Phenomenological quantum gravity - getting paid for waiting.

Phenomenological quantum gravity is the research topic of Frau Hossenfelder. Her post is interesting. She is looking for experimental results in quantum gravitation. She gives a long list that nobody found any. In fact, she is waiting for others to find such result. Indeed, she writes

What I do believe in ... is that it is possible for us to find experimental evidence for quantum gravity if we ask the right questions and look in the right places. 

This is her research: to wait! To wait for something that will never happen. She gets a salary for that. Frau Hossenfelder is waiting, and calls this research. Mind you, she organizes conferences on this topic (i.e. on waiting); she writes papers on it, gives talks, etc. It looks like research. But in reality it is just  

waiting.

We should not be astonished. In particle physics, everybody is waiting, at present. Read arxiv/hep-th or arxiv/gr-qc. Nobody is searching for new ideas. Humanity is paying all these researchers for waiting. Waiting for the correct ideas.

The next folly: the international linear collider

A folly with its own website: http://www.linearcollider.org.To see that it is a folly, read this page: http://www.linearcollider.org/from-design-to-reality/ It is unbelievable. They give 4 reasons to build the ILC:

- check the standard model
- explain dark matter and dark energy
- find supersymmetry
- find extra dimensions

Here is what we know:

- the standard model is correct and reproduces everything we know and ever saw.
- dark matter and dark energy are not found on earth; dark matter is an invention.
- susy is an invention and does not exist.
- extra dimensions are inventions and do not exist.

Yes indeed, the collider is sure NOT to discover anything new. We know that already now! Thousands of men, and alas, also some women, have designed a machine for nothing.  Millions of dollars down the drain.

Do you think this is a scandal? Then you should know that exactly the same arguments were given for the funding of the LHC. And what did they find? The Higgs, 50 years after its prediction. And nothing else. Yes indeed, the ILC repeats all the errors of the LHC, but with a difference: This time, NO particle has been predicted to be found.

"We did not find anything, so we look again." That is not worth billions. Spend them on medical research instead.

The difference between 10^16 GeV and 10^16 GeV plus 1eV - Why unification does not require a unique coupling constant

Supersymmetry people always argue that it can help to unify the coupling constants of the strong weak and electromagnetic interactions; they come together to a single value at 10^16 GeV. That is an argument for supersymmetry, they claim.

But wait. Why should the coupling constant reach a single value? After all, the coupling constants of the electromagnetic and the weak interaction do not reach the same value, and still the two interactions unify.

So we do not need the same coupling constant value for unification? Agreed. But then we do not have an argument for supersymmetry any more? Agreed. But then supersymmetry people are telling nonsense? Agreed. As a check for the last conclusion, ask your favorite supersymmetry expert the following question. At energies higher than 10^16 GeV, the three coupling constants separate again; are the interactions not unified any more at higher energies?

You will get answers like: "We do not know what happens there." So the supersymmetry people who propagate the argument that unification requires a single coupling constant are people who tell us that we know what happens at 10^16 GeV, or
10000000000000000 eV,
but we do not know what happens at 10^16 GeV plus 1 eV, or
10000000000000001 eV.

These people can calculate integrals in fermionic space (which does not exist) but are unable of simple logic (which does exist). Supersymmetry "experts" are really hilarious. 

The next ideology: "many" Higgs bosons

Particle researchers are worried. The standard model is too successful. It describes all experiments. Without exception. Could it be that there is nothing left to be discovered? "That is impossible!" they say. So they invent the possibility of "many" Higgs bosons. The options "many" electrons, "many" neutrinos, "many" quarks, or "many" vector bosons have already been settled. There are not "many" of any of these: we know them all.

So the poor researchers are left with the option of "many" Higgs bosons. Why should there by "many" of them, or even more than one? There is no reason; but particle physicists need the money to search for them. They are experienced. They got money to search for many things that do not exist: supersymmetry, strings, other universes, other dimensions. They know from experience that they will get money to search for "more" Higgs bosons.

If the standard model would be the end of particle physics, and if researchers would admit it, the money flow would cease. So they must invent new questions. Even if they make no sense. Such as the question about "many" Higgs bosons. It is just a fairy tale invented to get more money. We will hear many more such fairy tales in the coming years.

The double bind of Peter Woit

In his recent comment on his blog (answering a post by Haim) Woit explains that it IS important to find the fabric of space-time. He even encourages others to do so.

