Kenneth Ismert
kismert at gmail.com
Tue Apr 17 11:14:36 CDT 2012
As we get more general and better knowledge, it increasingly comes at the expense of believability. Newtonian mechanics were straightforward, and comforting in their determinism. The mathematics are approachable by anyone who has taken a college calculus course. Einstein's relativistic universe is much harder to get an intuitive grasp on, and the mathematics are much harder, too: mastery is an accomplishment for a mathematics or physics major. Proof was hard to come by, but relativity is incontestably true. Then came the quantum revolution. Nature isn't predictable; worse, it can't ever be completely measured; worse still, it behaves in ways that are utterly bizarre. Einstein rebelled against the idea. Bohr said: "If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet." Still, the theory of Quantum Electrodynamics, by Feynman et al, is the best-proved theory in the history of science. The mathematics are just barely tenable: a monkey puzzle of infinite series that cancel each other out, they are graspable only by physics graduate students and professors. Now we have reached the string theory stage, an attempt to tame quantum strangeness, inhabited by things called 'superstrings' and 'branes' living in something between 7 and 11 dimensions, the extra ones 'curled up into little balls' so small that they are undetectable. A unified, satisfactory description of the mathematics has defied the best mathematical and physics minds for decades, and remains an ongoing puzzle for researchers. In fact, string theory has yet to produce a single experimentally testable assertion! It can't be proved. It can't be disproved. It just is. Of course, the implications of string theory are even more strange. Some theorists look at it and say there must be a parallel universe. Others claim that is insufficient, and the number of universes is infinite. Still others say the concept of a universe is irrelevant. Science has narrowed down the number of universes to a range between 0 and infinity. So, we have come to this fuzzy boundary between science and belief. Will the current efforts produce satisfactory science? Are we missing something simple? It is anyone's guess. A postscript: There is an experiment at Fermilab which aims to examine the fabric of space-time at its smallest detail, to determine if it is digital or not. It is inspired by the famous double-interferometer experiment, performed over a century ago, which aimed to measure changes in the velocity of light through its supposed transmission medium, the ether. That experiment famously failed to find variation in the speed of light, destroying the theory of the ether, and deterministic physics along with it. If this new experiment works, and nature turns out to be full of digital jitter, or 'quantum foam', then this opens up a new possibility. Maybe God is a programmer, and we are a computer simulation. -Ken > Stuart McLachlan: > > In this case, I don't think that "flawed" is the right word. "Simplistic" would be better. > > Newton's approach is a simplified model of reality, which matches observations within > certain constraints. It is only beyond those constraints that newtonian laws break down. > > Einsteins approach is a more complex model, which widens those constraints. Current > string/multiverse/brane approaches are more complex again and further widen those > constraints. > > Each appears to be getting closer to reality, but whether we will ever get there is another > matter.