Wal Thornhill is a Complete Fraud (Thunderbolts Project Debunked)
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- Опубліковано 1 вер 2022
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I've debunked some charlatans in the area of astrophysics before. But it's worth revisiting to cover one of the primary figures of this rubbish, Wal Thornhill. He runs the channel "Thunderbolts Project", and has basically dedicated his life to lying about science to make money on the internet. Let's go through some of his favorite talking points and explain why they're stupid, shall we?
Composition of Comet Hyakutake: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.c...
Deep Impact and Tempel 1: www.jerichardsonjr.info/Papers...
Chandra and Tempel 1: citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...
Swift and Tempel 1: swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/results/pu...
Water on Tempel 1: www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf...
Composition of Hartley 2: arxiv.org/pdf/1406.3382.pdf
Diamagnetic Cavity at 67P: www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf...
Halley's Coma:
deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstr...
More on Tempel 1: www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf...
Cometary X-rays: adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/2002AS...
MIRO and 67P: www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf...
CONSERT and 67P: academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...
Structure of 67P: www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Exposed Water on 67P: www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf...
Water and Carbon Dioxide on 67P: www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf...
Rosetta Observations: academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...
67P Outburst: academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...
LIGO-Virgo Detector Guide: iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
Electric Universe debunk: • Debunking the Electric...
SAFIRE debunk: • The SAFIRE Project Is ...
Sky Scholar debunk: • Pierre-Marie Robitaill...
Suspicious0bservers debunk: • Suspicious0bservers is...
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I think you are missing a really strong contribution that Thornhill has made. I was having a lot of trouble building a cosmology for my Dungeons and Dragons homebrew fantasy setting. His work has really helped me devise a pretend universe for a fantastical story about dragons and magic. Thanks, Wal, for making up nonsense so I don't have to!
bigbang believer...its a religious cult : ))
@@gruenergermane wantto explain? ))
@ish shavay ne nosh van shavay they’re subscribed to Eric Dubay so I dunno. I just wanted them to respond and make a fool of themselves
I nearly chocked on my drink, this was so hillarious.
Had me in the first half ngl
For the record, Einstein also believed that plate tectonics was bullshit, and one of his last acts before his death was to write the foreword to a book claiming to debunk it. That's an example I always use of how 1) even the most brilliant scientists are non-experts when they step out of the field they're trained in, and 2) no, scientists do not blindly accept everything Einstein said as scripture, they just accept the things he said that are testable and yield useful scientific results.
Didn't know that. Thank you.
For what it's worth, when Einstein was writing, plate tectonics (known then as the theory of continental drift) was still heavily wrapped up with Wegener's original conception, which had the continents unphysically plowing through the ocean floor. It wasn't until Vine and Deloria published about sea-floor spreading in 1963 that we began to understand that the Earth's surface isn't a single fixed object. By the 1970s plate tectonics was accepted.
@@bartonpaullevenson3427 it's a similar thing that's happening with Lamarckian evolution and epigenetics! Yes, Lamarck was wrong that evolution works that way, but it turns out that his theory actually was true for a whole other field.
Sometimes I wonder how those people would feel, if we could bring them into the future for a bit of time tourism, and show them that while they/the people they criticised were wrong on the specifics, they were also correct in a different way.
@@bartonpaullevenson3427 oh, you beat me to it. Time is a really important factor in science. It just takes time to gather data on a hypothesis, so scientists just kind of roll with what they have at the time to form their views of the physical world. So using the example in this thread, Einstein wasn't dumb for thinking plate tectonics was a big bag of BS, he was just assuming it was because the data wasn't in to support it. I'm sure if he lived to see that data he'd change his mind.
@@MGmirkin Mike, do yourself a favor and get a college textbook on physics. Work your way through it and work the problems. You do yourself no favors by going with internet pseudoscience over real science. Real science is hard work. You have exactly two legitimate choices: 1. Trust the experts. 2. If you're not willing to trust the experts, learn enough about the science to have a worthwhile opinion. Just picking stuff up from UA-cam videos is not a legitimate choice.
Complaining that physics is "too much maths" is like complaining that history is "too much writing". It's a fundamental part of the discipline and it would be easier for everyone if you were to say you just don't like the subject, as that's pretty much what you mean.
P. S. - I am aware there are other forms of recording history than writing. The point is complaining about that, much like maths in physics, is pretty much pointless.
Why don’t science charlatans/flat earthers/etc. get into writing fiction? Their ability to build entire fake worlds is astounding, and it’s more honest money
Fictional stories that are too bad to be published find their market in esoterics, UFO-stuff, conspiracy theories and the sphere of the flerfers. Just look at Erich von Däniken and his tales about extraterestial visitors that don't like white people.
The problem is, writing sci-fi also requires the ability to tell convincing, meaningful stories with plots, themes and characters that make sense. Making sense is not something these guys are familiar with.
@@hqueso Having seen the flat Earth charlatans at work for some years, it seems that, if they could have developed a "model" that was internally consistent, and permitted even limited predictions, they could easily have created an alternative "Earth". Not sure about the character development, though. All they seem hooked on are God, the bible, and everybody else is wrong and stupid.
Creativity and critical thinking tend to go hand-in-hand, which is a big problem for these people.
I dunno man, last guy to do it started Scientology. I dont think i want another one of those around
Your book, 'Is This Wi-Fi Organic?', helped me get a friend out of the flat earth nonsense, because of course that crap made its way to Germany -.- You're making a difference, your efforts are appreciated and i'm looking forward to a steady income, because you've earned way more than the 21,45€ i payed.
Thank you, Professor Dave! ^^
I am very surprised by your friend being able to get out of believing in flat earth . I thought it's almost impossible to get them out by reasoning since if that worked there wouldn't be any flat earthers. Thanks for giving me hope that it's possible
@@John-qo9hw Thing is, while the grifter deserves every bit of scorn, the grifted can be helped. With flat earthers all you have is science denial born from anti-establishment frustration. Rational reasons don't fix emotionally assumed positions.
