Theoretical Physics Breakthrough or Hoax? 330
Brooklyn Bob writes "Ever get the feeling that some theoretical physics papers just don't make sense? According to this New York Times article, you may be right. Genius or gibberish? Who knows?" This belongs on your virtual refrigerator with nice big virtual magnet.
That's enough (Score:4, Flamebait)
Re:That's enough (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's enough (Score:4, Interesting)
Physics papers aren't just published all willy nilly. They must be reviewed by other physicists. Also, most theorists don't work alone, but instead work in a group, so there are checks and balances going on there.
I do admit, however, that theoretical physics seems harder and harder to understand. Newton's laws are far more simple to do calculations with than Relativistic Dynamics. And Newtonian Gravity seems far more simple than General Relativity. And then you have Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory, and now String Theory (which is full of unsolvable differential equations).
However, just because the mathematics and principles involved are harder to understand, doesn't mean that they are hoaxes. Indeed, despite the computational and conceptual difficulties involved in General Relativity (to which I find the conceptual difficulties fairly easy to overcome, but to which the math to solve a problem seems to take forever), the theory works far better for extreme conditions than its predecessor.
Before I conclude, I would like to point out that there is a difference between computational difficulties and conceptual. Many modern theories take very difficult mathematics to solve even seemingly simple problems. However, to build a loose conceptual notion of of, say, General Relativity, is fairly easy, given some experience with problems. I usually find it a lot easier to understand the concepts of a newe theory, and then trust that the theorists are honestly doing the math in in effort to show that the theory pans out as compared to the real world.
I've babbled on long enough; it's just my two cents as a Physicist.
-Jeff
Re:That's enough (Score:2, Funny)
Allow me to simplify it for you: 42
Re:That's enough (Score:2, Interesting)
All professions have their quacks and con artists. Surely physics is no exception? To a layman one mad professor looks much like another.
Re:That's enough (Score:2, Insightful)
He pushes his incorrect Gravity theory that inserts a gravitational potential term into the field equations.
Upon talking to him it becomes absolutely clear that he hasn't the slightest clue as to the fundamentals of Riemannian Geometry. I.E. he makes claims about the fallacy of GR that would prove Riemannian Geometry to be false as well. And we all know that you can prove physics to be wrong but math is axiomatic and perfect by design.
I don't take Gravity until next year and even I can tell that he is full of shit.
But he was once an experimentalist and now he has tenor. So what the hell can you do.
Re:That's enough (Score:2)
Re:That's enough (Score:5, Interesting)
i haven't noticed any "ceaseless battering of the physics community in the name of sensationalism" by slashdot. there is, however, a lot of disagreement among physicists as to who is making any sense, whatever the writer of the article understands.
Re:That's enough (Score:3, Insightful)
The Sokal hoax was nothing to do with "determinism". It was aimed at the postmodern (ab)use of scientific terminology with no regard to meaning.
Sokal is a robust defender of the idea that the experimental method is a useful way to study reality, rather than one narrative amongst many which are equally valid. He is an "objectivist" rather than a "relativist". Determinism doesn't really come into it - I'm sure he is familiar with quantum theory.
Re:That's enough .. Not! (Score:5, Interesting)
The field of physics is obviously doing a good enough job of sullying itself. You see, despite whether or not the writer understands what's happening, the article talks about scientists and mathemeticians sullying physics:
Scientists have been debating whether the Bogdanov brothers are really geniuses with a new view of the moment before the universe began or simply earnest scientists who are in over their heads and spouting nonsense
Not to mention these quotes from people in and around the field:
1. "Dr. Roman W. Jackiw, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who read and approved Igor Bogdanov's Ph.D. thesis, said he found it speculative but "intriguing.""
2. "Dr. John Baez, a physicist and quantum gravity theorist at the University of California at Riverside, who has conducted a dialogue with the Bogdanov brothers on the Web site math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bogdanov, said, "One thing that seems pretty clear to me is that the Bogdanovs don't know how to do physics.""
3. "Dr. Peter Woit, a mathematician and physicist at Columbia University, said of the brothers' work, "Scientifically, it's clearly more or less complete nonsense, but these days that doesn't much distinguish it from a lot of the rest of the literature.""
Notice that those credentials don't appear to belong to journalists. Then who is defaming the field of physics? Maybe a physics professor, a physicist, and a mathematician! ;) Interesting.
The reporting does appear to make some physicists uncomfortable, and on slashdot it appears some are trying to push negative focus away from the physics community and onto the journalists -- a good scapegoat because of the "writer's inability to understand it" :-O
However this reaction is not surprising because any of us would do the same to protect our own field. Don't be surprised, but do see it for what it is.
Re:That's enough .. Not! (Score:3, Insightful)
For those who still don't have registration... (Score:5, Informative)
REGISTER already (Score:5, Insightful)
NYT has arguably the best free (for how much longer?) general news source online -- very frequent cited on
BTW, they do not track what you read; I looked into this, and was paranoid enough to send a specific inquiry. Besides, they don't really know who "you" are.
Re:REGISTER already (Score:3, Insightful)
I registered with
There's no reason you make me register just to read a news story unless they're selling the information. Free depends on how you look at things. Marketing data is worth money, you must give it to them to read their stories, therefore they aren't exactly free.
I refuse to register with the NYT because I don't want to encourage what I consider annoying behavior. If I had to register with every site I look at, I would have to spend half my web browsing time registering for sites, many of which I would never visit again.
There are plenty of other places to get news that don't make you jump through silly hoops just to access a story. The BBC being the best example. They have a much better registration policy than the NYT, none. You only have to register with them if you're actually getting an individualized service, like email.
A news site can have adds without making me login. And how can you be sure they don't know who you are? I would bet they keep track of IPs. It's not an insurmountable tast to find out who has a given IP address. I'm not trying to be overly paranoid here. I'm just trying to be realistic about how much data they have about you.
Keeping track of registration info is a pain in the ass. Yeah, they can put it in a cookie, but I'm a college student. I don't use one computer. I'll stop by a computer lab around lunchtime, and I don't want to deal registering every time. I already have a crapload of passwords to remember for things that actually need them to function. I'm not about to start remebering logins for 50 different sites just becuase they all want my marketing data.
Hey, Google doesn't make me login to do a search. They seem to be doing just fine. And there's no way I would use Google is they did. Even if they tell me that they don't sell records of what I search for, it doesn't matter. Most privacy policies are total b.s. Often they have a clause which allows them to be changed at any time, sometimes without any notification. That's why I keep track of what info I acutally give out on the web. Then, I don't have to trust them. I know my info is safe because I never gave it to them in the first place. I know that I'm not going to get spam from them because I never gave them my email address.
