Aristotelian Resurgence
20201-04-17 This is out of sync with my current thinking, will update at some point.
- My wikipedia user space main page had about 10 ya some stuff on
my then thoughts on Physics. Since then the LHC results, mainly
the Higgs are in and I'm enjoying looking more deeply into the math
of modern physics, which is what it mostly is at this point. This
page summarizes my current thinking. I tried to take honors
physics at IIT, the course used Feynman and it was a mistake,
I wasn't then prepared and had to fall back to the regular course
which used Halliday and Resnick and still I struggled, but now
I can pursue the subject for pure pleasure which always works
better.
- GR seems to me vacuous, just a more accurate classical theory
of gravity than Newton's, with the additional drawback of being
the occasion of
what seem to me to be all kinds of absurd things, mainly the
reification of a pure concept as a physical entity, spacetime.
To the extent that GR is saying that gravitation is not a force,
I reject it in toto. Provisionally accepting Quantum Loop Gravity
if it is basically a restatement of my long held no concrete infinities (or infinitesmals)
position rather than a reification of space and local event seriality but see #4.
- A similar judgment holds for the Standard Model, which does
at least have the fact that it's not a classical theory and
is not vacuous going for it. The fact that it can predict
does not however persuade, it's like Searle's Chinese Room
as far as I can tell, with next to nothing to actually say
about nature, just as GR has little to really say that can
stand up about gravitation. I don't really accept the reality
of quarks or other unobserved particles or fields.
- Supersymmetry and Superstring theory are more impressive,
at least in principle, but they are only intended aspects
of a theory and unlike the SM not actual theories.
- I still accept/require multiple universes, and find Guth's
notion of pocket universes cogent, although I do not
buy his sizing of this one based on implications
of inflation (that it is at least 10**23 larger than the observable
universe) because it is based on repulsive gravity an element
of GR which with reified spacetime I reject. At least a containing universe is necessary to
avoid the absurdity of the creation not only of spacetime but
of something from nothing. Like the late Martin Gardiner and others, I find the general
notion of multiple universes incident upon quantum indeterminacy risible.
-
I still think in terms of a single form of energy, but more clearly
identify it with ordinary gravitation, and one pointing forward in time, the so-called dark energy or antigravity.
I now more clearly identify the ultimate thing and distinguish
it from the relatively weak thing pointing back in time but for
now at least I'll still call it (all) 'gravitation'. As ever, I see
it acting to restore the unity of some original single object
in it's well known form (i.e. as a weak (positively charged) force that causes
condensed energy to universally attract) . I don't see a graviton ever being
demonstrated and am not yet convinced that waves have been although I give
good faith expectation to ultimately accept the long baseline interferometer results as
having done so.
A similar judgment holds with respect to the Higgs field but with less faith.
-
To be clear, the single force is seen as four or five in contemporary
physics where it (the nominal one) is many orders of magnitude weaker than the epiphenomenal
others developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. A unification of "dark energy/antigravity",
the strong nuclear force and ordinary gravitation is suggested, given the right space model,
giving a penultimate reduction to two, electroweak, and greater gravitation.
4 August 4716 公元 / 2648 BE / 2018 XE / 1439 AH