In quantum gravity, people are arguing about firewalls. Are black hole horizons hot or not?
Both sides argue with what happens behind the horizon. Yes, "behind" it. Of course, behind a horizon there is whatever you want. Behind a horizon there is only religion. Behind a horizon or outside the universe is the same. Whatever one says about it, it is nonsense.
I am missing a simple and clear discussion on whether a Rindler horizon is hot. That would be refreshing and clarifying.
But reading papers that use unproven conjectures in non-existing regions to make either one point or another shows only one thing: quantum gravity is mainly a belief system.
26 October 2013
20 October 2013
Weinberg is depressed
Read this new article: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/nov/07/physics-what-we-do-and-dont-know/ Weinberg is embracing the anthropic nonsense and writes that there is no explanation for the fundamental constants.
Weinberg, an actual scientist who once was an example to many, is publicly making the statement that for something there is no explanation. What a sad story.
This is the sadness of seeing death into the eye. That sadness induces him to say: "Because I did not find the explanation for the fundamental constants, nobody else will."
Weinberg, an actual scientist who once was an example to many, is publicly making the statement that for something there is no explanation. What a sad story.
This is the sadness of seeing death into the eye. That sadness induces him to say: "Because I did not find the explanation for the fundamental constants, nobody else will."
17 September 2013
Counting dimensions
High energy theorists are split in two camps. One camp believes that space and time have ten, eleven or twelve dimensions. The other camp believes that there are two or three dimensions, not four. Reading the arxiv preprints, we can see each camp presenting arguments for its respective view.
A normal person might say that the battle is futile, because no experiments will ever verify either camp. In the past, some experiments have been proposed, but they all had flawed premises. No experimental test seems possible, so that the camps will go on discussing.
But why will they continue? Both camps claim that there is a minimum experimental length in nature. That is bizarre. A minimum length means that there is no way to measure the number of dimensions. Dimensions only exist if lengths can be as tiny as imaginable.
So these theorists fight about something that cannot ever be measured. Isn't that sad?
A normal person might say that the battle is futile, because no experiments will ever verify either camp. In the past, some experiments have been proposed, but they all had flawed premises. No experimental test seems possible, so that the camps will go on discussing.
But why will they continue? Both camps claim that there is a minimum experimental length in nature. That is bizarre. A minimum length means that there is no way to measure the number of dimensions. Dimensions only exist if lengths can be as tiny as imaginable.
So these theorists fight about something that cannot ever be measured. Isn't that sad?
27 August 2013
Why gauge?
This is the title of http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.5599 by Carlo Rovelli. Read it. Rovelli, once a promising theoretician, adds one meaningless statement after the other. And of course, the title question is not answered at all.
Why is nature described by gauge theories? So far, nobody knows, not even crackpots. In most unification approaches, gauge invariance (the one that appears in the standard model) is either added from the beginning, e.g. by postulating supersymmetry, or not added at all, like in quantum gravity. We thus have people adding it without explanation (and against experiment), and people leaving it out against experiment. Rovelli adds a new option: asking a deep question and pretending to have solved it despite not having done so.
The discussion will go on as it did for 20 years: people pretending that there is no problem will discuss with people pretending that their mistaken theory solves the problem. Just follow the blogs.
In the past, men were more honest: they admitted that they had no answer. We women must gently lead men and women back to honesty.
Why is nature described by gauge theories? So far, nobody knows, not even crackpots. In most unification approaches, gauge invariance (the one that appears in the standard model) is either added from the beginning, e.g. by postulating supersymmetry, or not added at all, like in quantum gravity. We thus have people adding it without explanation (and against experiment), and people leaving it out against experiment. Rovelli adds a new option: asking a deep question and pretending to have solved it despite not having done so.
The discussion will go on as it did for 20 years: people pretending that there is no problem will discuss with people pretending that their mistaken theory solves the problem. Just follow the blogs.
In the past, men were more honest: they admitted that they had no answer. We women must gently lead men and women back to honesty.
23 August 2013
Arkani-Hasleft - after physics, now reality
If you have a job at the IAS in Princeton, and try to do better than Einstein, there are chances that you succeed.
Einstein went there in the 1930s, and did almost nothing. In fact, Einstein went there, searched for a unified field theory along a path that was clearly wrong and at the same time published papers in which he said that no unified field theory was possible. But Einstein had done a few things before.
What does it mean to do better than Einstein at the IAS? First, it means to tell everybody to take your wrong path as well, while knowing that it makes no sense at all to follow it.
On the subject of unification, the IAS has a strange result. The collection of the smartest minds of the US worked together for decades with an output:
Next time, try a woman.
Einstein went there in the 1930s, and did almost nothing. In fact, Einstein went there, searched for a unified field theory along a path that was clearly wrong and at the same time published papers in which he said that no unified field theory was possible. But Einstein had done a few things before.
What does it mean to do better than Einstein at the IAS? First, it means to tell everybody to take your wrong path as well, while knowing that it makes no sense at all to follow it.
