The Mandlbaur Insanity

Return to projects list

Introduction

John Mandlbaur is a pseudo-scientist who boldly declared war on the well-established law of conservation of angular momentum, asserting it to be fundamentally flawed. His outlandish defiance culminates in a ludicrous experiment wherein he spins a yo-yo above his head without the slightest nod to scientific rigor. Disregarding the essentiality of measurements, Mandlbaur brazenly fabricates experimental values to bolster his untenable claims. In a flagrant display of hubris, he dismisses the painstaking work of the scientific community that was done over the past 340 years.

Not only is he insulting the work of Newton from which the law of conservation of angular momentum is a direct consequence, but he is also insulting the great scientists who implicitly acknowledged it, such as Einstein, Schrödinger, Dirac, Planck, Heisenberg, Fermi, Bohr, De Broglie, Feynman, Lorentz, Noether, Curie, and many others.

It has to be mentioned that, for reasons that nobody can understand, he proudly reveals that none of his papers has ever been considered for peer review by the hundreds of editors to whom he submitted them (no wonder why, as we shall see). He also proudly tells that he made his “discovery” 10 years ago and that he has been fighting since then for the scientific community to recognize it. In other words, he's telling us that after 10 years of receiving daily explanations from thousands of real scientists about why he is wrong, he is still incapable of understanding something as simple as angular momentum conservation, while it usually only takes a few hours for freshmen to master the subject.

In addition to being arrogant, the character is a blatant liar and a coward who flees every single time we make him face his lies and mistakes. When fleeing from a proof that he lied or that he is wrong, his favorite replies are:

• This is ad hominem.
• Stop with the character assassination!
• Fault my math or concede!
• I am the messenger! (he must think he is Jesus)
• This is straw man logical fallacy.
• Yanking and fudging numbers is pseudo-science, isn't it?
• Stop this childish behavior, please grow up!*

* The irony is that he is the one who publicly threw a childlike temper tantrum in front of thousands of people who were watching him during this online meeting.

Also, when he loses an argument (he never won any), he likes to reply with an unrelated wrong statement that he finishes with a question tag, probably with the hope that his interlocutor will focus on denying it and will forget to claim victory over the argument.

Below is the most intelligent picture ever taken (top) and one of John Mandlbaur's claims (bottom).

John Mandlbaur's claims

John Mandlbaur has reinvented physics (and some math) starting back from Aristotle's time. Here is a non-exhaustive list of his ridiculous claims:

• The law of conservation of angular momentum is wrong (jump to topic).
• Newton's laws are wrong (jump to topic).
• The work-energy principle is wrong (jump to topic).
• Quantum mechanics is wrong (jump to topic).
• Relativity is wrong (jump to topic).
• Light has mass (jump to topic).
• The product rule upon the cross product is wrong (jump to topic).
• SpaceX eventually succeeded to land their rockets thanks to me (jump to topic).
• ...

Claim #1: “The law of conservation of angular momentum is wrong”

Before looking at his “proof”, it is instructive to look at John's Twitter profile. Below is a screenshot of it:

There, we can find his rag, which he qualifies as the “perfectly well written and undefeated proof of his historical discovery”. Let us take a look at the first page:

In his hilarious and arrogant introduction, we can discover that he thinks that he is an inventor and successful businessman. This is a lie that is easy to debunk. If we go to his website, www.baur-research.com, the first thing we can see is that it shows only one device, the “eClock”. Then we can quickly realize that there is nothing professional about the device and, above everything, he is incapable of explaining clearly what the device is supposed to do. Also, as we will discover more details about the character in what follows, it will be obvious that he didn't design this device. Either someone else did, or he found some schematics on the Internet that he simply used “as is”, without understanding anything on how the device works. Indeed, although the object involves relatively simple analog and digital electronics, performing the necessary calculations to understand how it works is way above his capabilities. This became obvious when, in order to test him, I asked him a very simple question about charging a capacitor through a resistor that he was unable to answer. Seriously, what kind of inventor could design an analog circuit without having any clue about RC circuits?

It is very likely that he never sold any of his eClocks, although he is showing some reviews from people who supposedly bought the device. Here is a screenshot that I took, in case he changes his website:

It was easy to prove that these reviews are just made up. In order to do this, I asked him on Twitter to explain the following:

1. Why Brian from Alugutter doesn't seem to be aware that he bought and wrote a review for your eClock?
2. Why there is no one named Antoleen working at Ashwood Interiors?
3. Why there is no one named Ruth working at Catermatic?

His answer was just to block me on Twitter. No more comment needed!

