Somehow, I suspect that we are missing a dimension or two altogether and that will 'fix' most of our shortcomings in understanding the Universe.
Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
31–40 of 52 posts
Re: Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm convinced that even if someone did prove that a basic assumption of modern physics is wrong, it would automatically be assumed in turn that the author is a crackpot Well, since 100% of "proofs" that the basic assumptions of modern physics are wrong over the last century have, in fact, come from crackpots it's a pretty good working assumption. I'm convinced that the physics community isn't interested in the slight…
"Well, since 100% of "proofs" that the basic assumptions of modern physics are wrong over the last century have, in fact, come from crackpots it's a pretty good working assumption." Oh, please, which ones? Maybe the crackpots that challenged the notion that light is a wave and never behaves as a particle Or maybe the idiot that thought that massive objects can bend light. And yes, Albert Einstein was considered an id…
They only 'accept' the new ideas when the evidence is overwhelmingly in the favor of the new idea
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Re: Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
#33Somehow, I suspect that we are missing a dimension or two altogether and that will 'fix' most of our shortcomings in understanding the Universe.
Isn't that the running joke with string theorists -- if stuff doesn't work out, add another dimension.
Re: Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
#34I'm convinced that even if someone did prove that a basic assumption of modern physics is wrong, it would automatically be assumed in turn that the author is a crackpot, hence the work can be ignored. I'm convinced that the physics community isn't interested in the slightest in new ideas. Of course I'm automatically a crackpot (even beyond a conspiracy theorist) for even suggesting that. As an example to how bad thin…
http://exp.lore.com/post/23876312160/a-second-grader-asks-ne...
This is Neil Degrasse Tyson answering a 2nd grader's question about colliding black holes. First he flatters the boy because that's such a genius question (really? things collide all the time - it's sort of an obvious question). Then he says that his grad school buddy once calculated that if you enter a particular orbit near enough to two colliding black holes, YOU TRAVEL BACKWARDS IN TIME!!!1111one
I swear, if a religious fanatic talked this way, people would laugh at him. But when you get enough "science boosters" together with people that have Scientific Authority, they can say all sorts of crazy shit and it's OK because Your Intuition Is Wrong. (You can't see the emperor's clothes because your fashion intuition is just wrong, so shut your stupid classicist, Newtonian mouth.)
My local theater, the Paramount, is bringing Brian Greene to talk about his "mysterious universe" and all that string theory crap. It's like.. this stuff is basically fringe theoretical... I'm almost loathe to call it physics, because it's just mathematical masturbation. And most working physicists shake their heads at it, and even prominent theorists like Lee Smolin have come out and outright called it a sham. But Dr. Greene and collaborators still get to go around the pop science circuit, making fantastical Nova specials about 11 dimensional nonsense, and basically corrupting the scientific sensibilities of the public.
My dad is an exceptionally bright physicist, and he is actively working to debunk most of modern cosmology. He's not the only one; folks like Halton Arp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp), who are skilled scientists in their own right, have been trying to call out the emperor's clothes for a long time. There's actually a hilarious introduction in one of Halton Arp's books where he traces ~70 years of groupthink and group delusion in astrophysics, where overnight, some crazy ass theories fell out of favor as new ones suddenly took root, and everyone sort of didn't talk about the fact that what they believed the previous year was completely insane. You could almost see a Monty Python sketch of this stuff, but sadly it's real. (Most of this theoretical churn was centered around the early work of Hubble, and people trying to figure just what the hell quasars are.)
Don't misunderstand me - it's fine and necessary to be wrong. It's just not fine to waste the public's (already limited) science attention span on stuff that is just pure conjecture. And it's doubly bad to poison the minds of generations of future scientists with all this nonsense. Cosmology is basically unhinged and it will eat itself.
I'll change my mind when they bring me a working warp nacelle. Until then, I'll be in my bunk... working to make lots of money in software, so I can personally fund fundamental physics research into magnetism.
Re: Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, that's how physics works. Physics is stupefyingly strict about its methods. Most sciences don't put quite as much value into models. The problem is that in a desire to strictly follow the method, physicists have become complacent with regards to extraordinary claims. Sure, the universe is full of dark matter, connected by tiny strings, in between folded up dimensions, but gravity is leaking away into parallel u…
Sorry, I don't mean to be insulting, but I find this to be quite laughable. Firstly, neither string theory or "gravity leakage" or more than 4 dimensions of space-time are even remotely accepted theories in physics or cosmology. The theory of dark matter is supported by many hugely disparate lines of evidence. It's the only theory that makes sense given all the evidence. As for the supposed superiority of biology, I…
> Firstly, neither string theory or "gravity leakage" or more than 4 dimensions of space-time are even remotely accepted theories in physics or cosmology.
