thing is, in comparison with ideas of universes inside electrons, and matter that doesn't exist because it does, and quorns and strapons and freeons and frusailsIt's not so ridiculous - just a question of picking your team's colours.
(
Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 12:30,
archived)
Not so.The various permutations of quantum weirdness are based on predictions that derive from observed phenomena. Moreover, they're testable in principle, and - increasingly - in practice. The important point is that they aren't plucked out of thin air, and are not self-supporting. They're a part of the best - most predictively reliable, most metaphysically parsimonious, most efficient - currently available synthesis of the way the world seems to work.
There's a world of difference between the two accounts.
(There's a world of difference between the two accounts.
Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 12:38,
archived)
If I may quote the sunday school teacher from The Simpsons;"Is a little blind-faith too much to ask for?"
I gave up arguing against blind faith years ago.
(I gave up arguing against blind faith years ago.
Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf,
Mon 24 May 2010, 12:44,
archived)
they're just different language being used to explain the unknown.one could equally credit oneself for predicting god's work.
The issue is that the two are two very different questions: science asks "How?", and religion asks "Why?"
(The issue is that the two are two very different questions: science asks "How?", and religion asks "Why?"
Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:01,
archived)
There's two things going on here, though.One is that they simply are not different language to explain the unknown: religious claims make no predictions, are not independently testable, and introduce not just new entities, but whole new kinds of being to the story.
As for the how/ why distinction - well, that might be true. But, to that extent, religion and science are simply incommensurable; moreover, there's no reason to suppose that there's a "why" anyway - it's probably a non-question.
(As for the how/ why distinction - well, that might be true. But, to that extent, religion and science are simply incommensurable; moreover, there's no reason to suppose that there's a "why" anyway - it's probably a non-question.
Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:05,
archived)
So we've got down to it being a matter of proabability, and one of intellectual taste.Sounds like a belief system to me.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:11,
archived)
It's unclear what you mean by "belief system" here. Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:15,
archived)
You believe god doesn't exist (though it has not yet been disproved)Religiousists believe god does exist.
Fight.
I say that we can't say one way or another at the moment, because we don't know. This is not to say we can't know, but that we don't at the moment.
(Fight.
I say that we can't say one way or another at the moment, because we don't know. This is not to say we can't know, but that we don't at the moment.
Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:20,
archived)
So which of all the made up religions in the earth's history will be true when this scientific god is discovered?
Well, we need to do more experiements, first, so we can't really say. Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:27,
archived)
But what would possibly count as an experiment here?And, correlatively, what would count as a falsification of a believer's claim?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:31,
archived)
Precisely the intellectual cul-de-sac that anyone who claims to think "correctly" and to have "intellectual good taste" finds themself in. Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:33,
archived)
Huh?How does my questioning your claim mean that I'm in a cul-de-sac?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:46,
archived)
Because you don't know how to answer it. You're unable to confront it.Because you have made the claim to be right (ie science), you must then prove yourself to be.
I'm just claiming not to know, which I believe is all anyone can do over the matter of god, precisely because the concept itself is by definition unprovable.
(I'm just claiming not to know, which I believe is all anyone can do over the matter of god, precisely because the concept itself is by definition unprovable.
Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:49,
archived)
But that's just the pointI don't believe that god doesn't exist. I think that there's no evidence for his existence, and I don't think that there could be; but I have no positive claim on the matter either way.
I'm sympathetic to Jonathan Miller here: he refuses to call himself an atheist for the same reason that he refuses to call himself an a-unicornist - for him, there's just nothing worth saying in the label, because the god-hypothesis is so obviously without foundation that there's no real point wasting energy fighting it.
There seems to be a lot of wisdom in that attitude.
(I'm sympathetic to Jonathan Miller here: he refuses to call himself an atheist for the same reason that he refuses to call himself an a-unicornist - for him, there's just nothing worth saying in the label, because the god-hypothesis is so obviously without foundation that there's no real point wasting energy fighting it.
