Mathematican quack Mark Provo is out with a new "scientific" paper (PROVOATOMICELECTRONS.PDF), this one purporting to explain the electron distribution in atoms. He seems unaware that the chemical properties of atoms were explained in the 1920s and '30s by the discovery of quantum mechanics, and goes on to apply more of his arbitrary, ad hock brand of "reasoning" to come to, low and behold, exactly the answer he set out to explain. What a miracle.
His work is numerology, not science, and it's not even good numerology at that. Write down the primes, maybe multiply by two, throw out some of them for arbitrary purposes, divide by two (or is it three?) and associate the resulting string with something that looks like the number of electrons in an s- or p-shell. No stating his axioms and assumptions, no argument from first principles, no overarching theme that ties everything together. More thought goes into a tinker-toy structure.
Provo's reasoning is all arbitrary, his steps ad hoc and random. In effect he reverse engineers the electron distribution to associate it with some kind of numerical series. His methods never rise above elementary arithmetic and he never, ever identifies his assumptions and arbitrary steps. His "results" leave you with no sense of explanation or of insights into the underlying physical laws involved. It's science done by tossing numbers at a dartboard.
In other words, this is again complete, arbitrary, unscientific crap. And for this he wants people to give him money.
It's time for him to get a job like everyone else.
This "characterization" of the electron derivation paper is, as usual, completely false. This man suffers from some kind of mental illness and has fixated on me for some reason. I propose it is because he can get a thrill from "tearing me down," all the while writing nonsense. And he can see his name in print on the Internet.
ReplyDeleteThis paper is a short summary outline that shows the fundamental steps, which ARE correct. If this man would read the main papers on the site all the way through, which we refuses to do because they would contradict his charges, he would see that the entire foundation for that article is provided in the first paper.
This man has been pestering me with crazy emails for weeks. I have told him in no uncertain terms that I will not read or respond to any more of them.
Why don't you read the papers on the site and see if this nonsense is confirmed? It won't be.
Mark Provo
Mark, why don't you just try solving the Shrödinger equation for a central potential in spherical coordinates and the electron orbitals will pop out neatly. It's done in any basic course in quantum mechanics.
ReplyDeleteWhen there are so many unsolved problem to spend your genius on, why waste time on those for which we've known the right answer for almost a century?
Not that I understand why David spend so much time on one of the almost infinite supply of cranks out there.