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Jack Sarfatti
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Jack Sarfatti is a frequent poster to certain Usenet groups, such as
sci.physics. His contributions, which are notable for their extensive
use of technical buzzwords, are often inaccuratly regarded as incoherent
by poseurs illiterate in physics who think they know when they don't.
Sarfatti's entry in the net-legends FAQ begins:
Posts long strange posts on physics, consciousness, and
metaphysics, many of which do not make much sense to practitioners of
the above fields. Used to crosspost to hell and back. Can be seen in the
sci.* groups and alt.consciousness. A small collection of posts is
available. *Not* a "crackpot" in the classic sense; has a Ph.D. in
physics and understands the field quite well - but tends to use it to
delve into philosophical concepts and outre' theories rather deeper than
many other physicists care to read about. Also posts on and off to
sci.psychology about connectionism and perception, and the
neuro-psychological implications thereof.
Sarfatti's websites have quite unjustly earned the crankiest rating from
the crank.net website by lesser minds than his. (See links below.) "They
all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round."
Cole Porter.
Sarfatti is definitely a fecund highly creative original eccentric, "but
his knowledge of basic cosmology issues is razor sharp. As an example he
was able to carefully delineate the basic flaw in the zero point energy
paradigm as it relates to the Einstein cosmological constant, which I
found extremely useful to know." A. Beckwith, physicist
Unlike most who have been labeled crackpots, Sarfatti does have a strong
academic background in theoretical physics from good universities. He
earned an undergraduate BA from Cornell University in 1960, where he
wrote an honor's thesis under the close guidance of Hans Bethe that
corrected a small error in Julian Schwinger's WWII work on the
polarization of synchrotron radiation. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from
UCR in 1969, writing a thesis on local gauge invariance in the theory of
superfluids under the direction of Fred Cummings. He taught at San Diego
State was a Research Fellow under David Bohm University of London and
Abdus Salam (ICTP) where he explained the universal slope (1Gev)^-2 of
the Regge trajectories of hadronic resonances as rotating Kerr black
hole "micro-geons" with strong short range gravity G* ~ 10^40G before
venturing into non-academic pursuits in Cold War covert intelligence
operations in Europe. Sarfatti's 1967 paper "The Goldstone Theorem and
the Jahn-Teller Effect, written with Marshall Stoneham at Haarwell
(later head of Theoretical Physics Div, Harwell UKAERE), is cited in the
American Institute of Physics "Resource Letter on Symmetry in Physics."
Ray Chiao, professor of physics at Berkeley credits Sarfatti's 1967
paper on self-trapped laser filaments as analogy with Type II
superconductor vortices as helpful in his early experiments in nonlinear
optics. Leonard Susskind, inventor of string theory, credits Sarfatti's
help in his first published paper in 1964 at Cornell on quantum phase
and time operators. Susskind and Sarfatti were students together with
Johnny Glogower.
Sarfatti predicted the recently observed ODLRO "supersolid" in Physics
Letters A before Nobel Prize Tony Leggett did. George Chapline, who
according to http://www.wyp-ptm.org/lecturers.html#chapline "...
received the U.S. Department of Energy E.O. Lawrence Award in 1983 and
served as Science Advisor to the Associate Lab Director for Defense
Programs at the Los Alamos National Labs in 2000 and 2001 ..." wrote on
16 February 2005, saying in part: "... Jack, Your solid He4 superfluid
paper is wonderful! ... This paper is a precursor to quantum gravity,
and much more important in that regard than string theory ( you can
quote me). george ...".
Tony Smith web site at http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/
Unlike most who have been labeled crackpots, Sarfatti does have an
academic background in theoretical physics. He earned an undergraduate
from Cornell University in 1960, where he wrote an honor's thesis under
the guidance of Hans Bethe. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from UCSD in
1967, writing a thesis under the direction of Fred Cummings. He taught
at San Diego State and the University of London before venturing into
non-academic pursuits.
In various writings over the years, Sarfatti has apparently made
numerous claims about his activities, including these:
* at age 13, received "phone calls from the future" informing him
of his special destiny,
* founded a "Physics-Consciousness Research Group" with Werner
Erhard, the founder of Esalen, and others,
* consulted for U.S. intelligence agencies on the so-called
"physics" of remote-viewing,
* consulted for the U.S. Department of Defense on the Strategic
Defense Initiative,
* has worked or is working under 'deep cover' (allegedly explaining
the small number of his published research papers),
* involved in the publication of a controversial memoir by former
K.G.B. agent Pavel Sudoplatov,
* taught math and physics for the U.S. Navy at sea (on board
aircraft carriers)
* derived Einstein's field equation from the Goldstone phase of the
Higgs field for SU(2)hypercharge using the curvature form method of Elie
Cartan. This "derivation" is generally regarded as nonsense[1].
Sarfatti has had three books published by Author House since 2002,
Destiny Matrix, Space-Time and Beyond II & Super Cosmos. He was awarded
the Victor von Frankenstein "Weird Science" Award in December 2004 by
the denizens of the alt.usenet.kooks newsgroup.
[edit]
See also
* Usenet, an article about the Usenet in general
[edit]
External links
* Reality check], an essay by the now deceased physicist paranormal
debunker Milton Rothman, reviewing for the skeptic group CSICOP the
website of a "corporation" apparently created by Jack Sarfatti. Martin
Gardner wrote extensively about Sarfatti and Uri Geller in "Magic and
Paraphysics" in "Science, Good, Bad and Bogus."
