(NO) HOPE FOR PHYSICS?

https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7902
Bob Berman (cited by Piter Woit): "...the last 40 years or so have been difficult, with little progress. Unfortunately, some prominent theorists have now basically given up and decided to take an easy way out. The multiverse is invoked as an all-purpose, untestable excuse. They allow theoretical ideas like string theory that have turned out to be empty and consistent with anything to be kept alive instead of abandoned. It's a depressing possibility that this is where physics ends up. But I still hope this is a fad that will soon die out. Finding a better, deeper understanding of the laws of physics is incredibly challenging, but it's within our capability as humans, as long as the effort is not overwhelmed by those selling a non-answer to the problem."

Nowadays all theorists are selling non-answers to the problems. For instance, they reject the absurd consequence, Einstein's spacetime, but continue to worship the premise, Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate:

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..."

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.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."

Pentcho Valev

The golden rule in Einsteiniana: You can criticise everything except for Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate:

http://happynicetimepeople.com/wp-co...peed-limit.jpg

Here is why the rule is so important:

http://www.thegreatdebate.org.uk/VSLRevPrnt.html
"The speaker Joao Magueijo, is a Reader in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London and author of Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation. He opened by explaining how Einstein's theory of relativity is the foundation of every other theory in modern physics and that the assumption that the speed of light is constant is the foundation of that theory. Thus a constant speed of light is embedded in all of modern physics and to propose a varying speed of light (VSL) is worse than swearing! It is like proposing a language without vowels."

http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Than-Sp.../dp/0738205257
Faster Than the Speed of Light, Joao Magueijo: "If there's one thing every schoolboy knows about Einstein and his theory of relativity, it is that the speed of light in vacuum is constant. No matter what the circumstances, light in vacuum travels at the same speed - a constant that physicists denote by the letter c: 300,000 km per second, or as Americans refer to it, 186,000 miles per second. The speed of light is the very keystone of physics, the seemingly sure foundation upon which every modern cosmological theory is built, the yardstick by which everything in the universe is measured. (...) The only aspect of the universe that didn't change was the speed of light.. And ever since, the constancy of the speed of light has been woven into the very fabric of physics, into the way physics equations are written, even into the notation used. Nowadays, to "vary" the speed of light is not even a swear word: It is simply not present in the vocabulary of physics."

http://www.kritik-relativitaetstheor...-of-physics-2/
Bryan Wallace: "Einstein's special relativity theory with his second postulate that the speed of light in space is constant is the linchpin that holds the whole range of modern physics theories together. Shatter this postulate, and modern physics becomes an elaborate farce! (...) The speed of light is c+v."

Pentcho Valev

Physics is not just dying - it is already dead, but the majority of physicists behave like the pet shop owner in the following sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQhVLHu8HRk
Dead Parrot Sketch

Still there is a small minority that, although unable to resurrect physics, at least raise the alarm:

http://blog.physicsworld.com/2015/06/22/why-converge/
"Turok explains that the "large bandwagon" of the last 30 years has not found experimental support. The bandwagon in question is the Standard Model of particle physics established in the 1970s, which, he says, people have been elaborating ever since. "Grand unified theories, supersymmetry, string theory, M-theory, multiverse theory," he lists. "Each is not particularly radical, but is becoming ever more complex and arbitrary." To illustrate the lack of experimental support for these ideas, Turok describes how many people were hoping string theory would represent a radical development; but since string theory - as currently interpreted - leads to the multiverse, Turok describes it as the "least predictive theory ever". Indeed, experimental support has not been found for other extensions of the Standard Model either. "We have discovered the Higgs and nothing else," says Turok, "yet the vast majority of theorists had been confidently predicting WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles) and supersymmetric particles... Theorists are walking around in a bit of a stunned silence." He adds that it could turn out to be right that all sorts of other particles are needed along with the Higgs - but that thought seems to be misguided. "My view is that this has been a kind of catastrophe - we've lost our way," he says. "What we need are ideas as simple and radical as in the start of the 20th century with quantum mechanics."

http://www.nature.com/news/scientifi...hysics-1.16535
George Ellis and Joe Silk: "This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done. They began to argue - explicitly - that if a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally, breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/op...f-physics.html
Adam Frank, professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, and Marcelo Gleiser, professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College: "A Crisis at the Edge of Physics. Do physicists need empirical evidence to confirm their theories? You may think that the answer is an obvious yes, experimental confirmation being the very heart of science. But a growing controversy at the frontiers of physics and cosmology suggests that the situation is not so simple. (...) ...a mounting concern in fundamental physics: Today, our most ambitious science can seem at odds with the empirical methodology that has historically given the field its credibility."

