Quantum gravity physics based on facts, giving checkable predictions: March 2006

Sunday, March 26, 2006

George Louis LeSage, 'Newtonian Lucretius', New Memoirs of the Royal Academy, 1782 (Berlin: Decker, 1784), pp. 404-32.

'When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.' - Jonathan Swift

'Henceforth, let no man care to learn, or care to be more than worldly-wise; for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and slothful, to be a common steadfast dunce, will be the only pleasant life ...' - John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644.

Milton was responding to a British Parliament enacted law, the Licensing Order of June 16th, 1643, designed to protect knowledge from new innovations, 'to regulate printing: that no book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed, unless the same be first approved and licensed by such [a Committee of Censors], or at least one of such, as shall be thereto appointed.'

Picture credit: http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath131/kmath131.htm


If you don't have an equal and opposite reaction in a pressure wave, it isn't a sound wave.

The force you get against your eardrum isn't just a push, but a push followed by equal pull.

This mechanism explains the gauge boson inward push in the big bang, predicting gravity.

The outward force in any explosion always has an equal and opposite reaction (Newton's 3rd empirical law). If you just push air, the energy disperses without propagating as a 340 m/s oscillatory sound wave. Air must be oscillated to create sound. It delivers an oscillatory force, outward and then inward. Merely using wave equations does not explain the physical process, even where the maths happens to give a good fit to data. Sound waves are particulate molecules deep down, carrying an oscillatory force.

This makes various predictions and contains no speculation whatsoever, it is a fact based mechanism, employing Feynman's mechanism as exhibited in the Feynman diagrams - virtual photon exchange causing forces in QFT. He noted that path integrals has a deeper underlying simplicity:

"It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities." - Richard P. Feynman, Character of Physical Law, Penguin, 1992, pp 57-8.

(In the same book he discusses the problems with the LeSage gravity mechanism as per 1964.)


The Force of sound: The sound wave is longitudinal and has pressure variations. Half a cycle is compression (overpressure) and the other half cycle of a sound wave is underpressure (below ambient pressure). When a spherical sound wave goes outward, it exerts outward pressure which pushes on you eardrum to make the noises you hear. Therefore the sound wave has outward force F = PA where P is the sound wave pressure and A is the area it acts on. When you read Raleigh’s textbook on ‘sound physics’ (or whatever dubious title it has), you see the fool fits a wave equation from transverse water waves to longitudinal waves, without noting that he is creating particle-wave duality by using a wave equation to describe the gross behaviour of air molecules (particles). Classical physics thus has even more wrong with it becauss of mathematical fudges than modern physics, but the point I’m making here is that sound has an outward force and an equal and opposite inward force following this. It is this oscillation which allows the sound wave to propagate instead of just dispersing like air blown out of your mouth.

Note the outward force and equal and opposite inward force. This is Newton’s 3rd law. The same happens in explosions, except the outward force is then a short tall spike (due to air piling up against the discontinuity and going supersonic), while the inward force is a longer but lower pressure. A nuclear implosion bomb relies upon Newton’s 3rd law for TNT surrounding a plutonium core to compress the plutonium. The same effect in the Higgs field surrounding outward going quarks produces an inward force which gives gravity, including the compression of the earth's radius (1/3)MG/c^2 = 1.5 mm (the contraction term effect in general relativity).

Why not fit a wave equation to the group behaviour of particles (molecules in air) and talk sound wave equations? This is far easier than dealing with the physical, dynamical fact that the sound wave has an outward pressure phase followed by an equal under-pressure phase, giving an outward force and equal-and-opposite inward reaction which allows music to propagate: 'Nobody hears any music, so why should they worry about the physics? Certainly they can't hear any explosions where the outward force has an equal and opposite reaction, too, which in the case of the big bang tells us gravity.' Now for the fact '>99% of innovations are nonsense':

'While it's true that at least 99% of revolutionary announcements from the fringes of science are just as bogus as they seem, we cannot dismiss every one of them without any investigation. If we do, then we'll certainly take our place among the ranks of scoffers who dismissed (or even helped suppress) a large number of major scientific discoveries throughout history. Beware! Today many discoveries such as powered flight and drifting continents only appear sane and acceptable to us because we have such powerful hindsight. These same advancements were seen as obviously a bunch of disgusting lunatic garbage during the times they were first discovered. ... Sometimes the "obvious craziness" turns out to be a genuine cutting edge discovery. As with the little child questioning the emperor's clothing, sometimes the entire scientific community is misguided and incompetent, and only the lone voice of the "fringe" scientist is telling the truth. Below is a list of scientists who were reviled for their crackpottery, only to be proved correct (includes Ohm for his electric current law, Newlands for his pre-Mendeleev periodic table, Pasteur for the germ theory of disease, Wegner for continental drift, Zweig for quark theory, etc.) Normal science texts are dishonest to the extent that they hide the huge mistakes made by the scientific community, and the acts of intellectual suppression directed at the following researchers by colleagues.' - William Beaty

'Concepts which have proved useful for ordering things easily assume so great an authority over us, that we forget their terrestrial origin and accept them as unalterable facts. They then become labeled as 'conceptual necessities,' etc. The road of scientific progress is frequently blocked for long periods by such errors.' - Albert Einstein

I've been reading this master work of the Swiss Monseur LeSage (June 13, 1724- November 9, 1803). LeSage invented a 26-conductor electric telegraph system, and became a member of the Royal Society of London and of the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 1761. There is no English version, so I'm tackling the original fascimile scanned in version on the internet here. I haven't seriously attempted to read it before, and have relied on second-hand information.

In reading the original French, it is helpful to note that (as with all old books of the period) the letter ‘f’ is used in most words where now we use the letter ‘s’ instead. For example, LeSage used the word ‘rallentiffement’ which is today written ralentissement (deceleration), and he used Old French spellings such as ‘tems’ for temps (time), ‘loix’ for lois (laws), etc.

First thing you notice is that Monseur Pierre Prevost of the Academic Assembly communicated LeSage's paper to the journal, Nouveaux Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres. Prevost was the protege of LeSage and used the idea of radiation to propose that any steady temperature is not an absence of heat radiation (as was commonly believed) but in fact is an equilibrium between heating and cooling, between reception and emission of energy! In addition to reading LeSage's 1782 paper before the scientists of Paris and getting it published, Prevost also in 1818 published LeSage's Taite' de Physique Mechanique. The kinetic theory of gases in modern thermodynamics has grown from seeds accidently sown by LeSage's gravity mechanism. Prevost also wrote Notice de la Vie et des Ecritsde George-Louis Le Sage, Geneva: J. J. Paschoud, 1805, which contains some biographical details on LeSage.

LeSage begins his 1782 article with a quotation that gives the flavour well:

‘In any matter, the first systems make people excessively conclusive, closed, cautious of others. And does it not seem that this truth is the price of some hardening of reason?’ – Fontenelle, in the eulogy of Cassini.

You can see from this that LeSage has had problems with censorship on his gravity mechanism. Deja vu!

LeSage writes in long-winded sentences, often punctuated with several colons and semi-colons. Doubtless it was poetry in eighteenth century France, and the word 'Lucretius' in the title is not a reference to atoms only, so much as to the poetry of the Roman. Lucretius (c. 99-55 BC) was the Roman author of On the Nature of the Universe (De Rerum Natura), a poem on Epicurean science and outlook which ran to six books and attempted to explain the cause, nature, and future of the universe, based upon radical ideas like atoms and evolution!

After praising the law of universal gravitation, Lesage comments on pp 404-5: 'Law, the invention and the demonstrations of which make the greatest glory for the most powerful magic which has never existed: and Causes, which, after being made during long terms, are the ambition of the greatest Physicists; fact is present, to despair their successors.'

His attack on mathematical models as lacking physical, mechanical cause-and-effect explanatory substance, is severe. He takes as examples the empirical planetary rules of Kepler, which he says are founded 'partly on free conjectures, and partly after immense searches'. Fair enough, they are empirical relationships based on data, after all. LeSage later on [p416] says that he can get the Newtonian and Kepler laws from his gravity mechanism! On the same page, he also derives Galileo's approximation from his gravity mechanism: 'Blows of corpuscles [gravitons] fall on a body' causing continuous acceleration. (He falsely assumes that they travel 'faster than light'. In fact, they go at light speed.)

LeSage seems to base his arguments on logic. Applying an 'atomic gravity' or rather quantum qravity argument to the vacuum ether - that magnetism and gravity are due to a spacetime fabric of some kind - LeSage simply asks what happens when matter blocks these particles of the vacuum [p407]. Gravity is the answer he finds, by the geometry.

On page 412, LeSage writes that his assumption is that: '... the gravity atoms are not aimed solely towards the centers of large the bodies; but, they have no bias of direction, and go towards all the small parts of space; and effectively, towards these only which interccept their antagonists; namely, towards all the small parts of matter: they push the other bodies which they transverse on their passage; not, towards each wholesale star; but towards each one of its parts in detail.'