Conveying support while meddling in their worldviews is crucial to get anywhere. Shocker, i know :D They just need to be able to trust you when you coach them through inspecting where they draw the line between gospel and fake news. Enabling them to refine and refocus their scepticism into something useful uncovers the cracks in the grifter's appeal. Understanding beats coping with a lack thereof any day of the week.
Man, that is crazy. I can’t believe anti-Intellectualism has made it overseas…
@@John-qo9hw It's easier to pull them back from the brink the sooner you get to them. Once they start doubling down on being wrong, they're protecting their ego by then and it almost takes a miracle.
@@vogelvogeltje I didn't take him serious when he first told me and laughed it off, but when i turned back to him he just smiled confidently and started debating primary school stuff. I was so utterly unprepared for that, my disbelief threw me ab bit.
In person it's much harder to convincingly be nice about it, because his confidence broke my heart a little and, had he clocked that, he would never have looked into Dave's book with me. People don't respect or trust people they don't like, which is why any hint of condescension can doom efforts to fail. Like getting laughed at in class for a poor answer, it just beats inquisitiveness right outta you. Kids of all ages take patience.
My biggest question for this guy is why is it so important to him? Seriously, why does he need all of the scientific data provided by literally everyone else to be false? Why does he need Comets to not be made of Ice and dust? What does it lend to his life for anyone to believe this?
This is how he makes money.
@@ProfessorDaveExplains You think YECs denying the color force exists make money? These guys discovered denying the existence of the weak interaction can earn oodles more quickly!
It's kind of hard to wrap your head around until you realize it's all about the money. There is a not insignificant part of society that has a strong distrust in science (especially past 2 years) and people like Thornhill offer them something that fits their worldview of everyone but their group is lying or is stupid.
@@ProfessorDaveExplains I find it rather ironic though, because his content would only appeal to those who are so poorly educated, their employment prospects would be limited with little to no room for disposable income to pay him.
@@TonesOverthinksIt They don't have to pay him, he makes UA-cam AdSense revenue. And his main cash cow is his annual "conference" which his idiot fans buy tickets to, it's a once a year thing so they save up for it. Plus selling his videos to Gaia and other platforms, etc.
I think the most astonishing leap Wal makes is thinking that "f=ma" is somehow NOT math!
"He can't even build a toaster." "This magnetic field is thousands of times weaker than a kitchen magnet" best quotes!
@@railwaymechanicalengineer4587 Patent numbers please?
This paltry contribution is way overdue but I hope that despite the late arrival, this pittance helps you keep up with the great work you do 😁
Thank you!
Neither paltry nor a pittance!!!
You're very generous.😁
Cheers from Canada.
@@ProfessorDaveExplains professor Dave explains is the goat
"Best British accent I can do" Good Show!
@@andrewderringer3765 jolly good show
You gotta wonder why these guys don't settle for writing science fiction.
Because they suck at story and character development?
Back in the 50s/60s/whatever, there was a bit of a trend of failed sci-fi writers trying to present their ideas as real since, well, they were not very good authors so they pivoted to these kinds of grifts.
L Ron Hubbard wrote science fiction and created a grift of a "religion" Scientology. Those other guys just weren't thinking big enough for their con.
@@neeneko I read Issac Asimov's "I, Robot" as a kid. The first time I saw a flat screen TV I thought of him. Besides AI and robots, he predicted the flat screen TV in 1950.
@@derreckwalls7508 yep. a whole generation of scientists and engineers grew up on Asimov (not to mention his contemporaries), and probably kept a lot of his ideas in mind when looking at developments and wondering 'hrm, what can we do with this?'
@@neeneko-Amen. Only by making it sound like science can he develop an audience. Wouldn’t sell five books if he tried to tell a story!
As a mathematician, I can only face-palm when people try to insinuate that it's a problem when a science is _too_ mathematical (or that that could even be a thing).
I have my PHD in computer science (emphasis in computational astrophysics). People will sneer at me (after they asked me) and say 'oh bet you're really smart. No, I don't think that I am smarter then the next person that worked hard in their studies. There is something about astrophysics that seems to have a jealousy factor to it I don't understand. I am amazed at those that do organic chemistry. What is this thing about people not having ever done anything in these fields feeling like they need to defeat the science?
They've probably been belittled or insulted by someone, with poor social skills, being an elitist around an academic topic. Someone who may or may not be a professional in the field, but definitely thinks of themselves as expert and better than "the dumbs". I also have a PhD and, am sad to say, know too many peers who fit the bill and give the rest of us a bad reputation.
@@shaminoranger8588 Real-life versions of Sheldon Cooper ?
@@shaminoranger8588I think you're right on the money about some just being elitists. That being said, I'm a 3D animator and have nothing but respect for scientists generally speaking. Are some scientists brilliant and way smarter than the rest of us? Sure. Though a majority are moderately intelligent and successful by virtue of their hard work, focus and passion.
Because it's probably confused by them as being related to making rockets and only rockets - for you, the idiom "it's not like it's rocket science" has legitimate comparisons, so they can't throw it around willy-nilly.
STEM fields get (deservedly so!) a lot of respect in society for the way they can improve our lives. However, this respect can lead some people to elitism ("I've studied maths in college, so I'm smarter than you"), baseless bias ("you've studied linguistics, so you must be dumb"), hateful tribalism ("humanities are useless. trust me, I'm an engineer who has never studied humanities"), etc.
As a philologist and a narrative designer, I face this stuff depressingly often. Some programmers think programming is inherently better, harder and more important than anything, so it somehow makes them an expert in areas outside of their expertise (like the humanities, storytelling or politics). Some maths people think they're automatically superior to everyone everywhere (incl. programmers, biologists, historians, business people...).
In gamedev, narrative designers and writers are routinely underpaid, and have significantly less creative authority than other specialists. I think a lot of this comes from people not knowing just how little they know about the humanities.
