Perhaps there is an intermediate ‘strange matter’ collapsed state.

On second thought, he’s already there.

I’m fairly sure that wrongness is not fermionic.

Many years ago, I saw some of my own work described in a semi-popular publication (which I will not name).

One sentance in particular was striking in that it was wrong in at least ten ways, and was only ten words long.

My co-author (their source) sometimes used language in a rather confusing way, so it may not have been completly their fault, but I don’t think I could have written a sentance like that without a lot of work.

I don’t know what the true limit on wrongness density is, but using combinatorics it may be astronomical.

When millions of people make the same mistake, the only word that suffices to explain them is boson.
George

Reynold’s statement is, of course, in stark contrast to the meticulously researched, well-reasoned, sober commentary — utterly lacking in hyperbole — that is to be found at The Daily Kos.

Sean, unlike Fermi-Dirac or Bose-Einstein, you could hog the entire limelight for describing the statistics of the wrongons, and have something called the Sean distribution, for the statistics of wrongness of statements.

Hurry up, I can smell a Theoretical Physics igNoble somehwere there!

May I propose something like:

f = frac{1}{ e^{ frac{epsilon – mu}{kT} } + i }

Where |f|^2 is the degree of wrongness, and kT is the ambient stupidity, epsilon is the smartness of the person making the statement, and mu is a stupidity potential owing o the nature of the topic under discussion.

I think this is indicative of superwrongitivity, where two wrongs effectively bind into a boson state, allowing an arbitrary number to occupy the same sentence. (An interesting side effect is that lines of logic are excluded from its interior, so absurd conclusions may be levitated on it.) I think we should call it “Reynolds-pairing.”

I got a kick out of the implication that Reynolds’s blog is presently supported by wrongness degeneracy.

Sean, you forgot your atheism. There are wrongness condensates that meet in church every Sunday.

In any case, the Saudis have many hundreds of billions of dollars invested in the US; seizing their oil fields will not cause them to go broke.

Of course, in this case, the collapse to a black hole will not need to radiate any information.

Falling oil prices would presumably help poor countries. Even if they do not use much oil now they could expand their consumption with lower prices.

Give that man a Nobel Prize in Physics!

And you thought Republicans were against science!

Very funny. However:

Chandrasekhar’s Limit suggests that a neutron star or black hole forms when a solar mass of 1.44 times or greater that of our own sun collapses from lack of fuel.

So, assuming Sol to be normative, (1.0 solar masses) what is the linguisitic equivalent? 1.0 actual errors per possible errors would seem to be a reasonable norm. If Reynolds is making errors at a 5/4 ratio, that equates to a decimal of 1.25, which does not exceed Chandrasekhar’s limit.

So, in the end, we don’t have a neutron star or black hole. . .only a nova followed by a brown dwarf.

Sorry, but I have to correct this inaccuracy.

You need a stellar collapse of a star that is much more than 1.4 solar mass to form blackholes; something like 20 solar mass stars will form blackholes at the end of its life. The Chandrasekhar mass is the maximum mass of a degenerate star, but to form this degenerate star you need much more massive progenitors, since stars tend to cast away much of its mass when it dies (through supernovae, shedding of outer layers or otherwise).

Bah. I am a killjoy.

I’m surprised that nobody has yet proposed the obvious name for this new measure of wrongness. Why not “Reynolds number” ?

A useful dimensionless quantity: the ratio of number of units of wrongness to the number of declarative statements.

-cvj

Some numbers to backup my argument:
When you look at a nations GDP / oil consumption, you find that developed nations have better GDP/oil consumption numbers than poorer nations. By “better” ratios, I mean that they produce larger values of GDP on fewer barrels of oil. Worse ratios means that oil is being consumed, but with less production.

Top five economies: (GDP per year / barrels of oil consumed per day)
United states: $11,667,515,000,000 / 20,030,000 = 582,501
Japan: $4,623,398,000,000 / 5,578,000 = 828,863
Germany: $2,714,418,000,000 / 2,677,000 = 1,013,977
United Kingdom: $2,140,898,000,000 / 1,722,000 = 1,243,262
France: $2,002,582,000,000 / 2,060,000 = 972,127

Some randomly chosen third-world nations:

Guatemala: $27,451,000,000 / 66,000 = 415,924
Costa Rica: $18,395,000,000 / 40,000 = 459,875
Honduras: $7,371,000,000 / 37,000 = 199,216
Ethiopia: $8,077,000,000 / 27,000 = 299,148
Botswana: $8,659,000,000 / 12,000 = 721,583
Haiti: $3,535,000,000 / 11,800 = 299,576
Mongolia: $1,525,000,000 / 11,000 = 138,636

With the exception of Botswana, all the third-world nations have ratios below 500,000 and first world nations have ratios above 500,000. I picked those third-world nations at random (I didn’t find some good-ratio nations that I left out). A lot of this probably has to do with the type of economy (agriculture consumes more oil than, say, computer programming). Regardless of the reason, it still stands that third-world nations are more heavily dependent on oil prices than developed nations.

