[00:00] I recently learned I got name checked by
[00:02] Terrence Howard on his recent appearance
[00:06] on Joe Rogan I reached out to Neil
[00:08] Degrassi Tyson Neil degrass Tyson he was
[00:11] like hey man yeah I'd love for you to
[00:13] come on my show do my radio do my TV
[00:15] thing would love that I was like yeah
[00:17] but let me I've got something I want to
[00:18] introduce to you I got name checked
[00:20] because 8 years ago he sent me a 36 page
[00:27] treaties and it was only 36 pages so
[00:30] this is Terence
[00:32] Howard attempting to reinvent
[00:35] mathematics and physics a little
[00:38] backstory there I took initial interest
[00:40] in Terrence because my mother said to me
[00:44] do you know Terrence Howard I said yeah
[00:46] I know you mean the actor she said yeah
[00:48] well I heard him interviewed on NPR on
[00:51] there he said that like when he was a
[00:52] kid he wanted to be like a scientist and
[00:54] study the Universe I said well that's
[00:57] cool okay maybe we'll get him on Star
[00:59] Talk we love talk to celebrities who
[01:00] have a soft geek underbelly at the time
[01:03] I didn't quite know how to get in touch
[01:04] with him but we met at a something
[01:08] called the upfronts which is where
[01:10] networks present their next season's TV
[01:13] shows I saw him at an event um uh
[01:16] upfront and then this came in in my
[01:19] inbox in this particular case since I
[01:22] basically solicited it from him I
[01:24] actually spent time reading every line
[01:27] of all 36 pages and I commented my
[01:30] comments are in red here you see that so
[01:33] I spent a lot of time on it and I
[01:35] thought out of respect for him what I
[01:37] should
[01:38] do is give him my most informed critical
[01:43] analysis that I can in my field we call
[01:46] that a peer review you come up with an
[01:47] idea you present it either at a
[01:50] conference or you first write it up and
[01:52] you send it to your colleagues it is
[01:55] their duty to alert you of things about
[01:59] your ideas that are either misguided or
[02:02] wrong or or there's a Mis the
[02:04] calculation doesn't work out or the the
[02:06] logic doesn't comport that's their job
[02:10] not all ideas will turn out to be
[02:12] correct most won't be but to get to that
[02:15] point you need to know things like what
[02:17] has everyone else said about this same
[02:19] subject am I repeating someone else's
[02:21] work is this a new insight that no one
[02:23] else has had but has foundations that
[02:26] are authentic or legitimate or
[02:28] objectively true am I making a false
[02:30] assumption am I makinging an assumption
[02:32] that someone else has already shown to
[02:33] be false all of this goes on on the
[02:38] frontier of science let me make it clear
[02:40] that I'm delighted when I see people
[02:44] with active Minds trying to tackle the
[02:47] great unknowns in the universe it's a
[02:49] beautiful thing that people want to
[02:51] participate on this Frontier what can
[02:54] happen is if you're a fan of a subject
[02:57] let's say a hobbyist let's call it it's
[03:00] possible to know enough about that
[03:02] subject to think you're right but not
[03:05] enough about that subject to know that
[03:08] you're wrong and so there's this sort of
[03:10] Valley in there a valley of false
[03:14] confidence this has been studied by
[03:17] others and it's called the Dunning
[03:18] Krueger effect it's the phenomenon where
[03:21] a little bit of knowledge you over
[03:24] assess how much of that subject you
[03:26] actually know and then when you learn
[03:28] even more you realize no I didn't know
[03:29] as much as I thought I did so then
[03:31] there's a sort of a lull there and then
[03:33] when you learn even more you come back
[03:34] up ultimately learning enough to know
[03:37] whether you are right or wrong to become
[03:39] an expert means you spend all this time
[03:43] it doesn't happen overnight you can't
[03:45] just sit in an armchair and say I'm now
[03:47] an expert it requires years and years of
[03:52] study especially looking through
[03:54] journals where new ideas are published
[03:57] and contested that's what we have