There seems to be a lot of wisdom in that attitude.
Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:27,
archived)
But ... but ... but in your profile musings on the subject of god, you claim that the atheists are right, and that agnostics need to grow up and are intellectually barren!Now I don't know where you stand on the matter!
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:31,
archived)
Ha!Well, you might have me on that...
Hmmmm...
I think that the atheists are right to the extent that they don't invoke - and are resistant to invoking - the supernatural. That seems like obviously the correct strategy.
And - oh, all right then: whether or not I would class myself as an atheist or reject even that label is something about which I'm not wholly decided. In most situations, the two descriptions amount to the same, though...
(Hmmmm...
I think that the atheists are right to the extent that they don't invoke - and are resistant to invoking - the supernatural. That seems like obviously the correct strategy.
And - oh, all right then: whether or not I would class myself as an atheist or reject even that label is something about which I'm not wholly decided. In most situations, the two descriptions amount to the same, though...
Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:43,
archived)
Goedel's Theorem:nature can't be a complete and consistent system.
(
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 24 May 2010, 14:27,
archived)
Interesting how you used the idea of scientific theories to rationalise religion.But now state how different they are when being called up on it. What was the original point again?
(,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:10,
archived)
That the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.While I accept that the scientific method requires an atheistic approach, atheism is not an answer in itself.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:12,
archived)
That phrase is plain stupid. It reminds me of something the Sphinx would say in Mystery Men.It has no weight to it. I'd love someone to use that in court and for it to be taken seriously. Maybe we could lock up more innocent people that way.
(,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:19,
archived)
Good riposte. I stand down. Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:21,
archived)
Actually... it's a tenet often used in courtThank goodness.
The commonest way I can think it comes up is, for example, "The fact that we didn't find semen on her pants doesn't mean the rape never happened, it just means there's no semen on her pants".
You would then discuss other possible/likely explanations based on your experience and expertise. And unless you're a numpty, you would include "the rape never happened" as one of the possible explanations.
(The commonest way I can think it comes up is, for example, "The fact that we didn't find semen on her pants doesn't mean the rape never happened, it just means there's no semen on her pants".
You would then discuss other possible/likely explanations based on your experience and expertise. And unless you're a numpty, you would include "the rape never happened" as one of the possible explanations.
Mockingbird Practitioner of SCIENCE,
Mon 24 May 2010, 16:41,
archived)
The scientific method neither requires an atheistic approach nor a religious approachIt requires the ability to make an observation of a system -- of whatever form, be it mathematical or of nature around us or of an experiment -- formulate an explanation and then, and this is the most important part, make predictions for the behaviour in other situations.
That's it. That's the whole lot. You can do that while believing in lares and penates, you can do that while believing in Allah and you can do that while believing we all live in the belly of Gharak the Great White Wale if you like, just so long as that's what you do and you don't cloud it with your personal beliefs.
If you view that as an "atheistic approach" then fair enough -- but religion doesn't actually enter into it. It's in the *interpretation* that it comes in, but already the interpretation of some theory is veering into philosophy. At its heart, the "scientific method" and "science" are literally just ways of building algorithms. We make an observation, we make a model, then we put in different initial data and predict what will come out, then we compare that prediction with reality. That's science. Everything else is philosophy.
Edit: Of course, this is all just my belief.
(That's it. That's the whole lot. You can do that while believing in lares and penates, you can do that while believing in Allah and you can do that while believing we all live in the belly of Gharak the Great White Wale if you like, just so long as that's what you do and you don't cloud it with your personal beliefs.
If you view that as an "atheistic approach" then fair enough -- but religion doesn't actually enter into it. It's in the *interpretation* that it comes in, but already the interpretation of some theory is veering into philosophy. At its heart, the "scientific method" and "science" are literally just ways of building algorithms. We make an observation, we make a model, then we put in different initial data and predict what will come out, then we compare that prediction with reality. That's science. Everything else is philosophy.
