Five ideological physics experiments

I wrote that

There is plenty of evidence that physics is not an experimental science in its essence

and Spyros in comments set a good challenge:

All physical theories/laws have been constructed to explain the results of laboratory experiments or observations of physical phenomena. Every single one of them. If you claim the opposite, you must do this using precise facts and not speaking abstractly.

Here are the precise facts on five physics laws, constants or theories that are based on ideology and not on experiment:

Experiment	Physical quantity	Scientific crime	Owning Authority
Coulomb experiment – 1784	Coulomb’s law	Faked	Paris Academy
Cavendish experiment – 1798	Force and G	Faked	Physics bureaucracy
Millikan oil drop experiment – 1909	Charge of electron	Faked	Physics bureaucracy
Thomson discovery of electron – 1897	Electron	Faked	Physics bureaucracy
Official value of G – 1982	G	Faked	U.S. National Bureau of Standards

In all these cases physicists used the authority of the experiment as a false witness to prove ideology. This places physics, in the hierarchy of sciences, below religion. Because religion is clearly marked religion. In physics, definitions made with a gadget are marketed as true laws of nature that come with the seal of authority of an experiment. If you look carefully, the seal of authority is the seal of the physics bureaucracy.

Ideological physics experiment #1: Coulomb experiment

Coulomb’s experiment proves how cheap physics laws are. Coulomb made just three measurements and in all three of them he was part of the experiment because he neglected to ground himself. Coulomb’s contemporaries could not duplicate his results. No one so far has been able to duplicate Coulomb’s experiment.

Physics bureaucracy decided how nature must behave and they asked Coulomb to make their ideology official with a pendulum. In this case the bureaucracy was the Paris Academy who accepted Coulomb’s extraordinary claims because of their belief that nature must obey Newton’s laws. Scientists who attempted a modern duplication in the University of Oldenburg concluded that

Coulomb’s rhetoric of purported instrumental precision was tailored to his primary audience, mathematicians of the Paris Academy who were ready to believe that electricity obeyed a simple mathematical law, like Newton’s law of gravity, and to accept the rather unique and private results of a fellow member.

This is very relevant. As you’ll see below nothing changed in the profession of physics since then. Physical constants are still decided by authority, not by the authority of Paris Academy, but by the authority of government agencies, such as the U.S. National Bureau of Standards.

Summary: Coulomb faked his results and physics bureaucracy was happy to take it because it fit the Newtonian ideology.

Please note: I am not debating whether 1/r² law is proved by Coulomb’s experiment. I am exhibiting evidence that contrary to your belief not “every single one” of physics laws are discovered by rigorous scientific experiments.

Physics propaganda still asserts authoritatively that Coulomb’s law was proved by Coulomb’s experiment. Most physicists are not aware that Coulomb’s law was based on a charade and not on an experiment. This shows how powerful physics propaganda is and how successful physics bureaucracy is in its indoctrination of new recruits into believing that physical laws are true laws of nature proved by rigorous and unquestionable experiments. This is achieved by the well established pun that

 physical=natural

Physics propaganda is built into the spoken language of every nation. I believe that questioning old physics dogmas such as the Coulomb experiment is a good scientific practice.

You may say that “well, Coulomb’s law was proved later by more precise experiments.” This can be debated. But your claim that all physics laws are based on experiment is not supported by evidence. Physics laws are ideological. Physicists, as in this case, use the experiment as a false witness to prove the ideology. This is what makes physics a secular religion.

Ideological physics experiment #2: Cavendish experiment

Physics propaganda claims that Cavendish measured the Newtonian constant G and therefore indirectly proved the existence of the Newtonian force. Cavendish did nothing of the sort. When G was defined by Newtonian physicists in the 19th century Cavendish was long dead. It’s been known since the 1980s that Cavendish did not measure G. But physics propaganda continues to assert that Cavendish measured G.

In physics historical facts are not respected. If Cavendish was dead when G was invented, physicists will overrule historical facts to prove their ideology by saying that “Cavendish may not have measured G but we can compute G from his data so we say that Cavendish measured G.” This is ideology winning over experiment. Physics ideology says that Cavendish measured force. No experimental evidence can change this fact. In physics ideology comes before experiment.

What is more important is that the same experimental charade is still being taught as part of the Newtonian ideology to every physics student in a first year lab called the Cavendish lab. Toy pendulums used in these labs are manufactured to oscillate with a given period. Students measure the natural period of the pendulum and plug it into standard formulas and obtain the standard value of G and leave the lab believing that they have experimentally observed the Newtonian force. For the rest of their physics careers they will believe that force is an experimental fact. After all they observed it with their own eyes, they even measured it.

