Science wasn't always science.

Back in the day, when we still called it natural philosophy, it was all pretty loose.

People would look closely at stuff, read a few alchemical manuscripts, and then just kind of make things up.

Lots of natural philosophers were self-taught,

and back then you could be kind of a dabbler, a folk scientist,

someone just putting out science singles and seeing what hit.

This, of course, meant that lots of natural philosophers and alchemists

made their careers promoting things that were utterly incorrect.

This still happens a bit today, too, for sure. But over time, we got a little bit better at error

correction. And using systems like replication, being open about how the experiments work, and peer review.

It all helped make science about what we could

test and prove rather than just a stab in the dark. But it also got harder to be a kind of

scientific riffer, just a person with some neat ideas about what was up with reality.

But that doesn't mean the rifers went away entirely.

Larry Spring was that kind of guy.

He didn't have any formal training, but he definitely did have ideas about what might be going on with physics.

He also thought the whole field was being made way too complicated with all sorts of unnecessary

crazy math. No thanks. So he opened his own physics school, and he jumped at the chance

to share his theories.

He made all of these demonstration models to demonstrate basic physics and his theories.

And he would hold classes in here where he would beckon people from the front door to come in that were three hours long.

And if you interrupted him,

...