Emergent Gravity or Potpourri of Nonsense

[ark]

It is interesting to see how important issues in science are becoming taken over by a show, by noise, by "vacuum cleaning operations". I am witnessing many such threads, and I would like to discuss some of them. To start with, please have a look (download pdf) at the the paper by Waldyr Rodrigues:

A Comment on Emergent Gravity

The abstract of the paper reads:

This paper is a set of notes that we wrote concerning the first version of Emergent Gravity [gr-qc/0602022]. It is our version of an exercise that we proposed to some of our students. The idea was to find mathematical errors and inconsistencies on some recent articles published in the arXiv. Specifically we show that "Mathematics" used in Emergent Gravity is a potpourri of nonsense. This fact, unfortunately invalidates almost all claims of that paper.

ark

 

[thorbiorn]

Hello Ark,

To start with, please have a look (download pdf) at the the paper by Waldyr Rodrigues:

I clicked on the pdf paper you suggested, and saw it was a critique of Jack Sarfattti's paper. I remembered something about him from other pages on the Cassiopaea website. However I looked afresh on the web and there are many links about him.

Below follows a few link and some quotes with comments: http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id773/pg1/index.html

“Sarfatti's exotic theories are rarely discussed within the mainstream physics community. Like Harvard Medical School department of psychiatry's John Mack, who controversially researched UFO abductions, Timothy Leary's early 1960s metaprogramming experiments, or Lyall Watson's unorthodox explorations of Supernature (New York: Anchor Press, 1973), Sarfatti's exploration of the questions polite academics avoid has tainted his reputation. A typical off-hand response came from N. David Mermin of the Cornell physics department who studied Sarfatti's papers and corresponded with him during the 1980s: "Jack Sarfatti? What a weird, strange subject to be writing about!"

“Jack Sarfatti: "My field is that of perennial philosophy. I put the most important questions up for discussion. The most important single question is 'What is Consciousness?'"

T: Good question.

“Sarfatti's 'court' is the chic Caffe Trieste (dubbed 'Sarfatti's Cave' in deference to Plato). Situated in the bohemian suburb of North Beach, San Francisco, an area Sarfatti equates with the Left Bank of Paris: "very chic and the place to be seen; it's my neighbourhood for over 20 years."

T: He is showy. ( Did you see his hat?
http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/hambone/people1.html#sarfatti ) back to the above first link:

"My basic program is the same as Tim Leary's - space migration, intelligence increase, life extension. The cancerous growth of population and diminishing resources means that large decreases of population in the near future are impossible to avoid, barring some breakthrough in space propulsion that would allow large numbers of us to migrate to virgin worlds.”

T: Timothy Leary, was he not in the timeline too, was the name CoIntelPro?

"Sarfatti went on to become an honorary research fellow with David Bohm at Birkbeck College of the University of London in 1971, and was visiting physicist at Nobel laureate Abdus Salam's UNESCO International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. Ilya Prigogine invited Sarfatti to Brussels in 1973. Sarfatti's career was growing in prestige and recognition.

Then the weirdness descended.

Into the Pandemonium

In 1975, Sarfatti co-founded the legendary Physics-Consciousness Research Group with Esalen Institute's Michael Murphy, funded by EST guru Werner Erhard. Murphy was investigating revelations of the USSR's intensive parapsychological research projects, later setting up the Soviet-American Exchange Program at Esalen in the 1980s, which attracted the likes of Boris Yeltsin during his 1989 U.S. visit."

T: Did Jack Sarfatti get co-opted? Are they really fair in saying that trying to study the link between Physics and Consciousness is weird? I do not think it is weird. Is it that the angle he has taken is leading off the track or worse is designed to lead others off the track?

You can read more in the next link of Jack Starfatti’s wordiness. Not much real science or math, a lot of opinions: http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/hambone/stenger.html

T: A preliminary conclusion is that Jack Sarfatti has some creative ideas, but is showy. His popularises interesting question but also gives the same questions a bad name, resulting possibly in others not investigating them.

Thorbiorn

 

[John G]

Yes Jack's big interests are consciousness (similar to Penrose-Hameroff) and UFOs. The dark energy/cosmological constant aspects of this Sarfatti paper are much related to his main interests. Timothy Leary's invention of the personality circumplex is responsible for me being interested in all this unusual stuff. Terence McKenna was considered a modern day (at the time) Timothy Leary.

