue, some users, including myself, seem to be experiencing some problems with wikisoftware, which could cause trouble; the problem is with something some sysop did, not a problem at our end, so hopefully someone will have fixed this soon.) ---CH 21:55, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Hillman - please respond to the points I made above when you have some time. Thanks. ObsidianOrder 00:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Edit warring by Haisch (talk · contribs) has been preventing me. If he can be persauded to give this a rest I wil l try to catch up here. ---CH 21:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Obsidian: thank you for your patience. I hope Haisch (talk · contribs) has been mollified now but I need to take a break since arguing with him line by line was rather exhausting. IIRC, in a previous discussion you said you had some reason for remaining anonymous; that's your right, but I'd feel more comfortable if I knew since I gather that you are personally involved in writing papers on SED. In any case, the fact that Haisch (talk · contribs) admits his IRL identity has helped me to work with him and in this sense, squeaky wheel may have something to do with emphasis on Haisch's papers. In the fullness of time I agree this should be ameliorated.

For now let me very briefly respond just to two points:

  1. I mentioned "widely popularized work by Haisch and Rueda (especially as portrayed in various cranky websites) is often considered fringe science." and you asked for a source. If you Google on Haisch and Rueda I think you will quickly answer your own question! :-/ Lemme know if you have trouble finding examples of these cranky sites (though this would amaze me since when I Google that's almost all I get)
  2. "more or less mainstream physics" In the fullness of time I can no doubt concoct better wording, but thsi has to do with the very issue you mentioned: lotsa stuff out there allegedly related to SED, and some of it is quite silly.
  3. The specific assertions you questioned came from various eprints/papers I read while preparing the new version, so I guess you need to take this up with those authors. This also explains the "allegedlies".
  4. "according to Bill Unruh this computation is incorrect" IIRC, I edited this to include a quote from Baez's post and explained that the source is an email from Unruh to Baez. Some subcomments:
    • I would not quarrel with the suggestion that a quotation from Unruh himself would be preferable, but as you probably know, many physicists avoid public comments on papers by colleagues which they consider to be terribly mistaken, so unforutnately the most pointed critiques often travel by word of mouth.
    • I would not quarrel with the suggestion that to some extent failing to go public is an abdication of professional responsibility, but having suffered much abuse from myself going public with criticism, sadly, I would have to advise anyone who asked me not to go public. Many people do not take criticism well at all, in fact they can become very unpleasant, and I do understand why most physicists tell themselves "this paper is so obviously wrong that it is not even worth correcting". If the referees see the problems, all is well, kinda sorta.
    • I would not quarrel with the suggestion that this practice of private criticism poses a problem for Wikipedia, where unwise editors often try to discuss very new papers, e.g. Tajmar and Matos, and where some nuts are unwilling to accept that some really bad papers have never been taken seriously, on the grounds that no responses to some awful arXiv eprint appeared in public.
    • I would not quarrel with the suggestion that private criticism can be unfair to the authors of the papers in question. Those who find themselves in this position should blame people like Jack Sarfatti for this kind of thing, however. Also, of course, if you already have a reputation for good work, and even for taking criticism well (e.g. by writing a better paper), you are more likely to attract useful responses and in general more likely to be taken seriously by at least some of your peers.

---CH 02:07, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

"I gather that you are personally involved in writing papers on SED" - I don't know what gave you that idea. I've said this before, but let me repeat: I am strictly an amateur in this field, it is not my primary area of expertise. Also, I have never written a paper about SED or anything close to SED. I have absolutely no personal interest in this beyond simple curiosity.
"if you have trouble finding examples of these cranky sites" - maybe, but you added that to the article, and I asked you for a source. More specifically, a source that says "often considered fringe science", not a source that would seem like a fringe science source to me; that's not the same thing at all.
"came from various eprints/papers" - which ones? please match them up with the assertions that come from them.
I agree with your general comments about criticism. Yes, I think it is an abdication of professional responsibility, and worse, it is simply un-scientific. The substance of a critical argument should be available for everyone to examine, the same as the original paper, and it should be peer-reviewed same as the original paper. In the case of Unruh (yes I know he's famous), the argument he makes sounds like bullshit to me (more specifically: he ignores the fact that there has to be a cutoff to the background field in SED at a certain frequency - his argument about isotropy is of course correct if it weren't for that), but then again the argument is not available anywhere so I could actually read it and work through the math, is it? ObsidianOrder 03:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I really do need to take a break, but comments noted. I agree that I need to provide a source when I have time/energy to hunt for some good ones. Or you could be a kind editor and help us out by googling yourself to verify the substance of the claim. ---CH 03:56, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The current version as it stands today starts out pretty ugly, beginning in Brief History. No one would say that Quantum Electrodynamics is a collection of research efforts. Since the QED page is much less controversial, perhaps it would be productive to look at the language on that site. SED is a term for various semi-classical stochastic theories of electrodynamics, not a term for the research efforts behind those theories. It will be much more helpful to talk about science here instead of sociology and getting wrapped up in the personalities involved. The history here could use some cleanup for language and style. DanFarnsy (talk) 21:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Assistance by Bernard Haisch

