Peter Braben

After a lifetime in Corporate Banking, I am exploring "X" to launch my new theory describing the formation of stars and planets. Exciting stuff :-)

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Humanity spent around £10bln Pa for the whole world back the 1930s, and yet look at the discoveries galore. Now we spend money, but where is the new science; where are the Einsteins, Plancks, and Curies today? Buried.

Until we collectively grasp that nettle, the death spiral in science will continue.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

If that were true, Brian, then why are you so very silent about how closed Academia is to new ideas vs how open Academia used to be to new ideas 100 years ago. Regardless of how much is spent - Academia today is utterly closed to new ideas.

For myself, I’ve presented 2 papers in Astronomy positing a clear and mathematically derived explanation of star and planet formation, which predicts observed data very accurately, yet Academia is closed to me, because my invitation for a PhD in planetary science was 40 years ago, and I instead chose a career in the commercial world; I’m therefore a “non-person” in Academia; my ideas and mathematics are therefore invisible.

I throw down the gauntlet to you - and indeed to any Academic on today’s world - to kick the tyres of my papers, and to examine the outputs. I double dare you, with a cherry on top. I challenge you directly. Will you step up?

ESA / NASA and others spend £2-3bln Pa looking for exoplanets and dark matter. My theory shows exactly where to find both. For free. It exasperates me to be so very invisible.

Will you or anyone else accept my challenge? At least hear me out?

When a young man from the Patent office, outside of Academia, presented his ideas on Special Relativity, the Academic world was set alight. Today that young man would be just ignored. Where even are today’s Max Plancks, Richard Feynmans, Marie Curies? The numerate and literate population is today 10x as large as it was in their day, so where are their descendants in our cohort???

So will you, or anyone else, pick up the gauntlet and at least speak with me???

Those who turn their backs on new ideas in science due to arrogance and their overly comfortable position in Academia, are totally complicit in the downfall of scientific study these last 50 years, regardless of the deck-chair-arranging of short term funding decisions.

So are you part of the problem, or do you choose to be a part of the solution? We’ll see.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

@neiltyson Hey Neil - I can prove to you mathematically that not only is Pluto not a planet, but also that Planet X does not exist. I would love to show you.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Hello Neil DGT, I’d really appreciate your help? I appreciate there are many fakeries around, but I would really appreciate some help in challenging / testing my new planet formation and star formation theory. It’s derived mathematically, but really matches well with observed data, remarkably well. It certainly appears to match and predict peer-reviewed data, however without university affiliation I don’t get any test or challenge to my papers. I’ve published 2 papers now on Zenodo, but they appear invisible to the academic world. If you could help, or look at them and “kick their tyres”, that’d be great!

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Thank you Valeriy. I really appreciate you taking the trouble to reply and to try and help. Thank you. I have tried to get invited to these things, but haven’t managed to make the cut, yet. I have had a plethora of publications offer to publish me for a fee - but they’re all journals I’ve never heard of, and look a lot like scammers. It all feels like a bit of a minefield.

For ArXiv, which appears to be the most prestigious place to publish, I did gain an astrophysics sponsor, (a Professor), however they said that until I was affiliated with a university or published in a respected journal my ypapers could not be published by them. Zenodo did allow publication, but does not seem to have the reach that ArXiv has. If you know a way for me to get invited to conferences so I can present my ideas that’d be a real help. , and massively appreciated!

And btw kudos to you for your own successes! I’m on holiday right now, but will try to look up your research when I get back!

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Thank you Valeriy, for your reply. Indeed; but I don’t get invited to those Conferences, because I don’t move in those circles. And even with sponsorship from 2 professors at respectable Russel group universities I cannot post on ArXiv, because they haven’t posted recently enough papers in Planetary science. Adjascent subjects are not enough, and some of the stuff which does get posted can be tenuous at best…

Nevertheless thank you for taking the trouble to read my reply and to respond. Thank you. Feel free to read my papers (link in my bio). I think they withstand scrutiny of the toughest kind - but you can be the judge of that.

One day academia will get itself sorted; but as of today it has a long way to go to return to the productive academia we had before the 1970s.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

You’re right we need a review - UK and most of the world of science is effectively closed off towards “new science”, in a way it never was before the 1970s. That’s the crux of the problem, and it is the lack of actual “new” science which will shut off funding full stop. Brian, I double dare you to message me privately on this topic, rather than grandstanding.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Brian - the crisis goes way deeper than you state. I’ve discovered a major new aspect in Stellar and Exo-planet formation, and get zero attention from academia - like I’m literally invisible. My theory is backed by reams of peer-reviewed data, but because I’m not linked to a university I’m literally invisible.

