Concerning the Graviton and the Higgs' Boson

[Aetixintro]

I think it's clear at this stage that the Graviton and the Higgs' boson are blown out the window and are not to return to the world of physics ever again.

Why? Because they need to show that the photon is relevant to both of these concepts when it's hard in the first place to show the definite particle nature of the photon. Thus, photon necessarily must have both of these properties by which are hardly ever conceivable to prove, as separable particles apart from the photon itself!
[Edit:] It's clear however that the photon has "graviton" and "Higgs' boson" properties before we start out simply because "graviton" is to explain why particles are drawn to other objects, especially planets, and "Higgs' boson" is to explain why particles have mass whatsoever which all(?) have. It's therefore a kind of cheating to add "false particles" or "false names of properties" when they do not add explanatory force. The "mystery" of the (basic) particle of photon remains and also the mysteries with how mass and gravitation arise in the first place. Simply adding two names isn't very constructive in the general work of physics, I think (as mass and gravity are already in place).
I acknowledge that the Laboratory of Pasadena or somewhere has set a critical level for the finding of the boson, but I'm sceptical of how they get there and if their work is more than mere "string theory work". [End of edit.]

It's definite though, that the photon has both properties of mass and particle nature since it is affected by gravity (fx. from Mercury passing by the Sun). Yet the problem arises when you are to identify the graviton and the Higgs' boson, separately from the photon itself!

The URL to Fermilab and the Higgs' boson: http://www.fnal.gov/pub/presspass/press ... mages.html.

Cheers!

[Edit2:] I've forgotten to add Higgs' to the boson when it's in fact the Higgs' boson, also referred to as the God particle. [End of edit.]
[Edit3:] I've added the URL to Fermilab. [End of edit.]
[Edit4:] Added comment after "...prove,..." [End of edit.]

[Aetixintro]

The earth's gravity does not have north and south poles. The earth's magnetic field has them.

This is understood! And it is also my point that gravity of the Earth by its magnetic field can be redefined as either a combination of strong and weak interactions/forces or either of them. To say Earth's gravity or Earth's gravity field or the magnetic gravity field of the Earth is only a matter of convention. How nice to make the magnetism of the Earth stand out, i_blame_blame, other than that, you're not doing anything else than reiterating my point, that Graviton is virtually dead and that a possible solution can be found in the redefinition.

[Edit:] You can consider Earth's gravity vs. the Sun's gravity that has no clearly defined north and south pole, I think. The Sun's magnetic field of gravity is quite hazy! [End of edit.]

[Edit2:] Added the missing "interactions/forces". [End of edit.]

[Edit3:] The point for me is to bridge gravity of the Sun to the gravity of the Earth to magnetism in general, even the little magnets on the fridge. In doing so, I envision how easy it should be to come up with a number for the magnetic force that is required for bending the light, that this is really only a matter of public education. You know, even NASA spells it out that bending the light by electro-magnets is impossible because photons have no charge. This must obviously be WRONG!!! [End of edit.]

This post has originally also been added to another topic.

I must "warn" readers that I have been reading Lee Smolin's "The Trouble With Physics" (by Penguin Group, 2006) and Roger Penrose's "The Road to Reality" (by Vintage Books, 2004). I have also studied physics all the way through upper high school, 3 years, for the Norwegian equivalent of GCSE Science and I've looked carefully into Bayesian problems in philosophy (relating to the Raven's Paradox by Carl Hempel).

Cheers!

[Mike Strand]

Just wanted to say "thanks" , Aetixintro, for your references and links, given my interest in modern physics puzzles.

Today I started to read Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics", and I'm enjoying it a lot. I think it'll really help me better understand not only the mainstream scientific literature, but also distinguish the "crank" alternate theories from the serious scientific attempts to find improvements or replacements.

[Aetixintro]

Some more words on my "Opinions on Physics": My angle to solving or providing a better explanation of gravity can be considered Cascading Effects of Weak and Strong or either of them as purely magnetic force (thus constituting gravity) and holding off Electromagnetic force to itself (by the property of electrons and possibly others). Link: http://t-lea.net/Evolution.html This information hasn't been entered into the webpage (that really needs a TOC). Improvements on the webpage to come.