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/fe...tific-theories
Frank Close, professor of physics at the University of Oxford: "In recent years, however, many physicists have developed theories of great mathematical elegance, but which are beyond the reach of empirical falsification, even in principle. The uncomfortable question that arises is whether they can still be regarded as science. Some scientists are proposing that the definition of what is "scientific" be loosened, while others fear that to do so could open the door for pseudo-scientists or charlatans to mislead the public and claim equal space for their views."

http://www.amazon.com/Faster-Than-Sp.../dp/0738205257
Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, p. 250: "Lee [Smolin] and I discussed these paradoxes at great length for many months, starting in January 2001. We would meet in cafés in South Kensington or Holland Park to mull over the problem. THE ROOT OF ALL THE EVIL WAS CLEARLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY. All these paradoxes resulted from well known effects such as length contraction, time dilation, or E=mc^2, all basic predictions of special relativity. And all denied the possibility of establishing a well-defined border, common to all observers, capable of containing new quantum gravitational effects."

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."

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7266
Peter Woit: "I don't think though that this will have any effect on multiverse mania and its use as an excuse for the failure of string theory unification. It seems to me that we're now ten years down the road from the point when discussion revolved around actual models and people thought maybe they could calculate something. As far as this stuff goes, we're now not only at John Horgan's "End of Science", but gone past it already and deep into something different."

http://www.worddocx.com/Apparel/1231/8955.html
Mike Alder: "This, essentially, is the Smolin position. He gives details and examples of the death of Physics, although he, being American, is optimistic that it can be reversed. I am not."

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/09/05/p...odern-physics/
Neil Turok: "It's the ultimate catastrophe: that theoretical physics has led to this crazy situation where the physicists are utterly confused and seem not to have any predictions at all."

http://archipope.over-blog.com/article-12278372.html
"Nous nous trouvons dans une période de mutation extrêmement profonde. Nous sommes en effet à la fin de la science telle que l'Occident l'a connue », tel est constat actuel que dresse Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, physicien théoricien, épistémologue et directeur des collections scientifiques des Editions du Seuil."

Pentcho Valev

More and more Einsteinians are trying to get rid of Einstein's idiotic spacetime, even though they continue to worship the premise form which it has been deduced - Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate:

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. According to his special theory of relativity, there is no way to specify events that everyone can agree happen simultaneously. Two events that are both "now" to you will happen at different times for anyone moving at another speed. Other people will see a different now that might contain elements of yours - but equally might not. "You can define it, but people won't necessarily agree," says physicist Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The result is a picture known as the block universe: the universe seen from that impossible vantage point outside space and time. You can by all means mark what you think is "now" with a red dot, but there is nothing that distinguishes that place from any other, except that you are there.. Past and future are no more physically distinguished than left and right. There are things that are closer to you in time, and things that are further away, just as there are things that are near or far away in space. But the idea that time flows past you is just as absurd as the suggestion that space does. George Ellis, a cosmologist at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, does not buy any of that. THE BLOCK UNIVERSE CONTRADICTS EVERY SINGLE EXPERIENCE WE HAVE, he says."

Pentcho Valev

https://www.newscientist.com/article...-of-influence/
New Scientist (2005): "Einstein turned conventional physics on its head with his theories of the photoelectric effect, special relativity and general relativity. He showed that Newton had been wrong about gravity, and indeed about space and time. "This led to a whole new field of science called cosmology and to ideas such as the big bang, black holes, parallel universes and so on," says Jim Al-Khalili of the University of Surrey, who voted for Einstein. But he was one of only 13.8 per cent of Royal Society fellows to back Einstein, while the rest supported Newton."

Turning conventional physics on its head still sounded romantic in 2005 but nowadays scientists know that Einstein's idiotic concept of time, an offspring of his 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate, actually killed physics:

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." l

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..." l

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." l

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." l

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..." l

So if the poll was today, 99 per cent of Royal Society fellows would vote for Newton. Including Jim Al-Khalili who has abandoned Einsteiniana's sinking ship

http://www.reset-italia.net/wp-conte...iam-andiam.jpg

and is now the world's most famous expert in quantum mechanics.

Pentcho Valev