[03:59] learned learned is the most effective
[04:01] means of establishing that which is
[04:04] objectively true or determining that
[04:07] which is objectively false both of those
[04:10] work hand in hand to move the needle on
[04:12] our understanding of the universe I'm
[04:14] going to read you just my opening line
[04:17] here it's titled 1 * 1 equal 2 so I lead
[04:22] off by saying this is an ambitious work
[04:24] that is a clear indication of a Restless
[04:28] active mind with in these Pages however
[04:31] there are many assumptions and
[04:32] statements that are underinformative
[04:59] greater than the initial number squared
[05:02] for that would expose a loose thread
[05:05] within the fabric of our understanding a
[05:08] loose thread capable of unraveling the
[05:10] very ground rules of mathematics that's
[05:13] a bold statement so then I I just say
[05:17] this opening thesis is false there are
[05:20] plenty of examples of this that have
[05:22] escaped your attention his statement is
[05:25] shown to be false for every number
[05:27] that's less than one and greater than Z
[05:30] for example the square root of 64 is8 8
[05:36] is bigger than 64 and it's a larger
[05:39] number than the original and 64 squared
[05:44] =
[05:46] 496 a smaller number than the original
[05:49] to the extent that the next 35 Pages
[05:53] depends on your stated
[05:55] thesis this fact undermines your claims
[05:58] and assumptions and conclusions it's not
[06:01] about feelings here it's about objective
[06:04] reality so at the time I I considered
[06:06] Terren a strong acquaintance and we hung
[06:08] out a bit and had much exchange we
[06:10] haven't spoken much since then but go to
[06:12] page two and in here he mentions people
[06:16] who he declares were persecuted because
[06:19] their Vision exceeded the myopic view of
[06:21] their contemporaries and he mentions
[06:23] Walter Russell Nicola Tesla John Keeley
[06:26] and many many more regarding you L your
[06:28] list of people who have made Brave
[06:30] sacrifices I note that to be a genius is
[06:33] to be misunderstood but to be
[06:35] misunderstood is not to be a genius the
[06:37] work of Russell Walter Russell has
[06:39] eluded any experimental support and the
[06:42] work of Keeley is generally not
[06:44] reproducible science is about
[06:46] reproducibility I can have the most
[06:49] brilliant crazy fun idea ever and if I
[06:52] perform an experiment and no one else
[06:54] can duplicate that experiment it belongs
[06:56] in the trash Heap it's me in my own
[06:58] world think I have landed on an
[07:00] objective truth when in fact I haven't
[07:03] that's how science works the
[07:05] reproducibility of results as for the
[07:08] work of Tesla much of it had very real
[07:12] value to physics and our understanding
[07:14] of electromagnetism and that value is
[07:16] duly recognized by my community in the
[07:19] naming of a unit of electromagnetism
[07:22] after him you can't get more badass than
[07:24] having a unit named after you Newton has
[07:27] a unit named after him for example the
[07:29] metric unit of force is a Newton much of
[07:32] the rest of his work was Fringe and
[07:36] unrealized either for violating known
[07:38] laws of physics or for being simply
[07:41] impractical just because you do some
[07:43] good stuff doesn't mean everything you
[07:44] ever did is going to be great I will
[07:46] further affirm that just because an idea
[07:49] sounds crazy doesn't make it wrong the
[07:52] system of research and Publications in
[07:55] peer-review journals has the capacity to
[07:58] spot crazy but true ideas provided they
[08:01] supporting by compelling arguments and
[08:04] ultimately supported by experiments and
[08:05] observations Newton's Laws Einstein's
[08:08] relativity quantum physics were all
[08:11] revolutionary ideas that appeared in
[08:13] peer-review settings or journals
[08:16] meanwhile most of the work of Russell
[08:17] and Keeley had no such success with
[08:20] their ideas so I think on Rogan Terren
[08:24] said that I trashed those three
[08:26] researchers attack that I had immediate
[08:30] that I talked about Walter Russell and
[08:33] Victor Shaw Berger and John Keeley as