Re:For those who still don't have registration... (Score:3, Informative)
Physics is not for dumb people (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Physics is not for dumb people (Score:2)
For example, on "multiple universes."
Now, the work "Universe" means "everything that is."
Now, consider if multiple universe exist, then one of two things is possibly true about them.
1) they are measureable and studiable from our universe, and hence, are definitionally PART of our universe, and hence any talk of "multiple universes" is gibberish.
OR
2) They are not measurable and studiable from our universe, and hence, are definitionally NOT proper subject matter of physics but are properly subject matter of philosophy, and anything that is said about them isn't "science" in any meaningfull sense of that word.
But, crap like this isn't new. However, it does seem to be getting to the point where even respectable peer reviewed journals are having a harder and harder time finding people who will actually stand up and SAY something like that.
Re:Physics is not for dumb people (Score:3, Insightful)
Tim
Re:Physics is not for dumb people (Score:3, Interesting)
1) they are measureable and studiable from our universe, and hence, are definitionally PART of our universe, and hence any talk of "multiple universes" is gibberish.
OR
2) They are not measurable and studiable from our universe, and hence, are definitionally NOT proper subject matter of physics but are properly subject matter of philosophy, and anything that is said about them isn't "science" in any meaningfull sense of that word.
But, crap like this isn't new. However, it does seem to be getting to the point where even respectable peer reviewed journals are having a harder and harder time finding people who will actually stand up and SAY something like that.
Presumably you feel the same way about the creation of advanced light waves, and would have felt the same way about anti-matter back when it was first hypothesized?
Multiple universes is one way of looking at it. It explains stuff. It lets you get reasonable answers out of the theory. It's just as likely as the other potential explanations of said theory.
(Personally, I don't believe in multiple universes; I do, however, believe in a mechanism where particles are able to move backwards or forwards through time simultaneously, taking slightly different paths each time, and then their effects are averaged out. I have a pretty good argument for it being the case too).
Simon
Re:Physics is not for dumb people (Score:2, Interesting)
The term "multiple univereses" is really a misnomer, since it does not involve more than universe, just wavefunctions that cannot comunicate. This means that I see A, B, & C happen, but the me that can talk to you has to be the one that saw the same thing you did.
I hope this clear up multiple universe theory somewhat.
Disclamer: IANAQuantam Physicist
Re:Physics is not for dumb people (Score:2)
This is your mistake. Finish the sentence:
"The word 'Universe' means 'everything (i.e. all
particle pairs) that is (are) mutally accessible (i.e. occupy continuously deformable positions)
by travel through space-time (i.e. the Minkowski
manifold)'".
Now, it's not gibberish any more, is it?
Re:Physics is not for dumb people (Score:2, Insightful)
The term universe, however, does in fact mean, "all that is." Full stop. Period. If you hypothesized universe admits of anything outside of it, it is, in fact, not a universe, but part of a universe.
In other words, the term universe still means, "all that is." The word atom stopped meaning "irreducible" more than a century ago.
Those who subscribe to a theory of multiple universes believe that they are separate and distinct and cannot interact with each other (hence their designation as universes, not parts of a larger univers). But as these other universes can't interact with each other, they cannot interact with us. Thus, they cannot be experimented on, and their very existence must always remain a matter of pure conjecture.
What the OP was stating, and correctly in my opinion, is that science can say nothing about that which is not subject to experimental testing of any kind, much less verification. Multiple universes, though fascinating, must therefore remain in the domain of metaphysical speculation, not real science, because, by their very nature, they cannot ever be the subject of experimentaion. And, to the extent that they can be reached by physical experiment, they are not wholly separate, and hence, not universes, but parts of one, larger universe.
Re:Physics is not for dumb people (Score:5, Interesting)
Their paper is full of unfounded assertions strung together, combined with definitions and other assertions that are patently false. The paper does not follow a logical chain of reasoning that allows the reader to repeat or verify their conclusions (which are also not clearly stated).
Furthermore, when confronted by other theoretical physicists (on the sci.physics.research Usenet group) with specific, detailed questions about their work, the authors have systematically refused to answer, or selectively answered with further vague or absurd statements. To me, this is the real clincher: they have completely failed to demonstrate a technical understanding of the field in which they claim to be working.
It is clear to everyone in the field that these papers are nonsense and should never have been published. The only actual supporters of the authors seem to be from non-scientists or physicists who are unqualified to judge the work itself.
Re:Physics is not for dumb people (Score:4, Informative)
For a collection of stuff on this subject, search google groups on ``reverse sokal hoax''. Then read the (long) thread in sci.physics.research.
I'm not a string theorist so I can't be 100% sure, but this stuff sure sounds like nonsense. The part about the Foucault pendulum aligning with the initial singularity sounds really silly. To quote John Baez, a mathmatical physicist (see below for a link)
It [one of the papers in question] goes on to discuss the supposed connection between N = 2 supergravity, Donaldson theory, KMS states and the Foucault pendulum experiment, which he claims "cannot be explained satisfactorily in either classical or relativistic mechanics". If you know some physics you'll find this statement slightly odd.
As I said, I'm not a string theorist, so I don't know for sure, but some very sharp people seem to support the contention that this is nonsense. John Baez [ucr.edu] has compiled some of the relvent stuff on his webapge, here [ucr.edu]. Jacques Distler's blog [utexas.edu] also contains some good analysis.
A typically Western dogmatic response. (Score:3, Funny)
You, sir, disregard what the great social critic Alan Sokal described as "counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities." I couldn't have said it better myself.
Could it be that the authors are simply not interested in employing the hierarchical male-dominated "conflict" paradigm of scientific discourse, but insist rather on a more culturally inclusive paradigm of multiple and divergent truths, realities, modes of existence? Could it be that their truth simply differs from that of their critics, and cannot therefore be profitably discussed on sci.physics.research?
To suggest that Western male physics applies equally in the more authentic nations of the world is a self-evident absurdity. To suggest that it has any relevance to pre-spacetime thermodynamic equilibrium is a characteristically arrogant assumption of the hegemonic mind. Get real, folks!
The fundamental evaluative condition of any paper in the field of theoretical physics is not whether it satisfies some arbitrary, imposed standard of so-called "objective" so-called "truth", but rather whether it is true for the author. High-energy physics, by its very definition, is a purely personal and subjective undertaking. No physical law can possibly be applicable to all observers.
