Hossenfelder: Negative masses is “a nice idea” that “works really badly.”
Cosmology
Nature editor’s five best 2018 books include two of our favs
When Nature’s Books and Arts editor Barbara Kiser’stop five for 2018 came out, #s 1 and 2 were Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray by Sabine Hossenfelder on the troubled state of theoretical physics, of which Kiser says, Lost in Math is a firecracker of a book—a shot across the bows of theoretical physics. […]
Theoretical physicist: Contrary to hype, a larger collider will probably not answer the Big Questions
Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, is not enthusiastic about a new video promoting a new, larger collider for CERN. She believes that current, serious problems are being smoothed over for politicians and the public, by general soothing noises that a bigger collider might answer many questions about our universe. […]
Dark matter detection claim takes a hit
From ScienceDaily: Astrophysical evidence suggests that the universe contains a large amount of non-luminous dark matter, yet no definite signal of it has been observed despite concerted efforts by many experimental groups. One exception to this is the long-debated claim by the DArk MAtter (DAMA) collaboration, which has reported positive observations of dark matter in […]
Whether or not man has free will, quantum mechanics means that nature does
Computer engineering prof Robert J. Marks, first author of Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, explains, When I was boy, my father explained free will and predestination to me: I dig a fence post hole. · Did I create the hole because of my own free will? · Or was the hole already there and I simply […]
Quantum physicist: The particle itself does not know where it is
In this 2018 video, quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger explains the essence of quantum physics for a general audience: The skinny, courtesy Philip Cunningham: 40 sec: Every object has to be in a definite place is not true anymore… The thought that a particle can be at two places at the same time is (also) not […]
Stephen Hawkings’ views outside physics were more noted than notable
That’s a common problem when we ask great figures their opinion about things they haven’t studied. From a review of Stephen Hawking’s (1942–2018) last book (or the last book that could be put together plausibly under his name), Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Because of the likelihood of a nuclear confrontation or an environmental catastrophe, […]
New findings: Discrepant values in universe’s expansion make everything murkier
Error alone does not apparently explain the discrepancy in these figures: For some methods, which rely on using the light from supernova and pulsing stars called Cepheid variables to determine their changing distance, it appears that objects move away from the Earth 73 kilometers per second faster for every 3.26 million additional light-years, also called […]
Rob Sheldon on the physics wars: Stagnation or no?
Our physics color commentator, Rob Sheldon, was looking at two physicists’ recent salvos and offers some thoughts: Nicole Yunger Halpern (Theoretical physicist: My field is not going to the dogs vs. The point of view represented by Sabine Hossenfelder (Theoretical physicist: Present phase of physics “not normal” – stagnation, not crisis) and Sarah Scoles (Is […]
We’re not even sure what dark matter IS
A helpful list of the 11 biggest questions about dark matter starts with this: Originally, some scientists conjectured that the missing mass in the universe was made up of small faint stars and black holes, though detailed observations have not turned up nearly enough such objects to account for dark matter’s influence, as physicist Don […]
Researchers: Proton mass mainly comes from sources other than quarks
Proton: stable subatomic particle that has a positive charge equal in magnitude to a unit of electron charge and a rest mass of 1.67262 × 10−27 kg, which is 1,836 times the mass of an electron. (Britannica) Only 9% of the proton’s mass comes from its quarks: The rest of the proton’s mass comes from complicated effects occurring inside the particle, researchers report […]
Theoretical physicist: My field is not going to the dogs
In recent years, a number of theoretical physicists have raised concerns about stagnation and cool-sounding programs that produce little but TED talks. Now one replies, pointing out that if we leave the wild world of string theory out of the picture, theoretical physicists work with experimentalists more than ever before: In one example, theorists teamed […]
Physicist: The ultimate theory will be “geometrically natural”
At her blog, Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, offers a guest post spot to a fellow physicist: No current unified theory includes quantum mechanics fundamentally as part of its structure. But a truly unified theory must. And I believe the ultimate theory will be geometrically natural. Canonical quantum commutation […]
What would a black hole really look like?
If you saw it up close? If you were to take a photo of a black hole, what you would see would be akin to a dark shadow in the middle of a glowing fog of light. Hence, we called this feature the shadow of a black hole . Interestingly, the shadow appears larger than you […]
Theoretical physicist: Present phase of physics “not normal” – but stagnation, not crisis
Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, acknowledges the seriousness of the situation but isn’t sure that the term “crisis” describes the current situation well: I think stagnation describes it better. And let me be clear that the problem with this stagnation is not with the experiments. The problem […]