I know what inheritance and OOP are, and I can write a C# script, yet you don't see me coming up to the CTO with ideas on what our game's code should look like. We all understand this surface-level knowledge is insufficient for that.
But producers, project managers and programmers just love telling writers what the story should be like. Dude, you don't know what a main conflict is, and you couldn't write a simple logline or outline if your life depended on it. You're welcome to your opinions, as we all are, but don't kid yourself thinking your expertise in SCRUM or software engineering magicaly makes you an expert in all those "lesser", "subservient" fields like writing, art or game design.
"Three quarks and a gluon" sounds like the start of a great dad joke. Someone funnier than me should finish it. Thanks for everything you do Professor Dave!
Three quarks and a gluon walk into a bar magnet…
A horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says, “hey, what’s with the long face?”……oh, sorry, you said “three gluons and a quark”, not a horse.
@@dross4207 LOL! Good one😄
Three quarks and a gluon fall into a black hole...
...
...
...
...
To find out what happens next you'll have to wait 250 trillion years.
"Three quarks and a gluon are leaving a bar. The quarks say to the gluon, 'Time to go home,' and the gluon says, 'I think I'll STICK around.'"
Thank you! I'll be here all week! Don't forget to tip your server!
It's so perfect when you embody the infantile nature of the fraud by showing a list of physicists and saying things like "just look at these dummy dum dums". So deliciously and appropriately patronizing.
He does it in all of his debunk videos, and I love every second of it
"PhD in astrophysics from Stanford? Pfft...amateur. I spent two hours doing Google searches!"
“Duhh...... whoopsie! We not know how telescope work! Uh oh!”
It makes me wriggle with embarrassment even though I'm not personally guilty of any of this. Looking at this kind of site is a once-only experience soon forgotten.
Naw...those people he speaks of in such a way are demonstrable idiots...so far. I don't know of a single instance where he called out an idiot and did not get it right.
It is amazing the amount of misinformation available on the internet
We live in an Era where if you tell somebody that their childish beliefs were wrong, you'll get scolded for violating their freedom of religion or freedom of speech.
I'll be honest, I was cruising around UA-cam and stumbled on him and it did start to sink in a little bit. He's so eloquent and the words he uses are so well placed. It was only after talking to some science friends of mine who took their time to show me without ridicule that he was completely full of crap that I wised up. Luckily I didn't spend any money on his books or anything.
from a genuine curiosity, what about it made it sound like genuine science instead of fantasy?
@@TeslaGengar I'm not them, obviously, but I would wager a guess that it has to do more generally with the psychology of rhetoric: you don't have to be right to draw people in who don't know about the facts. You only have to sound like you're right. If you sound like an authority on the matter it doesn't matter if you're only one step removed from speaking gibberish, because those who don't know any better are far more likely to follow you simply because you sound the part.
This is how a ton of self-help and pseudoscience groups get going, as well. It's always important that you stay aware and always double-check what people say to you.
I am intrigued that he interested you. If not his books, What caused you to buy in to Wal Thornhill's takes on physical reality?
Yes, talk to your science friends lol. If you want to earn a degree, you have to be able to regurgitate the orthodox beliefs. Good job . True believer always follows orthodoxy.
@@mirekfarmer Here is one of them! Easily recognized by the "lol" when they are arguing.
A small correction/tidbit.
When calculating the precession of the perihelion of Mercury using Newtonian Mechanics, there was a proposed fix that involved adding another planet which would have been called: "Vulcan", but it was never observed at all and then General Relativity killed the search due to how well it explained the precession of the perihelion of Mercury without adding another non-existent planet.
If you want to know more, the book The Hunt for Vulcan is a great read.
@ItBurnsWhenIP Its another god, Vulcan is the roman god of fire and metalworking :)
@ItBurnsWhenIP His Greek equivalent is called "Hephaestus."
god damnit, I knew someone was going to mention Vulcan eventually.
Newtonian physics calculated the precession of Mercury to under one percent prior to Einstein. Einstein’s “proposal “ irrelevant.
It is insane that people think civilizations over 3 thousand years ago, knew more about the universe than now
Indeed, and those people thought the Earth was at the center of the universe.
No they didn't. They knew much less. But the smarter ones knew things that the dumbest of today refuse to understand and acknowledge.
And they thought it was a snowglobe covered with water.
@@chrishakala528 Unfortunately we can't put the snow globe model in the past tense.
I had a nut job tell me that medicine from the bronze age was more technologically advanced than what we have now. She also believes the Ica stones are real
The best part for me is his claims of M87 being a plasmoid can be debunked simply by pointing out how remarkable it is that the torus should just so happen to be precisely aligned so that we see one of its poles, and it looks like a perfect circle.
Whereas if it's a spherical black hole, it looks the same from any angle, which only further supports the idea that M87 IS a black hole.
Then again, acknowledging simple truths wouldn't make him money, so 🤷🏼♀️
Not only that. Does he expect us to believe that the image taken of Sagittarius A* just happens to also be aligned in the same way?
@@San_Vito Yes, he does!
Isn’t that the same logic used for pulsars?
@@Liberty2357 It's similar, but not the same. Unlike Wall, no one claims that, for some magic reason, all pulsars are pointing a pole towards Earth. It's just that we can only detect the ones that are doing that; many many other pulsars most likely exist, and if their poles are not directed at us, we can't detect them.
Wall claims that, for unexplained reasons, the two images from black holes we have were "taken" from the exact same perspective. Just because he wants those objects to be shaped like a torus, even though he can't back that up with anything.
@@Liberty2357 the gravity field in a black hole can warp spacetime so extensively, that it looks the same from all directions. Things are not so extreme for a pulsar/neutron star.