Cheers!

[converge]

Just wanted to say "thanks" , Aetixintro, for your references and links, given my interest in modern physics puzzles.

Today I started to read Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics", and I'm enjoying it a lot. I think it'll really help me better understand not only the mainstream scientific literature, but also distinguish the "crank" alternate theories from the serious scientific attempts to find improvements or replacements.

I can't tell if you've decided Smolin is a crank or that he's one of the serious scientific attempters. I would just say... be very careful of any book/website/article/etc where the author claims that all other scientists are part of a big conspiracy of brainwashing and that the author alone is the shining light of true science and the only one you can trust.

[Mike Strand]

Thanks for the cautionary advice, converge. Lee Smolin has excellent credentials, along with the folks he writes about who don't necessarily agree with him. So far the book appears balanced, but I'm only about 40% of the way through. I saw him give a lecture on Youtube summarizing the book and his thoughts about the current state of theoretical physics, and I had a favorable reaction.

One of Smolin's main concerns is that any new theory be testable -- that the theory not only explains what we have observed, but also makes predictions of new phenomena that can be checked through observation and experiment to corroborate or refute the theory. Well, this is a basic tenet of science and few would disagree with this. He apparently did a lot of work in string theory, and points out that a lot of good has come from that research. However, he also says the string theories developed so far do not appear to be testable, along with other difficulties. The impression I got is that he thinks there has been a lot of useful, new and clever mathematical work, but that the scientific aspect has been neglected (e.g. how to test the mathematics with observation).

[Aetixintro]

His workplace is indeed the Perimeter Institute, http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/index.php?lang=en! Cheers!

[converge]

I haven't read Smolin's book, but I do know that the vast majority of the scientific community considers most of his book an outright lie. I agree, of course, that theories need to be empirically verifiable in order to be considered true, but Smolin is wrong in saying that all of string theory is untestable. It didn't pop out of nowhere; it was based on physical evidence. There are a lot of holes to fill in still, but there are lots of people working on finding evidence. That's what string theorists do. If it was a pointless theory that some people just made up and decided it was impossible to verify, what would all those people be working on? What was Smolin doing in his research lab if he was convinced that it was going to be impossible for him to produce any evidence? He's being very misleading here; trying to meld some of the vagueness of quantum physics in with the general "conspiracy" idea that all scientists are just sitting around doing nothing and that all of their work is fake. Even if one knows nothing about how string theory works or even what it means, it should still seem suspicious to propose that there are thousands of people and millions of dollars invested in research projects around something that is allegedly impossible to research.

A lot of the recent experiments in high energy physics are about trying to find evidence for string theory. One of the components of string theory is called "supersymmetry", which basically says that in addition to matter and anti-matter, there are also two mirror versions of those (s-matter and s-anti-matter, with each particle having a silly name that starts with "s", like sproton and selectron.... oh scientists and your unpoetic words.. ). Anyway, the Large Hadron Collider has been running tests to try and detect the supersymmetric particles recently, and if they are found, this would add a lot of weight to string theory. If they're not found, it is a pretty solid nail in the coffin of string theory. I don't think they'd be spending their lives working on this machine if it was just a facade.

[Mike Strand]

Thanks, converge -- I appreciate your observation, and I can well believe the book reflects Smolin's preferences and that other physicists disagree with a lot of what he says. I don't believe he's deliberately lying, though, any more than are the string theorists. Theoretical physicists are human, after all, and when you spend years building a respected academic reputation doing hard math that seems to hold even a shred of hope, it's hard to hear dissenting opinions. Your comments encourage me to read books or articles by his "opponents" after I read his.

I do believe there is a tendency among theoretical physicists to be caught up in mathematics and neglect observation, measurement, and experiment -- a point that Smolin makes in the book, and which is a tendency of his, too, in my opinion. As Smolin points out, a theory can be beautiful or complex or impressive mathematically without being an adequate representation of reality. One example is Ptolemy's theory of rotating circles and circles within circles to explain the motion of celestial objects around the earth.

