This is the main point he's upset about. Because of his interest in the UFO phenomenon in the 70s and 80s he has been ostracized from the wider french community (mostly the state-run National Center of Scientific Research aka the CNRS). It's not a subject he wants to talk about anymore.
His main grief is not that his genius theory is not understood , but that he cannot discuss it with his colleagues for the reason above.
People have set up a petition [1] so that he present his ideas during a seminary (he's indeed quite popular with videos on youtube frequently reaching more than 100k views).
To give you a more concrete example, he stumbled upon a paper by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder [2] which presents a very similar approach to the Janus model but with a broader, more abstract framework Petit is not able to understand. He reached out to her and was accused of plagiarism ! He tried to play it cool, saying she would be remembered as the 21st century's Einstein (her paper predates his by a decade), telling her she should invest energy into this (she published that paper in 2008 and did not follow this track further) offering her to collaborate as friends on the subject. Result: she declined because of his background.
Now, what background are we talking about ? IIRC he published a paper in the 90s where he thanked M. Bazoof. What you have to know is that Petit has been personally involved in the UMMO affaire [3]. Along with several people, mostly from Spain, he received letters and phone calls by people that claimed to be from another planet. These letters were full of scientific content and he's written multiple books about it (the latest, from last year, is jokingly subtilted "How far can we think to far ?"). Back to M Bazoof: "What ? He is citing an alien ? Is he kidding us ?" => that's Petit that imitates his colleagues' reaction back in the days, and then he burst in laughter. Serious again: "But that's the truth, alien or trickster, I received UMMO messages without which I would not have thought of the Janus model. A stuff life this, this is is insane, you have no idea. It brings you into a life-long adventure. It's like my life is the script to a Spielberg movie. And I suppose I'm Doc from back to the future ! laughs".
"If it's not fun, it's not really serious" is one of the maxims he lives by.
Ad hominem attacks instead of real arguments about the proposed theory is mean and not professional.. If that's what happened. My guess is that many areas of theoretical physics are getting too competitive, while funding is always limited. So, intellectual merit could be not the only (or not the main) consideration, outwheighed by things like reputation. Most mainstream researchers also have their own pet theories, and defending "some UFO guy's theory" that might compete with their own pet theory is hardly a priority for them either, especially at such a reputation cost. In the field that has so many theories that are hard to prove right or wrong, human capital and connections could decide the future of your theory, apparently.
Sabine Hossenfelder is an open-minded researcher, as far as I can tell. Sad that the author could not follow up with her, but there must be reasons for that.
Very interesting, thank you for the comment. I like math and computer science academia more than physics for these reasons -- people are less cut-throat, and generally more fun than in physics.
Comments
This is the main point he's upset about. Because of his interest in the UFO phenomenon in the 70s and 80s he has been ostracized from the wider french community (mostly the state-run National Center of Scientific Research aka the CNRS). It's not a subject he wants to talk about anymore.
His main grief is not that his genius theory is not understood , but that he cannot discuss it with his colleagues for the reason above.
People have set up a petition [1] so that he present his ideas during a seminary (he's indeed quite popular with videos on youtube frequently reaching more than 100k views).
To give you a more concrete example, he stumbled upon a paper by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder [2] which presents a very similar approach to the Janus model but with a broader, more abstract framework Petit is not able to understand. He reached out to her and was accused of plagiarism ! He tried to play it cool, saying she would be remembered as the 21st century's Einstein (her paper predates his by a decade), telling her she should invest energy into this (she published that paper in 2008 and did not follow this track further) offering her to collaborate as friends on the subject. Result: she declined because of his background.
Now, what background are we talking about ? IIRC he published a paper in the 90s where he thanked M. Bazoof. What you have to know is that Petit has been personally involved in the UMMO affaire [3]. Along with several people, mostly from Spain, he received letters and phone calls by people that claimed to be from another planet. These letters were full of scientific content and he's written multiple books about it (the latest, from last year, is jokingly subtilted "How far can we think to far ?"). Back to M Bazoof: "What ? He is citing an alien ? Is he kidding us ?" => that's Petit that imitates his colleagues' reaction back in the days, and then he burst in laughter. Serious again: "But that's the truth, alien or trickster, I received UMMO messages without which I would not have thought of the Janus model. A stuff life this, this is is insane, you have no idea. It brings you into a life-long adventure. It's like my life is the script to a Spielberg movie. And I suppose I'm Doc from back to the future ! laughs".
"If it's not fun, it's not really serious" is one of the maxims he lives by.
[1] https://www.mesopinions.com/petition/sante/droit-debat-nouve...
[2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.2838.pdf
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_objects_proposed_in_...
Ad hominem attacks instead of real arguments about the proposed theory is mean and not professional.. If that's what happened. My guess is that many areas of theoretical physics are getting too competitive, while funding is always limited. So, intellectual merit could be not the only (or not the main) consideration, outwheighed by things like reputation. Most mainstream researchers also have their own pet theories, and defending "some UFO guy's theory" that might compete with their own pet theory is hardly a priority for them either, especially at such a reputation cost. In the field that has so many theories that are hard to prove right or wrong, human capital and connections could decide the future of your theory, apparently.
Sabine Hossenfelder is an open-minded researcher, as far as I can tell. Sad that the author could not follow up with her, but there must be reasons for that.
Very interesting, thank you for the comment. I like math and computer science academia more than physics for these reasons -- people are less cut-throat, and generally more fun than in physics.