Ark is quite familiar with Sarfatti. I think Ark's main point here may be that it's not good that people feel pressured to distance themselves from Sarfatti. That Rodrigues paper is way too overzealous. The math errors do not invalidate Sarfatti's ideas on the cosmological constant and Sarfatti certainly knows people who can help with the math if needed.

 

[ark]

Ark is quite familiar with Jack Sarfatti. I think Ark's main point here may be that it's not good that people feel pressured to distance themselves from Sarfatti. That Rodrigues paper is way too overzealous. The math errors do not invalidate Sarfatti's ideas on the cosmological constant and Sarfatti certainly knows people who can help with the math if needed.

Indeed I am familiar with Sarfatti. In a sense I even like him. But I do not think that Rodrigues paper is way too overzealous. In fact it is not critical enough. I would add much more, I would be more critical. Another interesting case fitting the COINTELPRO subject is Myron W Evans. Compare AIAS Alpha Foundation with Myron W Evans' Grand Unified Field Theory. Check in particular today's entry: "Central error of Myron W. Evans' ECF Theory. Type Mismatch". The following Nursery Rhyme applies to Myron W. Evans' Grand Unified Field Theory:

If there is anything that COINTELPRO would like to be busy with when science is concerned - it is to help propagating nonsense. Here is an excerpt from my correspondence with G. W. Bruhn (email that I sent earlier today):

Hello G.W. Bruhn,
Saturday, March 4, 2006, 2:06:32 PM, you wrote:

> YOU could try to disturb him. Then - surely - you'll be blocked too - instantly.

Over the years I developed a certain theory. I can't express it through equations (even through faked ones), so I will call it a "hypothesis" rather than theory. The hypothesis is that personages like MWE, TB, JS,... have essentially double function:

1) to act as "vacuum cleaners", that is to attract people who may have some interesting and original ideas, and to let these people
reveal their ideas

2) to make busy people who have expertise and can produce something interesting and original, to make them busy with fighting
with errors and nonsens, so that they will not have time to concentrate creating theories of their own.

3) These people not always are aware of their functions, and even if they are aware , they are aware only to some extent.

4) The above 1-3 of course implies that these people are tools of other people and organizations.

5) I consider 1-4 as a viable hypothesis, and I assign to it more than 50% of my Bayesian probability estimate based on available data and research

6) But if the above is indeed the case, then it is only natural that SOME of the ideas discussed by these people may even go into the right direction. The art of disinformation requires mixing some truth with lies. Lies alone would be too easy to spot.

Now, here is a typical disinfo piece: you have quoted this about Sarfatti:

"Sarfatti [...] was visiting physicist at Nobel laureate Abdus Salam's UNESCO International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy.

Why is it misleading? Beacuse ICTP in Trieste is an International Center of Theoretical Phsyics, where almost every physicist in the world was (or will be) at least once. Young or old ones, good or bad. If you would like to see a collection of pictures taken at "Nobel laureate Abdus Salam's UNESCO International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste" by me and by Laura last year - visit Quantum Jumps Conference in Trieste:)

As I wrote at the beginning, I like Jack. The same way I like M.W. Evans and G. Shipov. The fact that I feel a personal sympathy does not change the fact that I can clearly see that their papers have serious, elementary errors, are based on missconceptions, and should have never been published by any serious publisher. On the other hand, if some of their readers do not mind errors - well, that is their free will.;)

ark

 

[John G]

As I wrote at the beginning, I like Jack. The same way I like M.W. Evans and G. Shipov. The fact that I feel a personal sympathy does not change the fact that I can clearly see that their papers have serious, elementary errors, are based on missconceptions, and should have never been published by any serious publisher. On the other hand, if some of their readers do not mind errors - well, that is their free will.;)

I'm back from about 40 days and 40 nights of self-imposed computer exile... I like Jack too but for me Jack is kind of like Carl Jung, it's best not to read him in his own words.

Now, here is a typical disinfo piece: you have quoted this about Sarfatti:

"Sarfatti [...] was visiting physicist at Nobel laureate Abdus Salam's UNESCO International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy.

Why is it misleading? Beacuse ICTP in Trieste is an International Center of Theoretical Phsyics, where almost every physicist in the world was (or will be) at least once. Young or old ones, good or bad.