I find it rather pathetic and sad that referees of publications in the physical sciences so often insist on printing only those constructions of "truth" which agree with so-called "experimental evidence", as if such "evidence" (mere columns of numbers) were in some way relevant to the aspirations of marginalized peoples (e.g. the "three meters per second per second" dogma, which has been passed down unchanged, unquestioned, by generations of white male physicists -- don't you think the time has come to abandon that hoary old shibboleth and replace it with something of more vibrant cultural relevance to the developing world?).
YHBT. YHL. HAND. (Score:2)
Theoretical != Actual (Score:4, Insightful)
Reminds me... (Score:2, Interesting)
Be Descriptive, Clear and Simple! (Score:2)
Re:Be Descriptive, Clear and Simple! (Score:2)
Better 'Scoop'... (Score:2)
Consider Drs. Igor and Grichka Bogdanov, French mathematical physicists and twins, who have recently been burning up the physics world with a novel and highly speculative theory about what happened before the Big Bang. Scientists have been debating whether the Bogdanov brothers are really geniuses with a new view of the moment before the universe began or simply earnest scientists who are in over their heads and spouting nonsense.
That said, the article basically gives the history of these two french physicists and why their recent work is controversial. Apparently these two did research trying to describe the momement of (or before?) the Big Bang which really hard and there's quite a bit of arguement within the physics community that the ideas are simply nonsense. So this opens up more arguements about the general quality of current research, of papers being published, of PhD's being given, etc.
Personally, I think the article itself is more gibberish than the research. There's lot of quotes but not much explaination of what the actual problems are and why this is causing such a fuss. Conseqently the article is hard to follow and not well written.
Not the best comparison, I guess. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, modern art isn't ultimately graded on if it's falsifiable or not, whereas physics is. Thus, the debate of good/bad art can rage forever without settlement, and that's fine; however, sooner or later, many scientific theories are demonstrated to be false (excepting those which aren't, of course.
Re:Not the best comparison, I guess. (Score:4, Informative)
In other words when a knowledgeable reader sees a hypothesis or theory he must be able to envision evidence that would disprove said theory - otherwise the theory is not scientific. For example if my theory is "all foo's are bar" a knowledgeable reader can realized all she needs to find is a single foo that isn't bar. So that statement is falsifiable. But if my theory states "all people are controlled by little green men (LGMs) that live inside their heads and the LGMs disappear the moment they could be observed" then it is not falsifiable. No matter what evidence a reader envisions (ie. I cut open a head and find no LGM) I can always show that this evidence doesn't out right contradict my theory (ie Well the LGM disappeared moments before you cut open the head).
Maybe I'm being naive and everybody is already clear on what falsifiable actually means. It should be understood that falsifiable statements can be true. And non-falsifiable statements can be false.
Re:Not the best comparison, I guess. (Score:2)
I doubt that everyone is clear on it, but it seemed obvious enough to me that the poster you're responding to does. He's saying that genuine research and scientific theory is falsifiable, as demonstrated by the fact that findings and theories are frequently shown to be false.
Re:no statements are falsifiable (Score:2, Insightful)
If you say all sheep are white, and you find a white one, nothing has been proven. Admitted.
If you say all sheep are white, and you find a black one, you have proven the statement wrong.
How can any new evidence alter that falsifacation? Did you observe the sheep wrong, so it's really not black?
weird dilemmas involving sheep (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course you have chosen an example case which is fairly clear-cut. You can probably get away with saying that there is a very high probablity that the statement is false. My point is that you can never know with absolute certainty. This is the objection commonly held, in philosophy of science, to obsolete Popper's theories in favor of those of Kuhn and his followers, who coined the word "paradigm" and elaborated the idea of a "paradigm shift" to describe the real process of theory selection in science.
is it an African or a European sheep? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you say all sheep are white, and you find a black one, you have proven the statement wrong.
This sounds pretty straightforward. But now, in order to falsify your theory (all sheep are white) with certainty, you must prove absolutely the statement, "this sheep is black." This is fraught with difficulties (beginning with the exact definition of "sheep" and "black" and spreading out from there), and in fact turns out to be impossible to do with total rigor.
This is a very subtle issue, though, and for a long time people thought that Popper had it right. Then, of course, they falsified his theory ;-). When Kuhn first came on the scene, he received a lot of objections along the lines of your comment, and was accused of undermining the basis of science and turning it into a mere popularity contest. The problem is, no matter how clearly you think you've falsified a theory, the proponents of that theory can always come up with some kind of wild assumption or argument to save their theory. The trick is, at some point these assumptions get unwieldy, cumbersome, ugly, and awkward (e.g. the increasing number of circular orbits needed to save the old Ptolemaic theory of the solar system from the attack being made on it by Copernicus and co...), and eventually you just have to say, "well, yeah, it could be like that, technically, but it's just silly!"
This means that in the end you have to make an essentially esthetic judgement about the elegance and simplicity of the theory. This judgment is informed by reasonable criteria but is not made on the basis of strict logic.
I think this is cool, myself, it makes science a form of art.
Slashdot trolls, read this (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, they even have the same goals. Slashdot trolls aim to show how the mod system sucks, these guys are trying to show how worthless the peer review system is. Ultimately, however, they'll probably be given just as much credit as trolls, i.e. none at all. It's just because they've found a new medium to troll in that they're getting this much attention.
Re:Slashdot trolls, read this (Score:2)
Oh? Is that what the slashdot trolls are doing? Trying to use "civil disobedience" to demonstate what they perceive as inequity by the moderators?
So that's why they still think goatsecx is funny. And why there's still a stupid race for First Post. And why they think it's hilarious to write "you're a mother fucking cocknobber wankfuck" as Anonymous Coward. And why they'll insult somebody until the person is obviously offended, and then say "I WAS JUST JOKING AND YOU'RE STUPID AND SLASHDOT SUCKS". You think this is all some kind of peaceful protest?
No. I disagree with you. These people aren't trying to change the moderation system. They're just losers. They're no better than the vandals who spraypaint obscenities on church walls or break the windows at primary schools. Fuck them all.
OB: Link via Google (Score:2, Informative)
not useless bashing (Score:5, Insightful)
This article is not about criticism of the system, but rather specific criticism of specific people in the system. It is responsibility of the schools and journals, and especially thesis advisors to make sure people are doing adaquate work.
There was an excuse given by these guys' advisor in the article about these guys working for 10 years and they should get a degree for that, even if they didn't exactly display a command of the mathmatics behind their theory.