The bulk of FE and EU believers have argument that sum to: “YOU BELIEVE [insert fact here]??? THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE TO ME/THAT’S ABSURD THOUGH” their lack of understanding and incredulity makes it just about impossible to actually change their minds. They may just not be able to understand it.
we seem firmly stuck in a world where half "know" 2+2=22
When he says black holes are plasmoids because they kinda look like plasmoids, it's like saying that an inanimate object looks like a face, therefore it's alive. And when he says gravity is electromagnetism because inverse square law, it's like saying that velocity is the same thing as power, because both of them are a property over time.
My understanding of physics is of a high school level and is over 15 years out of date. But listening to Wil made me feel smart. GR is one of the most well proven theories in all of science, it upturned Newtonian physics which was the gold standard for centuries. Of course people tested it throughly. And GR is not really to hard to understand the very basics of it.
It did not upturn Newtonian physics, it added to it, they are completely compatible.
Long time ago I played an edutainment game about math. The main villain in that game was a girl who hated math and wanted to mess up historical places by explaining physics, geometry and ages so that nothing made any sense. (Time travel involved) It was up to the player to discover how the math was really made and save the world and reality. Yea sounds trippy, but so does Wal's ideas. He could easily be the villain if that game gets remade.
That's actually a really cool idea for using reverse psychology. I have some kids who are really oppositional and just do not want to learn science and maths. I think they'd associate with a character like that and be interested, which gets the guard down and lets the real knowledge sneak in :-)
Yeah, these guys are full of it. I used to follow Thunderbolts Project with a skeptical curiosity because I see the value in examining problems from different angles, but the more I learn about these subjects the more I'm seeing these guys have lost the plot. They are really good at sounding legit to us lay people. One needs more then just a basic, high school-ish level understanding of these subjects to debunk these guys.
To the Thunderbolts Project guys and their followers...its okay to be wrong. Admit it, learn from it, and move on. You will grow as a person and be respected for doing so.
Regarding the last portion of your comment; that’s probably why he’s debunking them, because they don’t reevaluate their position, they’re in it for the money, not the science. Lol
Yeah, I used to be into it and took them seriously too, also visited a facebook group with their fans.
The Thunderbolts Project didn't the lose the plot. The lie is the point. It's a grift from a conman. He knows he's lying but he doesn't care because he's a despicable human being.
Congrats, guys! 🎉
It's encouraging to know that Dave and others help get people out of the mire of pseudoscience. And congrats to you for being curious enough to seek the truth... and know it when you see it.
Don't these guys mix in some weird mythical stuff into their claims? I think I remember seeing one of their videos where they began talking about winged snakes.
I love how every pseudoscientist project their own fallacies and assumptions onto the real scientists and people with common sense. Don't tell me to "think for myself" and "do my own research" when you clearly regurgitate what every other pseudoscientist and charlatan have said before you.
Every accusation the pseudoscientist/grifter makes is a confession.
Science is a religion. Pseudoscience was created to be the opposite of science so they would both be controlled by the same people.
@@Yatukih_001 Science isn't a religion, it's not even religious. Get a clue.
@@Yatukih_001 There's a fine line between irony and ignorance; just not sure what side you're on.
@@railwaymechanicalengineer4587 You've been grifted.
So Wal argues that Newton's law of gravitational attraction just "describes" gravity, and we don't "understand" it. And then presents Coulomb's law as a replacement. But, by his own argument wouldn't Coulomb's fail just as badly? He asks how one mass would "know" about the other mass. But we could equally ask, "How does one charge "know" about the other charge?" If you answer, "Via an electromagnetic field", then Why isn't "Via a gravitational field" a valid answer for the question dealing with masses? It's the old double standard of "I don't require my idea to even meet the same standards that I claim opposing ideas must exceed."
As someone who studied physics, this was awfully painful to listen. Thank you for yet another amazing debunk video.
U finished it? I'm stuck on the Quantum Field boss
@@jonnygillan Yeah that's literally where I switched games and just put on math. It's alot less stress
You FINISHED physics ! How cool!
Can you Tell me what happens if a hundred persons in a circle look at One subject at the center and they move in a hundred different directions?
@@DL-pj3fz in the context of "I finished a physics course on the University of Zagreb". English is not my first language and mistakes can and will happen. And weird choices when phrasing. Yes, it would be more correct to say "studied physics".
@@ibazulic don t they teach you how tò answer questions ? You speak fluent english
ugh finally, this "electric universe" shit was as stupid as flat earth
When space travel is available for everyone, this will BE the new flat earth
At least they say space exists
It is worse as there are big words and misuse of current science, which sounds and confuses people who are not familiar with science. I definitely got a conspiracy theory feeling from his channel.
Big respect to you for taking your time to debunk such people who became professionals at pseudoscience.
Well said.
I love watching these debunk vids
@@garyhendrick4391 I love watching them too but it’s depressing that people will fall for this BS, same as flat earthers, Qpids and anyone that still believes the US election was “stolen”. Seems once you fall for one BS theory you’re on a slippery slope to believing them all. I’m a sceptical person, like to check evidence of what I’m told to be true. It amazes and depresses me that people will believe whatever without ANY evidence, and usually plenty of evidence to the contrary.
@@francessimmonds5784 I appreciate the sentiment but I think its worth setting the flat earthers and the Q nutters apart from most other conspiracy gullible types as they are a particular kind of stupid. With some of the other types (like anti vaxxers/climate etc) a basic understanding of the science is needed with some due diligence to check facts and sources.
Those flat earthers deny the evidence of their own eyes lol
Perfectly stated..I was gonna say well said but somebody else said it
I love how you can actually see stars from the probe that landed on that comet. I guess that really puts conspiracy to bed.
bUt iT's CgI
@@RyoCanCan Lol
@@RyoCanCan Yup.
I'm sorry Mr. Thornhill can't seem to understand that the methodical collection of data walks hand-in-hand with mathematics. He wants, so badly, to assert that physics can be expressed in "word problems." Just say "math is hard," Wal, and we'll be more inclined to forgive your drivel...okay, maybe not.
