String Theory, at 20, Explains It All (or Not)

The New York Times ^ | December 7, 2004 | Dennis Overbye

[snarks_when_bored]

...I contend that the primitive and fundamental reality of the physical world is that it is illusion.

An illusion with the persistence and the heft of the physical world is, I would argue, reality. Your (presumed) unwillingness to walk into the path of a speeding 18-wheeler conveys your own sense of what's real and what's not, wouldn't you say?

[snarks_when_bored]

Sorry, you're mis-informed. Read the September, 2004, issue of Scientific American.

Also read Susskind's comments from the second of the Edge links I posted here.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See post #32 for something disturbing!

[snarks_when_bored]

The sentences of mine that you cited are applicable to theories of evolution, too. There are lots of ways that evolution might be falsified (or at least shaken to its core); for example, by the discovery of a fossilized skeleton of Homo Sapiens sapiensis that definitively carbon dates to, say, 400 million years ago.

[Southack]

"Sorry, you're mis-informed. Read the September, 2004, issue of Scientific American."

No, I'm not misinformed. I'm quoting Einstein and Hubble.

Susskind is at best pulling your leg. The fact is that String Theory is a giant hoax, anyway. It is *impossible* to unify General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics, thus making String Theory a fool's errand from Day One.

That's why we laughed 20 years ago when String Theory was first proposed, and that's why we're still laughing today; you can't unify QM with GR. One theory must prevail, while the other theory must be trashed.

Choose one.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Not while awake, anyway.

[snarks_when_bored]

The Cosmological Constant

Dark energy confirmed as constant presence

The Cosmological Constant and Dark Energy (PDF format)

 

Google is your friend.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Hey, its a real thing, I can visualize it.....in my mind.

[Southack]

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101accel.html

What is a Cosmological Constant?

Einstein first proposed the cosmological constant (not to be confused with the Hubble Constant) usually symbolized by the greek letter "lambda" (L), as a mathematical fix to the theory of general relativity. In its simplest form, general relativity predicted that the universe must either expand or contract. Einstein thought the universe was static, so he added this new term to stop the expansion. Friedmann, a Russian mathematician, realized that this was an unstable fix, like balancing a pencil on its point, and proposed an expanding universe model, now called the Big Bang theory. When Hubble's study of nearby galaxies showed that the universe was in fact expanding, Einstein regretted modifying his elegant theory and viewed the cosmological constant term as his "greatest mistake".

[snarks_when_bored]

Correction:  carbon-dating won't work if a fossil is 400 million years old. Strike 'carbon' from the last sentence of my post #64.

[snarks_when_bored]

You're not up-to-date; you're recounting history, not modern work. Read the links I sent, please?

[longshadow]

Luddite bait thread.

[snarks_when_bored]

I've enjoyed the interactions on this thread. I've got to be away from my computer for a while, but will return later this evening.

"Talk amongst yourselves!"

Best regards...

[Southack]

"You're not up-to-date; you're recounting history, not modern work."

The "modern" work is a joke. It is literally a hoax. String Theory is a parady of real science. You *can't* unify Einstein's General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.

You can't even add the Cosmological Constant back into General Relativity. Einstein did that very thing in his 1919 paper that "proved" that our universe was static, not expanding (and we all know how that turned out).

This is old ground. It's been covered. What's "new" is that scientists are quite willing to spout nonsense and jump through absurd gyrations rather than take a hard stand by saying that either GR or QM is right while the other is wrong.

GR and QM are *mutually* exclusive. Some new theory won't change that fundamental fact. Not String Theory. Not SuperString Theory. Not anything.

There is just one right answer between GR and QM: choose one.

[RightWhale]

either GR or QM is right while the other is wrong

They are both right, and both are incomplete. It's a problem for cosmologists especially in the inflation model, but until technology advances further it is not a practical problem.

[Southack]

"They are both right, and both are incomplete."

No, they are specifically *not* both right.

General Relativity was wrong when it had the Cosmological Constant (i.e. a static, non-expanding universe), and it is wrong today without it. It still fails to predict orbital positions, for instance, and it is soundly refuted by the energy and Gravity realities of Quantum Mechanics.

Quantum Mechanics may or may not be incomplete, but at least it doesn't have General Relativity's glaring flaws.

[AdmSmith]

The Cosmological Constant is nothing strange, it is just a constant of integration in the General Theory of Relativity.

[Southack]

"The Cosmological Constant is nothing strange, it is just a constant of integration in the General Theory of Relativity."

Agreed. Einstein used the Cosmological Constant in General Relativity to "prove" that our universe was not expanding.

...that whole Edwin Hubble thing proving that our universe was expanding did a number on Einstein's theory, however.

[Semper]

An illusion with the persistence and the heft of the physical world is, I would argue, reality. Your (presumed) unwillingness to walk into the path of a speeding 18-wheeler conveys your own sense of what's real and what's not, wouldn't you say?

The physical world is reality to the extent that our relative human consciousness gives it reality. When human consciousness perceived a world limited to a small section of "flat" land, that was their reality and it dictated the parameters of their experience. In the absolute reality of the spiritual, something like getting hit by an 18-wheeler could not happen - nor would there ever be a desire to see if it could. In my limited understanding of what the spiritual realm is about, there are no accidents, there is no disease, no death - there is only one animating force, one perfect Source, and all existence emanates from and reflects that Source. It would not be very wise to challenge an 18-wheeler while still struggling to progress out of the limitations of human consciousness. However, it does help greatly when confronted by human challenges to try as best as possible to reach a more spiritual state of mind. That practice has proved to work very well for me.

[snarks_when_bored]

You wrote:

The physical world is reality to the extent that our relative human consciousness gives it reality. When human consciousness perceived a world limited to a small section of "flat" land, that was their reality and it dictated the parameters of their experience. In the absolute reality of the spiritual, something like getting hit by an 18-wheeler could not happen - nor would there ever be a desire to see if it could. In my limited understanding of what the spiritual realm is about, there are no accidents, there is no disease, no death - there is only one animating force, one perfect Source, and all existence emanates from and reflects that Source. It would not be very wise to challenge an 18-wheeler while still struggling to progress out of the limitations of human consciousness. However, it does help greatly when confronted by human challenges to try as best as possible to reach a more spiritual state of mind. That practice has proved to work very well for me.

Some observations about what you wrote:

• I don't know what you mean by "relative human consciousness", and so I don't know what 'non-relative (absolute?) consciousness' might mean, either.
• I don't know what you mean by "absolute reality of the spiritual".
• Your description of "the spiritual realm" is classical, but, again, I don't know what sort of being such a realm might have. Is there information exchange in such a realm? If so, entropy can't be ignored, and so it's a physical realm that we're talking about. On the other hand, if there's no information exchange in the spiritual realm, then it's indistinguishable from blank non-entity (what the non-religious consider happens to a human consciousness when it dies).
• I would respectfully suggest that you not challenge a speeding 18-wheeler even if you succeed in 'elevating' your consciousness (whatever that might mean).