"Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go!" e. e. cummings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYgMlv_rSUI
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/two-experiments-might-soon-show-if-socalled-mirror-matter-exists/
Maybe Dr. Broussard will discover super asymmetry?
I'm skeptical, but we'll see if the experiment will see a discrepancy between the neutrons fired and the detected neutrons.
Also, there might also be less than a novel explanation, if the case may be, for the missing neutrons; than if the experiments points to the existence of a mirror universe. Experiment will tell!
I've heard of the hypothesis that the dark matter might be from gravity leaking into out universe from another, but I didn't expect there to be any experiment that could decide the question. I hope we can get an update when the experiment is done!
There's a greater chance that God exists than the parallel universe. There's nothing wrong with an episode or two in Star Trek using the parallel universe to weave a story but when a physicist does it to get a sensational headline in a magazine, it's a sad comment on physics, science and tax payers' money. This thread has ruined my day.
It may not exist, but if no one looks we'll never know for sure. People used to think that rocks could never fall from the sky, but they were shown the error of that thinking, by observation.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 08, 2019, 08:15:58 PM
There's a greater chance that God exists than the parallel universe. There's nothing wrong with an episode or two in Star Trek using the parallel universe to weave a story but when a physicist does it to get a sensational headline in a magazine, it's a sad comment on physics, science and tax payers' money. This thread has ruined my day.
Meh, it gets people's attention and interested in science. I've seen a lot of worse things in the news cycle.
Already done Dr. Broussard.
Check out my awesome Ride!
(https://i.imgur.com/6lK1ebH.jpg)
I thought that understanding neutrons, was a done deal per Standard Theory?
Parallel universes is unlikely for empirical verification. Part of the multiverse bollocks in QFT interpretation ...
For example we have a Taylor expansion of some fancy function. It has an infinity of terms that hopefully converge.
Is each term in the Taylor expansion, a separate "law" in a separate universe (C0 universe, C1 universe etc), with the sum of the infinite series ...
a "path integral"? Isn't this a problem of "Pythagoran Realism"? The notion that maths not only is a useful ...
quantitive model for physical processes, but that maths is what it actually is?
If you have multiple universes that have the same laws in each universe, you simply have duplication. If you have separate laws in separate universes, then if they are really separate, then again the other universes don't matter. Only if they laws are different, and the universes aren't really separate, do you have an interesting claim.
But if the multiple universes interact, and they have different laws, how can scientific method proceed? Different space-time zones will have different phenomena depending on how the different universes interact differently. This violates the fundamental notion of uniformitarianism (laws are for all space/all time).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-JqHo4-W4k ... sequence, series, convergence, divergence ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a58otkmkHtk ... adding a variable to a converging series (converges for some values of X). Generalizing geometric series ...
Famously, a fancy function can be represented by a trigonometric series (cosines, sines), not just a power series (Taylor's Series is how we can define cosine, sine etc).
Solutions to QFT equations famously converge slowly (even after renormalization). So it is hard to calculate. Now imagine a graphical way of doing this ... Feynman diagrams. Each Feynman diagram represents one term in a slowly converging series. "Path Integral" is is simply an alternative way to add up the terms. In this case, we are seeing a single universe that is calculated by adding up an infinity of terms that don't have their own reality.
But if the terms don't interact linearly (just simple addition) we have a new problem. This is like having multiple universes (each term) interacting with each other. An example of violating uniformitarianism ... wormholes. A wormhole within one universe is interesting. That means the topology (knots) of space-time vary from place/time to place/time. Interacting multiple universes would be like ... a wormhole between two different universes. But then are they different universes? Only if they laws on one side are different on the other.
Quote from: Hydra009 on July 08, 2019, 10:52:22 PM
Meh, it gets people's attention and interested in science. I've seen a lot of worse things in the news cycle.
A casual search on the respectful arxiv.com yields this paper by Leah Broussard et al. (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.08258.pdf (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.08258.pdf)) on neutron decay. Just a standard test to search for beyond SM physics, no mentioned of a parallel world. So I'm wondering if that youtube video is just smoke and mirror (no pun intended).
On a tangential issue, I've read somewhere that there's supposed to be proton decay, but since it takes more than 14 billion years for it to happen that it's never been observed. Doesn't that mean we have to wait another 200-300 million years for the first to decay since the universe is 13.7 billion years old?
Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk
Quote from: Sal1981 on July 09, 2019, 08:04:28 AM
On a tangential issue, I've read somewhere that there's supposed to be proton decay, but since it takes more than 14 billion years for it to happen that it's never been observed. Doesn't that mean we have to wait another 200-300 million years for the first to decay since the universe is 13.7 billion years old?
Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk
You compensate by observing a very large bath of protons (water contains hydrogen, which contains protons). You look for proton decay via the main channel of neutral pions and positrons. The Japanese facility (Super-Kamiokande) contains 10
33 protons, was observed for 12 years, and no trace of that decay was detected. So 10
34 years was established as lower bound for proton decay.
