Think of it like this: how many degree-level lectures can you give in physics as compared to whatever your profession is? Now imagine what someone who knows as much about your profession as you do about physics sounds like to you.

Half my questions on Physics stackexchange are so naïve they’re not even wrong, they are so bad they get closed as nonsensical. Looking at past exam papers, I could probably get a grade B in A-level physics (A-level is UK qualification taken at age 18 between secondary school and university currently used to decide which university you go to).

The other half of my ideas are right, but actual physicists tell me they’re “obvious” and “not worth writing about”.

The fact that pretty much all thoughts from people outside the field are either obvious, false, or nonsensical... doesn't invalidate the idea that flashes of insight can come from anywhere. I get what you're saying and agree the odds of it happening are pretty much zero. But sometimes even things with a probability of pretty much 0 can happen. The eigenvalue thing is an example of that, in my opinion.

A layperson could unwittingly trigger a cognitive leap by asking naive questions. A la Feynman saying he can't explain magnetism in a way that I could understand it, the effort could spark an insight or novel angle.

Name a single instance of a lay person without a background in physics discovering the basis behind a phenomenon since 1900.

For some reason, physics seems to be disproportionately popular among armchair theorists compared to other fields like math or chemistry.

> disproportionately popular among armchair theorists compared to other fields like math or chemistry.

I’ve heard this before, but I wonder how true it is? I know my experiences are just anecdotes, but I knew a guy who was convinced the Hotel Room/Bellboy/Missing Dollar problem “broke maths”, and I’ve had countless frustrations with family members promoting homeopathy and acquaintances talking about chemical X being “one atom away from being bleach” like that doesn’t apply to water.

I’d be interested if anyone has done a real analysis of rates of armchair nonsense by sector.

Weren't (some)new super conductors discovered by just trying a bunch of crap already on the shelves in the labs once the concept existed?

Anyway, I just thought every device we make to measure something, there's some event the blows the scales. So what if you really just make shit up where does that go?

I like the other commenter defending the post about Cthulhu, It's just as made up as what I posted. Perspective is healthy.

I think people don't like your post because your example is from fiction and is therefore not insightful as to whether or not layman speculation can provide value.

The eigenvalues and eigenvectors example is in there now, and that one is not fiction. It's also really cool.

Physicists providing an insight into math is absolutely not what I was talking about - I was talking about lay people providing an insight into theoretical physics.

To suggest that theoretical physicists are lay people with respect to math is silly. Also, I don't understand what you mean by a "connection between eigenvalues and eigenvectors" as the two seem quite obviously connected a priori?