String Theory's Mathematical Fright of the 4-D Bumble Bee

[Profpat]

A
Cosmic Expansion

QuickTime (184K); MPEG (273K); Thumbnail (15K);

Sorry image and movie didn't come out. It was an animated movie showing the universe expanding into the void.

[Graybeard]

Sorry image and movie didn't come out. It was an animated movie showing the universe expanding into the void.

How ironic ! outta the mouths of babes.

cool bananas ... greg

[Lloyd Gillespie]

Some Lessons of Science from Charles Sanders Peirce...

[t]he real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge. And so those two series of cognition – the real and the unreal – consist of those which, at a time sufficiently future, the community will always continue to re-affirm; and of those which, under the same conditions, will ever after be denied. (CP 5.311, 186)

The scientific world is like a colony of insects, in that the individual strives to produce that which he himself cannot hope to enjoy. One generation collects premises in order that a distant generation may discover what they mean. When a problem comes before the scientific world, a hundred men immediately set all their energies to work upon it. One contributes this, another that. Another company, standing upon the shoulders of the first, strikes a little higher, until at last the parapet is attained. (CP 7.87, 1901).

I think myself that to go into Greece is not entirely safe but I shall reduce my stay there to a minimum. I cannot well avoid going there & if as is not after all probable I get the fever why I shall not for my own sake care at all & I should be no great loss socially. You will have done what you could to keep me away, but it is quite absurd to be made unhappy by the regular & normal course of human events. If I should never come back I trust my friends will remember that the less they care for it the more they conform to my ideas.

“The essence of truth lies in its resistance to being ignored.” (CP 2.139, c.1902).

The scientist – Peirce writes – ”stands ready to abandon one or all [of his or her beliefs] as soon as experience opposes them.” (CP 1.635, 189)

But if I am asked to what the wonderful success of modern science is due, I shall suggest that to gain the secret of that, it is necessary to consider science as living, and therefore not as knowledge already acquired but as the concrete life of the men who are working to find out the truth. Given a body of men devoting the sum of their energies to refuting their present errors, doing away with their present ignorance, and that not so much for themselves as for future generations, and all other requisites for the ascertainment of truth are insured by that one. (CP 7.50, n. d.)

[Profpat]

“A useful analogy is to consider our observable universe as a mass of waves on top of an ocean, whose depth is immaterial. Our senses and all our instruments can only directly detect the waves so it seems that trying to probe whatever lies beneath, the void itself, is hopeless. Not quite so. There are subtle effects of the zero-point energy that do lead to detectable phenomena in our observable universe.

Look what I found while doing research, physicists are looking for the Void.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Healthful orange is the common man’s color;
So, to make the expensive look cheaper,
Such as with a hotel, they paint it orange,
And put some shiny polish on the door hinge.

(Anyone remember Howard Johnson hotels?)

[RascalPuff]

Thought it appropriate to repeat the thematic commencement of this thread - Greg's forthright response to it as being 'hype' has been repeated in quotes at least three times.


Dear Greg: I don't understand rocket science either, but I do judge that it's moving in the right direction.

And now with due respect to it's readers and contributors, a replay of the feature of this thread:

Brian Greene is a Keen Flying Machine
Spellbound, I will forever be under the baton of Nova's PBS broadcast Elegant Universe. Physicist Brian Greene is a Supreme and Empirical example of what it takes to become an American Idol. Anyone who can begin his fiat in real space-time with a one dimensional loop has my goat, I mean vote. There's no business like show business - like no business I know. The toughest business in the world. No I haven't stood in line to see the movie (stack it higher) yet, but I've read portions of the introduction to his book and all I can say is I've lost my ability to punctuate and misplaced any semblance of scientific inclination in the potent shadow of such a conspicuously talented and charismatic master of ceremonies.

In lieu of his Nobel Prize, room must be made for him in the house of Pulitzer, with Golden Globes suspended from the ceiling directly above the staging for the Academy Awards Oscar. Physicist Brian Greene is as every bit as elegant unto science & mathematics as Mike Tyson is unto pugilism in the international arena. The author is a model of what it takes to make it in the challenging world of political and social vertical ascension today. If Brian Greene and his 11 to 26 oscillating and undulating Super Strings don't vibrate all the way to the top of where it's at and stay there for another 30 years, displacing even the mighty big bang and black hole sensations, there is no Rex Reed or god... Meanwhile, the history of physics is kaput. My socks roll up and down in contemplation of the unfathomable depths that Lewis Carroll forsook, in his mathematical expeditions to and from Alice's Wonderland.

The destiny of science and humanity lies in the architectural ambition of designing a Castle in the Sky, where all that is needed is more bricks, mortar, multi- dimensional universal joints, wiring and an occasional - mathematically manifest - Sky Hook formula: when occasion behooves it. The Sky Hook's irreproachable mathematics rest on the backs of winged turtles. Forego talk of gravity. Any and all comprehensive understanding yields to highly classified. esoteric equations and formulae and elite societies of authorities ensconced in inscrutable coordinates.

