Contradicting Physics Beyond the Standard Model

[wolram]

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2003-10/msg0055587.html

I think its a stroke of good luck that the SSC was canceled since
otherwise it might have produced data that contradicted all the
physics beyond the Standard Model that physicists now take for
granted, and we would have to throw out all the beautiful theories
that took so much effort to create. In physics you try to think up
explanations that explain what you observe. The greater the
consistency between theory and experiment, the greater the success of
physics. If you have new experimental data that contradicts the
theoretical predictions, the extent of consistency decreases, and so
the extent of success of physics decreases. Jeffery Winkler.

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i don't know what to make of this, anyone have any thoughts?

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by wolram

i don't know what to make of this, anyone have any thoughts?

sarcasm
irony laid on thick

 

[wolram]

sarcasm
irony laid on thick
-------------------------------------------------------------------
i can't make head or tail of this, is it just posturing?
is it profesional jealousy? I am afraid i don't have your
insight in these matters, if these comments are of the cuff
then one can ignore them, but if they hit a weak spot what
then?
this is the time one needs a tutor to clarify as to why
these big hitters are not of one mind.

 

[ranyart]

Originally posted by wolram
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2003-10/msg0055587.html

I think its a stroke of good luck that the SSC was cancelled since
otherwise it might have produced data that contradicted all the
physics beyond the Standard Model that physicists now take for
granted, and we would have to throw out all the beautiful theories
that took so much effort to create. In physics you try to think up
explanations that explain what you observe. The greater the
consistency between theory and experiment, the greater the success of
physics. If you have new experimental data that contradicts the
theoretical predictions, the extent of consistency decreases, and so
the extent of success of physics decreases. Jeffery Winkler.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
i don't know what to make of this, anyone have any thoughts?

There are a LARGE number of young/old string-theoryists who have been campaign-ing to reduce the number of 'data' that could collapse the whole of the STRING-REVOLUTION, and with the obvious consequence that some jobs will go!

Weinburg for instance stated some years ago that 'string theory cannot be proven or dis-proved'..for every cool person that appears in the objections to stringtheory, a mathematician can produce another complex variable which covers and deflects the objections into another complex abstract realm, some think this is the nightmare scenario where true mathematics are exchanged with MAGIC-MATHS.

There are an infinite number of complex variables, anyone of which will produce a Mathematical stalemate, as long as these theorists keep shrouding the data with coverings of MULTIPLE-MEANINGS, then their jobs are safe, and stringtheory survives and drains the available scientific-financial-pot.

The Rovelli paper was quite amazing in detailing this dialog here:http://uk.arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0310/0310077.pdf

Really does ask some deep ethical questions on what do you do in order to precede in the pursuit of truth?

 

[wolram]

i have read this ten times and now I am not sure of
anything, with so many big names involved it cant
be trivial.
they seem to be saying that SF is a never ending
story .

 

[selfAdjoint]

The physics flame war

There's a nasty three-way spat going on among some of the professional physicists who post on the moderated board sci.physics.research. The three sides are the anti string theory people, led by Peter Woit, the string defenders, led by Lubos Motl, and the LQG people, who have been keeping their heads down recently, but who helped to ignite the controversy with Carlo Rovelli's mock Galilean dialogue about LQG vs. Strings, which some thought to be a diss of string theory. So you have threads on that board called "The string theory crackup" and "The string theory dominance", and just like flame wars over here, nothing is ever settled.

On the other hand, interesting physical questions are raised, like Motl's assertion that general relativity has importantly (not just in the tangent space) a lorentzian symmetry. Trivially the Poincare group is a subgroup of the diffeomorphism group so Lorenz boosts are some of the coordinate changes you can make in GR, but the argument is over, does this have any special physical significance? Motl: Yes. Several others: No.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by wolram
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2003-10/msg0055587.html
...
i don't know what to make of this, anyone have any thoughts?

Hello selfAdjoint,
to be fair the discussion of differences within Stringdom
has been more than just a "nasty spat". It has been informative
for a lot of us.