This is absolute bullshit!
I don't care how long or hard you are working on something. If you want a degree in theoretical physics, you'd damn well better be able to understand your own thesis. If you can't AT LEAST explain it to your advisor, there is no way I can see to give you a PhD.
Have a heart! (Score:2, Funny)
This is absolute bullshit!
After 10 years of patiently explaining the basics over and over again the advisor was probably ready to get rid of these boneheads by whatever means necessary, even if it meant giving them degrees.
Re:not useless bashing (Score:2)
Note: I am not an employee of Despair.com, just another suicidal customer.
As much as i like physics and math... (Score:2)
fredkin & wolfram suggest the same (Score:2)
Of course, he extends Fredkin's notion of using cellular automata rules (and variations on cellular automata) as a different tool with which aspects of the universe not amenable to calculus could be more accurately described, modelled, and predicted.
Since math is a human invention, it would not be terribly surprising to discover the natural world not necessarilly conducive to a complete and full description using only that tool, but somehow, if we ever do hack through to whatever lies beneath, we'll find even a combination of Newton's calculus, Fredkin's cellular automata, and who knows what other analytical tools we come up with, when taken together, will probably still be inadequate to describe and unify the whole thing.
Which of course is why so many people cop out with the whole God mythos
Not an hoax, a poorly worded paper (Score:2)
The future of programming [sf.net]
Gibberish is as Gibberish informs (Score:4, Funny)
The Conversion from Quack to Genius (Score:2)
If any one of us were to devote 99% of our time to any one dream, project, or theory like these scientists most of the things we would write on the subject would make little sense to those who didn't think about the subject as much as we did, and consequently, we would be ridiculed as quacks and our writings would be considered gibberish. That is, until our life's work turned into something applicable to the general public (possibly even outside out lifetime), at which point we would be considered geniuses.
Re:The Conversion from Quack to Genius (Score:3, Interesting)
Science, in order to work, is like a network of theories and facts, "nodes" that depend on each other. Older, proven nodes provide the basis for new nodes, some of which are later validated (and provide the basis for nodes after them) and some are not (in which case they disappear from the network).
So let's call a new theory D, which rests on the theories A and B, maybe extending and proving theory C in the process. The thing is, that A => B => C => D all relate to each other in a meaningful way. They may all be theories but they are part of a relatively solid reference framework that allows for validation at different levels.
Now the problem, the infamous hoax theories: some theories don't stand on any framework at all. And they don't even bother to establish a new framework. They might start with a few equations (7=2 for example) and a few out-of-context references and they leave it there. Typically they don't offer any coherent explanation that even remotely shows how the author arrived at a certain conclusion.
The problem is that those theories are not only useless in our present time, they also hold a very small probability to make any sense in the future.
Re:The Conversion from Quack to Genius (Score:5, Informative)
The other highly suspcious aspect of this whole affair is that the work was never published online prior to being submitted to a journal.
Some background for non-physicists: thesedays the primary venue for publishing new works is the arXiv [arxiv.org]. Several hundred papers per day are uploaded here in various categories, and it is the de facto standard library of modern research in physics.
After publishing your work on the arXiv, physicists around the work can and will read your paper and submit feedback. Typically, after publication on the arXiv you might submit your work to a paper-based journal, but this is only a secondary procedure, and the only real point is to give you bonus points for your resume.
Here is the main point:
No-one reads paper journals any more!
The fact that the Bogdanov papers were never uploaded to the arxiv meant that apart from the 2 referees (who basically seem to have abdicated responsibility), no-one had, or ever would have read their work!.
If the authors were serious researchers, they would have submitted their work to the arxiv so it could be read and critiqued by their peers.
Re:The Conversion from Quack to Genius (Score:2)
Yes, physics people publish in journals (after first publishing the e-print on xxx.arxiv.org). Yes, physics people cite journal articles (together with the arxiv reference). And yes, non-physics people read journals (because they are 5-10 years behind the trend towards e-publishing). But physics people don't read articles in paper journals, instead they read the e-print version on xxx.arxiv.org.
As a theoretical physicist myself, I think I am speaking with some authority here
Oops! (Score:2, Funny)
Dang! That big virtual magnet just erased my virtual disk...
E-mail with more info on hoax (Score:5, Informative)
physics is science (Score:5, Informative)
There is a reason why there are referees for scientific journals, and why physicist dismiss lots of ideas communicated to them via letters, emails or other informal channels. There is a lot of bullshit there, and the general public doesn't have a way to know what is bullshit and what is real science. But this doesn't mean that the theoretical physics done in universities is bullshit, it is science and this is acknowledged everyday.
Re:physics is science (Score:4, Funny)
But they can allow themselves to believe in imaginary numbers?
Reasoning in advance of experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
Physicists are now generating and publishing theories that aren't experimentally testable. This is a bad thing. Fred Hoyle used to say "Science is prediction, not explaination". To get a new physical theory published, you used to have to propose an experimental test of it at the end of the paper. That's less true today.
Physics without experiments is theology, not science.
More info (Score:4, Informative)
misconceptions of research mathematicians (Score:2)
Bogdanov hoax more damning than Sokal's (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? In his paper, Sokal didn't pretend to be a literature professor; he claimed at the start he was a physicist. The review board of Social Text weren't physicists and so they couldn't really evaluate the physics part of his paper. Instead, they trusted Sokal that he was following the usual academic honesty and integrity in his assertions. As it turned out, and as we all now know, he wasn't -- he was intentionally distorting his beliefs about physics in order to perpetrate a hoax. What Sokal did was a lot like a researcher falsifying data: review boards usually have no way of knowing whether a submitter has falsified data and so they have to rely on the person's academic integrity, just like the board of Social Text had no way of knowing whether Sokal was sincere in his representation of physics, so they had to trust him.
The Bogdanov brothers, however, published as physicists, about physics, and in journals reviewed by physicists. Not only that, but the people who reviewed them are now spouting inanities like "he worked for ten years, so he deserved a doctorate." (Um, no, he can work for 30 years, but if he doesn't understand the stuff, he doesn't get the doctorate.)
If Sokal had tried to write as a literature professor, I highly doubt his paper would have gotten through. I've read his paper, and quite frankly, it was *not* accepted for what it had to say about cultural studies. The knowledge the paper represents of cultural studies reads like an enthusiastic but over-bold sophomore who just took his/her first class in critical theory (disclosure: I teach critical theory to sophomores, and I've seen those papers
Bogdanov hoax more damning than Sokal's? Right... (Score:2, Interesting)
First of all, the Bogdanov hoax is not a hoax. It's a goof, a public display of carelessness, by a bunch of physicists who now look very silly.