Jack Sarfatti remarked (e-mail to Tony Smith August 1998) that Abdus Salam invited him to Trieste in 1973 because Sarfatti and Salam both "... had the idea that elementary particles were little black holes. It was Salam who realized that ... gravity must get very strong on a small scale - that Newton's gravity is for macro - distances only. ... you DON'T use Gnewton = 6.67 x10^(-11) MKS in Sidharth's [Compton Radius Vortices] ... You use instead Gsalam exp(-r/L) + Gnewton where in Salam's original L is of the order of a fermi [, or 10^(-13) cm] ... Gsalam = 10^40 Gnewton ..." In other words says Tony: G_Far Field Ordinary = 1 / Mplanck^2; G_Near Field Salam = 1.

That Salam personally invited Sarfatti cause of a shared idea is something Jack should be proud of. Salam's strong gravity is very related Jack's current gravity work (as well as to your complex spacetime work since the interior of a Compton Radius black hole elementary particle is complex). Tony adds: Since the Higgs mechanism interacts with both Gravity and the ElectroWeak U(1)xSU(2) Force, and with the Color SU(3) Force through its Yukawa coupling, it is possible that Strong Gravity in the Induction or Static Regions could couple Gravity to Electromagnetism, the Weak Force, and the Color Force much more strongly than the very weak coupling in the Far Field Region.

Interpreting Jack's current gravity stuff through Tony, I get the idea that the Higgs Mechanism gave Pioneer no anomaly while it was in the interior of the Solar system, but at about Uranus' orbit the Higgs field/dark energy degrees of freedom give you a "conformal conespace" spacetime expansion due to the lack of ordinary matter to keep things stuck in Minkowski spacetime. The cosmological constant thus varies over space and time depending on the relationship of "empty" and "matter-filled" areas. We happen to be living at a time not too long after the universe as a whole switched from a decelerating to an accelerating expansion. I like this idea and I hope NASA gets around to getting some good data on the Pioneer anomaly.

 

[ark]

Jack Sarfatti remarked (e-mail to Tony Smith August 1998) that Abdus Salam invited him to Trieste in 1973 because Sarfatti and Salam both "... had the idea that elementary particles were little black holes. It was Salam who realized that ... gravity must get very strong on a small scale - that Newton's gravity is for macro - distances only. ... you DON'T use Gnewton = 6.67 x10^(-11) MKS in Sidharth's [Compton Radius Vortices] ... You use instead Gsalam exp(-r/L) + Gnewton where in Salam's original L is of the order of a fermi [, or 10^(-13) cm] ... Gsalam = 10^40 Gnewton ..." In other words says Tony: G_Far Field Ordinary = 1 / Mplanck^2; G_Near Field Salam = 1..

First of all it is quite normal that the invitation from a scientific institution is signed by the Director of this institution. So, being "invited personally" can be very misleading. We would have to see a copy of the letter of invitation. The devil, as always, is in the details.

Second, what follows, namely: "Gravity must get very strong on a small scale - that Newton's gravity is for macro - distances only. ... you DON'T use Gnewton = 6.67 x10^(-11) MKS in Sidharth's [Compton Radius Vortices] ... You use instead Gsalam exp(-r/L) + Gnewton where in Salam's original L is of the order of a fermi [, or 10^(-13) cm] ... Gsalam = 10^40 Gnewton ..." In other words says Tony: G_Far Field Ordinary = 1 / Mplanck^2; G_Near Field Salam = 1.." has nothing to do with Sarfatti. The fact that "gravity "gravity must get very strong on a small scale" is so trivial that quoting it as Sarfatti's "discovery" is inapropriate. It seems to me Jack's idea is to write nonsense, wait until some people correct it, and then write another nonsense, and wait until some people correct it, and so on. Jack does not really understand what the terms that he is using mean (though he has learned some during the last ten years). His "adventures with Shipov" can serve as the best example. Few years ago he was discribing "mathematics" as "masturbation". Now, as it seems, he realized that without mathematics he can not get anywhere, so he started to learn some. But even now he is not able to distinguish mathematical nonsense from mathematical "truth". I am not blaming him. Mathematics is not easy to master....

Some years ago I was trying to help him: just one example from hundreds of early exchanges (from my email to Jack):

On 21 May 99, at 12:21, J. Sarfatti wrote:

> > The two things are not the same. You can have "total
> > conservation of probability quantum without unitarity.
> > This is what quantum dynamical semigroups are about.
> > Just a comment for those who may be unaware....
>
> [Jack]
>
> Yes, this is interesting and relevant. Please give more technical details.