* Crank dot net, a very extensive list of cranky websites,
* Part 1 of the net-legends FAQ,
* Is Jack Sarfatti a kook or a genius.., a thread from sci.physics,
* disformation (an interview of Sarfatti),
* a Sarfatti website,
* a Sarfatti web page containing some snippets of autobiography by
Sarfatti, including photographs of himself literally at sea (on the
flight deck of a carrier); see what appears to be Sarfatti's own account
of the phone calls mentioned above,
* a Sarfatti website,
* a Sarfatti blog.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sarfatti"
john_r...@sagitta-ps.com
>
> [...]
>
> Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sarfatti"
.. no doubt after being deposited there by Jack Sarfatti
or one of his multitudes of sock puppets.
Cardinal Chunder
> Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sarfatti"
Sadly for you, the latest version in Wikipedia appears to have reverted
most of your edits. That NPOV is a kicker isn't it?
James Dolan
jack sarfatti <sarf...@pacbell.net> wrote:
|Sarfatti's websites have quite unjustly earned the crankiest rating
|from the crank.net website by lesser minds than his. (See links
|below.) "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the
|world was round." Cole Porter.
george and ira gershwin, not cole porter.
--
[e-mail address jdo...@math.ucr.edu]
Ian Parker
I feel I ought to correct one of the popular misconceptions of the
Muiddle Ages. They did NOT believe the world to be flat. The history is
as follows.
Erasthenes measured the distance from Alexandia to Syrene. Now Syrene
is just on the Tropic of Cancer and so no shadow is cast at noon on the
summer solistice. At Alexandia there is a shadow of 6.5 degrees.
Erathenes got a value which is fairly close to the modern value for the
size of the Earth. This value, together with Erathenes arguments was
widely accepted throughout the Middle Ages.
Columbus was in fact the one who made the scientific errors. He assumed
a value smaller than that of Erathenes and coupled to that he made wild
guesses about the distance to China going East. In fact Medieval
scholarship was correct. Had there been no America Columbus would have
starved. He could NEVER have crossed the Atlantic, crossed America and
crossed the Pacific to reach China. In fact if he did want to get to
China he was taking completely the wrong route. The correct route to
China (no America in the way) is to sail North West until you get to
the edge of the Arctic ice. Then sail due west on a rum line keeping as
far to the North as you can. If you are flying of couse you go over the
North Pole.
Given a proper calculation of the position of China, medieval
scolarship would have appeciated this. The myth essentially honours
Columbus for discovering America (In fact Leif Erikson discovered
America or Vinland). Columbus in fact landed in Cuba, he thought he was
in China, and never seemed to grasp that America was a separate
continent.
donsto...@hotmail.com
conjuction with the development of the Global Brain"
- Douglas R. Hofstadter, the cognitive scientist, not the historian.
cda...@euromail.sk
> Sarfatti's websites have quite unjustly earned the crankiest rating from
> the crank.net website by lesser minds than his. (See links below.) "They
> all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round."
> Cole Porter.
"...but they also laughed at Boffo the clown."
C.D.
Christopher J. Henrich
<c...@foo.no.spam.xyzabcfghllaa.com> wrote:
At this time (1256 EDT, 23 September 2005), the latest version says >
"Sarfatti has removed the slander and libel on this page from his
political enemies." There seems to be a tug-of-bore going on.
--
Chris Henrich
http://www.mathinteract.com
The total lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working.
Cardinal Chunder
> In article <dh0el...@news4.newsguy.com>, Cardinal Chunder
> <c...@foo.no.spam.xyzabcfghllaa.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Jack Sarfatti wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sarfatti"
>>
>>Sadly for you, the latest version in Wikipedia appears to have reverted
>>most of your edits. That NPOV is a kicker isn't it?
>
> At this time (1256 EDT, 23 September 2005), the latest version says >
> "Sarfatti has removed the slander and libel on this page from his
> political enemies." There seems to be a tug-of-bore going on.
>
Heh, I give it an hour before it's reverted back to the way it was.
A saner course of action for Jack would have been to ignore the article
until it was voted to deletion.
In fact, that's exactly what nearly happened to this article. Looking
through the history, I see the trouble started when someone (guess who)
decided to change a rather silly and vfd'd version to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jack_Sarfatti&oldid=22642187
At which point people start cleaning up the article, fixing the
vandalism and generally ensuring the result is NPOV but extremely
unflattering to those with distorted opinions about themselves.
If you want to see how bad it can get, consider that after 1200
revisions, vandalisms and reversions, John Ennis, aka Sollog managed to
turn a vanity (and vfd'd) entry about himself from this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sollog&oldid=8104488
Into this:
Androcles
"Jack Sarfatti" <sarf...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:V7NYe.1213$9E2...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...
| Jack Sarfatti
| From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
|
Phuckwit!
Androcles.
Roger Bagula
The footnote using an Alexander Burinskii comment is funny.
The guy has no idea what the shape of a natural minimal surface is in
his article. He can be critical
but he seems not well educated enough to be effective at it.
Jack Sarfatti is strange all right, but he is usually very good at his
derivations. I followed the guy's argument
and he's just plain wrong in several places.
Jack takes lumps for a lot of wierd physics types
but he keeps on ticking and kicking, ha, ha...