But let's test your theory--the experiment is in progress. The Sokal hoax trashed the entire Pomo field of cultural studies, cut the number and quality of grad students in half, reduced grant allocations, and so on, and so on.... Let's watch and see if the same thing now happens to physics, shall we?
Re:Bogdanov hoax more damning than Sokal's (Score:2)
Re:Bogdanov hoax more damning than Sokal's (Score:2, Insightful)
Sokal is not nearly such a bad guy as those right-wingers. He's actually a decent liberal, but one raised in a particular scientistic, positivist intellectual tradition. Alan Sokal is a physicist, after all (although that is not sufficient, many in the occupation understand humanities better). But caught in that anti-Postmodernism ferver of the early 1990s, Sokal decided to make fun of the journal _Social Text_ (and the general field, by implication)
_Social Text_ is not really the most prestigious journal in that general area, but it's not bad. It is refereed, but that doesn't mean as much in any journal as what outside people tend to think. You don't have to be RIGHT, or even original, to right for "good" academic journals... just write well enough, and pick a topic the editor are interested in. For a lot of them, you also have to wait years for publication to roll around... they are behind schedule by huge amounts.
But even for what moderation means at _Social Text_, Sokal did not go through it. He knew some editors, and approached them saying "I'm a well known physicist, and I'd like you to fast track something I want to write." The _Social Text_ editors liked the idea of reaching out to that other academic community, so they agreed. But the refereeing in this case consisted of making sure the sentences were grammatical, the words spelled right, and the subject matter generally what Sokal had suggested informally. The same paper WOULD NOT have been published if submitted for blind review.
So the hoax basically amounts to this: people tend to grant some leeway to their friends. True enough, but hardly an indictment of cultural studies, the humanities, postmodernism, multiculturalism, or whatever it is that is supposed to have been shown to be foolish.
Sokal's irony (Score:2)
Theoretical physics isn't physics its math (Score:2)
Modern gravity research shows the current stuff is wrong. This is why gravity probe B is going to be launched but its set up to do some very specific expierments and doesn't do a few key ones. Answer why the GPS sats are slowing down and why voyager is slowing down and why pendulums swing funny during an eclipse and theres a Nobel prize waiting for you.
Richard Feynman said that physics is simple and if its not, the theory headed in the wrong direction.
Bunch of links on this topic (Score:2, Informative)
Links of interest are:
usenet post, along with abstracts from the theses:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R35126F52
Also here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/27894.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/27963.htm
Very detailed info here and in linked pages:
http://cass.eahosting.com/cass/bogdanov2.htm
And here:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bogdanov.html
In particular the link
http://cass.eahosting.com/cass/bogdanov2.htm
is invaluable as it has an email dialogue with the brothers about their
research, and is a work in progress
you can read about sokal here:
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/n
Hehe... (Score:2)
Does that make this a quantum quantum theory? The theory itself is inside a black box (of both existence before big bang singularity, and of the undecipherable explanation of it's creators), and is both simultaniously correct and incorrect at the same time. Sure, we could call it mal-defined or unprovable in this state, but that wouldn't be any fun.
Ryan Fenton
It's the same in Star Trek... (Score:3, Funny)
I know that because I read (in The Sun, I think) that the Star Trek episodes come from the future in capsule times to Gene Roddenberry (he is a refugee from future). In fact, Star Trek is a soap opera from the future. Gene's relatives send the episodes to him so he doesn't feel so far away from home...
That's enough, if I talk more Ashtar Sheran will send that Xemnu boy to get me... and I have to make a call to these Bogdanov brothers, I have some theories that I wish to share with them.
The Confusion of All Science (Score:2)
Robots!! (Score:2)
This is being interpreted weirdly (Score:2, Insightful)
Physics (Score:2, Interesting)
Article for the lazy. (Score:2, Informative)
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Everyone who ever wondered whether physicists were just making it all up when they talked about extra dimensions, dark matter and even multiple universes might take comfort in hearing that scientists themselves don't always seem to know.
Consider Drs. Igor and Grichka Bogdanov, French mathematical physicists and twins, who have recently been burning up the physics world with a novel and highly speculative theory about what happened before the Big Bang. Scientists have been debating whether the Bogdanov brothers are really geniuses with a new view of the moment before the universe began or simply earnest scientists who are in over their heads and spouting nonsense.
The uproar began late last month when rumors, denied by the brothers, began ricocheting around the Internet that they had constructed an elaborate hoax à la that of Dr. Alan Sokal, the New York University physicist who published a nonsense article about quantum gravity in the cultural journal Social Text in 1994. The story was that the pair, who are 53 and better known as the writers and producers of a popular television show in the 1970's and 80's in which they appeared as what might be called science clowns, had posed as string theorists to obtain fraudulent doctorates.
Until then, few physicists had noticed the brothers' theses or their journal articles, which purport to exploit something called the Kubo-Schwinger-Martin condition. It implies a mathematical connection between infinite temperature and imaginary time (don't ask) to probe the state of the universe at its very beginning. Suddenly physicists were trying to figure out what sentences like this meant, if anything: "Then we suggest that the (pre-)spacetime is in thermodynamic equilibrium at the Planck-scale and is therefore subject to the KMS condition."
Dr. Roman W. Jackiw, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who read and approved Igor Bogdanov's Ph.D. thesis, said he found it speculative but "intriguing."
But Dr. John Baez, a physicist and quantum gravity theorist at the University of California at Riverside, who has conducted a dialogue with the Bogdanov brothers on the Web site math.ucr.edu/home/baez/bogdanov, said, "One thing that seems pretty clear to me is that the Bogdanovs don't know how to do physics."
Dr. Peter Woit, a mathematician and physicist at Columbia University, said of the brothers' work, "Scientifically, it's clearly more or less complete nonsense, but these days that doesn't much distinguish it from a lot of the rest of the literature."
Indeed, the problem of distinguishing sense from nonsense goes beyond the Bogdanovs, say some physicists, who worry that far too much junk goes past the referees who vet articles for the scientific journals and the examiners who approve Ph.D's.
"The bigger issue is about scientific integrity, and how theoretical physics gets judged," said Dr. Frank Wilczek, another M.I.T. physicist and editor of Annals of Physics, where one of the Bogdanov papers appeared. "Do people really have a mastery of the field as a whole?"