Unitarity is equivalent to having algebra isomorphism:

A -> UAU^\star

Unitarity is also equivalent to: time evolution maps pure states into
pure states. There is a no go theorem due to
Ozawa/Landsman/Jadczyk that states:

No nontrivial, consistent, coupling between classical and
quantum degrees of freedom with a unitary evolution.

One can interpret it as: Bohm is inconsistent (because
Schroedinger equation is not modified and unitarity holds).
What "consistency" means here would need a longer
explanation, so I skip it. Anyhow you are ready to modify
Bohm by extra terms with back action....

How to go beyond unitarity and yet with probability
conservation? Evolution must act on density matrices
rather than pure states. Two conditions must be
satisfied: positivity must be preserved (we do not
want negative probabilities), and trace must be preserved
(because Trace(rho)=1 for a density matrix) corresponds to
Norm(psi)=1 for a state vector. Lidblad and Gorini-Sudarshan-
Kossakowski (references in my papers on EEQT) gave
a general form of a generator that has these properties.


{\dot \rho} = -i [H,\rho] + \sum (V_i \rho V_i^\star - {1/2) \{ V_i\star
V_i , \rho \} )

where the last curly brace stands for anticommutator.
Taking trace of both sides we see that it is zero - thus
trace of rho is constant in time. The special form
of the generator guarantees preserving
of positivity. The operators V_i can be arbitrary.
A particular model must give them explicitly (as
well as the Hamiltonian H)

ark

I was pointing out to him his errors. But after a while I gave up.

 

[John G]

Outside the Compton Radius Vortex, SpaceTime has 4 Real Dimensions and ZPF Virtual phenomena are less important. Within the Compton Radius Vortex, SpaceTime has 4 Complex Dimensions, ZPF Virtual phenomena are more important, and there are superluminal velocities, negative energy solutions (antiparticles), and nonHermitian operators.

The not overly huge relationship between Jack's earlier Compton Radius Vortex contribution and his current dark energy cosmological constant stuff would be that ZPF and dark energy are the same degrees of freedom (from the conformal group according to Tony) though fitting ZPF/dark energy into existing models may be beyond Jack's scope.

Just tell me what is "Compton Radius Vortex"? Or tell me what is "ZPF Virtual phenomena"? Or tell me what have "nonHermitian operators" anything to do with the above? Can you? It is in general a good idea not to use words that we do not understand. Otherwise we may be disinforming ourselves and others.

 

[ark]

I do not know what has happened here. I was replying to a post by John G. My reply came as a post from John G. How could this happen? I really do not know. And the original post from John G dissapered. Weird....

 

[John G]

Just tell me what is "Compton Radius Vortex"? Or tell me what is "ZPF Virtual phenomena"? Or tell me what have "nonHermitian operators" anything to do with the above? Can you? It is in general a good idea not to use words that we do not understand. Otherwise we may be disinforming ourselves and others.

Compton Radius and ZPF are terms I'm comfortable using even when I'm not directly quoting Tony. The Compton radius (and classical radius) come from the Kerr-Newman black hole equation. When plugging in the mass/charge/spin for a single particle, the Compton radius is the one bigger than Planck length (unlike for massive black holes where the classical radius is the one bigger than Planck length). This means that unlike for large black holes, the spacetime inside the radius is complex spacetime.

The main ZPF (zero point force) Virtual phenomena for Tony (via Sidharth) is inertial mass and it comes from the virtual particles of the complex spacetime within the Compton radius. It's like the hydrogen atom binding energy in that there's an amplitude to be at different (non-local) locations (the center and out to the Compton radius). Superluminal/time travel and negative energy would also qualify as ZPF/dark energy/conformal group phenomena.

nonHermitian is certainly a term I would not use if I wan't quoting Tony. To me it kind of just means Lie Algebra instead of Jordan Algebra which makes sense since the algebra for the conformal group is the D3 Lie Algebra. It is kind of nice that the D3 aka Spin(6) algebra is just a step up from Spin(5) rotation/boost/translation gravitons (by adding special conformal transformations).

This stuff and Tony's physics in general seem related to the "Carbonari" - 600-cell post of yours in another topic so I'll add a couple Tony links here:

http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/ETyesUFO.html#stargates
http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/24anime.html

You even mention Tony in that "Carbonari" link. That hexagon could be the 6 of Spin(6), the two timelike, 4 spacelike dimensions, a CP3 twistor for Tony.