Source:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/ene_oil_con
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_gdp

Eugene wrote:
“Sorry, but I have to correct this inaccuracy.

You need a stellar collapse of a star that is much more than 1.4 solar mass to form blackholes; something like 20 solar mass stars will form blackholes at the end of its life…..”

Sorry, just to render your terminology consistent:

Youneed a stellarcollapse of astar thatis muchmore than 1.4 solarmass toform blackholes; somethinglike 20 solarmass stars willform blackholes atthe endof itslife. The Chandrasekharmass isthe maximummass ofa degeneratestar, but toform this degeneratestar youneed muchmore massiveprogenitors, sincestars tendto castaway muchof itsmass whenit dies (throughsupernovae, shedding of outerlayers orotherwise).

Bah. Iam akilljoy.

By theway, how doyou pronounce “blackhole”? Somethinglike
“Black’ll”?

By the Pauli exclusion principle, you just can’t be more wrong than that!

Heh, I suppose it’s no accident you mention Pauli in an articla about a new state of wrongness.

I’m sorry, but if you look at the statement mathematically, you will see that it is an implication, of the form

(A and B) -> (C & D & E & F)

Where
A = we seize the oil fields
B = we run the pumps at full speed
C = oil prices plummet
D = dictators would be broke
E = poor nations would benefit from cheap energy
F = we’d be called imperialist oppressors

As you’ve pointed out, C, D, E, and F are all wrong, but that doesn’t make the statement false. Propositional calculus teaches us that T -> F is the only way an implication can be false. So, for the statement to be wrong, we would have to seize the oil fields AND run the pumps at full speed.

So, Glenn Reynolds is not wrong. Yet.

Clifford,

If we take the Reynolds number X hbar do we get a fundamental measure of wrong action?

Am I to take it from the black hole analogy that you would like to see that blog become causally disconnected from the rest of the universe?

There’s a story that a friend showed Wolfgang Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli’s views. Pauli remarked sadly ‘It is not even wrong.‘ – a phrase which I’ve found of great use since I heard it.

Oh, and previously discarded theories created by a German around 1915 are being given a fresh look.

[help help I'm trapped in the joke machinie]

Yes, I have read that the Turks allowed themselves to be ruled by neutrinos in their fading past…

My god, it’s full of wrong …

Hang on, what about spin? I mean, even if statements have wrongness 1/2, you can fit 2n lots of wrongness into n statements, and we haven’t even considered the possibility of larger half-integers.

Would it be safe to say that the mere density of wrongness indicated, as it is concentrated in the echo chamber of like-”minded” readers/truebelievers of the reynoldspap, would of necessity reach the Chancresore Limit, thereby spewing irradiation into webspace, i.e., “bloviation”?

Here’s are some statements about Reynolds. You folks tell me if they are “wrong” or not:

He is chronically intellectually dishonest.

Assuming he believes his own bullshit, that would make him delusional.

Assuming he doesn’t, it merely makes him a liar.

Although not a physicist, I do have a Master’s Dregree (in Science!), and believe I may be able to shed some light on this notion that Glen has discovered a new state of wrongness.

Glen Reynolds doesn’t have many sharp tools in his toolkit, and unfortunately the one he chooses to use most often when analyzing a situation also happens to be one of the dullest: Occam’s Butterknife. This states that when concidering all possible boneheaded theories for explaining what is happening around you, the one that falls most completely outside the reality-based universe is the one you should promote on your blog. Outside the reality-based universe, there is no wrong, and also no Left. There is only Right.

Hope this helps!

Remember Glenn Reynolds is a lawyer. That should explain everything.

Yeah. Glenn is really good at being wrong.

World oil production is already near full capacity, so we could not feasibly increase production rates with all the world’s oil fields, let alone those of one country. Even Saudi Arabia is near full capacity.

What state of wrongness is that?

The need for an alternate perspective on the problem is indicated by the repeated failure to successfully parse and decode this sequence of utterings from Glenn Reynolds as a serious, “reality-based” propoisition. (Predictions that correspond to only physically realizable levels of stupidity are of course preferred.)

One alternative meta-hypothesis is that the blog-borne emission under scrutiny here is not, after all, a logical proposition, but instead a stream of symbols representing a sort of “preening” behavior selected for by the conditions of the right-wing blogosphere.

While “Reynolds number” is admittedly quite clever, “Reynolds’ rap” may be a more appropriate phrase.

I’m going with the black whole hypothesis.

It’s Insty… anything with “hole” in it is probably right.

I’m reminded of the linguist’s observation that the sentence “Them’s them!” (affirming the identity of a plural subject) contains three grammatical errors in only two words.

Shit man, are you telling me that neutrinos escaape a black hole?! I didn’t know that, and I don’t want to believe it either, because it would be wrong.