[08:36] and Tesla as the people that I looked up
[08:40] to so he threw on on he was like
[08:43] well Tesla Tesla stuff worked but Tesla
[08:46] was never really respected and out there
[08:49] when I'm just simply stating the fact I
[08:51] don't think of that as trashing I think
[08:52] of that as being honest I mean I could
[08:55] have softened it but I don't think
[08:57] that's what people who care about you
[08:59] should do people who care will be honest
[09:02] with you about ideas about thoughts the
[09:05] world is changing so quickly and so is
[09:07] everything around us unfortunately we
[09:09] have chosen to remain handcuffed to
[09:11] Antiquated and obsolete beliefs we have
[09:14] put an enormous amount of faith faith
[09:18] into the methods and practices of old
[09:20] that are as dead today as The Men Who
[09:23] propagated the notion that the world was
[09:25] flat so I say here regarding your world
[09:28] was flat reference
[09:29] it's not widely appreciated that the
[09:32] idea of a flat Earth predates the
[09:35] introduction and development of the
[09:37] methods and tools of science as we
[09:39] practice them today those processes date
[09:41] back to around 1600 coincident with the
[09:45] invention of the microscope and
[09:47] Telescope before then truths were
[09:49] whatever seemed right to the senses
[09:51] afterwards and to this day truth was
[09:54] whatever the verified data obtained by
[09:57] your instruments forced you to believe
[10:00] if your senses otherwise contradicted
[10:02] the data this fact means that there's no
[10:06] such misunderstanding on the scale of
[10:09] the Flat Earth in the era of modern
[10:12] science and in multiple places
[10:14] throughout the
[10:15] treaties he's attaching a number to a
[10:19] physical idea or a physical object that
[10:22] idea goes way back by the way go back to
[10:25] Pythagoras famous for the Pythagorean
[10:27] theorem which we all learned in 8th
[10:29] grade was it or nth grade Pythagoras was
[10:31] also a philosopher who tried to
[10:34] understand how things worked he felt
[10:38] among others in his group that if you
[10:40] assign a number to something the number
[10:41] can abue that object with certain
[10:43] meaning and significance which means
[10:45] then if you manipulate the numbers that
[10:47] you gain insight into the objects
[10:49] themselves once you've assigned a number
[10:51] to it there's a lot of that that
[10:54] permeates this document uh but it's a
[10:57] long disproven approach to the world
[11:01] again there's nothing wrong with a
[11:01] failed idea now other people know to not
[11:04] do it right that has value if we place a
[11:06] candle in front of a mirror the
[11:08] measurement of light is doubled is it
[11:10] not it does not measure as only one
[11:13] light source we actually see two lights
[11:16] a light meter will show twice the
[11:18] intensity of light this is false he
[11:21] attacked it so with such
[11:24] vitro maybe that's too blunt what else
[11:26] should I say I'm a scientist that's what
[11:29] I would tell a colleague a colleague who
[11:31] then say would thank you and then we go
[11:32] out for beer after cuz that's how that
[11:34] works and there's an old saying I first
[11:36] heard it from Michael Dell of Dell
[11:39] Technologies if one day you find
[11:40] yourself the smartest person in the room
[11:43] change rooms I say this is false the
[11:47] light in the mirror appears dimmer than
[11:49] the source of light itself for several
[11:51] reasons starting with the fact that no
[11:53] mirror is 100% reflective but more
[11:56] importantly the candle in the mirror is
[11:58] always is farther away from you than the
[12:00] candle itself so the light meter will
[12:04] always read less than twice the actual
[12:06] value of the candle itself I will
[12:10] note that from this work Terren produces
[12:16] art sculptural art which I find to be
[12:19] intriguing even beautiful to me more
[12:21] intriguing than beautiful because you
[12:23] got to look at it and you keep looking
[12:24] at it what is that and what's going on
[12:26] there I just want to read you my end and
