Time for a paradigm shift in fundamental Physics?

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Some very interesting ideas from Neil Turok on new approaches to unifying Physics that explain dark matter, dark energy, and suggests other solutions to puzzling problems such as why there are three generations of quarks and leptons and why the vacuum energy density isn't ridiculously huge. He also suggests that cosmic inflation and the Higgs Boson do not exist - at least not in the way they are currently understood.

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There are a lot of new ideas here and they are all fascinating. More importantly, I think that many of these suggestions will be experimentally testable - which is refreshing.

 

[publiusr]

I thought Webb’s observations helped MOND out…but Sutter on space.com tried to talk it down.

I like the steady state idea…more romantic than Kelvin’s heat death…however much that was pushed back.

Maybe dark photons as a way to solve Olber’s paradox?

As much as I want a rotating universe for time travel that is static…the opposite is likely true.

To really dumb down Neil’s talk…he wants to get rid of kludges as much as possible.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Some of the assumptions and mathematical kludges used in QFT and string theory are really indefensible. They have been holding up advancement for decades now.

 

[publiusr]

I suppose it’s like getting a calendar out of epicycles or getting the F-4 (my favorite kludge) to fly.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

In particular, the Standard Model is pretty much the modern-day equivalent of epicycles in Copernican heliocentrism. I'll grant that it's probably not the equivalent of epicycles in Ptolemaic geocentrism. It has far too many arbitrary free parameters that are required to make it work. Need a fix? Add a field. Frankly, it's an embarrassment.

 

[XCV330]

In particular, the Standard Model is pretty much the modern-day equivalent of epicycles in Copernican heliocentrism. I'll grant that it's probably not the equivalent of epicycles in Ptolemaic geocentrism. It has far too many arbitrary free parameters that are required to make it work. Need a fix? Add a field. Frankly, it's an embarrassment.

And every time they add one, it naturally fits the model so the model stands. The downside is so many people who do propose alternatives or fixes are on the fringe, even if they are brilliant.

 

[StarCruiser]

Science has - for a very long time - been heading down the path of dogmatism.
Some scientists just don't want to let go of preconceived notions and comfortable "truths".

Dark Energy, used to fill a gap - Dark Matter, same thing. Something you can't explain? Just make up something and use that to plug the hole.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Don't get me started on what a crock of sh*t is the claim that QED allows an extremely accurate prediction of the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron when in fact the prediction has been tweaked numerous times to fit the observations. No wonder the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon seems strangely deviant from a theory that is splitting at the seams.

 

[XCV330]

And string theorists lament "oh we COULD test our theory, but we'd need a particle accelerator the size of a galaxy, so.."

 

[publiusr]

Now a way for me to hop off my timeline…it ain’t so hot.

 

[Will The Serious]

The above video links were broken for me.

-Will

 

[Will The Serious]

I see them now.

-Will

 

[Will The Serious]

Neil Turok said something towards the end, about the tweaks often put into a formula to adjust a theory, that I found particularity interesting because, his criticism shows how much importance the math is given in developing a theory of mechanics. I noted on my thread that Asbo said, one cannot have a meaningful talk about these kinds of ideas without maths. However, to rely on the math in developing a theory moves our ability to see the mechanics as a sensible phenomenon much further from the problem.

If we cannot describe the dynamics in terms of logical vision, how do we come to understand that the models we are building from the math are moving us to an accurate representation of the mechanics? Einstein supposedly developed his theories based on a visualization of how he might experience the Universe while riding on a beam of light. The ideas this brought him to were developed without maths.

The story of watching the Sun rise and thinking, 'It is silly to suggest the Sun went around the Earth,' then wondering, 'What would it look like if the Sun had been orbiting the Earth,' is a great analogy to developing a sensual theory before applying the math.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Picturing reality at its most fundamental level gave us String Theory - often described by its critics by Wolfgang Pauli's quip "not even wrong", There is scant evidence for strings nor does the theory provide any testable predictions. It is stuffed to the gunnels with mathematics - some of it quite dodgy in my opinion.

 

[Will The Serious]

That last video contained a lot to mull over. Neil's talk about Euclidean geometry never really got much off the ground, but it fit well with my class on Geometries. It was not easy for a lot of my fellow students to realize that Euclidean geometry and non Euclidean geometry were all describing the same space.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

It was not easy for a lot of my fellow students to realize that Euclidean geometry and non Euclidean geometry were all describing the same space.

Which type of manifold would that be?

 

[Will The Serious]

Which type of manifold would that be?

Non-Euclidean geometry describes 2D surface space in 3D Euclidean space. A manifold, a saddle, a parabola, a sphere, ... are all 2 dimensional mathematical constructs that fit within the Euclidean geometry proofs. The infamous parallel postulate, however, was the one lemma that Euclid had trouble with. He probably stopped at giving it the same status as his other metrics because he found it didn't hold when navigating across the sea. However, by adding that third Euclidean dimension and confining the space to the object's surface, such as a planet, you are still defining the same space. It just gets more complicated to plot with an additional dimension.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

A manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space at each point within it. Non-Euclidean geometries either replace the parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry with an alternative postulate to yield, for example, hyperbolic geometry and elliptic geometry, or they relax the metric requirement to yield kinematic geometries such as Minkowski space.

 

[Will The Serious]

Do you find that your descriptions conflict with my description of "2D surface space" or that my description is merely incomplete? I am unfamiliar with Minkowski space, but the kinematics of Minkowski 4D space sound like it still needs that Euclidean foundation.

The idea of geometry that includes our describes relative motion without notions of force is something I'll have to look into. That might be where I fail to understand Einstein's gravity theory.

-Will

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I don't think we're using the terminology in the same way. I'm not going to argue about it though.