How the Bogdanovs came to this pass is perhaps a cautionary tale about the way physics is done today. Born in 1949 in a castle in Gascogne, they described themselves as descendants of Russian and Austrian nobility. After studying applied mathematics at the Institute of Political Science and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, the brothers carved out careers for themselves as writers and producers of their science television show, "Temps X" ("Time X").
A particularly murky episode in their careers began in 1991, when they published "God and Science," a book based on conversations with the French philosopher Dr. Jean Guitton. The book was a best seller in France, but the authors were sued for plagiarism by Dr. Trinh Xuan Thuan, an astronomer at the University of Virginia, who claimed they had copied passages from his 1988 book, "The Secret Melody, and Man Created the Universe." The brothers countersued, arguing that Dr. Thuan had borrowed from their earlier writings and Dr. Guitton's.
The case was eventually settled out of court in 1995, according to a settlement document provided by the brothers, with both sides renouncing any damages and paying their own court costs. Dr. Thuan, whose book is being reissued in the United States this winter, failed to respond to requests for an interview.
It was during the writing of the book, the brothers say, that they had a brainstorm for a theory of the so-called initial singularity, the infinitely dense, infinitely hot point into which all space and time were squeezed when the universe began, where normal physics breaks down. They returned to college to pursue Ph.D.'s, something they say they had always intended to do, but had been delayed by the unexpected success of their television show.
After two years at the University of Bordeaux, they moved to the University of Bourgogne and apprenticed themselves to Dr. Moshe Flato, founder of the journal Letters in Mathematical Physics and a prominent theorist known for his unconventional ways. When Dr. Flato died in 1998, a longtime associate, Dr. Daniel Sternheimer, a mathematician at C.N.R.S., the French center for scientific research, took over as the twins' adviser.
For the most part, however, the brothers were left to work on their own without much supervision, "pursuing ideas that are quite a bit out of the mainstream," said Dr. Jacobus Verbaarschot, a physicist now at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and one of the examiners for Grichka Bogdanov's doctoral thesis in 1999.
Dr. Sternheimer described the twins as stubborn "wunderkids" with very high I.Q.'s, who have a hard time understanding that they are not "the Einstein brothers" and prone to shooting themselves in the foot with vague statements and an "impressionistic" style. He called teaching them "like teaching My Fair Lady to speak with an Oxford accent."
Certainly they did not come off as the Einstein brothers in their dissertations. In June 1999, Grichka was granted a Ph.D. in mathematics by the École Polytechnique in Paris but with an "honorable," the lowest passing grade.
Igor, however, failed. The examining committee agreed that he could try again if he had three papers published in peer-reviewed journals, a common litmus test of legitimacy, Dr. Jackiw said.
"One has to have trust in the community," he explained. Igor's thesis had many things Dr. Jackiw didn't understand, but he found it intriguing. "All these were ideas that could possibly make sense," he said. "It showed some originality and some familiarity with the jargon. That's all I ask."
Igor got his degree in theoretical physics from the University of Bourgogne in July, also with the lowest possible grade, one that is seldom given, Dr. Sternheimer said.
"These guys worked for 10 years without pay," he said. "They have the right to have their work recognized with a diploma, which is nothing much these days."
The brothers have since returned to television, producing two-minute spots for a French series called "Rayons-X" ("X-Rays"). That would have been the end of it, except for the hoax rumors.
Dr. Sternheimer called the dispute "a storm in a teacup."
"They don't deserve so much interest, they don't deserve so much hatred," he said.
The aftermath has been bruising for both the Bogdanovs and for physics. Dr. Arkadiusz Jadczyk, a Polish theoretical physicist who has been conducting a dialogue with the brothers and other physicists on his Web site, cassiopaea.org/cass/bog-sternheimer
But the editors of Classical and Quantum Gravity repudiated their publication of a Bogdanov paper, saying it "does not meet the standards expected of articles in this journal," although they declined to retract it, inviting readers to send comments to the journal instead.
Dr. Wilczek stressed that the publication of a paper by the Bogdanovs in Annals of Physics had occurred before his tenure and that he had been raising standards. Describing it as a deeply theoretical work, he said that while it was "not a stellar addition to the physics literature," it was not at first glance clearly nonsensical.
"It's a difficult subject," he said. "The paper has a lot of the right buzz words. Referees rely on the good will of the authors." The paper is essentially impossible to read, like "Finnegans Wake," he added.
His colleague Dr. Jackiw compared modern physics to modern art: "One person looks at a piece of art and says it is gibberish; another person looks and says it's wonderful."
When physics talks about the universe before the Big Bang, it is completely speculative, he said, adding, "I would be very careful before calling something nonsense, especially if I didn't understand it."
Physicists were no more unanimous on the greater lesson of the whole affair. "This says something profound about what happens to theoretical physics in the absence of the discipline of experiment," Dr. Wilczek said.
Dr. Baez and others have suggested that the system administering the brothers' degrees and publishing their papers was lax. "I do think that the examiners, referees and editors do have something to answer for in this case," said Dr. Lee Smolin, a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, in Waterloo, Ontario, citing what he said were obvious errors in the referees' reports for the brothers' papers.
But others, especially in France, disagree. "What they did or what they have written seems to show that they are not better (but not worse) than several theoretical physicists friends of ours who often use some mathematical terminology that they do not master well enough," said Dr. Robert Coquereaux, director of research at C.N.R.S., in a statement posted on Dr. Jackiw's Web site.
But Dr. David Gross, director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, Calif., took issue with this view. "It is easy to judge, even from the abstract alone, that these papers are nutty," he said, noting that the physics community had ignored them until the hoax brouhaha.
Dr. Coquereaux and others said that the "publish or perish" ethos of academic research in the United States had contributed to the spread of unintelligible papers.
"There is a tradition of formally obscure but extremely serious and competent theoretical work in Europe," said Dr. Carlo Rovelli, a theoretical physicist and gravitational theorist at the University of Marseille and the University of Pittsburgh. But there was a tradition of letting every wild idea go in the United States, he added. He described the brothers' papers as "really empty."
The Bogdanovs said they were still hopeful that their ideas would be recognized and useful in physics. As they said in an e-mail message: "Nonsense in the morning may make sense in the evening or the following day."
Foucault Pendulum + Topology, a point of suspicion (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet most nonphysics /. readers will find the original Bogdanov papers quite difficult to read, and perhaps the theses even more so since they are in French. But I can show here some very simple things that will make nonphysics reader very suspicious about the Bogdanov twin's work.