Hence, he sees that the mediator of gravity force, 'gravity atoms' or 'gravitons' in today's quantum gravity terminology, are stopped not by the visible surface of the earth, but by the atoms within the earth. For this to be so, he deduces that atoms are mainly void, an anticipation of what we know now in the nuclear age! LeSage saw atoms as hollow 'cages'.

On page 418, LeSage considers the objection to the theory that if gravity were a pushing force, it could be stopped by holding a sheet of paper over your head. LeSage sarcastically points out that you similarly could say that the earth's atmosphere would screen out the gravity radiation push! LeSage explains that although rain is stopped easily, the gravity causing radiation is extremely penetrating and can transverse the whole planet. So an umbrella does not stop gravity causing radiation! The gravitons are far, far more penetrating than gamma rays or x-rays (both unknown in LeSage's time).

LeSage could have merely pointed out that if you are going to assume that a piece of paper or the roof of a house 'must' stop a gravity radiation push, then the same argument would also rule out the idea of a pull gravity mechanism, because a man standing on a piece of paper or on the roof of a house would - in this pathetically ignorant sneering 'objection' - be shielded from the earth's gravity pull by the roof. Hence the argument is self-contradictory, since we know that gravity acceleration (1) does exist and (2) is determined not by our own mass (if small compared to the mass of the earth), but is determined by the mass of the earth.

Hence, some information on the earth's mass determines the 9.8 ms^-2 gravity acceleration. If gravitation was an elastic pulling effect, like Hooke's law, gravity would get stronger as you went further away from a mass, but would be weakest when you were closest to a mass (slack elastic). There is no workable mechanism for an elastic or pulling-type gravity.

On the other hand, since quantum field theory already tells us that the vacuum is full of exchange-radiation which causes the fundamental forces, and that even light velocity radiation exerts pressure, we can see that pushing-type forces due to shielding occur naturally.

LeSage, from the required great penetrating power (i.e., the weak shielding effect of matter), deduces that gravitational radiation is extremely abundant in order to still cause the observed force of gravity despite such weak interactions. The gravitons must be penetrating enough to be capable of going straight through the mass of the earth with only a slight attenuation, and yet must be abundant enough to cause things to fall at the earth's surface at the observed acceleration by the slightly unequal exposure on the upward-facing and downward-facing sides.
The only way to do this is to have an immense number of forceful gravitons, so that even a very slight asymmetry introduced by the earth's creates a large net pressure on the atoms of an apple (or any other object) near the earth's surface. On page 422 LeSage raises another difficulty with his theory, namely that the gravity causing radiation would cause spinning objects to slow down by carrying away rotational energy in collisions. However, this objection is entirely bogus. Fundamental particles as described by the Standard Model, have mass, spin, etc., but they don't have any mass.

Mass is entirely due to an external (vacuum) quantum field (Higgs particles). Therefore, when gravity causing radiation collides with the particles in a moving body to cause gravity (and inertia, by the equivalence principle) it is an indirect reaction. First gravity couples to the Higg's field particles around the charged particles, and then the gravity effect is communicated to the fundamental particle core. In this two-stage mechanism there is no net rotational energy loss, because everything remains in equilibrium.

On page 425, LeSage ridicules those who scoff at this gravity mechanism:

'How can a confused repugnance, suffices to condemn a theory, which affronts nothing of taste nor of feeling! And always like the devout one, to humbly follows the beaten roads; and does the same in researches, and like all those which acted the strong one, did not obtain any successes!'

But then on pages 426 and 427, LeSage in parenthesis in his conclusion admits candidly that it is initially discerning, an 'alarming complication', to picture the vacuum so chaotic, full of gravity causing radiation:

'[page 426 ] Undoubtedly, the majority of the undecided people, not having any clear sight of this [vacuum radiation exchange] chaos (of which I acknowledge that the first blow-with eye is of an alarming complication) will … [page 427] pretend detriments in advance, any conceivable explanation of revolutions: or that they will have had the sensible one, decided by the authority of certain great names, that pronounces, either on this impossibility, or on the non-utility of these results: or that they will not have had enough love of facts of nature, nor enough courage ... in order to accommodate it and deliver fully research into all it has to offer and ensure; that there will not be known to be a presentation of the solidity and the security of this beautiful system, rather distinctly, to be filled with enthusiasm at some point, because of people's faith in their other sights and projects.'

The last sentence is the conclusion of LeSage's paper (pages 428-32 are just an appendix speculating on the mechanical details of the 'fluid gravity' pushing-shield mechanism). Did LeSage succumb because his attacks on Newtonian orthodoxy were too obscure, or because his writing style was too long-winded and poetic? Or was his problem not having a mathematical model for the mechanism which correctly predicts everything (particle masses and forces)? Or, as he suggested, was it suppressed by bigotry and inertia of the masses of fashion-followers?

The paper was peer-reviewed and approved by Prevost, who initiated thermodynamics in 1792. (‘Caloric’, fluid heat theory, eventually gave way to two separate mechanisms, kinetic theory and radiation. This was after Prevost in 1792 suggested constant temperature is a dynamic system, with emission in equilibrium with the reception of energy.)

LeSage formulated the idea that some inward pressure causes gravity by virtual of shielding properties of matter. He was well aware of the difficulty that gravitation depends on the mass, not the macroscopic (apparent) surface area of the planet. He consequently predicts in 1782 that atoms are not hard impenetrable solids of the kind Newton thought, but are instead almost entirely void. This prediction was confirmed by X-rays, radioactivity, and the nuclear atom of Rutherford in the period of 1896-1912. A brilliant prediction, made without mathematics. However, LeSage implied various other predictions, too. First, whatever pressure was causing gravity would also tend to compress planets radially, and would also compress the length of a moving body. We know from general relativity that the gravitational contraction is indeed real, for example the earth’s radius is contracted by about (1/3)MG/c^2 or 1.5 mm.

We also know that the Michelson-Morley experiment was explained by George FitzGerald in a letter to Science in 1889 as being due, not to the non-existence of ether, but to the compression of length of the measuring instrument in the direction of absolute motion, caused by the pressure of the gravity-causing ether. It is obvious that this stuff is suppressed because it is not highly mathematical. LeSage snubs Newton’s mathematical physics, never mind Einstein’s special relativity (although it is perfectly consistent with the proved facts of Einstein-Hilbert general relativity). When Einstein and Hilbert were formulating general relativity in November 1915, LeSage’s gravity mechanism was still ignored on the basis that it (1) failed to make any quantitative predictions, and (2) conflicted with a number of observations. The claims that it conflicts with observations are all, however, based on ridiculously false assumptions which contradict those now accepted in the context of normal radiation-exchange (mainstream) quantum field theory, 1929-49.

For example, one popular ‘disproof’ of LeSage, hyped up by the 'gear cog aether' crazed James Clerk Maxwell and the 3-postulate (anti-special relativity) nutter (according to Einstein's friend and biographer Abraham Pais) Henri Poincare, was that the amount of radiation exchange needed to account merely for LeSage gravity (never mind stronger forces like electromagnetism) would be ‘sufficient to vaporise the earth’. This is bogus because electromagnetism, a quantum field theory radiation-exchange force, holds all the atoms of the earth together without the earth vaporising, and electromagnetism is about 10^40 times stronger than gravity! However, Poincare's extension of Maxwell's bigotry killed LeSage's mechanism:

'Poincare seems to have put an end to at least public discussion of the theory in his writings on the history and philosophy of science in the first decade of the twentieth century.'

'Poincare even saw fit to investigate the incompatibility of Le Sage's theory with the Special Theory of Relativity.'

Poincare conveniently died years before general relativity in 1915 brought back the spacetime fabric! The gravitational radiation doesn't act directly in charges, but only via massive vacuum Higgs field particles, which smooth out the impacts of radiation from different directions. So there is no heat gain from gravitational radiation (although the jiggling causes the chaotic electron orbitals and to trigger the random emission of radioactivity in nuclear reactions).

Unfortunately, LeSage was far before his time. Other bogus ‘problems’ used to ‘dismiss’ the LeSage gravity mechanism included the false claim that radiation does not create shadow zones but would diffuse into shadows, which would equalise pressures and prevent the geometric inverse-square law of gravity. This is false because the diffraction of radiation by matter is wavelength dependent, and it is not scattered by the vacuum. If transverse light waves were scattered by the quantum foam vacuum like longitudinal pressure waves diffusing in a fluid, we would not see clear images of stars at great distances.

The fact that we do see distinct and not a diffuse image suggests that light, and other forms of radiation, do not behave like fluid pressure waves. The pressure exerted by light and other radiation in the vacuum does not diffuse in all directions into shadow zones. Further, since quantum field theory does work quantitatively at least for the electromagnetic and nuclear forces, some kind of vacuum radiation pressure does cause fundamental forces with inverse-square law properties. Those who dispute this should be exposed as real crackpots, to bring back some discipline. (At the same time, the entire 10/11 dimensional ‘string theory’ fraternity and their colleagues in the next-door UFO/alien abduction investigation lab., should be honestly labelled cranks. This is a scientific necessity, to stop these motor-mouthed abusive charlatans preaching nonsense.)

