Am I the only one who seems to think that Physicists have all but retreated to ivory towers these days? It seems like every week one "top scientist" is contradicting the other and each new theory presented seems to be outdated by the very next week. According to a recent article on universetoday.com,
Two $3,000,000 special physics prizes have been awarded to Stephen Hawking and to seven scientists who led the effort to discover a Higgs-like particle at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation, backed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced the awards today, saying that Hawking is honored for his discovery of Hawking radiation from black holes “and his deep contributions to quantum gravity and quantum aspects of the early universe,” and that the prize money for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, is being shared among a scientist who administered the building of the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider and six physicists who directed two teams of 3,000 scientists each.Right off the bat, a couple things strike me as odd. First, does anybody remember the "confirmations" of the Higgs Boson? The second is about radiation being emitted from black holes, but we'll come back to that.
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/98935/stephen-hawking-and-cern-lhc-team-each-win-3-million-prize/#ixzz2FEkigMFP
What is subatomic structure?
Forbes, Slate and plenty of other publications reported that the Higgs Boson- the subatomic object responsible for mass- was "confirmed", and yet now, the team is winning millions for a "Higg-like particle". Is it the real McCoy or is it just something Higgs-like? If that isn't fishy enough then let's dig a little deeper into the realm of particle physics, perhaps our questions will be answered there.The following is a model by Nature.com of each subatomic quark and what it is called. Look over the diagram and try to analyze it as best you can.
Feeling confused? Me too! The only factor that distinguishes these particles from each other is color! Does the color change it's behavior? If I paint a red apple green does it change from Charming to Strange?
Even more confusing is this membrane that encapsulates the quarks to form Protons, Neutrons, and the other larger egg shaped objects above. This is an integral part of the hypothesis. What holds these objects together? Where does the Higgs Boson come into play? As it turns out, the Higgs is meant to bestow the concept of mass upon these particles. How it does so is a mystery to even the top scientists. In physics, the architecture of the object decides how it will behave, nothing more or less. Yet, these models show a ridiculous discrepancy between form and function.
To take things even further, the brains on this government website on the topic, a Top Quark itself weighs about the same as a gold atom. If this doesn't send your drink flying out of your nose, nothing will. Not only are the Physicists convinced that an indistinguishable particle gives other identical particles mass, but that it somehow selectively gives the Top Quark much more "mass" than anything else. Mind you, since Top Quarks are hypothetically contained within even the tiny Hydrogen atom, the Physicists would actually expect you to believe that a single seed of an apple weighs more than the entire apple. This poppycock is not worth $3 million!
Black Holes Now EMIT Radiation?
Stepping away from the people at CERN, let us examine the equally confusing claim that Hawking got $3 million for his study of the radiation EMITTED from black holes.It is important to note, first and foremost, that radiation is simply another word for light. Light is synonymous with radiation and is simply a LEVEL or quantity of it. How then, is the black hole so massive that it does not let light escape, and yet it emits light of it's own?
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| Is it a 'hole' or a volcano? |
It is also important to note that current Scientists have analyzed both the Established Theories regarding Black Holes and their history. According to researcher Stephen Crothers, the Black Hole theory itself was an ad-hoc justification used to make mathematical equations come out right. Crothers states, "Go here to get Schwarzschild's original paper, in English. The so-called "Schwarzschild" solution is due to David Hilbert, itself a corruption of a solution first derived by Johannes Droste in May 1916, whose paper has also been buried or ignored at the convenience of the experts."
So, if the original 'proof' of Black Holes was false, then the rest of the research done on the topic can be seen as researching how many Angels can dance on the head of a pin! Crothers continues here by saying that he realizes the "experts" like Hawking are quick to label skeptics as crackpots, and it is easy to see why! With $3 million dollars on the line, anybody who looks to threaten such a prize would be ridiculed by somebody insecure with their work. However, according to Crothers, "The experts must also include Schwarzschild himself as a crank since his paper invalidates the black hole outright, as does Brillouin's, and Droste's. They must also label Einstein a crackpot, because Einstein always rejected the idea of the black hole claiming in his research papers and other writings that it is not physical, and that singularities in the field nullify the theory of General Relativity."
