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Robert Ehrlich: Nine Crazy Ideas in Science
1 Introduction
What's a "Crazy" Idea?
HAVE YOU EVER wondered why so many of the ideas in
modern science sound so crazy, and how to evaluate which
of the current crop of crazy ideas might be true? This book
will show you how you can sort out the more promising
ideas without having to rely on the opinions of experts. As
a physicist, I have always had an affinity for crazy ideas.
Please don't misunderstand me. It's not that physicists are
any crazier than anyone else. Despite the many unfortunate
media portrayals of mad scientists you may have seen,
some of us are reasonably sane. It's just that physics, by its
very nature, is continually challenging the conventions of
our commonsense world and revealing secrets about our
universe that often seem fantastic to most people. Even
physicists sometimes find their creations quite bizarre. One
of the leading developers of ideas in modern quantum mechanics,
Richard Feynman, used to tell students that they
shouldn't worry too much if they don't understand quantum
mechanics because it is so paradoxical that nobody really
understands the subject. In fact, it's when you think you
finally do understand quantum mechanics completely that
you have probably got it wrong.
But, even the weirdest theories of science must pass one
rigorous test or be discarded: their predictions must be in
agreement with phenomena observed in the physical world.
Well, at least that's the ideal. Sometimes developers of new
theories find ways to modify the theories in order to keep
Chapter One
4 them alive, even when their initial predictions don't work
out. And sometimes scientists concoct theories incapable of
being tested in their lifetime, or without the expenditure of
billions of dollars to build the apparatus needed to test their
ideas. (Despite the eagerness of scientists to promote employment
opportunities for their unemployed colleagues,
theorists do not intentionally seek ideas that will prove very
expensive or difficult to test. It's just that most of the easy
stuff has already been done.)
Scientists who develop crazy new theories have a strange
relationship with their creations. On the one hand, they
wish to promote them and convince their colleagues of the
theory's validity-and possibly win fame, fortune, and respect
in the pr...

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