| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"Sam Wormley" |
| Date: |
29 Dec 2006 11:27:49 AM |
| Object: |
String Theory: Physics or Theology? |
Quoting from "Skeptical Briefs", Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2006
©2006, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
"String Theory: Physics or Theology?"
By Victor J Stenger
"For three decades now, elementary particle physics has found itself
in a situation unprecedented in the history of science. It has been
blessed by a theory called the standard model of particles and forces
that agrees with every measurement ever made in any physics
laboratory to this day. Furthermore, the standard model has provided
the physical foundation for the development of a highly successful
model of cosmology, as that once very speculative field has grown
into one of enormous observational and theoretical sophistication. We
can now describe the basic physics of the observable universe back to
when it was only a trillionth of a second old.
"To most physicists, however, the success of the standard model has
been far from a blessing. A whole generation of experimentalists have
tried and failed to find some empirical anomaly that would point in
the direction of the physics that surely lies beyond the standard
model, and science without anomaly is no fun. They have worked hard
and made important new discoveries, such as neutrino mass, but these
have been trimmings to the model rather than paradigm shifts.
"Despite its empirical success, the standard model is far from a
complete theory. For one, it does not include gravitational
phenomena, which have remained successfully described for three
generations now by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Second,
the standard model contains over twenty parameters, such as the
masses of most particles and the strengths of the forces, which must
be determined by experiment.
"The ingredients of the standard model include a spectrum of
elementary particles--quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons--and a
mathematical description of how they interact with one another. All
of familiar atomic matter is composed of just three particles: the
u-quark, d-quark, and electron. The electromagnetic interaction is
unified with the weak nuclear interaction while the strong nuclear
interaction is separate but of the same basic form. They are
described by what are called gauge theories. Gauge invariance, or
gauge symmetry is a generalization of the notion that the laws of
physics cannot depend on any specific point of view, an idea that
goes back to Copernicus.
"Soon after the development of the standard model, many attempts were
made to apply gauge symmetry beyond the standard model and unify the
strong and electroweak interactions in what were called Grand Unified
Theories (GUTs). The simplest of these theories made a profound
prediction that was within reach of experiments with existing
technology: the proton should decay with a mean lifetime of about
10^30 years. In the eighties, immense tanks of highly purified water,
placed deep underground to minimize cosmic ray background, were used
to search for the telltale light that would signal proton decay. None
saw any signal, though some continue the search with the lower limit
now at about 10^33 years. The largest of these continuing experiments,
Super-Kamiokande in Japan, which I worked on before retiring in 2000,
has made other important discoveries, notably the observation in 1998
that neutrinos have mass.
"The simplest GUT, however, was falsified, and no other versions made
any predictions that were immediately testable. In the meantime, the
GUT approach was largely abandoned in favor of another idea, super
string theory. The great attraction of string theory was that it
provided a natural place for gravity to be included in a fully
unified scheme, holding out the promise of perhaps turning into what
was grandly termed by some as the TOE: the Theory of Everything.
"I am sure the reader is well familiar with the media hype that has
projected string theory into the consciousness of anyone who pays
even the slightest attention to developments in science. But, more
important, a whole generation of young physicists, with a few
exceptions, have devoted themselves to the study of a theory, or set
of theories, that utilizes some of the most esoteric mathematical
techniques known.
"String theory, which now goes by a more general name, m-theory, has
had a number of what aficionados claim have been major breakthroughs.
Those of us not versed in the mathematics have to take their word for
it. For the non-expert, none of the scores of popular books and TV
specials on the subject give much insight into what these
breakthroughs may be.
"Actually there is one breakthrough that we mere mortals can
understand. It has been proven (they do a lot of proving in string
theory) that there is not just one string theory but at least 10500
different theories. In a recent book The Cosmic Landscape, pioneer
string theorist Leonard Susskind views this not with alarm but with
delight. He suggests it provides for a "landscape" of possible
universes that may exist in reality and thus provide the basis for
the so-called anthropic principle in which our universe contains just
the values of physical constants needed to make our kind of life
possible. There are 10^500 universes and we are in the one suited for
us.