Proton decay was predicted by some GUT (Grand Unified Theory) ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Unified_Theory
Separate hypothetical domain from supersymmetry, supergravity, superstrings. Proton decay and magnetic monopoles were the principle experiments. A magnetic monopole has been observed, once. If protons decay, they are very very shy.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 09, 2019, 09:59:14 AM
You compensate by observing a very large bath of protons (water contains hydrogen, which contains protons). You look for proton decay via the main channel of neutral pions and positrons. The Japanese facility (Super-Kamiokande) contains 1033 protons, was observed for 12 years, and no trace of that decay was detected. So 1034 years was established as lower bound for proton decay.
Well, that conclusion seems flawed.
I'm probably talking out my ass, but if you looked at a million different clocks, and they all started at the same time at midnight, and you only waited for 11 hours, and somehow, expected some of them to strike at noon, you wouldn't see any of them strike at noon.
A similar contention could be had about red dwarfs, since they last for trillion of years, and comparatively, the universe is so young, no red dwarf has exhausted its fuel and died out yet.
Of course, nothing of this is analogous to the quantum realm, what am I missing? Is the proton decay analogous to radioactive decay of a radioactive isotope? I don't know enough about particle physics to know the difference between the two.
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Quote from: Sal1981 on July 09, 2019, 10:56:43 AM[size=0pt][/size][size=0pt][/color]
Of course, nothing of this is analogous to the quantum realm, what am I missing? Is the proton decay analogous to radioactive decay of a radioactive isotope? I don't know enough about particle physics to know the difference between the two.[/size]
What you are missing is that QM is a probability theory. And yes, proton decay is analogous to radioactive decay of a radioactive isotope. So in the SK experiment, they were looking at 10
33 protons over 10 years (actually 12 yrs). No decay, so the lower bound is 10
33x 10 = 10
34.To extend that lower bound, you would need to observer 100 years (10
33x 10
2).
Think of the cost (salaries for at least two generations of scientists, vacation, beach house, one or two mistresses for some, :-() and you can see that a little extension of that experiment could run in the hundreds of millions of USD. [/size]So the theory is about probability and half-life. Suppose the decay rate of a proton would be a half-life of [/size]ONE[/size] day. Observing two protons would mean one of them would decay over a period of ONE day. So for fossils, one looks at a particular atoms (carbon-14 in most cases). Estimate how much percentage wise these atoms have decayed into nitrogen-14, and for there, you can calculate how old is the fossil.
Could the 10 second difference in neutron decay have anything to do with the difference in motion of the respective cases? It seems like someone would've ruled that out already though, so I guess not.
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 09, 2019, 01:22:26 PM
Could the 10 second difference in neutron decay have anything to do with the difference in motion of the respective cases? It seems like someone would've ruled that out already though, so I guess not.
Right. I'm pretty sure that time dilation, known for over 100 years, has been factored in and doesn't explain the 10-second discrepancy.
Quote from: Sal1981 on July 09, 2019, 10:56:43 AM
Well, that conclusion seems flawed.
I'm probably talking out my ass, but if you looked at a million different clocks, and they all started at the same time at midnight, and you only waited for 11 hours, and somehow, expected some of them to strike at noon, you wouldn't see any of them strike at noon.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but radioactive decacy is probabilistic - a gram of a substance with a half life of one second means that on average, half of it has decayed into something else in a second - individual atoms might decay faster or slower than one second. So you wouldn't necessarily have to watch the full second.
Quote from: Hydra009 on July 09, 2019, 02:47:52 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but radioactive decacy is probabilistic - a gram of a substance with a half life of one second means that on average, half of it has decayed into something else in a second - individual atoms might decay faster or slower than one second. So you wouldn't necessarily have to watch the full second.
It's not a question of "individual atoms might decay faster or slower than one second", but more that each individual atom has its own internal clock, and not all clocks were synchronized to read zero at the same time. If we had the power/knowledge to synchronize them - read: all clocks are set at zero and then release, they would all decay at exactly the same time. But we are a long way to understand that internal clock.
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 09, 2019, 01:22:26 PM
Could the 10 second difference in neutron decay have anything to do with the difference in motion of the respective cases? It seems like someone would've ruled that out already though, so I guess not.
There may be multiple decay paths (different timings). Decay, per se, is a process of tunneling from low potential to lower potential, thru a higher potential. Classically it can't happen (say alpha particle decay). But with Heisenberg, you can do impossible things, but not on demand, it is statistical. How probable over 100 years, with a million particles, will a decay happen on average etc. You can't predict which particular system will decay either.
A lot of particle physics is just that ... multiple paths to greater entropy, with different rates and details. In the end you get to something stable, that has a virtually infinite half life. The emission of photons by atomic/molecular systems is a simpler version than nuclear, or elementary particle.