The following was sent to Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia article on "Stochastic Electrodynamics" has been converted by a Chris Hillman into primarily an attack on myself and my colleague Prof. Alfonso Rueda. The field of Stochastic Electrodynamics itself, which has had 40 years of development by numerous physicists, is hardly discusssed at all. The current version is littered with factual errors, misattributions and NPOV violations. We need to involve a knowledgeable neutral editor, and it would be best to remove the article until this can be done. Haisch 20:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

You will most likely get a more informed response by asking for help at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Physics. Emails just go to the OTRS. --Philosophus T 14:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I would endorse Haisch's summary. I do not believe Chris Hillman is acting maliciously, but the effect is not dissimilar than if he were. Perhaps this is all due to some bad experiences CH has had with the likes of Sarfatti, leading him to see cranks everywhere... but this article, as well as articles on Haisch, JSE and a few related topics as rewritten by CH are little more than hatchet jobs. ObsidianOrder 06:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Depending on who's doing the talking, we (Haisch and Rueda) are credited or blamed for more than we have done. Let's just look at the published papers in Phys. Rev., Annalen der Physik, Physics Letters A, Astrophysical Journal, Foundations of Physics. We have used the tools of stochastic electrodynamics to show that you can derive an equation of motion-like result (both Newtonian and relativistic) if the quantum vacuum interacts with matter in certain ways. Basically we are putting all the burden of providing momentum on a zero-point radiation field as defined in SED theory, which in turn creates an inertia-like resistance on matter.

All we have done is propose a quantum vacuum based alternative to the ever-elusive Higgs field. There is nothing illegitimate about that. Is this right or wrong? I don't know yet.

The other thing we have done in a recent paper is to show that IF (big if) the above is correct and if zero-point radiation can be treated as light rays following curved geodesics (isn't that standard GR?) then the principle of equivalence automatically appears since accelerating through the quantum vacuum is the same as being fixed in a gravitational field and having the quantum vacuum fall past you. I find this very intriguing and suggestive that we may be onto something. But who knows?

All the other stuff is other people's work attributed mistakenly to us or popular writing speculation by us and others. Scientists always speculate, which is okay as long as you qualify it as such... and we always do.

Here are a few points.

(1) Our approach is based on special relativity and is consistent with general relativity.

(2) For the record, I love the Big Bang and our Ap. J. paper on stochastic acceleration is consistent with the Big Bang.

(3) We have never done any research on polarizable vacuum (although I think it is a neat idea).

(4) The inertia free propulsion stuff is always qualified with a big "maybe someday" and is only clearly identified pop speculation.

(5) It is absurd to call research in journals like the ones above which range from pretty respectable to pretty prestigious as fringe science or worse. That is just plain wrong. Moreover we were even generously funded by NASA (not the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program) and Lockheed Martin to do this research.

Let's begin a fact-based honest discussion to correct the numerous errors and NPOV violations in Hillman's rewrite of Stochastic Electrodynamics which does not even scratch the surface of 40 years worth of research by lots of physicists other than Haisch and Rueda. Haisch 00:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Erroneous Haisch and Rueda Section

The following section is mostly wrong for the reasons cited below the section.

Haisch and Rueda also claim that gravitation arises from an electromagnetic induced dipole shielding similar to the Van der Waals force. They claim to explain the equality of gravitational and inertial mass, which is assumed but not derived in general relativity, and they claim to compute thereby the value of the Planck constant from the gravitational constant, or vice versa.
Haisch and Rueda claim that the structure of atoms arises from a thermal equilibrium between between a particle in a potential well and the zero point field. They claim that this resolves the radiation paradox of the Bohr model, a well known shortcoming of that model. This paradox states that an orbiting classical electron will quickly radiate all its energy away and collapse into the nucleus, which is in drastic disagreement with observation. According to Haisch and Rueda, however, in their theory, each orbiting electron absorbs exactly as much energy from the zero-point field as it radiates. They claim that the absorption and re-emission by the electrons in an atom preserves both the frequency distribution and isotropic random phase character of the zero-point field. They suggest this intuitive picture: the electron is constantly trying to collapse into the nucleus but is blown off course by "gusts" from the background field and so maintains a stable orbit.
Haisch and Rueda claim that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle also arises from interaction of particles with the zero-point field, which, they say, randomly changes the position and velocity of every particle.
These claims are vigorously disputed by other physicists.
The Haisch/Rueda version of SED appears to incorrectly predict no deflection of light in a gravitational field. Their theory also appears to predict an enormous value for the cosmological constant. Haisch and Rueda propose to solve this problem by assuming that the zero-point field does not itself have gravitational mass; rather, they say, the gravitational mass of a massive object is created by the interaction between this object and the zero-point field. Issues which they have apparently not yet addressed include the homogeneous and isotropic nature of their notion of the zero point field.