Lord Kelvin: "[Simple modifications are] all that is necessary to complete Le Sage's theory of gravity in accordance with modern science.... This supposition is neither more nor less questionable than . . . for gases, which is now admitted to be one of the generally recognized truths of science" - William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), On the Ultramundane Corpuscles of Le Sage, The London Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Taylor and Francis, London, May 1873, Vol XLV; Fourth series, p. 331.

S. Tolver Preston: ". . . the theory of Le Sage can scarcely be regarded as mere hypothesis, but rather as an irresistible deduction which is forced upon us in the absence of any other conceivable inference. Certainly, if simplicity be a recommendation, the theory needs no recommendation on that ground." - S. T. Preston, On Some Dynamical Conditions Applicable to Le Sage's Theory of Gravitation, No. 1, The London Edinburgh and Dublin PhilosophicalMagazine and Journal of Science, Taylor and Francis, London, September 1877, Vol. IV, Fifth series, p. 213.

James Clerk Maxwell: "Here, then, seems to be a path leading towards an explanation of the law of gravitation, which, if it can be shown to be in other respects consistent with the facts, may turn out to be a royal road into the very arcana of science." - J. C. Maxwell, Atom, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Henry G. Allen, New York, 1890, Ninth Edition, Vol. 3, p. 46.

[Maxwell was allegedly being sarcastic or tongue in cheek. He had earlier stated in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, 'A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field' by Prof. J Clerk Maxwell FRS, October 1864: '….. if we look for the explanation of the force of gravitation in the action of a surrounding medium, the constitution of the medium must be such that, when far from the presence of gross matter, it has immense intrinsic energy, part of which is removed from it wherever we find the signs of gravitating force. ... This result does not encourage us to look in this direction for the explanation of the force of gravity.']

"It is of interest to examine some other "schools" of criticism, which today would be considered incorrect. J. Croll, writing in 1878, and C. C. Farr, a full twenty years later, chose to disregard the objection which Maxwell had pressed and to attack Le Sage's theory on the grounds that the basic premisethat mundane matter is mostly empty space is evidently false."

(Croll, J., Le Sage's Theory of Gravitation, The London Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Taylor and Francis, London, January, 1878, Vol. V, Fifth series, p. 45. Farr, C. C., On an Objection to Le Sage's Theory of Gravitation, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, Government Printing Office, Wellington, 1898, Vol. XXX, p. 118.)

It is ironic that in 1878 and 1898 Croll and Farr ignorantly ridiculed LeSage's prediction that the atom is mainly void, but that when LeSage was confirmed by radioactivity and X-rays in 1895-6, people like Poincare managed to continue ridiculing LeSage instead of praising his remarkably correct prediction. Rutherford in 1912 failed, conveniently (why should he sacrifice orthodoxy any more than necessary, and risk his career for 'mere science'?), to credit LeSage with predicting the almost totally void nature of the atom which Geiger and Marsden's results on the scattering of alpha particles by gold foil implied. So LeSage was falsely ridiculed for making experimentally confirmed predictions, but nobody even then praised the theory.

Everytime the 'critics' (bigots, really) were proved wrong in their criticism, and LeSage proved right, the abusive 'critics' (bigots) just crawled back into the woodwork, were put away again in their padded cells, or slunk back into their cages, without ever admitting they were wrong and LeSage was right. Instead, new ad hoc 'criticisms' would be invented, until they became so absurdly vacuous that the subject was merely ignored as a heresy or unfashionable.

There are 3 expanding spacetime dimensions in the big bang universe which describe the universe on a large scale, and 3 contractable dimensions of matter which we see on a small scale. General relativity has to somehow allow the universe's spacetime to expanding 3 dimensions around us (big bang) while also allowing gravitation to contract the 3 dimensions of spacetime in the earth, causing the earth's radius to shrink by 1.5 millimetres, and (because of spacetime) causing time on the Earth to slow down by 1.5 parts in 6,400,000,000 (i.e., 1.5 mm in theEarth's radius of 6,400 km). This is the contraction effect of general relativity, which contracts distances and slows time.

The errors of general relativity being force-fitted to the universe as a whole are obvious: the outward expansion of spacetime in the big bang causes the inward reaction on the spacetime fabric which causes the contraction as well as gravity and other forces. Hence, general relativity is a local-scale resultant of the big bang, not the cause or the controlling model of the big bang. The conventional paradigm confuses cause for effect; general relativity is an effect of the universe, not the cause of it. To me this is obvious, to others it is heresy. What is weird is that crackpots cling on to total nonsense which is debunked here: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm.

Another way to debunk anti-expansion stuff is to point out that the cosmic background radiation measured for example by the COBE satellite in 1992, is both (a) the most red-shifted radiation (it is red-shifted by a factor of 1000, from a temperature of 3000 K infra-red to 2.7 K microwaves), and (b) the most perfect blackbody (Planck) radiation spectrum ever observed. The only mechanism for a uniform red-shift by the same factor at all frequenciesis recession, for the known distribution of masses in the universe. The claims that the perfectly sharp and uniformly shifted light from distant stars has been magically scattered by clouds of dust without diffusing the spectrum or image is utterly vacuous, like claiming the moon-landings are a hoax. The real issue is that the recession speeds are observations which apply to fixed times past, as a certain fact, not to fixed distances. Hence the recession is a kind of acceleration (velocity/time) for the observable spacetime which we experience. This fact leads to outward force F=ma =10^43 N, and by Newton's 3rd law equal inward force which predicts gravity via an improved, Quantum Field Theory-consistent LeSage mechanism.

So I'm glad that the Wikipedia page on LeSage has been updated to include the quotes about LeSage from Feynman which I included on my internet page:

When Sir Isaac Newton published his Theory of Universal Gravitation, he noted that he could not propose a mechanism by which it worked. In 1784 Georges-Louis LeSage (1724-1803) of Geneva proposed a simple kinetic theory of gravitation. LeSage extended the speculations of Newton's friend and contemporary Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who first suggested a similar explanation for gravity in 1690.

The idea was not well received in LeSage’s time but subsequently resurfaced in the nineteenth century. It influenced John Herapath's thinking in developing the kinetic theory of gases and this kinetic theory was then used by Lord Kelvin to develop an updated version of LeSage’s theory. Kelvin’s work however was criticized by James Clerk Maxwell, for reasons discussed below. In the twentieth century, it was still studied by a few researchers, such as the Russian astrophysicist V. V. Radzievskii. Today the theory continues to be developed and is a continuing avenue of research and interest for a number of researchers who find themselves unsatisfied with current mainstream theory. However, it is not mainstream because it makes few if any scientific predictions.

Feynman examined LeSage gravity in his November 1964 Cornell Lectures Character of Physical Law. They were recorded by the BBC and broadcast on TV in 1965, as well as being published in Feynman's book of similar title.

Character of Physical Law, pp. 171-3:

"The inexperienced [string theorists who have no contact with the real world of physical fact], and crackpots [the media and those who are obsessed with failed orthodoxy], and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but [with extensive knowledge of the actual facts rather than speculative theories of physics] you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. ... There will be a degeneration of ideas, just like the degeneration that great explorers feel is occurring when tourists begin moving in on a territory."

On page 38 of this book, Feynman has a diagram which looks basically like this: >E S<, where E is earth and S is sun. The arrows show the push that causes gravity. This is the LeSage gravity scheme, which Feynman also discusses (without the diagram) in his full Lectures on Physics. He concludes that the mechanism in its form as of 1964 contradicted the no-ether relativity model and could not make any valid predictions, but finishes off by saying (p. 39):

"'Well,' you say, 'it was a good one, and I got rid of the mathematics for a while. Maybe I could invent a better one.' Maybe you can, because nobody knows the ultimate. But up to today [1964], from the time of Newton, no one has invented another theoretical description of the mathematical machinery behind this law which does not either say the same thing over again, or make the mathematics harder, or predict some wrong phenomena. So there is no model of the theory of gravitation today, other the mathematical form."

But he adds a criticism of renormalised quantum gravity speculations on pages 57-8:

"It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do? So I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer board with all its apparent complexities."

Feynman's only stated problem with LeSage was drag or rather inertia! But surely Feynman knew that the vacuum radiation would contract objects in the direction of their motion regardless of whether the radiation also caused gravity, or not.

So Feynman's objection would discredit the empirically defended modern physics of the Dirac sea and of Feynman's own quantum foam vacuum!

It smacks of hypocrisy for Feynman to use an argument against LeSage which also discredits Feynman's quantum field theory of the vacuum containing force-mediating radiation, without saying the same argument also can be used against himself!