My own preference would be for a lot more creative experimentation and measurements to test the current theories -- this includes Einstein's relativity (both special and general) and the standard model for QM, as well as any of the current attempts to extend them, correct them, or unify them. Once any theory is established as explaining all "known" observations, that for me is a signal to start gathering new data to put it to the test. If the theory is a scientific theory, then by definition it can be tested with further observation and experiment. If a theory can't point the way to methods for testing it, that theory is immediately suspect -- not necessarily as being poor mathematics, but as not being science, which is supposed to explain what we can observe in the universe.

I believe the reason there is so much effort being put into new physical theories is that there have been observations that contradict the older theories (TR and QM), and Smolin points some of these out, as well as other sources independent of him. In the meantime, it's going to be interesting to see what comes out of the new Large Hadron Collider!

[converge]

Thanks, converge -- I appreciate your observation, and I can well believe the book reflects Smolin's preferences and that other physicists disagree with a lot of what he says. I don't believe he's deliberately lying, though, any more than are the string theorists. Theoretical physicists are human, after all, and when you spend years building a respected academic reputation doing hard math that seems to hold even a shred of hope, it's hard to hear dissenting opinions. Your comments encourage me to read books or articles by his "opponents" after I read his.

Honestly, that is not the mindset that most actual scientists have. If you read interviews with them, or talk to them, you'll see they often say things like "and if it turns out we're wrong, that's even more interesting!" People become scientists because they feel a drive to search for answers and discover new secrets. They don't do it because they want to believe one thing and hold onto it and refuse to listen despite any evidence against them. Those types of people become religious conservatives. The two mindsets are really very opposing. That's why so many scientists get angry at the conspiracy books that accuse them all of being the hyper-conservative "religious" types that they oppose at every turn. I think it's especially ridiculous that people think that about relativity and QM, since those things are sooo unintuitive and so uncomfortable that no one would just decide to take those things as truth without some serious questioning. The idea that "Nothing weird ever actually happens, and there's a magical energy that makes everything work" sounds far more like the comfortable, nice belief someone would want to hold onto against all evidence, rather than "the universe is fundamentally random and impossible to know about, composed of confusing equations that defy common sense".

I do believe there is a tendency among theoretical physicists to be caught up in mathematics and neglect observation, measurement, and experiment -- a point that Smolin makes in the book, and which is a tendency of his, too, in my opinion. As Smolin points out, a theory can be beautiful or complex or impressive mathematically without being an adequate representation of reality. One example is Ptolemy's theory of rotating circles and circles within circles to explain the motion of celestial objects around the earth.

To me, QM in general is not beautiful; it's kind of scary and depressing in some ways. I think "magical spiritual energy that permeates the universe" is far more beautiful. But it's just not true. QM was agreed to be true despite all the scientists trying to prove it wrong. No one picked it up because they thought it would be a beautiful thing. Einstein hated it, until he was forced to accept it due to overwhelming evidence.

My own preference would be for a lot more creative experimentation and measurements to test the current theories -- this includes Einstein's relativity (both special and general) and the standard model for QM, as well as any of the current attempts to extend them, correct them, or unify them. Once any theory is established as explaining all "known" observations, that for me is a signal to start gathering new data to put it to the test. If the theory is a scientific theory, then by definition it can be tested with further observation and experiment. If a theory can't point the way to methods for testing it, that theory is immediately suspect -- not necessarily as being poor mathematics, but as not being science, which is supposed to explain what we can observe in the universe.

I agree, but scientists have done that. The problem is it's not something you can do yourself with five dollars and some tools in your shed. Experiments in QM and relativity are beyond a common person's ability to perform; they require a lot of money, training, and the knowledge to understand what you're actually looking at and what it all means. Maybe you just need more patience When someone comes up with a new theory that's untested, especially in something as difficult as QM, it takes a while to get those results. They are working on it, it's just a little slower than some of us would like. But still, if you think about how slow scientific discovery went from 3000 BC to 1000 BC, it's pretty amazing to see how far it's gone from 1970 to 2010.

I believe the reason there is so much effort being put into new physical theories is that there have been observations that contradict the older theories (TR and QM), and Smolin points some of these out, as well as other sources independent of him. In the meantime, it's going to be interesting to see what comes out of the new Large Hadron Collider!

