Ethan Siegel looks at the limitations: But we’re still a long way away from determining exactly where that information goes, and how it gets out of a black hole. Theorists disagree over the validity and soundness of many of the methods that are currently being employed to do these calculations, and no one has even a theoretical prediction for how this information should be encoded by an evaporating black hole, much less how to measure it.
Physics
So what’s been making the fast radio bursts?
Not aliens. We are told that they are made by magnetars, a type of neutron star.
Room temperature superconductivity achieved (but at huge, crushing pressures)
From Nature: Published: 14 October 2020Room-temperature superconductivity in a carbonaceous sulfurhydrideElliot Snider, Nathan Dasenbrock-Gammon, Raymond McBride, Mathew Debessai, HiranyaVindana, Kevin Vencatasamy, Keith V. Lawler, Ashkan Salamat & Ranga P. Dias Nature 586, 373–377(2020) One of the long-standing challenges in experimental physics is the observation of room-temperature superconductivity1’2. Recently, high-temperature conventional superconductivity in hydrogen-rich materials has been Read More…
Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder is being labelled “anti-science”
Also, let this sink in: Despite believing in determinism, Hossenfelder believes we should “decide” against a new particle collider… We can decide? On that account, to other naturalists, she is “anti-science.” Naturalism is weird like that. Eats its own.
Spagettification of a star caught by a black hole
Starry starry fright.
Physicist Rob Sheldon checks out astrophysicist Ethan Siegel for ridiculing Nobelist Roger Penrose
Sheldon: The politicization of science evidently started before Ethan’s graduate schooling, as Hoyle and his post-doc Chandra Wickramasinghe tell in their biographical writings.
Researcher: We need a new Theory of Everything, one with no “things”
We’d have to guess that Stephen Wolfram’s attempt at a Theory of Everything didn’t solve all the problems. At any rate, by the time we get down to “a theory of every thing requires that one not start with a thing,” it’s not easy to distinguish science from Zen. But then maybe that’s the idea.
Rob Sheldon on the latest effort to pretend that nothing is wrong in cosmology
Sheldon: This dashes yet another attempt to find something that the standard model could not explain. Surprisingly, this is what depresses particle theorists, who have yet to find anything new in the last 40 years, despite thousands of publications.
Physicist: The whole universe may be a neural network
Vanchurin: “I see no reason why this process should be confined to a particular length scale and so the claim is that everything that we see around us (e.g. particles, atoms, cells, observers, etc.) is the outcome of natural selection.” It doesn’t take very long for Darwinism to become indistinguishable from magic.
Ed Feser on theoretical physicist’s new book: “the particle collection that fancied itself a physicist”
Feser: Alfred Korzybski once said, “the map is not the territory.” If only more physicists were capable of seeing what a crackpot linguist could!
Rob Sheldon on the latest claim that quantum mechanics imperils objectivity
Sheldon: Actually the debate over “the meaning of QM” has been going on since 1935 when Einstein published his EPR paper. It is just that the wiggle-room is getting reduced as our straight-jacket is being cinched tighter.
Paper: Modeling biology on physics doesn’t really work
Modeling biology on physics is useful if the biologist wants to pretend to an august Darwinian certainty that is not really available and perhaps not even possible.
A one-paper-size look at what’s wrong with theoretical physics today
Hank Campbell on the paper: You might be able to detect black holes falling into wormholes using gravitational waves if wormholes ever exist and a black hole ever falls into one.
Rob Sheldon on why some are upset that the Higgs boson “refuses to misbehave”
Rob Sheldon: What Blekman didn’t say, but Sabine Hossenfelder does, is that there are not “tens of thousands” but rather an infinite supply of wrong theories. That should keep particle physicists employed until at least the 23rd century or until the oceans rise 30 feet, whichever comes first.
At Scientific American: Could we force the universe to crash?
Does anyone remember when science was distinct from science fiction? But in those days, great discoveries were made. Who needs great discoveries when an active imagination will do just as well?