In fact, the fluid analogy shows that the 'drag' problem Feynman had is actually manifested in the causality of general relativity's contraction term, and by the equivalence principle, the contraction of FitzGerald and Lorentz for moving objects. The 'fluid' of force-causing vacuum radiation is a perfect fluid, so it resists only accelerations. This is observed and called 'inertia' (for 'stationary' objects) and 'momentum' (for moving objects). The energy of the resisted acceleration goes into doing the work of physically contracting the object! Hence, contraction is an equilibrium state in which the vacuum radiation distorts the physical dimensions of matter according to its self-shielding (gravitation) and its motion.

Rcecent abusive motor mouthed crackpot sneers at LeSage mechanism, see http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2000-08/msg0027106.html:

'In general relativity, gravity propagates at light speed, but the theoryescapes this problem because, in Newtonian language, the effectiveforce is not central, but has velocity-dependent terms that do notpoint radially from the source. See Carlip, Phys. Lett. A267 (2000) 81.You might try to add such terms in a LeSage-type theory, but only atthe expense of losing any simple ``push'' picture.)... As Feynman noted in Vol. I, section 7-7 of the Feynman Lectures, the same interaction that leads to an attractive force will also lead to a drag.

'this doesn't apply to a flux whose spectrum IS Lorentz> covariant. That's true, but it requires that there be no high-energy cutoff, since a cutoff would break the invariance.

{BUT WHO CARES ABOUT LORENTZ INVARIANCE, WHEN THE MECHANISM BEHIND THE LORENTZ EQUATION IS GIVEN BY THE MECHANISM, see http://nigelcook0.tripod.com/!!}

'There's also a problem with existing observational evidence for the equivalence principle. We know to a very good accuracy that gravity interacts with all forms of energy, and not just with mass. For example, the electrostatic binding energy of the nucleus contributes an amount E/c^2 to gravitational mass, as does the energy of weak interactions inthe nucleus, as does even the kinetic energy of electrons in atoms. Foryour mechanism to work, your right-handed neutrinos (or whatever) would have to couple to the full stress-energy tensor. But a spin-1/2particle doesn't have such a coupling; you need a spin 2 particle. And once you take into account the coupling to *gravitational* energy (also observed!), you necessarily end up with a theory that's at least locally equivalent to general relativity, up to possible terms that are important only at high energies.You might want to look at chapters 2 and 3 of the _Feynman Lectureson Gravitation_ for a nice derivation of the fact that a spin 2 particleis required.'

These mainstream crackpots get brownie points for being abusive and not constructive, which is precisely why they behave this way instead of being objective, scientific. They prefer to sneer at LeSage or any other piece of solid physics with more correct predictions than Witten's stringy M-theory (mainstream string theory), which is 'not even wrong'.

At http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/cnfGrHg.html, Tony Smith quotes
Richard Feynman’s book Lectures on Gravitation (1962-63 lectures at Caltech), Addison-Wesley 1995 (section on Quantum Gravity by Brian Hatfield):

‘... Feynman ... felt ... that ... the fact that a massless spin-2 field can be interpreted as a metric was simply a ‘coincidence’ ... In order to produce a static force and not just scattering, the emission or absorption of a single graviton by either particle [of a pair of particles] must leave both particles in the same internal state ... Therefore the graviton must have integer spin. ... when the exchange particle carries odd integer spin, like charges repel and opposite charges attract ... when the exchanged particle carries even integer spin, the potential is universally attractive ... If we assume that the exchanged particle is spin 0, then we lose the coupling of gravity to the spin-1 photon ... the graviton is massless because gravity is a long ranged force and it is spin 2 in order to be able to couple the energy content of matter with universal attraction ...’.

The only thing anyone can do is to point out that they are just abusive nutty politicians, who don't think abuse makes them into a kind of Hitler character, to be adored by sycophantic nutters. They have nothing positive to say of anything or anyone except for 'not even wrong' stringy stuff and fellow dictatorial politicians who preside over the teaching and 'research' of science. I quite like the response Tony Smith gave on the subject of censorship today:

'It is sad enough that there has been very little advance in elementary particle theory since the 1970s (when the Standard Model was developed), but it is far sadder still that back in 1980, in his book Cosmos, Carl Sagan could say “… The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science. …”, while now in 2005/2006, Machiavelli is considered to be the teacher who must be followed in order to succeed in elementary particle physics.

'Maybe the leaders of today’s theoretical particle physics establishment should be asked the McCarthy question:

'HAVE YOU NO SHAME ?'


http://notevenwrong2.blogspot.com/2006/03/interesting-history-of-not-even-wrong.html:
Lubos Motley's Stringy Climate... said...

Peter,

Newton also had several papers also on stringy theory, alchemy, M-theory, religion, extra-dimensions, and creationism. Sadly, all were rejected for publication because he couldn't get an endorser on the international arXiv, which was controlled by the terribly vindictive Lubos Leibniz, plagarist of Newton's calculus. Newton's inverse square law of gravity was independently discovered by Hooke, although Newton did the important work of proving that it applies to elliptical orbits, not just circles. Newton never expressed it with the constant G because he didn't know what the constant was.

Newton did have empirical evidence, however, for the inverse square law. He knew the earth has a radius of 4,000 miles and the moon is a quarter of a million miles away, hence by inverse-square law, gravity should be (4,000/250,000)^2 = 3900 times weaker at the moon than the 32 ft/s/s at earth's surface. Hence the gravity acceleration due to the earth's mass at the moon is 32/3,900 = 0.008 ft/s/s.

Newton's formula for the centripetal acceleration of the moon is: a = (v^2)/(distance to moon), where v is the moon's orbital velocity, v = 2Pi.[250,000 miles]/[27 days] ~ 0.67 mile/second), hence a = 0.0096 ft/s/s.

So Newton had evidence that the gravity from the earth at moon's radius is the same as the centripetal force for the moon. The great mathematician Edmond Witten told Newton gravity is stringy, but Newton ignored him and missed on being a genius.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

From: "Nigel Cook"
To: ; ;
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: Simple gravity model

Dear Edwin,

Thanks for these comments. My webpage is currently an online notebook of bits and pieces. I'm going to write up a proper paper from the material, and keep the length to below 100 kb so that Google will search the whole thing (currently it is around 600 kb plus illustrations).

The electromagnetic force-carrying radiation is also the cause of gravity, via particles which cause the mass of charged elementary particles.The vacuum particles ("higgs particle") that give rise to all mass in the Standard Model haven't been observed officially yet, and the official prediction of the energy of the particle is very vague, similar to the Top Quark mass, 172 GeV. However, my argument is that the mass of the uncharged Z-boson, 91 GeV, determines the masses of all the other particles. It works. The charged cores of quarks, electrons, etc., couple up (strongly or weakly) with a discrete number of massive trapped Z-bosons which exist inthe vacuum. This mechanism also explains QED, such as the magnetic momentof the electron 1 + alpha/(2Pi) magnetons.

Literally, the electromagnetic force-causing radiation (vector bosons) interact with charged particle cores to produce EM forces, and with the associated "higgs bosons" (gravitationally self-trapped Z-bosons) to produce the correct inertial masses and gravity for each particle.

The lepton and hadron masses are quantized, and I've built a model, discussed there and on my blog, which takes this model and uses it to predict other things. I think this is what science is all about. The mainstream (string theory, CC cosmology) is too far out, and unable to make any useful predictions.

As for the continuum: the way to understand it is through correcting Maxwell's classical theory of the vacuum. Quantum field theory heuristically accounts for electrostatic (Coulomb) forces with a radiation-exchange mechanism. In the LeSage mechanism, the radiation causing Coulomb's law causes all forces by pushing. I worked out the mechanism by which electric forces operate in the April 2003 EW article; attraction occurs by mutual shielding as with gravity, but is stronger due to the sum of the charges in the universe. If you have a series of parallel capacitor plates with different charges, each separated by a vacuum dielectric, you need the total (net) voltage needs to take into account the orientation of the plates.

The vector sum is the same as a statistical random walk (drunkard's walk): the total is equal to the average voltage between a pair of plates, multiplied by the square root of the total number (this allows for the angular geometry dispersion, not distance, because the universe isspherically symmetrical around us - thank God for keeping the calculation very simple! - and there is as much dispersion outward in the random walk as there is inward, so the effects of inverse square law dispersions and concentrations with distance both exactly cancel out).

Gravity is the force that comes from a straight-line sum, which is the only other option than the random walk. In a straight line, the sum of charges is zero along any vector across the universe, if that line contains an average equal number of positive and negative charges. However, it is equally likely that the straight radial line drawn at random across the universe contains an odd number of charges, in which case the average chargeis 2 units (2 units is equal to the difference between 1 negative charge and1 positive charge). Therefore, the straight line sum has two options only, each with 50% probability: even number of charges and hence zero net result, and odd number of charges which gives 2 unit charges as the net sum. The mean for the two options is simply (0 + 2) /2 = 1 unit. Hence, electromagnetism is the square root of the number of charges in the universe, times the weak option force (gravity).

