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Science

Grand Unified Theory Possible by 2050 155

Posted by Roblimo from the wrapping-it-all-up dept.
pcarter writes "Scientific American has an interesting article about the possibility of unifying all the fundamental physical forces (electro-weak, strong and gravity) by 2050 and how it might be done. "
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Grand Unified Theory Possible by 2050 More

Grand Unified Theory Possible by 2050

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  • hope (Score:2)

    by Haven ( 34895 )
    I just hope the major players in physics like Hawking and Chakatou will be alive to see it.

  • By 2050? (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    I thought they already tried this with strings and superstrings and other physics mumbo-jumbo. Wake me up when they verify something interesting. This is on the order of "cosmologists aren't sure about dark matter". Big deal, I thought it was a dumb idea to begin with. Let me know when the headline is "theoretical physicists shut up so we can get work done".

    However, if they ever do find out something like this, it'd be nice to use gravity as a constant power source, or something. I suppose the next step would involve converting one form into another... But I'd be happy with something simpler, like cold fusion, say. :)
    ---
    pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
  • Personally, I'm working on a Theory right now on how to Theorize Theorizing a Unified Theory by 2038, but I'm running into a few problems; mostly other Theories I had about how to develop Theories that would quasi-explain Theoretical recursion.



    .lx, pre-registering for redundant moderation.

  • hrm... (Score:3)

    by Haven ( 34895 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @08:03PM (#1530005) Homepage Journal
    The only thing I am worried about is the fact that people in 1960 thought we'd be living on the moon by now
  • A unified theory will likely include sufficient understanding of gravity to effectively manipulate it by converting other forces into gravitational ones, possibly allowing a type of anti-gravity.
  • Whoo, today, for the first time in my life, I got a physics teacher to sorta explain when unification means in a way that actually meant something. Not that I understood really well. Can anyone point to somewhere that explains it in terms that can be understood by someone with 1 years of college physics? (And obviouly takes advantage of assuming that knowledge...)
  • There is a chance the work of unification will be completed by 2050, but about that we cannot be confident.

    I'll say you can't be confident. Given the speed at which developments move these days, in all areas of science and technology, who would dare to predict exactly where we'll be in 50 years time?

    Better still, whose prediction would be right? Very few, I imagine. I'm no particle or nuclear physicist, but I have trouble working out what stage I'll be at in two week's time...

    I'd say let's just keep plodding along at a solution, and see how far we get...



  • ... that humanities gonna see that day.

    All is fine and finess for those who do the forecasting, that the final realization of the Grand Unification of all forces will somehow make us all that much better.

    That is, _IF_ we human can do it _BEFORE_ we blow all of us in such a grandscale that we'd be in minute smitherines way before 2050.

    The way US is bullying all other countries all over the world, I have doubt that humanities can survive until 2050.

    People who are being bullied tends to rebel, and the more US bullies the whole world, the more it is possible that the world will rebel against Uncle Sam, and with over 7,000 NUKES pointed at EACH AND EVERY CORNER in this world, what is left in 2050 will be a bunch of barren wasted rocks, orbiting somewhere the third piece of rock (from the Sun) used to be.


  • read the elegant universe by brian greene. it covers this topic well (even for someone with little education in physics). i found the book easy to read and fascinating, however, the two PhD's i work with think string theory (or T.O.E.) is absolutely absurd.

    so much for that one....

    -ryan

  • There tends to be a "retrospective" issue roughly every ten years for magazines like Scientific American that supplies these sorts of predictions.

    SCI AM admittedly tends to be a bit more serious than, say, Popular Science, which has been "predicting" hypersonic airliners fairly much continuously since the 1950s.

  • This is a good point to mention a truly good book that dumbs down the subjects of SuperString theory and Grand Unification: "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. I haven't quite finished it yet, but it does an excellent job of explaining relativity and other fun subjects. I recommend it.
  • *Excellent* book!

    Read that book, and loved all of it (certainly made me more knowledable in the subject).

    GUT was a subject that wasn't covered in my physics courses }}:-(.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ...is not helping.

    Read a book, drink a glass of water, fantasize about Julie Andrews [geocities.com] circa 1965. You might feel better!


    .lx, not helping.
  • ...is not helping.

    Read a book, drink a glass of water, fantasize about Julie Andrews [geocities.com] circa 1965. You might feel better!


    .lx, not helping.
  • Well, the point is, we COULD have a permanent lunar base if we really wanted to commit the resources to it. I personally don't think it's worthwhile at this point. Maybe in a couple decades, but not now.
    --
    Chris Dunham
    http://www.tetrion.com/~chameleo/index.html
  • I think the possibilities for a Theory of Everything within our lifetime is pretty exciting. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the subject (instead of just spouting anti-theory crud) should check out a book I'm reading now called The Elegant Universe. It's all about recent attempts to solve the major problem with modern theoretical physics, namely, the incompatibility of point-particle quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity.

    I can't pretend to understand all of it, but I think it's by far the clearest explanation of string theory and its consequences I have ever seen.

    Today's fascinating insight: according to string theory, our universe has as many as 9 spatial dimensions. Furthermore, the universe cannot keep contracting forever - it has a theoretical minimum size. Cool, eh?

  • GUT (Score:3)

    by KodaK ( 5477 ) <sakodak@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Monday November 15, 1999 @08:39PM (#1530020) Homepage
    You know, I follow this stuff pretty closely. I'm no physicist, nor do I pretend to be one, but I don't know how anyone can even pretend to possibly predict what we're going to know at a given time. (Yes, I've read the article.) There have been a few theories posited in the past that attempted to unify all the forces, some of them promising, but IMO, we're not going to know much unless we can do more EXPERIMENTING.

    We lost the SSC, which would have told us a lot, and we're probably not going to have any accelerators for quite a while that can prove or disprove any of these theories. While the math may look good, even elegant, it's all hogwash unless we can DO something with it, some sort of experimental verification.

    Personaly, I'd like to see an accelerator built around the Earth, now there we could hit some energies that could show us some really neat stuff, but we're more concerned with ketchup viscoscity tests here in the US than we are fundimental science. Bah, yeah, I'm bitter.

    Anyway, any physicists out there who would care to share with us some of the more recent inroads we've made here? What have we seen? I haven't heard much about the Higgs boson since "The God Particle" (any armchair physicists out there should check that book out) and not much at all about high energy physics in general. Is there anything happening?

    I'm rambling again, someone put a sock in my mouth...

  • Note: Author knows his stuff... (Score:3)

    by morris57 ( 23356 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @08:45PM (#1530021) Homepage Journal

    Please do not take this article lightly. Weinberg is extremely well respected in his field. It is not a case of Scientific American just paying a random physicist to write an article on GU. What he says should be every bit as beleiveable as Hawking and all the other great scientists who came before him. He is a Nobel laureate, and regarded among his peers as one of the premier minds working on GUT. At the American Physical Society meeting last year in Atlanta, I saw a huge room filled with all of the country's greatest physicists come to see Weinberg. So, this article shouldn't be put down lightly.
  • Stephen Hawking himself gives Grand Unification a 50/50 chance in the next twenty years; 2050 sounds almost pessimistic in that context.

    I'm taking a course in theoretical physics next semester. I can't wait to get a more thorough understanding of the issues involved so that I can better appreciate what a monumental achievement Unification is when we finally get there.

