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The next big break through in our understanding of the Universe


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Astrobiscuit does it again! A great video documentary interviewing top scientists to piece together some missing gaps in our understanding. Likely link between quantum mechanics and Einstein's Theory of gravity! The Matrix could be real in a sense? 

 

Edited by Lockie
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Well, this has been interesting.

First part looks like it is just a pop science presentation with bunch of wrong views/interpretations. Middle part with that professor refusing their interview to be used with following explanation:

"There is no single sentence in this account that has been reproduced correctly or is grammatically correct" does make one wonder why on earth are they spending half an hour of their virtual existence on this video.

Luckily, last part actually holds some value and some very interesting ideas have been put forward.

 

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1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

Well, this has been interesting.

First part looks like it is just a pop science presentation with bunch of wrong views/interpretations. Middle part with that professor refusing their interview to be used with following explanation:

"There is no single sentence in this account that has been reproduced correctly or is grammatically correct" does make one wonder why on earth are they spending half an hour of their virtual existence on this video.

Luckily, last part actually holds some value and some very interesting ideas have been put forward.

 

I found it interesting in that it was a journey of understanding for an average guy trying to tackle a mind boggling subject. Very interesting to see a top scientist shoot him down instead of trying to explain, but thankfully many of them seemed friendly and open to discussion with a lay person. I actually thought it was very honest and open of Rory to include that damming statement. The discussion at the end tying in the Quantum with Einstein's theory of gravity bending space time made me realise I should be paying more attention to the big picture. But Despite having a degree in astronomy I'm really way closer to Rory's level of understanding so found it fun and relatable. I had to re watch bits in an attempt to wrap my head around things lol

It was great to see Dr Stuart Clarke who has stuck in my mind for 20 years not only as a really great lecturer, but it was his classes where I first met my wife! I guess his appearance has made me like the video even more 😀

 

Edited by Lockie
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Not sure how to comment on such a presentation.  Clearly a lot of effort and thought has gone into it. Maybe just a few comments.

1) It's interesting how each era created models based on the "in" paradigm.  We had the clock work universe of Newton and before that a magical mystical one. Now we have, information and its sister holograms as the basis.

2) I agree how we see the world is as an abstraction,  a mental model. That does not however, mean that there is not a objective reality or that our mental model implies we are in a simulation. 

3) If there is an objective reality or not is a philosophical question. Personally, I assume there is.

4) If the network approach is correct then it is no more reality than current physical models are. Spacetime as we know it conventionally is geometry!  It is not some fabric. The new approach would also be a model that seek to explain and predict what we see.

How could it be anything else? If we are a simulation, then what stops the processor it's running on from being  a simulation of a processor running a simulation of a processor running a simulation and so on indefinitely?

4) I think it misrepresents modern views in many ways. As an example Penrose and others have done work in trying to build up spacetime via spin networks (spinors). The "cat" problem is solved to most physicists satisfaction by environmental dechoherence.

In summary good pop science fun but somewhat misleading in my view.

Regards Andrew 

 

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Hey Chris thx for posting my video and spreading the word. And I'm very pleased you liked it. Its very hard to make a video about the universe accessible to the lay person.  I am not a prof - -obvs- and there is no way on gods earth that I'm not going to get a barrel load of it coming at me after making a video like this. And in all honesty I don't mind if I do. At least it means the brain boxes are watching it. And if we're going to change the status quo then we need the brain boxes to start to think in new ways. Big picture is that the fundamental physics community has become blinkered and every one of the profs I spoke to ( hoffman didn't comment on this actually) seems to think progress has slowed. T'hooft actually used the phrase "going round in circles and everyone citing each other" but i can't put his words in the vid unfortunately. So if anyone else is reading and watches the video please say what you think and don't mind me.  

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I agree progress has stalled with string theory just playing mathematics.

I hope this new approach is testable as hinted at in the video.  I think our big problem is that our current theories work very well in the size and energy ranges we can probe.

We have very little or no new experimental data to push for new ideas.

Yes our current theories are not perfect but they work very well. Doubts about Dark matter and energy are important but have reasonable possible explanations. Dark energy could just be small residual curvature of space time just as normal matter is a small residual after the creation of the CMB radiation.

As an aside yes Vulcan was wrong but Neptune was right!

Regards Andrew 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, andrew s said:

I agree progress has stalled with string theory just playing mathematics.

I hope this new approach is testable as hinted at in the video.  I think our big problem is that our current theories work very well in the size and energy ranges we can probe.

We have very little or no new experimental data to push for new ideas.

Yes our current theories are not perfect but they work very well. Doubts about Dark matter and energy are important but have reasonable possible explanations. Dark energy could just be small residual curvature of space time just as normal matter is a small residual after the creation of the CMB radiation.

As an aside yes Vulcan was wrong but Neptune was right!

Regards Andrew 

 

 

Very true but one important tweak Wolfram's theory keeps quantum mechanics and general relativity just as they are.