[12:29] comments here I could not follow the
[12:31] reasoning on these last few pages but
[12:34] the illustrations that derive from them
[12:36] are beautiful regardless of how they
[12:38] were derived my notes have been strongly
[12:41] critical of your reasoning and
[12:43] conclusions I was candid and blunt out
[12:46] of respect for the energy you have
[12:48] clearly invested in this work but if
[12:51] you're sure that you are still right and
[12:54] that I have completely misunderstood
[12:56] your thesis then you will need to look
[12:58] for another person to evaluate what you
[13:01] have done and solicit their comments in
[13:04] any case like I say above the images and
[13:07] illustrations in your final pages are
[13:09] beautiful works of art unlike any I have
[13:11] seen best to you Neil so in case people
[13:15] wanted to know what actually went down 8
[13:18] years ago just always be cautious of the
[13:22] Dunning Krueger effect you put in a
[13:24] little bit of work and you have an idea
[13:26] and then you think your idea is right
[13:28] and that Einstein is wrong and Newton is
[13:30] wrong and that everybody's wrong and
[13:32] that all of modern astrophysicists are
[13:34] wrong that's
[13:36] bold that's B audacious
[13:39] Bodacious when continental drift was
[13:41] proposed it was like what land masses
[13:45] are moving on Earth Sur that's a weird
[13:47] idea that's going to be a hard cell we
[13:50] think there's sort of up swelling of the
[13:52] yes locally but whole continence move
[13:55] that's crazy it would take a few decades
[13:58] until ultimately when we're mapping the
[14:01] bottom of the ocean we find that there's
[14:02] a Mid-Atlantic Ridge that the ridges are
[14:04] separating it's like bada bing so the
[14:08] resistance to jumping on the idea that
[14:10] continents
[14:11] move was not because people were
[14:14] stubborn it was because people are
[14:17] cautious any new idea needs to be put
[14:20] through the ringer that's how science
[14:22] works you put it through the ringer
[14:24] every possible test you can not just cuz
[14:26] it happens to look like South America
[14:28] fits with Africa any better evidence
[14:30] than that oh wait a minute fossils
[14:33] matched between the west coast of South
[14:36] America and the east coast of Africa not
[14:39] recent fossils fossils from millions of
[14:41] years ago that's interesting things that
[14:43] make you go hm that brought some more
[14:46] people over to the camp you keep that up
[14:49] and you reach a point where enough
[14:50] evidence is brought to bear on the
[14:53] question and then you have a new
[14:55] emerging truth but at the the vibrant
[14:58] energy that goes on it conferences and
[14:59] the contest of ideas that's how we roll
[15:02] that's how it works when Einstein came
[15:04] out with relativity saying SpaceTime
[15:06] curves Albert Al what are you saying
[15:09] what are you doing well you can test it
[15:11] the total solar eclipse so the idea
[15:14] comes out in 1915 is published in 1916
[15:18] 1919 we measured light around the edge
[15:21] of a total so during a total solar
[15:23] eclipse cuz you can't see the stars
[15:25] during the daytime you see the light the
[15:27] light rays bent from their actual
[15:29] coordinate positions on the sky Sir
[15:31] Arthur Edington an astrophysicist
[15:34] provided the first experimental evidence
[15:36] for Einstein's general theory of
[15:38] relativity which by the way was
[15:40] published in a peer-review journal crazy
[15:43] idea the platform to be accepted for the
[15:48] ideas is not social media it is not Joe
[15:53] Rogan it is not my podcast it is
[15:57] research journals
[16:00] where attention can be given on a
[16:04] level that at the end of the day offers
[16:07] no higher respect for your energy and
[16:10] intellect than by declaring that what's
[16:13] in it is either right or wrong or worthy
[16:16] of publication or not I wanted to post
[16:19] this to my website so you can see my
[16:21] comments mixed in with his treaties but
[16:23] uh you got the sense of it thanks for
[16:26] listening thanks for watching
[16:29] Neil degrass Tyson here as always keep
[16:33] looking up
[16:41] [Music]