But when I posted a comment on exactly this option on his blog, he deleted it. No joke! Woit wants people to search for the fabric of space-time, but he does not want people to tell that they found it. Why not? Because he thinks that any person who claims to have found the fabric is not serious.

Psychologist call this type of encouragement, "do and don't", a double bind. It makes all those involved go nuts. Do we need to conclude that Woit has gone nuts? In any case, he really wants us to make fun of him.

God does not play dice, she winds up spaghetti

I must think about the way people wind up spaghetti in Italy with a fork. Isn't that similar to how particles move in the spaghetti model? There is no fork, but there is still a rotation.

The chapter on deducing quantum theory from spaghetti is too hand waving for my taste, but it could make sense. It would seem that god does not play dice; instead she winds up spaghetti. Fun.

Update: Here is how a distant civilisation winds up spaghetti.

In awe of spaghetti

If I try to tell what pulls me most to the spaghetti model, here is my candidate:

Gauge groups follow from shape deformations.

I find this so strange and bewildering.  It is unexpected. I have so many positive feelings attached to this.

Maybe because I read it just before my surgery. Life saved, but no child. I used to get impatient with people who care more about their ideas than about their children. I still do. But now I am left myself with the ideas only. Fate.

Spaghetti shape deformations as gauge groups. The connection makes me dream. The dreams are coming back, slowly, and they are beautiful. Again.

Why I like the spaghetti model of physics

Some particle physics researchers are thinking that

Physical “laws are just an arbitrary, messy outcome of random fluctuations in the fabric of space and time”.

Peter Woit makes fun of such people, including Arkani-Hamed, and rightly so. But this fun-making has a dark side: because of his cynism, Woit will make fun of emergence for the rest of his life, throwing out the baby with the bath water!  Instead, the view provided by the spaghetti model is much more interesting:

Physical laws are the unique outcome of random fluctuations in the strand/spaghetti fabric of space and time. 

Just by changing two key ideas, the phrase changes from nonsense to testable.  This is the beauty of the spaghetti model that Schiller presents in his sixth volume of Motion Mountain. That is how he derives most of the standard model, including the three gauge groups and the three particle generations that nobody else has derived until now.

Schiller, please go on. We will convince them all that the standard model is the real thing.

Update: Woit is now strongly opposed to the exploration of emergence. And thus he has dropped out of the search for unification. He sees his role only in making fun of people who work on strings, susy and emergence. I agree on the first two choices, but not on the third. Unfortunately, Woit is wrong to think that emergence is not physics. But who is going to tell him? He has fallen into the usual macho trap.

Biting bulldog: numerical predictions from spaghetti

My favorite predictions of the spaghetti theory:

• The standard model is valid precisely. The known physics equations are correct. Nothing is left to discover!
• There are three gauge interactions, three dimensions and three generations. Nothing is left to discover!
• The cosmological constant gets smaller with time.
• Certain mass ratios (W/Z, W/Higgs) and sequences of values among masses, coupling constants and mixing angles can be deduced.

The last topic is not complete. That is sad! I am waiting for the details and for more numbers. Sometimes I try to search myself. Though communicating with Schiller takes patience. On the whole, these predictions are more precise, more "numerical" and more complete than those of any other theory I have ever read about, on arxiv, on vixra, in books and in papers. No grandiose claims.  No new effects. Nothing revolutionary. Just a promising work in progress.

What I like most: the spaghetti theory predicts that additional predictions are impossible. I passionately like the idea that we are near the end of particle physics. So many pompous machos repeat that nature is infinite and complicated. And they go on repeating that everybody else is stupid or wrong, in church and in the internet. Machos, stop doing physics. Go into your wife's arms.

Down quark mass in the spaghetti model

"Anonymous" is asking questions about the mass of the d-quark tangle. I am not the right person to discuss the problem, but I'll try. I recall that when I first read about tangles defining mass, I was confused. Schiller does not explain the issue very well; but he says that more complex tangles have higher mass and rotate more slowly.

Somewhere else he writes that there is a problem with the down quark: the spaghetti model predicts a smaller mass than the up quark, because the down quark is simpler. A simpler tangle has a smaller mass. What does symmetry have for an effect? I don't know; "Anonymous" writes that it should ease rotation.  Then symmetry reduces the mass and makes the problem worse. And now?

And what is the difference between an up and down tangle anyway? The tangles (page 287) seem the same to me.