So, I think we now have plenty of reason to be skeptical about the ideas tossed down to us from the Ivory Towers. If Physicists can't come up with coherent Theories then we should stop giving them prizes, and tax dollars to boot! Does Hawking deserve the $3 million? No way! And he should feel bad for receiving it.
Paul James says...
ReplyDeleteGreat article Mike! I especially like this bit...
" In physics, the architecture of the object decides how it will behave, nothing more or less. Yet, these models show a ridiculous discrepancy between form and function."
Well said. The brain has architecture that allows for thought just as the heart has different architecture that allows it to pump.
If a chimp can reason that a frog's mouth has the right form for a specific pleasurable function, why can't Lawrence Krauss?
Mike, I enjoyed the well thought out article.
ReplyDeleteGood point about the 'radiation' from a Black Hole.
The idea of an escape velocity of light fails logically. If the escape velocity from an event horizon is the speed of light then light can escape an event horizon. Yet we are told that we can't see a black hole because light can not escape a black hole (except when it apparently emits it's own light as you point out).
'Can you understand Quantum Physics? Or do you just take it on faith?
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who seems to think that Physicists have all but retreated to ivory towers these days?'
If I came up to you, and demanded you explained an advanced philosophical concept to me with no background, I would probably also say philosophers had retreated to ivory towers. There is a reason an undergraduate degree takes at least three years. Advanced concepts are hard, and you cannot expect a layman to pick up a scientific paper and understand it.
' It seems like every week one "top scientist" is contradicting the other and each new theory presented seems to be outdated by the very next week.'
You have suddenly jumped from physics to science in general. In physics, theories are being worked on in parallel because nobody knows which (if any of them) are right. Different models make different predictions, but when talking about high energy particle physics these predictions are very hard to test. Your statement applies to studies such as whether red wine is good for you. Not to quantum physics.
'First, does anybody remember the "confirmations" of the Higgs Boson? '
Bad journalism from mainstream media and sites like yours. No scientist has gone on record saying they have discovered the Higgs Boson. Just a Higgs like particle.
'Me too! The only factor that distinguishes these particles from each other is color! Does the color change it's behavior?'
It's a diagram. The same way you don't look at a map and think that hills really have lines on the side, these particles aren't actually coloured in any sense of the word. It's to aid clarity. Taken out of context, of course it makes very little sense.
'Where does the Higgs Boson come into play?'
It's not a diagram about the Higgs boson. Like me showing you a picture of the Savannah and you asking where the polar bear comes into play.
'How it does so is a mystery to even the top scientists.'
If we knew the answers to questions like these, we could all go home, job done.
'Not only are the Physicists convinced that an indistinguishable particle gives other identical particles mass, but that it somehow selectively gives the Top Quark much more "mass" than anything else.'
Imagine a series of soft toys hidden under a blanket. You sure as hell can see and feel they're there, you just don't quite know what animals they are. Same with the Higgs Boson. We know there's something there, and it looks a hell of a lot like a Higgs boson under the blanket, but we're not sure yet.
'It is important to note, first and foremost, that radiation is simply another word for light. Light is synonymous with radiation and is simply a LEVEL or quantity of it.'
Not really, you're only referring to gamma radiation. Hawking radiation involves pair production of electrons and positrons, one of which is sucked into the black hole and the other escapes. No light involved.
'How then, is the black hole so massive that it does not let light escape, and yet it emits light of it's own?'
The same way we're not currently hurtling into the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. These electron-positron pairs are produced outside the Schwarzschild radius, far enough away that one can escape.
'So, if the original 'proof' of Black Holes was false, then the rest of the research done on the topic can be seen as researching how many Angels can dance on the head of a pin'
Here enters the scientific method. By standing on the shoulders of giants, we modify their ideas and theories to better fit what we observe. Einstein/Schwarzschild/Brillouin/Droste all did brilliant work, but they were wrong. Empirically wrong. Some day most modern theories will be 'wrong' too.