About all you can say regarding parallel universes is that they're not impossibleâ€"although I think they're quite a bit less impossible than a god existing.
It was put forward that one of the cold spots on the Cosmic Microwave Background could have been caused by a collision with a neighboring universe (https://phys.org/news/2017-05-cold-sky-collision-parallel-universe.html), but that remains only a proposal, it's nowhere near the theory stage. It's just a way to try to explain a cold spot on the CMB that doesn't have an intergalactic void associated with it, and current cosmological theories state such a cold spot has a 1 to 2% chance of occurring naturally. Hardly lottery odds, that, and a much simpler explanation than having to reach for the universe next door.
Still, I don't see the harm in looking. You never know what might turn up along the way. Remember that the teams that uncovered the accelerating expansion of the universe were actually looking to measure the rate at which it was decelerating.
Quote from: trdsf on July 15, 2019, 06:02:51 AM
About all you can say regarding parallel universes is that they're not impossibleâ€"although I think they're quite a bit less impossible than a god existing.
It was put forward that one of the cold spots on the Cosmic Microwave Background could have been caused by a collision with a neighboring universe (https://phys.org/news/2017-05-cold-sky-collision-parallel-universe.html), but that remains only a proposal, it's nowhere near the theory stage. It's just a way to try to explain a cold spot on the CMB that doesn't have an intergalactic void associated with it, and current cosmological theories state such a cold spot has a 1 to 2% chance of occurring naturally. Hardly lottery odds, that, and a much simpler explanation than having to reach for the universe next door.
Still, I don't see the harm in looking. You never know what might turn up along the way. Remember that the teams that uncovered the accelerating expansion of the universe were actually looking to measure the rate at which it was decelerating.
Multiple universes can make a scientific method into complete rubbish, because of denial of uniformitarianism. There can be, for example, different temperatures in different parts of the universe, but the laws of thermodynamics have to be the same everywhere. If by "multiple universes" you mean ... different laws at different places and times ... then that has to be rubbish. If by "multiple universes" you mean ... different conditions at different places and times, then it is a truism. This is why controlled experiments, done repeatedly on or near the Earth, are so superior to astrophysical observations.
I can only admire the attempt to try to determine some revision of physical law, using some event that happened 13 billion years ago - 13 billion light years away (same thing) ... say polarization of 3.4K radiation. Amazing stuff just to measure that. The recent confirmed gravitational wave observation, even more so! Next time you need to check your gas level in your car, don't do it by looking at the gauge, do it indirectly while it is 1000 miles away from you ;-) But either way, your can runs the same here and now as it did 1000 miles away a year ago.
You can look for Vulcans and warp drive. No harm looking. But not on my tax money. Colliding branes of parallel universes ... try to set up a controlled experiment. Otherwise you have "saving appearances" not an explanation. At least some "early universe" theory is confirmed by elementary particle collisions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZDa6d93ywE
... is a fair review. At some distant point in the past, the universe was definitely hot and optically opaque (because it is ionized) plasma mostly made up of hydrogen and a little helium. Extrapolation before that is hard (because it is opaque). We don't have quantum gravity. And we don't know if our very small LHC collisions scale up. In most cases, you can't even calculate results in QFT. That one time only plasma would be some kind of quantum foam ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYDokJ2A_vU
... unlike LHC experiments where the interaction is over a very small space over a very short time.
Some explanation of the actual physical aspects of quantum foam ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRcmqZkGOK4
Didn't know about dynamic Casimir effect, and that it had been verified!
Quote from: trdsf on July 15, 2019, 06:02:51 AM
Still, I don't see the harm in looking. You never know what might turn up along the way. Remember that the teams that uncovered the accelerating expansion of the universe were actually looking to measure the rate at which it was decelerating.
There would be no harm done except some of these people are now trying to change the very definition of what is a
scientific theory. Unknown to the public there is a deep riff between those who want to consider such things as multiverse, parallel universe, etc. as valuable fields of research and those who see the futility. So much so there is an attempt to revise the traditional concept of what is science. The danger is that we might end up in the obfuscation that prevailed the Medieval Age.
https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/peter-woit-vs-sean-carroll-string-theory-the-multiverse-and-popperazism/ (https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/peter-woit-vs-sean-carroll-string-theory-the-multiverse-and-popperazism/)
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 15, 2019, 11:32:03 AM
There would be no harm done except some of these people are now trying to change the very definition of what is a scientific theory. Unknown to the public there is a deep riff between those who want to consider such things as multiverse, parallel universe, etc. as valuable fields of research and those who see the futility. So much so there is an attempt to revise the traditional concept of what is science. The danger is that we might end up in the obfuscation that prevailed the Medieval Age.
https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/peter-woit-vs-sean-carroll-string-theory-the-multiverse-and-popperazism/ (https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/peter-woit-vs-sean-carroll-string-theory-the-multiverse-and-popperazism/)
Do you support the Anthropic Principle or the Landscape view? I hope not. Philosophy isn't science.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/there-are-no-laws-of-physics-theres-only-the-landscape-20180604/
Yes, "there are no laws of physics" ... sure, I believe that ;-(
The current state of speculation ,,,
https://www.quantamagazine.org/frontier-of-physics-interactive-map-20150803/
Yeah, there are no laws of physics, there are only suggestions of physics. :-P
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 15, 2019, 01:20:17 PM
Yeah, there are no laws of physics, there are only suggestions of physics. :-P
With Lysenko science, suggestions carry a threat of the Gulag.