Bewildered and beguiled public interrogatives may placate themselves with knowing with absolute certainty that the apparent complexities of reality are reducible to something that explains it with a burst of blinding lights that mathematically incapacitate all but the most refined, vitally youthful, specially educated and talented observers. A stronger, faster, more sentient class of Masterful Super Scholars than there were before.

The Past, Present and Future is a flash-frozen anachronism.

As for me, I'm investing in #2 pencils and a tin cup. My goodness gracious in these editorial waves of Future Shock - what Joy of Cooking books will be Magically, Mystically & Mathematically Microwaved by String Theory's 'Mother', next? When Mother ('M theory') needs another string dimension, she summons Father ('F theory') to rustle one up. Hence 10 dimensions beget 11, and if need be, 11 beget 26, and more if you have need for them. Creating a begotten bustle of iconoclastically inbred bastards to rival - or sink - Noah's Ark.

The Ministry of Plenty has merged with a Star Trek inspired Hollywood Guild, founded in the Top Guns of Geneva & Stockholm, where the answers proliferate in the parameters of a jungle of particular particles inventoried in collisions of ponderous protons. The reinstallment of Einstein's 'abandoned' Cosmological Constant - Lambda /\ - is a public secret wrapped in Dark Matter and Quintessence, while it is forgotten that Einstein (Who?) was returned to working on what he had earlier called the 'biggest blunder' of his life, before he perished at Princeton in '55.

Without a quantitative prediction in over 30 years the New Age string 'theory' advocates are push-pinned to the academic bulletin board, with the young school following the Ministry of Justice, the mathematicians following the funds and the physicists following the grants. Physics=Math. 2 + 2 = 5.

The Lost Platoon's objective is to bag a metaphorical lion Einstein spoke of in a parable - of a Unified Field that would unite electromagnetism, gravity and/or quantum theory - and, according to the latest reports from the inscrutable inner circle, quite possibly eliminate any need for gravity altogether.

Pretenders may fall with confidence upon the old saw of talking about something that they understand no one comprehends in the first place. Only string 'theorists'. ouija board masters, and certified table levitators will penetrate the matrix of mathematical entanglements, equations and collapsed triple canopy wet woodlands and thick snarling masses of tropical vegetation where Einstein's (!) fabled, Mighty King of the Jungle Makes and Maintains Dr. Greene's Mathematically Mystical Magic - the same 'M theory' Medium of Math that reckoned correction, after 'proving' why: a 4-D bumblebee can't fly.

"All things are possible" with string theory's invoked, smoked & misted Mirrors and Math.

The invoked lion is too large to be seen in the thick foliage and wilderness right now but the leading scatologists are reporting that soon rare paw prints will be located and the equation and formula slingers will be in gifted sight of the Jungle King's legendary one half inch of tail and then his mighty, hirsute caboose is predicted to emit a roar that may disable all sensory equipment for any further detection of him. The universe (one verse) has been modified by the New Age World Order to mean as many and more universes than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in all the world. The sparkling possibilities are as endless as the New Age revised, revolutionary new approach to the 21st century TOE. The *Ministry of Truth & Propaganda (*Co-authored "Battered & Bullied Women Make Better Pancakes & Burgers") has in the meanwhile, cleared the path for the industriously unstoppable safari - by way of dismissing reality, for lack of evidence. The String 'theory' Medium of sub-quantum Mathematics has grounded the 4-D bumble bee, while empowering it's castle in the sky with the ability to fly. Dr. Brian Greene and his equations pristine, have beaten a main-stream path: back to the New Age Math.

There will be an answer, let it be? Anything is possible in the 'theorist community' of strings - just attach more strings where needed. Jiggle the loops and dig the vibes. Join the innercircle exotic equation cartel and liberate everything? History (and 1984?) may yet escape the past?

[RascalPuff]

Originally Posted by Graybeard
Dear Rascal ..... Everything you have posted is just Hype. You are not addressing the theory itself .... its just a piece of negative journalism that does not address the theory but lambasts, as you see it, the perpertrators. Isn't this just the sort of propaganda that you decry in many of your other threads.

Shouldn't you show that at least you have a basic understanding of it first ??

If you don't understand it how can you judge it ??

CLICK

cool bananas ... greg

------------------------

Dear Greg:
No. I am not going to invest another decade 'learning what String 'theory' is.'

What I already know is that the singular dimension string 'theory' imparts a 'loop' in, contradicts geometric law - there is no dimension for a one dimensional entity to 'curve' into.

Moreover, even allotting it with two dimensions, it still doesn't exist and is therefore unable to effect physical reality. That's it.

I don't often make predictions, whereas, I predict that 'string theory' is destined to go the way of the - so called - 'New Math', and fall on its little red caboose, along with its industriously employed propaganda machine (and all of its armada of stormy Public Relations investors who are infiltrating high schools and colleges, like military recruiters use to), in due time.