The work on gravitation was done by Puthoff (1989) but was shown by Carlip to be in error. That paper is the one that attempted to relate G to h, not a Haisch and Rueda paper.

The work on the hydrogen atom was done by Boyer (1975), Puthoff (1989) and several recent papers by Cole. Moreover it is not a thermal equilibrium. Again, this is not a Haisch and Rueda result. We merely cite these other studies.

The suggestion that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle arises from the zero-point field is an SED interpretation that goes back to the 1960s (when Haisch was still in grammar school, so cannot be attrbuted to him).

In their most recent paper Haisch and Rueda show that the GR assumption of deflection of light in a gravitational field, would in their model of inertia, lead to the principle of equivalence, so this paragraph needs major revision. Haisch

[edit] The latest rewrite

For the record, I have several broad kinds of objections to his latest rewrite:

  1. Haisch's claims regarding stochastic electrodynamics are controversial in the physics community (I take it that this at least is not in dispute), and in all cases of controversial topics, the WP community can and should question whether a direct participant in the controversy can maintain sufficient objectivity to write in an neutral point of view.
  2. I feel that the new version is in fact so slanted in his favor as to mislead WP readers. Please note that this view is based upon reading a half dozen of his papers and upon reading comments by knowledgeable experts on gravitation physics. The material I wrote comes from his own papers as well as from comments by Carlip and others.
  3. Haisch's additions are IMO just plain clumsy and would need cleanup for that reason alone.

I feel, however, particularly given the rude reception my previous efforts to improve this article got from Haisch, that I have done my bit, and at least for now leave it to others to argue with him. In other words, I feel the WP community should not let his rewrite stand as is, but I am too sick of this to continue my end of the content dispute with him.

Ultimately it is up to the Wikipedia community whether or not it wishes to have zero tolerance for POV-pushing in the Wikipedia. I hope that the POV flag will not be removed until others with a strong physics background have closely examined the balance and accuracy of his latest account.---CH 02:10, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I assume the rewrites you are referring to are the ones by 62.104.152.56 (talk · contribs). I don't know who that is but it is not me. Get your facts straight, please. Haisch 04:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

To repeat something I've said quite a bit in this connection: please review AGF. If anyone cares, regarding the IP anon using 62.104.152.56 (talk · contribs), aka the strato-dslnet.de anon, this IP is registered to Freenet CityLine GmbH (headquartered in Hamburg) and is possibly geolocated near Frankfurt. From the tone of comments by Haisch (talk · contribs) concerning myself, I imagine he will be happy to read the next section :-/
---CH 17:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, Chris, AGF indeed... just above you said "zero tolerance for POV-pushing". What you're doing is encyclopedia building but what other people are doing is POV pushing? AGF?
On another topic: Thank you for honoring my request not to post fully resolved IP addresses, however the more general issue remains... Please stop your intense scrutiny of users who are not obvious vandals. What is your issue with the edits by the 62.104.152.56 (talk · contribs) anon? What, pray tell, warrants looking up its registration and geolocating it (which is extremely unreliable anyway)? I think the proper way to handle this is that if/when some situation/behavior warrants it, you should bring such info up on ANB or as part of an RfA etc etc... but this kind of public scrutiny aimed at regular contributing anons or users does not help Wikipedia, and is intensely obnoxious. ObsidianOrder 14:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cautionary Note to Students

I completely rewrote the June 11 2006 version of this article and had been monitoring it for bad edits until I grew sick of the content dispute with Haisch (talk · contribs), but I am leaving the WP and am now abandoning this article to its fate.

Just wanted to provide notice that I am only responsible (in part) for the last version I edited; see User:Hillman/Archive. I emphatically do not vouch for anything you might see in more recent versions. This article concerns a controversial topic within what might be called fringe physics. Given the personal involvement of User:Haisch in this topic, and given the recent history of edits to this article and other Haisch-related articles, I have reason to believe that the present and at least some future versions of this article are likely to contain slanted information and even disinformation. I'd also caution students to use material obtained from external websites linked to this article with great care. All of these sources may attempt to portrary fringe topics (or worse) as belonging to the canon of well-established mainstream scientific belief, which would be seriously misleading.