That was wierd what it did to our posts, ordinarily one would blame the software but in this forum I would not necessarily rule out anything.

 

[ark]

Just tell me what is "Compton Radius Vortex"? Or tell me what is "ZPF Virtual phenomena"? Or tell me what have "nonHermitian operators" anything to do with the above? Can you? It is in general a good idea not to use words that we do not understand. Otherwise we may be disinforming ourselves and others.

Compton Radius and ZPF are terms I'm comfortable using even when I'm not directly quoting Tony. The Compton radius (and classical radius) come from the Kerr-Newman black hole equation. When plugging in the mass/charge/spin for a single particle, the Compton radius is the one bigger than Planck length (unlike for massive black holes where the classical radius is the one bigger than Planck length). This means that unlike for large black holes, the spacetime inside the radius is complex spacetime.

But I was not asking about Compton Radius. I asked about "Compton Radius Vortex". So:

1) What is the word "Vortex" doing there?

2) And why should space -time be complex?

The main ZPF (zero point force) Virtual phenomena for Tony (via Sidharth) is inertial mass and it comes from the virtual particles of the complex spacetime within the Compton radius. It's like the hydrogen atom binding energy in that there's an amplitude to be at different (non-local) locations (the center and out to the Compton radius). Superluminal/time travel and negative energy would also qualify as ZPF/dark energy/conformal group phenomena.

But what are "virtual particles"? Are you talking about "particles" or about "amplitudes"? Amplitudes do not live in our space. They live in the Hilbert space. Calling amplitudes (mathematical objects living in space of infinite dimension) "particles" or "virtual particles" is misleading, I think.

nonHermitian is certainly a term I would not use if I wan't quoting Tony. To me it kind of just means Lie Algebra instead of Jordan Algebra which makes sense since the algebra for the conformal group is the D3 Lie Algebra. It is kind of nice that the D3 aka Spin(6) algebra is just a step up from Spin(5) rotation/boost/translation gravitons (by adding special conformal transformations).

Thanks for that explanation. But what are "gravitons"? I thought that no one, till now, produced a consistent quantum theory of gravity?

This stuff and Tony's physics in general seem related to the "Carbonari" - 600-cell post of yours in another topic so I'll add a couple Tony links here:

http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/ETyesUFO.html#stargates
http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/24anime.html

You even mention Tony in that "Carbonari" link. That hexagon could be the 6 of Spin(6), the two timelike, 4 spacelike dimensions, a CP3 twistor for Tony.

That was wierd what it did to our posts, ordinarily one would blame the software but in this forum I would not necessarily rule out anything.

I came up with a theory: by mistake, instead of clicking "Reply" button, I clicked "Edit" button (I have such an option being an administrator"). That explains the result. But it does not fit to what I remember!

 

[John G]

But I was not asking about Compton Radius. I asked about "Compton Radius Vortex". So:

1) What is the word "Vortex" doing there?

2) And why should space -time be complex?

You probably want a more satisfying answer than this but it's called a vortex cause the field lines look tornado like and the complex spacetime comes from the event horizon in the Kerr-Newman equations being a complex number.

But what are "virtual particles"? Are you talking about "particles" or about "amplitudes"? Amplitudes do not live in our space. They live in the Hilbert space. Calling amplitudes (mathematical objects living in space of infinite dimension) "particles" or "virtual particles" is misleading, I think.

When Tony says amplitude in this way it usually relates to amplitudes/probabilities for his Feynman checkerboard lattice which for Tony is reality not just a math tool. I think a lot of virtual things even have reality for Tony cause he uses a many-worlds interpretation.

Thanks for that explanation. But what are "gravitons"? I thought that no one, till now, produced a consistent quantum theory of gravity?

The term graviton like the term photon can be used classically by Tony as well as after quantization. Rotations-boosts-translations Tony talks about as deSitter gravitons. For quantization, Tony (like superstrings) does not attempt to quantize just gravity but he quantizes gravity and the standard model forces at the same time. Tony's method though is much more like Loop Quantum Gravity. Tony once got John Baez to agree that E6/F4 would be great for quantization of everything not just gravity. They also both agreed E6/F4 is unfortuneately not "foamy" enough. To get something "foamy" Tony drops down into Clifford Algebra with its 8-fold periodicity "foaminess" and takes advantage of the idea that Lie Algebras come from Clifford Algebra. I certainly don't understand much about what Tony is doing; as a programmer I tend to think of the analogy of dropping down to assembly/machine language if you can't do something in the high level language. The graviton ends up sitting on the links of Tony's lattice, it kind of represents the change from one vertex to another (thus a boson could be represented by a pair of fermions). Photons/weak bosons/gluons also sit on links but the links are the links of internal symmetry space with four Kaluza-Klein dimensions (electroweak charge, red color charge, green color charge, blue color charge).