Thus, electromagnetism and gravity are different ways that charges add up.Electric attraction is as stated, simply a mutual blocking of EM "vector boson" radiation by charges, like LeSage gravity. Electric repulsion is anexchange of radiation. The charges recoil apart because the underlying physics in an expanding universe (with "red-shifted" or at least reduced energy radiation pressing in from the outside, due to receding matter in thesurrounding universe) means their exchange of radiation results in recoil away from one another (imagine two people firing guns at each other, for a simple analogy; they would recoil apart).

Magnetic force is apparently, as Maxwell suggested, due to the spins of the vacuum particles, which line up. I'm carbon-copying this email to two people who are in the unfortunate position of having to nod excessively to mainstream ideas, or risk their reputations being exposed as "crackpot" by Dr Lubos Motl of Harvard.

Best wishes,
Nigel

http://feynman137.tripod.com/http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: ebudding@comu.edu.tr
To: nigelbryancook@hotmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 11:14 AM
Subject: Re: Simple gravity model

Dear Nigel --

> The continuum is composed of radiation!

I have been thinking about this, and I agree it is a useful way of looking at things. ...

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ivor Catt, who published in IEE Trans. EC-16 and IEE Proc. 83 and 87 evidence proving that electric energy charges a capacitor at light speed and can't slow down afterward (hence electric energy has light speed), is wondering whether to throw a celebration on 26/28 May 2006 to mark the most ignored paradigm-shift in history. Catt is discovered of so-called Theory C (no electric current), which is only true in a charged capacitor (or other static charge). However, Catt fails to acknowledge that his own evidence for a light speed (spin) electron is a massive advance. In the previous posts, I've quoted results from Drs. Thomas Love, Asim O. Baruk, and others showing that the principle of superposition (which is one argument for ignoring the reality of electron spin in quantum mechanics) is a mathematical falsehood resulting from a contradiction in the two versions of the Schroedinger equation (Dr Love's discovery), since you change equations when dealing with taking a measurement!

Hence, a causal model of spin, such as a loop of gravitationally self-trapped (i.e., black hole) Heaviside electric 'energy current' (the Heaviside vector, describing light speed electric energy in conductors - Heaviside worked on the Newcastle-Denmark Morse Code telegraph line in 1872), is the reality of the electron. You can get rid of the half-integer spin problem by having the transverse vector rotate half a turn during a revolution like the Moebius strip of geometry. It is possible for a person to be so skeptical that they won't listen to anything. Science has to give sensible reasons for dismissing evidence. An empirical model based on facts which predicts other things (gravitation, all forces, all particle masses) is scientific. String 'theory' isn't.

Other News: Dr Woit is off to observe the eclipse on 29 March 2006 in the Sahara desert, Niger: 'Getting to Niger via charter flight from Paris to Agadez. Will have to spend a day or two in Paris on either end of the trip. Life is rough.'

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Copies of my comments to Dr Dantas's blog and to Cosmic Variance

http://christinedantas.blogspot.com/2006/03/wmap-3-year-data-release.html
1

On the subject of drl versus cosmological constant: Dr Lunsford outlines problems in the 5-d Kaluza-Klein abstract (mathematical) unification of Maxwell's equations and GR, and Lunsford published it in published in Int. J. Theor. Phys., v 43 (2004), No. 1, pp.161-177. This peer-reviewed paper was submitted to arXiv.org but was removed from arXiv.org by censorship apparently since it investigated a 6-dimensional spacetime is not consistent with Witten’s speculative 10/11 dimensional M-theory. It is however on the CERN document server at http://doc.cern.ch//archive/electronic/other/ext/ext-2003-090.pdf, and it shows the errors in the historical attempts by Kaluza, Pauli, Klein, Einstein, Mayer, Eddington and Weyl. It proceeds to the correct unification of general relativity and Maxwell’s equations, finding 4-d spacetime inadequate:

‘Gravitation and Electrodynamics over SO(3,3)’ on CERN document server, EXT-2003-090: ‘an approach to field theory is developed in which matter appears by interpreting source-free (homogeneous) fields over a 6-dimensional space of signature (3,3), as interacting (inhomogeneous) fields in spacetime. The extra dimensions are given a physical meaning as ‘coordinatized matter’. The inhomogeneous energy-momentum relations for the interacting fields in spacetime are automatically generated by the simple homogeneous relations in 6-D. We then develop a Weyl geometry over SO(3,3) as base, under which gravity and electromagnetism are essentially unified via an irreducible 6-calibration invariant Lagrange density and corresponding variation principle. The Einstein-Maxwell equations are shown to represent a low-order approximation, and the cosmological constant must vanish in order that this limit exist.’

Lunsford begins with an enlightening overview of attempts to unify electromagnetism and gravitation:

‘The old goal of understanding the long-range forces on a common basis remains a compelling one. The classical attacks on this problem fell into four classes:

‘1. Projective theories (Kaluza, Pauli, Klein)
‘2. Theories with asymmetric metric (Einstein-Mayer)
‘3. Theories with asymmetric connection (Eddington)
‘4. Alternative geometries (Weyl)

‘All these attempts failed. In one way or another, each is reducible and thus any unification achieved is purely formal. The Kaluza theory requires an ad hoc hypothesis about the metric in 5-D, and the unification is non-dynamical. As Pauli showed, any generally covariant theory may be cast in Kaluza’s form. The Einstein-Mayer theory is based on an asymmetric metric, and as with the theories based on asymmetric connection, is essentially algebraically reducible without additional, purely formal hypotheses.

‘Weyl’s theory, however, is based upon the simplest generalization of Riemannian geometry, in which both length and direction are non-transferable. It fails in its original form due to the non-existence of a simple, irreducible calibration invariant Lagrange density in 4-D. One might say that the theory is dynamically reducible. Moreover, the possible scalar densities lead to 4th order equations for the metric, which, even supposing physical solutions could be found, would be differentially reducible. Nevertheless the basic geometric conception is sound, and given a suitable Lagrangian and variational principle, leads almost uniquely to an essential unification of gravitation and electrodynamics with the required source fields and conservation laws.’ Again, the general concepts involved are very interesting: ‘from the current perspective, the Einstein-Maxwell equations are to be regarded as a first-order approximation to the full calibration-invariant system.

‘One striking feature of these equations that distinguishes them from Einstein’s equations is the absent gravitational constant – in fact the ratio of scalars in front of the energy tensor plays that role. This explains the odd role of G in general relativity and its scaling behaviour. The ratio has conformal weight 1 and so G has a natural dimensionfulness that prevents it from being a proper coupling constant – so the theory explains why general relativity, even in the linear approximation and the quantum theory built on it, cannot be regularised.’

A causal model for GR must separate out the description of matter from the expanding spacetime universe. Hence you have three expanding spacetime dimensions, but matter itself is not expanding, and is in fact contracted by the gravitational field, the source for which is vector boson radiation in QFT.

The CC is used to cancel out gravitational retardation of supernovae at long distances. You can get rid of the CC by taking the Hubble expansion as primitive, and gravity as a consequence of expansion in spacetime. Outward force f=ma=mc/(age of universe) => inward force (3rd law). The inward force according to the Standard Model possibilities of QFT, must be carried by vector boson radiation. So causal shielding (Lesage) gravity is a result of the expansion. Thus, quantum gravity and the CC problem dumped in one go.

I personally don't like this result, it would be more pleasing not to have to do battle with the mainstream over the CC, but frankly I don't see how an ad hoc model composed of 96% dark matter and dark energy, is defended to the point of absurdity by suppressing workable alternatives which are more realistic.

The same has happened in QFT due to strings. When I was last at university, I sent Stanley Brown, editor of Physical Review Letters my gravity idea, a really short concise paper, and he rejected it for being an "alternative" to string theory! I don't believe he even bothered to check it. I'd probably have done the same thing if I was flooded by nonsense ideas from outsiders, but it is a sad excuse.

2

Lee Smolin, in starting with known facts of QFT and building GR from them, is an empiricist; contrasted to the complete speculation of string theorists.

We know some form of LQG spin foam vacuum is right, because vector bosons (1) convey force, and (2) have spin.

For comparison, nobody has evidence for superpartners, extra dimensions, or any given stringy theory.

Danny Lunsford unites Maxwell's equations and GR using a plausible treatment of spacetime where there exactly twice as many dimensions as observed, the extra dimensions describing non-expanding matter while the normal spacetime dimensions describe the expanding spacetime. Because the expanding BB spacetime is symmetrical around us, those three dimensions can be lumped together.

The problem is that the work by Smolin and Lunsford is difficult for the media to report, and is not encouraged by string theorists, who have too much power.

Re inflation: the observed CBR smoothness "problem" at 300,000 years (the very tiny size scale of the ripples across the sky) is only a problem for seeding galaxy formation in the mainstream paradigm for GR.