    Maybe it's just me being all starry-eyed optimistic, but the prospect of cracking universal mysteries like these really gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling about the potential of humanity. Hmm, yeah, that's just my techno-idealism coming out :)

    -jay

  • this is a bit offtopic and i haven't read the entire article (skimmed it) but i'd like to relate something:

    When i was in high school, i attended a saturday morning physics program at fermilab (il) which has a particle accelerator. the program was pretty much a lecture series by researchers there about "basic" concepts, theories, and trends in high-energy physics.

    one of topics that was covered is the need for faster accelerators in order to acheive the energy necessary to do the experiment that would verify any unifed theory.

    the lecture mentioned that (at the time) fermilab had the fastest accelerator, but the new CERN accelerator (which is active now, i assume) would eclipse it.

    now the part i found interesting was the fact that the accelerator at CERN would not be rivaled for a while because the only way to get significantly faster would be to build it larger. on the scale of a few HUNDRED MILES larger.

    one of the proposals that the lecturer showed us for a future accelerator would be drilled by robots and would span one or two states!

    i couldn't find anything that references this on the site [fnal.gov] so maybe someone who works there or has more knowledge on this stuff can help me out? please? *grin*

  • Read "Dreams of a Final theory" by Stephen Weinberg.

    It won't explain what's going on currently (it's kinda old, high-energy physics wise) but it will explain what the hell the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) or in some circles the Theory of Everything (TOE) is. It's a "to the point" sort of book, but a lot of it is about the SSC fiasco (most of the sentiments I share about that, BTW.) We spend way too much money going up and down in LEO. That money could be better spent looking at a TOE (GUT) that could take us OUT of LEO. (For those that don't know, LEO == Low Earth Orbit.)

  • ...and once you have anti-gravity, you can produce "solid-state" (i.e. no rotating sections) gravity generation for spacecraft, as well as a nice propulsion system. It'll be interesting to see what develops first, nanotechnology as a method of repairing damaged cells, making food, etc, or an actual PRACTICAL device based on the GUFT.
    --
    Chris Dunham
    http://www.tetrion.com/~chameleo/index.html
  • There was a very interesting essay by Richard Feynman on just this topic in a book on Superstring Theory that I read recently. His view was that a lot of these theories were getting off into speculation and concerns of mathematical elegence while failing to stay rooted in experimental data. Some of the predictions made by some of the early superstring theories were predicting particles with energies so high that they would be impossible to test, but people just continued building on top of them, piling speculation on speculation. I think maybe some of the hype around superstrings is dieing down(they weren't mentioned in every other sentence the way they used to be in articles about the Unified Theory), but some of the more solid ideas that they provoked inquiry into(perturbative theories, gauge symmatries, and ultimately M-Theory) are being built into possible future models. Strings could be the "aether" of the 20th century; not really there, but used to give rise to some damn useful physics and mathematics(Maxwell's equations, the foundations of classical electrodynamics were written based on the assumption of the existence of an aether; but hey, they work well anyway).

    PS- the book with Feynman's essay, as well as a lot of insightful views on superstring theory, is called Superstrings: A Theory of Everything?, and I believe it was put out from an imprint called Echo, but I may be on crack.

  • Another good one is Hyperspace [amazon.com]. Its thrust is superstring theory, but it also gives quite a good overview of unification and all that would go along with a "Theory of Everything". I read (and understood) it while still in high school. It's quite an excellent read. (One of the few books that I enjoyed enough to read more than once)

  • ...I imagine I'll look back on my life and say, damn, that anti-grav stuff sure changed the way the world works.

    Just like ye olden folke today can look back and say the same of electronics.

    Or summin' like that.
  • Hypersonic airliners like, say, the Concord? Or is that just Supersonic?
  • The problem is that many theorists (including
    apparently Weinberg), are presumptious. To claim
    that Higgs boson will be discovered is a joke.
    It may be discovered, but given how many times
    its mass has been revised upward because they
    didn't find anything at lower masses, it'd sure be
    a surprise if Higgs existed. Similarly, there has
    been a ridiculous number of revisions of proton
    decay times and they just keep revising it up.
    They may have a point, but their case looks
    rather bleak right now.
    Being a physicist, I view high energy experiments
    as the greatest waste of money since welfare. At
    any given time you got two or three machines
    in the world capable of reproducing results from
    other groups. How anyone trusts high energy
    experiments is beyond me. And surely building an
    accelerator around earth is a bad idea, precisely
    because a unique apparatus will never produce
    trustable data.
  • The main problem with experimentation in superstring theory is that the energies that would be involved in experiments that prove the existence of string are many orders of magnitude past the energies expent in modern-day particle accelerators.

    This has been one of the main criticisms of string theory, i.e. that the proponents of string theory put themselves in a very convenient place by saying that the existence of strings cannot be proven because of their very definition of being of such high energy. Further problems are mostly in the fact that we do not know the equations that describe these strings. No quantitative data are available for the verification or disproving of the theory.

    But the quantitative conclusions of string theory are in agreement with experiments, though this is not at all conclusive. And string theory is a conceptually simple and elegant theory. It takes a mess of many subatomic particles (19 I think) and reduces them to different variations of a single thing. All of physics has always favored the simpler explanation of why things work in the universe, for example, the fact that there are only three kinds of forces in the universe (electroweak, strong, and gravitational).

    One must remember that string theory is just that: a theory. It is not even close to being as accepted as quantum theory or relativity. It is a work in progress, and may simply be a dead end as much of scientific ends up being... however, should it hold up, it has the potential to radically redefine our view of the universe.

    Oh, and btw, much of this is simply paraphrase of Brian Greene's excellent book The Elegant Universe. I know a lot of people have mentioned this, but it is the ideal book for armchair physicists... those with even passing interest in the subject should pick up a copy. And worry not if you know nothing of other prerequisite material such as quantum physics. The sections in this book explaining quantum theory and relativity are in and of themselves impetus enough to buy the book... the extra three hundred pages on string theory are just a wonderful bonus.
  • To the best of my knowledge, science today is not what it was in say 1900. A discovery like the UFT is not something that could possibly be predicted as to when it will occur. In my opinion, it will eventually be discovered by one man/woman (let's be PC here, ok?) who has decided to take a radical view that just happened to be *right*.

    The Peer Review System

    The Peer Review System is a stifling and backwards way to attack something as complex and virtually limitless as the field of Physics (ok, perhaps science in general). I don't believe that it is a very logical approach to have established scientists, with set and narrow views, dictating the coarse of the sciences of tomorrow. Without the recognition and assistance of these high-level scientists, a theory, however valid, will very possibly be lost due to simple-mindedness of the few.

    --

  • sure (Score:1)

    by Ripat ( 19963 )

    Sure, of course "There is a chance the work of unification will be completed by 2050.". There is also a chance that some smart guy will complete it tommorrow, or in 200 years.


    I think this is a intressting subject, but I find it more than a little silly to specify a date, when it might, possibly, perhaps, maybe, with a little luck, be finished.

  • You can usually get them by the 1940's if your competition is not on the ball, but apparently we're a bit behind this game. Quick question though, has someone applied the lawyernuke patch? We could be in for a bit of trouble...

  • Transmeta processor release possible by 2049 (Score:3)

    by mistabobdobalina ( 29109 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @09:54PM (#1530039)
    Reuters: In his Comdex keynote, Finnish wunderkinder Linus Torvalds stated that secretive startup Transmeta will almost certainly release its product before a Grand Unified Theory of Everything(TM) is released and quote "way before Microsoft releases a stable OS."
  • Well, the obvious answer is that first you build one on the moon where you only need to place magnets without having to worry about evacuating the beam path. Then, if you find something interesting, you build the next one on the Earth
    to verify the results. No problem :-)

    PAP
  • Such mysteries require Deep Thought far beyond what humans are capable of. We need to build a stupendous super computer to do the thinking for us. We need a computer so amazingly intelligent that even before its data banks are connected up it would start from 'I think therefore I am' and get as far as the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone could manage to turn it off.

    Such a computer could devise the Grand Unified Theory, as well as answer the questions of life, the universe, and everything. We would then surely have all of the answers, although the philosphers might get a bit peaved.


