Physics

Here. Robert Griffiths, Otto Stern University Professor of Physics at Carnegie-Mellon University, Ph.D. Princeton University, member of the National Academy of Sciences, author of Consistent Quantum Theory. Erica Carlson, Professor of Physics, Purdue University, Ph.D. Cal Tech, Fellow of the American Physical Society. Erica is a well known author in condensed matter physics theory. Andrew Jordan, Professor of Physics, University of Rochester, Ph.D. UC Santa Barbara, Simons Fellow of Theoretical Physics. Andrew is a specialist specifically in foundations of quantum mechanics. David Snoke, Professor of Physics, University of Pittsburgh, Ph.D. U. Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Fellow of the American Physical Society. I run an experimental condensed matter physics lab on quantum effects in optics. Jeffrey Koperski, Professor of Philosophy, Saginaw Valley State Read More ›

The cat may or may not attend.

From David Snoke at the Christian Scientific Society: Quantum mechanics is a strange theory, and it has been used to justify all manner of religious claims such as extra-sensory perception. This year we bring together five experts on the physics of quantum mechanics to discuss what we know and what we don’t know. We will work both to make the basic laws of quantum mechanics accessible to the non-expert, while at the same time addressing cutting-edge debates in the philosophy and application of quantum physics. Location: The Twentieth Century Club, 4201 Bigelow Blvd., Pittsburgh, PA Speakers include: 7:45 P.M. Dr. Erica W. Carlson, “Quantum Mechanics For Everyone” Abstract: Can I use quantum mechanics to create my own reality? Does God Read More ›

In “contrast to all the other particle masses in the standard model” From theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray (June, 2018), at Back(Re)Action: Yes, I know the headlines said the LHC would probe string theory, and the LHC would probe supersymmetry. The headlines were wrong. I am sorry they lied to you. But the LHC, despite not finding supersymmetry or extra dimensions or black holes or unparticles or what have you, has taught us an important lesson. That’s because it is clear now that the Higgs mass is not “natural”, in contrast to all the other particle masses in the standard model. That the mass be natural means, roughly speaking, that getting masses from Read More ›

Our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon offers some thoughts: — Some have suggested that we could replace the neurons in a human brain one at a time with, say, electronic circuits. Size shouldn’t be an issue, but even if it is, we can imagine thin silver wires connecting the electronics cabinet with the brain under vivisection. As I interpret it, the question is “How many wires will it take before we have transferred the consciousness to the electronics cabinet?” Now a single neuron has 10,000 or so synapses where it connects to other neurons. Each of these synapses uses some complicated chemistry to enhance or inhibit neighboring cells. Each of those chemical reactions involves tens or hundreds of membrane-spanning active Read More ›

From Philip Cunningham at YouTube: It all began in 1922, when Einstein and Bergson met in an unplanned but fateful debate. Einstein had been invited to give a presentation in Paris on his theory of relativity. Time was central to Einstein’s work. It was, however, also the central issue in Bergson’s philosophy. Their conflicting views on the meaning of time set the scholars on collision course. In the debate, Bergson made it clear he had no problem with the mathematical logic of Einstein’s theory or the data that supported it. But for Bergson, relativity was not a theory that addressed time on its most fundamental, philosophical level. Instead, he claimed, it was theory about clocks and their behavior. Bergson called Read More ›

One of the things that struck me in looking at superionic water is how it is so often spoken of as though it were partly liquid and partly solid. I did a spot of reflection, which I am thinking it may help to headline. Where, some of the ideas being brought up will help us on the onward subject of looking at how memristors work. So, following up on the new form of water post: KF, 4: >>One of the interesting things about the coverage [on superionic water]  is how they phrased the properties of superionic ice in terms of being both a solid and a liquid. This may suggest to the public the notion of a contradictory state, which Read More ›

From Elise Crull at Aeon: The problem is that entanglement violates how the world ought to work. Information can’t travel faster than the speed of light, for one. But in a 1935 paper, Einstein and his co-authors showed how entanglement leads to what’s now called quantum nonlocality, the eerie link that appears to exist between entangled particles. If two quantum systems meet and then separate, even across a distance of thousands of lightyears, it becomes impossible to measure the features of one system (such as its position, momentum and polarity) without instantly steering the other into a corresponding state. Up to today, most experiments have tested entanglement over spatial gaps. The assumption is that the ‘nonlocal’ part of quantum nonlocality Read More ›

