The following experience may also be of help to those of us working in “alternative” theories.

Presenting a Theoretical Model

I have had the opportunity to present my uniform expansion model at a variety of Physics conventions and I would like to share some of my experiences. It is hoped that others trying to present fundamental or new theoretical models will benefit from my experiences.

The first place I had an opportunity to present was at Wake Forest University in North Carolina at the 8th gravitational conference. The hosts at Wake Forest were gracious, not only did they offer helpful support for all the presenters; they even provided a dinner allowing the presenters to get together. Southern Hospitality exists at Wake Forest.

Lesson 1.
If a conference offers a dinner, even if it is not free, attend. The contacts that can be made will be more meaningful than any possible result of a presentation.

Lesson 2.
When it comes to gravity, no one really knows what is happening.

After listening to 2 days of presentations on gravity, it was surprising to find the amazing differences in the possible theoretical models. From the 1930’s to the 1950’s the number of papers written on general relativity numbered about 5 to 10 a year. After Brans - Dicke (at least that is who I recall, please correct me if I am giving credit to the wrong people). published an alternative metric in the early 1960’s, all of a sudden it became the rage to publish various developments of general relativity. Now about 800 papers are written a year and the publication curve indicates that the number of publications will increase well beyond that annual rate as time passes.

The various details of each model is so complex, few really understand each others work. Even spending time trying to figure out the details of someone else’s work is a distraction to figuring the details in ones own approach. Close alliances between faculty and graduate students are a fundamental aspect to these developing models.

Lesson 3.
A unified Field theory is highly unlikely to be found as a result of the extension of the techniques used in General Relativity.

I know I will take “heat” for that statement, but the immense divergence in various applications of general relativity makes it unlikely any uniform agreement will be found within the various factions. The intellectual ego is well established after years of specialized study; who would ever admit someone is smarter than themselves?

Lesson 4.
Oral Presentations take a particular type of personality. If you are uncomfortable in front of a crowd, look for poster board presentations instead.

I am a nervous type of person, talking in front of a group of people makes me anxious. Wake Forest was the first presentation I made in an “arena “ type classroom and I was so nervous it affected the quality of the presentation.

Lesson 5.
Do not expect anyone who hears your work to compliment you on your efforts.

The only individuals I observed giving any positive feed back were by professors to their grad students. While personal interactions were cordial, when it comes to positive responses to another’s presentation, I observed no support for another individuals work. Now I could not be “everywhere” but I did look for this kind of interaction. Knowing this, it makes it a bit easier to accept the cold reaction to any presentation. (I even watched a number of people actually fall asleep during some of the presentations). This critique is not a personal indictment, it is a nature of the people in the field.

Lesson 6
You only have 15 minutes.
There is no way you are going to convince anyone of anything that is different from what they presently believe in such a short time.

Lesson 7
It will take years of steady work to convince anyone of the validity of your model.

I then went to the American Physical Society conference held at MIT. Here I had a Poster Board Presentation and an oral presentation. There are a few more lessons I learned in this forum.

Lesson 8
Poster Board Presentations allows the greatest level of personal interaction.
Initially I thought that Poster Board presentations would be a step down from an oral presentation, this is not the case whatsoever. Some of the advantages of a Poster Presentation are
a. Practice, you will repeat the same introduction to the model over and over. After awhile you will find that the conciseness of the introduction will improve. You will be able to observe the listeners while you talk and see were you have confused them and where you have intrigued them. You will gain confidence in expressing yourself.
b. Time, while most will only have a few minutes to spend with you, some will spend over a half an hour discussing various details.
c. Feed back. The closer, more intimate relationship developed between you and the listener will encourage a dialogue and an exchange of ideas. This allows the opportunity to discover different ways to evaluate your work, perhaps even finding a few errors or poorly expressed concepts.

Lesson 9
Undergrads and Graduate students are your best audience.
A professor with a Ph.D usually has an “old” brain. They loose the flexibility in thinking or perceiving in a “new” or different manner. They also think they know everything already (even if they say they don’t, they do, ). Students are still in a learning mode of thinking. They also will be very skeptical and will ask the best questions.

Another benefit of presenting to a younger crowd is the enthusiasm that these kids can give in response to your work. (When I gave them a copy of my work some said “this might be worth something someday”.) This really boosted my confidence.

Lesson 10
If giving an oral presentation, leave time for questions.
After my experience in Wake Forest, I knew to not leave the traditional 2 minutes of time for questions. I reduced the presentation of the model to less than 5 minutes (after all that poster board practice I learned how to keep it simple), I asked for the remainder of the time to be devoted to questions. This was great since I finally got responses from the Ph.D guys, before this, almost all of them would have ignored me.

Lesson 11
Do not let your confidence go to your head
This was a mistake I made at MIT in the oral presentation. After the positive feed back from the students during the poster board presentation I became a confident enough that I expressed myself with a bit of arrogance. I knew I was right, I found the basis for a unified field theory. Everything fit, and there were too many confirmations of the model to allow it to be fluke.

One of the typical criticisms of my model is that “it is too simple to be true”. When one of the PhD guys in general relativity said my model was too simple, I could not help but respond in a rather fake laughing manner, I said, “you got to be kidding me, your criticism is that it is too simple to be true, what kind of criticism is that?” Not one of my more honorable moments, but in part it is born from frustration. (Particularly since I had just shown that none of the Relationships of General relativity were being altered and that the model itself is based upon a geometric relationships between distance and time, the very basis of general relativity in the first place).

How is anyone going to get anyone to agree with one’s work if you alienate your most important critics?

Lesson 12
If your ideas are outside of the mainstream and you are looking for support for your work, look outside of the Mainstream.

One of the “criticisms” from the general relativity guys of my work was that it was not applied to observation. When I pulled out a petition asking the American Astronomical Society to consider allowing me the opportunity to make a presentation which applied my theory to observation (the energy production of quasars without black holes and an explanation for the lack of time dilation associated with the energy production from a quasar) they refused to sign it. Again I made the same alienating mistake and said “you got to be kidding me, you criticize my work because it does not offer conformance to observation and when I ask you to give me the chance to present conformation, you refuse to do so”.

(Again, How is anyone going to get anyone to agree with one’s work if you alienate your most important critics?)

However, at this conference there were a few guys from the ‘Plasma’ crowd. They were very willing to sign the petition. They know what it is like to be an “outsider” and how hard it is to be listened to.

I then went to the Annual American Physical Association in Florida for 5 days.
This reconfirmed my experience with poster board presentations, but I also learned the following.

Lesson 13
Spend time knowing the people around you personally. This includes the people helping at the conference.

Lesson 14
Learn about publishing your work
At this conference there were a number of publishers. I failed to take advantage of talking to all the various publishers and only talked to one in detail. I was not really aware that this opportunity would be there and had not scheduled any time for it.

That’s it. I am sure there was more I should have learned, I’ll probably have to figure the rest of it along the way. It is odd. It is harder to figure out how to be taken seriously than it is to develop a unified field theory.