On another thread you recommended Howard Schnitzer "String Theory: a theory in search of an experiment" http://arxiv.org/physics/0311047 [Broken]
which (although in mild and hopeful language) raises the same issue as wolram:
namely the airy castle neverending story aspect---different from past "top-down" theoretical developments where experimental confirmation has come close on the heels of speculation for example Einstein 1915 followed by Eddington's observation 1919 (Schnitzer gives several examples and cautiously broaches the subject of how much unverified theoryspinning has, in the past, been considered acceptable)

So when wolram says it looks as if the "story goes on forever" it is not just an illusion produced by spat, heated discussion, flaming or whatever. It is something that cool heads can and are concerned about, involving some basic questions about how science is traditionally conducted.

Several points:
1. The general audience gets the impression that strings and extra dimensions exist---as if this is tested, settled and known. In the long run neither the public or science are well-served by unchallenged hype in favor of one or another untested theory.

2. Reading some SPR threads can be a helpful antidote to the rosy picture and special pleading in the media.

3. It's possible that string research is overfunded as well as overpromoted, and a cutback or a redistribution to other lines of theoretical physics would improve the field's overall health. Public relations interferes by creating a glamorous image. Decisions on allocating funds and research positions are probably best left to the back rooms of the National Science Foundation. Anyway its more traditional to do it that way than by TV miniseries, hype, ratings, outreach to high school-teachers---by mass political means in other words.

For reasons like these, I think of the discussion on SPR as performing a useful service---not as just a flame war or nasty spat. Watching it has been educational for me and I think it encourages self-criticism among the string folk, which by my sense of proportion has so far been deficient:
Given the thousands of technical papers that have been written, I see remarkably little internal criticism. What there is, like that of Tom Banks and Howard Schnitzer, seems muffled. Or inadvertent, like that of Leonard Susskind. This leaves it up to neighbors like Peter Woit and Stephen Weinberg to provide the criticism that should be a part of the field's own self-discipline.

 

[wolram]

it seems all my ideas about what science is, has been
wrong, i thought the idea was to put forward a theory
and let others disprove it.
how can a theory be disproved, if when a null or
negative result is quashed by an addition to the
theory
i hope a possitive answer can clear up what seems
to be profesional people doing there dirty washing
in public.

 

[marcus]

Hey wolram you might like Bekenstein
"Black Holes and Information Theory"
new today, I havnt read it yet just printed it out
http://www.arxiv.org/quant-ph/0311049 [Broken]


usually the small club of some specialty are
ruthlessly and rigorously selfcritical
on their own members
but string seems to have been kind of lazy and
indulgent so got out of hand and neighbors in
nearby fields like Peter Woit and Charles Francis
have the unpleasant job of disciplining it

this doesn't really concern loop quantum gravity per se
it should really be an internal self-discipline thing
but it does represent a case of traditional institutions
not functioning quite right
science as a social system doesn't have to function
perfectly all the time--its a human endeavor sustained
by imperfect institutions like everything else

it should be open too,
transparent not secretive
the dirty laundry in public is the price it sometimes
has to pay for openness but I am thankful for the openness

be well and keep thinking for yourself!

 

[wolram]

left blank in respect

 

[selfAdjoint]

Marcus, you are a lot harder on Stringy physicists than I would be. People don't spend their lives working on a far frontier without a lot of self confidence, and I would rather have string physics than no physics at all, which in my darker moments I fear may be in our future.

There is a lot of more or less unfocussed anti-science feeling among the public. In Europe it's fueled by the tremendous fear and loathing of geneticlly modified foods. In the US there's the public fight over evolution with the right wing fundamentalists and with the left wing PC-marxoid people. Everywhere the Greens are sowing distrust of technology. Governments are finding excuses to cut the budgets of science agencies. I greatly fear that in the years to come we won't have the opportunity to dispute which untested theory is better.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
...
There is a lot of more or less unfocussed anti-science feeling among the public. In Europe it's fueled by the tremendous fear and loathing of geneticlly modified foods. In the US there's the public fight over evolution with the right wing fundamentalists and with the left wing PC-marxoid people. Everywhere the Greens are sowing distrust of technology. Governments are finding excuses to cut the budgets of science agencies. I greatly fear that in the years to come we won't have the opportunity to dispute which untested theory is better.

some truth in this but some fine spectral discriminations can be made

As public image, Einstein (the fatherly face of pure theoretical science) is not in the same bucket as Monsanto (the people who manipulate patent and own genes). For the general public IMO Science-and-Technology is not a single monolithic entity.