I absolutely throw down the gauntlet to you to read my papers and show cracks; I’m asking for zero money, yet to academia, I don’t exist. That’s the problem, right there. Money-woes stem from that closed-mindedness. Why throw yet more money to an academia which ignores massive opportunities for free on its own doorstep?

There’s no bullsh1t in my papers - message me privately and I’d be delighted to talk you through it. This could revolutionise Astronomy, yet I’m just screaming in to the void. “Help me one-wan. You’re my only hope”. If you want a chance to share in my Nobel prize, pick up the gauntlet; I dare you.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Hello Halo - the “why” is clear. Planets must clear their orbits, and Pluto does not. There are many bodies like Pluto in that region of the solar system. If you are willing to follow the maths you can read my research paper (link in my bio), which mathematically proves Pluto cannot be a planet.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

@CuriosityonX Definitely not - spoiler alert; if you are interested, my recently published research paper proves it is not, and that the much anticipated “Planet X” does not exist, either.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Hey Neil - I have some new science for you! Will you ignore it?

I’m an independent researcher and not affiliated with a university and therefore invisible. I’d love to share it with you because with your reach and communication, Academia could not ignore, it as they ignored me.

I’ve proved mathematically (and simply), why stable planetary orbits form where they form, and that do not migrate, nor do they need to migrate. And I’ve verified the equations from 400+ detailed peer reviewed data points, with 95% correlation. I’ve also proved a planetary mass calculation equation which accurately explains our solar system with stunning accuracy. There are 4 massive phenomena which I’ve predicted/explained. If I can get a hearing I think this will be quite impactful in the world of Astronomy.

Referring to your post: Currently I am being ignored, and you wondered whether Aliens would ignore science. To me you are a “bit of an alien” because I don’t know you - so here’s me asking you whether you’ll ignore my science?

I’d love to hear from you and you can kick the tyres of my 2 papers I’ve published. I know you probably have a gzillion replies and comments to look at, but shall cross fingers I hear from you!

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

@konstructivizm Whereas my theory fully predicts and explains it - yet academia will not even read my 2 published papers, despite them actually predicting this phenomena. If you want to know why “new science is dead”, look no further than this.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Thanks John - that is awful, and sorry to hear it. I’ve published my findings already on Zenodo (CERN site), and so would be hard to argue it was someone else’s idea, but you’re not wrong, and your own experience shines a spotlight on the cancer within science and Academia.

Just look at science in the 1930s. In today’s money, corrected for inflation etc, we spent $10bln Pa on research, and in the 30s we diacoveeed Muons, antiparticles, and split the atom. Quantum dynamics and quantum mechanics became “a thing”. Medicine rocketed centuries forward with the advent of antibiotics, and X-ray diffraction was born which led to decoding DNA, and the cyclotron was developed which led to CERN and LHC. Alan Turing developed the Turing test in AI, and Marie Curie gave her life discovering effects of radioactivity, and discovering new elements (Radium and Pollonium). Yet today we spend $10bln every DAY in academia, and what have we had in “new” science in the last 30-50 years. Pretty much zilch.

The reason is because today’s Einsteins, Max Plancks, Rutherfords, Turings, are invisible, because academia will players their ideas, or ignore them, all the time. Just look at your experience. Where are today’s Einsteins??

If a young patent attorney published a paper on special relativity today, he’d be ignored, and that is a travesty.

Anyway, thank you for your comment, and good luck with your next work.

If you would like to read my papers, just search my name on the CERN “Zenodo” website, and they’re both there.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Dear NASA Exoplanet Archive / Science Team, I have developed a new theory on star and planet formation and have now published two papers on the topic.

As an independent researcher with no astrophysics affiliation, I have struggled to obtain a proper review from the relevant academic community. Professors in Biochemistry and Earth Sciences have read the papers and found them interesting, but they cannot provide domain-specific peer review.

The theory is genuinely completely new, and was derived mathematically, then validated using NASA’s public exoplanet and stellar datasets, achieving >95% correlation with observed data, and also accounts for several currently unexplained phenomena.

Because this work relies heavily on NASA data, I am writing to ask whether someone on your team (or a colleague you could suggest) would be willing to review the papers and help me to develop this. Links to the 2 papers are here, (on Zenodo),

https://t.co/eTsaWUthP4
https://t.co/fAn4WcMe95

I would be grateful for any consideration you can give this request.

Peter Braben

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Thanks Trill - they say, the best things in life a free, but science in today’s world puts up a huge and for me insurmountable pay-wall for people like me.