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2 hours ago, rorymultistorey said:

Hey Chris thx for posting my video and spreading the word. And I'm very pleased you liked it. Its very hard to make a video about the universe accessible to the lay person.  I am not a prof - -obvs- and there is no way on gods earth that I'm not going to get a barrel load of it coming at me after making a video like this. And in all honesty I don't mind if I do. At least it means the brain boxes are watching it. And if we're going to change the status quo then we need the brain boxes to start to think in new ways. Big picture is that the fundamental physics community has become blinkered and every one of the profs I spoke to ( hoffman didn't comment on this actually) seems to think progress has slowed. T'hooft actually used the phrase "going round in circles and everyone citing each other" but i can't put his words in the vid unfortunately. So if anyone else is reading and watches the video please say what you think and don't mind me.  

Was reference to that professor saying that there is no single sentence that was reproduced correctly - a joke or it actually happened?

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2 hours ago, rorymultistorey said:

Very true but one important tweak Wolfram's theory keeps quantum mechanics and general relativity just as they are.

Do you mean you have a proof of this equivalence, if so that's truly impressive or perhaps you mean it has qualitatively has similar features? 

If you have a proof can you provide a reference as I would live to try to understand it.

Regards Andrew 

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40 minutes ago, andrew s said:

Do you mean you have a proof of this equivalence, if so that's truly impressive or perhaps you mean it has qualitatively has similar features? 

If you have a proof can you provide a reference as I would live to try to understand it.

Regards Andrew 

Wolfram says so. At 35.33 he mentions it briefly but I don't unpack it. It is in my rushes, the long interview which only my patreons have access too (sorry but I'm trying to figure out how I can make videos full time so making certain things available to my patrons who pay a £3 a month is one experiment I have to monetise the channel).  I will try and explain it. His computational model of the universe is mostly unpredictable... in the same way that the weather is unpredictable. But there are some mathematical structures in his model which are predictable. These mathematical structures align exactly with quantum mechanics and special and general relativity. He also suspects string theory will find a home in his model. He's only figured some of  this stuff out in the last few months but here is a video by him from the spring if you are interested: https://bit.ly/WolframProjectLaunch

 

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1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

Was reference to that professor saying that there is no single sentence that was reproduced correctly - a joke or it actually happened?

yeh. I sent him a transcript of the interview - and I messed up the first sentence (I was diagnosed as dyslexic at school but  that's no excuse) and he sent that exact reply back to me word for word.  I said that we didn't speak in grammatically correct sentences but then decided to  not to push it as he is a genius and I didn't want to waste his time.  Nothing in the film that I say about t'hooft is different from what he says onlione or in his published papers except that I am continually trying to relate things to the pixel metaphor in the hopes that the audience will follow what is going on. t'Hooft is revolutionary in his ideas. A great shame he pulled out. The whole scene questioning the collapse of the wavefunction (the bunny scene)  was based around what he had said.

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There was a point made about the potential unification of Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity and String Theory. I was ok with the general premise until then. QM and GR must surely be unified to save any fragments of what we think we currently know. I thought ST was an attempt at that in itself. Why the need to unify it with the two working theories?

I aint no physicist but surely String Theory has never been anything other than mathematical mischief. Has it at any time been reconcilable with the physical world? Ever? At any time?

Nah, it's the greatest cul-de-sac in modern physics... :)

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I must admit when I left school at 16 I did well in the sciences and understood everything up to O level standard as it was in the 70's. (but then what did our teachers know - atoms were made of 3 particles ha ha) . But some of the new stuff is well beyond me and it always seemed that when a bit of a theory did not fit the real world then an unknown variable was added to make it work and left for someone to find that variable at a later date. Forgive my simplistic view I just aren't that clued up but from my simple view of the universe that's how it seems.

Steve

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15 minutes ago, rorymultistorey said:

I'm pretty sure we're not the same person and I'm hoping Mrs biscuit can tell the difference😂 lockie posted the link to my vid. I just jumped on the thread. 

That explains it. Thanks Regards Andrew 

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23 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I must admit when I left school at 16 I did well in the sciences and understood everything up to O level standard as it was in the 70's. (but then what did our teachers know - atoms were made of 3 particles ha ha) . But some of the new stuff is well beyond me and it always seemed that when a bit of a theory did not fit the real world then an unknown variable was added to make it work and left for someone to find that variable at a later date. Forgive my simplistic view I just aren't that clued up but from my simple view of the universe that's how it seems.

Steve

However, they are not arbitrary.  We add complexity to explain more detailed observations. We now have anti matter, the Higgs boson, gluons and more. These are no more mysterious than the protons, neutrons and electrons of your school years are. 

Ultimately,  the test is how well our models, and their elements fit out observations and make predictions. 

Regards Andrew 

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1 hour ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I must admit when I left school at 16 I did well in the sciences and understood everything up to O level standard as it was in the 70's. (but then what did our teachers know - atoms were made of 3 particles ha ha) . But some of the new stuff is well beyond me and it always seemed that when a bit of a theory did not fit the real world then an unknown variable was added to make it work and left for someone to find that variable at a later date. Forgive my simplistic view I just aren't that clued up but from my simple view of the universe that's how it seems.