I love watching him debunk these nut jobs. But you have to admit, when you look at these things, they do make entertaining fiction.
They do, but that doesn't mean the "fiction" is true...
@@Persholm1 If it was real then it wouldn't be fiction
@@Persholm1 fiction means not true you know
@@erikdahlstrom3561 @NIL SERÓ ANGLÉS I was making a toungue-in-cheek reference to the fact that their "facts" is fiction... I never meant to say that I somehow think ficiton can be, or is real, and for that misunderstanding I appoligize. I will attepmt to fix that with an 'air quote' to the initial comment.
The actual science is far more interesting and entertaining than the jibberish this guy pushes, which isn't even coherent enough to qualify as fiction. Even science fiction makes extrapolations on the future based on science, but this guy is an angry delusional anti-science nut job. Consider that Issac Asimov predicted the flat screen TV and AI robots in 1950... now that's good science fiction!
I have been looking forward to another debunking video! I think they are very important! Thanks!
When I heard that he tried to do Physics without math I facepalmed so hard I nearly knocked by eyeballs into my brain. Even in biology (my field) we use ridiculous levels of math, but compared to what is needed in Physics its a drop in the ocean.
Thornhill died last month, February 7, 2023. Though I don't wish death on anyone (aside from one who is needlessly and hopelessly suffering) a negative contribution to science for profit is a disservice to humanity. While I bid for him to RIP I also think this debunk is warranted!!
Religious Zealots calling science 'a religion', 'scripture', 'dogma' is directly undermining their own position, coming from a religious, scripture follower of dogma.
Ah, religion: the ability to see fault in others and be oblivious to the same faults in yourself.
@@derreckwalls7508 I'd say they pretend to have that ability or they lack it and only believe they do.
I was about to argue that maybe you didn't know what zealot meant, since I doubt these people have been trained in combat by their church.
but no, of course language needs to be stupid and change the meaning of a word...
@@irishmanfromengland25
I think your definition of zealot ended about the same time the Jewish resistance to Rome did, in 70 AD. I've seen it used in scholastic religious studies to mean anyone who wants to establish their own religion as a theocracy, and occasionally as a person motivated by religion to take extreme or violent actions. I've not heard it in terms of being trained for combat. Maybe it has different meanings in different countries, like chips, or torch, or bonnet, or bloody git. In the US it is used almost exclusively to mean an extreme religious fanatic, usually someone overtly and obnoxiously so.
@@derreckwalls7508 you're absolutely right, and the definition that came to mind for me is _very_ archaic.
After being spotted reading Neil degrasse Tyson a friend suggested I should watch the thunderbolts project to know what is really going on. I watched your video first and have to say thank you for saving me hours of having to wade through absolute nonsense
Did you know that the most stern critic of Velikovsky didn't read any of his books? With your attitude I hope you are not a scientist by profession.
@@zour2361you dont need to read velikovsky to see that this is all nonsense.
@@zour2361Lie in one instance and you are a liar in all of them, denial of math, the filet which separates truth from lies or to include mythology into your view of cosmology is enough of a lie to discredit you completely, no need to read any religious text
I'm not a scientist, and I found myself screaming "come on, dude, we covered this in 9th grade!
People would rather be lied to than enlightened and educated.
Thats precisely why this channel is more popular than the thunderbolts project
It's always a good day when Dave goes out of his way to annihilate another one of these cranks, doofuses, and even outright scammers with his no-nonsense manner. Keep it up, Dave! 👍👍👍
@@Atlantid_Agro ???
@@Atlantid_Agroyeah. I ain't reading all of that.
@@Atlantid_Agro I don't know what you're talking about, dummy. Grow up.
@@Atlantid_Agro Still afraid to actually read the papers that Wal cites to learn that he lies? Sad.
Best part is that Dave doesn't pull any punches when describing these creatures. There's no reason to be polite or diplomatic about who and what they are.
Still waiting for one of those liars to put out a peer revied paper and collecting their well deserved nobel price for correcting reality and science ... i prob gonna die waiting.
You know, if he and his cohorts could actually give humanity unlimited free energy, the transmutation of elements (alchemy) and eliminated the world's entire nuclear waste stockpile for pennies on the dollar (all claims they have made for their SAFIRE project) I'd be more than happy for them to monopolize the Nobel Prize for Physics three years in a row, and if they overtook Elon Musk in terms of wealth, it would be worth every penny.
Sadly, it's never going to happen.
@@EnglishMike IF they would actually manage that, i would be in the front row of the celebration party to them getting the prize but ... oh well ...
Wal's never seen an air molecule, hence they don't exist.
Professor Dave.... I seriously spit out my coffee laughing when you said "let's see you build a toaster" 🤣🤣🤣🤣
45:18 "And c is supposed to be a universal constant, one of these physics constants. But it depends on the medium, which means the vacuum is a medium." What a jeenyous!!
Around 2009 or so. I remember listening to a video about the electric universe. I thought that it was crazy then I'm glad that I wasn't wrong.
Funny around this time I was so certain that magnets could give perpetual motion power but thought electric universe was stupid. To be fair, I was in a dark place deconverting from christianity so had some other stupid things coming to fill in the voids.
@@railwaymechanicalengineer4587 you don't have to lie.
Today I learned that flat earth has some ideological cousins. Good grief.
Well FE is essentially followed by religious nutters. EU is based on religious nuttery. So yes, they are related.
@@ianw5439 I thought you meant the European Union. It took me a moment to realize you meant something else.
This fool Thornhill is to physics what Ken Ham is to Biology, they both rely on the absolute ignorance of their target audience.
When people don’t like to work but also want to make a lot of money, you have fraudsters like this guy.
I've never caught one of these videos so early. I think your last one was from a year ago, glad to see more.
he's Australian. All that blood rushing to his head as he stands upside down down under. Apparently he did graduate from Melbourne Uni in Physics so one assumes he practices solipsistic physics.