I’m not linked to a university, so my work is invisible. Those with reach and contacts in the academic world could make it “free” by giving access and airtime to new ideas.

Take me as a prime example. NASA alone spends nearly $1bln Pa searching for exoplanets - yet my theory shows you where they all are - and for free.

Thanks for your reply - the challenge is how do we give people “access and airtime”, as there are plenty of cranks and oddballs around; and who’s to say I’m not one, (I don’t think I am but that’s just my opinion!) Humanity managed so see the wood for the trees very well 100 years ago when we were spending 1/300 Pa as much money on science in real terms - those in science were keen to embrace and understand new ideas. Not so much now, and honestly, try explaining to astronomers that planets CANNOT migrate once formed, because there’s no force to start the migration, and none to stop it, and it is as if you’ve farted in their space-suit. Science today is emphatically closed to new ideas.

So there you go - hopefully my answer makes sense!!??

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Hey Erika - great post. But please let me challenge one of your central tenets?

Pre Gallileo, most people thought the Earth was the centre of the universe, and any thoughts to the contrary were heresy, and people were to be burned at the stake for suggesting them.

Today we have the unshakeable belief that there was a single big bang, which started everything. A handy and comfortable notion, but one without a shred of evidence. Sure, some of our local observations imply it, but the same argument applies to the Earth being the centre - everything does indeed appear to revolve around us, and indeed the Earth does look pretty flat - I mean just look at the sea! The problem is when we look at cosmology, we have to start “fudging” to make the big bang feasible. And the deeper we look, the more we have to fudge, until eventually we need to be open that there possibly were a series of “large bangs”, or other phenomena which actually follow the lows of physics we observe, and that the idea of a single big bang is no more logical than thinking a deity created us.

Mother Nature is not a democracy, and no matter how much we’d like the Earth to be at the centre, or for a big bang to have formed everything neatly, the universe is what it is, and the more we try to shoe-horn it in to a particular fashionable model, the more we fail.

My own experience is more local in astronomy. I’ve developed a mathematical model which derived equations for stable orbits for all planets, based on the chemistry of the stars, and posits a formation model for the stars, which allows us to calculate the mass of planets from the chemistry and mass of the stars. My equations do indeed appear to match what is observed. But even my own university, (which I graduated from 40 years ago), said … we’re too busy to look at your papers, but you don’t appear to align with currentl theories “therefore you are wrong”, and suggested I “drop it”. They didn’t even read it. I’m not making this up!

So here’s a gauntlet thrown down to you - or indeed anyone reading this thread. Search my name and Zenodo (CERN database), and you will see my first 2 published academic papers. Read even just the summary at the start, and you’ll see that they do indeed match observed data, and have predicted a number of phenomena which have since been observed, and are otherwise unexplained. The equations are derived mathematically. Now there may well be hiccups in my maths or poor writing in my papers, and my theories surely aren’t the be-all-and-end-all, but one thing is for sure - they’re not wrong, because they align fully with observed data, whereas the fairy-stories in the currently fashioable “Nice model” of solar system formation certainly ARE wrong, and don’t correlate with observed data. Yet the serried ranks of unthinking astronomers who litter academia believe in it unquestioningly, and treat anyone with new ideas as a heretic who is to be burned (metaphorically).

So the gauntlet to you, Erika, is would you take a short while to read my papers and form an opinion? Or DM me and I can summarise them for you? I lack reach or connections in Academia, and would be delighted for someone to “kick the tyres” of my theories and see what’s what. And I’ll end on a question. If a young patent attorney presented new ideas in physics challenging and changing fundemental tenets of our understanding - as a certain young man did in 1905 - would today’s “X”, universities, or media give him airtime, or would academia today deny us our Relativity, or our Einstein? Sadly, I fear that today, he’d stay stuck filing patents, and getting frustrated, because the eyes and ears of the scientific community are as closed today as they were in the 16th century. Please prove me wrong.

[Peter Braben @PeterBraben]

Lovely clip, Neil, but you ignore the fact that today’s kids, when they are curious, face a stone wall from Academia in respect of any new ideas in science. We need communicators like you to open doors for new scientists - because currently - and since the mid 1979s - there is pretty much zero actually “new” in science.

Yes we have better this, or shinier that, but nothing genuinely new. I’ve tried to showcase my genuinely new theory in Astronomy, which explains a whole host of currently unexplained observed phenomena, and the ranks of academia are firmly closed to people like me because I’m not affiliated with a University.

DM me if you’d be open to helping unlock the padlock closing science to new ideas.