From Lisa Grossman at ScienceNews: Not all fundamental forces are created equal. An alternate universe that lacks the weak nuclear force — one of the four fundamental forces that govern all matter in our universe — could still form galaxies, stars, planets and perhaps life, according to calculations published online January 18 at arXiv.org. Researchers have done calculations to that effect. Why? “People talk about universes like they’re very fine-tuned; if you changed things just a little bit, life would die,” Adams says. But “the universe and stars have a lot more pathways to success.” It soon becomes clear that this is a pitch for a multiverse: The paper does not help figure out if the multiverse is real, though. Read More ›

In response to growing disquiet with the concept of a multiverse, voiced by theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel assures us at Forbes: In short, it’s the idea that our Universe, and all that’s contained within it, is just one small region of a larger existence that includes many similar, and possibly many different, Universes like our own. On the one hand, if our current theories of physics are true, the Multiverse absolutely must exist. But on the other hand, as Sabine Hossenfelder rightly points out, it’s unlikely to teach us anything useful. … Writing in NPR, Sabine Hossenfelder is right to criticize that approach, stating, “Just because a theory is falsifiable doesn’t mean it’s scientific.” But just because Read More ›

From Emily Conover at ScienceNews: Observations of a trio of dead stars have confirmed that a foundation of Einstein’s gravitational theory holds even for ultradense objects with strong gravitational fields. The complex orbital dance of the three former stars conforms to a rule known as the strong equivalence principle, researchers reported January 10 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. That agreement limits theories that predict Einstein’s theory, general relativity, should fail at some level. … Many physicists expect the strong equivalence principle to be violated on some level. General relativity doesn’t mesh well with quantum mechanics, the theory that reigns on very small scales. Adjustments to general relativity that attempt to combine these theories tend to result in Read More ›

From philosopher of science Bruce Gordon at Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies: Divine Action and the World of Science: What Cosmology and Quantum Physics Teach Us about the Role of Providence in Nature Introduction: The Intelligible Cosmos: For science to be possible there has to be order present in nature and it has to be discoverable by the human mind. But why should either of these conditions be met? Albert Einstein (1879-1955) famously remarked that “the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility…. [t]he fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.” If there were no sufficient cause explaining why the universe exists, if it were taken as a brute fact, there would indeed be no reason to Read More ›

That’s the big change that naturalism (nature is all there is and you did not evolve to understand it correctly) has created in science. Evidence isn’t critical any more. From Natalie Wolchover at Quanta: String theory (or, more technically, M-theory) is often described as the leading candidate for the theory of everything in our universe. But there’s no empirical evidence for it, or for any alternative ideas about how gravity might unify with the rest of the fundamental forces. Why, then, is string/M-theory given the edge over the others? … This basic sequence of events has led most experts to consider M-theory the leading TOE candidate, even as its exact definition in a universe like ours remains unknown. Whether the Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Three mathematicians have a different explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe that does without theories of “dark energy.” Einstein’s original equations for General Relativity actually predict cosmic acceleration due to an “instability,” they argue in paper published recently in Proceedings of the Royal Society A. Paper. (public access) – Joel Smoller, Blake Temple, Zeke Vogler. An instability of the standard model of cosmology creates the anomalous acceleration without dark energy. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Science, 2017; 473 (2207): 20160887 DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2016.0887 More. Well, if we don’t need dark energy to account for cosmic expansion, isn’t that a bit like not needing Santa Claus to explain the wine, cheese, and chocolates Read More ›

Because it pays. From physicist Sabine Hossenfelder at BackReaction: To the end of producing popular papers, the best tactic is to work on what already is popular, and to write papers that allow others to quickly produce further papers on the same topic. This means it is much preferable to work on hypotheses that are vague or difficult to falsify, and stick to topics that stay inside academia. The ideal situation is an eternal debate with no outcome other than piles of papers. You see this problem in many areas of science. It’s origin of the reproducibility crisis in psychology and the life sciences. It’s the reason why bad scientific practices – like p-value hacking – prevail even though they Read More ›