Well, he allegedly got a BSc in 'physics and electronics'. I never realised such a degree existed. He sold computers for IBM Australia for a living. Now he's selling BS to scientifically challenged numpties. So, maybe he's a good salesman. He's crap at physics though.
Sheesh, Wal has the charisma of a dried carrot. The people following him must be so desperate to be special and/or contrarian.
Thanks Dave, so sorry that this guy is an Aussie, we have our share of clowns here too. Appreciate all your content, not just these highly amusing and necessary debunks of broken grifters.
While you're at it, can you come collect Ken Hamm? He's overstayed his welcome and we don't want him anymore.
@@FGuilt No one else wants him either.
@@FGuilt I'll trade you Bieber for him. Those holy roly types are allergic to the cold or something, they can't keep a foothold up here
But this Bieber thing, oof
Austria is blessed with a steady trickle of prominent clowns🤣
He is an embarrassment to our country
Thank you Dave for everything you have done and are trying to do. As an educator myself, from a country amidst its developing stage no less, it saddens me that a lot of people take open-mindedness and critical thinking to the wrong direction - that is: criticising what has been corroborated by an amount of studies and proof beyond reasonable doubt, instead of examining and learning from them to make for a firm foundation and then to take part in making the world a better place; and believing in numerous hypotheses and/or conjectures just because they sounded "hipster" or plain nice to the ear.
I didn't have such a way with words so it for a while had been a struggle for me to try and convince people that they were grooming the wrong ideas about how science works. What little thing I did was to keep telling them it was not open-mindedness, but rather gullibility. This was, however, an ineffective approach as eventually it made me seem somewhat like a preacher, or that I was "in" on the conspiracy.
I came across your channel during the original Globe Buster incident, and realised why my approach was not working.
I criticised the people for being gullible, rather than the con artists for being scammers. I decided that change was needed. And it was. After I've adjusted how I approach this kind of issue, a lot more people came to acceptance that they were listening to conmen, and in search for the "truth" were led into even more lies. I started to ask them where they heard it from, what certificates did the people who spread such falsities had, and if there were any, were they in the right profession? And then I explain to them that it was not bad that they were being scammed by charlatans, it's only bad if they were unwilling to accept that they've made a mistake.
Fast forward until this point, I've given numerous lectures around local colleges and universities, each lecture comes with advice to people whose perceptions towards science were being warped by fallacious preachers and unsubstantiated pseudoscience. All by criticising the source of the information, and only after then would I tell them the reasons why they fell for it. It really reminds me of when I was still a student, when asking a teacher to confirm some information I read somewhere else only resulted in me regretting ever asking just to be told I was an idiot to have believed or convinced by said info.
People don't like to be criticised, but if they are, they'd like to know where the faults truly lie, and why are they receiving criticism for believing things others have said. As such, in my opinion it's crucial that we put the blame on the violators first, and teach the victims precautions second. That is what I've learned from Dave. I recommend the book "Is this Wi-Fi organic?" for everyone I consulted. I often recite things from it even, just because it always has the responses I need in various cases.
Teachers can still be taught, and Dave, you taught me how to be better at teaching rights and wrongs, in the most aspiring and interesting manner. For that, I truly thank you and wish you the best of luck for your future endeavours.
This is a comment everyone should read. It's encouraging that Dave and other pseudoscience debunked are not only influencing individuals, but influencing individuals to influence others.
This is just a wonderfully inspiring history you have! I have the confidence that you'll do great things for the education system in your country and you will inspire so many young minds!
Congratulations for finding your calling in life! Enjoy enriching our future generations!
@@derreckwalls7508 Yes. Everyone should definitely read this over. Very inspiring!
3:09 this part made me go on a 3 hours rabbit hole about the Oort Cloud and asteroid belts, I even forgot for a bit why I was looking into that stuff
As an Australian I apologise for this guy (and Ken Ham too)
Apology accepted
its alright mate we know being up-side-down makes to much blood flow to your head
Wal Thornhill! I feel like I stepped into a time machine. The electric universe stuff is a descendent of the original Saturn cosmology, which had Earth and planets arranged along the polar axis of Saturn. It too had lots of plasma physics in it.
About 30 years ago, Wal told me, explicitly, that mythology is an unimpeachable eyewitness account of reality, and therefore it must take precedence over physics at all times. After arguing with him & his cronies for a while (circa 1996-2002), I moved on to more profitable enterprises. The archived material I have is decades old now, but evidently Wal continues to tell the same unchanging story.
I didn’t realize he was still around, although I knew the electric universe is still alive & kicking. Nice to see that somebody is still keeping an eye on the old codger.
Great video! It’s nice to see you destroying no brained people with science. Also, I’ve been wondering how super position works, and how an object could actually be in two places at once. Do you think you could make a video explaining it?
Super position is an object that is in two places at once
@@meloncraft514 yeah I knew that it was something in two places at once, but I wanted to know how that was possible
Check my modern physics playlist!
@@ProfessorDaveExplains oh thank you! I was wondering if you already made a video on super position, since you have so many videos.
Superposition doesn't mean a particle is in two places at the same time. The most accurate way of understanding superposition is to imagine superposition of vectors (which essentially means just adding two vectors). It's important to note that superposition isn't only a thing in quantum mechanics; what's special about quantum mechanics in particular is that the states of particles are described by abstract vectors, and hence we can apply the machinery of the superposition of vectors (the sum of vectors) from good ol' linear algebra. Anyway, imagine you have two perpendicular vectors and you add them together. So say you have vector a and vector b, and you add them to get c = a+ b. Now I ask you; what IS vector c in relation to a and b? I'll give you some options:
1. Vector c is vector a and b at the same time.
2. Vector c is neither vector a or vector b
3. Vector c is vector a
4. Vector c is vector b
5. Vector c is some combination of a and b.
Saying "a particle is in two places at the same time" is like choosing option 1. But option 1 sounds a bit silly, right! I hope you chose option 5 as the best option. This is like saying that a particle is in some combination/"sum" of being here and there. So when physicists say the particle is neither at point a or at point b, or at both places or at neither place, thus confusing everyone because it would seem they've ruled out all possibilities, what they're really doing is analogous to ruling out options 1-4, instead rooting for option 5 (the particle is in some combination of being at point a and b). Superposition in quantum mechanics is really just adding vectors together. This is how superposition is mathematically treated. What confuses everyone is probably how to physically make sense of what it means for the state of a particle to be a vector.
