Sheldon: … in our own solar system, Saturn is far outside the “Goldilocks Zone” yet it has a moon, Enceladus, that is emitting steam jets filled with hydrocarbons. … The danger of being overly-quantitative is not just the overreliance on models, or the higher risk of failure, but rather the real probability that “certainty” blinds one from observing the actual phenomenon.
Tag: Rob Sheldon
The ever-cycling universe cycles back to town
Rob Sheldon: What is really recycling is not the universe, but this theory.
Yes! Oparin’s coacervates… again!
The theory has been resurrected in a paper in PNAS, of which Rob Sheldon says, “None of these steps is remotely likely. Not one.”
Rob Sheldon: What to do now in particle physics
Forget “new physics”. Forget the Nobel Prize. Get some humility, especially us physicists, and realize that everything we possess is a gift. Show some gratitude by filling in one of the many textbook gaps.
Rob Sheldon on celeb physicists Sabine Hossenfelder, Ethan Siegel, and Chad Orzel
My own view is that we need to go back to 1950 and revisit the alternatives. Because solving today’s impasse doesn’t require any new physics, but old physics done differently.
Rob Sheldon: Taken seriously, the multiverse proves the existence of God
In an infinite universe, somebody somewhere has figured out how to talk from one universe to another. In an infinite universe, somebody somewhere has figured out how to talk from one universe to another.
Rob Sheldon: What that hot new quantum experiment really showed
His view: What this recent paper with a qutrit experiment shows, is that it is possible to do QM communication or QM computing at high volume and high speed. No need to wear headphones. Our view of the universe has not changed.
Astrophysicist: Nothingness” may be the answer to our cosmic questions; Rob Sheldon responds
Rob Sheldon: This article illustrates the reason why the scientific method is going extinct, not just in Darwin’s circular logic, but also in physics and cosmology.
Hope springs eternal: Are new particles hiding “in plain sight?”
The Large Hadron Collider just keeps confirming the Standard Model, almost as if there was some basis for believing it to be correct. Rob Sheldon thinks the current mood is desperation: If you don’t know where you are going, you will certainly arrive. Information is finite, ignorance infinite.
Rob Sheldon offers a physics perspective on free will
Sheldon: My objection, which I will develop in two streams, is that both reductionism and emergence are just wrong, as is the philosophical denial of free will based on them.
Rob Sheldon: Researchers showed that the carbon state of the universe IS fine-tuned
As opposed to “robust.” He says, “We really need a word for this racket: Pay me or I’ll defend ID.”
Rob Sheldon: Are multiple measurements “closing in” on dark energy? Nope.
If the results had been at all positive, the presser would have likely said “Confirmation!!!!” or something like that. Seeing as the new results are neutral or faintly negative, “closing in” is the best they can manage.
Rob Sheldon: That “sterile exoplanet ocean” paper is bunk!
The amazing thing about life, is that it is always so very adaptable. Who knew that bugs can live at 140C, or with metabolism so slow it takes centuries to replicate?
Rob Sheldon: The real reason there is a crisis in cosmology
Nearly everything that has failed about the Big Bang model has been added because of bad metaphysics, a refusal to accept the consequences of a beginning. The remaining pieces of the Big Bang model that are failing and which can’t be attributed to bad metaphysics, were added from sheer laziness.
Rob Sheldon: Here’s why physicists are surprised by the universe’s increased expansion rate
The two methods differ in that one is “direct” and the other “indirect”. Clearly one or both of them is making a mistake. Since it is hard to find (and people have looked) a reason why the direct method is failing, the feeling is that the indirect method must have a mistake in its model.