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 15, 2019, 01:20:17 PM
Yeah, there are no laws of physics, there are only suggestions of physics. :-P
There's a lot of misconception about the meaning of the word "law" in physics - plainly speaking, it's just a description of what is observed. If you have an aversion to facts, then "law" is just a suggestion or an opinion. The dude in the oval office is a good companion to our permanent troll.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 15, 2019, 02:44:02 PM
There's a lot of misconception about the meaning of the word "law" in physics - plainly speaking, it's just a description of what is observed. If you have an aversion to facts, then "law" is just a suggestion or an opinion. The dude in the oval office is a good companion to our permanent troll.
Yes, humans make anthropomorphic analogies all the time. But if the observed thing, can be anything qualitatively and quantitatively (landscape), then that isn't science. There has to be some describable common materialist thread. Then it can't claim any objectivity, isn't science. Things that aren't quantitative, aren't repetitively observable (say multiple observations of the same supernova by multiple observatories being a hard example, though you can always correlate across multiple supernovas) can't be treated. Like that one time monopole event that might never happen again.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 15, 2019, 02:44:02 PM
There's a lot of misconception about the meaning of the word "law" in physics - plainly speaking, it's just a description of what is observed. If you have an aversion to facts, then "law" is just a suggestion or an opinion. The dude in the oval office is a good companion to our permanent troll.
(http://giphygifs.s3.amazonaws.com/media/1Z02vuppxP1Pa/giphy.gif)
That's been bothering me for a long time now. From the way people talk about them, you'd think they were divine edicts or governmental laws, as if the speed of light was enforced by some photonic traffic cop. Utter nonsense brought about by the inability to conceptualize the same word having two wholly different meanings.
Physical laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. They just tell us about how things usually behave and interact. Laws are useful in that they inform us that some phenomena have predictable results - by anticipating what
will happen (and what will not) we can make useful predictions (and reverse it to figure out what
did happen in the past). Refining these generalizations to greater and greater precision is the true virtue of science - slowly but surely bringing to humanity a rigorous awareness of what exactly is going on around us and allowing humanity the potential to act rather than just be acted upon.
It's disgusting that this wonder of hard-fought knowledge is conflated with things that are either comparatively banal or utterly ridiculous.
And the ship in the bottle isn't the same as the actual ship. A model is useful, even an abstract quantitative one. But it isn't the thing itself. I find neo-Pythagoreans like Max Tegmark to be ... ignorant. Their ideas are what led to the meme that our reality is a computer game in a higher reality.
Quote from: Hydra009 on July 15, 2019, 11:34:39 PM
(http://giphygifs.s3.amazonaws.com/media/1Z02vuppxP1Pa/giphy.gif)
That's been bothering me for a long time now. From the way people talk about them, you'd think they were divine edicts or governmental laws, as if the speed of light was enforced by some photonic traffic cop. Utter nonsense brought about by the inability to conceptualize the same word having two wholly different meanings.
Physical laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. They just tell us about how things usually behave and interact. Laws are useful in that they inform us that some phenomena have predictable results - by anticipating what will happen (and what will not) we can make useful predictions (and reverse it to figure out what did happen in the past). Refining these generalizations to greater and greater precision is the true virtue of science - slowly but surely bringing to humanity a rigorous awareness of what exactly is going on around us and allowing humanity the potential to act rather than just be acted upon.
It's disgusting that this wonder of hard-fought knowledge is conflated with things that are either comparatively banal or utterly ridiculous.
Truth and power often find themselves at opposite poles: those in power don't want you to know the truth. So they will subvert the truth in every possible way. And since the people are often uninformed, naive and gullible, the unscrupulous con artist wins the day. It's in the interest of those in power to spread fairy tales, falsehoods, and conspiracy theories. The more they muddle the waters, the more they consolidate their hold on power.
And nobody is more vicious than academics ... right?
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 15, 2019, 11:32:03 AM
There would be no harm done except some of these people are now trying to change the very definition of what is a scientific theory. Unknown to the public there is a deep riff between those who want to consider such things as multiverse, parallel universe, etc. as valuable fields of research and those who see the futility. So much so there is an attempt to revise the traditional concept of what is science. The danger is that we might end up in the obfuscation that prevailed the Medieval Age.
https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/peter-woit-vs-sean-carroll-string-theory-the-multiverse-and-popperazism/ (https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2018/01/22/peter-woit-vs-sean-carroll-string-theory-the-multiverse-and-popperazism/)
A theoryâ€"even a hypothesisâ€"still lives and dies by observation. The philosophy around it gives me a headache; I'll just put forth the following, to illustrate my thinking on the matter of the scientific method:
- 'String theory', since it lacks a definitive test at this time, does not deserve to be called a theory just yet.