It seems to me that Wrongness may not be fermionic, because one might be able to combine any two or more declarations to compose a syllogism, which itself can also be wrong in its own special way. So n declarations should generate at least n! possible errors.

mitch is correct. Instadude says: Of the top 14 oil exporters, only one is a well-established liberal democracy — Norway.

Unless PM Harper has made some major power grabs over the weekend, I don’t think that Canada, a major oil exporter, is a dictatorship.

If you extend your range outside of that one paragraph, you’ll notice that the wrongness increases drastically.

Now that you’ve got front page billing on daily kos, expect to see the posts from right-wing knuckle draggers who will inevitably label your hilarious and oh-so-correct post as unfunny. They’ll give you the Colbert treatment.

Glenn Reynolds has 11 dimensions of wrongness…

Almost 30 years ago, I heard sports commentator Brent Musburger exhibit four dimensions of wrongness in one seven-word sentence. This is highly compact wrongness, neutron star territory here.

The sentence (a question actually) was repeatedly incessantly in commercials advertising the upcoming NBA championship between the Lakers and the Celtics:

“Can The Bird stop Tthe Magic Man?”

Larry Bird wasn’t called “The Bird”; Magic Johnson wasn’t called “The Magic Man”; it wasn’t Bird’s job to stop Magic; and if it had been, everyone knew the answer would have been No.

Funniest physics/politcs hybrid column EVER.

In all fairness, it’s a short list.

AC

The best we can say of Herr Reynolds’ comic intellectual pratfalls is: His paradigm is full of shift.

The discipline of which this thread is implicitly a part, quantum bogodynamics, originates in software engineering.

As is well known, “[B]ogons [the elementary particles of bogosity] also have tremendous inertia, and therefore a bogon beam is deflected only with great difficulty.” And, unfortunately, we in the reality based community are serving as a bogon sink, and the VRWC is still in a position to serve as a bogon source.

Can the forces of science be brought to bear to reverse our situation, and somehow deflect the bogon beams back onto their creators?

The future lies ahead. However, the notion of calculating degrees of wrongness is a brilliant contribution to the field of quantum bogodynamics, similar to the discovery/invention of “charm,” “spin”, and “strangeness” in the field of quantum dynamics proper.

Groan. Brings new meaning to the word “pun-ditry” I guess.

I see that the five/four ratio is only 1.25 instead of the 1.44 needed to form a black hole. But could we not invoke the presence of the Instacracker version of “dark matter” — simply put, the idea that he is wrong simply on general principles, thus making a sixth wrong?

I estimate that since Reynolds not only is wrong gazillions of times a day, but is either a) uncaring as to his wrongness or rightness, or b) actively promoting wrongness as rightness, that would suffice to declare him wrong on general principles, in addition to whatever specific wrongness he may be emitting at a given point in time.

A reply to #36 I believe. There are material conditionals (the truth conditions of which you stated) and there are counterfactuals. Counterfactuals are what we mostly use in English, and they are what are used in predictions. The standard semantics for them says that they are false iff at the nearest possible world where the antecedent is true the consequent false. You don’t actually have to believe in different actual universes for this to work, but it can help in ways. It is odd to use simple propositional logic to come up with weird claims about the state of a prediction, since predictions, and all other counterfactuals were taken for awhile to be proof that the material conditional of propositional logic did not describe the ‘if…then’ of natural English, and so did not apply to much of any discourse. See David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker for books and articles which are way above my head but set out the semantics for these conditionals.

Read correctly, as a counterfactual and not a material conditional, what Reynolds says is false, because the world would have to be very different than it is for his prediction to be borne out. The less like our world some possible world is, the farther away it is, so at the nearest possible world where the antecedent is true, the consequent is almost certainly false.

Moshe:

Very funny! One must remember to let go of the tail of the tiger at times.

W:
“Torbjööörn”

This is double wrongness. The ö sound (which english speakers don’t have) is also a tentative marker, akin to u in “Uuuuhhhh… Duuuhhh…” ie we say “Ööööhhh… Döööhhh…”, so this spelling is both insulting and wrongly spelled. It is an example of a bozon.

“”I think that if the cost of a commodity lowers all benefits.”

Wha? I’m missing something here; how does a drop in the price of a commodity, e.g. cotton, benefit all, e.g. everybody, including the cotton farmers?”

I don’t cotton much to economics, but I believe this would be the effect if the cost of the raw resource dropped. (Ie not the farmers gain.)

Of course, the fact that you don’t know what it means to beg the question, nor does Tim Lambert, suggests a wrongness singularity all your own.

Who’s We? Here in the UK we can’t even use a hose pipe, never mind finding enough water to run an oil field!
When you can’t even get water into somebodys back garden, then you have no chance! No chance! Of getting water, to run all the oil fields, in a country where there is non.
To run all the oil pumps, at full speed, in a country, you just invaded. Which has very little water, but needs loads of it. Would mean you just passed the Event Horizon!