    Regards,
    lunkwell@hyperintelligent_pan_dimensional_beings .org
  • Alright, I am a Mathematics/Physics major at my college. All I want to know is "How many people actually understood what the article said...?" Oh, I see, only two of the hundreds of posters. That's okay, it just makes reading some of these posts funny, but sad at the same time. Alright, here's what the article is missing as far as linking Quantum theory with Standard theory. The link isn't impossible at all...If you have no clue what you are talking about. Has anybody here dealt with Chaos Theory and implications of the Riemmann Zeta function for starters. And I don't mean a search on Yahoo for a definition. Modern science cannot to this day even predict accurately, given all determinable factors what will happen during a reaction on an atomic scale. Quantum theory is based on Probalistic Physics, Relativistic or Standard Theory is based on Deterministic Physics. These two can never be the same. Many more discoveries and fundamental facts will need to be discovered and proved on related subjects such as Chaos Theory and Complex Plane/Electron orbit/energy level predictions and things which cannot be determined no matter how hard we try. The answer is out there...2050...I don't think so. And with the way the US is going with low 4 year college entrants and high 2 year college (mechanics/plumbers/etc..) on the rise, I wouldn't count on the US being any sort of factor in the near future. If you want to respond, please say something intelligent and not pathetic/flame...Thanks
  • The Peer Review System is a stifling and backwards way to attack something as complex and virtually limitless as the field of Physics (ok, perhaps science in general). I don't believe that it is a very logical approach to have established scientists, with set and narrow views, dictating the coarse of the sciences of tomorrow

    [SARCASM]
    I agree absolutley. If it weren't for the peer review system, we'd have junked this "aether" nonsense and Newton's laws of motion defended by those old fuddy-duddy scientists a long time ago in favor of relativity and quantum mechanics.
    [/SARCASM]
  • I think "The New Physics" [amazon.com] (ISBN: 0-521-43831-4, Cambridge Univ. Press) by Paul Davies (editor) in an excellent introductory book. There is enough detail to distinguish it from the usual `popular science' books and at the same time it only assumes you know A-level physics/maths, so it should definitely be readable.
    Your college library should have it, check it out!

    Rgds,
    sb.
  • Note that Steven Weinberg is as much a "major player" in physics as anybody.

    Along with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow, he was responsible for the unification of electromagnetism and the weak interaction into the electroweak theory mentioned in the article.

    If anybody deserves to see a grand unified theory in their lifetime, it is Weinberg. (It's only a pity Richard Feynman won't be around to see it)
    --
    "I am not a nut-bag." -- Millroy the Magician

  • Re:GUT (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > To claim that Higgs boson will be discovered is a joke.
    > It may be discovered, but given how many times its mass has been
    > revised upward because they didn't find anything at lower masses,
    > it'd sure be a surprise if Higgs existed.

    The existence of the Higgs boson will be verified or falsified within
    the next 5-7 years with the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN, which
    will have an center of mass energy in the TeV range. The current
    standard model (SM) of physics, the most accurate theory of all known
    physics, gives a hard limit for the Higgs mass smaller than 1 TeV, the lower
    bound is revised as experiments proceed (currently ~80 GeV). The
    Higgs mass is a parameter within the SM, therefore theoretical
    predictions of the Higgs mass other than the hard limit of 1 TeV stem
    from further assumptions and extensions to the SM, such as the Minimal
    Supersymmetry Standard Model (MSSM) and are therefore subject to
    revision as experiments proceed. The MSSM predicts one Higgs boson
    (yes, there 5 within MSSM) at ~110-130 GeV.



    > Being a physicist, I view high energy experiments as the greatest
    > waste of money since welfare. At any given time you got two or
    > three machines in the world capable of reproducing results from
    > other groups.

    Any given accelerators (Tevatron, Hera, LEP, LHC) have 2 to 4 detectors,
    these detectors differ in design, so you can verify results among
    these different detectors.



    > How anyone trusts high energy experiments is beyond me.

    How someone how claims to be a physicist, can utter something like that,
    is beyond me. You should have learned during your training, that the
    SM (QED, QCD, ...) is the most accurate of all theories upto this day,
    as verified by empirical data. I know of now other branch of physics
    (although I am willing to learn), that can boost a theoretical and
    experimental accuracy of 10^-11 (such as the anomalous magnetic
    moment of the electron)
  • Isn't it strange that the Grand Unified Theory is always "about 50 years away"? Maybe the GUT is creating it's own time paradoxon to just keep it's solution always 50 years in the future.

  • Re:GUT (Score:1)

    by jsm2 ( 89962 )
    the greatest waste of money since welfare

    Just a friendly pointer -- it is remarks like that which tend to get you physics guys a bit of a reputation for arrogance.

    jsm
  • > one of the proposals that the lecturer showed us > for a future accelerator would be drilled by robots and would span one or two states

    Your teacher was referring to the Superconducting Supercollider, a project which was killed off by
    the US House of Representatives.
    It was a big and exciting project at the time,
    and AFAIK did drive forward developments in magnets.
    See http://lepton.phys.washington.edu/~atlas/SSC/ssc_d eath.html



    (One of the main drawbacks to European particle
    physicists was that it was located in a dry county. Grin.)

    The big effort is now going into LHC at CERN

    John Hearns
  • Good article by a great scientist. I dont understand the fuzz from some people about his predictions. He seems cautious and humble when he talks about the outstanding questions and mysteries.

    What surprises me tho from many GU-physicist is that forget to learn from cosmology. They tend to turn it around and look only to the Hi-energy experiments in order to answer the deepest cosmological questions. Analyzing the Relics of the Big Bang and the evolution of the early Universe however can supply constraints on the behaviour and existence of exotic states of matter.

    Besides this, it is unclear what is meant by Unified physics. There are some suspicious aspects about the various GUT theories. For example, it might be unrealistic to suggest true Unified physics in the context of our experiences at low energies. Here, almost every decade of energy-interval from the mass of the electron to the mass of the Z-boson contains new particles. One might expect that even higher energies would open up new physical phenomena, and so on indefinitely. The prediction of GUT is that, instead, we encounter a desert of at least 12 powers of 10 in energy in which nothing interesting happens.
    This would certainly be convenient, given that it is hard to see how the maximum energy of accelerators can affordably be increased much further. 2;-p


  • Re:Grand Unified Theory (Score:4)

    by Sheridan ( 11610 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @11:41PM (#1530055) Homepage
    Alright, I am a Mathematics/Physics major at my college.
    Congratulations. In a few years time when you graduate, you might even understand why the rest of your comment is such utter tripe.
    All I want to know is "How many people actually understood what the article said...?"
    Me, for one.
    Oh, I see, only two of the hundreds of posters. That's okay, it just makes reading some of these posts funny, but sad at the same time. Alright, here's what the article is missing as far as linking Quantum theory with Standard theory. The link isn't impossible at all...If you have no clue what you are talking about.
    I assume you mean "quantum gravity" and the "standard model". Reading the original article would have helped you here, I think. It is amazing that anybody with such and obvious lack of knowledge of particle theory could write the above comment about lack of knowledge being sad.
    Has anybody here dealt with Chaos Theory and implications of the Riemmann Zeta function for starters. And I don't mean a search on Yahoo for a definition. Modern science cannot to this day even predict accurately, given all determinable factors what will happen during a reaction on an atomic scale. Quantum theory is based on Probalistic Physics, Relativistic or Standard Theory is based on Deterministic Physics.
    The Standard Model is a fully quantum theory. Furthermore, just because a theory is probabilistic, it does not imply that it does not make precise predictions. In fact, the standard model is about the most rigorously tested theories out there (along with GR). It makes extremely accurate predictions of measurable quantities, and agrees with experiment to a phenomenal degree of accuracy. You obviously dont have a clue what you are talking about. (inanity about complex plane etc. snipped)
    If you want to respond, please say something intelligent and not pathetic/flame...Thanks
    Of course, you could help responders out in that by reading the article and posting something intelligent in the first place.
    --
    "I am not a nut-bag." -- Millroy the Magician
  • I get really tired of hearing about strings, SUSY and M-theory. It's just so completely unscientific. Science is supposed to be about deducing the laws of Nature by being a really, really good experimentalist, noticing that some tiny effect in your experiment doesn't obey standard theory, and then having the courage of your convictions to say that your experiment is right and that standard theory is wrong. These ultra-theoretic stringy studies have produced nothing useful in any area of Physics (lots of lovely Mathematics though) and in terms of the quality of the Science they represent, they're right up there with pre-Renaissance alchemy and witchcraft. In some ways, String/M Theory is the ultimate 90s Science - it represents the triumph of marketing and spin-doctoring over achievement and utility.
  • Stephen Hawking himself was convinced that time would run backwards as the universe collapsed. I figured he stole the theory from superman (reversing time by reversing Earth's rotation, HAH).

