Comments on: It is really starting to look like we finally have broken the standard model…

By: RL

RL — Wed, 10 Aug 2016 01:41:58 +0000

http://www.wired.com/2016/08/sorry-folks-lhc-didnt-find-new-particle/

By: ER

ER — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 13:57:22 +0000

…he is an excellent spokesman and educator (much like Carl Sagan), but I’m not aware of what his accomplishments are in research, theory or even in teaching. This is not to say the man is incompetent, there are always more physicists than there are positions to be filled, and not all are able, ready or willing to toil in the fetid cutthroat political swamps of academia.

Neither do I want to come across as contemptuous of string theory, maybe there is something to it, you never know where it may lead. But so far it has not suggested too many avenues of experimental research that might be used to support or challenge it. Remember, a “good” theory isn’t one that answers all the questions, it is one that poses plenty of new answerable ones.

By: mcfly

mcfly — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 11:35:03 +0000

Modern physics is a breathtaking, wondrous, ongoing tale that’s overflowing with brilliance and mystery.

I’d *love* to know the answers to some of the questions physicists ask, especially those related to time, and starting with “what the hell IS time, anyway?” Is it an illusion? If Einstein was right about the past and the future existing in exactly the same way that the present exists, why do we seem to live only in the current and fleeting instant that we call “now?”

By: mcfly

mcfly — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 10:19:37 +0000

Neil deGrasse Tyson has tweaked the proponents of string theory pretty hard, especially my man Brian Greene. But from what I’ve read about Newton, physics has been a full-contact sport for some time.

By: ER

ER — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 04:30:53 +0000

I’m pretty good with classical physics, and I know a little bit of special relativity. Quantum and beyond is way past me.

However, my intuition tells me string theory is phoobah.

By: mcfly

mcfly — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 03:19:28 +0000

Actually, “understanding” may be too strong a word, but perhaps the theory ushers us at least a bit in the direction you suggest, as the strings themselves are supposedly mind-bogglingly tiny.

RL, ER…you guys undoubtedly know far more about this than I do. Am I pulling on the wrong thread here?

By: RL

RL — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 01:19:46 +0000

Of course such projects have a hard time with funding...

By: RL

RL — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 01:15:07 +0000

The Geo-centric model was good enough… no point in getting all “fancy”…

By: bowser

bowser — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 21:34:56 +0000

All my life I’ve heard that physics has finally found the composition of the Universe, only to be told that the last model is incomplete but this next one is it. Over and over.
I would like for physicists to finally come to an end to this, to settle upon what they have to build this place and stick with it. Close is good enough. Those little, teeny tiny differences are getting to be inconsequential, they don’t matter. Just settle it. Call it good enough. It isn’t going to change the way you build a house, or lay out a highway, or even build an airplane.

Physicists need to relax and call it good. Be done with it. Settle.

By: ER

ER — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 17:41:55 +0000

No one seems to have a problem with the concept of infinity when we look at the Universe on a large scale. No one sees the edge of the Universe, perhaps it is infinitely big, or at least, finite but unbounded. Its possible that no matter how big a telescope we build, we will never be able to see the edge of the Universe.

Maybe the same situation occurs when you look the other way, into the smaller and smaller. Perhaps there is no fundamental “smallest” thing, or particle. Maybe no matter how powerful our microscopes get, we will NEVER find a fundamental particle or force, that the universe will continue exhibiting structure and detail regardless of what magnification we observe it at. If the universe can be infinitely big at the scales of the very large, why can’t it be infinitely little at the scales of the very small.

Infinity may scroll on forever in either direction, constantly unfolding, no matter how many layers we peel away, there will always be an infinite number of others below (or above) that. Its a fractal cosmos, in all three dimensions—matter/energy, space/time, and complexity/chaos.