A Revolution in Physics Coming?

news.yahoo.com...

WHY A PHYSICS REVOLUTION MIGHT BE ON ITS WAY
"The field of physics may be turned on its head soon, said renowned physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed during a live lecture from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada.

"For one, he said, the tried and true physics of relativity and quantum mechanics don't get along well. The problem is that in some sense, the principles behind these theories seem to be impossible when physicists dig a little deeper into them, Arkani-Hamed said. Scientists run into a lot of problems when they try to apply these theories to the entirety of space and time.

"One problem is that conventional physics doesn't really account for why the universe is so large, Arkani-Hamed said. Albert Einstein's theory of relativity showed that a huge amount of energy exists in the vacuum of space, and it should curve space and time. In fact, there should be so much curvature that the universe is a tiny, crumpled ball.

"That should make the universe horrendously different than what it is," Arkani-Hamed said.

I am not too sure if the whole of Physics will change but I think there may be some base dogmas that might be put into proper context . We simple minded people have given the status-quo too much credit for some of their statments that turn out to not be completely true . a reply to: MKMoniker

a reply to: MKMoniker

I'm going to venture to say that many of us agree that modern physics is more of a religion then a reality.

I mean they are looking for a God particle.

a reply to: MKMoniker

"One problem is that conventional physics doesn't really account for why the universe is so large, Arkani-Hamed said. Albert Einstein's theory of relativity showed that a huge amount of energy exists in the vacuum of space, and it should curve space and time. In fact, there should be so much curvature that the universe is a tiny, crumpled ball.

It doesn't apply because Space and the Universe are 2 separate things. I'm no scientist, mind you. Just my two-cents.

a reply to: onequestion

If by "religion" you mean forming conclusions based on empirical, reproducible data then, er... sure.

And for the love of Higgs-Boson, it was called "the God particle" because it was shortened from "the God-damn particle".

Deny ignorance, my friend.

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Rupert Sheldrake produces bad science that independent academics (unsurprisingly) can't reproduce. He's the definition of "no one takes me seriously so I'm going to pick up and take my ball home".

a reply to: MKMoniker

One of the beauties of science is that, unlike religion and superstition, it changes based on new observations.

a reply to: the2ofusr1

I agree! We need to stop pounding a square peg into a round hole, with all the discrepancies between relativity and quantum mechanics. Einstein was a super-brilliant man, but if he were alive today I'm sure he'd have come up with better and more relevant theorems by now.

Its said you cannot CREATE or DESTROY energy...
What if you CAN?!?!?

a reply to: lostbook

"It doesn't apply because Space and the Universe are 2 separate things."

I agree in the sense of how the Universe has Dark Matter - which cannot be found in 3-dimensional space:

www.spaceref.com...
(Oct. 2014) DARK MATTER IS ONLY HALF THE AMOUNT WE THOUGHT IT WAS
"A new measurement of dark matter in the Milky Way has revealed there is half as much of the mysterious substance as previously thought.

"Australian astronomers used a method developed almost 100 years ago to discover that the weight of dark matter in our own galaxy is 800 000 000 000 (or 8 x 1011) times the mass of the Sun. They probed the edge of the Milky Way, looking closely, for the first time, at the fringes of the galaxy about 5 million billion kilometres from Earth.

"Astrophysicist Dr Prajwal Kafle, from The University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, said "We have known for a while that most of the Universe is hidden."

Occam's Razor anyone ?

Physicists have a tendency to allow their academia to overpollute their thought processes, thus resulting in convoluted conjecture.

My wager is on the idea that at some point, science is going to slap itself in the forehead realizing that the answer has been right in front of their face the entire time... and it was a simple one at that.

Reply to "onequestion" and "GetHyped":

It's human nature to want to find "the answer to everything" - that ties together all our beloved theories. Unfortunately, the universe isn't that simplistic, nor that obedient to our personal desires.

It is tangled and convoluted, and our science has to drive the technology to be able to test new theories.

Well he does seem to bring up some good points about the scientific constants that get changed from time to time in both directions .If something was a constant ,then why the need to upgrade them to what may be different from yesterday . If they do vary from time to time then why claim that they are a constant .Or is it just that it only needs to be close enough to be considered as a fact when in reality it is not . a reply to: GetHyped

a reply to: MKMoniker

Phage will show up shortly, Or he won't. Or maybe he's already posted and we just don't know about it.

That's the problem, we can only theorize about the building blocks of the universe because we have no way of detecting them. There has to be a unifying force, the chaos of quantum mechanics doesn't get along with the order of relativity. That's why the Higgs field is so important to researchers because it could unite chaos and order.

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Nothing in science is set in stone as models are altered when new data comes in. If a better model is proposed that can explain all of previous data as well as the new data then that newer model is adopted. And that's the way it should be.

Just because we don't know everything in science doesn't mean we should fill the gaps with nonsense. If we knew everything, there wouldn't be any need for science in the first place.

originally posted by: CranialSponge


Physicists have a tendency to allow their academia to overpollute their thought processes, thus resulting in convoluted conjecture.

Occam's Razor suggests you've never spoken to a scientist in your life.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Isn't there always a smaller particle?

I guess in their haste to produce papers to advance their cause they may just be filling in the gaps with theory as opposed to observational evidence . These latest pictures coming back from a comet ,don't show it as a icy snowball but when do you think the Wiki entry will change to the observations and Scientist will stop referring to them as such ? Science may have to change the way they state things only because no one is going to keep believing it because of new observations . a reply to: GetHyped

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: MKMoniker

Phage will show up shortly, Or he won't. Or maybe he's already posted and we just don't know about it.

That's the problem, we can only theorize about the building blocks of the universe because we have no way of detecting them. There has to be a unifying force, the chaos of quantum mechanics doesn't get along with the order of relativity. That's why the Higgs field is so important to researchers because it could unite chaos and order.

I think that unifying force is water. Not water as we know it but in its ideal form; a universal solvent which can assimilate any shape. I think of Space as an ocean, the ripples of the big bang are waves.

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Scientists don't refer to them as "dirty snowballs," pop science writers do.