Only by being wrong now will we be more right in the future.
Thanks for responding!
ReplyDelete"In physics, theories are being worked on in parallel because nobody knows which (if any of them) are right. Different models make different predictions, but when talking about high energy particle physics these predictions are very hard to test."
Physics has nothing to do with making predictions. Physics is about EXPLAINING events only. Any stone aged priest can predict an eclipse. Science is about explaining how the event took place by giving illustrations of the actors and explanations of the actions.
"It's a diagram. The same way you don't look at a map and think that hills really have lines on the side, these particles aren't actually coloured in any sense of the word. It's to aid clarity. Taken out of context, of course it makes very little sense."
Objects have shape. Check out the paper about Objects under the first tab of "What is Rational Science?" All objects, including extremely small ones, have shape. This is what makes it an object. An object, therefore, ought to be able to be illustrated. This is the only way we can VISUALIZE the objects to understand how they relate to one another. Without this there is no possible way we can understand the theory.
So tell me, what does a quark look like? Better yet, what does an ELECTRON look like? How does it work?
"It's not a diagram about the Higgs boson. Like me showing you a picture of the Savannah and you asking where the polar bear comes into play."
The boson is supposed to fit into the atom just like the rest of the identical orbs in the model. They are all subatomic particles without form, contradicting the very definition of exist.
"Imagine a series of soft toys hidden under a blanket. You sure as hell can see and feel they're there, you just don't quite know what animals they are. Same with the Higgs Boson. We know there's something there, and it looks a hell of a lot like a Higgs boson under the blanket, but we're not sure yet."
Where and what is this blanket? How do things lying under a blanket somewhere cause tension between myself and the Earth?
"Not really, you're only referring to gamma radiation. Hawking radiation involves pair production of electrons and positrons, one of which is sucked into the black hole and the other escapes. No light involved."
I'm sure you know what I'm going to ask about these electrons and positrons, right? WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE? Only when we can visualize the objects can we understand how the process PHYSICALLY occurs i.e. how the objects RELATE to one another during the event.
"The same way we're not currently hurtling into the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. These electron-positron pairs are produced outside the Schwarzschild radius, far enough away that one can escape."
You've already begged the question that a black hole exists at the center of the galaxy. If the black hole exists then you should be able to ILLUSTRATE it to explain what is going on. Is the black hole an object or is it a hole within another object? I hope you don't start saying that SPACE is the object with the "Black Hole" in it because then I would have to refer you back to the paper on Objects in the drop menu, above.
"Here enters the scientific method. By standing on the shoulders of giants, we modify their ideas and theories to better fit what we observe. Einstein/Schwarzschild/Brillouin/Droste all did brilliant work, but they were wrong. Empirically wrong. Some day most modern theories will be 'wrong' too.
Only by being wrong now will we be more right in the future."
Oh man, this is quite a special comment here. Did you even read further into the links provided? The only thing that can be "built upon" incorrect math and irrational reasoning is continued falsehoods and irrationalities. Imagine if we "built upon" the idea of Witches or using leeches to "cure" illness?
Very busy at the moment. I'll respond in a day or so's time.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to it!
DeleteAlright. Incidentally the word limit is infuriating. I hope you accept Wikipedia as a source - I don't want to roam the library for texts on the philosophy of science. Anything in single quotes comes from there.
Delete"Physics has nothing to do with making predictions."
We test our theories by making predictions of what result an experiment should give, and then doing the experiment. This is the nature of the scientific method: 'Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them.' I take issue with the word explaining by the way; it infers deep understanding. We only know what happens, we do not know why it happens.
"Check out the paper about Objects under the first tab of "What is Rational Science?" All objects, including extremely small ones, have shape. This is what makes it an object..."