Let us look now at the second page of his rag:

Remember that he called his rag the “perfectly well written and undefeated proof of my historical discovery”. It doesn't take more than five seconds to realize that the writting is terrible, ressembling to that of an eight-years old. He mentions the experiment of “a ball on a string”, without explaining what it is and writes equations without explaining what he is doing. However, after looking at the equations, we can easily conclude that he is considering an experiment in which a ball is attached to a string and spun above his head at an initial angular velocity of 2 rounds per second. Then by pulling the string, the radius of the circular trajectory is reduced to one tenth of the initial radius, and a final angular velocity is observed. Surprisingly, he was able to perform the calculation correctly and concluded that conservation of angular momentum predicts a final angular velocity of 200 rounds per second, or 12000 rpm. This value of 12000 rpm seems to be what triggered his mental break down. If you try to talk to him about angular momentum, you will realize how obsessed he is with these 12000 rpm.

So far, there is nothing wrong with these 12000 rpm, but then comes the third page which he entitled the “proof”:

I won't comment more than necessary about the fact that he ignores that assigning numerical values without units to physical quantities is meaningless, such as what he does in equations 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, and 18.

The point is that he doesn't like these 12000 rpm, and absolutely wants to prove the prediction wrong by considering kinetic energies. Although he is not fooling any real scientist, he tries to fool non-scientists by using two decoys. The first one is that he is making a comparison of the energy for a case where the radius is reduced to one hundredth of its original length, thus without any connection with the system that led to his obsessional 12000 rpm. So, he finds an increase of energy of 1 million percents for that new system, while the increase of energy associated to the original system is actually only 10000 percents. The second decoy is that he uses percentages for comparing the energies, while he used ratios for the radii and angular momentum. In other words, the 10000% increase in the kinetic energy when reducing the radius down to one tenth of the original value only means that the energy has been multiplied by 100, which no longer looks so incredible. In all cases, the point is that he never proves anywhere that the 12000 rpm are wrong, he simply uses his argument of authority (authority which he doesn't have at all, by the way) as “the proof” that 12000 rpm is impossible.

Also, he is purposely ignoring what the existing theory really says, although thousands of people have already explained it to him: The theory never said that angular momentum is conserved in all cases. What the theory says is that the rate of change of angular momentum is equal to the external torque applied to the system. It is only when the external torque is zero that angular momentum is conserved. But when we mention this to him, his answer is “bullshit”.

Thus, so far and as opposed to what he says, he hasn't proved that 12000 rpm is wrong. But he claims that his math proves it wrong. As an alternative theory, he proposes that it is angular energy (understand rotational kinetic energy) that is conserved, so that his prediction for the final angular velocity is only 1200 rpm. Then comes his “experimental proof” which is just ridiculous:

• He is totally ignoring the air drag that becomes huge as he reduces the radius of the circular motion.
• He is using an obviously light yo-yo instead of a dense lead ball, which makes it even more sensitive to the air drag.
• As his yo-yo gains speed, he is unable to maintain a steady axis of rotation, which reduces considerably the tension in the string, hence the speed of the yo-yo.
• Above everything, he is not making any measurement of the initial and final speeds and radii. He is simply inventing values in order to support his theory of conservation of angular energy.

In order to prove him wrong, I made two real experiments and one thought experiment:

1. A rotational collision between two rotating disks that confirms that angular momentum is conserved, while some angular energy is lost due to the friction between the disks. The experiment is here:

2. After he saw my first experiment, he claimed that it didn't prove anything (although it clearly proved his theory of conservation of angular energy wrong) because the experiment wasn't “a ball on a string”. So, I did his beloved experiment of “a ball on a string” (namely, a conical pendulum in circular motion) properly, meaning that I used a dense lead ball instead of his light yo-yo, and I used a steady axis of rotation. I also started with a small initial angular velocity and performed a small radius reduction in order to ensure that the final angular velocity was not too large, so that the external torque due to the air drag could be neglected. Once again, the experiment showed an excellent agreement with conservation of angular momentum, while it revealed a large increase of angular energy, thus proving that angular energy is not conserved. The experiment is here:

3. When he saw this second experimental proof that he was wrong, he accused me and fudging the numbers (even though the measurements can be directly performed by pausing the video), and he said that I “forced nature to behave” (his own words). He complained that my experiment was not a ball on a string. I explained to him that his ball on a string is just a conical pendulum in the particular case where the angle between the string and the vertical is 90°, thus all properties of conical pendulum must apply to his ball on a string. Like if he wasn't making enough of a fool of himself, he claimed that I was lying and that his ball on a string was not a conical pendulum. I told him to look up for the definition of what a conical pendulum is, but then he fled (as usual).