"All very exciting, but some physicists are beginning to lose
patience--especially at the huge expenditure of talent on this single
line of thought that has yet to come even close to providing any
testable physics, even in principle. In Physics Today, Nobel laureate
Burt Richter writes, "Much of what currently passes as the most
advanced theory looks to be more like theological speculation." Two
new books by experts, The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String
Theory, The Fall of Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin and
Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity
in Physical Law by Peter Woit describe what they see are the problems
with the string approach and why they think it is heading for a dead
end. Furthermore, alternatives have been proposed for going beyond
the standard mode, although none can claim any more success.
"In the meantime, some philosophers of science are being to ponder the
possibility that there might never be a theory of everything--at
least one from which all the fundamental principles and parameters of
physics are calculable from a single universal principle. Perhaps
this is the way the universe is, described by models that maintain
certain basic symmetries while other symmetries are broken
spontaneously. The universe looks very much like the universe you
would expect if it came from nothing as a product of symmetry and
chance".
.
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| User: "G. L. Bradford" |
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| Title: Re: String Theory: Physics or Theology? |
30 Dec 2006 06:11:58 AM |
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"Sam Wormley" <swormley1@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:45955014.50500@mchsi.com...
Quoting from "Skeptical Briefs", Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2006
©2006, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
"String Theory: Physics or Theology?"
By Victor J Stenger
"For three decades now, elementary particle physics has found itself
in a situation unprecedented in the history of science. It has been
blessed by a theory called the standard model of particles and forces
that agrees with every measurement ever made in any physics
laboratory to this day. Furthermore, the standard model has provided
the physical foundation for the development of a highly successful
model of cosmology, as that once very speculative field has grown
into one of enormous observational and theoretical sophistication. We
can now describe the basic physics of the observable universe back to
when it was only a trillionth of a second old.
"To most physicists, however, the success of the standard model has
been far from a blessing. A whole generation of experimentalists have
tried and failed to find some empirical anomaly that would point in
the direction of the physics that surely lies beyond the standard
model, and science without anomaly is no fun. They have worked hard
and made important new discoveries, such as neutrino mass, but these
have been trimmings to the model rather than paradigm shifts.
"Despite its empirical success, the standard model is far from a
complete theory. For one, it does not include gravitational
phenomena, which have remained successfully described for three
generations now by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Second,
the standard model contains over twenty parameters, such as the
masses of most particles and the strengths of the forces, which must
be determined by experiment.
"The ingredients of the standard model include a spectrum of
elementary particles--quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons--and a
mathematical description of how they interact with one another. All
of familiar atomic matter is composed of just three particles: the
u-quark, d-quark, and electron. The electromagnetic interaction is
unified with the weak nuclear interaction while the strong nuclear
interaction is separate but of the same basic form. They are
described by what are called gauge theories. Gauge invariance, or
gauge symmetry is a generalization of the notion that the laws of
physics cannot depend on any specific point of view, an idea that
goes back to Copernicus.
"Soon after the development of the standard model, many attempts were
made to apply gauge symmetry beyond the standard model and unify the
strong and electroweak interactions in what were called Grand Unified
Theories (GUTs). The simplest of these theories made a profound
prediction that was within reach of experiments with existing
technology: the proton should decay with a mean lifetime of about
10^30 years. In the eighties, immense tanks of highly purified water,
placed deep underground to minimize cosmic ray background, were used
to search for the telltale light that would signal proton decay. None
saw any signal, though some continue the search with the lower limit
now at about 10^33 years. The largest of these continuing experiments,
Super-Kamiokande in Japan, which I worked on before retiring in 2000,
has made other important discoveries, notably the observation in 1998
that neutrinos have mass.
"The simplest GUT, however, was falsified, and no other versions made
any predictions that were immediately testable. In the meantime, the
GUT approach was largely abandoned in favor of another idea, super
string theory. The great attraction of string theory was that it
provided a natural place for gravity to be included in a fully
unified scheme, holding out the promise of perhaps turning into what
was grandly termed by some as the TOE: the Theory of Everything.
"I am sure the reader is well familiar with the media hype that has
projected string theory into the consciousness of anyone who pays
even the slightest attention to developments in science. But, more
important, a whole generation of young physicists, with a few
exceptions, have devoted themselves to the study of a theory, or set
of theories, that utilizes some of the most esoteric mathematical
techniques known.