That paper seems to have been written by Bill Gaede, a notorious crackpot. He has been debunked numerous times in many different places. It contains a stupid amount of pseudoscience. Anyway, back to the shape question. No, not all objects have a 'shape' as such. A few examples. No one has been able to determine the size of the electron. Every year the upper bound decreases, but as far as we know the electron exists simply as points. Bosons are not governed by something called the Pauli exclusion principle. What this in principle means is if I got a box, and started pouring bosons into it, (and somehow kept them inside the box) the box would never become full. The fact the objects can overlap surely means they do not have a shape in your sense of the word? Finally, assuming you accept wave-particle duality as a fact (if not, I'd be interested about your theory of what constitutes light), how does that work in terms of 'shape'?
"So tell me, what does a quark look like? Better yet, what does an ELECTRON look like? How does it work?"
Well they don't really look like anything. That would imply we could use light to look at them, which isn't true. The fact we have to use scanning electron microscopes to look at bacteria, trillions of times bigger than a quark, should make that clear. I'll give it a go anyway in terms of current understanding: sometimes electrons look like a uniformly distributed spherical electric field centred on a infinitesimally small point, sometimes they look like a transverse wave and sometimes they exist simply as a probability distribution of charge. I subscribe to the de Broglie–Bohm theory of determining what's happening at any one moment, but this is starting to get into the why not what territory. A quark can never exist by itself: the energy used pulling them apart just creates new quarks so that neither of the pulled apart parties is a single quark. So what a single quark looks like beyond the electric and colour fields associated with it is a pretty meaningless question.
"The boson is supposed to fit into the atom just like the rest of the identical orbs in the model. They are all subatomic particles without form, contradicting the very definition of exist."
DeleteNope, the atom could exist perfectly happily without the Higgs boson. The Higgs field just happens to give it mass. And it doesn't matter if they don't have form (like an electron), as long as they have some kind of associated field. Who gave you the right to define what exists? If I can measure something, I'm pretty sure it exists, no matter how pretty a philosophical argument of why it can't.
"Where and what is this blanket? How do things lying under a blanket somewhere cause tension between myself and the Earth?"
At the end of the day, it's a metaphor. The blanket is the layer of uncertainty in our measurements, and to a certain extent a consequence of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. As to the how question, I can only direct you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_mechanism . I'm not going to pretend I really understand it (yet), so I just take it as an argument from authority.
"I'm sure you know what I'm going to ask about these electrons and positrons, right? WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE? Only when we can visualize the objects can we understand how the process PHYSICALLY occurs i.e. how the objects RELATE to one another during the event."
It's a little absurd to assume humans, designed for killing medium sized mammals one the planes of Africa, should even be capable of the most basic understanding of subatomic particles. I addressed above the question of what they look like above, and the answer is it depends on what they're doing at the time. We do visualise them through Feynman diagrams, but that's not an abstraction that will make you happy.
"Is the black hole an object or is it a hole within another object? I hope you don't start saying that SPACE is the object with the "Black Hole" in it because then I would have to refer you back to the paper on Objects in the drop menu, above."
DeleteBlack hole in this context is an unfortunate name. A black hole is simply a highly dense ball of matter (or potentially antimatter) with an associated very strong gravitational field. That is your object: that one small ball. It's as much an object in its own right as a ball bearing.
"Oh man, this is quite a special comment here. Did you even read further into the links provided? The only thing that can be "built upon" incorrect math and irrational reasoning is continued falsehoods and irrationalities. Imagine if we "built upon" the idea of Witches or using leeches to "cure" illness?"
Citations please. Find a copy of a paper published in a peer reviewed scientific journal, find the paragraph with incorrect reasoning or the mathematical equation that can't be right, and tell the world about it. If you can't do that, then there is no incorrect math or irrational reasoning, so there's not a problem. If you can, we'll develop a new hypothesis. If you come up with a competing theory, we'll design an experiment that the two theories would give a different answer to, test it and see which, if either, is right. The scientific method!
Incidentally, we did build upon that stuff. We made blood thinning agents out of leech saliva, and learnt that the willow bark witches put in their potions ans salves were antibacterial.