 

[sarfatti]

First of all Waldyr modified his comments. He told me that he was threatened that his students would lose funding if he did not attack me. Waldyr also said he had similar comments about "twenty" other physicists many of whom post on the archive. None of Waldyr's remarks had anything really to do with the actual physics ideas I was proposing. His 21 pages are mostly about conservation laws in GR and my paper has nothing to say about that. Also Waldyr was simply confused by my notation. I had 4 tetrad 1-forms and 6 spin connection 1-forms of course. The key ideas of my paper were not even addressed by Waldyr's formal remarks.

 

[sarfatti]

To really find out what I am saying actually read my paper and also check out the discussion forum at http://stardrive.org. Also I have 3 books on Amazon.com et-al

 

[ark]

First of all Waldyr modified his comments.

Indeed, here is the actual relevant part of the Abstract and Introduction to the actual version of Waldyr's paper:

A Comment on Emergent Gravity

Waldyr A. Rodrigues Jr.
Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computation
IMECC-UNICAMP, CP 6065
13083-970 Campinas, SP, Brazil

15 February 2006

This paper is a set of notes that we wrote concerning the first version of Emergent Gravity [gr-qc/0602022]. It is our version of an exercise that we proposed to some of our students. The idea was to find mathematical errors and inconsistencies on some recent articles published in scientific journals and in the arXiv, and we did.

This paper is a set of notes that we wrote as a guide to a query that was proposed to some of our students: find mathematical errors and inconsistencies on some recent Physics papers published in scientific journals and/or posted in the arXiv using jargon of higher Mathematics. The paper here analyzed is the first version of Emergent Gravity [15]. Other papers will be analyzed elsewhere (see, e.g., [13], where we criticise [1])
The reader is here informed that we sent the notes to the author of [15], which used them to prepare new versions of his paper1. Originally it was not our intention to post the notes but we changed our mind due to the following reasons:
(i) our believe that notes may be eventually useful to many students and
researchers;
(ii) because in the sixth 'improved version' it is written in the comments of the article: '6th draft due to math corrections by Prof Waldyr Rodrigues Jr UNICAMP and new empirical information from UCLA Dark Matter 2006 Conference.
Well, unfortunately despite the fact that in the 'improved versions' some of the wrong mathematical statements of the first version have been deleted, there are in our opinion new ones which need to be corrected2. We have no responsibility for any one of the versions of that paper, we have not endorsed the paper for the arXiv.

To clarify further the issues: Waldyr Rodrigues wrote (I am quoting with Rodrigues' permission) to Jack Sarfatti the following:

1) MESSAGE 28/02/2006

Dear Jack,

1) I did not expect that you like the fact that I posted my notes on the first version of emergent gravity. This has been necessary due to a comment that you wrote in the last version of your paper: "6th draft due to math corrections by Prof Waldyr Rodrigues Jr UNICAMP and new empirical information from UCLA Dark Matter 2006 Conference".

Well due to your comment I received dozen of mails from all around the wording asking things like that:

(i) how could you endorse Sarfatti's paper?

(ii) did you forget your mathematics?

Etc.

If I did not post my notes I would produce real damage to some of my students that are asking for finacial support to continue their studies.
If only me was involved I would not care at all.

2) I observe moreover that I sent the notes to you and even ask suggestions. You did not say anything.

3) Also, my style of writing is rude, but it is sincere, and I write exactly what I am thinking. However, I am always ready to recoginize my errors, if someone convice me that I am wrong using legitimate arguments. Your Mathematics is almost completely wrong[1][1], but if your physical ideas are correct, what I doubt, they will be vindicate some of these days, and if this happens I while I am still living I will write a note to my arXiv paper gr-qc/0602111 stating that fact.

4) I know who wrote: "But since he knows so much mathematics, he often rushes into criticism, without reading a paper carefully enough. So he thinks that the author has committed an error, whilst this was not the (our
case)."