    We'll get the problem when we get it. Personally, I think its silly to think the foundation of the universe is based on random distribution... Thats just me.
  • Is that a trick question? Two dudes with moderation points chose higher than normal on it, and at least one selected "Informative".

  • I can recomend this book "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. It's very enyojable reading - though not easy.

    Check out this web site (String Theory [superstringtheory.com]) to find out more.

  • Re: Some antigrav devices (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Some people in history claimed to have produced antigrav devices (Thomas Bearden, Floyd's VTA or the Morley device), all of them use scalar waves transmiters, are based on the work of Nikola Tesla and seem to produce more output current than input (tapping gravity and converting it to something close to electricity).

    If you have some time to kill, search for "VTA" or "vacuum triode amplifier" on any search engine, very interesting stuff ...

  • The peer review system is merely an acknowledgment of the fact that many more radical ideas are wrong than right. The peer review system ensures that a theory is accepted/published only it if has significant evidence behind it.

    Sure it is conservative and slow to act but IF a theory is correct it will have convincing evidence and hence eventually convince the establishment.

    Sure the peer review system isn't perfect but what do you want? God editing Nature? There appears to be no better system to keep out the kooks the crackpots and the well intentioned but flawed theories from driving out the good science
  • Uhh no..

    If I understand your post you seem to be claiming that by somehow understanding chaos we will understand the probablistic nature of quantum mechanics and be able to rectify it with classical mechanics.

    However, quantum mechanical events don't just act random they ARE random. To assume otherwise is to invoke some sort of hidden veriable model (the decay of a radioactive isotope is not random but is determined by an incredibly complicated (chaotic?) process we don't understand). This theory was shown to be incompatible with the principle of casuality using the EPR paradox and bells inequaility.

    Secondly from a purely pragmatic position we can abandon classical physics as just being an approximation...the difficulty is merely integrating gravity into quantum theory as I understand...it has nothing to do with needing to be non-probabilistic.
  • This is just not true!!

    Consider the two cases of special and general relativity, two of the most important theories and influential theories developed in physics. Yet both of them were developed ENTIERLY theoretically.

    Special relativity was inspired entierly by thought experiment and the inconsitancy of maxwells equations with respect to moving observers. I believe Einstein claimed to have no knowledge of the Michelson-Morely Interferometer experiment at the time he discovered the theory.

    The general theory of relativity then arose from the THEORETICAL issue that gravity was inconsistant with the principal of invariance of physical law under change of reference frame. There was the slight clue using the eccentricity of mercuries orbit but this was a minor factor.

    What kind of model do you propose for research? Absurd amounts of money on accelerators to gather trillions of data points which don't mean anything to us as we have no theory to predict/explain them?

    Besides Theory is cheap compared to experimentation.

  • Re:Grand Unified Theory (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Like you're more able to field a guess than te Nobel laureate who wrote the article.

    God, I hate college "majors". If you had the slightest idea how damned wet behind the ears you sound spouting all this crap off about various Chaotic Orbitals and Electrons(TM) you'd hide your head in shame. What you are learning in "collig" is the baby stuff.. the stuff that can be wrapped into a brown paper package and delivered to your door for spoon feeding.

    Wait till you get to graduate school and get shamed the first time you spout off like you're the Doogie Howser wunderkind of the world in front of your professor.. it'll all become clear. I'm just softening the blow.
  • True. However, science is perfect.. scientists are not.

    Have you ever seen geologists and paleontologists argue about theories? Hear them rattle on about the bird -v- lizard thing? They always boil down to personal reputations and eventually holy wars. It's worse than Linux -v- NT zealotry.

    I remember that Hawking, as an undergraduate, stood up in a lecture of some bigwig (who someone will now undoubtably name) and told him he was wrong. If Hawking had been mistaken, he'd be lucky to get a milkman's job in Cambridge. For crying out loud, Einstein was a patent clerk, and we know how clueless they tend to be!

    Scientists in general really need to be a bit more open-minded and a little more objective. That's why peer-review (a good idea in principle) isn't as good as it should be. Far too often does it boil down with one of the establishment completely trashing a new idea because it disagrees with their own theories -- probably couldn't take the embarrassment of being on the wrong side.

    </flamebait>
  • To the best of my knowledge, science today is not what it was in say 1900
    It's probably not what you meant, but I suspect that science today has a lot in common with 1900. Specifically, the feeling that we're 'almost there'; in 1900 the only things that were pissing off scientists were blackbody radiation and the Michelson/Morley experiment. Apart from that, pretty much everything was explained. Today we see that we're fifty years from a TOE.
    An explanation of blackbody radiation resulted in quantum mechanics, and Michelson/Morley eventually gave us relativity. No-one could claim after 1920 that we were even close to covering everything.
    The LHC will, I suspect, throw up results that'll confuse us all. Fifty years from now, most of these will be explained and someone will say that we're fifty years away from a TOE.

  • (R)evolution in science (Score:3)

    by Edwin Oostra ( 99197 ) on Tuesday November 16, 1999 @02:58AM (#1530069)

    The basic problem with predictions about science, for the far future, is that a lot of people, make the mistake that science shows a slowly and gradual increase in knowledge. I believe that the author of the article, Weinberg, an extremely capable and knowledgebal physicist with a great reputation, also makes this mistake.

    There are of course always long periods in science which are marked by a gradual increase in knowledge. But a lot of the turning points in science have been periods of turbulence for the science. Einstein's theory of relativity, which units gravity and elektromagnetism, was not something any scientist would have predicted in 1899. Quantummechanics basically grew out of a couple of pre-assumptions Bohr made, and when he made them, he hoped he would find more pleasing explanations for some of them later on. Older examples would include the discovery of oxygen, and the appearing of Newton's Principa, which replaced the Aristotelian way of looking at science in the western world.

    Doing predictions about science 50 years ahead is a risky business, and I admire Weinberg's courage in doing it. But I think we should realize that it is still possible that we'll see another revolution and another theory, which will answer a lot of questions we are dealing with now, but such a theory would probably ask just as many new questions. This is basically what happened with Relativity and Quantummechanics. It would be naive and arrogant to assume we now know almost everything, and to rule out the possibility of yet another scientific revolution.

    For those interested in science in general, and those interesting in philosophy and ideas about science in particular, the following books might provide interesting reading:
    "Critisism and the growth of knowledge" I.Lakatos & A. Musgrave (1970) Cambridge
    "The structure of scientific revolutions" T.S. Kuhn (1969) Chicago.

    Edwin Oostra.

