Theory of Everything: Videos with Michio Kaku & Walter Lewin

[Cyrus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GnZ1n7no3M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i63RQoot5Rc&feature=related

(Part II has Kaku in it).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gez1Fux4js&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRwiR8ig7Ak&feature=related

(Dr. Walter Lewin is in part 4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S55E-8RP8X4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4CwrsBzWn0&feature=related

 

[Cyrus]

Dr. Sylvester Gates on Sting theory. The best part is the end of his talk, after min 47.

 

[Noone]

i won't wacth what you have linked i think it would delute my own concept of a theory of everything -.-, i just want to know if you think it has anythings within it that create conflects with its self?

 

[Noone]

or dose it really applie to all things :/?

 

[Noone]

I would like to here a Theory of Nothing that is somthing we don't know :D

 

[tribdog]

Did you know that in 1850 a woman was born and given the name Emma Royd.

 

[Evo]

Dr. Sylvester Gates on Sting theory. The best part is the end of his talk, after min 47.

Sting theory?

 

[Kurdt]

Sting theory?

Sting created the universe. Its less of a theory and more of a self delusion, but he has managed to convince others.

 

[Cyrus]

Sting created the universe. Its less of a theory and more of a self delusion, but he has managed to convince others.

Thats a bold statement. Leaves a red mark!

 

[Cyrus]

i won't wacth what you have linked i think it would delute my own concept of a theory of everything -.-, i just want to know if you think it has anythings within it that create conflects with its self?

Ok, so then why are you posting in my thread?

 

[Integral]

i won't wacth what you have linked i think it would delute my own concept of a theory of everything -.-, i just want to know if you think it has anythings within it that create conflects with its self?

You need to read and heed...http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/06/19/the-alternative-science-respectability-checklist/"

 

[QuantumGenie]

Ok let me repeat the cliche " Is Mathematical beauty enough in the absence of testable predictions?"Your views?

 

[Cyrus]

Raise your hand if you watched the vidoes I posted...anyone? anyone?

Oh, I guess were just talking nonsense.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Raise your hand if you watched the vidoes I posted...anyone? anyone?

Oh, I guess were just talking nonsense.

Thanks for posting this. I watched part of the Einstein video. Hope to finish it this weekend. The other day I picked up a special edition of Discover magazine that is all about Einstein. There's a fun section in the back called "20 things you didn't know about relativity."

The first three:

1 Who invented relativity? Bzzzt—wrong. Galileo hit on the idea in 1639, when he showed that a falling object behaves the same way on a moving ship as it does in a motionless building.

2 And Einstein didn’t call it relativity. The word never appears in his original 1905 paper, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” and he hated the term, preferring “invariance theory” (because the laws of physics look the same to all observers—nothing “relative” about it).

3 Space-time continuum? Nope, that’s not Einstein either. The idea of time as the fourth dimension came from Hermann Minkowski, one of Einstein’s professors, who once called him a “lazy dog.”

More at:
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/20-things-you-didn.t-know-about-relativity

 

[sas3]

Sting created the universe. Its less of a theory and more of a self delusion, but he has managed to convince others.

Is this the band “Sting”?
I always thought they would do great things.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I've just watched the documentary on Hawking and black holes with Kaku in it, I think String theory is dubious myself, but I would absolutely love to be wrong. I just don't think I am.

I've seen most of this before though. It's a really good documentary for laymen and academics alike.

 

[humanino]

I found excellent references on http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=a+kangaroo

STUPERSPACE (Physica 15D:289-293,1985)[/color]
The Super G-String[/color]
THEORY OF MORE THAN EVERYTHING[/color]
NEGATIVE PHYSICS[/color]
The Everything of Theory[/color]
The Misanthropic Principle[/color]

 

[Evo]

Those are too funny!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You need to read and heed...http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/06/19/the-alternative-science-respectability-checklist/"

This has to be the best quote from the entire article:

Also, one last thing. Don’t compare yourself to Galileo. You are not Galileo. Honestly, you’re not. Dude, seriously.

 

[Contrapositive]

I don't understand why theoretically physicists are trying to create a "theory of everything". Wouldn't that just put them out of a job?

 

[Kurdt]

I don't understand why theoretically physicists are trying to create a "theory of everything". Wouldn't that just put them out of a job?

But if you were to discover it then you'd be exceptionally rich and famous. there's not much money in physics otherwise.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I don't understand why theoretically physicists are trying to create a "theory of everything". Wouldn't that just put them out of a job?

Who was it who advised a prominent physicist to abandon physics back in the 19th century as everything had already been solved so it was dead. I think even with a TOE it has an almost infinite number of applications, so I don't think it'd kill physics stone dead. You're right though it'd certainly make physics less interesting. I think it's for this reason I don't find chemistry that interesting or at least at A' level (college level UK 16-18) where everything is pretty much just so.

 

[stevecaudill]

if you think about it, is there any rationale as to why a "Theory of Everything" should exist? Suppose 'THE THEORY' it's just not there, and quantum mechanics and general relativity were not meant to be reconciled within a higher framework?
String theory has been around for about 40 years yet what has it yielded other than more complexity?
I'm not advocating that we quit seeking the Theory, but just being a devil's advocate with respect to the big picture. I mean, we are searching for something that we are sure is there without stopping to ask, why are we sure it's there?

 

[stevecaudill]

Raise your hand if you watched the vidoes I posted...anyone? anyone?

Oh, I guess were just talking nonsense.

I watched them, thanks a lot for posting them! And then I ended up downloading about 3-4 hours worth of related videos, so I have something to do today, besides read Lee Smolin's book, "What's Wrong With Physics." Which is an excellent book on this topic by the way, along with Peter Woit's "Not Even Wrong," and Brian G reene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos," which has a fascinating section on the question "what is time?"

