Just so we know whose authority you appeal to. Claiming to have this big genius of a father who does secret work and claims to know secrets of the Universe nobody else has access to seems more than a little screwy. And with no real way of figuring out who you are (any info on this board could well be a lie, as there is no way of proving otherwise, hence my almost paranoid questioning) we have no way of figuring out who your father is, be he Dr. Robert Masterson or just John Doe. BTW, where has Dr. Robert Masterson been published? I’d like to read his work. I think I can suffer through a little math.
Seriously, that sounds exactly like one of the hallmarks of a crackpot. If your dad does have a valid theory, publlishing in a journal is the way to go. Seriously.
Also, please don’t presume that we aren’t smart enough or someone else isn’t smart enough to understand. We probably aren’t smart enough. But the way to get your dad’s theory evaluated and discussed is to get it in fronnt of the people who definitely are smart enough to understand. You do that through technical journals.
No. But the inquisitive folks here aren’t satisfied with the tidbits you’ve posted. And we have seen quite a few crackpots.
For everyone’s information, the MIT Barton Library Catalog lists the following holdings written by Masterson, Robert Edward:
“Improved multidimensional numerical methods for the steady state and transient thermal-hydraulic analysis of fuel pin bundles and nuclear reactor cores.”, Thesis. 1977. Sc.D.–Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Engineering.
"Improved multidimensional numerical methods for the steady state and transient thermal-hydraulic analysis of fuel pin bundles and nuclear reactor cores ", series MITNE # 203, Originally presented as the first author’s thesis, (Sc.D.) in the M.I.T. Dept. of Nuclear Engineering, 1977.
“The application of perturbation theory and variational principles to fast reactor fuel management”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Nuclear Engineering. Thesis. 1974. M.S.
It appears that there is indeed a Dr. Robert Masterson with most of the attributes claimed by Silo. There is a period of three years between his Master’s and Doctor’s theses; that might be a result of taking time of, or it might be a result of how long his academic studies took. “Got his Phd in Nuclear Physics/Nuclear Engineering in 6 months” is a bit of a misrepresentation … and (totally minor nit) it’s an ScD, not a PhD.
jrf MSME MIT '77 BSME MIT '75
You found his work from college. Well at least now I don’t have to keep reiterating that i’m not full of shit.
Silo writes:
And then,
So your dad hasn’t answered your question after all. You just reiterated that your question was why is it a particular value, and that your dad’s answer does not answer this.
Any new theory which explains everything will be very welcome on the stage of human inquiry, but please understand that this is not the first theory to answer some of these questions. Einstein explained why only massless particles could reach the speed of light and why it is a constant. How does this differ from your dad’s explaination?
It is possible that your father is way smarter than any physicist working today. It is possible that he is too smart to need to spend time working with the incredibly complex math year in and year out and collaborate with tens or hundreds of others just as smart to come up with a useful theory. It is also possible, because he does not do physics for a living, that ten other physicists have already explored and confirmed or discredited your fathers ideas while he’s been busy solving his million/billion dollar problems. He won’t know that until he submits his theory to a journal for publication.
Huh? If the best physicists in the world won’t understand it, who will? Who would be a qualified baby who is worthy of your father coming down from the mountain to present his TOE? Do you have any idea how many people think they ‘really have something here’ and refuse to divulge it and it turns out it’s crap? Do you have any idea how many people think they ‘really have something here’ and refuse to divulge it and it turns out it’s ‘really something’? The first group vastly outnumbers the second group.
What I say, is I wish your father luck, and I truly hope he has discovered something revolutionary. My experience in the past leads me to believe I should not hold my breath waiting for it.
And if nobody else in the world could possible understand his theory, then why is he afraid of anybody stealing it?
His ideas are original just not mathamatically proven yet. He is making connections that have never been made before. He told me he would consider publishing his ideas in a journal. It does explain why the speed of light travels at it’s value. Sometimes I don’t review what I write and do make mistakes. I’ll try to be better in the future.
He came up with these ideas just a few weeks ago and has not yet put them to paper. He is extremely busy but has vowed to devote a day or two in the next week or two to write a paper. As of right now I am the only person he has relayed his thoughts to. I have read volumes of information on theories regarding the universe (I have a fascination with it). His thoughts use String Theory and I can say with great certainty they haven’t ever been brought up before or discredited. When he notorizes/publishes it I will post it here.