  • Vapourware!! I'll believe it when I see it! Mind you, I read some of the articles and my brain couldn't handle it, and BOSDed on me. "For those with no sense of humour, this is a public joke announcement. Stop it!! This is far too silly!!!"
  • One way to describe physics theories is in terms of "fudge factors" -- constants, or numbers that are just "there". In current theories, those are things such as the masses of various particles. IMO, physicists try to tie different constants together through mathematics to minimize or eliminate outright constants that are just "there", without being explained by the theory. That's an oversimplification, but I hope that helps.
  • In the beggining.... everything was HOT. Also, everything was very very small. In fact, it's theorized that as much as 10kg of matter was all that was necessary to start off the universe. Now, when things get so very very hot, hotter than any star, it turns out that the four fundamental forces are actually all one force- unified field as it were. The reason we see them as four different forces is that when things cool off, these four forces seem to us to "cystalize" along certain set dimensions. So, as we try to theorize all the way back to the big bang (which isn't quite as hard as it sounds- we can actually still "see" it in every direction we look) we have to figure out how these forces work as one. Elcotromagnetism and the weak nuclear force were figured out- hence the electroweak theory. The strong nuclear force was added to the equation recently, but not as conclusively. And the farthest back, the hardest, the very first to crystilize off, is the incredibly weak (yet infinately ranged) gravity. This isn't the only way to look at the problem of course- we also don't have a good match for gravity as a wave vs. particle, or even still a good resolution bout wave vs. particle. But getting gravity into the equation is going to be very very hard without some really powerful testing equipment. When you're trying to measure gravity in the same proxitimity as the other forces, its effects are so small as to be almost invisible with current levels of experimental error.
  • Matter of fact, I've heard this all the way through high school. Many physicist have said we are on the verge of a grand unified theory for most of my life. Now perhaps it will happen, but i'm not really holding my breath.

    So much for the view from the peanut gallery.

  • I read an article a year or so ago in one of those magazines (like SciAm or something... maybe even Time) about a guy who had a theory along these lines. His postulate was that in fact it was possible to *deduce* quantum mechanics from general relativity, if the restrictions were changed a bit. Nobody seemed to be able to do anything about this theory because it relied on mathematics that were far too complex.

    As I recall, the explanation given was that if the restriction of strict causality were removed, then all of the "weird" counterintuitive behaviours of quantum physics could be explained by some state in the future affecting the present. For example, "tying", where two particles are linked and appear to have their outcomes linked together even though the information could not travel from one to the other without bypassing the speed of light, can be explained by postulating that the eventual outcome of the experiment on one particle affects the behaviour of the other particle *at the time they separate*.

    He had some math that demonstrated that this theory was at least feasible, but doing accurate calculations was claimed to be beyond the math we are currently capable of.

    Did anyone else read this article or know of the guy? This theory just sounded too perfectly elegant and intuitive to be wrong. I'd be interested in any information... has the theory been disproven, has any other progress been made on it, or has it just been substantially ignored? If anyone can give a URL to that story, I'd be interested to be able to re-read it, too.

    Thanks,
    Stuart.
  • All these theories are very nice but will they shed any light on the observer?

    In Quantum Physics, the observation is what causes probability waves to collapse. Without observation, they don't collapse. It's like there is this gigantic mystery in the center of quantum physics and everyone seems to just tries to avoid it.

    So what can we say about the observer? It has something to do with being alive. Dead people don't observe much (as far as we can tell :-). Also, while anything that can be an object of attention is not the observer, some observers seem able to resolve things more clearly than others. In other words, if you practice observation then you become a better observer, meaning you are able to pick up very subtle signals on your central nervous system. So where do good observers hang out?

    All observers basically want two things. They want to observe beauty and they don't want to die. You'll find good observers at the top of any organization. But the best observers will probably spend a lot of time contemplating the mechanics of observation.

  • However, quantum mechanical events don't just act random they ARE random. To assume otherwise is to invoke some sort of hidden veriable model (the decay of a radioactive isotope is not random but is determined by an incredibly complicated (chaotic?) process we don't understand). This theory was shown to be incompatible with the principle of casuality using the EPR paradox and bells inequaility As a mathematician, I find it disturbing that something can be random. Doesn't chaotic behaviour stem from the fact that small changes in initial conditions cause big changes later? If a particle acts random, it is probably being affected by other particles (read: ALL other particles). From gravity (if it has mass), magnetism (if it has charge), or whatever.

    From what I can remember from high school physics, gravity and magnetic forces are inversely proportional to the distance between other particles. Since every particle in our universe has a location at an EXACT time, they all would be exerting forces upon each other. Albeit incredibly small forces. However, if you add them all up they would probably cause a small change in the expected behaviour any given particle.

    Yes, yes. I know. I'm just waving my arms around. You may also claim that these forces would be "insignificant" or negligible. But remember, I'm a mathematician. There is no such thing as an insignificant number. ;)

  • Ok I know that the analogy might not be very successful. But it is the most flagrant on how Science can be very very wrong.

    Exactly at the beginning of this century two guys decided to take a great feat. To reform the foundations of Algebra. At that time Algebra had an History of a few thousands of years. However it suffered from serious internal problems. It was a building of small, nearly autoctonous mathematical ideas. Somehow they possessed a common linkage though several theoretical threads. However if we compared it to the body of Geometry, Algebra looked miserable.
    Geometry had a very "perfect" building body. It started from a few simple rules and all demonstrations were generated from them. So in the beginning of this century two big minds tried to make the same in Algebra. Some sort of trying to build a Theory of Great Unification.
    They went on this task no matter that, by that same time, Geometry had already broke into several Geometries. It was demonstrated the not only the theoretical consistence of "dissident" geometries but also the fact that some of them were much more "real" than the traditional Euclidian Geometry.
    However there was still some stubbornes to consider Euclidian Geomtry a "right" geometry and the others "wrong".

    The blow came right at the moment of the publication of a huge work that pretended to unify the whole Algebra into one body. And right from the inners of that same body. A logical inconsistence on one theorem gave a death blow to the whole theory. Years of hard work were turned into dust in a few lines.
    As far as I know one of the mathematicians seemed to have quit after that. The other passed the rest of his life trying to repair a building that theoretically was impossible to restore.
    This story ended with a miriad of Algebras. It reflected in every corner of Mathematics. In a few years the number of mathematical branches and theories skyrocketted. The culmination was Godel's theorem which "popularly" stated that "there will be always undemonstratable truths" and laid the foudations to the axiomatic nature of modern Mathematics.

    Physics can be quite different from Mathematics. But we have already a good past experience on how such Unifications may end. There is only one problem. In the beginnings of the Christian era there were also some attempts to unify the branches of human knowledge. Many aspects of Geoncentrism and its interpretations were a clear reflection of this. And we know how this beautiful "Harmonia Mundii" ended. The names of Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler are a testimony in the History of Science to what happens when someone tries to hold the Theories of the Great Unification

  • It is very easy to bash hard science as being a moneydrain and not giving anything to society. This is a nearsighted and biased view however. Of course a lot of money is spend on science and the immediate output is not always very useful. But, even though they are not instantaniously clear, science is important for more things than most people realize.

    Let's start for instance with something most people on here are interested in: Computers. Microchips have been scaled down very far, a thing that could have not been done without the knowledge and understanding science has of quantummechanics. CD(rom)s use lasertechnology, et infinitum.

    I do admit that it takes time, but usually when a new theory arrives, in time, someone will find useful applications for them. It's too easy to claim scientist should shut up. It's too easy to claim they don't deliver, if you don't look into how much theoretical knowledge is behind simple rules for people working in technology.

    Edwin Oostra

  • Your point is well made, there is however a small difference between Physics and Mathematics. Godel's theorum applies to logical system strong enough to describe themselves, such as a languages and mathematics. What they say is in nuances different from how you popularized it:

    Within any logical system that is strong enough to describe itself, logically inconsistent statements can be formed.

    This is in language know as the "Lying Kretenzer" paradox. It means that in mathematics you can form the statement which is equal to "this sentence is untrue".

    Tarski has done a lot of work on the dillema when it comes to language, in effect proving again that truth can be defined logically consistent again. Much of his 'tricks' could apply to Mathematics as well.

    However interesting all this is, the whole point is void for Physics, because Physics, unlike Mathematics is not it's own meta-language. Godel's theorema may say something about consistency of mathematics, but it simply does not apply to Physics. I'm not saying there aren't any other objection that can be made, but this one does not apply to physics.

    A good and clear book about Godel's theorema, which is reasonably accesable is:
    "Godel, Esscher, Bach, An Eternal Golden Braid"
    I must admit that the writer's name has slipped my mind.

