[Alex3917]

> if your mental model of the scientific community doesn't include "There exist a whole lot of crackpots out there", your mental model of science is wrong.

Do you think this is a failure of your industry? E.g. there don't seem to be a lot of crackpots that go into plumbing or whatever. What is it about physics where it's apparently failing to provide most of the people in the field with adequate training?

[Cerium]

What about magnetic water cleaners?

Anything crackpot is an attempt to usurp the way things are with the way people want them to be. Free energy, electric thrusters, magnetic health bracelets, one weird trick for clean teeth... these all apply to other professions but since they obviously don't work it is up to the physicist to ignore? explain?

Physics is the belief in sanity in our confusing mess of a work. It is often an appeal to something simpler. What's the difference between a crackpot and a physicist? Physicists do science and get repeatable results.

[Zardoz84]

There is some effects of a strong magnetic field on a current of water over aragonite and other calcium minerals, on a way that make less probable to a pipe get obstructed. However, this requires :

- a strong magnetic field in some special configuration. - a water current flow, like you can find on a pipe.

These "magnetic water cleaners" that are only a mug with a magnet, don't match these two requisites. Ie, are a fraud.

[scott_s]

Most crackpots aren't in the field. The problem is that woking in physics requires an enormous amount of training, but some people are convinced they can contribute without that training.

[Tloewald]

Have you talked to a lot of plumbers?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

The crackpots that go into plumbing exist... it's just that they're not crackpots about plumbing. They still email the other guy about discovering zero point energy and space aliens and whatnot.

The crackpots about plumbing, call the plumber crackpots to fix their plumbing obviously.

I've been trying to find a good barber for years now, last one I went to was a borderline schizophrenic. Off his meds, not on them, don't know. Didn't stop him from cutting hair. Being a crackpot doesn't stop someone from being able to snake a drain or fix pipes.

> What is it about physics where it's apparently failing to provide most of the people in the field with adequate training?

The same thing that's wrong with all fields... the people who go into that field do so because of enthusiasm for it. Not because they're competent at it.

Enthusiasm for physics probably starts when some kid grows up watching Star Trek and whatnot.

[DanBC]

> E.g. there don't seem to be a lot of crackpots that go into plumbing or whatever.

There are plenty of reality TV shows about crackpot plumbers - either idiot DIYers who don't know what they're doing and who ruin a home or cowboy rogue builders who con their customers and provide substandard work.

[JadeNB]

> either idiot DIYers who don't know what they're doing and who ruin a home or cowboy rogue builders who con their customers and provide substandard work.

The idiot DIYer may be a crackpot, but the rogue builder isn't. A crackpot is someone who has no expertise, but (crucially) believes that he or she does (or at least that he or she has made a discovery in a domain believed to belong to experts); a con man is not a crackpot.