The mainstream approach is to take GR as a model for the universe, which assumes gravity is not a QFT radiation pressure force.

But if you take the observed expansion as primitive, then you get a mechanism for local GR as the consequence, without the anomalies of the mainstream model which require CC and inflation.

Outward expansion in spacetime by Newton's 3rd law results in inward gauge boson pressure, which causes the contraction term in GR as well as gravity itself.

GR is best viewed simply as Penrose describes it:

(1) the tensor field formulation of Newton's law, R_uv = 4Pi(G/c^2)T_uv, and

(2) the contraction term which leads to all departures from Newton's law (apart from CC).

Putting the contraction term into the Newtonian R_uv = 4Pi(G/c^2)T_uv gives the Einstein field equation without the CC:

R_uv - ½Rg_uv = 8Pi(G/c^2)T_uv

Feynman explains very clearly that the contraction term can be considered physical, e.g., the Earth's radius is contracted by the amount ~(1/3)MG/c^2 = 1.5 mm.

This is like like radiation pressure squeezing the earth on the subatomic level (not just the macroscopic surface of the planet), and this contraction in space also causes a related gravitational reduction in time, or gravity time-dilation.

The mechanism behind the deflection of light by the sun is that everything, including light, gains gravitational potential energy as it approaches a mass like the sun.

Because the light passes perpendicularly to the gravity field vector at closes approach (average deflection position), the increased gravitational energy of a slow moving body would be used equally in two ways: 50% of the energy would go into increasing the speed, and 50% into changing the direction (bending it towards the sun).

Light cannot increase in speed, so 100% of the gained energy must go into changing the direction. This is why the deflection of light by the sun is exactly twice that predicted for slow-moving particles by Newton's law. All GR is doing is accounting for energy.

This empiricist model accurately predicts the value of G using cosmological data (Hubble constant and density of universe), eliminating most dark matter in the process. It gets rid of the need for inflation since the effective strength of gravity at 300,000 years was very small, so the ripples were small.

=> No inflation needed. All forces (nuclear, EM, gravity) are in constant ratio because all have inter-related QFT energy exchange mechanisms. Therefore the fine structure parameter 137 (ratio of strong force to EM) remains constant, and the ratio of gravity to EM remains constant.

The sun's radiating power and nuclear reactions in the 1st three minutes are not affected at all by variations in the absolute strengths of all the fundamental forces, since they remain in the same ratio.

Thus, if you double gravity and nuclear and EM force strengths are also doubled, the sun will not shine any differently than now. The extra compression due to an increase in gravity would be expected to increase the fusion rate, but the extra Coulomb repulsion between approaching protons (due to the rise in EM force), cancels out the gravitational compression.

So the ramshackle-looking empiricist model does not conflict at all with the nucleosynthesis of the BB, or with stellar evolution. It does conflict with the CC and inflation, but those are just epicycles in the mainstream model, not objective facts.

http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/03/16/wmap-results-cosmology-makes-sense/

This is hyped up to get media attention: the CBR from 300,000 years after BB says nothing of the first few seconds, unless you believe their vague claims that the polarisation tells something about the way the early inflation occurred. That might be true, but it is very indirect.

I do agree with Sean on CV that n = 0.95 may be an important result from this analysis. I’d say it’s the only useful result. But the interpretation of the universe as 4% baryons, 22% dark matter and 74% dark energy is a nice fit to the existing LambdaCDM epicycle theory from 1998. The new results on this are not too different from previous empirical data, but this ‘nice consistency’ is a euphemism for ‘useless’.

WMAP has produced more accurate spectral data of the fluctuations, but that doesn’t prove the ad hoc cosmological interpretation which was force-fitted to the data in 1998. Of course the new data fits the same ad hoc model. Unless there was a significant error in the earlier data, it would do. Ptolemies universe, once fiddled, continued to model things, with only occasional ‘tweaks’, for centuries. This doesn’t mean you should rejoice.

Dark matter, dark energy, and the tiny cosmological constant describing the dark energy, remain massive epicycles in current cosmology. The Standard Model has not been extended to include dark matter and energy. It is not hard science, it’s a very indirect interpretion of the data. I’ve got a correct prediction made without a cosmological constant made and published in ‘96, years before the ad hoc Lambda CDM model. Lunsford’s unification of EM and GR also dismisses the CC.

http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/03/18/theres-gold-in-the-landscape/

They were going to name the flower “Desert Iron Pyrites”, but then they decided “Desert Gold” is more romantic ;-)

Dr Peter Woit has kindly removed the following comments as requested, which I made on the subject of physicist John Barrow's $1.4 million prize for religion (see second comment below):

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=364

anon Says: March 18th, 2006 at 3:47 am

Secret milkshake, I agree! The problem religion posed in the past to science was insistence on the authority of scripture and accepted belief systems over experimental data. If religion comes around to looking at experimental data and trying to go from there, then it becomes more scientific than certain areas of theoretical physics. Does anyone know what Barrow has to say about string theory?

I learnt a lot of out-of-the-way ‘trivia’ from ‘The Anthropic Cosmological Principle’, particularly the end notes, e.g.:

‘… should one ascribe significance to empirical relations like m(electron)/m(muon) ~ 2{alpha}/3, m(electron)/m(pion) ~ {alpha}/2 … m(eta) - 2m(charged pion) = 2m(neutral pion), or the suggestion that perhaps elementary particle masses are related to the zeros of appropriate special functions?’

By looking religiously at numerical data, you can eventually spot more ‘coincidences’ that enable empirical laws to be formulated. If alpha is the core charge shielding factor by the polarised vacuum of QFT, then it is possible to justify particle mass relationships; all observable particles apart from the electron have masses quantized as M=[electron mass].n(N+1)/(2.alpha) ~ 35n(N+1) Mev, where n is 1 for leptons, 2 for mesons and naturally 3 for baryons. N is also an integer, and takes values of ‘magic numbers’ of nuclear physics for relatively stable particles: for the muon (most stable particle after the neutron), N=2, for nucleons N=8, for the Tauon, N=50.

Hence, there’s a selection principle allowing masses of relatively stable particles to be deduced. Since the Higgs boson causes mass and may have a value like that of the Z boson, it’s interesting that [Z-boson mass]/(3/2 x 2.Pi x 137 x 137) = 0.51 Mev (electron mass), and [Z-boson mass]/(2.Pi x 137) ~ 105.7 MeV (muon mass). In an electron, the core must be quite distant from the particle giving the mass, so there are two separate vacuum polarisations between them, weakening the coupling to just alpha squared (and a geometrical factor). In the muon and all other particles than the electron, there is extra binding energy and so the core is closer to the mass-giving particle, hence only one vacuum polarisation separates them, so the coupling is alpha.

Remember that Schwinger’s coupling correction in QED increases Dirac’s magnetic moment of the electron to about 1 + alpha/(2.pi). When think outside the box, sometimes coincidences have a reason

anon Says: March 18th, 2006 at 6:04 am

Sorry Peter, you may delete the above comment. I’ve just read your links. Barrow is today well into using religion to justify stringy land and other unobservables like dark energy/CC. The 1986 book presented facts and left the reader to decide, which is different from what he’s now doing, preaching a belief system.

The CC is used to cancel out gravitational retardation of supernovae at long distances. You can get rid of the CC by taking the Hubble expansion as primitive, and gravity as a consequence of expansion in spacetime. Outward force f=ma=mc/(age of universe) => inward force (3rd law). So causal shielding (Lesage) gravity is a result of the expansion. Thus, quantum gravity and the CC problem dumped in one go. Better delete this quick too, before it annoys Barrow.

Another comment to Cosmic Variance:

http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/01/25/general-relativity-as-a-tool/#comment-15326

The best way to understand that the basic field equation of GR is empirical fact is extending Penrose’s arguments:

(1) Represent Newton’s empirical gravity potential in the tensor calculus of Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita: R_uv = 4.Pi(G/c^2)T_uv, which applies to low speeds/weak fields.

(2) Consider objects moving past the sun, gaining gravitational potential energy, and being deflected by gravity. The mean angle of the object to the radial line from the gravity force from the sun is 90 degrees, so for slow-moving objects, 50% of the energy is used in increasing the speed of the object, and 50% in deflecting the path. But because light cannot speed up, 100% of the gravitational potential energy gained by light on its approach to the sun is used to deflection, so this is the mechanism why light suffers twice the deflection suggested by Newton’s law. Hence for light deflection: R_uv = 8.Pi(G/c^2)T_uv.

(3) To unify the different equations in (1) and (2) above, you have to modify (2) as follows: R_uv - 0.5Rg_uv = 8.Pi(G/c^2)T_uv, where g_uv is the metric. This is the Einstein-Hilbert field equation.

At low speeds and in weak gravity fields, R_uv = - 0.5Rg_uv, so the equation becomes the Newtonian approximation R_uv = 4.Pi(G/c^2)T_uv.

