New Law of Physics Could Explain Quantum Mysteries

PhysOrg ^ | 8/17/09 | Lisa Zyga

[djf]

"Disgrace indeed, to be caught in a metaphysical position"
J. S. Bell,
Free Variables and Local Causality, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics p. 101

A little dry Scottish humor!

I downloaded and started reviewing the paper yesterday. And I agree there are interesting points. But I am unsure whether this is something that creates anything new or testable.

Now, I'm just a guy who does computers and has an interest in physics. I do not have the skill, actually, I probably do, but I don't have the patience for the mathematics.

This really is a very interesting time, but I'm unconvinced that Palmers theories are more than a shoot from the hip approach.

There are a few on some of the FR physics threads that make a cogent argument that pure mathematics is divorced from physics. This is an easy argument to reject on it's face, but there may be way more to it than we can imagine now.

All of the experiences in early physics dealt with something that was perceived to be dense and continuous. One could make an argument that this view had to at least start being rejected with Plancks work.

Here's the deal: If the physics gives us results that contradict the predictions of the mathematics, we have to toss out the math, not the reality!

Einsteins work as much as I understand it depend on a dense, continuous four dimensional world. But Bell's arguments show GR is incompatible with quantum logic. Not just in the scope of the very tiny neighborhood of a particle, but macroscopically.

So it seems to me that what we are seeing is a change from physics being something concerned with centimeters and seconds and whatever (a physical geometric model) into something concerned with set theory and topology (a looser abstract model).

And I applaud the author for moving in that direction. I have long felt that the ultimate answers were going to be more in the abstract world.

What use is it to posit an abstract theory that has no phenomenological basis? That's kind of like a computer graphics program drawing a picture of the most beautiful woman you could ever imagine.

Interesting exercise, maybe, but ultimately, a waste of time leading to frustration. Some good effort needs to be spent looking at the wherewithals of abstract models and how to "value" them. Thumbs up!! Thumbs down!! A Roman kind of thing. If we are dealing with totally abstract, untestable models, we might end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And I'm not sure we would have lost anything!

"Depends on what the meaning of 'IS' is."
Bill Clinton

So we'll see, I guess. This is a preliminary paper. But he admits the base and results are non-computational, so I'm not going to hold my breath or lose any sleep over it...

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

And I’m more concerned THAT it works! :)

I had a Professor (42+ years ago) who explained it thus: If is smells bad it's chemistry, if it's green and squishy it's biology, and if it doesn't work it's physics.

Regards,
GtG

[brytlea]

ROFL!!!

[SunkenCiv]

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[onedoug]

I like M-Theory better.

[FredZarguna]

Yeah, I had forgotten to mention that Palmer suggests the unspecified dynamical laws impose a manifold on the Invariant Set that is noncomputable. So, if you think Quantum Mechanics is an ontological thicket, the Invariant Set is a gauntlet of razor-wire.

If String Theorists hadn't spent the last thirty years laying the foundation for beautiful theories that can't produce any actual numbers (or even falsifiable predictions) this kind of idea probably wouldn't have been published... Oy.

[djf]

As you said earlier, there’s no “there” there!

Or, to sow my age and re-use a worn expression, “Where’s the beef???”

You can’t “prove” something by definition. If he were to walk up to us with a notebook and say “Here’s the set” are we simply supposed to take his word for it? What if someone else arrives with another notebook and says “That’s not the set! This is my set and it’s the real set!!”

What do we do, flip a coin?

Something very fundamental is missing here.