24 March 2018

Spaghetti vs. strings - and the neutrino chance

Schiller claims that his strand-spaghetti model contains general relativity and also the standard model of particle physics. See here and here. What should we make of this claim? I summarize my scepticism.

  1. The spaghetti model predicts that there is no physics beyond the standard model. This is a bold claim; it could be true and it could be wrong. Most particle physicists would disagree; especially theoreticians like to point out that the standard model cannot be right or at least, that it cannot be complete. Are their arguments correct or wishful thinking? This is hard to tell. The topic would be worth a separate investigation. One thing is sure: many researchers disagree with the prediction.
  2. The spaghetti model predicts that there are no additional elementary particles in nature. It claims that dark matter is nothing different from usual matter and black holes. Obviously, experiments can prove this prediction wrong at any time. Supersymmetry and dark matter fans disagree, but they are rather quiet at present.
  3. The spaghetti model did not calculate absolute particle masses yet. This is a big issue, because neutrino masses are not yet known. The model would gain instant credibility if a neutrino mass value would be calculated, published and then confirmed by experiment. Why does this not happen? Is it really so difficult to calculate mass values? 
  4. The spaghetti model predicts cosmology with a decreasing cosmological constant. There are no good measurements about this issue yet. And the proposal is rather uncommon in the community.
Do we just need to be patient and to wait for more results? Here are a few other points that make me think:



  • Schiller did not publish yet. He did not publish a single paper on strands. On his website, Schiller writes that his work is not ripe for publication yet. Are the spaghetti not cooked enough yet?
  • Schiller has made mistakes and changed his model in the past. He once predicted that the Higgs boson would not exist. He then added the Higgs. And he eliminated knots. Like in real spaghetti.
  • Schiller has no support from other researchers. He seems to work alone.
  • And Schiller is not a woman, as I always wanted any good researcher on unification to be. OK, this is not a serious argument. 

  • Are these points of any weight? I do not know; probably not. Also, there are unquestionable positive sides: Experiments agree with his spaghetti model. There is no multiverse in the spaghetti model. The press and the media are not involved. There is no mention of holography and string theory. (A dark point: Schiller does mention qubits...) And finally, because the spaghetti model agrees with data, but not with string theory, an ignominious ex-researcher from Czechia called Schiller a "crackpot". That is how deep string theorists have fallen: if you make statements that agree with experiment, you get ad hominem attacks. Schiller should bear this as a badge of honour - at least until disagreement with data occurs. Insults by Czech or other string theorists are a good sign. Spaghetti or strings, that's the question!

    What should I make of all this? My own conclusion: I will wait to write more biting satire until the neutrino mass is predicted or until the spaghetti model is falsified.