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New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

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Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#11
post #5

Is there a decent explanation of what the conflict is about, that is understandable with a non-physics-major college level maths background?

Depends how much time you want to spend on it. I first learned about this topic in Brian Green's book The Elegant Universe back in 2005 or so. At the time there was a glut of popular science books on the topic (Lee Smolin had an excellent book titled The Trouble with Physics which made an excellent counter argument to Green's string theory-heavy title).

If you want to go much deeper, Roger Penrose wrote The Road to Reality which is a much much harder read (I was never able to complete it after 3 separate attempts).

Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#12
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made them mysterious? Aren't there always some fraction of atoms or molecules with sufficiently high energy to escape the object?

The fact that you, a random internet guy, knows this makes me believe that the world's top experts on measuring this exact thing probably thought of it, and if there is a mysterious divergence this probably doesn't account for it.

They're not being arrogant, as it seems like the parent is genuinely curious as to why such weights diverged, as am I. It is still a good question to ask, since I also have not heard a good answer to that question.

Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#13
post #5

Is there a decent explanation of what the conflict is about, that is understandable with a non-physics-major college level maths background?

Being _hyper_ reductionist, the standard model of physics, which describes, to an extremely high degree, the interaction (creation, elimination, and chance of one thing turning into another) of particles that constitute "stuff" (matter / energy) does not account for the interaction of matter via gravitation.

Most things interact with each other, they create "particles" to exchange force / energy (actually in the case here much of this is actually virtual particle interaction / creation). An example of this is when two magnets are interacting with each other, the repulsion/attraction that the magnets / and magnetic fields, the force carriers there actually described by best by "virtual photons" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_photon#:~:text=Virtual....

The whole standard model is like this (protons/neutrons exchange gluons via the strong nuclear force).

For gravity, there isn't a good "particle" we've found that can accurately describe how gravity behave. It's good to note here a "particle" is what is used to "quantize" something, and so quantum mechanics is the study of how these subatomic particles interact and are created when things like protons are smashed together in a particle accelerator.

Gravity, on the other hand, behaves more like a classical theory (in the sense that it is a field, rather than a discrete quantized energy exchange). In the parlance of the field, mass, appears to cause a curvature in space time according to the rules (quite accurately predicted) in general relativity.

This appears to be some sort of more reconciliation by acknowledgment of the different aspects of the behaviors of the models (GR vs QM), and chooses a path to verify this by looking at the breakdown of matter (in this case, entangled quantum particles) in a asomtomic limit that might be imposed on a quantized theory when that is subatomically reconciled against a continuous field like gravity.

(My own notes) This might be indicating that there is a continuous nature (or at least continuous at the scales that these subatomic particles experience) such that when the particles interact with the continuous field, their movement creates some snapback of the field (thinking how movement in water creates microscopic cavitation) which disrupts what would be a continuous laminar flow in the water case, creating macroscopic turbulence (in this case disturbing the entangled particles)

* Edit: a little clarity / notes on the SM/QM/GR overlap

Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#14
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made them mysterious? Aren't there always some fraction of atoms or molecules with sufficiently high energy to escape the object?

The fact that you, a random internet guy, knows this makes me believe that the world's top experts on measuring this exact thing probably thought of it, and if there is a mysterious divergence this probably doesn't account for it.

I've heard of an appeal to authority, but an appeal to ignorance is new.

OPs question is not ridiculous, nor does he suggest it to counter the "mysterious" claims

Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#15

> A second paper, published simultaneously in Nature Communications and led by Professor Oppenheim's former Ph.D. students, looks at some of the consequences of the theory, and proposes an experiment to test it: to measure a mass very precisely to see if its weight appears to fluctuate over time. Definitely don't know enough to comment about the overall proposal, but given how many grand physics theories over the pas…

Yeah, since untestable proposals for this kind of theory are basically the norm, the fact that they have a proposed test made me think it was worth sharing.

Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#16
post #4
post #3

The various standard kilograms held by the national bodies, and the prototype standard kilogram in paris, were measured very precisely over the past hundred years, and their weights did seem to diverge mysteriously.

What made them mysterious? Aren't there always some fraction of atoms or molecules with sufficiently high energy to escape the object?

If it were simply a matter of losing particles, I'd expect that one of the many very capable metrology labs around the world would've devised an appropriate experiment, e.g. storing two exact same masses at slightly different temperatures near absolute zero and characterizing the difference in mass (since presumably the higher temperature sample would lose slightly more mass if it were down to high energy particles).

A test for this theory would have to involve a means of accounting for these kinds of fluctuations.

Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#17
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made them mysterious? Aren't there always some fraction of atoms or molecules with sufficiently high energy to escape the object?

If it were simply a matter of losing particles, I'd expect that one of the many very capable metrology labs around the world would've devised an appropriate experiment, e.g. storing two exact same masses at slightly different temperatures near absolute zero and characterizing the difference in mass (since presumably the higher temperature sample would lose slightly more mass if it were down to high energy particles).…

I mean I just gave one example of how it might lose mass. There are other obvious ways (like when they're picked up etc.). My point wasn't to present a hypothesis for people like myself here to rebut. I can do that just fine myself. I was trying to understand what about this has been confusing for scientists.

Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#18

> A second paper, published simultaneously in Nature Communications and led by Professor Oppenheim's former Ph.D. students, looks at some of the consequences of the theory, and proposes an experiment to test it: to measure a mass very precisely to see if its weight appears to fluctuate over time. Definitely don't know enough to comment about the overall proposal, but given how many grand physics theories over the pas…

It's good that it's testable. This is one of those ideas which either wins a Nobel Prize or is totally bogus. So what does it take to test it?

Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#19

> A second paper, published simultaneously in Nature Communications and led by Professor Oppenheim's former Ph.D. students, looks at some of the consequences of the theory, and proposes an experiment to test it: to measure a mass very precisely to see if its weight appears to fluctuate over time. Definitely don't know enough to comment about the overall proposal, but given how many grand physics theories over the pas…

Untestable theories are not theories - I mean, for what purpose and why care?

Re: New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

#20
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made them mysterious? Aren't there always some fraction of atoms or molecules with sufficiently high energy to escape the object?

The fact that you, a random internet guy, knows this makes me believe that the world's top experts on measuring this exact thing probably thought of it, and if there is a mysterious divergence this probably doesn't account for it.

I find that it saves time to just start by assuming the experts haven't thought of X because of how many times I've seen assuming that they _have_ thought of X turn out to be a poor assumption, across many domains.
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