Edit: Of course, this is all just my belief.
boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 14:03,
archived)
Indeed.Hence my point about science and religion being two different questions.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 14:20,
archived)
I totally agreeBut everyone else was saying stuff so I wanted a part of it :) (Also it's an old hobby horse of mine.)
( boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 14:22,
archived)
I'm not convinced of these "ideas of universes inside electrons" to which you referCould you direct me to whichever crackpot referred to them, for I wish to shake their hand.
( boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:52,
archived)
I'd heard it before in various media, but of late I can tell you from the top of my head that Bill Bryson's Brief History Of Nearly Everything refers to it. Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 14:28,
archived)
Hmmmmm.I still need to read that book -- but I'd also say that no-one I know of in the field would actually take anything like that seriously for a variety of tedious reasons, the most important of which would boil down to
* There is no evidence for particles smaller than quarks and electrons, which in present theories are fundamental point particles (or strings if you believe string theory, which personally I don't)
* The forces are totally out of whack for a universe. Gravity is extraordinarily weak. At the level of an atom and below the electromagnetic, weak nuclear and then strong nuclear forces all come into play and they're all staggeringly strong compared to gravity. Without gravity there's no chance of anything resembling a universe even if there *are* extra fundamental particles. Gravity only comes of roughly equivalent strength at absurdly high energies (way, way higher than anything we will ever produce on Earth, higher than are reached in the sun and higher even in supernovae -- by a very long way), after which you still wouldn't get anything like a universe because then all the four forces *should* be unified. But may not be.
Maybe we're all wrong... but I wouldn't treat suggestions of universes inside atoms particularly seriously.
/loss of sense of humour through nerdish interest blog :)
(* There is no evidence for particles smaller than quarks and electrons, which in present theories are fundamental point particles (or strings if you believe string theory, which personally I don't)
* The forces are totally out of whack for a universe. Gravity is extraordinarily weak. At the level of an atom and below the electromagnetic, weak nuclear and then strong nuclear forces all come into play and they're all staggeringly strong compared to gravity. Without gravity there's no chance of anything resembling a universe even if there *are* extra fundamental particles. Gravity only comes of roughly equivalent strength at absurdly high energies (way, way higher than anything we will ever produce on Earth, higher than are reached in the sun and higher even in supernovae -- by a very long way), after which you still wouldn't get anything like a universe because then all the four forces *should* be unified. But may not be.
Maybe we're all wrong... but I wouldn't treat suggestions of universes inside atoms particularly seriously.
/loss of sense of humour through nerdish interest blog :)
boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 14:33,
archived)
This is partly my point. Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 14:51,
archived)
:)I'm not to be taken too seriously today, I'm in too good a mood.
( boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 15:48,
archived)
why aren't point particles black holes?
(
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 24 May 2010, 15:32,
archived)
GR probably doesn't operate on those scalesso we can't immediately take any predictions of GR, including black holes. The concept as defined from actual photons may not even make any sense on those scales, so we'd have to take a firmer definition based on the causal structure surrounding the point particle. But the causal structure is based on the null geodesics around the point particle... and that very concept makes assumptions about the continuous, differentiable nature of spacetime. And that notion almost certainly contradicts a quantum theory of gravity. So the concept of a "black hole" might not even be valid.
Basically without a QM theory of gravity we've no idea what happens to point particles. If you believe string theory there *are* no point particles and everyone's happy. If you don't believe string theory then maybe you believe loop quantum gravity, where no-one's got a serious clue how to add in particles but they won't be points anyway because spacetime is intrinsically granular. If you believe neither... take your pick.
In any event, we need a quantum theory of gravity to answer that. Maybe the answer is even "they are", but that would immediately raise the question "So why don't they obliterate themselves in an instant dose of Hawking radiation?", the answer possibly being "Because we find that Hawking radiation is also quantised and the point particles are in a ground state". Maybe all of that is bullshit. That's the beauty of fundamental physics -- we still don't know so there's loads to learn :)
(Basically without a QM theory of gravity we've no idea what happens to point particles. If you believe string theory there *are* no point particles and everyone's happy. If you don't believe string theory then maybe you believe loop quantum gravity, where no-one's got a serious clue how to add in particles but they won't be points anyway because spacetime is intrinsically granular. If you believe neither... take your pick.
