New Physics Complications Lend Support to Multiverse Hypothesis

Scientific American ^ | June 1, 2013 | Natalie Wolchover and Simons Science News

[BenLurkin]

The spectacular discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012 confirmed a nearly 50-year-old theory of how elementary particles acquire mass, which enables them to form big structures such as galaxies and humans. “The fact that it was seen more or less where we expected to find it is a triumph for experiment, it’s a triumph for theory, and it’s an indication that physics works,” Arkani-Hamed told the crowd.

However, in order for the Higgs boson to make sense with the mass (or equivalent energy) it was determined to have, the LHC needed to find a swarm of other particles, too. None turned up.

[Moonman62]

"Decades of confounding experiments have physicists considering a startling possibility: The universe might not make sense"

Or it may make sense. The entire article doesn't advocate either position, but does say that experimental results in the next few years are likely to steer us down one path or the other.

[Moonman62]

If the universe doesn't make sense, then literally anything is possible because reason (sense) can't rule it out... abracadabra magic, faster than light travel, God Himself. In trying to prove He doesn't exist, science seems to have tied itself into a knot.

A lot of scientists want to know how God created the universe. The experimental results that point to a multiverse also point to fine tuning.

[SuperLuminal]

"Decades of confounding experiments have physicists considering a startling possibility: The universe might not make sense"

Hmmm..Universe doesn't seem to be homogeneous...

No homo???

[pallis]

I love science where there are theories, experiments to test theories, evaluations of the data, and acknowledgements of failures. It all makes science seem real again after having been inundated with trashy climate science.

[steve86]

I don’t recall reading before about naturalness/unnaturalness in the context of cosmology and particle creation. Maybe my memories were cancelled out?

[The_Reader_David]

Actually, the degree to which atheist materialists have embraced “multiverse” theory is quite amusing.

They profess to be empiricists and atheists have, at least traditionally, wielded Occam’s razor against the existence of an unobservable, transcendent deity. Now, in preference to one unobservable entity, they posit a vast, perhaps infinite, array of necessarily unobservable entities (if it can be observed, it’s in our universe, not another one), thereby ceding control of Occam’s razor to us theists.

[Gene Eric]

>> which enables them to form big structures such as galaxies and humans egos.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

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[Secret Agent Man]

You got that right.

[The_Reader_David]

Another thought: my favorite Einstein quote (other than “Goedel’s gone completely mad: he’s voting for Eisenhower!”) is “The mathematicians can’t tell me what I need to know,” uttered late in his life when he was trying to replace quantum mechanics with a classical “physically realistic” theory — a hopeless errand we now know thanks to the empirical violation of Bell’s inequalities.

The problem is not that the universe might not make sense, but that physicists are trying continually to hang onto the same mathematical toolbox that worked for classical physics and general relativity, when the best indications are that it doesn’t work to describe anything involving quantum phenomena — in particular, space-time won’t end up being a smooth manifold with a Minkowskian metric because the continuum model breaks down at fine scale. I suspect we mathematicians might now be able to tell them what they need to know, but most physicists aren’t asking.

[Ezekiel]

“Ten or 20 years ago, I was a firm believer in naturalness,” said Nathan Seiberg, a theoretical physicist at the Institute, where Einstein taught from 1933 until his death in 1955. “Now I’m not so sure. My hope is there’s still something we haven’t thought about, some other mechanism that would explain all these things. But I don’t see what it could be.”

[Moonman62]

Another thought: my favorite Einstein quote (other than “Goedel’s gone completely mad: he’s voting for Eisenhower!”) is “The mathematicians can’t tell me what I need to know,” uttered late in his life when he was trying to replace quantum mechanics with a classical “physically realistic” theory — a hopeless errand we now know thanks to the empirical violation of Bell’s inequalities.

What gets me is that some of the major founders of quantum mechanics such as Einstein and Schrodinger never accepted it as a final theory, or showed an outright dislike for it.

[Moonman62]

Actually, the degree to which atheist materialists have embraced “multiverse” theory is quite amusing.

The article states that most scientists have resisted the "multiverse" theory. I think we get a biased view of the beliefs of scientists because journalists select scientific opinion that supports their agenda.

[SouthWall]

Don’t start somethin’, wont be nothin’.

Just sayin’

[BenLurkin]

I confess that most of what you said goes over my head, but I offer one clueless comment as to this:

we mathematicians might now be able to tell them what they need to know, but most physicists aren’t asking.

It seems this Soft Science guy (an Anthropology major 25 years ago) that once mathematicians have begun to address things cosmological, they have entered into a philosophical practice. Albeit one rendered sublime by the requisite discipline of mathematics.