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<blockquote data-quote="freyar" data-source="post: 6674779" data-attributes="member: 40227">One more fast one...This or something similar happens pretty much all the time, even now that I'm at a fairly small and not terribly prestigious school.&nbsp; I get several phone calls a year from people wanting help with their personal theory of physics, though sometimes they are too worried I'll steal it to tell me exactly what they think they've done.&nbsp; At my last job, there was one guy who came around the entire department wanting to explain how our understanding of light was wrong (security eventually had to ban him from the building).&nbsp; I once received a book of poetry in the mail from somewhere in Scandinavia (consider that I was a postdoctoral scientist, not even a professor, in North America at the time) which was billed in the cover letter as a theory of everything.&nbsp; Famous physicists tend to get stranger/more threatening stuff.&nbsp; My PhD supervisor once received someone's model of string theory, which was actually made of wooden balls and rubber bands -- yes, sent through the mail -- and another time was threatened with a law suit basically for once having worked with another famous physicist.Anyway, this happens a lot.&nbsp; It requires pretty sensitive handling from the physicist, though the questioner isn't always respectful or may not realize how much time they're actually taking since they're typically more concerned about self-promotion than learning anything.&nbsp; But it does lead me to appreciate a forum like EN World, since the conversation here is respectful and genuinely curious.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="freyar, post: 6674779, member: 40227"] One more fast one... This or something similar happens pretty much all the time, even now that I'm at a fairly small and not terribly prestigious school. I get several phone calls a year from people wanting help with their personal theory of physics, though sometimes they are too worried I'll steal it to tell me exactly what they think they've done. At my last job, there was one guy who came around the entire department wanting to explain how our understanding of light was wrong (security eventually had to ban him from the building). I once received a book of poetry in the mail from somewhere in Scandinavia (consider that I was a postdoctoral scientist, not even a professor, in North America at the time) which was billed in the cover letter as a theory of everything. Famous physicists tend to get stranger/more threatening stuff. My PhD supervisor once received someone's model of string theory, which was actually made of wooden balls and rubber bands -- yes, sent through the mail -- and another time was threatened with a law suit basically for once having worked with another famous physicist. Anyway, this happens a lot. It requires pretty sensitive handling from the physicist, though the questioner isn't always respectful or may not realize how much time they're actually taking since they're typically more concerned about self-promotion than learning anything. But it does lead me to appreciate a forum like EN World, since the conversation here is respectful and genuinely curious. [/QUOTE]

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