In any event, we need a quantum theory of gravity to answer that. Maybe the answer is even "they are", but that would immediately raise the question "So why don't they obliterate themselves in an instant dose of Hawking radiation?", the answer possibly being "Because we find that Hawking radiation is also quantised and the point particles are in a ground state". Maybe all of that is bullshit. That's the beauty of fundamental physics -- we still don't know so there's loads to learn :)
boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 15:47,
archived)
We don't need a quantum theory of gravity to answer that,it's a cunning mental exercise but QM already answers it. There's no such thing as a point particle because the idea of the "size" of a wavefunction doesn't even make any sense. An electron doesn't have a position, it has a quantum state. Four-dimensional space-time is a convenient transform that suits us, but only Hilbert space is real. It's all the legacy of the enlightenment era materialists.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 24 May 2010, 15:59,
archived)
But the view of a "wavefunction" relies on a strong interpretation of QMand Schroedinger QM doesn't really apply here. For one thing it's non-relativistic (and so observationally wrong at high energies) and it's single quantised. QFT doesn't really rely on wavefunctions in the same way. In QFT (QED, say) it makes about as much sense to talk about a point particle as not talk about a point particle -- or that's my view of it, from my rusty memories of actually doing any QFT.
Anyway, regardless, I don't know of a theory that can actually make predictions (or many that don't, including string theory) that don't implicitly or explicitly employ a spacetime. Typically it's set as Minkowski (like in QED, QCD etc) or Minkowski + perturbations (like in string theory). Trying to extend the predictions of such theories -- regardless of whether you can employ a wavefunction interpretation or not -- to arbitrarily small scales or high energies is therefore going to grow problematic without a quantum theory of gravity.
(Also I'm philosophically ill-inclined to look at a Fock space and say "that's the reality". It's not, it's just a Fock space.)
(Anyway, regardless, I don't know of a theory that can actually make predictions (or many that don't, including string theory) that don't implicitly or explicitly employ a spacetime. Typically it's set as Minkowski (like in QED, QCD etc) or Minkowski + perturbations (like in string theory). Trying to extend the predictions of such theories -- regardless of whether you can employ a wavefunction interpretation or not -- to arbitrarily small scales or high energies is therefore going to grow problematic without a quantum theory of gravity.
(Also I'm philosophically ill-inclined to look at a Fock space and say "that's the reality". It's not, it's just a Fock space.)
boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 16:18,
archived)
We need a quantum theory of gravity for various reasons,but not for explaining why electrons aren't black holes! That's just a funny idea to introduce to the unwary.
I'm not just thinking of the Schrodinger wavefunction here, although it suffices for the explanation. The relativistic Dirac equation has a wavefunction - a Spinor wavefunction. Maxwell's Equations have a wavefunction in the form of the vector potential. "Particles", if it makes sense to call them that (but it's the nomenclature we're stuck with), can only be described as excitations of the field; as such they are dimensionless, but in no sense is it meaningful to say that they are points. That would be pointless.
Maybe I'm jumping the gun to say Hilbert space is "real", but one thing is for certain, space-time isn't fundamental, it's a basis set transform.
(I'm not just thinking of the Schrodinger wavefunction here, although it suffices for the explanation. The relativistic Dirac equation has a wavefunction - a Spinor wavefunction. Maxwell's Equations have a wavefunction in the form of the vector potential. "Particles", if it makes sense to call them that (but it's the nomenclature we're stuck with), can only be described as excitations of the field; as such they are dimensionless, but in no sense is it meaningful to say that they are points. That would be pointless.
Maybe I'm jumping the gun to say Hilbert space is "real", but one thing is for certain, space-time isn't fundamental, it's a basis set transform.