As some /. readers have pointed out already, John Baez, the UCI physics prof, criticizes a very specific passage from one thesis, involving the Foucault pendulum part. You don't have to read everything, just see that Bogdanov mentions the pendulum and topology in one breath! here I quote from Baez's webpage: [ucr.edu]
"It goes on to discuss the supposed connection between N = 2 supergravity, Donaldson theory, KMS states and the Foucault pendulum experiment, which he claims "cannot be explained satisfactorily in either classical or relativistic mechanics". If you know some physics you'll find this statement slightly odd.
After several pages he concludes: We draw from the above that whatever the orientation, the plane of oscillation of Foucault's pendulum is necessarily aligned with the initial singularity marking the origin of physical space S3, that of Euclidean space E4 (described by the family of instantons Ibeta of whatever radius beta), and, finally, that of Lorentzian space-time M4.
Zounds! He took that pendulum and rode it right off into hyperspace..."
And this Foucault pendulum quote you can obtain directly from one Bogdanov thesis. [ccsd.cnrs.fr]
The Foucault pendulum bit is on page 49/162 of the thesis, in French. It's easy to read and probably will parse in babelfish.
So what's the big hoopla about Foucault's pendulum and the supergravity stuff? Well, Foucault's pendulum, contrary to the Bogdanov thesis that it's not understood in classical mechanics, is really well understood, at least the regular ole' Foucault pendulum. It's basically a free-swinging pendulum, that over time, rotates its plane of swinging because of the Coriolis force. You can check it out in any decent undergrad mechanics text, such as my dusty copy of Marion/Thornton classical dynamics, page 399, where the solution is quietly sitting. Or you can read this little web tidbit. [unsw.edu.au]
That a PHD physics candidate would be trying to tell us there is some connection between the very earthly, understood Foucault pendulum, and the big bang (initial singularity) really stretches the imagination! But again, this just makes one suspicious, and doesn't prove anything.
To be expected (Score:2)
fraud is getting out of hand. I am a physics
grad student and between this, the Schon saga
and the Ninov debacle, this has been a bad year
for physics. But I wager it will only get worse
because physics is growing. My fear is that
beyond a certain size, we will not be able to
maintain knowledge in a coherent state between
all practitioners.
Interesting quote. (Score:3, Informative)
Rethinking Everything [business2.com]. The above quote is on page 4.
Re:Physics is weird! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Physics is weird! (Score:4, Informative)
Besides, the article focuses more on the integrity of articles printed in scientific journals, and how it is hard to figure out if something is worthwhile or if it is crap when they're so hard to understand.
Re:Yep, sounds like gibberish... (Score:2, Interesting)
Make the space smaller. -> finite, but larger density.
As the space available goes to zero, the density would go against infinity.
However, when the space has shrunk to point size, there is no space anymore. So the density wouldn't be infinite, but (some matter/zero space) undefined. So that's my 0.02 .
Re:Your answer (Score:2)
If you squeeze that stuff really tight, there is still no way it has infinite density, because no matter how small that room is it has still a size. Otherwise you could make a infinite mass object out of a single particle by squeezing it in the planck box, right? So unless the actual amount of matter in the universe becomes irrelevant once something is below Planck scale this can't be infinite density as we know it, right?
The other thing is: in order to even have mass and heat you would need particles. How can there be particles on such small a scale?
In order to have heat you need movement. How can you even have movement within the Planck scale? (Note that the article speaks indeed of an "infinitely hot point": heat)
What kind of "information" does a singularity contain? Doubtless (?) it still has to have a mass, but what else?
The other question is, if there was a "time" when the whole universe was compressed like that, this singularity should have been pretty stateless, right? How did it then get the impulse to expand to the shape we are seeing now?
Re:Your answer (Score:2, Interesting)
RZ: If the Big Bang were indeed where it all began, may I ask what preceded the Big Bang?
Sci: The universe was shrunk down to a singularity.
RZ: But isn't it correct that a singularity as defined by science is a point at which all the laws of physics break down?
Sci: That is correct.
RZ: Then, technically, your starting point is not scientific either.
[silent panic]
RZ: When a mechanistic view of the universe had held sway, didn't thinkers like David Hume chide philosophers for taking the principle of causality and applying it to a philosophical argument for the existence of God? Didn't he warn that causality could not be extrapolated from science to philosophy?
RZ: Now, when a quantum theory holds sway, randomness in the subatomic world is made a basis for randomness in life. Are you not making the very same extrapolation that you warned us against?
[awkward silence, self-deprecating smile]
Sci: We scientists do seem to retain selective sovereignty over what we allow to be transferred to philosophy and what we don't.
Ah, the dark truth is snookered into revealing itself. Science plays the charade of pursuing truth while spurning the open-mindedness that is necessary to find ultimate truth.
Again, in the words of Zacharias, "The person who demands a sign [from God, a miracle] and at the same time has already determined that anything that cannot be explained scientifically [naturalistically] is meaningless is not merely stacking the deck; he is losing at his own game." (words in brackets in this quote added by me)
Re:Your answer (Score:2)
The point of my post is that the scientific method is not applicable to whatever happened before the Big Bang. To force science to answer questions about what happened between the "dormant" singularity and the Big Bang is to attribute causality to randomness, which encroaches on philosophical conjecture.
Re:Sokal, Schön, Bogdanov (Score:4, Interesting)
Check out the Guardian's top 10 scientific blunders page [guardian.co.uk]. They've got psychologists, physicists, chemists... all working to pull down science's reputation.
Re:Sokal, Schön, Bogdanov (Score:2)
As I understand it, the mirror was polished each night, then tested to see if it was the right shape yet. The testing apparatus included a series of lenses (or mirrors) held a fixed distance apart by rods. Turned out that one of those rods had the paint chipped off one end, which resulted in NASA thinking the mirror was perfect when it wasn't.
A blunder, yes, but not a design flaw as such.
Re:Sokal, Schön, Bogdanov (Score:4, Interesting)
So let's get it straight: Schon is a talentless hack; Sokal is a dedicated scientist who wants to see more people acting and thinking rationally. If you don't believe me, check out his website [nyu.edu]. From personal experience I can tell you that Sokal is a good guy. It makes me sick to see people like you lashing out without even taking time to learn about what you're talking about (actually, people like you were the motivation for Sokal writing that piece.).
Re:Sokal, Schön, Bogdanov (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Contemporary physics is just groping around (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, no, you're confused. If the theory were false, then I could disprove it by performing an experiment where an action does not have an equal and opposite reaction. Thus, the theory is hypothetically falsifiable and therefore valid as a theory (it may be incorrect, but at least it is phrased as a valid theory).