Reply to post 1: "Alright. Incidentally the word limit is infuriating. I hope you accept Wikipedia as a source - I don't want to roam the library for texts on the philosophy of science. Anything in single quotes comes from there."
DeleteSorry about the word limit, that is quite a pain. But perhaps it will help us to say what we mean in fewer words. I don't accept any "source" as "authoritative". In science we take assumptions (hypothesis) at face value and then analyze the theory which explains how the assumed objects act.
"'Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them.'"
This is proposing two completely irreconcilable notions of Science. Either we are assuming hypothesis which are to be explained theoretically, OR we are making predictions about the future and then running experiments. The two are NOT the same and they are NOT congruous with each other. A stoned aged priest could run an experiment to "predict" that a woman was a Witch. In Science, we ONLY explain.
"I take issue with the word explaining by the way; it infers deep understanding. We only know what happens, we do not know why it happens."
This is precisely YOUR problem. Science, however, has only this purpose: to explain HOW things happen so that we can understand them. Why does the Sun disappear every now and then? Why do the tides go in and out? Why does a ball get pulled to the earth?
This is what Science seeks to explain.
"That paper seems to have been written by Bill Gaede, a notorious crackpot."
If all you have are ad-homs then why waste my bandwidth?
"No, not all objects have a 'shape' as such. A few examples. No one has been able to determine the size of the electron."
SIZE has nothing to do with shape. Does an electron have shape? It's a YES/NO issue. You don't think objects need shape? Great, define your term! Object: __________
"What this in principle means is if I got a box, and started pouring bosons into it, (and somehow kept them inside the box) the box would never become full. "
Sure, I can conceive of them overlapping. But they still need a shape! What is IT that overlaps if it has no shape?
"Finally, assuming you accept wave-particle duality as a fact (if not, I'd be interested about your theory of what constitutes light), how does that work in terms of 'shape'?"
A wave is not an object. "Wave" is what something DOES not what something is. Light is the torsion signal of the EM ropes connecting all atoms together. See under Scientific Theories tab up top: Electromagnetic Radiation
"Well they don't really look like anything."
If it's not ANYTHING then it is nothing.
"That would imply we could use light to look at them, which isn't true."
Does a blind person need light to visualize? Of course not. Objects have shape, whether they are lit up or not.
"electrons look like a uniformly distributed spherical electric field centred on a infinitesimally small point,"
And what does an electric field look like? A little marble? And centered around "a point"?? A point is a concept- a location. Points do not exist unless you are talking about the tip of a pencil!
"sometimes they look like a transverse wave and sometimes they exist simply as a probability distribution of charge."
Like I said, a wave is not an object- it is only a verb for the purposes of physics. Charge too, for that matter. Can you distribute the concept of charge like Jesus distributed fish & bread to all of his followers?
"the energy used pulling them"
I can pull your sweater apart by using my hand to yank a thread but how can the CONCEPT of energy pull anything? Actions like PULL can only be mediated by ACTING objects.
Reply to post 2:
Delete"Who gave you the right to define what exists?"
LOL I don't know how people would "give" me ANY concepts, let alone rights. But in Science we MUST define precisely what we mean by our terms. If you don't like my def. of exist then the onus is on YOU to provide an alternative. YOU use the word. YOU must know what it means.
"If I can measure something, I'm pretty sure it exists, no matter how pretty a philosophical argument of why it can't."
The Priests used to measure how many angels could dance on the head of a pin- they MUST HAVE existed!
Oh, and if measured = exist then the unmeasured pebbles on the dark side of Europa must not exist! Wow! Existence is incredible, eh? All we have to do is measure and it pops out of the void!
"At the end of the day, it's a metaphor."
Physical science is entirely literal. Take your metaphors back to poetry class.
"I'm not going to pretend I really understand it (yet), so I just take it as an argument from authority."
Then you are not a critical, independent thinker.