No sane person can claim that those toy pendulums measure the Newtonian force. They do not. Cavendish lab is a physics miracle. It is taught as ideology. Here too an experiment is used as false witness to support the sacred Newtonian ideology.

Note: Cavendish experiment is a vast topic and I’ll be glad to discuss it with you. But the point that I am making here is that physics laws and constants, in this case G, are not based on experimental evidence. Again, it is irrelevant that G was supposedly measured later with precision. I am saying that if as scientists we question physics propaganda and look into the actual experiments we see that physics always puts ideology before experiment.

Ideological physics experiment #3: Millikan’s Oil drop experiment

The fundamental quantity called charge of electron is based on Millikan’s creative cherry picking:

An examination of Millikan’s own papers and notebooks reveals that he picked and chose among his drops. That is, he exercised discrimination with respect to which drops he would include in published accounts of the value of e, leaving many out.  . . . In his 1913 paper Millikan states It is to be remarked that this is not a selected group of drops but represents all of the drops experimented upon during 60 consecutive days. However, Millikan’s notebook shows that of 189 observations during the period in question, only 140 are presented in the paper.

Knowing that Millikan fudged his data how can we say that charge of electron is based on a scientific experiment? We cannot. We can only say that the charge of the electron is based on a physical experiment. A physical experiment is not a scientific experiment. A physical experiment is the process physicists use to prove their ideology by the authority of experiment. Again we must question the propaganda pun that

physical = scientific

Using experiment as false witness to prove ideology is the standard method of experimental physics.

Ideological physics experiment #4: The discovery of the electron

It is common knowledge that Thomson did not discover the electron. The same experiment was done with higher precision earlier in Germany but Germans as scientists knew that the results did not justify the claim of a new particle. In this case too, Thomson is making a definition with a gadget. Again, we are not disputing if electron exists or not. I am showing you evidence that physics laws and constants are cheap and they are based on faked experiments. Ideology defines the experiment and the authority of the physicist establishes the results. No one questions the authority of the physicist and by consensus the result becomes a legal physical quantity and enters physics. Are there still doubts that this is how academic physics experiments are conducted?

Ideological physics experiment #5: The observational proof of General Relativity

Eddington’s original paper was non-committal. The actual data in the published paper does not prove Einstein right. (And Eddington too had been accused of cherry picking his data.) But physics bureaucracy did no wait for peer reviewed paper to be published and decide on observational evidence. On the contrary they manipulated the media and the media decided that Einstein’s theories were proved by observations. Yet again physics ideology overrules exerpimental results. The bureaucracy of physics and political powers decided how nature should be and they used the authority of physics to prove their ideology. This is the old method of state-sponsored mythmaking. So far physicists have been successful in hiding from general public that they have been instrumental in creating state-sponsored mythology.

It is not relevant to this discussion that subsequently General Relativity turned out to be the most tested theory ever. Its origin is not experimental. And as Feynman explains here, physics is infected with cargo cult science. This means that once a theory becomes a legal physics theory physicists will do all the necessary cherry picking and fudging to mold the data to prove the ideology. Physicists have no choice. States sponsor only legal physics and in this case legal physics turns out to be state-sponsored mythology. You can see cargo cult physics doing its work in this plot showing the history of bending of light measurements.

Note the error bars. Physicists who made those measurements should be put behind those bars and barred from making any measurements ever again

Examples can be increased. All modern measurements of G enter the literature without replication by hostile parties. Some of them are conducted by government agencies that do not disclose the details of the experiment or encourage duplication. The official value of G is not based on a scientific experiment but on an ideological physics experiment by a government agency. If you read this paper you would see that mathematical formulas given to support the experiment simplify to G = G. Meaningless identity. There are not enough details to reproduce the experiment. And if there were, I assure you that no sane physicist will send a proposal to National Science Foundation asking for funding to duplicate or question the official experiment by a government agency. That would be career suicide and the physicist would be excommunicated and dubbed a crackpot.

The above examples are the facts you asked for proving that academic physics is not experimental. It is ideological.

Are all physics experiments physical experiments or are there scientific experiments in physics? I am sure that there are. I am just showing evidence to you that not “every single one” of physics laws are based on experiments. In fact major fundamental laws of physics are products of physics ideology. And physics still insists that these ideological laws are experimental facts.

Physics will be better off if physicists recognized that some things such as G are not measurable quantities. They are defined units. The U.S. Bureau of Standards can set G to unity and physics will work exactly as it does now. Theoretical physicists set G to unity anyway.