"String theory, which now goes by a more general name, m-theory, has
had a number of what aficionados claim have been major breakthroughs.
Those of us not versed in the mathematics have to take their word for
it. For the non-expert, none of the scores of popular books and TV
specials on the subject give much insight into what these
breakthroughs may be.
"Actually there is one breakthrough that we mere mortals can
understand. It has been proven (they do a lot of proving in string
theory) that there is not just one string theory but at least 10500
different theories. In a recent book The Cosmic Landscape, pioneer
string theorist Leonard Susskind views this not with alarm but with
delight. He suggests it provides for a "landscape" of possible
universes that may exist in reality and thus provide the basis for
the so-called anthropic principle in which our universe contains just
the values of physical constants needed to make our kind of life
possible. There are 10^500 universes and we are in the one suited for
us.
"All very exciting, but some physicists are beginning to lose
patience--especially at the huge expenditure of talent on this single
line of thought that has yet to come even close to providing any
testable physics, even in principle. In Physics Today, Nobel laureate
Burt Richter writes, "Much of what currently passes as the most
advanced theory looks to be more like theological speculation." Two
new books by experts, The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String
Theory, The Fall of Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin and
Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity
in Physical Law by Peter Woit describe what they see are the problems
with the string approach and why they think it is heading for a dead
end. Furthermore, alternatives have been proposed for going beyond
the standard mode, although none can claim any more success.
"In the meantime, some philosophers of science are being to ponder the
possibility that there might never be a theory of everything--at
least one from which all the fundamental principles and parameters of
physics are calculable from a single universal principle. Perhaps
this is the way the universe is, described by models that maintain
certain basic symmetries while other symmetries are broken
spontaneously. The universe looks very much like the universe you
would expect if it came from nothing as a product of symmetry and
chance".
I recognize that there devotees of the "Culture of Death" among physicists
who would prefer 'nothingness' (oblivion). Today's niche evolved
(finite-minded rather than infinity-minded) 'Late Roman Empire'-like mental
pygmies always do. No seed comes before any tree. No tree comes before any
seed. Seed and tree are eternally parallel universes: The fundamental
design, the fundamental plan, the very fundamental presence of the tree is
always in with and of a piece with the seed. The design, the plan, the very
presence, of the seed is always in with and of a piece with the tree.
Parallel, sequential, parallel sequential universes. But only to the
finite-minded (niche evolved one-dimensional) mental pygmy are they
holocaustically, catastrophically, singularly [strictly] in-line sequential
absolutes [extremely, supremely, subject] to total oblivion by flat-line
symmetry breaking "chance."
GLB
.
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| User: "PD" |
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| Title: Re: String Theory: Physics or Theology? |
03 Jan 2007 08:36:11 PM |
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On Dec 29 2006, 11:27 am, Sam Wormley <sworml...@mchsi.com> wrote:
Quoting from "Skeptical Briefs", Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2006
=A92006, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
"String Theory: Physics or Theology?"
By Victor J Stenger
"For three decades now, elementary particle physics has found itself
in a situation unprecedented in the history of science. It has been
blessed by a theory called the standard model of particles and forces
that agrees with every measurement ever made in any physics
laboratory to this day. Furthermore, the standard model has provided
the physical foundation for the development of a highly successful
model of cosmology, as that once very speculative field has grown
into one of enormous observational and theoretical sophistication. We
can now describe the basic physics of the observable universe back to
when it was only a trillionth of a second old.
"To most physicists, however, the success of the standard model has
been far from a blessing. A whole generation of experimentalists have
tried and failed to find some empirical anomaly that would point in
the direction of the physics that surely lies beyond the standard
model, and science without anomaly is no fun. They have worked hard
and made important new discoveries, such as neutrino mass, but these
have been trimmings to the model rather than paradigm shifts.
"Despite its empirical success, the standard model is far from a
complete theory. For one, it does not include gravitational
phenomena, which have remained successfully described for three
generations now by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Second,
the standard model contains over twenty parameters, such as the
masses of most particles and the strengths of the forces, which must
be determined by experiment.
