The contrarian physics podcast subculture

That's the thing that the blog argues, but not the thing I (a complete outsider in this whole thing) got from her video. Her argument was more about how "the establishment" treats this paper vs their own bullshit papers. The way I saw the video it was more of a comment on academia's own problems than weinstein's "theory" (which, earlier she said it's likely bullshit). She's calling out the double standard. I think.

> Now, as to the statement that all theoretical physics papers are bullshit, that's frankly bullshit.

I don't think that's correct. She never said (or I never saw the videos where she did) that all new theoretical physics is bullshit. She has some valid (again, from an outsider perspective) points tho:

- just because you invent some fancy math doesn't mean it works in the physical world

- just because it's complicated doesn't mean it's novel

- not falsifiable is bad science

- not making predictions is bad science

- hiding predictions behind "the next big detector" is lazy

(that's basically what here points are, from the videos I've seen).

You could say the same of James Randi. But the explanation in Randi's case was that he really was dealing with charlatans, mentalists, etc. I don't think there's enough signal just from Nguyen disagreeing to think that he is the common denominator, though it's possible and you're being thoughtfully tentative about the possibility.

I would also say that scientifically non-respectable theories finding big traction in the online influencer space is the norm, and not especially difficult to explain.

Obviously, Drebbel was on the scene long before the laws of thermodynamics... so my upshot is definitely not that we should reconsider entropy because of his patent!

I suppose my upshot is that scientific establishments absolutely can expel excellent people for the wrong reasons. "Everyone knows" that perpetual motion is impossible... I'm actually a little surprised that you didn't understand my point — but you instead concluded I was a crank trying to attack entropy? Oh well, it happens, it's the internet, I don't blame you.

Another historical tidbit: the Royal Society of Hooke, Newton, etc all loved Drebbel's works. No wonder: Drebbel had a staring role in Francis Bacon's New Atlantis which was the model for the Royal Society.

I understand this line of thinking but I don't feel that it's particularly relevant. It seems to be born out of a point of view that physics theories are a binary. We either fully support them with everything we have or we completely denigrate them to the point of demonizing anyone who shows any interest in them.

Surely this can't be the best approach to discovering new physics?

Which is how I view these people. The result of a natural frustration that physics discoveries do not seem to be happening at the rate that they should. I'm not sure they have _the_ answer but I understand _why_ they're acting as they do.

Why this outcome bothers anyone is completely beyond me and now makes me genuinely wonder if there is simply too much gatekeeping within the field.