- So long as the maths behind the string hypothesis (or the string proposal or whatever you want to call it, but it's not a theory yet) continue to make sense, it's not unreasonable to keep using it anyway, but always with a nervous glance over one's shoulder.
- Having the math on your side is a good thing, because math predicted black holes and antimatter in detail before they were observed, but:
- Keep looking for confirmation because until you have that, it's just a pile of pretty math and not an observed fact.
Quote from: trdsf on July 16, 2019, 07:01:52 PM
A theoryâ€"even a hypothesisâ€"still lives and dies by observation. The philosophy around it gives me a headache; I'll just put forth the following, to illustrate my thinking on the matter of the scientific method:
- 'String theory', since it lacks a definitive test at this time, does not deserve to be called a theory just yet.
- So long as the maths behind the string hypothesis (or the string proposal or whatever you want to call it, but it's not a theory yet) continue to make sense, it's not unreasonable to keep using it anyway, but always with a nervous glance over one's shoulder.
- Having the math on your side is a good thing, because math predicted black holes and antimatter in detail before they were observed, but:
- Keep looking for confirmation because until you have that, it's just a pile of pretty math and not an observed fact.
I could live with that... but
The people who run the physics department in the most renown universities are String theorists. And so when they hire in their departments, they will choose a string theorist. When they have grants for postdocs, they get students whose area of research is going to be ST. Since the 1980's the string theorists have dominated the scene, and there is little room for anything else. Furthermore, they are pushing for more research into ST. There is only so much money flowing around. And there is a schism since more voices are now speaking out against this domination. Here a recent post at Columbia: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11116 (http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11116) - the comments are an indication of the tone prevailing in physics.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 16, 2019, 07:23:16 PM
I could live with that... but
The people who run the physics department in the most renown universities are String theorists. And so when they hire in their departments, they will choose a string theorist. When they have grants for postdocs, they get students whose area of research is going to be ST. Since the 1980's the string theorists have dominated the scene, and there is little room for anything else. Furthermore, they are pushing for more research into ST. There is only so much money flowing around. And there is a schism since more voices are now speaking out against this domination. Here a recent post at Columbia: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11116 (http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11116) - the comments are an indication of the tone prevailing in physics.
Perimeter Institute ... in Canada vs Kevli Institute in California. Without groundbreaking observations, physics turns into Scholasticism. How many quarks can dance on the head of a pin? Not Even Wrong is my favorite physics blog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-L690pQhuo
Super-asymmetry? ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHjSSBgAc-s
If I am the first person to note the end of season/end of show ... then I am ashamed of you all!
At least the LHC didn't make a mini-black-hole ;-(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXzugu39pKM
Some kind of superstring theory did predict mini-black-holes forming at LHC.
For those interested in the current conflict between physics and scientific method ..
https://massimopigliucci.wordpress.com/2019/04/24/why-trust-a-theory-epistemology-of-fundamental-physics/
One can download his chapter contribution to the conference book. I will. I have admired Dr Pigliucci for awhile now.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 16, 2019, 07:23:16 PM
I could live with that... but
The people who run the physics department in the most renown universities are String theorists. And so when they hire in their departments, they will choose a string theorist. When they have grants for postdocs, they get students whose area of research is going to be ST. Since the 1980's the string theorists have dominated the scene, and there is little room for anything else. Furthermore, they are pushing for more research into ST. There is only so much money flowing around. And there is a schism since more voices are now speaking out against this domination. Here a recent post at Columbia: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11116 (http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11116) - the comments are an indication of the tone prevailing in physics.
Science has got itself caught up in blind alleys before, and string theory has come and gone and come again and if it ultimately proves a fruitless pursuit, will go again. The number of times that physics has been declared "complete" is finite, but fairly large.
Remember, Maxwell's equations were considered the final mathematical proof of
luminiferous æther theory, and physics was "done". Michelson and Morley were out to confirm that... and of course they couldn't.
Someone somewhere will
always want to do the "let's just check that" step, even if they think they're just confirming something "obvious". So I really don't share your concerns, at least not at this stage. It is the great strength of science that it is ultimately self-correcting, even if they take the long way 'round.
I think "self correcting" is an exaggeration. With empirical data, or with careful peer review ... it is self correcting. But with people, it is all fucked up anyway.
https://www.the-scientist.com/tag/scientific-fraud
It is still the case that fraud is suppressed. But this is harder in theory areas. And when commercial or political interests are involved, then (particularly in drug trials) then fraud is supported.