    Edwin Oostra

  • hmm (Score:1)

    by DryGrain ( 93543 )
    Given that in the 1800's we thought we would be living on the moon and eating a pill a day for vitamins and so on by now,(space hotels, living on mars, etc...) I wouldn't count too much on the estimate of 50 years. The article was really explanitory and I could kind of figure out some things it was talkign about. (obviously I am not scientist material eh? ;} ) The grand theroum; for those of you who don't know; is a law of the universe which supposedly ties in every law of physics and all laws of the universe together. A lot of people used to think it was impossible. 'Course, if you didn't know that, you wouldn't be reading slashdot now would ya? ;}
  • My father worked once in fusion research (the hot fusion one), that was back around 1970. While first, people though it won't take too long to make a working fusion power plant, they quickly raised the time estimation to "50 years", and that remained constant over the last 30 years (we are still 50 years off a working fusion power plant).

    So if any physicist says to you "in 50 years", he means "I have no idea how to achieve that", or worse "According to all informations I have, the effort is doomed". For fusion, that means "There's an already burning fusion device just 8 light minutes southwest, try to make use of that energy source first".

    I've some of my own ideas about how to "unify" forces, and I think the main reason why the visible efforts are doomed is that they don't want to abandon the incosistent old theories QM and GR, or any of their consequences. A new model must break predictions made by both of them, not try to merge two inconsistent theories in one framework. Well, anyone knows that all theories are wrong, and better theories are just better approximations, but still wrong. Thinking that one time one find the ultimative theory that represents the world by 100% is wishfull thinking.

    We are already at a point where experimental difference to the current theories is difficult to come by, and most of the questions left are rather theoretical. When those theoretical questions are resolved, we may have a theory that - while still being wrong - predicts all observations with enough accuracy that no experiment can be thought of that will show the weak points. But I doubt that. This sort of thinking just prevents people to actually do and publish experiments that differ from theory. A scholastic physics that doesn't look out and do experiments to question theories isn't physics anymore.

  • I must say that I'm quite appalled by the apparent "I'm smarter then you are"-attitude of your mail. I, myself, am a theoretical physics major, who will be done, early next year.

    If anything my study has taught me that unless you're actually doing research in a field, you know very little to nothing about it. So, you had a course about it, what those courses teach you are mainly the mathematical tools, used in such a field.

    I've studied for 5 years now and learned a lot. I will never however claim that my opinion on a field I'm not directly active in, carries more weight than that of an interested layman. You don't have to ashamed of the fact that you are intelligent, I know I'm not. But assuming that noone else has a right of an opinion on physics matters is arrogant and presumptious.

    As a theoretical physics major, I distanciate myself from Listen up's arrogant tone, and self-indulged message.

    Edwin Oostra

  • I used to be quite skeptical about unified theory, but then I read the Fabric Of Reality [qubit.org] and I was just as lost, but even more interested.

    It gives good justification to the thought that it is now impossible to know everything, however, it will be possible to understand everything... pretty freaking fascinating...

  • So, if Steven Hawking gives Unification a 50/50 chance in the next 20 years, you can see where Weinberg got the year 2050.

    Luckily Hawking didn't say it would be a 50/50 chance in the next 21 years, or we'd have to wait until 2150, according to Weinberg.

    Jam Master J

    Saucy Spice Girls [strathleigh.co.uk]

  • Considering the short, meaningless post that came before, I am surprised to find such a well-worded reply here. I am new here to Slashdot, so I do not yet know all the regulars, but I think you should write science book/article reviews. You seem to be able to look at the matter critcally without simply taking one side or the other. I look forward to seeing more of your posts. - Harukaze
  • > A good and clear book about Godel's theorema, which is reasonably accesable is:
    > "Godel, Esscher, Bach, An Eternal Golden Braid"
    > I must admit that the writer's name has slipped my mind.

    Douglas Hofstater(sp?).

    I agree it is a good book, but it is not very easy to understand but I would say that it is not its fault: the Godel theorem is quite difficult to understand.
  • I thought they already tried this with strings and superstrings and other physics mumbo-jumbo

    String theory is far from dead. It's currently evolving into what is called M-theory (basicly, it's a combination of the various approaches to string theory) Progress is a bit slow, but there's a reason they say string theory is 21st century physics that just happened to be discovered in the 20th century. The mathematics behind it are well beyond what anyone is currently capable of dealing with - at best, they can only come up with approximate solutions to approximate equations. (YOU try working out the mathematical equations to describe the physical principles of 6 extra dimensions folded up in a Calabi-Yau space) String theory has always had its critics, but it has survived thus far simply because it has such an enormous potential for explaining our universe. Don't discount it.

  • Heh... got that book right in front of me :) It really is an excellent book, and quite current. I'd definately recommend it.
  • To claim that Higgs boson will be discovered is a joke. It may be discovered, but given how many times its mass has been revised upward because they didn't find anything at lower masses, it'd sure be a surprise if Higgs existed. Similarly, there has been a ridiculous number of revisions of proton decay times and they just keep revising it up. They may have a point, but their case looks rather bleak right now.

    a good portion of the high-rest mass particles discovered in the last half century have been predicted by theory well before their discovery in colliders. the top quark is the most well known example and it fits the exact pattern you describe. estimates for it's rest mass kept getting pushed up as it failed to show up. eventually, of course, it was discovered.

    the Z messenger particle is another good example. and some of the neutrinos (though they aren't heavy, just slippery). so there's plenty of grounding for faith in the ability of particle physics.

    what's more, the standard model is just a theory. recall that quarks, with their 1/3 and 2/3 charges, were postulated as imaginary placeholder particles to fit some data. very few people took them seriously until a few early believers showed just how well the idea fit the data. so it's not inconceivable that someone will come up with a more elegant explanation of mass and electroweak-strong unification than scalar fields and the higgs particle.

  • As a candidate for a BA in Physics, I have to put in my support for this. In a seminar I took when I first arrived at college, one of the things we mentioned was how much money went into various governmental programs. Some examples were science research, education, military, etc. If I am remembering correctly (and if I am not, then forgive me; it has been well over a year since I was told this), then science was very very low on the list, whereas military was several times more costly than even the second-most expensive item listed. Science barely costs any money at all, when taken in to view with everything else the government wastes money on; who seriously thinks our Air Force needs a several billion dollar fighter jet it will never use?
    Oh, and if it was not for our scientists hard at work to develop the atomic bomb (something many see as the symbol of all that can go wrong with science), then we would have been the ones to be hit with the atomic bomb, and Hitler would likely have won the war (would you stand up to the only power in the world to have a nuclear weapon, a power who is not affraid to use it?). No, I am not saying that it was a good thing we bombed and killed so many civilians (in fact I would prefer not to start that debate, since I myself despise the way in which that technology was used). My point is simply that science is important, no matter how you may think otherwise. Would you want to life in a Nazi state today?
    Oh, and one last thing. If you are so eager for scientists to shut up, then why use a computer at all? To reitterate Edwin's statement, computers are one of the most obvious results of scientific research. If the scientists shut up, then they will have all the new computers, and maybe you might have an 8088 left all for yourself:)
    - Harukaze

  • Is it me, or did someone at Scientific American read Greg Egan's Distress and get inspired to write this article?

  • Yes, excellent book. Michio Kaku has written a number of excellent books. I'd also recommend Beyond Einstein. It was one of the first I'd ever read on the subject. About Time by Paul Davies is also excellent, though not entirely on topic for this discussion. If you like the others though, it will probably be of great interest to you. You just have to get through the first few chapters where he discusses various mystical beliefs surrounding the nature of time - I found that a bit annoying.
  • The observer mystery is a common myth about QM, and comes from the problem to understand the wave-particle dualism. Things can show particle or wave behaviour, and when you force them to show particle behaviour, the wave function collapses.