So tell me please: Why are people like Brian Greene able to obtain the funding to make TV series like http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/fabric-of-cosmos.html and get public speaking engagements like https://secure2.convio.net/ata/site/Ecommerce/3120701?VIEW_P..., when they should be getting the popular attention of a Usenet crackpot?
Re: Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
#36Wave-particle duality is nonsensical. It certainly makes a lot less sense than "there is an as-yet unknown kind of medium that supports the propagation of waves".
Re: Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
#37I'm convinced that even if someone did prove that a basic assumption of modern physics is wrong, it would automatically be assumed in turn that the author is a crackpot, hence the work can be ignored. I'm convinced that the physics community isn't interested in the slightest in new ideas. Of course I'm automatically a crackpot (even beyond a conspiracy theorist) for even suggesting that. As an example to how bad thin…
I think the problem here is that you're conflating the absence of evidence with the evidence of absence. There's definitely no definitive evidence for the existence of black holes, but (as far as I know) we have no evidence that contradicts current models. Science works by coming up with a nullifiable hypothesis, then seeing how it holds up as evidence is gathered. When you see contradictions, you adapt your model. I…
We have logical evidence that contradicts current models, namely the black hole information loss paradox, a real paradox.
Re: Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
#38I'm convinced that even if someone did prove that a basic assumption of modern physics is wrong, it would automatically be assumed in turn that the author is a crackpot, hence the work can be ignored. I'm convinced that the physics community isn't interested in the slightest in new ideas. Of course I'm automatically a crackpot (even beyond a conspiracy theorist) for even suggesting that. As an example to how bad thin…
I don't see that to be the case. Physicists have been giving their utmost to try to crack open the standard model and prove it wrong for decades. And the same is true elsewhere as well. We thought we had a pretty good grasp on the nature of the expansion of the Universe, but it turned out that the expansion is accelerating. That was a huge reformulation of cosmology. We thought we knew about planetary formation, but…
Black holes are not the only theory which fits the evidence we have. Simply add 2M to the first 2 r's in the Schwarzschild metric (the equation used to confirm black holes), and you get a metric that fits all the evidence but doesn't predict black holes, hence doesn't raise the black hole information loss paradox, and so isn't incompatible with quantum mechanics that way. That's well known in the cosmological community, but ignored.
Re: Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
#39I'm convinced that even if someone did prove that a basic assumption of modern physics is wrong, it would automatically be assumed in turn that the author is a crackpot, hence the work can be ignored. I'm convinced that the physics community isn't interested in the slightest in new ideas. Of course I'm automatically a crackpot (even beyond a conspiracy theorist) for even suggesting that. As an example to how bad thin…
"By detecting very little energy from these black hole candidates, we have new proof that event horizons exist," said Michael Garcia of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA. "It's a bit odd to say we've discovered something by seeing almost nothing, but, in essence, this is what we have done." http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/as...
That makes the point you're replying to. "The most straightforward explanation for our observations is that these objects have event horizons and, therefore, are black holes." No, another even more straightforward explanation is that it's just an extremely dense object that's not a black hole. Even in Einstein's theory, an "almost black hole" suffices. Nothing mentioned in the article favors the former over the latter.
Re: Which of the Basic Assumptions of Modern Physics are Wrong?
#40I'm convinced that even if someone did prove that a basic assumption of modern physics is wrong, it would automatically be assumed in turn that the author is a crackpot, hence the work can be ignored. I'm convinced that the physics community isn't interested in the slightest in new ideas. Of course I'm automatically a crackpot (even beyond a conspiracy theorist) for even suggesting that. As an example to how bad thin…
In all other sciences, if you find a model that predicts something as self-contradictory as a black hole or dark matter, you shrug, figure your assumptions are wrong, and start over. In physics you announce the splendiferous wonders of the universe.
Don't forget dark energy, also (like dark matter) invented to fit the observations. How many hundreds of $millions of taxpayer money will be spent searching for it? These inventions are keeping many scientists employed, it seems. If they went back to correct the mistakes (like any good software developer) there might be a mass layoff.