GR is based entirely on empirical facts. Speculation only comes into it after 1915, via the “cosmological constant” and other “fixes”. Think about the mechanism for the gravitation and the contraction which constitute pure GR: it is quantum field theory, radiation exchange.

Fundamental particles have spin which in an abstract way is related to vortices. Maxwell in fact argued that magnetism is due to the spin alignment of tiny vacuum field particles.

The problem is that electron is nowadays supposed to be in an almost metaphysical superposition of spin states until measured, which indirectly (via the EPR-Bell-Aspect work) leads to the entanglement concept you mention. But Dr Thomas Love of California State University last week sent me a preprint, “Towards an Einsteinian Quantum Theory”, where he shows that the superposition principle is a fallacy, due to two versions of the Schroedinger equation: a system described by the time-dependent Schroedinger equation isn’t in an eigenstate between interactions.

“The quantum collapse occurs when we model the wave moving according to Schroedinger (time-dependent) and then, suddenly at the time of interaction we require it to be in an eigenstate and hence to also be a solution of Schroedinger (time-independent). The collapse of the wave function is due to a discontinuity in the equations used to model the physics, it is not inherent in the physics.”

Thursday, March 16, 2006

The Standard Model and General Relativity

Both of these are mathematical systems. Recently I posted some comments on Dr Thomas Love's paper, Towards an Einsteinian Quantum Theory. He has an excellent analysis and literature survey of causal versus abstract quantum field theory controversies. He also puts forward an alternative spacetime of quantum anti-de sitter space, QAds = U(3,2)/U(3,1)xU(1) and finds it allows him to make an analysis of particle physics, and link that to general relativity. However, anti-de Sitter space is not even wrong, as I know from cosmology. So the issue is that I don't really know whether U(3,2)/U(3,1)xU(1) is any better at describing particle physics than the Standard Model, SU(2)xSU(2)xU(1). Certainly there is a lot of experimental evidence for the Standard Model, but on the other hand the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism requires the Higgs field, and its unification to a superforce at extremely high energies (attained only shortly after the big bang) is supposed to require supersymmetric partners. In addition, the physical reason why there are only 8 gluons when there are 3x3 = 9 colour combinations, remains obscure in the Standard Model. I know that the strong force part, SU(2), works, but the so did Ptolemic epicycles. The electroweak component, SU(2)xU(1), is a lot more rigorous and convincing, although the details Higgs mechanism which it relies upon remains slightly obscure in the mainstream publications.

The chief thing about these theories, the Standard Model and alternatives, is that the underlying physics is symmetry principles. You fill out a matrix as allowed by your principles, and it describes the quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons for the force in question. Love's analysis does allow a lot of important fundamental particles to be covered, but it doesn't predict what their masses or, or predict the strengths of fundamental forces, which is disappointing. I think research should be done into U(3,2)/U(3,1)xU(1). However, from my perspective, it will not help unify quantum field theory and general relativity, as it seems to be just juggling around the abstract mathematical model. It may seem more elegant, but doesn't predict the additional things needed, as far as I can see. So for the sake of argument, I'm going to stick to discussing the Standard Model SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) until I've finished understanding the implications of U(3,2)/U(3,1)xU(1). I'm not really interested in the abstract mathematical formalism, so much as the physical principles implied, and the difference between the Standard Model and the alternative seems at present to be a squabble between two completely abstract, non-causal, mathematical structures.

Peter Woit in http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0206135 put forward a conjecture: “The quantum field theory of the standard model may be understood purely in terms of the representation theory of the automorphism group of some geometric structure.”

Using Lie spinors and Clifford algebras he comes up with an illustrative model on page 51, which looks as if it will do the job, but then adds the guarded comment: “The above comments are exceedingly speculative and very far from what one needs to construct a consistent theory. They are just meant to indicate how the most basic geometry of spinors and Clifford algebras in low dimensions is rich enough to encompass the standard model and seems to be naturally reflected in the electro-weak symmetry properties of Standard Model particles.”

Woit's work illustrates that string theory is not needed to get the Standard Model to work properly. One thing that caught my eye on p50 is that Woit uses Euclidean 4-dimensional spacetime rather than Minkowski's mess. Minkowski generally confuses measures of say the contraction of real matter (the length of a material ruler, say, which physically contracts when moving due to the radiation pressure of the vacuum which is overcome by the energy taken to accelerate the object, and this energy is stored in electromagnetic field compression of the material), with the idea that spacetime contracts.

The physical mechanism shows that the expansion of the universe drives the compression of matter, by Newton's 3rd law of motion. You always get recoil. I quote Minkowski's only useful statement on my home page: ‘The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.’ – Hermann Minkowski, 1908. Ironically, Minkowski's statement only applies to the Hubble recession, which should be represented as an increase in speeds with definite time past instead of definite distance (distances increase while light comes to use), because velocity/time is a physically important quantity, acceleration. Ironically, Minkowski's statement is applauded for its obscurity, instead of being seen as evidence of the clarity and simplicity it brings to the mechanism for gravity!

My view is that although the metrics of general relativity are at least four dimensional, physically you are dealing with measurement of space in terms of the travel time of the light (think of cosmology in an expanding universe, not of distances over a piece of matter like the earth's surface), and you are dealing with the measurement of matter in terms of distance which can be contracted by radiation pressure in the vacuum when the matter is in motion, or by gravitational contraction.

So you have six distinguishable dimensions, three expanding dimensions of time, and three contractable dimensions of distance in measuring matter. Of course, since distance = velocity multiplied by time, all six dimensions can be expressed as aspects of spacetime. For mathematical purposes, an excellent approximation is that the expansion of the time dimensions are radially symmetrically, so they can all be treated as a single dimension to get the calculations work.

But the underlying reality is six dimensions, 3 contractable dimensions of matter and 3 expanding dimensions of time, because all we can observe about the cosmological expansion is what we see, which is the universe in the past.

Where can we find a 6-dimensional theory to mathematically unify Maxwell's equations and general relativity? Lunsford has such a theory:

D.R. Lunsford has a paper on ‘Gravitation and Electrodynamics over SO(3,3)’ on CERN document server, EXT-2003-090: ‘an approach to field theory is developed in which matter appears by interpreting source-free (homogeneous) fields over a 6-dimensional space of signature (3,3), as interacting (inhomogeneous) fields in spacetime. The extra dimensions are given a physical meaning as ‘coordinatized matter’. The inhomogeneous energy-momentum relations for the interacting fields in spacetime are automatically generated by the simple homogeneous relations in 6-D. We then develop a Weyl geometry over SO(3,3) as base, under which gravity and electromagnetism are essentially unified via an irreducible 6-calibration invariant Lagrange density and corresponding variation principle. The Einstein-Maxwell equations are shown to represent a low-order approximation, and the cosmological constant must vanish in order that this limit exist.’

Lunsford begins with an enlightening overview of attempts to unify electromagnetism and gravitation:

‘The old goal of understanding the long-range forces on a common basis remains a compelling one. The classical attacks on this problem fell into four classes:

‘1. Projective theories (Kaluza, Pauli, Klein)
‘2. Theories with asymmetric metric (Einstein-Mayer)
‘3. Theories with asymmetric connection (Eddington)
‘4. Alternative geometries (Weyl)

‘All these attempts failed. In one way or another, each is reducible and thus any unification achieved is purely formal. The Kaluza theory requires an ad hoc hypothesis about the metric in 5-D, and the unification is non-dynamical. As Pauli showed, any generally covariant theory may be cast in Kaluza’s form. The Einstein-Mayer theory is based on an asymmetric metric, and as with the theories based on asymmetric connection, is essentially algebraically reducible without additional, purely formal hypotheses.

‘Weyl’s theory, however, is based upon the simplest generalization of Riemannian geometry, in which both length and direction are non-transferable. It fails in its original form due to the non-existence of a simple, irreducible calibration invariant Lagrange density in 4-D. One might say that the theory is dynamically reducible. Moreover, the possible scalar densities lead to 4th order equations for the metric, which, even supposing physical solutions could be found, would be differentially reducible. Nevertheless the basic geometric conception is sound, and given a suitable Lagrangian and variational principle, leads almost uniquely to an essential unification of gravitation and electrodynamics with the required source fields and conservation laws.’ Again, the general concepts involved are very interesting: ‘from the current perspective, the Einstein-Maxwell equations are to be regarded as a first-order approximation to the full calibration-invariant system.

‘One striking feature of these equations that distinguishes them from Einstein’s equations is the absent gravitational constant – in fact the ratio of scalars in front of the energy tensor plays that role. This explains the odd role of G in general relativity and its scaling behaviour. The ratio has conformal weight 1 and so G has a natural dimensionfulness that prevents it from being a proper coupling constant – so the theory explains why general relativity, even in the linear approximation and the quantum theory built on it, cannot be regularised.’ [Lunsford goes on to suggest gravity is a residual of the other forces, which is one way to see it.]