Quote from: trdsf on July 17, 2019, 03:32:34 AM
Science has got itself caught up in blind alleys before, and string theory has come and gone and come again and if it ultimately proves a fruitless pursuit, will go again. The number of times that physics has been declared "complete" is finite, but fairly large.
Remember, Maxwell's equations were considered the final mathematical proof of luminiferous æther theory, and physics was "done". Michelson and Morley were out to confirm that... and of course they couldn't.
Someone somewhere will always want to do the "let's just check that" step, even if they think they're just confirming something "obvious". So I really don't share your concerns, at least not at this stage. It is the great strength of science that it is ultimately self-correcting, even if they take the long way 'round.
In the long term you are right - eventually all the present ST-physicists will die. In theoretical physics the last new idea that was eventually confirmed was in the 1960's - that's a long drought. In the meantime, there are those who are fighting to make science the new religion - passing as science ideas that can never be testable. I deeply believe that trend must be resisted. It's why I published two books, debunking some of those ideas.
Paul Dirac didn't believe in antimatter when it came from his equations, but it was only a few years later that it was confirmed by experiment. Sometimes we need to take the math seriously, even if it implies things that are hard to credit.
But in order to be worth anything at all there have to be predictions that can be observed or not. Without that there's no way to find out which hypotheses are worth pursuing.
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 17, 2019, 02:21:07 PM
Paul Dirac didn't believe in antimatter when it came from his equations, but it was only a few years later that it was confirmed by experiment. Sometimes we need to take the math seriously, even if it implies things that are hard to credit.
It was predicted in 1928 and observed in 1932. We have a drought in prediction since the 1960's, more that 50 years.
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 17, 2019, 02:26:57 PM
But in order to be worth anything at all there have to be predictions that can be observed or not. Without that there's no way to find out which hypotheses are worth pursuing.
And that's the problem with String Theory - it is not testable. Ditto for the multiverse and higher dimensions. It wouldn't be such a problem if a tiny number of researchers were involved in these fringe areas. But that is not the case. These topics have grabbed the headlines in the last 30 years or so, and as a consequence, too many have chosen those fringe areas as their research topics. It's a waste of talents and money.
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 17, 2019, 02:21:07 PM
Paul Dirac didn't believe in antimatter when it came from his equations, but it was only a few years later that it was confirmed by experiment. Sometimes we need to take the math seriously, even if it implies things that are hard to credit.
With all due respect to Dirac, nobody understood his equation very well until about 20 years later. A serious problem if you are 20 years ahead ... of yourself! With only the Dirac equation ... they first thought the corresponding particle had to be the proton. Then realizing the masses had to be equal, that problem wasn't clear until 1932 with the positron. But at that time, no QFT ... the thought was, anti-matter space was like our space, but a "sea of virtual electrons", with a missing virtual electron being the positron. But like the current situation with infinities (dating back to the original QT problem, Black Body Radiation), that didn't make much sense either. It took until about 1948 for QFT to be developed (Dirac theory for the EM field, not just electrons). At that point the metaphor of "sea of virtual electrons" could be dropped. Unfortunately there was still a problem with infinities. But Feyman, Schwinger and Tomonaga figured out, that you can cancel out one infinity with another (renormalization). QFT measures differences, not absolutes. So things like the Casimir effect could be confidently calculated (the two infinities almost cancel out, but not quite .. the "not quite" being the number predicted).
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 17, 2019, 02:57:01 PM
It was predicted in 1928 and observed in 1932. We have a drought in prediction since the 1960's, more that 50 years.
I think that's more a function of the incredible success of the Standard Model; outside of the Higgs, most of its predictions were fairly rapidly confirmed (all quarks but the top were confirmed by 1977), and the Higgs remained the outlier and the focus of all searches. There are a few outstanding predictions not yet confirmed, mainly a few esoteric high-energy and low-probability hadrons, and 'glueballs' (particles composed of gluons)... and of course the elusive graviton (if there even is one).
Where the breakthroughs are going to come are in the things the Standard Model doesn't explain: neutrino mass, neutrino oscillations, matter-antimatter asymmetry, gravitation, dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe. It's also incompatible with General Relativity.
I expect the next big steps will come from unexpected observations (like the accelerating expansion) rather than prediction confirmations. Finding a supersymmetric particle or a primordial monopole would do nicely.
Quote from: trdsf on July 19, 2019, 05:38:34 AM
I think that's more a function of the incredible success of the Standard Model; outside of the Higgs, most of its predictions were fairly rapidly confirmed (all quarks but the top were confirmed by 1977), and the Higgs remained the outlier and the focus of all searches. There are a few outstanding predictions not yet confirmed, mainly a few esoteric high-energy and low-probability hadrons, and 'glueballs' (particles composed of gluons)... and of course the elusive graviton (if there even is one).
Where the breakthroughs are going to come are in the things the Standard Model doesn't explain: neutrino mass, neutrino oscillations, matter-antimatter asymmetry, gravitation, dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe. It's also incompatible with General Relativity.