 

[humanino]

if you think about it, is there any rationale as to why a "Theory of Everything" should exist?

If you think about it, is there any reason why the orbits of stars and planets should be related with the fall of stones down on Earth ? Is there any reason why the interactions between magnets should be related with the radiation of heat by black bodies, or lightning ? Is there any reason why the forces that holds the nucleui together should be described in the same language as the interaction responsible for the radioactive processes, a language which happens to have been discovered to describe electromagnetism ?

There is at least one rationale, historically this is what people have been doing, and they met more success than the could even hope for. In addition, string at first was not meant to be a TOE. This picture was more or less forced upon us by the theory.

It's funny, yesterday I was having a drink with my ol' russian fellaw. He went like this about string theory

String theory is similar to an alien spaceship fallen from the skies. We have never seen anything comparable in beauty and complexity (which seems paradoxical !) and we have no clue as to what to do with it or what it is good for. Most people are trying to understand it by studying some kind of detail. Some are looking at the springs and shock absorbers, others are looking at the exhaust system, and all are fascinated. They finally came to the conclusion that all those parts of the alien spaceship must be related with each other somehow.

Meanwhile, our only hope is that a scientist studying at trees minding his own business might someday fall into the command room.

 

[rewebster]

It's always a battle between the young and old, the new ideas and the accepted ones, the whipper snappers and the dinosaurs, the crackpots and the academicians, ----in every field from art to physics.

I think I remember, reading or hearing, that even Einstein having a few choice words describing the 'establishment'. Does Newton's or Einstein's ideas work in all and every situation at all levels for every sub-sub-particle to galaxies? Does that mean they're 'right'? Does that mean they're 'wrong'? Does that mean that there's still something 'unknown' out there to be discovered? --and who's going to do it?

Another young physicist, maybe, who couldn't get a job in the field because his ideas and attitude weren't 'correct' and followed the ideas of the 'establishment', and had to take a job as a clerk?

who knows, who really knows----

 

[_Mayday_]

I haven't read a lot into string theory, and know very close to nothing. I just have a few points that I would like to bring up on it.

1.I have read that there are $$1\times10^{500}$$ possible variations in the theory.

2.As far as I am aware, there is no way to prove that it is correct through experiment, and as there are so many variations, will it not be possible to always adjust the theory to match any scientific discovery.


The source of my information is a book called:

The Trouble with Physics
By: Lee Smolin

_Mayday_

 

[humanino]

<nothing to do in GD>

The Trouble with Physics
By: Lee Smolin

Excellent book.

2.As far as I am aware, there is no way to prove that it is correct through experiment, and as there are so many variations, will it not be possible to always adjust the theory to match any scientific discovery.

This should be taken with caution. There are means to test some general features of some classes of string-models. There are even specific predictions of deviations from the standard model for specific string models, and from time to time you see claims of some specific observation fitting such predictions. So far, all such claims have finally turn out to be too preliminary and observations have been corrected and agree with the standard model. Anybody wants to discuss here possible recent observations beyond the standard model in beauty-strange transitions ? [/size]

1.I have read that there are $$1\times10^{500}$$ possible variations in the theory.

This indeed, a possible lower bound on the number of vacua in string theorie(s), is a fantasticly huge number, and it is hard to represent oneself such a hugeness. That number would be much more than the number of particles in the known universe for instance. For each of those vacua, you will presumably get different predictions. It is argued, therefore, that no matter what is observed, one will always find one specific vacuum agreeing with it. String theory would thus not be refutable, i.e. scientific.

The mere fact that you use figure 1 in $$1\times10^{500}$$ indicates however that the complexity of the situation might confuse you. There would be a point in using such a figure if we had the slightest clue that it should be one and not two. However, the uncertainty in this number is not in the significant digits, it is in the exponent ! And this uncertainty is huge. If you tell me that this lower bound is in fact $$10^{1500}$$, I will not be able to prove you wrong by providing an upper bound (less than your number) myself... And this $$10^{1500}$$ is not a crazy estimate...
</nothing to do in GD>

 

[_Mayday_]

Thanks Humano, I've read the first section of it, now I am getting into the brief history of string theory. I am finding it goes nicely with a Brief History of time, thought Lee Smolins seem a lot more interesting to read. I know this isn't related, but I had to get my head around it. Thanks again!

_Mayday_

 

[stevecaudill]

I'm reading Smolin's book now, it is a classic. What is interesting is his statement on page 16 that 70 percent of the universe's matter density is dark energy, 26 percent is dark matter, which leaves 4 percent as ordinary matter. Thus, we know nothing about 96 percent of the universe, and of the 4 percent we have been studying, we're still looking for the Higgs boson to help us understand it.
I recommend Smolin's book as he is smart enough to "see the forest" in spite of the trees, and he is also smart enough to "think outside of the box."
On a similar note, another book I recently read is "A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Gödel and Einstein," by Yourgrau, Palle, interesting concept almost put forth by Godel, that time is really non-existent, our brains just are wired to experience time as a dimension which only moves forward. Brian Greene gets into this a little in "Fabric of the Cosmos." Another book on the non-existence of time is "The End of Time," by Julian Barbour.
It would be interesting to see what happens to the 'force' called gravity, which general relativity states is due to the curvature of space-time, if it turns out that in fact time is not a dimension per se. The fact that one of the four fundamental forces is currently believed to be arising from a geometric construct rather than a particle exchange like a photon or gluon, strikes me as a 'wrench' in the works, not to mention the infinities encountered at singularities...