"It's a little absurd to assume humans, designed for killing medium sized mammals one the planes of Africa, should even be capable of the most basic understanding of subatomic particles."
Humans are not DESIGNED. We evolved by interacting with REALITY. That is the only possible field of study: existence. If you cannot even visualize the shape of subatomic particles then you aren't doing science. You cannot possibly understand your own statements.
"We do visualise them through Feynman diagrams, but that's not an abstraction that will make you happy."
No, you visualized dots and letters w/ Feynman diagrams. Not the actual object's shapes. Do you think there are tiny dots and H's hidden inside every atom?
Of course not.
Reply to post 3:
Delete"A black hole is simply a highly dense ball of matter (or potentially antimatter) with an associated very strong gravitational field. That is your object: that one small ball. It's as much an object in its own right as a ball bearing."
A black hole is described as "a" singularity surrounded by "an" event horizon.
Singularity: 0d location
Event horizon: Area or zone in which an event begins to occur
It is a CONCEPT surrounded by a CONCEPT. You have used YOUR imagination to fill in the Mathemagician's blanks. You don't even understand their theories, you just FILL IN THEIR BLANKS with your idea of a dense ball of matter. No physicist in the field will tell you what a black hole is made of or what it looks like.
"Citations please. Find a copy of a paper published in a peer reviewed scientific journal, find the paragraph with incorrect reasoning or the mathematical equation that can't be right, and tell the world about it. If you can't do that, then there is no incorrect math or irrational reasoning, so there's not a problem. If you can, we'll develop a new hypothesis."
The hypothesis fails at the conceptual level when they postulate that the concepts "Singularity & Event Horizon" exist and perform actions in reality. But, if you want Maths, google: Steven Crothers black hole
"If you come up with a competing theory, we'll design an experiment that the two theories would give a different answer to, test it and see which, if either, is right. The scientific method!"
In science we don't test "RIGHT" or "WRONG". That is strictly in the realm of religion. In Science we only determine whether a mechanism is possible or not possible. We determine this CONCEPTUALLY- no need to go out into the lab. YOU present the acting objects and define your terms, then the audience can tell objectively whether or not they can VISUALIZE the objects and understand the actions in question.
If you want to go out into the field and verify it for yourself then that's your personal perogative. But subjective verification through experimentation is IRRELEVANT to scientific explanations.
"Incidentally, we did build upon that stuff. We made blood thinning agents out of leech saliva, and learnt that the willow bark witches put in their potions ans salves were antibacterial."
No, we completely scrapped the irrational explanations that inspired the practices to begin with. Would you go get demons released through trepanation? Try that one out.
Merry Christmas! May not be back for a while.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas to you too. I enjoyed your responses and I look forward to chatting again in the future.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHawking does not deserve 3 million. Hawking has enough means to continue his work. Those 3 million are better spend on independent investigators which are excluded from every award, simply because they lack a title (read: aren't brainwashed yet). Not saying people with titles are idiots; just that they follow the paved way and are therefore less likely to think outside of the box.
ReplyDeleteI dismissed Spacetime because of a technicality, which forced me to look in different directions. I'm happy I did. I'm not the one bogged down in mathematical mud, resorting to imaginary particles as a final convulsion.
A black hole is no more than a bunch of quarks; big enough it can fuse them into nucleons, medium size it's just mesons which fall apart again. They're more like stars.
The very reason light gets absorbed is that photons have the same 2 constituencies as quarks: Thus their mass is equal, bringing the incoming photons to a full stop. The surface is very soft, even compared to a gas giant.
Incoming gravitons (having half the mass of a quark) bounce back, losing so much energy that objects get pushed towards this plasma giant far quicker than objects moving towards planets (which are made of far heavier atoms, bouncing gravitons back at a higher velocity). This creates the illusion that black holes have a superheavy core.
Objects that get absorbed by a black hole don't end up in another dimension: Just like the Titanic they simply end up at the bottom.
If "scientists" focussed on the energies involved instead of counting the spaceships black holes eat, it all falls into place.