   Nevertheless, in order to give him an ultimate proof that his theory of angular energy conservation cannot be correct, I asked him where the energy that he puts into the system goes when he pulls the string in order to reduce the radius. He first replied that it goes into “fighting the centrifugal force”. I explained to him that (i) the centrifugal force is a fictitious force, it does not exist, and it was invented for the purpose of being able to apply Newton's 2nd law in non-inertial frames, and (ii) the centrifugal force is not involved at all when we consider the system from the inertial lab frame. Then, I asked him again where the energy goes. He replied that energy was irrelevant. I made him notice that energy should be the most important quantity to consider for this theory, since his claim is that angular energy is conserved. He fled again. Clearly he doesn't know where the energy goes, and thinks that it magically disappears. Conversely, when the string is released, resulting in an increasing radius, it is the system that does some work on the hand holding the string and, according to his theory, this work is done for free. In other words, his ball on a string is a free energy generator! In order to prove him wrong (once again), I calculated explicitly the work done by pulling the string, and showed that it is exactly equal to the change in angular energy predicted by conservation of angular momentum. With no surprise, he fled again. My calculation is explained here:

Claim #2: “Newton's laws are wrong”

At some point, I told John Mandlbaur that it was easy to derive the law of conservation of angular momentum from Newton's 2^nd law. In order to move away from this fact that proves (once again) his theory wrong, he was forced to conclude that Newton's 2^nd law is wrong. But he went further and claimed that "Newton's laws are wrong", which implicitly means the three laws are wrong. As a proof of his claim, here is a screenshot of a message he sent me:

It is important here to remind that there is no theoretical nor experimental reason to doubt that the 1^st law is true. Whereas the concept of force loses its meaning in the framework of quantum mechanics, the 2^nd law in the form originally proposed by Newton (F=dP/dt) remains true even in the framework of the theory of Relativity. Finally, it is well-known that the 3^rd law is said to break down when involving action at a distance with objects moving at relativistic speeds, but this is totally irrelevant since we are doing pure classical mechanics here (and, anyway, the character thinks that both quantum mechanics and relativity are wrong).

Although testing Newton's laws is routinely performed by students in their first year of physics classes, I found it fun to redo these experiments, just for the pleasure of proving John Mandlbaur wrong again. In the video below, I am testing Newton's 1^st law by using a cart rolling a level track with low friction, and a motion detector to record the speed. With no surprise, the law successfully passes the test:

In order to test the 2^nd law, I added a fan to the cart that produces a constant force, and I recorded the acceleration for different masses added to the cart. According to the law, the acceleration should be constant for any given mass, and it should be inversely proportional to the mass. The following experiment shows a very good agreement with the law:

In order to test the 3^rd law, I used two force sensors attached to one another, and checked that whenever I use one of the sensors to apply a force on the other one, they both record exactly the same magnitude for the force:

Claim #3: “The work-energy principle is wrong”

Ok, this one is hilarious! Take a look at his one-page rag:

Seriously, how can he think for a single fraction of a second that it could ever be published? This is the high concentration of pure ignorance and misconception. There are some obvious mistakes:

• The flagrant one is that he doesn't even know what the work-energy principle is, in other words, he doesn't know what he is trying to talk about. There is no principle that says that the work done on a rocket must be equal to the energy spent by the rocket. The principle says that the work done on a given mass is equal to its change in kinetic energy.
• He totally ignores that a rocket has a varying mass. As a result, the system that he considers doesn't satisfy the requirement for the principle to apply.
• By rejecting the work-energy principle, he is contradicting the well-known expression of the kinetic energy that he uses on the third page of his rag on angular momentum (click here). Indeed, the kinetic energy of an object is by definition the work done on it to accelerate it from zero to its current speed, and therefore given by the work-energy principle.

In the video below, I explain all this in details, and I perform an experiment that successfully supports the work-energy principle. I also derive the correct equations that describe the motion of a rocket, and give a generalized version of the work-energy theorem that can be applied to it.

Claim #4: “Quantum mechanics is wrong”

Apparently, he hasn't written a rag yet about this, but he made his claim clear when someone asked on Quora for evidences that support the validity of Quantum Mechanics (Note that his username on Quora is Anglular Energy, while someone else created the username Angular Bollock to make fun of him):

He made his claim clear by answering the question that was asked. Also, when he responded to Angular Bollock's comment, he acknowledged that he has no clue of what Quantum Mechanics is about. By the way, if Quantum Mechanics was wrong, he would have had no computer to write his comments, since these are made of electronic components that are inherently quantum mechanical devices.

Claim #5: “Relativity is wrong”

This section is under construction.

Claim #6: “Light has mass”

This section is under construction.

Claim #7: “The product rule upon the cross product is wrong”

This guy never ceases to amaze me with his ability to expose his stupidity in such a concise manner. You can download his rag here, and below is a screenshot of its single page:

Simply read the introduction if you are in need of a good laugh. For the proof that he is wrong, it suffices to point to the fact that he is trying to equate a cross product (vector) with its magnitude (scalar). Find more details in the video below:

Claim #8: “SpaceX eventually succeeded to land rockets thanks to me”

He claims that it is thanks to him that SpaceX is capable of landing their rockets, after he sent an email to Elon Musk telling him that the law of conservation of angular momentum is wrong, and that it is angular energy that is conserved. I know that this sounds like a bad joke, but this is really what he claims. He said that SpaceX kept crashing their boosters until he sent the email about his “discovery”, after what the very next landing was a success. No need to comment any further about this, simply take a look at this Twitter conversation I had with him:

Return to projects list