I expect the next big steps will come from unexpected observations (like the accelerating expansion) rather than prediction confirmations. Finding a supersymmetric particle or a primordial monopole would do nicely.
I don't know enough about spacetime or quanta to evaluate either. But I do know from history that complicated theories tend to collapse toward simpler ones. I suspect that, in the future, some new genius will observe the universe in a way that makes more sense than how we currently see it.
Quote from: trdsf on July 19, 2019, 05:38:34 AM
I think that's more a function of the incredible success of the Standard Model; outside of the Higgs, most of its predictions were fairly rapidly confirmed (all quarks but the top were confirmed by 1977), and the Higgs remained the outlier and the focus of all searches. There are a few outstanding predictions not yet confirmed, mainly a few esoteric high-energy and low-probability hadrons, and 'glueballs' (particles composed of gluons)... and of course the elusive graviton (if there even is one).
Where the breakthroughs are going to come are in the things the Standard Model doesn't explain: neutrino mass, neutrino oscillations, matter-antimatter asymmetry, gravitation, dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe. It's also incompatible with General Relativity.
I expect the next big steps will come from unexpected observations (like the accelerating expansion) rather than prediction confirmations. Finding a supersymmetric particle or a primordial monopole would do nicely.
I admire your optimism, but I don't share it, not for the immediate future. Physics needs a revamp, and most likely with a new generation. Changes only come with great pain. We haven't gone through that pain, though there are cracks beginning to show.
Quote from: josephpalazzo on July 20, 2019, 06:42:33 AM
I admire your optimism, but I don't share it, not for the immediate future. Physics needs a revamp, and most likely with a new generation. Changes only come with great pain. We haven't gone through that pain, though there are cracks beginning to show.
Um, if "revamp" was not explicit in my previous post, let me say that is is my expectation now. I think that our current theories of reality is/are getting a bit too weird and that "The Next Genius" is going to help us return to something more comprehensible. I have no more idea what that will be than the generation before Newton did.
But I am pretty sure that there will be a serious simplification of our concepts sometime in this century. I say that without the least bit of evidence or any suggestion of what a new concept might be. I just think that the universe is not quite as weird as the spacetime/quantuntheory/stringtheory/multipledimensiontheories suggest.
Quote from: Cavebear on July 20, 2019, 07:49:37 AM
I think that our current theories of reality is/are getting a bit too weird and that "The Next Genius" is going to help us return to something more comprehensible.
Hell, I think the current theories aren't weird enough - the universe isn't just weirder than we suppose, it's weirder than we can suppose.
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 20, 2019, 02:03:51 PM
Hell, I think the current theories aren't weird enough - the universe isn't just weirder than we suppose, it's weirder than we can suppose.
Well, yes. But a simpler theory could be even weirder than our current ones. "Weider" doesn't HAVE to be more complicated. I'm thinking like how Copernicus eliminated epicyles. And sun-centric counted as "weird" at the time.
Copernicus didn't entirely eliminate epicycles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDgxYp8RCfA
So the Copernican heliocentrism still had epicycles, which were removed by Kepler's elliptic orbits.
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 20, 2019, 03:00:47 PM
Copernicus didn't entirely eliminate epicycles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDgxYp8RCfA
So the Copernican heliocentrism still had epicycles, which were removed by Kepler's elliptic orbits.
Yes Kepler. I KNEW I didn't like Copernicus as the answer. I'm losing some memories. I went from Copernicus to Newton...
It is commonly mis-taught, that Copernicus' heliocentric system as simpler. It was Kepler who simplified things, though until Newton explained why, nobody could rationally justify elliptical orbits vs the "perfect" circle model. In recent times it was shown that Ptolemy had retouched his data, to make his system work. Fake science. He might have needed to add additional epicycles to improve the match.
Unbeliever and my recent postings on Fourier analysis is the best explanation as to why epicycles were used. They made sense at the time, if everything had to be based on circles. With enough epicycles, you can trace out a Homer Simpson orbit. Kepler could only use observation to justify his ellipses. It took Newton to explain them. And for the orbit of Mercury it was still off. But science avoided the temptation of adding epicycles. It took Einstein to justify the precession of the orbit of Mercury. The force at that close distance is a bit off from 1/r^2. 1/r^2 gives you perfect Newtonian orbits. That is why Newton chose that as part of his gravity formula.
Quote from: Baruch on July 20, 2019, 04:43:08 PM
It is commonly mis-taught, that Copernicus' heliocentric system as simpler.
No, it isn't.
Quote from: Cavebear on July 20, 2019, 05:59:37 PM
No, it isn't.
I think, initially, the "simpler" of Copernicus (he actually used more epicycles than Ptolemy) would only be apparent to an expert. Ellipses are much simpler than either system.
Quote from: Baruch on July 20, 2019, 07:25:48 PM
I think, initially, the "simpler" of Copernicus (he actually used more epicycles than Ptolemy) would only be apparent to an expert. Ellipses are much simpler than either system.