- Kewel Kukumbers,
- RP
------------------------
Pat appears to be dwelling on the 'nothing' of the macrocosmic end of the magnitude spectrum, while the mathematically entrenched string theorists convene in the experimentally inaccessible realm of the microcosms. Greg's noble commital to string theory seems more based on loyalty to and faith in Prof. Ed Witten than on his (Greg's) own personal facilities. I do not question Prof. Witten's credentials, or his well earned reputation as a functional genius (any more than I question Greg's sincereity). What I do question is the vector - the direction and and especially the magnitude - of the course that much of the relatively new addition to 'mainstream physics' has taken and is still adhering to.

Hopefully it is clear that it is not my wish to omit string theory from the scientific agenda. On the other hand, it appears to be diverting a lot of research from the course of experimental physics, established since Maxwell and Planck. The incongruity of 'dualism' presented in the apparently irreconcilable opposites of continuity and discontinuity - dividing Maxwell's findings from those of Planck - constitutes the standing dilemma of Modern Physics, which seeks a way out of what amounts to a 'gridlock'. String theory speaks of - and practices - approaches that would put mathematics ahead of physics - theorism ahead of experimentalism; etiquette ahead of pragmatism. Apart from glittering elegance proslytized by the Godfather of Strings, is the less glamorous pragmatism (entailing laboratory tedium) that form follows function, instructed by Frank Lolyd Wright.

Intending no hyperbole here, my difference with string theory is nothing personal; whereas string theory seems to have struck an emotional chord, which proffers a plurality of avenues of escape from the dilemma of dualism - a mainstream system of standardized tributaries, brachiating into more numerous and ever smaller (Sub Planck length, sub quantum) tributaries, ad infinitum - microcosmic realms resilient to - and generally beyond - experimentalism: Dualism is by this method further distanced from unification, by pluralism. A few days ago I posted what may be a tenable solution to the dilemma of dualism, in the Quantum Theory category of the ToeQuest index. There has been no response to it. Perhaps it is out of lack of confidence in its author - 'RascalPuff', or, perhaps it is out of apprehension of the subject of quantum mechanics, which, in the meanwhile, is challenged along with continuous field theory, to find a solution to the problem of 'dualism', with fair probability, toward a UF, aka TOE.

Pat's (candidly and honestly identified) invention of converting the void into functional space-time via the introduction of a 'curl of a string' exemplifies the method and mind-set of string theory - its penchant to transport more renovaton material to the string theory's mathematical castle in the sky, all it needs is more mathematically supported sky-hooks - directly implying the suspension of gravity - and electromagnetism - itself. Invoking the student monk who goes to the Zen Master and acknowledges the anecdotal turtle upon which every worldly thing rests, asking furthermore of his Master - but sir, what does the turtle upon which everything rests, rest upon... To which the Master replies: "It's turtles all the way down, my son". Is that not a half smile of 'hype' in itself? Surely the Zen Master knows it.

Yet, Greg (for example) describes my critique of string theory: "Everything you have posted is just Hype. You are not addressing the theory itself..."

Which theory are you addressing, Greg, is not string theory a plurality of possibilities?

That, combined with it's formidable mathematical vocabulary presents a foreboding obstacle to address.
And, speaking of 'propaganda', string theory as a controversial football has displaced the formerly front & center stations of the BB and black holes. It's being infrastructurally touted on YouTube and Wikipedia as the greatest thing since Constantine's conversion to Christianity. As for 'understanding it', that has become a matter of allegiance to exotic mathematics practiced by a minority of metaphorical priests, gathering a following of systematic beliefs and trusts. It's abundant defenders are intransigent... While it is agreed on all hands that a way is needed out of the dilemma of duality, an ironic system of plurality seems to be a chosen route of resolution...

2/28/08
ToeQuest Shoutbox, by 'Nobody', Aka, Raven Knight:
"Is it possible that gravity is (always) a repelling force - re: Huygens - and we can get rid of SR and QM altogether? If what I propose is true about light and what you propose is true about gravity, we can extend the "point particle" omnidirectionally by merging the 4th, 5th and 6th dimensions as a 3-d composite wave system. I would like to nail this thing in the form of a single omni-(dimensional) force based solely on time. I notice you also cite Newton's action/reaction, and if mass is the equivalent of motion, we can submit that the action (energy) and reaction (mass) are equivalent. This would unify the models because even in particulate theories the graviton is considered a spin-2 boson while the photon is a spin-1 boson. If there is no impelling force, as a first step both can be rendered spin-1 and eventually spin-0; the transitional time for the jumps are then zero because each system is set at 0 Hz. At that point we can then realize the particulate theories and wave theories completely merge, and we can end the war.

Post Script:
Dear Austin, 'door hinge' is two words. As is, 'floor hinge', and 'or tinge'; etc. And yes, Howard Johnson restaurants & hotels are still around, and, they still resemble churches. : )

[Profpat]

"Reality is an illusion - albeit a persistent one." - Einstein


RP's signature.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Post Script:
Dear Austin, 'door hinge' is two words. As is, 'floor hinge', and 'or tinge'; etc. And yes, Howard Johnson restaurants & hotels are still around, and, they still resemble churches. : )

That OK, in poetry, since poetry goes by syllables.

Maybe 'orange' rhymes with 'foreign'.

[Profpat]

NOTHING rhymes with orange.