On a serious not, the Post Office did not open your mail- at least not on purpose. As was said before, your letter was damaged. I enjoy reading the writings of the mentally divergent. In fact, I collect them. Somehow, I’ve missed Jim B til now.
One last time, the 1st amendment only protects your mail from official government ‘interference related to what you are saying in that piece of mail. Even then there are types of communications you are not allowed to send: stalking, threatening at a certain level, harassing, libelous, etc., so those 1st amendment protections you are so sure of are not absolute.
Joined in Mar 2002
I know. My shame is great. I’ll slink away now.
Must have been some of that time-shifting @Something has been trying so hard to warn us about.
No. We’re troubled by your actions.
Faced with reasonably objective people who find your behavior disturbing, you should consider that maybe there’s something amiss in your actions, not that “this country” has become “too sensitive.”
Nobody has said you’re doing something illegal, though I don’t think anyone is ruling that out. We’re saying a) you’re not necessarily protected by the First Amendment b) there’s something perturbing about picking out department heads and people you’ve seen on TV and sending them your theories and c) doing so via the USPS because the recipients have no choice but to “live with it” is…creepy.
Including your return address doesn’t make it OK, Jim. And you shouldn’t interpret the fact you’ve 'even" (your word) received positive responses from a few poor souls as validation of what you’re doing.
I’ve read several pieces by science and sf writers about this kind of mail they get. Let’s just say they don’t take it very seriously.
I know some department heads, and dollars to donuts the letters go right into the recycling, possibly put there by their admins.
If you want someone in academia to listen to you, write a paper. That should concentrate your thought processes. When your papers get reviewed, and not just desk rejected, it will show you made progress.
Also, responding to criticism of your position refines your position. You’re doing that here but you don’t seem to do much of it in the GD threads you start. It is good for you, and intellectually stimulating.
Yeah that totally doesn’t make you sound insane and creepy.
So are these the kinds of “theories” that you’re spamming celebrities with?
I wonder if any of his letters have inspired any Goop products.
You mean like people feeling the need to steam clean their vagina after receiving mail from him? We may never know.
I dunno, maybe he intended his theory to go to Tony Stark, and it went to Gwyneth Paltrow instead.
Before I comment, can I just say how much I love this thread?
Okay, @Jim_B, if I’m right about the nature of the mail you are sending, I for one don’t find it “creepy” or “disturbing” in the sense that any recipient should worry for their safety after receiving a letter from you. That’s assuming you send ONE letter and then leave them alone. If you repeatedly send letters to the same people, I probably wouldn’t worry much, but yes, that kind of behavior does tip you over into more questionable territory.
Now, to be perfectly brutal: I suspect that the people who take the time to respond to you are doing it out of kindness. Perhaps they have a soft spot for a friend or family member who tends to obsess on some goofy theories about aliens or talking to animals or the like, but who is overall a harmless person who, like all of us who aren’t downright evil, deserves a little consideration from time to time. And because they are nice, they are taking the time to answer you.
Not having seen the letters you sent or the responses you’ve gotten, I can’t be 100% sure. But I’d be willing to make a pretty significant bet that this is what’s going on.
Okay, I’ll bite. How much do you love this thread?
A bushel and a peck, at least. Maybe not a hug around the neck.
As a scientist who is often on the news, I get my share of crackpot letters. We pass around the more amusing ones, and then they go in the trash.
Again, I know there is nothing inherently odd or even ‘threatening’ 
(you brought up that topic, not me) in sending scientific theories to people whose job it is to research them. So I have to assume the problem lies with you, not me. Or your misconception about something. And yes, the First Amendment does give more protections than a message board. Your responses have illustrated that clearly.
But that is not what I wanted to say. I just wanted to ask, Why do you have a problem with that now? I have been sharing, not just my ideas, but the fact that I have been mailing them, for about 20 years now, on this message board. Ironically someone even shared links from the distance past, that point this out. Again, why just now?
You didn’t have a problem with that 20 years ago. You didn’t 15. Not even 5 or ten years ago. Just now, for some reason. In fact, if I remember correctly, it was even well-received, about 20 years ago in fact.
Do you all want to explain yourselves 
?
You are a man of science, then? Sharing your views with other people in the sciences? And yet a piece of mail damaged by post office sorting equipment had you befuddled?
Because you brought it up in this thread!
I had no idea someone would ever do something like this. And, no, you’re not so famous that everyone remembers everything you say here. So this thread was the first time it occurred to me that someone would send their theories into someone’s house in an envelope.
And I guess that’s why I’d consider your mailings a violation of my personal space. if you share them here, I can choose to click on them, I can read or stop reading as I choose. I can even interact and ask for clarifications. In my home, your theories would come through my mail slot even though I didn’t want them.
I’d recommend sharing via messageboards for the interaction and getting clarifications and the give-and-take. That’d help you refine your theories, too, especially if it was a board full of smart people…
I listen to Sean Carroll’s podcast from time to time, and he brings up the fact that he does get tons of correspondence with people who think that they’ve solved the next great question in physics.
One of the things that he points out is that it’s not the idea that is hard, it is the work to actually back up the idea that is. It’s easy to say, “Maybe Dark Matter is actually such’n’such.” And maybe it is. But unless you are willing to do the work, learn the math, do the math, and create predictions or at least robust explanations of observations, then you can’t be taken seriously.
“Here’s my idea, all you have to do now is to prove that I’m right” will always get dumped straight into the circular file, unless a @mozchron indicates, it’s amusing enough to share with colleagues until it gets tossed.
None of your ideas are scientific theories. At best they are hypotheses.