I never went to university but I studied electrical/electronics (which is a branch of physics) and there were loads of mathematical formulae.
The most basic was I= V/R, or
Current=Voltage/Resistance which we tested, along with dozens of other formulae.
Anyone who says physics isn't maths is talking out of their arse.
he is appealing to an audience that feels slighted by being bad at maths in school.
look at the comments on his channel: it is nearly all guys with very little knowledge and huge egos
We all know Australia doesn't exist. Wal is clearly a paid actor.
Professor Dave! Thank you for your videos debunking these charlatans. It's a lot of your time and energy, but know that it is very much appreciated. :)
People who say gravity explains gravity using itself drive me crazy. You're looking at a simplified diagram, not an accurate representation of how the dimension of time ACTUALLY looks. Objects aren't literally rolling down a hill. If you think they are, you haven't done real research into the subject at all.
When you think about it, the comparison between Coulomb's Law and Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation doesn't answer the question of "how does this mass know about that mass?", as Coulomb's Law raises the question of "How does this charge know about that charge?" However, General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory answer those questions respectively.
I came across this video a month or so ago, and was fortunAtely or blissfully unaware of this whole electric universe crap and naturally had no clue about this guy's existence.
Just happened to Google him recently and found out he passed away this year, so yeah, there's that.
I know that you get that kind of comments everyday and by few people, I don't expect you to even see it, let alone read it. But anyways I want to write that in case you do. I stumbled upon your channel just 3 months ago and I can't get enough of you. I love your attitude towards these frauds, being angry at ignorance and mad at scammers shows that you really care about science and truth, I feel the same if someone does similar things in IT field. After some point you just break, there is enough dumb scams you can hear before you start to do something about it even that you know 99% of these people can't change. I came short of your videos, 3 months were enough to watch everything but with your upload schedule every other day I have something amazing to watch. Thank you and I feel bad that I'm watching it for free, I promise you Dave at the time I get a job (unluckily 6 months of internship weren't paid) I'll donate to you as much as I can for everything you taught me and for all of the laughs you provided which had made my days.
Also I started learning English 2 years ago and it's amazing that I can understand advanced scientific concepts because you teach them in a expanded (as in not that basic) but easily understandable way that I feel like 13/14yo natives with elementary physics knowleddge would get them without any problems.
YOU ARE JUST A GOAT.
I literally passed my physics class with a .07 above a failing grade and I got this video just fine so that does not bode well for Thornhill.
I can sympathize, as someone who scored a 2 on my AP physics exam.
@@miaomiaochan I scored a 36 on my Algebra 2/Trig Regents exam the first time I took it, and passed it the second time with only a 68. I understand math better than this guy.
I'm so glad I stumbled on your channel. I love it, dude!
16:12 If Wal thinks what physicists say isn't 'real' physics, "it's just math"...Then I say to Wal: "Your claims aren't real physics either, it's just words!" 🤡
Seriously though...isn't "math" just a necessary human communication method at the end of the day? The way Wal talks about math is so weird. How else are we to communicate the properties of the universe and how they relate with one another...?
It's like taking a science study or textbook and trying to discredit the information by simply stating, "this isn't real science, it's just English!"...and "Writers have taken over science!"
1:13 - To be fair, there are still a lot of Christians who claim to be prophets who hear directly from God.
I’m 61 and haven’t taken physics since high school. Even I could realize how ridiculous this man’s “argument” is. Thank you Professor Dave! Keep being awesome!
The analogy of flat earthers thinking north is uphill is perfect for explaining the gravitational depiction - kudos.
Listening to Wal talk feels like being sedated. How he draws an audience is a mystery to me. How you managed to listen to him talk for as long as it took to produce this video is even more of a mystery.
Perhaps some in the audience are suffering from insomnia ?
The same morons who listen to Kent hovind etc?
Sedated and then lobotomised
I can never keep up. Are comets and asteroids the devil or a sign from god, or god, or a sign from the devil? Is this on the SATs? Probably if the wrong people are in charge of education.
Ha ha probably in Texas,and soon,Florida
@@johngavin1175 I cant believe I got the lyrics wrong to God bless America on the english essay portion of the SAT 😪
Sometimes crazy ideas are simply that, crazy ideas. Unfortunately too many people misunderstood "smart people think differently' and instead believe "I think differently so I am smart".
This video led me to do a niave calculation using Newtonian mechanics and assuming that the sun was in relation to the earth where it was 8 and a half minutes ago. The force differential required 9 sigfigs to become notable, which is far less than the best data I could find for the needed measures.
So he’s trying to get a group of supervillains to pretend to be heroes? Oh wait wrong Thunderbolts, my bad.
I am for free speech, but blatant and deliberate misinformation should be illegal
The prisons woulld be overflowing.
@@Jehannum2000 They don't have to go to prison
Such a stupid and shortsighted take. Putting the government in charge of deciding what is "blatant and deliberate misinformation" would result in a lot of honest people and legitimate scientists being thrown in jail.
@@shiny460 Not stupid though. I said it should be illegal, how and why is another topic and I am pretty much talking about an ideal world.
@@Jehannum2000 let's just put them in Australia it worked for the British and pretty much no one is there
The sheer amount of Thunderbolts fanboys trying to dunk on you is both hilarious and very sad.
You are hilarious and sad, moron who knows nothing about physics
@@seaanna14 _"who knows nothing about physics"_ And you've shown to know nothing about science and therefor follow Wal....
