----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Pensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 8:45 PM Subject: Re: meta research
> Dan wrote: > > > Second, he misses the sociology of science completely. If he were to > > make the more limited claim that states that "there increased number of > > anomalies that have to be explained in an ad hoc manner indicates that > > there may be serious limitations to our present theory", then he'd have a > > very strong case. > > OK, I know I'm way out of my league when discussing this stuff with you, > but if the above is true, why spend any time at all trying the patch the > theory up with fantastic ideas like inflation and dark matter? Or Planck's constant, or the Bohr theory of the atom? Inflation is certainly not an elegant theory....but it is at least a decent phenomenological model of the very very early universe. It is a way of expressing the parameters. Dark matter is used to explain the rotation of the galaxies. If one does General Relativity (which I think can be well approximated by good old Newtonian gravitation for the cases we are considering), we find that the rotation of the stars in the galaxies do not match the mass of the observed stars. If there were dark matter, then the rotation would be consistent with what we know about gravity. If not, then we have to find a fudge for gravity....one we have no real basis for. Of the two, dark matter was considered a bit more conservative. >It seems like by the time you need to invent stuff out of whole cloth that >it might be time to step back and entertain some new ideas. And the candidate new theories are? If someone were to come up with a new theory that simplifed cosmology and replaces the ad hoc patches with a simple theory he/she would be virtually guaranteed the Nobel prize and the title "greatest physicist of the early 21st centory" (unless the person who comes up with quantum gravety takes that title. Even a modest simplification would be worth a great deal (assured tenure at a first line school for example). A key part of the divide between our perceptions can be explained by my experience in graduate school. Most decent sized physics departements have been approached by crackpots. On at Wisconsin actually got to present he problem to some of the best theorists there. He ideas were wacky (lines of magnetic force were like likes of chalk with nothing in between), but the problem she set up was hard to solve. One of the more esoteric theorists finally came up with the explaination, to her dismay. It had to do with subtle interaction of magnetic and frictional forces that were counterintuitive, but there when you worked out the theory. A real theory is not a few general discussion paragraphs, pages, or even books. It is a serious attempt to fit data (usually with numerical predictions). >Are there serious efforts to propose and test alternative ideas or is there a tendency to > look upon anyone that doesn't go with the flow as a crank? Actual new ideas are welcome. If someone came up with a new theory and showed how much of the old theory can be derived as a special case of the new theory, people would take notice. If there were an alternative to inflation that match the observed density distribution of galaxies, was consistent with GR and QM to the levels at which they've been well tested, even if it was merely just as simple, it would be accepted as another way to work out the problem. It would be considered a real contribution because it would give more information to later theorists: somewhat in the sense that the Heisenburg and Schrotenger (sp) formations of QM led to Dirac's beautiful general formulation of QM. One way to look at things like dark matter and inflation would be as stepping stones. It is much easier to fit a general model when some of the parts are already modeled. Even ad hoc fits, such as the Bohr atom, provides a means of organizing the data in a way it can be thought of. This allows a different, or even the same, physicist to find a more elegant solution later. But, pages and pages of arm waving generalities rarely produces anything useful. It's more akin to an all night bull session in the dorms than it is to science. I know when I started grad. school Electroweak moved from quite understandable mocking (they insisted that two unseen things really existed), to becoming "the standard theory" in less than 5 years. It took only 1 year for it to be well accepted. The reason was clear, those two things were found within a year. I've been asked about my work in terms of a potential 5th force, I've seen arguments for monopoles, I've seen searches for proton decay, I've seen first rate physicists who talk how they come up with 2 or 3 ideas a day...but only one a month worth publishing. One said he ran it through a gauntlet before publication...even if he already had a Nobel prize. I've seen arguments for radically new physics at the mesoscopic level published by Penrose, for example. Since that time we've had ideas like 10 dimensions that are rolled up and put in your pocket, vacuum freezing, and foamy space. Rich, I'm sure, can list a whole lot more. There are still physicists who are willing to patiently explain to "alternate thinkers" what the criteria are for new theories and what the problems with recycled old theories (e.g. tired light) are. I spent a couple of years doing that before I joined Brin-L. The experience I had trying to explain why gravity was inconsistent with a shielding effect, for example, led me to see a great similarity between the mindset of creationists and most alternate thinkers. There were a few who actually listened and responded reasonably, ending up differing more metaphysically with me than anything else. But, for the most part, they would switch gears whenever a careful examination would lead to the obvious difficulties with their worldview. I hope this helps clarify my views. Let me try to restate it one more time. Reading the "theories" on websites such as this is, for me, like trying to find a place to stand in a cloud. Appearances aside, there is really nothing of substance there. When a physicist reads their discussions, she is left realizing that, from a scientific point of view, they spent pages saying nothing. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