So Feynmann, Carl Sagan, Brian Greene, Steven Hawking, are beloved bestselling celebrities (I even share the popular reverence for a couple of them, guess which). But Carl Sagan's popularity does not help SSC, or Clinch River Breeder Reactor, or Fetal Stem Cell, or Monsanto.

In the long run the personal integrity of a Feynmann, which translated into comic outspoken honesty, builds trust. Any kind of hype (even for a "good cause") undermines it. So I'm glad for whatever openness the theoretical research establishment can manage, more or less across the board.

Also I suspect that deep down almost everybody, even including Greens Marxists Mormons Moslems Methodists you name it, loves the Hubble Space Telescope photographs and all those new instruments giving a deeper look out into space. People don't have to be told to be thrilled and fascinated with those things. Cosmology has a lot of appeal regardless of a person's biases. So Science-and-Technology is not just one monolith---in public perception its a mix of good images and bad.

 

[selfAdjoint]

It's OK for you to make these distinctions because you, and pretty much everyone who posts here, are way up the trunk of the tree of understanding of science. The public are way down at the bottom and the beautiful images flick by them without their really understanding where they come from.

Here's an editorial from the New York Times that has been making the rounds on the net. It raises some of the concerns I have in the context of science journalism.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint


Here's an editorial from the New York Times that has been making the rounds on the net. It raises some of the concerns I have in the context of science journalism.

An opinion piece by a former NYT science editor, Cornelia Dean:
------------------------

"... unable or reluctant to tell the story in words a lay audience can understand.

As a result, Ms. Baron told the Pew fellows, journalists regard scientists as elitist, unable to talk except in jargon, obsessed with trivial details, isolated in ivory towers and unwilling to take a stand on matters of public importance.

This last point is by far the most important because it is where science reporting ... starts helping readers or listeners or viewers come to their own conclusions about ... issues ... that hinge on science.

It is where the question of "balance" is most important and where journalists most need scientists to stop hiding in thickets of irrelevant detail and identify the bottom line.

In other words, journalists need scientists who are citizens as well as researchers.

...

"Science has reached greater heights of sophistication and productivity," Mr. Yankelovich wrote in his summer paper, but scientists' influence in public debates is actually shrinking. As a result, he said, "the gap between science and public life has grown ever larger and more dangerous, to an extent that now poses a serious threat to our future."

Journalists can help narrow that gap. But only if scientists raise their voices in the nation's public debates."
---------------------------------

Gist:
scientists should take public stands on issues like global warming,
reproduction rights, nuclear weapons (her examples)

In fact it is dangerous for them not to. A threat not to the future of science but to the future of the planet and humanity--as I interpret her message.

 

[marcus]

Gist of an opinion piece by a former NYT science editor, Cornelia Dean:
---------------------------------

scientists should take public stands on issues like global warming,
reproduction rights, nuclear weapons (her examples)

In fact it is dangerous for them not to. A threat not to the future of science but to the future of the planet and humanity--as I interpret her message.

I agree with the op/ed piece by Cornelia Dean

particularly as to the duty of scientists to speak out on issues that do not merely concern the welfare of the research establishment but are of urgent biosphere importance: she singled out the issues of weapons, birth control, global warming, and (by contextual reference) overfishing the oceans.

selfAdjoint, you called attention to this article. I hope you agree with Ms Dean and did not reference the article because it represents something you disagree with! That does not seem likely.

I think an underlying implicit concern in this article, not mentioned, is the distortion of science by corporate control.
Corporations are not life-forms and are not human, yet they have interests and power to work on behalf of them. So scientists like anyone else may be leery of opposing corporate aims whether about logging, overfishing, carbon emission. It is too easy to get embroiled in vituperation with one of the class of puppet scientists who provide propaganda to suit corporate requirements. Cornelia Dean was particularly close to that bunch of Fishery scientists who were keeping their mouths shut. Understandably. The oceans are being fished out but what can you do about it? And yet if any human voice could be effective you'd think it would be that of a marine biologist/oceanographer/fisheries guy---the ones she says are keeping mum.

Well the public loves a contest: whether its a fist-fight, a football game, or a debate. Best not to pretend there's unanimity and that "Science" speaks with a single voice. Those guys Ms Dean was talking about had better speak up EVEN THOUGH they meet with contradiction from other professionals. Sometimes I think the British are better at public discussion than we are, and their scientists too probably.