If numerous experiments demonstrating action and reaction do not disprove it, then odds are that it is also correct.
But proof of correctness is never absolute (maybe we haven't found the circumstances under which it doesn't hold, yet), while proof of incorrectness is.
Incomplete Formalism (Score:2, Informative)
for every action a,
there exists an reaction b,
such that b is equal and opposite to a.
You're not actually formulating one of Newton's laws, you're just saying that an equal and opposite reaction exists... not making the implication that the reaction that will be observed will be the equal and opposite one.
What would work:
Let X,Y be actions.
For all X, there exists a (unique) Y such that X is equal and opposite to Y and that X occuring implies that Y will also occur.
I'm going to ignore the "unique existential quantifier" on Y (leave it as an existential) since the only thing it says is that "only one equal and opposite reaction exists".
To negate my proposition (sans uniqueness), we have (using parentheses for grouping):
There exists a X such that for all Y, ((X is not equal and opposite to Y) or ((X occurs) and (Y does not occur))).
So, all you have to do is find one instance where X occurs and Y (the equal and opposite) does not occur, and you're done. You can also find an instance where a reaction occurs, but it is not equal and opposite.
Okay, if you really want the uniqueness:
There exists a X such that for all Y, ((X is not equal and opposite to Y) or ((X occurs) and (Y does not occur))) or (there exists a Z such that (Z is equal and opposite to X) and (Z is not equal to Y))
So therefore, if you can find two reactions that are equal and opposite, but aren't the same, you've also found a counterexample... I'm not counting on that being very useful.
--
Apologies for any errors... I'm easily distracted by shiny objects.
Re:Uh, no. (Score:2)
Not quite.
What he's saying is that any given instance of "priest" implies "no corpse in backyard" (or in your version, "does have corpse in backyard"), just like every instance of "action" implies "equal and opposite reaction". The only way to truly prove the priest/corpse thing is to check all priests' backyards for blue corpses, not to check all blue corpses. When you find a priest's backyard which doesn't meet the criteria, then you've disproved the theory. This would take a long time. Checking all actions for equal and opposite reactions is impossible.
Of course, science isn't about proving random logical combinations of conditions. Science not only says "all actions have equal and opposite reactions", but explains _why_. That's the real difference between science and logic.
Close Enough. (Score:2)
Science does not explain "why" everything happens. We know, for instance, that matter has a property called "mass", and everything with "mass" has a force called "gravity" acting on it, but we don't really know how it works. Some laws are empirical, meaning that they describe the world, and are correct in that way... but they don't come with an explanation.
--grendel drago
Re:Contemporary physics is just groping around (Score:2)
Suppose you find an action with a very visible opposite reaction, but one that is far from equal -- i.e. of much greater magnitude.
Now of course, since this defies scientific observation up until this time, the onus is going to be on you to show that you didn't have some hidden extra action 'a' that accounts for the extra magnitude 'b'. That and to make sure your particular experiment can be replicated so others can satisfy themselves that there's no extra inputs.
Logically your case and this are equivalent: on the one hand you're asking to "prove the absence of an output", on the other you're asking to "prove the absence of an extra input".
But of course, you can't prove a negative.
In the case of an experiment demonstrating an action with no reaction, it isn't up to the experimenter to go to absurd lengths to prove it (but at least reasonable lengths). Rather the onus is on those wishing to maintain that "for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction" to duplicate the experiment and point out just where that reaction is happening; either that or restate the theory ("the reaction occurs as a burst of magic momentum particles which are almost impossible to detect but account for the missing momentum" -- substitute "neutrinos" for "magic momentum particles" and you've pretty much got an example from real physics).
Re:proof of incorrectness is not absolute (Score:2)
Either way you learn something about how things really work.
Re:Contemporary physics is just groping around (Score:2)
You seem to be confusing the difference between a theory being false (ie, incorrect) and falsifiable (ie, an experiment could be devised which, given a certain result, would show the theory to be incorrect). A theory can be either, both, or neither.
Falsifiable means that it is possible to prove it wrong (if it is wrong); that for a given test, there will be some result which, if it occurs, proves the hypothesis wrong. Sure, it's hard to imagine that happening in any test of action/reaction, simply because of the amount of collective experience we've had with it working. If the billiard balls don't ricochet the way we expect, we're inclined to suspect a problem with the balls or the table, not with Newton's Third Law.
But that's a psychological barrier to falsifiability, not a logical one.
Re:Contemporary physics is just groping around (Score:2, Insightful)
For every a there Exists b such that P(a,b). Disproving such an assertion is impossible
Easily Disproved Assertion: For every real number r there exists a real number x such that r*x = 1. (In other words, all real numbers have a multiplicative inverse.)
Disproof: Let r = 0.
0 * x = 0 for all real numbers x.
Therefore, the assertion is false.
That assertion fits the form you laid out, and yet is clearly disprovable.
Re:Contemporary physics is just groping around (Score:2)
You're confusing the idea of testability with the ability to prove a theory correct. No scientific theory can be proven absolutely (i.e. how do we know that when we drop the apple THIS time it won't go up instead of down!), however a good scientific theory makes a prediction, and has a way of disproving it (in this case finding a counter-example).
Doug
Re:Contemporary physics is just groping around (Score:2)
Let me state this in terms even you can understand. Let P be a statement in first order logic (it may involve free variables). Falsifiable(P) means the same as Satisfiable(not P). Now, assume P is Newtons third law. In other words, we want to show that not P is satisfiable. For this we have to imigine a universe in which there exist an action without an equal and opposite reaction. And as has been stated numerous times, that is not especially hard to imagine even under more formal systems...
Re:I've often wondered... (Score:2)
In my opinion, no. Even if some sort or cosmic irony dropped a physicist into our time, from 10,000 years in the future, said physicist wouldn't be capable of it.
For one, english as it is spoken today, even with the jargon of the phsyics community, would be inadequate to say anything truly mind-blowing. And if he adds in his own jargon from the year 12k, it would most likely dominate any message he would say. It would truly be gibberish to us, and it wouldn't exactly be unfair to call it nonsense.
Re:Is it really surprising? (Score:2)
Such harsh comments coming from an IT Guru.
I guess your infinite experience in the cosmology field has brought you to this conclusion, or are you just too stupid to know any better?
Re:Is it really surprising? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:More info, less blather (Score:2)
Re:Before Physics (Score:3, Funny)