Author: The Physics Detective

This author has written 95 articles

A grand unified history lesson

Like I was saying last time, a major goal of physics is “to unify the various fundamental forces” in a theory that offers “a more elegant understanding of the organization of the universe”. This is called a grand unified theory or GUT if it doesn’t include gravity, and a theory of everything or TOE if it does: Image from Sten Odenwald’s astronomy cafe Personally I don’t understand why anybody doesn’t include gravity. Gravity is easy. Einstein explained most of it in his 1920 Leyden Address. A…

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Grand Unified Theories

I was talking to a guy the other day about Grand Unified Theories, and I thought I ought to say something about them. The Wikipedia Grand Unified Theory article gives a fair account. It says a GUT is a model where “at high energy, the three gauge interactions of the Standard Model that define the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions, or forces, are merged into a single force”. You’ve doubtless seen the picture: Image from the particle adventure That’s from the particle adventure website. They say this: “one of the major goals of particle physics…

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Even physicists don’t understand quantum mechanics

Check out Sean Carroll’s New York Times article Even Physicists Don’t Understand Quantum Mechanics. I thought it was great. And I just loved that subtitle: Worse, they don’t seem to want to understand it. Carroll started by quoting Feynman, who said this: “I think I can safely say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics”. That’s a good start. Feynman was known as the great explainer, but he couldn’t explain how a magnet works. Or how gravity works. Moreover he was a major contributor to quantum electrodynamics,…

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Supergravity

Clunk. That’s the sound of my head hitting my desk. Because the $3m special breakthrough prize has just been awarded to the “discoverers” of supergravity. Yes folks, that’s one of those mathematical “discoveries”. It isn’t like discovering America or penicillin. It’s the sort of “discovery” that people peddle when they’re hyping a hypothesis for which there’s no evidence at all. The prize was awarded to Sergio Ferrara, Daniel Freedman, and Peter van Nieuwenhuizen for an “Influential Theory Combining Gravity with Particle Physics”. Only it isn’t influential…

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Misconceptions in particle physics

Physics is said to be the king of the sciences, and particle physics is said to be the most important branch of physics. As per the Wikipedia particle physics article, it’s the branch of physics that studies the nature of the particles that constitute matter and radiation. The article tells us that elementary particles are excitations of the quantum fields, and says this: “the currently dominant theory explaining these fundamental particles and fields, along with their dynamics, is called the Standard Model”. Glenn Starkman gives a…

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Misconceptions in gravitational physics

I think it’s safe to say that there are some misconceptions in physics. The issue of course, is how many. That’s where I part company with your average physicist. He’ll tell you that whilst we don’t understand everything, we do understand some things, such as black holes. Only he doesn’t. Take a look at the Wikipedia black hole article. It says this: “a black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting gravitational acceleration so strong that nothing - no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as…

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You can lead a horse to water

I thought I ought to say something about some of the conversations I have with some physicists. A recent example concerned gravity, and why light curves. I found myself talking to a guy doing a PhD called Erik Anson. At the end, I thought of the old adage: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I am reminded of some of the conversations I had years ago with Young Earth Creationists. You can show them the strata, the fossils, and…

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Misconceptions skewered

I was surfing the web the other day, and I came across Sean Carroll’s Preposterous Universe blog. There's a post on there called True Facts About Cosmology (or, Misconceptions Skewered). I thought it looked interesting, because that’s my kind of thing. I do so dislike all the popscience and the lies to children, and it pleases me to see somebody else trying to put the record straight. But has he? I thought I’d take a look and give my opinion. Carroll leads in with something about…

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Quantum physics is cargo cult science

Ethan Siegel wrote a blog post this week called This Is Why Quantum Field Theory Is More Fundamental Than Quantum Mechanics. I read it and sighed, because so much of it is misleading. This sort of thing has been in the air recently, because Lee Smolin gave a lecture on Einstein's unfinished revolution. Smolin said quantum mechanics was incomplete, then doubled down and said it was wrong. I think he's right, only more than he knows. So I thought I'd use Siegel's post to show just…

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Einstein’s unfinished revolution

Lee Smolin gave a lecture at the Perimeter Institute this week. Here’s the blurb: “On April 17, in a special webcast talk based on his latest book, Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution, Perimeter’s Lee Smolin will argue that the problems that have bedeviled quantum physics since its inception are unsolved and unsolvable for the simple reason that the theory is incomplete. There is more to quantum physics waiting to be discovered”. This sounds interesting. It's definitely my kind of thing. Let’s take a look. 00:49 Greg Dick starts…

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