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 24 May 2010, 16:27,
archived)
but... but...i still think that without a theory that includes both, say, electrons and gravity we can't actually comment on anything gravitational on such scales. anything else is extending a current theory severely past its range of applicability. "it's not, because a schroedinger wavefunction has no position!" isn't really an answer, that's basically saying "it's not, because in a theory that only applies on much larger scales and at much lower energies an electron can -- in a given interpretation -- be described as a wavefunction, therefore when we push the energy up by about 100 orders of magnitude and explicitly include gravity it will *still* be described as a wavefunction!".
can you see my objection to that...?
basically i may well say "OK, gravity is probably emergent" because i feel that actually it is (and in a way which isn't yet popular -- i actually think that a "fundamental" theory is more likely to be found by *removing* symmetries and working in a system in which all the symmetries emerge when excited. volovik's shown that this occurs in superfluid helium iia; perturb it and you get basically the entire standard model + massless spin 2 quasiparticles. the dynamics are totally wrong but the kinematics of the entirity of modern science are all there. there are other models too, some of which pick up the dynamics as well.) but i can equally say "what makes you so sure that electrons aren't emergent? what makes you think that the wavefunction isn't emergent?"
similarly i could point to, say, bohmian qm. the wavefunction here is identical to the schroedinger wavefunction but it's emergent (closely related to the classical action) and the theory is totally deterministic. aesthetically ugly, but still...
we simply have no idea what form a theory applicable at the kind of energies and on those kind of scales will take. sure, spacetime may be emergent in some sense, but so may wavefunctions, whatever they would be. so might all the various spaces on which our "particles" are defined, and all the symmetry groups between them.
(can you see my objection to that...?
basically i may well say "OK, gravity is probably emergent" because i feel that actually it is (and in a way which isn't yet popular -- i actually think that a "fundamental" theory is more likely to be found by *removing* symmetries and working in a system in which all the symmetries emerge when excited. volovik's shown that this occurs in superfluid helium iia; perturb it and you get basically the entire standard model + massless spin 2 quasiparticles. the dynamics are totally wrong but the kinematics of the entirity of modern science are all there. there are other models too, some of which pick up the dynamics as well.) but i can equally say "what makes you so sure that electrons aren't emergent? what makes you think that the wavefunction isn't emergent?"
similarly i could point to, say, bohmian qm. the wavefunction here is identical to the schroedinger wavefunction but it's emergent (closely related to the classical action) and the theory is totally deterministic. aesthetically ugly, but still...
we simply have no idea what form a theory applicable at the kind of energies and on those kind of scales will take. sure, spacetime may be emergent in some sense, but so may wavefunctions, whatever they would be. so might all the various spaces on which our "particles" are defined, and all the symmetry groups between them.
boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 16:47,
archived)
I see your objection but I think you are missing the point,because I think you are thinking about it in a very general sense. My point is simply that the question of why electrons aren't black holes simply doesn't come up unless you assume to begin with that electrons are point particles, and there is no reason to assume that, and every reason not to. It's merely the last vestiges of our intuitive grasp of how "matter" behaves at human scales.
I think everything is emergent, fermions are "twisting space" somehow, EM is just a special case of gravity. I can't prove nothin' but I'm absolutely convinced that our sense perceptions don't directly tell us what's really going on. There is a reason that the Universe appears to exist in four dimensional space-time, and I reckon the Gamma matrices have something to do with it.
(I think everything is emergent, fermions are "twisting space" somehow, EM is just a special case of gravity. I can't prove nothin' but I'm absolutely convinced that our sense perceptions don't directly tell us what's really going on. There is a reason that the Universe appears to exist in four dimensional space-time, and I reckon the Gamma matrices have something to do with it.