Steve

That's about right and so it should be. We still do teach that the atom comprises 3 particles  - quite appropriate for o level standard (age and stage) .  The Bohr model, followed by the standard model and an introduction to quantum follows in the more senior years when they are more disposed to these ideas.  I agree with you about the new stuff - to be honest unless you are working in the rarefied field of cosmology  or particle physics, and I am certainly not nor capable, then it will be beyond most.  Im happy with my broad based understanding. I like to see it as walking in the foothills where I can look across and experience the views of the whole mountain range without seeing the detail.  From what I've seen of academia, once you are in the world of research your view narrows; in physics, mathematics starts to dominate , and to be honest, I think some of the childlike fun disappears.  So , in my humble opinion there is a lot to be said for your school level science , celebrate it for giving you a good broad understanding and you will be surprised how far it gets you. 

Jim 

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"Problem" that I'm seeing with this approach can be summarized in that old question: "Did we discover or invent math?".

I personally think that we discovered rather than invented math, and as such, our formal mathematics is only one way to express rules of math - true underlying system of relationships. Similarly, cellular automata can be used to describe the same. There are number of such different approaches to the same thing. In programming we have imperative and declarative languages which are different ways to accomplish same thing - write down an algorithm or "rule" of how to solve particular problem.

In some sense traditional/formal math can be thought as declarative language while cellular automata as imperative language.

Physics laws further depend on mathematical formalism, and if you have some sort of math language - it is very easy for physical law "to emerge" from these set of rules - simply because set of rules describe mathematical thing and mathematical thing describes physics law.

Question is - does system of rules that we observe produce only certain set of physics laws or does it produce vast landscape of possible physics laws - string theory has this issue if I'm not mistaken - it can be used to create almost any set of physical laws.

 

Edited by vlaiv
I sometimes type nonsense for unknown reason ...
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22 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

 

Question is - does system of rules that we observe produce only certain set of physics laws or does it produce was landscape of possible physics laws - string theory has this issue if I'm not mistaken - it can be used to create almost any set of physical laws.

 

Yes 10^500 is a good estimate 

Regards Andrew 

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I think I said before that my gut feeling (or is that GUT) is that maths is a language. It's a language we developed to explore geometry, the very nature of physics and the Universe.

But I think there is a disconnect between the two, a very telling disconnect. Geometry is irrefutable. It's never "wrong". It is the very basis of physics. At a simple level mathematics and geometry are inseparable. We use one to visually and physically interpret the other. We need one to quantify the other. But I maintain, without an ounce of evidence, that while every physical property of the Universe can be modelled, described and even predicted by mathematics, not everything that is theorised by maths need be a reality. In that vein I would offer String Theory; an esoteric construct with no physical counterpart. 

 

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6 minutes ago, Paul M said:

But I maintain, without an ounce of evidence, that while every physical property of the Universe can be modelled, described and even predicted by mathematics, not everything that is theorised by maths need be a reality. In that vein I would offer String Theory; an esoteric construct with no physical counterpart.

Perhaps you don't even need to go as far as "String Theory".  Consider for example the square root of -1.  In the physical world it has no obvious meaning, but it's still a very useful concept in maths (and indeed in using maths to describe the physical world).  Those numbers involving the square root of -1 are perhaps more usually known as "complex" numbers, but are also sometimes called "imaginary" numbers.

James

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Mathematics alone does not make physics. The physics comes from relating its symbols to bits in the world . Ultimately bits we observe or rather interpret from our observations . 

The same physics can be described by very different mathematics eg wave and matrix mechanics. They were seen as rivals until proved to be equivalent 

It is unfortunate that pop science goes for the wow rather than genuine wonder.

For me understanding how the classical world emerges from the quantum is much more fascinating than the endless repetition of is the cat dead or alive. The fact is cats are just too big to be in a quantum super position.

Regards Andrew 

PS there would be no QM without the imaginary numbers and no SR without hyperbolic ones

 

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25 minutes ago, andrew s said:

It is unfortunate that pop science goes for the wow rather than genuine wonder.

For me understanding how the classical world emerges from the quantum is much more fascinating than the endless repetition of is the cat dead or alive. The fact is cats are just too big to be in a quantum super position.

Regards Andrew 

PS there would be no QM without the imaginary numbers and no SR without hyperbolic ones

 

Could not agree more. That bloody cat, dark energy, dark matter , spin, colour, flavours. Oh how  I wish I could have strangled those terms at birth.  They are gifts to "pop" science and lazy media journalists.  It's the professional physics community that are to blame.  They come up with these ever so poetic media friendly terms but they ultimately end up being so easily misinterpreted either by choice or ignorance.  Take, "dark matter" or "entanglement"  so now we have thousands of pop science videos from eager presenters claiming evidence for a  Star Wars "force" like phenomena which links everything in the universe.     And as for that stupid feline , the number of times that it has been cited incorrectly with equally fanciful conclusion drawn really gets me. Argggggggggh.  

 

As for imaginary numbers sorry James but I don't fully agree they are very much present in the real world - radar propagation and ranging, electrodynamics, fluid mechanics just  a few  very real examples.  I do agree with your sentiments though , not everything possible in mathematics is necessarily manifest in the physical world. 

Jim 

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