On the subject of unification, the IAS has a strange result. The collection of the smartest minds of the US worked together for decades with an output:
Nothing.This is the second part of what doing "better than Einstein" means at the IAS.
Next time, try a woman.
20 August 2013
Motl admits that supersymmetry is wrong
Motl, a failed physicist, failed string theorist, failed physics crackpot, failed political activist, and failed husband, is a regular reader and commentor on this blog. Unfortunately, his comments on this blog are mostly unfit for publishing. But one development is worth mentioning. As he made clear in his latest comment on this blog, Motl now agrees that supersymmetry is wrong.
Now that supersymmetry not only disagrees with reason, but also disagrees with experiment, Motl has switched his longtime position, and wrote: "You are right, you slut!" My husband is already a intense fan of Motl...
But all men, like Motl, who hate their mom merit our prayers.
Now that supersymmetry not only disagrees with reason, but also disagrees with experiment, Motl has switched his longtime position, and wrote: "You are right, you slut!" My husband is already a intense fan of Motl...
But all men, like Motl, who hate their mom merit our prayers.
17 August 2013
Ellis suffers from supersymmetry delusion
In a recent interview, Ellis, the best known particle physicist from CERN, says:
Superymmetry is a diagnosis: it is a specific delusion common among particle physicists. Indeed, Ellis admits that most likely he will die before admitting that supersymmetry is wrong:
Obviously we theorists working on supersymmetry are playing for big stakes. We're talking about dark matter, the origins of mass scales in physics, unifying the fundamental forces. You have to be realistic: if you are playing for big stakes, very possibly you're not going to win.But he is wrong. He is not playing for big stakes. Helping the poor, avoiding that children die, making people happy: those are the big stakes. Supersymmetry has no relation to such big stakes.
Superymmetry is a diagnosis: it is a specific delusion common among particle physicists. Indeed, Ellis admits that most likely he will die before admitting that supersymmetry is wrong:
After you've run the LHC for another 10 years or more and explored lots of parameter space and you still haven't found supersymmetry at that stage, I'll probably be retired. It's often said that it's not theories that die, it's theorists that die.Ellis is hammering it in: he is suffering from supersymmetry delusion.
14 August 2013
A paradox: the theory of everything cannot be published
This is one of the best stories I heard. Imagine you have discovered the theory of everything, the TOE. You want to publish it and prove that it is correct. Of course, you need to show that it contains quantum theory, general relativity, quantum field theory, the standard model and so forth. For this proof, you will need at least a hundred pages, maybe much more. But no journal accepts such long papers. No problem, you think, "I'll publish it in pieces". No, that is not possible either, because then the "unsubstantiated" claim of a TOE cannot be made in any of the pieces - except maybe the last one. Then the earlier pieces have no interest and will not get published.
Now we have another reason why no TOE is found in a journal so far.
Now we have another reason why no TOE is found in a journal so far.
31 July 2013
Wilczek is lost - so is humor
If you read Wilczek's new paper on the "mulitiverse", http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7376, you will be astonished about how deep a Nobel Prize winner can fall. Wilczek is a really smart man. But there is neither a correct nor an intelligent sentence in the whole paper.
We must help men from this nonsense. Only we women can do it.
But it is getting tedious to cry "Wolf!" whenever a smart man writes nonsense. The search for a theory of everything is dominated by dinosaurs that think and write and talk nonsense. The satire is losing its humor. Following research is more like a visit to a psychiatric ward. Depressing, not funny. I will post again only when lightness is back.
We must help men from this nonsense. Only we women can do it.
But it is getting tedious to cry "Wolf!" whenever a smart man writes nonsense. The search for a theory of everything is dominated by dinosaurs that think and write and talk nonsense. The satire is losing its humor. Following research is more like a visit to a psychiatric ward. Depressing, not funny. I will post again only when lightness is back.
24 July 2013
Return of the Lance Armstrong of particle physics
Seiberg is a man who spent his whole life bullying people who did not agree with his mistaken ideas about particles; he bullied all those who competed with him on the search for a theory of everything, or TOE.
Lance Armstrong has stopped bullying people competing with him. Seiberg has not. In his latest talk, Seiberg goes even further. He is now telling young students that is unlikely that the TOE will ever be found, because of the multiverse.
So he has reached the point at which he says to students: I did not achieve it, you won't either. He forgets to mention that he did not achieve the TOE because he chose the wrong way. Armstrong at least admitted that he was on the wrong track. Seiberg did not. This is why Seiberg deserves, even more than Armstrong, to be forgotten.
Lance Armstrong has stopped bullying people competing with him. Seiberg has not. In his latest talk, Seiberg goes even further. He is now telling young students that is unlikely that the TOE will ever be found, because of the multiverse.
So he has reached the point at which he says to students: I did not achieve it, you won't either. He forgets to mention that he did not achieve the TOE because he chose the wrong way. Armstrong at least admitted that he was on the wrong track. Seiberg did not. This is why Seiberg deserves, even more than Armstrong, to be forgotten.
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