Real Science for Renegades

[mwfanelli2]

With all the silly "expert" nonsense going around about global warming driving me crazy, I thought I'd just make a quick reference to a real renegade in the field of physics.

Right now, String Theory dominates the "theory of everything": linking the Standard Model with gravity. String Theory is elegant but complex, loaded with all sorts of extra dimensions and strange effects. The mathematics is complex. The theory isn't even scientific as it has produced nothing that can be tested.

Well, here comes this PhD physicist who is a loner. no school affiliation, who spends his time surfing, skiiing, and figuring out where to sleep each night. He has come up with a brilliant yet extremely simple model to rival String Theory. No wild extra dimensions, no super-complex assumptions, relatively simple math, and, better yet, experimentally verifiable predictions.

Most physicists are polite, many are dismissive, some are curious. But you see, unlike so many trained people who dismiss global warming, this guy puts his SCIENTIFIC b***ls on the line, not just waving his hands around and making pretty statements to the press.

I have included links to a lay person's report about his work from the UK as well as a link to the PDF version of his paper. Hopefully some will see the difference between real science disagreement and pseudo-science policy wonk-ism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Cont...site=30&page=0

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770

That last one, download the PDF file on the right which is the full paper as a preprint.

Maybe Lisi is right, maybe he is wrong. But we have a way to prove it one way or another. That's called science.

[SmartWombat]

It looks elegant, and simple.
With the promise of different predictions for the LHC I think it's worth an outside bet.

However he's copped out "the symmetry breaking and action for the theory are chosen by hand to match the standard model" which means he's following the establishment without understanding the mathematics.

[alienator]

That's definitely an interesting angle he's following. It's doubly interesting for some of the stuff it's predicting, such as the particle whose mass impedes measurement. Sounds kind of like dark matter. It'll be more interesting to see what else it predicts or verifies. There are more than a few cosmologists and physicists scratching their heads over the increasing rate of expansion of the Universe.

While I don't agree with his suggestion that any comprehensive theory should be simple or have some beautiful symmetry, I'm also not bothered by his choice of a particular symmetry without mathematical justification. The Schrödinger Equation and Einstein's relation between mass and energy were created without any experimental proof. They have no proof. They just are, at least for now. At any rate, the author acknowledges the unknowns in his approach as well as the arbitrary choice of symmetry.

I think the real chore, assuming this approach proves correct, will be giving physical explanations for the relations that fall out of it.

[alienator]

To Michael's comments, Lisi is following a time-honored procedure and the founding principle underlying all scientific enquiry, i.e. the Scientific Method. And Michael is right on point with respect to the seemingly out of control "hand waving" we see at times. Certainly, many--maybe even the majority of--critics of Global Warming are guilty of that. Michael's comments certainly apply to all those who think that Intelligent Design belongs in a science class. It would be perfectly appropriate to discuss ID in a theology class, but it is far from being science. It certainly does not meet any criteria for being a valid theory. It's not even a worthy hypothesis: you can't test the damned thing.

Any scientist worth the title looks forward to submitting his work to the scientific community-and the world community--at large to be tested, objectively criticized, proven, or even disproved. As scientists, we know that is the only way that a deeper understanding of our world, our universe can be attained.

[mwfanelli2]

The Schrödinger Equation and Einstein's relation between mass and energy were created without any experimental proof. They have no proof. They just are, at least for now.

Actually, both of these are more than experimentally verified. Einstein's energy-mass equivalence matches perfectly to experimental binding energy releases during fission and fusion and was instrumental for bomb development during the Manhattan Project.

Schrödinger's equation has been solved for the hydrogen atom and it's predictions have worked out well. Unfortunately, everything after hydrogen can not be solved analytically or even numerically.

[alienator]

Actually, both of these are more than experimentally verified. Einstein's energy-mass equivalence matches perfectly to experimental binding energy releases during fission and fusion and was instrumental for bomb development during the Manhattan Project.

Schrödinger's equation has been solved for the hydrogen atom and it's predictions have worked out well. Unfortunately, everything after hydrogen can not be solved analytically or even numerically.

Yes, they've been experimentally proven, but that's not what I meant. I meant they were not mathematically derived. They can be mathematically justified, but there discovery...or creation,,,,wasn't the result of some long mathematical proof. Sometimes "proof" and "derivation" are used almost interchangeably, and I'll occasionally slip and do that. The word I was missing was "ensatz," although I doubt that I've spelled it correctly.