Brian Dunning

Science denial is a weapon of mass destruction. Director host author

[Alex Boge @alexboge]

x² + 9 = 0. If you fired back "three," you just failed the exact way the crackpots do.

Yes, nine has a square root of three. That fact has nothing to do with this equation. Rearrange and you get x² = -9. No real number squares to a negative, so the real-number solution set is empty.

The actual answers are x = ±3i. Imaginary numbers. They have been in the toolkit since the 1500s, got their notation from Euler and their geometry from Gauss, and today they are load-bearing for electrical engineering, quantum mechanics, and signal processing. Your phone would not work without them.

Which brings me to my favorite irony in all of pseudoscience. The people spinning the most elaborate imaginary worlds, the free-energy prophets, the antigravity guys, the Flerfs rewriting thermodynamics on a napkin, cannot handle actual imaginary numbers. They will invent a global conspiracy suppressing infinite energy across a century and three continents, but hand them a quadratic with a complex root and the whole apparatus seizes.

They live in the imaginary. They just can't do the arithmetic on it.

The answer is not three. It never was.

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

On navigating "offensive" terminology — today on my Substack: https://t.co/5r9dYW727b

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

Your wellness influencer tells you seed oils are poisoning your food! Is it true?? This week on Skeptoid: https://t.co/UOANORNNTF

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@AlexHollings52 Convinces me

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

Looney Tunes

[Patrick Webb @Patrickwebb]

BREAKING: The CIA has been accused of using Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) to target and psychologically abuse whistleblowers, according to former CIA officer Kevin Shipp.

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@MiddleOfMayhem 🤔

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

Excellent aurora tonight from Bend, OR.

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@toomanyspectra 😃

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@BrandonFugal I just want to get my truck back.

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@AlexHollings52 It should be a law, really

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

Podcasters get recognized in public in unusual ways, because we are more often (but not always) recognized by our voice than by our face.
A favorite was at my daughter's masters thesis defense. I was in the audience for the public session, and at one point I asked a question. Later, one of her professors told us he'd always noticed Erika's last name was the same as one of his favorite podcasts, but a family relationship never occurred to him — not until he heard me ask my question! It was very nice to meet him and we had a nice laugh over it.

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

Piracy on the high seas! You've heard the stories from the Spanish Main, but here's the part you might not know was always 100% pure made-up BS. The Pirates of Cozumel is on this week's Skeptoid: https://t.co/N0Fq6HXSWm

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@JasonColavito Agreed — since there isn't really anything interesting TO know.

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@AlexHollings52 My son is working in China right now and came across this a few blocks from his university. Any clue? Mockup? Movie prop?

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@AndurilObserver @AlexHollings52 If you guys both know him, please come and take him back. kthx

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

Can anyone identify? About 1.5" long

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

"Quantum Speed Reading" is fake and ridiculous, but the reasons parents believe in it and pay for it apply to *all* strange beliefs, and to the success of *all* unscientific, snake-oil products. These universal life lessons are today on my Substack: https://t.co/2UomVolCn0

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@JasonColavito To quote The Daily: Today's kids don't want their parents' hand-me-down franchises.

[Brian Dunning @BrianDunning]

@sdcinvancouver I'm leaning that way as well.