Thornhill is a great example of someone who thinks that if you can't explain it to a five year old, it's not valid. it's a mindset that has taken over huge swaths of the populace. Sorry, but some things are inherently complicated and taken very specific training and learning to understand. People who distrust math are just people who are bad at it, period.
Someone who claims something isn't physics because it involves a lot of maths clearly has not done a lot of physics...
Ive been kinda tinkering around very little with his videoes every couole of months. Finally decided to literally type his name and debunked before i potentially bought his book. Not even 5 minutes in. Im not too concerned with the money but THANK YOU for saving me the time and head space.
Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that he seems to feel obligated to write "electric universe" in all caps _and_ add a registered trademark sign as if he's talking about the brand instead of the concept it represents?
Fervently watching these debunks, glad to see another one on Thunderbolts!
The real truth of comets THEY don't want you to know:
It's an ongoing snowball fight between Loki and Coyote. They both get distracted and bored easily which us why they don't happen more often. My evidence for this? I just made it up which while not any better then claiming comets were electricity at least its honest
Thanks, Prof Dave.
I read Velokovsky Worlds in Collision years ago.
Interested speculation, but total rubbish.
I think that the idiocy of Mars appearing as large as the moon BS came from this book.
I read that and Von Daniken's books as a teenager and eventually realised it was all rubbish and binned them
Yeah... the paper pages weren't even good for rolling papers
@@rickkwitkoski1976 😅😅😅
@@rickkwitkoski1976 bibles are better for that...
I'm always impressed/amused by Dave's ability to maintain that condescending and sarcastic tone of voice throughout the whole video, that must be exhausting!
Not gonna lie, "the electric comet" would be a good title for an oldschool scifi novel
21:55 Is it technically incorrect to say that the sun is always in the same spot? They orbit the barycenter?
Total tool this guy is. Great one Dave. I'm going to get in touch this week, see if we can get you over for a show on The Shills with us again soon. Take care out there.
"The fastest speed there is"...
Love your Python refs!
Probably also worth noting: inverse square law applying to things which by definition *MUST* operate on that law in a space with 3 physical dimensions, isn't something that should be used to claim those things are the same. The calculation of how much force an explosion imparts onto objects also follow the exact same inverse square law, does that make explosions also the same as gravity and electricity? I guess that explains why magnets explode when you drop them... what do you mean "no they don't"? That can't be right!
I THINK YOU WOULD LOVE TO KNOW, YOU GOT INTO THE TOP 3 RESULTS FOR "thunderbolts project" on youtube
1st: "The universe is held together by electromagnetism!"
2nd: "Gravity doesn't exist!"
3rd: "yo this electric universe stuff is a bunch of bullshit"
Excellent Video dave. Watching these science deniers does make my blood slightly boil though. The blatant lies are so dishonest and transparent, and for what? A quick buck, fame, money? Disgusting.
Whether Religio-politically or financially motivated there have always been peddlers of snake-oil. And, regardless of their intentions, they are _always_ detrimental to the fabric of society. A pox on their houses. B@stards.
Money is probably the primary motivator, but love of attention and a need for control over their lives aren't far behind. The allure of thousands or even millions of followers who like your content on social media, defend you against criticism, and buy your products, is a strong one.
Thanks Professor Dave, I love these detailed debunks (and your science and math product as well).
Professor Dave is a CIA asset!
"..Let's hear some stupid.."
Dave has no chill.
HE'S ALREADY DEAD DAVE, STOP KICKING HIM 😂
This video was made last year when he was still alive…
Though technically, since UA-cam videos are here for a long time, Dave is eternally kicking Thornhill every time someone plays this video. 🥲
@@elsawithginathedreamdragon3952 is thornhill actual dead?
@@MattQrillz Yeah he died last February. Unrelated but so did Bob from Globebusters channel. Dave is slowly dismantling these guys grifts before they kick the bucket. Hopefully Tour will be around a lit longer cause hes too entertaining.
As an electrician in second generation, growing literally up with electricity, also having studied electrical engineering for a while, most of what Wal says sounds rather strange at the very least. Apart from him rgularly losing the thread during those "lectures".
I'd like him to explain a simple experiment. Fill a bucket half withh water, tether a line to the handle, lift it on that string and start turning. If the gravity around you had anything to do, anything at all, one would expect the water to just run out of the bucket when you turn fast enough to get the tether horizontal. Instead it clings to the bottom of the bucket, although none of the maybe existing electromagnetic or electrostatic forces around you changed. That simple experiment, though I'm not a physicist, can be explained by Newton (since it's on a small enough scale), or by Einstein's GR. Wal on the other hand might run into serious trouble with his magnetics ;-)
Sifting through Thornhill's channel might have been the most depressing I have ever done seeing the amount of delusional people proclaiming that "Real science will prevail!" even after this total annihilation.
If it's a consolation, they're correct, though they don't realize their side is fake science. History will remember their theory like alchemical charlatans who said if you put sperm inside a dead cow's uterus it'll grow a homunculus and you can use it to make invisibility potions.
His channel gave me strong conspiracy theory vibes.
Man I love how blunt you are with idiots, both in your videos and replies
The idiots believe in modern cosmology. We have close up views of comets. As of yet, not one appears to be an icy snowball. In fact they look like regular asteroids. But I still hear comets are icy snowballs. Cruising like the Titanic.
@@thomaswoodworth7644did you miss the first 20 minutes of the video where he went over how we literally have samples of ice from comets? lol 😂
You can test the electric gravity "theory" by literally just holding a voltage meter in the air, and seeing is there is an X Voltage/Meter gradient, because macroscopic matter is (at least by approximation) electrically neutral, you need a really strong electric field to mimic the effects of gravity..
Spoiler: the actual answer to the voltage/meter gradiant of the Earth, is 0V/m
If a grifter admitted they were wrong, their grift would dry up.