 

[wolram]

just one TV channel devoted to science would help the
general public enormouosly, have you attempted to
engage anyone a factory worker, shop assistant in
conversation about science? nine times out of ten
you will be rewarded with a blank stare.
all we get is scare news items that are at best one
sided and at worst total c**p.
i think a panel of scientists should be given the task
of producing upto date science news on a dedicated TV
program shown at laest twice a week.
so the public will start talking science and understand
that your not all in your labs concocting deadly
viruses, mutated food stuff weapons of mass destruction
etc etc
you arnt are you?

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by wolram
...
i think a panel of scientists should be given the task
of producing upto date science news on a dedicated TV
program shown at laest twice a week.
so the public will start talking science...

this is potentially a very interesting discussion, partly
because we have different perspectives---you are in the UK
where they have the BBC, others of us are in USA where
there is the "Discovery Channel" which is a
market-driven commercial way of satisfying a directive for
"educational" programming, still others of us are in Canada,
France, Germany, India, Israel etc.

but since you and I are the only ones here at the moment let
us think about the problem of science journalism and science media
just in the UK and USA.

For me the main issue is that science-communication should not "dumb down" or "hype up" but rather it should translate.
And I think of great explainers like in Victorian England there were these public lectures by greats like J. Priestley and M. Faraday and they would discuss everyday stuff like how magnets and candle flames work, but in a solid respectable scientific way---just in language that the general audience could understand.

And I think of Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman and remember Feynman saying "you don't understand something until you can explain it to [someone you meet at a party or at the bus-stop or your mother or whatever] general audience." A lot of great people have said this. A math teacher named John Kelly said it too, but not many know of him.

In the US if you turn on Discovery Channel you MAY get semi mystical stuff about the Great Pyramids and the Ancient Mayans.
The people in control may think that to get RATINGS (to capture large numbers of viewers) they must dumb down and open the floodgates to speculation that verges on pseudoscience and appeals to deeply rooted mystical tendencies which they believe are in the audience.
Or they hype it up with a lot of Gee Whiz We are Probing the Secrets of the Universe talk. Sci-Pornography. And you also MAY get respectable science journalism! I don't know because I rarely sample educational TV and I have always gotten stuff that was too dumbed down to stomach. Meritorious stuff may well exist and I just missed it.

I think the key to good science journalism is the idea that you are not relaying Authority in a dumbed down version but instead you are TRANSLATING the book of natural philosophy from some obscure language (Greek, Hebrew, Hieroglyphics) into plain English.
You can assume that your reader does not want an Authoritative Pronouncement telling what he or she should think. You can assume that your reader is just as intelligent as the average scientist but simply doesn't understand their language. If they can read it in plain English they don't need Authority because they can form their own opinions.

In the long run their is no way to cheat. The scientific enterprise must speak openly and honestly to the public---and reveal mainstream differences of opinion too. (I don't favor giving "equal time" to the fringe, but controversy within the mainstream should not be concealed---in fact it is part of what makes the whole enterprise interesting.)

Wolram from what you say I guess there isn't a UK science channel or even a biweekly program! This is incredible. I literally can't believe this. Maybe you can clarify, be more detailed. Surely there must be something on BBC about science!

BTW do you know PhysicsWeb's IOP (institute of physics) magazine called "Physics World"?

The November 2003 issue is on Quantum Gravity and it has 3 invited articles one by Susskind (superstring) one by Rovelli (loop) and one by Amelino-Camilia (phenomenology, experimental/observational testing).
Susskind's article, or some version of it, is online at the Physics World site. I haven't seen Rovelli's article. It seems like a bright idea on the part of the Physics World editors, whether the articles turned out good or not.

 

[quartodeciman]

marcus: Surely there must be something on BBC about science!

Just one example -
BBC has a long-running science series called "Horizon". It is similar to the NOVA series.

