Post by Linty McGinty on Feb 12, 2007 3:43:40 GMT -5
way to go passenger!
(i didn't read any of the website, but i'll throw in my 0.2 pesos:)
hawking is obviously brilliant but i think GUT is quite a bit too ambitious. not that my opinion counts for much but keep in mind that over a decade ago, hawking thought that he/science was on the verge of creating a GUT.
basically it's an attempt to create a perfect theoretical model of reality. that doesn't mean full understanding, it means that the model and reality appear to agree completely. what the model predicts will actually happen... but consider for a moment that string theory, or m-theory, consists of five models. thats right, FIVE. or something. they are variously useful in various different situations. somehow this is okay by theoretical physicists, to choose whichever model gives the most useful results, but to a theoretical HORTICULTURIST like me it means that reality is still beyond our imagination much less prediction by our models.
einstein opposed quantum theory for a very long and miserable portion of his life. to him, god did not play dice, and it would be possible for science to observe all of the facts and then predict the future. we are unable to observe half the facts without destroying the other half. then there is the small matter of other blankets. just say we can somehow model, measure and predict the sum of everything on this blanket.. it probably won't amount to 1% of everything, much less being able to measure half of the facts. not only can we not observe all of the facts, but the facts now consist of probabilities.. not the hard facts that einstein thought in terms of. an electron is an electron? hell no! it's a cloud of possible electrons. or one of five strings, but all five can't be right if they're not completely right.
where is all of the "dark" matter?
and how can we pluck secrets from time when we exist in a moment-thin layer of it? that alone is almost as far fetched as presently peeking beyond this universe-thin layer of space and time into the next universe-thin layer of space and time.
"Basically, I think, with big stuff, gravity is boss, and electromagnetism is almost unmeasurable it effects things so little. But with little stuff, gravity has little effect and it's all electromagnetism. "
that's a good summation but maybe it's just proof that relativity and quantum physics are not correct after all. they are only proven at our current level of observing.
i know this is pure cynicism and offers nothing.. science is great! it's worth keeping an eye on. science makes bold claims though, and like anybodies bold claims they have to be taken for what they are - claims.
i'm biased, by the way. i can offer one theory. for a long time we have advanced science by reduction - reducing things to smaller and smaller components, until perhaps we find the smallest, indivisible component. i think it's illusion. there is no smallest component. there is no component at all.
(i didn't read any of the website, but i'll throw in my 0.2 pesos:)
hawking is obviously brilliant but i think GUT is quite a bit too ambitious. not that my opinion counts for much but keep in mind that over a decade ago, hawking thought that he/science was on the verge of creating a GUT.
basically it's an attempt to create a perfect theoretical model of reality. that doesn't mean full understanding, it means that the model and reality appear to agree completely. what the model predicts will actually happen... but consider for a moment that string theory, or m-theory, consists of five models. thats right, FIVE. or something. they are variously useful in various different situations. somehow this is okay by theoretical physicists, to choose whichever model gives the most useful results, but to a theoretical HORTICULTURIST like me it means that reality is still beyond our imagination much less prediction by our models.
einstein opposed quantum theory for a very long and miserable portion of his life. to him, god did not play dice, and it would be possible for science to observe all of the facts and then predict the future. we are unable to observe half the facts without destroying the other half. then there is the small matter of other blankets. just say we can somehow model, measure and predict the sum of everything on this blanket.. it probably won't amount to 1% of everything, much less being able to measure half of the facts. not only can we not observe all of the facts, but the facts now consist of probabilities.. not the hard facts that einstein thought in terms of. an electron is an electron? hell no! it's a cloud of possible electrons. or one of five strings, but all five can't be right if they're not completely right.
where is all of the "dark" matter?
and how can we pluck secrets from time when we exist in a moment-thin layer of it? that alone is almost as far fetched as presently peeking beyond this universe-thin layer of space and time into the next universe-thin layer of space and time.
"Basically, I think, with big stuff, gravity is boss, and electromagnetism is almost unmeasurable it effects things so little. But with little stuff, gravity has little effect and it's all electromagnetism. "
that's a good summation but maybe it's just proof that relativity and quantum physics are not correct after all. they are only proven at our current level of observing.
i know this is pure cynicism and offers nothing.. science is great! it's worth keeping an eye on. science makes bold claims though, and like anybodies bold claims they have to be taken for what they are - claims.
i'm biased, by the way. i can offer one theory. for a long time we have advanced science by reduction - reducing things to smaller and smaller components, until perhaps we find the smallest, indivisible component. i think it's illusion. there is no smallest component. there is no component at all.