    What really does that is an "observation" device (like a CRT screen, or the fovia of the eye), not the "observer". You can put such a device anywhere in your experiment, and you can prove that it really does the same as any other "observer" does - reduce the accuracy of the measurement according to the uncertaincy relation.

    For Schroedinger's cat that means, the alpha or beta particle is the "observer", because it already turns the possibility to radiate into a fact (and the scintillation counter does the rest).
  • String theory has always had it's critics. There are plenty of PhDs who don't find it at all absurd.
  • SCI AM admittedly tends to be a bit more serious than, say, Popular Science

    Most people don't know, but the official name of the magazine was changed to Popular Scientific American a number of years ago. The same time that they started printing profiles of scientists with their photos. (I understand next year they'll be requiring them to pose in swimming suits). For something much like the old Scientific American, I suggest you check out American Scientist [amsci.org]. I've heard they got some of the SA staff, but can't verify that myself.


  • I have to agree. We are must closer to nanotechnology simply because of our current work in quantum mechanics.
    Now I'm new here, so I probably missed the article, but I will point to mankind's first organic computer chip. Granted, the thing is still in testing, but this is a supreme and wondrous breakthrough! If you don't know what I am talking about, this chip is designed to be inserted into the human body for the purpose of creating and distributing insolin(sp?) to the bloodstream of those with diabetes. Granted, the entire chip is not organic, but the combination of living cells and miniaturized circuitry simply astounds me.
    Getting off track, somewhat, but my point here is this: if we have the technology to make a living cell, can it be much further until we create nanomachines? While at first the two technologies might seem somewhat unrelated, I will point out that the circuitry of the organic chip is small enough to be on the cellular (or smaller) level. Also, the interaction of machine and organics can lead to the ability of nanomachines to reconstruct living tissue. The next step is to further decrease the physical size of the technology, which is up to the quantum physicists. I predict (based on not much, granted, so I shall be horribly inaccurate) that we will have this technology in thirty or so years. Why thirty? Well, I figure we do have quite a ways to go in the quantum mechanics field before we can construct something small enough; then we need a way to program the little buggers:) Finally, we need to be able to have them physically carry out their job (thus the organic chip technology). If you feel like contesting my prediction, go ahead, but don't expect me to defend my own words here, since I admit right here and now that I am basing the prediction on almost nothing.
  • Don't underestimate the importance of ketchup viscosity tests. They are essential for the advancement of condiment science. We also need to devote resources towards studying the relative tanginess of mustards. I personally make a tax-free contribution every year to the Mayo Clinic, since someone told me that this is their specialty.

    These experiments are also very cost-effective. A friend and I were able to construct our own supercolliders in his driveway using Burger-King kethcup packets and bricks.

    Perhaps someday, God willing, we may also clear up the whole "ketchup" vs. "catsup" controversy.

    /* The funniest part of the post is knowing that somebody might to have to Meta-Moderate it without any context. They'll be saying, "What the fsck is he talking about?" */
  • Today's fascinating insight: according to string theory, our universe has as many as 9 spatial dimensions

    Keep reading... they're now saying 10 spatial dimensions, and 1 temporal. It seems that with the extra spatial dimension, the various string theories (Type I, Type IIa, Type IIb, Heterotic type O(32) and Heterotic type E8 x E8) turn out to be "reflections" of each other, and a new theory, called M-theory, is starting to emerge from it... but I don't want to spoil the book for you ;)

    My question is, and I think this might have been asked in Elegant Universe, is: Is it possible that some of these extra dimensions are actually temporal dimensions, and not spatial dimensions? i.e., might we live in a Universe with 6 spatial dimensions and 5 temporal dimensions? I'm curious as to how extra temporal dimensions might behave...

  • Conspicuously absent in Weinberg's essay is the enormous problem of quantizing the gravitational force, i.e. the Holy Grail of modern physics. Not even string theory answers this (although Ranmujan -style modular functions hold some promise, be it insanely difficult to deduce). Also, once the theory is proposed, it must be tested (duh!)... the mere thought of a Plank scale event occurring within even a few gigaparsecs of Earth scares the living daylights out of me. Wasn't it LaPlace who said "We have solved all the major problems in physics" around the (last) turn of the century (never mind that pesky blackbody radiation problem). This sounds suspiciously similar.
  • I thought binary pulsars established GR
    to higher precision than SM.
    As for double checking... In most experimental
    fields the argument is : "if you don't
    trust a result - verify it yourself". It is
    usually easy to build apparatuses up to
    $1M, because you can get funding. More
    expensive equipment is unique. It is not
    uncommon for a branch of science to use
    fudge factors and small calibration
    adjustments to keep data in agreement with theory.
    If I believe that the industry practice is
    unacceptable, I have no choice of building
    an accelerator the way I want and calibrating it
    the way I want.
    As for double checks with multiple detectors...
    High energy facilities are huge, and require
    a lot of personnel. To suggest that there is no
    exchange of information between groups before
    measurement is hardly believable. Thus you cannot
    in good faith claim that those are independent
    tests. Indeed, independent tests in other areas
    of physics can be and are done by newcomers
    with their own custom built equipment. You can
    build your own Auger if you do not trust
    commercial equipment, and many people do just
    that. If you think that those nanotech guys
    are bullshitting you, you can build your own
    STM or AFM (typical cost $50K-300K) and try it
    yourself. But try building your own SSC.
    Good luck.
    Also, when a paper has 100 names on it, I gotta
    believe that somewhere somehow at least one
    person made a mistake somewhere. It's just
    basic thermo that entropy goes up in statistical
    systems.
    And don't tell me what I should have learned. As
    a physicist my job is to be paranoid and doubtful.
    Theories are nice because you can rederive them
    yorself and in fact that's how you learn them.
    Experiments need not be trusted unless there is
    good reason to.
    Lastly, my point was exactly that Higgs may or
    _may not_ be discovered, we don't know one way
    or another. If they do discover it, I hope they
    produce some reasonable event count (unlike
    top quark discovery or neutrino experiments
    in which event counts are so small they can be
    done by hand, you don't need a computer to count
    those events).
  • But such a computer has been built. It's called the universe - oh wait - now this is starting to get really complex...

    and remember the other theory (hitchhikers guide - I think) that says "Once the universe is completely understood it will vanish and be replaced by something even more weird"
  • Please don't forget that almost all predictions about when new theories and technologies will be availible are inaccurate. Remember the flying car that I was supposed to drive to school in today?
  • First, they should figure out what the actual mass of the universe is.

    First, they should figure out what the actual age of the universe is.

    First, they should figure out why deep space probes are accelerating away from the sun faster than Newtonian physics says they should.

    First, they should identify the graviton (if such a thing exists) - and actually prove that Gravity is a real force.

    These are basics, that just have not been done. I don't like criticizing those giants who have done all these wonderful great things to date, when about the best I've ever done was make a battery out of a potato (actually, last weekend, I made plasma in my microwave oven!). When these basic things have been resolved, then maybe they can talk about unifying all forces of nature. Until then, it looks like they're as far away as ever from solving that riddle. I just hate it when humanity gets a big head.

    And as far as string theory goes, I've heard different variations from 12 dimensions, to 10 dimensions to 9 dimensions, to, you guessed it, even 1 dimension. (don't remember whether that was a legitimate theory or a joke or not, it was back in the late 80's)

    I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
  • Unfortunately, in order to probe distances appropriate to proving or disproving string theory (at least directly) you'd need a collider that were roughly a billion billion times more powerful than our existing technology. You'd be lucky to fit one of those into the Milky Way.

    Most of string theory is, as of yet, not experimentally testable. But it's pretty :)
  • For Schroedinger's cat that means, the alpha or beta particle is the "observer", because it already turns the possibility to radiate into a fact (and the scintillation counter does the rest).

