Sheldon: It was Chesterton who said, “He who marries the culture will soon be a widower.”
Tag: Rob Sheldon
At Scientific American: We did find life on Mars in the ‘70s. Rob Sheldon weighs in
Levin: When the Viking Molecular Analysis Experiment failed to detect organic matter, the essence of life, however, NASA concluded that the LR had found a substance mimicking life, but not life. Inexplicably, over the 43 years since Viking, none of NASA’s subsequent Mars landers has carried a life detection instrument to follow up on these exciting results.
Rob Sheldon: Why process philosophy won’t rescue naturalism
“Let me repeat. Physics doesn’t change. And even when discussing the changes (like an oscillation), the physics of change doesn’t change. Somebody is making a serious category error when the physics of change becomes the change of physics.”
Are the “redundant” particles of the universe evidence of fine-tuning?
Rob Sheldon: Despite McMaster U. thinking this odd, and believing (hoping?) for a failure of the Standard Model, I see this as a necessary means of storing the information in the hot Big Bang, and demonstrating the ultimate fine-tuning of the cosmos.
Rob Sheldon on the renewal of 3.5 billion-year-old life claims
Sheldon: My best guess is that he has found something organically simple such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), if only because 3.5 billion years is a long time for organics to survive, and PAHs are the sort of keratonized (turned into keragen) that is stable.
Rob Sheldon responds to Sabine Hossenfelder on the hologram universe
Sheldon: … it isn’t just HEP theory, it is large swathes of all the sciences. They have painted themselves into a sterile, but formerly well-funded “consensus” corner, and are discovering that the younger generation (and the NYT) is quite flippant on their prospects for survival.
Rob Sheldon on why astronomers believe in dark matter
“Most, if not all the hype you read, is looking for more and more exotic particles, all the while ignoring mundane macroscopic things like comets and asteroids.”
Rob Sheldon on why statisticians are in a panic
The panic in sociology, psychology, nutrition science, and pharmacology has been growing as >70% papers with “p-values” smaller than 0.05 are discovered to be unrepeatable.
Rob Sheldon: Don’t give up all ET hope due to recent exoplanet disappointment
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.
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.