Well, my criticism is printed in a review that I wrote for the Math. Rev. and I believe that it is correct and fair, at least most fair than the one I wrote on your paper.

Commenting on the same subject Waldyr Rodrigues wrote to Tony Smith:

2) MESSAGE 01/02/2006
[...]
If I did not post my notes I would produce real damage to some of my students that are asking for financial support to continue their studies."

I never said that I was being threatened. I only arrived to an obvious conclusion (in view of my past experience with similar situations): if I did not leave clear that I was not the endorser of Jack's paper and moreover that I had no responsabilty with the Mathematics used in that paper I could produce damage to my students.

So, I decide to post my notes, whose contents and wording were well known by Jack since I sent the notes to him a long time ago and even asked him suggestions. He did not sent any single suggestion.

Besides that I never said that I was not going to post the paper never. I am only said to weeks ago that "for the time being I do not inted to post the notes".

Also, my criticism is clearly directed to Jack's use of Mathematics, where without understanding the real meaning of the mathematical theories he is using, he writes a lot of nonsense formulas. Of course he is not the unique man that act in this way. I have a very long list of examples. Moreover I think that a friend is someone that tells the truth, not what the other wants to hear. I am quite sure that in the future Jack will be more carefull in his writings.

Here is the list of revisions of Jack's paper:

Date (revised v2): Sun, 19 Feb 2006 03:50:47 GMT
Date (revised v3): Fri, 24 Feb 2006 20:43:34 GMT
Date (revised v4): Wed, 8 Mar 2006 18:51:11 GMT
Date (revised v5): Thu, 9 Mar 2006 05:17:26 GMT
Date (revised v6): Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:20:35 GMT
Date (revised v7): Thu, 16 Mar 2006 04:51:26 GMT
Date (revised v8): Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:34:30 GMT
Date (revised v9): Tue, 21 Mar 2006 04:13:39 GMT
Date (revised v10): Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:25:49 GMT
Date (revised v11): Mon, 27 Mar 2006 05:09:30 GMT
Date (revised v12): Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:18:39 GMT
Date (revised v13): Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:32:26 GMT


It is clear from this long list that the paper was not too well prepared when it was published in arXiv. On the other hand with each correction the paper is being announced again on arXiv mailing list, so the more corrections a given paper has, the more publicity it gets!

What is important in the exchange between Rodrigues and Sarfatti is this: Rodrigues stresses that he asked his students to find mathematical errors while Sarfatti is stressing the fact that these errors do not affect his physical ideas.

The papers published in arXiv are not supposed to be free of errors. ArXiv is not a peer-review publishing system. To publish a paper there, if one is not an established author, one needs to find an endorser among the established authors. According to the arXiv endorsement policy:

The endorsement process is not peer review. You should know the person that you endorse or you should see the paper that the person intends to submit. We don't expect you to read the paper in detail, or verify that the work is correct, but you should check that the paper is appropriate for the subject area. You should not endorse the author if the author is unfamiliar with the basic facts of the field, or if the work is entirely disconnected with current work in the area.

In our particular case Jack is using an advanced mathematical formalism, and from Rodrigues' comments and the number of revisions, it appears that Sarfatti is not familiar enough with the basic facts of the field his paper is devoted to. This puts the (anonymous) endorser of Jack's paper in a somewhat not so comfortable position.;)

The most important part of all that is, I think, the following one:

I am quite sure that in the future Jack will be more carefull in his writings.

Being more carefull involves, in particular, asking those with an expert knowledge of the formalism for their advice before publishing....

 

[ark]

As I wrote at the beginning, I like Jack. The same way I like M.W. Evans and G. Shipov. The fact that I feel a personal sympathy does not change the fact that I can clearly see that their papers have serious, elementary errors, are based on missconceptions, and should have never been published by any serious publisher. On the other hand, if some of their readers do not mind errors - well, that is their free will.;)
ark

Some time ago I wrote: "I like Jack. The same way I like M.W. Evans and G. Shipov". But today my views have changed. While I still like Jack Sarfatti and G. Shipov (and more Shipov than Jack), the same must not be said about Evans. As I have just learned today Myron W. Evans is sending Homeland Security squads and Ambassadors of the Queen (sic!) after those who dare to find errors in his Grand Unified Field Theory:

http://opensys.blogsome.com/

and this is not a joke!

(for technical details see also http://www.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de/~bruhn/ )