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 24 May 2010, 16:57,
archived)
I probably am missing the pointI'm really tired for some reason. And I've just found that the reason my codes have been crashing for the last few days (causing me to work over the weekend and today, which is a bank holiday here) is that I didn't compile the libraries up with the Intel fortran compiler but used gfortran instead. Fuck's sake.... But it works now :)
I think my point ultimately might be that the question of why electrons aren't black holes doesn't come up unless you have a sound theory to work with in the first place -- which would be in some respects a theory of quantum gravity. Put that way, we seem to be arguing about exactly the same point, in totally different ways.
(Likewise that everything is emergent. But I'm not convinced about EM being a special case of gravity, attempts to do that pretty much always produce a dilaton and I don't like dilatons. But I believe the two of them are subsets of something else. There's a fair bit of focus on 3-forms at the minute, and a theory built on 3-forms automatically includes what are basically Maxwell tensors along with what are basically Ricci tensors, unless I've got totally the wrong end of the stick which I probably have. Something like that might be the way to unite the two without bogging ourselves down in string theory...)
(I think my point ultimately might be that the question of why electrons aren't black holes doesn't come up unless you have a sound theory to work with in the first place -- which would be in some respects a theory of quantum gravity. Put that way, we seem to be arguing about exactly the same point, in totally different ways.
(Likewise that everything is emergent. But I'm not convinced about EM being a special case of gravity, attempts to do that pretty much always produce a dilaton and I don't like dilatons. But I believe the two of them are subsets of something else. There's a fair bit of focus on 3-forms at the minute, and a theory built on 3-forms automatically includes what are basically Maxwell tensors along with what are basically Ricci tensors, unless I've got totally the wrong end of the stick which I probably have. Something like that might be the way to unite the two without bogging ourselves down in string theory...)
boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 17:04,
archived)
I think that just comes down to nomenclature,I'd call the superset "gravity", still, gravity is rank-2 tensor so there's definitely scope for some quite complex behaviour, and going up to rank 3 intuitively would cause more problems than it solves.
There was some guy I read about a while ago who was working on a gauge theory based on the exceptional group G2, don't know if anything ever came of that.
(There was some guy I read about a while ago who was working on a gauge theory based on the exceptional group G2, don't know if anything ever came of that.
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 24 May 2010, 17:11,
archived)
beats meunless that was the surfer dude who used straight e8 to get everything out. last i heard no-one was actually convinced in the end.
i keep meaning to read through mcelrath's papers, he's currently convinced he's got out the standard model + neutrino masses + gravitons + a small cosmological constant + the correct dynamics from a cloud of interacting neutrinoes and anti-neutrinoes. but i don't even understand the setup since he preassumes the existence of neutrinoes and then finds what i can only assume are neutrino-like quasiparticles. but he's absolutely convinced and he knows a lot more particle theory than i do.
(i keep meaning to read through mcelrath's papers, he's currently convinced he's got out the standard model + neutrino masses + gravitons + a small cosmological constant + the correct dynamics from a cloud of interacting neutrinoes and anti-neutrinoes. but i don't even understand the setup since he preassumes the existence of neutrinoes and then finds what i can only assume are neutrino-like quasiparticles. but he's absolutely convinced and he knows a lot more particle theory than i do.
boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 17:15,
archived)
Yeah that guy,Garrett Lisi, I think he still has a small minority following. I don't like superstring theory much though so I hope someone comes up with something better that works.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 24 May 2010, 17:32,
archived)
i'm hoping bob mcelrath's rightor at least along the right lines. but then i did do my masters in analogue gravity so i'm not quite unbiased on this... :)
i don't like string theory much either. it probably shows. but i'm not really sold on loop quantum either. i prefer their *intentions* -- they just want to quantise gravity, they're not shooting for the top right from the start -- but the theory itself is somehow unpersuasive.
(i don't like string theory much either. it probably shows. but i'm not really sold on loop quantum either. i prefer their *intentions* -- they just want to quantise gravity, they're not shooting for the top right from the start -- but the theory itself is somehow unpersuasive.
boris the spider,
Mon 24 May 2010, 17:37,
archived)