View Single Post
  #1  
Old August 12th 15, 08:02 AM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 8,078
Default CRISIS IN PHYSICS: SAY GOODBYE TO WHAT?

http://www.edge.org/response-detail/23857
Steve Giddings: "What really keeps me awake at night (...) is that we face a crisis within the deepest foundations of physics. The only way out seems to involve profound revision of fundamental physical principles. (...) In short, the crisis is a deep conflict between fundamental physical principles, that form the foundation of our most basic framework for describing physics. These pillars are quantum mechanics, the principles of relativity (special or general), and locality. (...) If quantum mechanics is sacred, apparently other principles must go: either those of relativistic invariance, or of locality, or both. (...) Suffice it to say: while it appears that one of three basic pillars of physics must be modified, and that locality is the prime suspect..."

This is in 2013. In 2014 Einstein's relativity is "the prime suspect":

https://edge.org/response-detail/25477
What scientific idea is ready for retirement? Steve Giddings: "Spacetime. Physics has always been regarded as playing out on an underlying stage of space and time. Special relativity joined these into spacetime... (...) The apparent need to retire classical spacetime as a fundamental concept is profound..."

Nowadays all (not very silly) Einsteinians know that Einstein's spacetime, idiotic offspring of his 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate, has to be said goodbye to (otherwise dead physics will never be resurrected):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U47kyV4TMnE
Nima Arkani-Hamed (06:11): "Almost all of us believe that space-time doesn't really exist, space-time is doomed and has to be replaced by some more primitive building blocks."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029410.900
New Scientist: "Saving time: Physics killed it. Do we need it back? (...) Einstein landed the fatal blow at the turn of the 20th century."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/p...uantum-theory/
Frank Wilczek: "Einstein's special theory of relativity calls for radical renovation of common-sense ideas about time. Different observers, moving at constant velocity relative to one another, require different notions of time, since their clocks run differently. Yet each such observer can use his "time" to describe what he sees, and every description will give valid results, using the same laws of physics. In short: According to special relativity, there are many quite different but equally valid ways of assigning times to events. Einstein himself understood the importance of breaking free from the idea that there is an objective, universal "now." Yet, paradoxically, today's standard formulation of quantum mechanics makes heavy use of that discredited "now."

http://www.space.com/29859-the-illusion-of-time.html
"Fotini Markopoulou-Kalamara, a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute, said, "I have the distressing experience of physicists telling me that time is not real. ... It confuses me, because time seems to be real. Things happen. When I clap my hands, it happened. ... I would prefer to say that general relativity is not the final theory than to say that time does not exist." Time is a prime conflict between relativity and quantum mechanics, measured and malleable in relativity while assumed as background (and not an observable) in quantum mechanics."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...spacetime.html
"Rethinking Einstein: The end of space-time (...) The stumbling block lies with their conflicting views of space and time. As seen by quantum theory, space and time are a static backdrop against which particles move. In Einstein's theories, by contrast, not only are space and time inextricably linked, but the resulting space-time is moulded by the bodies within it. (...) Something has to give in this tussle between general relativity and quantum mechanics, and the smart money says that it's relativity that will be the loser."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...erse-tick.html
"...says John Norton, a philosopher based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013...reality-review
"And by making the clock's tick relative - what happens simultaneously for one observer might seem sequential to another - Einstein's theory of special relativity not only destroyed any notion of absolute time but made time equivalent to a dimension in space: the future is already out there waiting for us; we just can't see it until we get there. This view is a logical and metaphysical dead end, says Smolin."

http://www.bookdepository.com/Time-R.../9780547511726
"Was Einstein wrong? At least in his understanding of time, Smolin argues, the great theorist of relativity was dead wrong. What is worse, by firmly enshrining his error in scientific orthodoxy, Einstein trapped his successors in insoluble dilemmas..."

http://www.homevalley.co.za/index.ph...s-are-changing
"Einstein introduced a new notion of time, more radical than even he at first realized. In fact, the view of time that Einstein adopted was first articulated by his onetime math teacher in a famous lecture delivered one century ago. That lecture, by the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski, established a new arena for the presentation of physics, a new vision of the nature of reality redefining the mathematics of existence. The lecture was titled Space and Time, and it introduced to the world the marriage of the two, now known as spacetime. It was a good marriage, but lately physicists passion for spacetime has begun to diminish. And some are starting to whisper about possible grounds for divorce. (...) Einstein's famous insistence that the velocity of light is a cosmic speed limit made sense, Minkowski saw, only if space and time were intertwined. (...) Physicists of the 21st century therefore face the task of finding the true reality obscured by the spacetime mirage. (...) Andreas Albrecht, a cosmologist at the University of California, Davis, has thought deeply about choosing clocks, leading him to some troubling realizations. (...) "It seems to me like it's a time in the development of physics," says Albrecht, "where it's time to look at how we think about space and time very differently."

The problem is that, once Einstein's idiocies are abandoned, an "embarrassing question" will have to be answered:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/con...ent=a909857880
Peter Hayes "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages 57-78: "The gatekeepers of professional physics in the universities and research institutes are disinclined to support or employ anyone who raises problems over the elementary inconsistencies of relativity. A winnowing out process has made it very difficult for critics of Einstein to achieve or maintain professional status. Relativists are then able to use the argument of authority to discredit these critics. Were relativists to admit that Einstein may have made a series of elementary logical errors, they would be faced with the embarrassing question of why this had not been noticed earlier. Under these circumstances the marginalisation of antirelativists, unjustified on scientific grounds, is eminently justifiable on grounds of realpolitik. Supporters of relativity theory have protected both the theory and their own reputations by shutting their opponents out of professional discourse."

Pentcho Valev