In retrospect, 2 orbital bodies and a common center of gravity not the center of one seems obvious Giants of the retrospective obvious we stand on...
Quote from: Cavebear on August 20, 2019, 12:09:57 PM
In retrospect, 2 orbital bodies and a common center of gravity not the center of one seems obvious Giants of the retrospective obvious we stand on...
And Kepler came up with ellipses
without a theory of gravity, which is nothing less than brilliance.
Quote from: trdsf on August 23, 2019, 07:18:14 PM
And Kepler came up with ellipses without a theory of gravity, which is nothing less than brilliance.
He had originally tried Platonic Solids ... to explain the planets. But yes, Kepler was a brilliant applied mathematician. He took Brahe's observations (two angular measurements of position vs time) and then converted that to non-circular orbits. Since it was truly simply than either Ptolemy or Copernicus ... it seemed just right.
In our time, both the graves of Brahe and Copernicus were found.
Quote from: Baruch on August 23, 2019, 10:59:30 PM
He had originally tried Platonic Solids ... to explain the planets. But yes, Kepler was a brilliant applied mathematician. He took Brahe's observations (two angular measurements of position vs time) and then converted that to non-circular orbits. Since it was truly simply than either Ptolemy or Copernicus ... it seemed just right.
But he had the correct equation but made a simple error and missed the right answer for a couple years.
Quote from: Cavebear on August 24, 2019, 12:21:55 AM
But he had the correct equation but made a simple error and missed the right answer for a couple years.
I treat you, like you treat me ;-) Please provide links.
Quote from: Baruch on August 24, 2019, 12:57:54 AM
I treat you, like you treat me ;-) Please provide links.
First, oops I meant Kepler. And it was mentioned in the Sagan or Tyson Cosmos series. I can't find it online. The reference is to Kepler having actually found the correct formula for planetary orbits using a ellipse but made a mistake and passed it by only to return to it later and seeing it worked. Does anyone have a similar recollection and/or link?
I may recall that, now that you mention it. One can see, given the intellectual prejudice of the time, that anything non-circular might be ... ignored initially.
Quote from: Baruch on August 24, 2019, 08:54:02 AM
I may recall that, now that you mention it. One can see, given the intellectual prejudice of the time, that anything non-circular might be ... ignored initially.
Yes, memory is wonky sometimes. The whole ellipses thing was Keper's discovery.
I will sadly note the standard scientific references to him skips the errror and just discuses the correct conclusion, as if no one ever passed on an idea to examine it better later...
Personally, I think checking one's facts to realize you were right the first time is pretty impressive.
Quote from: Cavebear on August 24, 2019, 10:44:26 AM
Yes, memory is wonky sometimes. The whole ellipses thing was Keper's discovery.
I will sadly note the standard scientific references to him skips the errror and just discuses the correct conclusion, as if no one ever passed on an idea to examine it better later...
Personally, I think checking one's facts to realize you were right the first time is pretty impressive.
Memory comes and goes. But like eye-witness crime reports, is only 50/50 accurate ;-) I am not the ideologue you are looking for (Baruch mind trick).
I am happy to double check things, that I remember, but haven't recently reviewed for accuracy. It gets me more info. Like that excellent website on the Lincoln assassination, that covers all the old conspiracy theories. Yes, assassinations are sometimes conspiracies, not lone gunmen.
Quote from: Cavebear on August 24, 2019, 01:57:35 AM
First, oops I meant Kepler. And it was mentioned in the Sagan or Tyson Cosmos series. I can't find it online. The reference is to Kepler having actually found the correct formula for planetary orbits using a ellipse but made a mistake and passed it by only to return to it later and seeing it worked. Does anyone have a similar recollection and/or link?
It was in the Sagan
Cosmos episode, "The Harmony of the Worlds". Skip forward to 31:30 --
https://youtu.be/pDYMF1RGthQ
Yeah, Martin Luther also opposed Copernicus. It wasn't just Catholics. So Kepler would have been in trouble with both groups.
Note, originally the job for these guys was ... astrologer. That is what payed the bills, not speculation.
Numerology provides clues, but not proof. Perfect circles or perfect solids aren't physical. But they do help filter out some bad ideas. The trick is to re-measure, and to then refine the model. Of course integrity is important. It has been shown that Ptolemy, centuries before, altered his measurements, to better fit his model. Kepler refused to do that. So a dialectic ... idea, measurement, better idea, better measurement ...
Quote from: trdsf on August 24, 2019, 03:37:36 PM
It was in the Sagan Cosmos episode, "The Harmony of the Worlds". Skip forward to 31:30 --
https://youtu.be/pDYMF1RGthQ
Thank you.l I knew it was in there somewhere. I just couldn't recall where. I will play Cosmos 31:30 later tonight. I knew I could count on someone and I wasn't surprised it was you.