It’s been a while though. What would replace Einstein’s theories? The war on math?
Physics
At Fermilab, Wokeness now beats out work
Let’s keep an eye on Fermilab and see if Wokeness beating out work results in more genuine physics discoveries or fewer.
Sabine Hossenfelder asks, “Is dark matter real?”
Part of a physics seminar series called “Golden Webinars.”
At Forbes: Could dark energy be a misinterpretation of the data?
Siegel: In the near future, observatories like the ESA’s Euclid, the NSF’s Vera Rubin Observatory, and NASA’s Nancy Roman Observatory will improve that uncertainty so that if dark energy departs from a constant by as little as ~1-2%, we’ll be able to detect it. If it strengthens or weakens over time, or varies in different directions, it would be a revolutionary new indicator that dark energy is even more exotic than we currently think.
CERN: New exotic particle, tetraquark, discovered
CERN: The new particle contains two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark. Several tetraquarks have been discovered in recent years (including one with two charm quarks and two charm antiquarks), but this is the first one that contains two charm quarks, without charm antiquarks to balance them.
Is “string theory world” in some trouble?
Some of us think string theory only existed in order to give a bizarre twist to the fine-tuning of our universe and to create a basis for believing that there is an uncountable infinity of universes out there instead. Apart from that, it may be hard to see much point. We shall see.
Astrophysicist explains: Universe as three-dimensional donut
Paul Sutter: Buchert and a team of astrophysicists have deduced that our cosmos may be multiply connected, meaning that space is closed in on itself in all three dimensions like a three-dimensional donut.
Sabine Hossenfelder asks: Is time real?
Hossenfelder: If you are standing still and then begin to walk, that does not only change your position in space, it also changes which direction you are going in space-time. You are now moving into a direction that is a combination of both time and space.
Is there an alternative to dark matter?
Merritt: The most successful competitor is called modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). Observations that are explained under the Standard Model by invoking dark matter are explained under MOND by postulating a modification to the theory of gravity.
At Mind Matters News: Quantum physics: Is everything determined? Egnor vs. Papineau, Round 6
Physicalist philosopher David Papineau is clearly unhappy with the implications of quantum mechanics, as neurosurgeon Michael Egnor sets them out.
Celebrity physicists are in a row over, literally, nothing
Epperson: Quantum mechanics is a physical theory, operative only in a physical universe. To contort it into service as a cosmological engine that generates the physical universe from “nothing” requires that the abstract concept of “nothing” be concretized as physical so that the mechanics of quantum mechanics can function. What’s more, if quantum mechanics is functional enough to generate the universe from nothing, then it’s not really nothing; it’s nothing plus quantum mechanics.
Does quantum physics really mean there is no solid reality?
There is no reason to consider our perceptions to be illusions unless there is a more correct perception that we could have at the same level of resolution.
Physicist: Fine tuning explains the ugliness of the Standard Model of the universe
Well, ugly is as ugly does. String theory sounds beautiful but unrealistic.
A unified theory of physics is within reach?
“It didn’t have to be this way. The charges of the elementary particles in our Universe could have been such that there was no way to unify any two or more of them into a single unified particle. It’s the combination of observational data and mathematics that offers us strong hints that the charges for elementary particles in the standard model aren’t arbitrary, but rather arise by virtue of being embedded into a grand unified theory framework.” But isn’t that an argument for God?
Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit offers a shrewd assessment of Stephen Hawking and pop physics
Hawking was looking for a unified theory and Woit thinks the idea is pretty much discredited now: “We now live in an environment where the idea that there may be a deeper, more unified theory has become completely discredited, through the efforts of many, with Hawking playing an unfortunate part.”