There really isn't "so much effort" put into disproving relativity or QM, because the evidence is overwhelming that they are true. Most of the people who fight against it are non-scientists, and ex-scientists trying to make some money selling conspiracy theory books. String Theory is still iffy, but the basics of relativity and QM have been proven without a doubt for quite a few years now. The only people refusing to believe it are the people who either don't understand it, or think that all the evidence gathered in the last forty years is all fake and part of a conspiracy.

[Cerveny]

There really isn't "so much effort" put into disproving relativity or QM, because the evidence is overwhelming that they are true. Most of the people who fight against it are non-scientists, and ex-scientists trying to make some money selling conspiracy theory books. String Theory is still iffy, but the basics of relativity and QM have been proven without a doubt for quite a few years now. The only people refusing to believe it are the people who either don't understand it, or think that all the evidence gathered in the last forty years is all fake and part of a conspiracy.

It is the misunderstanding to mix TR and QM. TR is full of suspicious think(g)s as singularities, empty space, determinism, antimatter unclearness, dark matter problem, obstruct metric, obstruct "expansion" of space... QM is a successful calculus only... There is no doubt the new physics is necessary (Penrose, Smolin, ...)

[Mike Strand]

Thanks again, converge, for your sober words of caution. I've had just enough training in math and physics to know that there is a lot I don't know, and I am still frustrated by the speed of light and the apparent weird behavior of sub-atomic particles. I guess this tends naturally to make me especially interested in people like Smolin, who have done excellent work in QM and relativity and string theory, and yet who still have doubts about established theories and who still work on alternate theories.

I've read most of Smolin's book "The Trouble with Physics", and if you haven't, I recommend it, whatever you doubts. One of the great points he makes is that, part of the reason for the success of science in general, and of physics in particular, are the people in the past who had seemingly "kooky" (for their times) ideas, outside of established practice. These alternate, apparently eccentric theories suggest measurements and experiments that were not suggested by existing mainstream theories, which may result in a "revolution", similar to the heliocentric view of the solar system.

Smolin believes that such "mavericks" are not sufficiently supported by the current climate of scientific employment and funding practices. I don't know if that is true. Besides, if they were more strongly supported, they might feel too beholden to their supporters and lose their eccentric edge! So I don't know where Smolin wants to go with his argument.

In my view, undergraduate education could be improved to introduce students more to the history of modern physics and some of the issues. The society will support mavericks, insofar as there are other ways of supporting oneself than teaching math or getting a professorship (Julian Barbour is a good example). In many of not most cases, this will leave the committed and capable mavericks time to develop and test their theories!

My own word of caution: We can't assume that existing theories, even though they've proved to be useful in doing science and developing new technology, are the final word. Also, we can't assume that scientists, whether they be mainstreamers or mavericks, are above human frailty. Isaac Newton apparently spent more time on alchemy than on his revolutionary laws of motion. And speaking of "Laws of Nature": The history of science demonstrates that even theories that have been around for centuries got improved, and in some cases were overturned dramatically. In our lifetime we may never see anything take the place of the standard model of QM, or of general relativity. That's not to say it'll never happen.

[converge]

I've read most of Smolin's book "The Trouble with Physics", and if you haven't, I recommend it, whatever you doubts. One of the great points he makes is that, part of the reason for the success of science in general, and of physics in particular, are the people in the past who had seemingly "kooky" (for their times) ideas, outside of established practice. These alternate, apparently eccentric theories suggest measurements and experiments that were not suggested by existing mainstream theories, which may result in a "revolution", similar to the heliocentric view of the solar system.

But string theory IS the "kooky" idea for its time, outside of established practice. How is "the whole universe is a bunch of strings vibrating in the eleventh dimension" NOT a crazy idea? I know Smolin's not talking about QM/TR in general, since he does believe in most of the proven science, but for most of the people proposing "alternatives" to proven QM and TR, like Aether, they are definitely not "kooky" ideas. Aether is basically a way of saying "No, there is nothing kooky or weird anywhere! All this weirdness I don't understand is a conspiracy! It can all be explained by a magical spiritual energy that flows throughout the universe and gives us warm fuzzy feelings!" That's not really outside of established practice. It was the norm throughout most of the world before the Enlightenment, and is still the norm for most people who don't understand QM or TR. Just saying "I refuse to believe any science that's kind of scary or weird" and "There's magic everywhere" is pretty much classic reactionary religious conservativism, no matter how much you dress it up with fancy words and conspiracy theories.