"The ingredients of the standard model include a spectrum of
elementary particles--quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons--and a
mathematical description of how they interact with one another. All
of familiar atomic matter is composed of just three particles: the
u-quark, d-quark, and electron. The electromagnetic interaction is
unified with the weak nuclear interaction while the strong nuclear
interaction is separate but of the same basic form. They are
described by what are called gauge theories. Gauge invariance, or
gauge symmetry is a generalization of the notion that the laws of
physics cannot depend on any specific point of view, an idea that
goes back to Copernicus.
"Soon after the development of the standard model, many attempts were
made to apply gauge symmetry beyond the standard model and unify the
strong and electroweak interactions in what were called Grand Unified
Theories (GUTs). The simplest of these theories made a profound
prediction that was within reach of experiments with existing
technology: the proton should decay with a mean lifetime of about
10^30 years. In the eighties, immense tanks of highly purified water,
placed deep underground to minimize cosmic ray background, were used
to search for the telltale light that would signal proton decay. None
saw any signal, though some continue the search with the lower limit
now at about 10^33 years. The largest of these continuing experiments,
Super-Kamiokande in Japan, which I worked on before retiring in 2000,
has made other important discoveries, notably the observation in 1998
that neutrinos have mass.
"The simplest GUT, however, was falsified, and no other versions made
any predictions that were immediately testable. In the meantime, the
GUT approach was largely abandoned in favor of another idea, super
string theory. The great attraction of string theory was that it
provided a natural place for gravity to be included in a fully
unified scheme, holding out the promise of perhaps turning into what
was grandly termed by some as the TOE: the Theory of Everything.
"I am sure the reader is well familiar with the media hype that has
projected string theory into the consciousness of anyone who pays
even the slightest attention to developments in science. But, more
important, a whole generation of young physicists, with a few
exceptions, have devoted themselves to the study of a theory, or set
of theories, that utilizes some of the most esoteric mathematical
techniques known.
"String theory, which now goes by a more general name, m-theory, has
had a number of what aficionados claim have been major breakthroughs.
Those of us not versed in the mathematics have to take their word for
it. For the non-expert, none of the scores of popular books and TV
specials on the subject give much insight into what these
breakthroughs may be.
"Actually there is one breakthrough that we mere mortals can
understand. It has been proven (they do a lot of proving in string
theory) that there is not just one string theory but at least 10500
different theories. In a recent book The Cosmic Landscape, pioneer
string theorist Leonard Susskind views this not with alarm but with
delight. He suggests it provides for a "landscape" of possible
universes that may exist in reality and thus provide the basis for
the so-called anthropic principle in which our universe contains just
the values of physical constants needed to make our kind of life
possible. There are 10^500 universes and we are in the one suited for
us.
"All very exciting, but some physicists are beginning to lose
patience--especially at the huge expenditure of talent on this single
line of thought that has yet to come even close to providing any
testable physics, even in principle. In Physics Today, Nobel laureate
Burt Richter writes, "Much of what currently passes as the most
advanced theory looks to be more like theological speculation." Two
new books by experts, The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String
Theory, The Fall of Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin and
Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity
in Physical Law by Peter Woit describe what they see are the problems
with the string approach and why they think it is heading for a dead
end. Furthermore, alternatives have been proposed for going beyond
the standard mode, although none can claim any more success.
"In the meantime, some philosophers of science are being to ponder the
possibility that there might never be a theory of everything--at
least one from which all the fundamental principles and parameters of
physics are calculable from a single universal principle. Perhaps
this is the way the universe is, described by models that maintain
certain basic symmetries while other symmetries are broken
spontaneously. The universe looks very much like the universe you
would expect if it came from nothing as a product of symmetry and
chance".
What intrigues me most about this is the notion that, in order to find
a comprehensive understanding of the interactions that occur in *this*
universe, it is suggested that we have to posit mechanisms that in
principle act *outside* our observable universe, and are therefore even
in principle untestable. It begins to push at the edge of what is
understood to be science.
Interestingly, there is an increasing movement to suggest that this is
in fact an inescapable consequence of the physics we already know.
Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon with still only weakly understood
implications. A few people like Penrose have remarked that this
singular feature of quantum mechanics -- that there are correlations
among physical objects that simply do not mesh with our notion of
separated and otherwise isolated objects influencing each other through
causal interactions -- more or less forces the up-ending of much of our
native concept set in much the same way that relativity disturbed the
notions of space and time.
And in fact, some authors have pointed out that, in some real sense, we
are forced to conclude that the *entire universe* is an entangled
state, which is a fact by virtue of its scope cannot be experimentally
verified or even tested. And just like that, we are in a realm where we
*infer* something about the universe that will be impossible to
scientifically check.
Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau have written a peculiar book that takes
this observation and pushes it to a premise that the universe itself
may exhibit consciousness, which is no more testable nor any less
believable than the quantum entanglement of the state of the universe.
Also recently, Joel Primack (a premier cosmologist) and his wife have
written another peculiar book that says that the deliberate separation
of science from spirituality has come at some cost --- a trade-off of
progress in science with the loss of our understanding of our place in
the cosmos.
In both these books and in others --- which bring some discomfort to
the physics community --- there is a clear harbinger that physics has
now run into a place where some non-traditional questions demand some
attention, and that further progress is unlikely unless they are dealt
with to some level.
Though this is not the theology that is referred to by Smolin et al.
(where I think they are complaining about a privileged priesthood and
the force of dogma), this kind of thinking definitely is another sort
of theology. Whether it is a good or a bad thing remains to be seen.
Provisionally, I'll take the discomfort of the physics community to be
a good sign.
PD
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| User: "Uncle Al" |
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| Title: Re: String Theory: Physics or Theology? |
29 Dec 2006 02:16:03 PM |
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Sam Wormley wrote:
Quoting from "Skeptical Briefs", Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2006
©2006, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
"String Theory: Physics or Theology?"
By Victor J Stenger
[snip]
"I am sure the reader is well familiar with the media hype that has
projected string theory into the consciousness of anyone who pays
even the slightest attention to developments in science. But, more
important, a whole generation of young physicists, with a few
exceptions, have devoted themselves to the study of a theory, or set
of theories, that utilizes some of the most esoteric mathematical
techniques known.
Contemporary theory can predict anything to arbitrary accuracy
directly or by sneaking up (Taylor series, Yukawa potential, etc.).
String theory is particulary egregious for having at least 10^500
acceptable vacua and no falsifiable predictions whatsoever. Theory is
a *****. Only empirical observation is definitive.
String theory is *not* immune to disproof. No theory can defend its
founding postulates. Physics as a whole postulates isotropic vacuum.
Remarkably, only loose constraints exist (smaller than about 10^(-10)
difference/averge) on there being a chiral pseudoscalar vacuum
background. It would only be detectable by experiments with opposite
parity mass distributions. No prior observation anywhere within
physics would be contradicted. Opposite parity mass distributions
simply do not exist in observational physics. Yet.
When opposite parity test masses are converted to an identical achiral
state a 10^(-13) mass/mass anomaly comes out as an 8% (wow!)
calormetric anomaly independent of composition. It is both obvious
and inescapble if it exists. We're working on finding out,
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2
Alas, active crystal volumes must be flawless as well as modestly
large.
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/benzil8.jpg
Brave try but no cigar.
We will grow them again with a better technique. Crystallization from
the melt is out - plastic deformation during cooling disorders the
lattice.
Burt Richter writes, "Much of what currently passes as the most
advanced theory looks to be more like theological speculation."
[snip]
Don't send a physics theorist to do a bench chemist's job. Theorists
are baffled by the obvious yet possess a complete understanding of the
nonexistent.
Perhaps
this is the way the universe is, described by models that maintain
certain basic symmetries while other symmetries are broken
spontaneously. The universe looks very much like the universe you
would expect if it came from nothing as a product of symmetry and
chance".
Riiiight - symmetries, like chirality. Just because physics condenses
mass distributions to points (reduced mass) or achiral systems
(Green's theorem) doesn't mean that chirality does not exist and is
not important. It means the discipline needs better, more creative,
braver people in the lab.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2
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| User: "Thomas Johnson" |
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| Title: Re: String Theory: Physics or Theology? |
31 Dec 2006 12:28:20 AM |
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Uncle Al wrote:
We will grow them again with a better technique. Crystallization from
the melt is out - plastic deformation during cooling disorders the
lattice.