BBC Horizon science documentary series --->
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/about.shtml

a sample of their presentations:

The Time Lords
2nd December 1996
http://www.physics.wustl.edu/~visser/bbc.html [Broken]

Supermassive Black Holes
BBC2 9.00pm Thursday 30th November 2000 --->
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/massivebholes.shtml

Parallel Universes
BBC Two 9.00pm Thursday 14 February 2002 --->
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/paralleluni.shtml

 

[wolram]

oh for those xmas lectures, in the uk we have beyond 2000
that tells us what happened two years ago, i would give my
eye teeth for a program that is upto date and is educational
and informative, all people over here talk about is soaps
they are living in an artificial tv world, to say people
are ignorant of the real world would be an understatement.
the only reason i purchased a pc was to get away from
the goggle box and find out what is going on out there.
the only problem i can see is presentation ,if science
could be entertaining as well as truthful up to date and
on going, then I am sure john boy, madge or whoever would
become the realms of the dreamers, for pity sake please.
how about PF getting involved with tv? woudnt that be
fantastic. cue GB.

 

[wolram]

QUART, the programs you posted "horizon", are for the
less well informed or the "gaspers", as to there validity
as news well that's not true, I am sure you would agree that
99.9% of tv is garbage.

 

[quartodeciman]

OK.

A weekly or bi-weekly TV edition, selections from Nature Magazine, might be good. Have proponents and antagonists square off. That might be entertaining enough. Producing dramatic and memorable graphic presentations takes lots of time and money, so two years ago might be the best that can be done in that domain. How about periodic televised review conferences, like those public presentations offered at University of California at Santa Barbara in theoretical physics? Of course, "You Ask, We Answer" could be a regular feature. Submitted questions, tallied and collated, are selected for reply by a panel of varying makeup.

One thing is paramount: the shows have to be watched and responded to. Otherwise, failure is assured.

Most people in the great TV markets think that emotions rule life, rather than quarks and lymphocytes. So fictional presentations of love, greed, hate, war, crime, etc. are more important, supplemented with TV tabloid material. One reliably-interesting subject is what new pills and nostrums to get. Also, circulation of new epidemics is popular. This stuff actually comes home. Great natural catastrophes are also popular, so volcano, storm and earthquake shows do well. Few expect to encounter a W boson or a Ia supernova in their lives. They have other stuff to deal with.

There are some things to be said in favor of soap operas. It takes years for issues to get anything like resolution. But the plot thickens continuously. Each new revelation or disclosure eventually gets laid aside in favor of later ones, and often gets picked up again when everyone has forgotten. Isn't that a little like science news?

 

[wolram]

quart
some of your post makes sence, the part about soaps
makes me feel ill, well everyone to there own, but
i would rather go to my grave thinking what's out
there, rather than who gave sue ellen a baby, but
then I am a krackpot and a dreamer maybe I am the one
out of touch with reality

 

[quartodeciman]

Sue Ellen? You really got some old stuff over there. :)

"Reality", like "rationality", tends to be oversold.

But, in all things, be selective.

 

[wolram]

sorry sue ellen is the only one i could recall,

maybe i should start a new thread i think this is not the
proper place.

it would be nice to get a broad spectrum of opinions
but if the majority of people want to be better informed
by the media how would one go about it?

 

[Nereid]

Science and Society?

Seems like a really good topic for a high-level board! The sub-boards could segregate (oops, not PC!), ... er, stratify? segment? ... different themes within such a great domain.

The posts here are very interesting.

 

[marcus]

"sort out" different themes


perhaps you mean the sub-boards could "sort out" different themes,
Nereid (might sound better than segregate or stratify) and BTW
some of your posts in astrophysics and celestial mechanics
are pretty interesting too (with enigma ambitwistor et al)

 

[wolram]

posted by MARCUS.
It is where the question of "balance" is most important and where journalists most need scientists to stop hiding in thickets of irrelevant detail and identify the bottom line.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
amen to that.
any science subject one looks at has contrvertial aspects,
it should fall on the scienific comunity to cut out the
c**p, and keep us informed as to what is main stream and
what is fringe science.
i don't want to be led by the nose, i want to know the
facts, or percentage of probbility and make up my own
mind.
to many words creep into scientific journals, GRAVITONS,
STRINGS,BRANES etc and are presented as factual things
when they are only theories, i know we only have theories
for some things, but shouldn't a theory have an end in
sight?
the world isn't very healthy at this time, global warming
over poplulation, derilict A sites, weapons, general waste
etc etc, so there is plenty of things to occupy the
publics mind, these concerns make leading edge science
seem trivial, soon no one will want to listen to a never
ending story, but maybe they will listen if the story
is dynamic and unambiguos.