An Open Letter to Bill Gaede

Dear Dr. Gaede,
An acquaintance of mine recently laughed in my face (repeatedly) for thinking that the traditional scientific method, based on the operational point of view, is still a valuable methodology for distinguishing true information from false information. Despite his deprecating manner, I agreed to watch a couple of your videos, and was thinking of reading your book, until I heard you describe mathematical physics as “mathe-magical”, a clearly condescending and self-aggrandizing term.

It was at that moment that I decided that I would postpone reading your book until such time as you answered a few questions to my satisfaction. Here are the first eight questions that popped into my head. I hope you find them useful in further clarifying your rope hypothesis.

1. You’ve indicated that “Rational Science” (RS) is superior to “Mathemagical Science” (MS) because it “explains” observable phenomena. How do you decide when something has been explained? Alternatively, how do you know when an “explanation” is valid or invalid?

2. You define “objects” by their “shape” and suggest they are “real” if you can draw (visualize) them – and you offer the example of lifting a well- bucket with a rope and pulley as an example of “Rational Physics” (RP).

a. Must “objects” be visible to the naked human eye in order to qualify as "objects"?
b. Is an amoeba, visible only with a microscope, an “object”?
c. The well-bucket rope has many properties. What are the properties of the “ropes” you hypothesize are connecting particles?

~ Why just 2 strands? Why not 3 or 7 or 49?
~ How, specifically, are the strands connected to the particles? (By buckets?)
~ Do ropes ever become detached from the particles?
~ How thick are the strands?
~ Do they stretch? If so, how?
~ When a “rope” is stretched, do the individual strands stretch?
~ How many twists are there between any 2 particles?
~ What causes “torquing”?
~ Do the strands compress longitudinally under torque?

d. Since you have drawn ropes, I infer you consider them as “objects”, and therefor appropriate items for RT discussion.

How are “invisible objects” less “magical” than fields?
Since “ropes” are not visible, their presence must be somehow inferred. How can you infer the presence of “ropes” without the use of “concepts” that your RS exempts from RS and RP?

1. You’ve described “ropes” as being “electromagnetic”. What does that mean if it doesn’t involve “fields, a concept you deplore”?

2. You have said that “entanglement” is just the torquing of the rope connecting two particles and that it propagates as a “signal” at the speed of light. What in RS makes such an inference necessary? And how is “speed” not a forbidden “concept” in RS?

3. In the absence of measurements and predictions, by what criteria is RS superior to MS? And is it in fact superior?

4. The well-known double slit experiment is regarded in quantum mechanics as proof that there are acausal events. The components of the experiment can be drawn so it is presumably a proper subject of RS and RP. How does RS account for ("explain") the observable results of the experiment?

5. Are clocks “objects” according to RS? If so, how would you avoid defining “time” as that which a clock measures? Clocks of various kinds can certainly be visualized and drawn. The process by which a person measures time with a clock can certainly be diagrammed in detail. So how can you maintain that time is irrelevant to Rational Science? Even understanding the raising of a well-bucket when seeing an illustration of the act requires grasping what is meant by “motion” - and how is one to do that without the concept of time?

6. And finally, while I understand the need to think non-scientifically in order to extend the capabilities of science, I fail to see the need to abandon the operational point of view in favor of Newtonian intuition. Can you explain why you have done this?

Rather than attempt to change every definition that scientists have used in the history of science, it would make more sense to me to call your new discipline, “Gaedence” rather than science, and to call the methodology the “Gaedentic Method” rather than the scientific method. That would eliminate a lot of the confusion some of us experience trying to match up familiar words with unfamiliar ideas.

Cordially,
Bob Podolsky