Burt Richter writes, "Much of what currently passes as the most
advanced theory looks to be more like theological speculation."
[snip]
Don't send a physics theorist to do a bench chemist's job. Theorists
are baffled by the obvious yet possess a complete understanding of the
nonexistent.
I love the way you can move seamlessly from an admission that your
chemist-skills were not up to the task in growing crystals to
complaining that theorists don't understand things...
Theorists typically know the difference between forces and masses.
Heck, most freshmen do.
One might call it "obvious" that an Eotvos balance shows a signal that
varies during the day due to the varying accelerations on the masses.
One might also call it obvious that a direct measure of mass
differences--say, as in your proposed calorimeter experiment--would not
show that time-varying signal since it is not dependent on the
accelerations involved.
For those who may be wondering--yes, Mr. Schwartz blindly copied some
of the pieces of the Eotvos experiment that were not only unneccessary,
but demonstrate that he doesn't understand either experiment.
Thomas.
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| User: "Andy Resnick" |
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| Title: Re: String Theory: Physics or Theology? |
03 Jan 2007 08:41:01 AM |
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Sam Wormley wrote:
Quoting from "Skeptical Briefs", Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2006
©2006, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
"String Theory: Physics or Theology?"
By Victor J Stenger
<snip>
"To most physicists, however, the success of the standard model has
been far from a blessing. A whole generation of experimentalists have
tried and failed to find some empirical anomaly that would point in
the direction of the physics that surely lies beyond the standard
model, and science without anomaly is no fun. They have worked hard
and made important new discoveries, such as neutrino mass, but these
have been trimmings to the model rather than paradigm shifts.
What bugs me about this whole article is the (implicit) identification
between "Physics" and the Standard Model. That somehow, Physics proper
is limited to the Standard Model, because the Standard Model, or that
program of study, is capable of describing the entire universe. The
overwhelming number of practicing physicists in the world are more
interested in studying things a "theory of everything" could never be
applied to.
<snip>
"In the meantime, some philosophers of science are being to ponder the
possibility that there might never be a theory of everything--at
least one from which all the fundamental principles and parameters of
physics are calculable from a single universal principle. Perhaps
this is the way the universe is, described by models that maintain
certain basic symmetries while other symmetries are broken
spontaneously. The universe looks very much like the universe you
would expect if it came from nothing as a product of symmetry and
chance".
Emergent properties are a good counterexample to naive "theories of
everything". Does one require quarks to explain why rubber is stretchy?
--
Andrew Resnick, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Case Western Reserve University
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| User: "Andy Resnick" |
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| Title: Re: String Theory: Physics or Theology? |
03 Jan 2007 08:41:37 AM |
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Sam Wormley wrote:
Quoting from "Skeptical Briefs", Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2006
©2006, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
"String Theory: Physics or Theology?"
By Victor J Stenger
<snip>
"To most physicists, however, the success of the standard model has
been far from a blessing. A whole generation of experimentalists have
tried and failed to find some empirical anomaly that would point in
the direction of the physics that surely lies beyond the standard
model, and science without anomaly is no fun. They have worked hard
and made important new discoveries, such as neutrino mass, but these
have been trimmings to the model rather than paradigm shifts.
What bugs me about this whole article is the (implicit) identification
between "Physics" and the Standard Model. That somehow, Physics proper
is limited to the Standard Model, because the Standard Model, or that
program of study, is capable of describing the entire universe. The
overwhelming number of practicing physicists in the world are more
interested in studying things a "theory of everything" could never be
applied to.
<snip>
"In the meantime, some philosophers of science are being to ponder the
possibility that there might never be a theory of everything--at
least one from which all the fundamental principles and parameters of
physics are calculable from a single universal principle. Perhaps
this is the way the universe is, described by models that maintain
certain basic symmetries while other symmetries are broken
spontaneously. The universe looks very much like the universe you
would expect if it came from nothing as a product of symmetry and
chance".
Emergent properties are a good counterexample to naive "theories of
everything". Does one require quarks to explain why rubber is stretchy?
--
Andrew Resnick, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Case Western Reserve University
.
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