Good luck to all students in your search for information, regardless!---CH 17:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You mean Haisch personally got involved in Wikipedia on his own theory? He put a reference to his own peer-reviewed paper? Reminds me of some fellow who about 100 years ago sent in his "Relativity" theory to be published. The nerve of these people, actually promoting their own ideas. What are you going to do, CH? Try starting here -> prozac

COMMENTS ON ABOVE CAUTIONARY NOTE TO STUDENTS:

Speaking of "slanted information, misinformation, or disinformation", User:Hillman|CH attempts to maintain the appearance of a neutral editor but appears to have a hidden agenda. Any deviation from the "party line" in mainstream science is intolerable to this overly skeptical individual.

Look carefully at the way he wrote his comment above. The implication is that anything he didn't write is rubbish - and inversely, anything he had a hand in is gospel. While it is true that there is a lot of bad information around, not everything is wrong.

User:Hillman/CH says that he "... grew sick of the content dispute with Haisch (talk · contribs)" but Haisch had every right to defend his work and his reputation against unwarranted personal attacks and dishonest criticism.

Students should maintain a healthy skepticism not only in regard to pages like this one, but should also learn to recognize pathological skeptics who are intolerant of new ideas. Those who would deny any possibility that some "far out" ideas might have validity are not supported by the history of scientific and technical advance.

Such skeptics heaped scorn on the idea that the East coast of South America seemed to fit the West coast of Africa implying that they might once have been joined. Only after evidence supporting plate tectonics became overwhelming were the skeptics silenced. The same thing happened with meteor impact extinction events and the vector theory of stomach ulcers.

Supporters of these ideas were not just criticized but had their reputations damaged and their knowledge and credibility impugned in some very ugly incidents before they were vindicated. This is the dirty little secret of science. The one step in the scientific method that nobody talks about is the pathology of excess skepticism and personal criticism that has nothing to do with the science.

Good luck in your research..... and remember - today's wild ideas may well be tomorrow's established facts. Use care in discriminating between facts and opinion. [User:I]

[edit] More Commentary

Please see WP:AUTO. Self-promotion is generally an indication of conflict of interest. --ScienceApologist 18:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

And I might add that few Wikipedia discussions are so loaded with disingenuous opinion, criticism, self-promotion and conflicts of interest as this one. Haisch is right. This whole Wikipedia entry needs to be removed and thrown in the trash. It's time to start over and present the facts divorced from personal criticism - including entries deploring self-promotion. Some individuals consider the mere act of presenting a topic as self-promotion. This should be about the science - not about critics and their opinions. [User:I]

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.214.194.173 (talk • contribs)
Please sign your posts using four tildes: ~~~~ If you want to have a user name of your own, you can do so by creating an account. Quirkie 22:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
And to 68.110.123.233, Please don't alter existing text on the talk page, thanks. Quirkie 20:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fixing an incorrect link

The link "Trevor Marshall" on the page didn't refer to the correct person. There are at least 3 Trevor Marshall's widely visible on the Net: Firstly, Trevor G. Marshall, the controversial biomedical researcher and something like an electronics engineer. Secondly, some kind of a radio DJ/musician (I didn't look for further information about him). And thirdly: Trevor W. Marshall, the scientist in question.

Unfortunately, the link was pointing to Trevor G. Marshall, but I fixed it to read "Trevor W. Marshall", which is, perhaps sadly, not yet written. Please google before reverting my edit!

128.214.157.168 22:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can't this article be written in a scientifically unbiased way

I think I have been seeing this nonsense regarding SED research for quite sometime, it is quite disconcerting that articles on fringe topics such as UFOs have been given a decent description on wikipedia, whereas SED has been written in a way that one leads to believe that as if one is talking of astral projection. Can anyone explain why? This article has been like this for a long time and I don't understand which crank wrote it. I know SED is controversial but so are many other physical theories. One could have started by writing that "SED is a controversial subject in physics which relates inertia and gravitation to ZPE effects" but clearly this has not been done. Instead the contributor writes it like "Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED) is a single rubric for a collection of research efforts of many different styles, united only by the fundamental Ansatz that there exists random electromagnetic radiation with a power spectrum equal to 1/2 h-bar times the frequency". The word "rubric" carries negative connotations. Secondly many theories in mainstream physics can also be related uwith some fundamental assumption, in High Energy Physics for example gauge invariance is one but it in no way means High Energy Physics is just that. I wonder what will happen if we interpret other mainstream research in physics similarly. Excel44 18:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

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I have read several papers on SED and it seems like a promising area of study. I'm appalled that WP is allowing these biased attacks on legitimate science to take place.65.87.236.95 (talk) 23:13, 26 January 2008 (UTC)