Again, I'm not saying Smolin is taking it that far, but the "everyone but me who does science is part of a conspiracy" thing is the same justification that all the supporters of aether and other nonsense use.

Smolin believes that such "mavericks" are not sufficiently supported by the current climate of scientific employment and funding practices. I don't know if that is true. Besides, if they were more strongly supported, they might feel too beholden to their supporters and lose their eccentric edge! So I don't know where Smolin wants to go with his argument.

When someone gets their work soundly thrashed by others, there's an innate human reaction to think of yourself as a "maverick" with the whole rest of the world just a bunch of sheep who don't understand you. I recall going through that phase in junior high school. Just because we empathize with that feeling of being an outcast that no one understands doesn't mean we should believe every random person who uses that as a justification for claiming something is scientifically true despite a complete lack of evidence.

In my view, undergraduate education could be improved to introduce students more to the history of modern physics and some of the issues. The society will support mavericks, insofar as there are other ways of supporting oneself than teaching math or getting a professorship (Julian Barbour is a good example). In many of not most cases, this will leave the committed and capable mavericks time to develop and test their theories!

I think part of the problem is that many undergrad science teachers don't really understand relativity or QM themselves. I went to a fancy private prep school for high school, and I remember my science teacher there couldn't answer my questions about relativity or QM in the brief overview we were given, and I realize now that a lot of what we were taught about particle physics and QM was actually completely wrong. If I was learning bad science at a fancy private school, then I'm pretty sure most public schools have it even worse.

My own word of caution: We can't assume that existing theories, even though they've proved to be useful in doing science and developing new technology, are the final word. Also, we can't assume that scientists, whether they be mainstreamers or mavericks, are above human frailty. Isaac Newton apparently spent more time on alchemy than on his revolutionary laws of motion. And speaking of "Laws of Nature": The history of science demonstrates that even theories that have been around for centuries got improved, and in some cases were overturned dramatically. In our lifetime we may never see anything take the place of the standard model of QM, or of general relativity. That's not to say it'll never happen.

OK, but there is a big difference between the thought that physics will progress and discover new things (which almost all physicists will agree with) and the thought that all the "weird" modern physics that we have are part of some massive conspiracy of lies, supported with zero evidence, and that the actual scientific thing to do would be to throw everything weird out the window and start over from the medieval ages with a belief in magical energy and ensure that everything is simple and intuitive. The second thought is the most common one, and it doesn't seem based in a belief in progress at all, rather it's a fear of the progress we've made and a reaction against the discomfort of not being able to understand the strange and confusing explanations of current science.

[Mike Strand]

Converge, point well taken on string theory being a "kooky" idea for its time. Smolin worked in string theory years back, and it's ironic but maybe not surprising that he views it now as somewhat "old-hat", while to many lay persons, as you point out, it still appears new and strange. And Smolin, it appears to me, in his book is careful to say that string theory should still be pursued, but that other approaches need more support and to be simultaneously explored, leading to more discussion and creative controversy.

I also can well believe there are conspiracy paranoiacs who think modern physical theories are a hoax. I'm also getting the impression that there is a tendency for even respectable physicists like Smolin to get categorized with them just for criticizing current well-funded research programs. I don't believe Smolin feels string theory is a hoax, but I do get the feeling he thinks there may be better approaches to refining and generalizing or maybe even revamping modern physical theories.

Also, I don't expect any new theories about the very small or very large to be any more "intuitive" or less strange than the current theories -- maybe more so. These theories, as you've pointed out before, deal with phenomena few of us ever experience directly in everyday life. If you've ever played baseball or billiards or built a model airplane or just driven a car, you develop intuition for Newtonian physics. It's harder to get the same "close up" experience with sub-atomic particles or of people going on an interstellar journey near the speed of light.