    Well, sure, I'm not saying that human beings are the only observers in the universe. At least the scintillation counter is an observer in the case of Schroedinger's cat. What is interesting is that we *can* act as observers in the quantum sense. In other words, you *can* be the observer that collapses the wave-function.

    The observer mystery is a common myth about QM, and comes from the problem to understand the wave-particle dualism. Things can show particle or wave behaviour, and when you force them to show particle behaviour, the wave function collapses.

    Science is a matter of retreating from error. How do you know that a particular experiment will always have the same result? Science just gives us *theories*. How do you know the results of any experiment until you observe them? Strictly speaking, most of what we "know" are just theories. The rest are contradictions and tautologies.

  • Re:GUT (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > I thought binary pulsars established GR
    > to higher precision than SM.
    Not to papers and publications I have see
    so far, many astrophysical observations take into
    account SM effects, thus are limited by SMs precission.


    > As for double checking...
    > [...]
    > Good luck.
    So your "homemade" equipment verifies the first digits
    of an "lab" experiment, based on your motions you
    would scrap all higher accuracy, because you cannot
    reproduce it ?
    You take a strong stance against "industry" and
    "establisted facilities" and stress the importance
    of "newcomers", I wonder why ?
    And "more expensive equipment" is rare but not unique,
    that is why they are several accelerators worldwide.


    > As for double checks with multiple detectors... [...]
    Exchange of information between the groups takes
    place the result level, as I mentioned earlier
    each detector is unique (different myon chambers,
    vertex tracker, ...).


    > Also, when a paper has 100 names on it, I gotta
    > believe that somewhere somehow at least one
    > person made a mistake somewhere. It's just
    > basic thermo that entropy goes up in statistical
    > systems.
    Of course mistakes happen, they can already happen when
    I or you conduct an experiment.
    But within an colloboration you have checks and redundances.
    Data is published with systematical and statistical
    errors. And then you can check data from different
    detectors of one accelerator, and then from different
    accelerators.


    > And don't tell me what I should have learned. As
    > a physicist my job is to be paranoid and doubtful.
    Sceptical and doubtful yes. Paranoid no.


    > Theories are nice because you can rederive them
    > yorself and in fact that's how you learn them.
    > Experiments need not be trusted unless there is
    > good reason to.
    Experiments are trusted because they are reproducable.
    Or experimental data will be dismissed if this is not
    the case (coldfusion@home anyone ?).


    > Lastly, my point was exactly that Higgs may or
    > _may not_ be discovered, we don't know one way
    > or another. If they do discover it, I hope they
    > produce some reasonable event count (unlike
    > top quark discovery or neutrino experiments
    > in which event counts are so small they can be
    > done by hand, you don't need a computer to count
    > those events).
    The SM has remained accurate over 30 years, many
    doubted the existence of the top (former truth) quark,
    yet it was discovered in 1996 at 175 GeV, up until then
    the top mass was always under "annual upward revision".
    The Higgs mass is the only missing component in this
    successful model.
    Yes, it is only a model and bound to be extended or
    replaced, but its successor will have to reproduce the SM
    in its region of validity (which is expanded).

  • from a physicist (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Okay, I know something about this. I have a Ph.D. plus three years of postdoc'ing in experimental high energy particle physics. I worked at both Fermilab and CERN (1991-1995, guess what else was going on around there at that time?)

    I left the field (and became a computer consultant) in despair at getting a chance to do interesting science. Okay, the real reason was that I didn't think I was going to be able to get a tenure-track faculty job. But these two reasons are connected: unpromising fields of study lose funding. My field is currently undergoing severe contractions.

    The problem is that existing theories work well for all experiments and observations we know how to make, and building bigger accelerators costs too much money. The US cancelled the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) in Texas. I can't say I blame US. Europe is going ahead with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, but they may or may not get anything out of it.

    Weinberg is a respected theorist. The article is a good introduction to current theoretical fashions, and some of it was new to me. At the same time I was somewhat offended that he expects answers to come from a "young theorist".

    Physics is an experimental science, and a theory is not validated until it has experimental evidence to back it up and to distinguish it from competing theories. It is the shortage of new experimental data over the last fifteen years that has left theorists grasping at thinner and thinner straws. Mathematical elegance in a theory does not validate it.

    The evidence drought may continue to 2050 and beyond. I, personally, do not expect the LHC to turn up supersymmetric particles. And maybe not even a Higgs. If they are found, it does not necessarily select one theory over another. It certainly doesn't amount to evidence for string theory or M-theory. It's hard to think of any experiment that could validate those theories.

    Recent evidence of neutrino oscillations is hopeful. But is it something that will help tie up all these theorietical loose ends? I don't think so. In fact, my friends who do theory are having an even harder time finding jobs (or interesting research topics) than I did as an experimentalist.

    My 2 centimes. Michael
  • Actually....what do you think makes that water move?
  • We really do know more about what we're talking about than back then.

    It's like arguing about when Moore's law will end. Most reasonable people agree that at some point it will end. There are fundamental barriers where the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle meets Information Theory. Yes, that's "only according to the current paradigm of physics", but even supposing we could somehow overcome such a barrier, it would take a serious scientific revolution. It requires a very high degree of faith to assume that such a revolution will fit within the constraints of Moore's law - it would almost definitely be either too fast or too slow.

    So, physics and CS are in the same boat. Both are riding a developmental process, unprecedented in history, that will eventually end. In both cases, human nature provides an inexhaustable store of unimaginative prophets to predict that the end is near. And in both cases, there is no fundamental barrier to valid prophesying. That means that not only will one of the prophets one day be right; they'll probably be right for most of the right reasons.

    The question thus becomes: how do we separate the wise prognosticators from the deluded ones? If you can't answer that question for yourself, you need to work on your epistemology. Personally, I can see so many differences between Weinberg's argument and that of the turn-of-the-century end-of-science prognosticators - and not just differences of degree - that I feel confident giving him more credence. Moreover, I think that, posing the question as I have posed it, it would have been easy to see through the end-of-science claims last time the century turned, without any anachronistic knowledge of physice.

    Note that Weinberg does not actually claim we'll have a TOE (theory of everything) by 2050, just that we'll have a GUT (grand unified theory). The difference is, a TOE would explain the fundamental physics of everything, whereas a GUT only covers everything that happens at energies of less then 10^18 GeV or so. Now, some physicists believe that these two are the same thing, and some don't. This is mostly an article of faith. Moreover, it's totally immaterial on a practical scale. As Weinberg explains, it would take an accelerator light-years long (and magnetic fields strong enough to rip apart normal matter) to begin to see the difference. With a GUT, for the first time in history we'd know everything there is to know about the fundamental physics of everything currently observable, and we could settle down and spend the next millenia or so working out the implications of that knowledge.
  • I agree with most of your post, but completely disagree with the fact that you and others are taking this as a strong prediction by Weinberg that it will happen in 2050 and then judging the article critically on those grounds. Weinberg actually states that there's strong chance it won't happen then or that it just may happen tomorrow or even later.

    "There is a chance the work of unification will be completed by 2050, but about that we cannot be confident." (from end of third paragraph)

    "It is impossible to say when these problems will be overcome. They may be solved in a preprint put out tomorrow by some young theorist. They may not be solved by 2050, or even 2150." (first paragraph under 'Recognizing the Answer)

    The only glaring mistake I see Weinberg make is that he says that GUT will be the end of trying to get unified theory for the physical sciences.
  • This kind of thing is indeed considered. Basically under M-theory you lose absolute notions of what dimension of space-time you are in (e.g. 9, 10, 11), what the fundamental objects are (strings, point particles, higher-dimensional membranes), and even how many time dimensions there are (all of these change depending on how you look at the same thing).

    Exactly how having extra time dimensions works is still very much an open question, but it seems that it's not as inconsistent as you might think (in some cases you can't propagate along this extra dimension, so there's only one "evolving time", in other cases the dimension is periodic, i.e. "events repeat themselves" in a consistent way, etc). It's very much current research..

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