Important eye-watering news about string theory
America's finest news source reports a string theorist who has claimed he can 'explain everything', see http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41454:
BATAVIA, IL—Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory physicist Laird Karmann, a noted string theorist and accused philanderer, said Monday that he can "explain everything" if his wife Elizabeth will just give him a chance. "Surely, anyone can see that, mathematically, the universe is composed of Riemann surfaces, having positive-definite metrics, across which the attached 'loops' or free 'strings' have a (1+1) dynamic topology," Karmann said. "But string behaviors are Lorentzian, meaning that they—like me—need an intense ... Elizabeth refused to accept her husband's theory, suggesting that he study the transformational loop dynamics implicit in her hurled wedding ring.
Bryan comments sadly that the Scientific American pokes fun at another string theorist: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=278
1 Comments:
Copy of new post of mine placed to Dr Lubos Motl's blog on 21 Oct 05:
Hi Luboš,
Great news about extra dimensions being discovered in India! This makes a fool of me, I had given up on extra dimensions.
One thing I want to ask here is this. In general relativity, Feynman pointed out that the contraction term physically means a 1.5 mm compression of the earth's radius, without affecting the circumference (he doesn't give a derivation, but I've done that on my home page, available from my blog - my home page was a top hit for "mechanism gravity" on Google for months, but they suppressed it when I used the fact of its popularity as an argument for Wikipedia linking to it for its "gravity" page).
Anyway, in GR there is a radial contraction which Feynman's handwaving lectures - backed by my rigorous math, show is (1/3)MG/c^2 = 1.5 mm for earth's mass.
This means that the fourth dimension is really a mathematical convenience for the purpose of accounting for the variation of Pi which occurs when gravity (as spacetime fabric pressure) compresses the radial distance around mass while leaving the transverse distance (circumference) unchanged.
Pi = circumference/diameter.
The 1.5 mm shrinkage of earth's radius this increases Pi beyond its normal value of 3.14159265...
This property of the spacetime fabric scares the hell out of me.
Pi is a mathematical constant, but general relativity can increase it!
Is the universe really mathematical? is God a pure mathematician? Is the fourth dimension a reality or just a mathematical convenience? I think the role of the 4th dimension is to preserve the value of Pi at the pure mathematical value, not allowing an increase due to radial compression. However, the radial compression is equivalent by Einstein's equivalence principle to the Lorentz compression, indicating the reality of a Higgs field which causes compression in the direction of motion of moving objects.
Do you have any comments?
I think the traditional teaching of GR is wrong, and is like saying that latitude "curves" space to cause the Coriolis force. This is what you would have to do if you denied the earth's absolute rotation. But because the rotation of the earth is real, there is a mechanism for the Coriolis force, which causes the spin of tornadoes and hurricanes.
The math of GR is OK, but needs a physical mechanism to understand it, see my site. This directly affects the understanding of the 4th dimension, which is the only additional dimension widely accepted as being real. Therefore you should really look into it.
Best wishes,
Nigel
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