CAN PHYSICISTS SAVE DYING PHYSICS?

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, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, and Marcelo Gleiser, a 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."

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.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.amazon.com/Time-Reborn-Cr.../dp/0547511728
"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.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

Physics is a deductive science so if it is dying (dead), some initial assumption (postulate) must be false. Which one? The only assumption the falsehood of which has the power to kill physics is Einstein's postulate of constancy of the speed of light:

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."

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/pdf...09145525ca.pdf
Albert Einstein (1954): "I consider it entirely possible that physics cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air, including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of contemporary physics."

How did Einstein base his theory on the field concept? By adopting the constancy of the speed of light as defined by the ether field theory:

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0101/0101109.pdf
"The two first articles (January and March) establish clearly a discontinuous structure of matter and light. The standard look of Einstein's SR is, on the contrary, essentially based on the continuous conception of the field.."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/genius/
"And then, in June, Einstein completes special relativity, which adds a twist to the story: Einstein's March paper treated light as particles, but special relativity sees light as a continuous field of waves."

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
Relativity and Its Roots, Banesh Hoffmann, p.92: "There are various remarks to be made about this second principle. For instance, if it is so obvious, how could it turn out to be part of a revolution - especially when the first principle is also a natural one? Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether. If it was so obvious, though, why did he need to state it as a principle? Because, having taken from the idea of light waves in the ether the one aspect that he needed, he declared early in his paper, to quote his own words, that "the introduction of a 'luminiferous ether' will prove to be superfluous."

Pentcho Valev

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/blo...ess-simplicity
"These are amazing times for physics... Many of us believe physics is poised for a new revolution." With those words Perimeter Institute Director Neil Turok officially opened the first Convergence conference. A day of talks outlined some of the latest and greatest achievements in physics and posited some potentially fruitful directions to explore. The Convergence conference is happening at a time many physicists are calling a time of "crisis"..."

"Revolutions" of this kind regularly shake the dead body of physics. The previous one at least identified the cause of the death (Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate):

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ma...einsteinwrong/
Paul Davies: "Was Einstein wrong? Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2 is the only scientific formula known to just about everyone. The "c" here stands for the speed of light. It is one of the most fundamental of the basic constants of physics. Or is it? In recent years a few maverick scientists have claimed that the speed of light might not be constant at all. Shock, horror! Does this mean the next Great Revolution in Science is just around the corner?"

http://www.rense.com/general13/ein.htm
"Einstein's Theory Of Relativity Must Be Rewritten (...) A group of astronomers and cosmologists has warned that the laws thought to govern the universe, including Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, must be rewritten. The group, which includes Professor Stephen Hawking and Sir Martin Rees, the astronomer royal, say such laws may only work for our universe but not in others that are now also thought to exist. "It is becoming increasingly likely that the rules we had thought were fundamental through time and space are actually just bylaws for our bit of it," said Rees, whose new book, Our Cosmic Habitat, is published next month. "Creation is emerging as even stranger than we thought." Among the ideas facing revision is Einstein's belief that the speed of light must always be the same - 186,000 miles a second in a vacuum. (...) What he, Hawking and others such as Neil Turok, professor of maths and physics at Cambridge, are now looking at is the idea that our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes, with different laws of nature operating in each."

Pentcho Valev