Re: for those dorks who imagined they would be taken seriously if they could say, 'string theory'
- From: "Jason P" <jaspetr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 21 Aug 2006 20:05:44 -0700
abelard wrote:
On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 07:21:58 GMT, Paul Hyett <pah@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
typed:
In uk.politics.misc on Mon, 21 Aug 2006, abelard <abelard3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote :
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1226142,00.html
"But despite its extraordinary popularity among some of the smartestIsn't this the usual situation from the opponents of any given theory?
people on the planet, string theory hasn't been embraced by everyone--and
now, nearly 30 years after it made its initial splash, some of the
doubters are becoming more vocal. Skeptical bloggers have become
increasingly critical of the theory, and next month two books will be
hitting the shelves to make the point in greater detail. Not Even Wrong,
by Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit, and The Trouble with
Physics, by Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
in Waterloo, Ont., both argue that string theory (or superstring theory,
as it is also known) is largely a fad propped up by practitioners who tend
to be arrogantly dismissive of anyone who dare suggest that the emperor
has no clothes."
not really
As long as the opponents have a credible alternative theory to offer,
then there's no problem, otherwise it could possibly be seen just as
sour grapes at being denied funding.
funding is certainly an element...but it appears to be 'fashionable'
funding....
one problem is there is nothing much else on offer either....though
i think this is a wrong headed search in some senses....
this gets complicated...
first a rather side issue...in a sense it is a sort of useful 'puzzle' on
which young enthusiasts can learn skills (on how related those
skills are, i am skeptical). it's a bit like learning chess, or even
latin, in the hope the skills will be 'transferable' if anything
useful comes along...
i am not very convinced by this approach but it is not without
legs...
as to string theory 'itself'....it looks wrong headed to me (but i'm no
physicist)....it looks wrong headed to me because it is trying to
combine two very different approaches to the same real world*....
essentially the digital and the continuous....
http://www.abelard.org/feedback.htm#digit-n
i don't think this makes sense...
the most useful 'idea' to me in 'string theory' is the idea of 'a
dimension'...it raises the useful question 'what is a dimension'
and how does that concept relate to the real world...
a bit like (analogous) trying to look at the world from two positions at
once...i claim that is impossible....either you can stand at 'a' or
you can stand at 'b'...you cannot stand at 'a' and at 'b'
'simultaneously'...
there are situations like this in language...you can either speak 'as if'
'things' are 'continuous' or as if 'they' 'are' digital...but you
can't do both at once...
i suspect that string theory is messing with an error in that area
Hawkings and Hertog assert that their "top down" approach to cosmology
is a fundamental departure from scientific tradition.
"The usual approach to the problem of initial conditions for inflation
is to assume some initial configuration for the universe and evolve it
forward in time," Hawking said. "This could be described as the 'bottom
up' approach to cosmology."
The quantum nature of the cosmos, however, dictates the "top down"
approach, Hawking claims, because the history of the universe depends
on the mountain, the dice, the snowflakes and the snowballs. In other
words, the universe "depends on the observables being measured."
God may play dice then, but only if the dice are loaded. If the
universe depends on observables, it also depends on we the observers,
so the dice had to somehow guarantee that we humans would emerge.
Physicists call this idea the so-called "Weak Anthropic Principle" from
the Greek "anthropos," which means "man" or "human."
"The top-down approach is a mathematical formulation of the Weak
Anthropic Principle," Hawking writes, in which observed values of all
physical and cosmological quantities are restricted by the requirement
that carbon-based life must exist.
"The top-down approach incorporates the Weak Anthropic Principle
because it takes into account certain observed features of our universe
- such as the fact that it expands - in order to explain its
origin," Hertog said. "In other words, a top down approach does not
tell us how the universe should be, but why the universe is the way it
is."
"If Hawking speaks, we should probably listen," Randolph-Macon College
physics professor George Spagna told WorldNetDaily from Ashland, Va.
"The approach Hawking and Hertog apply in their paper is to work
backwards from the current state of the universe to its possible
origins, rather than attempting to cook up the appropriate initial
state and see if it evolves forward into something resembling the
present universe," Spagna explained. "Hence, it is akin to attaching
mathematics to the Weak Anthropic Principle, because we obviously
inhabit a universe whose conditions permit our very existence in the
first place."
.
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- From: Paul Hyett
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