Danny Ross Lunsford’s major paper, published in Int. J. Theor. Phys., v 43 (2004), No. 1, pp.161-177, was submitted to arXiv.org but was removed from arXiv.org by censorship apparently since it investigated a 6-dimensional spacetime which again is not exactly worshipping Witten’s 10/11 dimensional M-theory. It is however on the CERN document server at http://doc.cern.ch//archive/electronic/other/ext/ext-2003-090.pdf , and it shows the errors in the historical attempts by Kaluza, Pauli, Klein, Einstein, Mayer, Eddington and Weyl. It proceeds to the correct unification of general relativity and Maxwell’s equations, finding 4-d spacetime inadequate:

‘… We see now that we are in trouble in 4-d. The first three [dimensions] will lead to 4th order differential equations in the metric. Even if these may be differentially reduced to match up with gravitation as we know it, we cannot be satisfied with such a process, and in all likelihood there is a large excess of unphysical solutions at hand. … Only first in six dimensions can we form simple rational invariants that lead to a sensible variational principle. The volume factor now has weight 3, so the possible scalars are weight -3, and we have the possibilities [equations]. In contrast to the situation in 4-d, all of these will lead to second order equations for the g, and all are irreducible - no arbitrary factors will appear in the variation principle. We pick the first one. The others are unsuitable … It is remarkable that without ever introducing electrons, we have recovered the essential elements of electrodynamics, justifying Einstein’s famous statement …’

D.R. Lunsford shows that 6 dimensions in SO(3,3) should replace the Kaluza-Klein 5-dimensional spacetime, unifying GR and electromagnetism.

Now back to Thomas Love's paper. On page 117 he makes the interesting point: 'If the electromagnetic interaction were due to the exchange of virtual photons then the field strength would exhibit statistical fluctuations, then the electron's energy level would exhibit statistical fluctuations and hence the spectral lines would exhibit statistical fluctuations. They do not. Spectral lines are sharp. ... what is the source of the virtual photon? ... how does an electron know when to create virtual photons?'

Clearly the electron in quantum field theory is in equilibrium, exchanging energy all the time for electromagnetic forces to operate continuously. A photon is then an propagating disturbance to the existing equilibrium field. Similarly, water waves are transverse disturbances to the already existing equilbirium water distribution. You don't try to build up a picture of normal continuous water pressure from a lot of discrete water waves, so you should not try to build up a picture of virtual photons from real photons. The virtual photons are the background equilibrium radiation which creates an exchange force without creating oscillation. The oscillatory emission of radiation causes and results in discrete, quantum changes in energy.

Put that another way: the virtual radiation is more like the classical Maxwell radiation which centripetally accelerating (orbital) electrons emit all the time. The reason why they don't spiral into the nucleus as a result of energy loss is that all particles with spin do the same thing. They radiate energy all the time, normally with an equilibrium between emission and reception.

On page 118, Love also usefully comments that 'QED is supposed to be a theory of electromagnetism ... when the magnetic field of a charged particle acts on another charge d particle, the direction of the force can be perpendicular to the line between the particles. Try to explain that in terms of the exchange of virtual particles! The QED picture of interchanging virtual photons reduces to gibberish!'

The answer to that is that magnetism is carried by the spin of the radiation or particles in the vacuum, as Maxwell suggested after several failed mechanical spacetime fabric models. Maxwell failed to grasp that radiation (gauge bosons) was the mechanism for electric force fields, but he did usefully suggest that:

‘The ... action of magnetism on polarised light [discovered by Faraday not Maxwell] leads ... to the conclusion that in a medium ... is something belonging to the mathematical class as an angular velocity ... This ... cannot be that of any portion of the medium of sensible dimensions rotating as a whole. We must therefore conceive the rotation to be that of very small portions of the medium, each rotating on its own axis [spin] ... The displacements of the medium, during the propagation of light, will produce a disturbance of the vortices ... We shall therefore assume that the variation of vortices caused by the displacement of the medium is subject to the same conditions which Helmholtz, in his great memoir on Vortex-motion, has shewn to regulate the variation of the vortices [spin] of a perfect fluid.’ - Maxwell’s 1873 Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Articles 822-3

Compare this to the spin foam vacuum, and the fluid GR model:

‘… the source of the gravitational field can be taken to be a perfect fluid…. A fluid is a continuum that ‘flows’... A perfect fluid is defined as one in which all antislipping forces are zero, and the only force between neighboring fluid elements is pressure.’ – Professor Bernard Schutz, General Relativity, Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 89-90.

Einstein admitted SR was tragic:‘The special theory of relativity … does not extend to non-uniform motion … The laws of physics must be of such a nature that they apply to systems of reference in any kind of motion. Along this road we arrive at an extension of the postulate of relativity… The general laws of nature are to be expressed by equations which hold good for all systems of co-ordinates, that is, are co-variant with respect to any substitutions whatever (generally co-variant). …’ – Albert Einstein, ‘The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity’, Annalen der Physik, v49, 1916.

‘Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity, space is endowed with physical qualities... According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable.’ – Albert Einstein, Leyden University lecture on ‘Ether and Relativity’, 1920. (Einstein, A., Sidelights on Relativity, Dover, New York, 1952, pp. 15-23.)

‘The Michelson-Morley experiment has thus failed to detect our motion through the aether, because the effect looked for – the delay of one of the light waves – is exactly compensated by an automatic contraction of the matter forming the apparatus…. The great stumbing-block for a philosophy which denies absolute space is the experimental detection of absolute rotation.’ – Professor A.S. Eddington (who confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity in 1919), Space Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1921, pp. 20, 152.

The radiation (gauge bosons) and virtual particles in the vacuum exert pressure on moving objects, compressing them in the direction of motion. As FitzGerald deduced in 1889, it is not a mathematical effect, but a physical one. Mass increase occurs because of the snowplow effect of Higgs boson (mass ahead of you) when you move quickly, since the Higgs bosons you are moving into can't instantly flow out of your path, so there is mass increase. If you were to approach c, the particles in the vacuum ahead of you would be unable to get out of your way, you'd be going so fast, so your mass would tend towards infinity. This is simply a physical effect, not a mathematical mystery. Time dilation occurs because time is measured by motion, and if as the Standard Model suggests, fundamental spinning particles are just trapped energy (mass being due to the external Higgs field), that energy is going at speed c, perhaps as a spinning loop or vibrating string. When you move that at near speed c, the internal vibration and/or spin speed will slow down, because c would be violated otherwise. Since electromagnetic radiation is a transverse wave, the internal motion at speed x is orthagonal to the direction of propagation at speed v, so x^2 + v^2 = c^2 by Pythagoras. Hence the dynamic measure of time (vibration or spin speed) for the particle is x/c = (1 - v^2/c^2)^1/2, which is the time-dilation formula.As Eddington said, light speed is absolute but undetectable in the Michelson-Morley experiment owing to the fact the instrument contracts in the direction of motion, allowing the slower light beam to cross a smaller distance and thus catch up.

Dr Love helpfully quotes Einstein's admissions that the covariance of the general relativity theory violates the idea in special relativity that the velocity of light is constant:

'This was ... the basis of the law of the constancy of the velocity of light. But ... the general theory of relativity cannot retain this law. On the contrary, we arrived at the result according to this latter theory, the velocity of light must always depend on the coordinates when a gravitational field is present.' - Albert Einstein, Relativity, The Special and General Theory, Henry Holt and Co., 1920, p111.

So general relativity conflicts with, and supersedes, special relativity. General relativity says goodbye to the law of the invariant velocity of light which was used in a fiddle, special relativity:

'... the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo must be modified, since we easily recognise that the path of a ray of light ... must in general be curvilinear...' - Albert Einstein, The Principle of Relativity, Dover, 1923, p114.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006


So how did string theorists dupe the world?

[Illustration credit: Dr Wolfgang Pauli. Note: the Nazi physicist Werner Heisenberg's self-hyped 'radio advertisement' for his wonderful but detail-missing unified theory made Dr Wolfgang Pauli sarcastically send out pictures of empty frames stating 'This is to show the world that I can paint like Titian. Only technical details are missing.' Peter Woit comments: 'Because no one knows what [Edward Witten's stringy] 'M-theory' is, its beauty is that of Pauli's painting.']

[Note: I've compiled a long list of distinguished experts from Feynman to Penrose who talk hard facts (against stringy stuff) in the previous post.]


'In the first section the history of string theory starting from its S-matrix bootstrap predecessor up to Susskind’s recent book is critically reviewed. The aim is to understand its amazing popularity which starkly constrasts its fleeting physical content. A partial answer can be obtained from the hegemonic ideological stance which some of its defenders use to present and defend it. The second section presents many arguments showing that the main tenet of string theory which culminated in the phrase that it represents "the only game in town" is untenable. It is based on a wrong view about QFT being a mature theory which (apart from some missing details) already reached its closure. ...

'A guy with the gambling sickness loses his shirt every night in a poker game. Somebody tells him that the game is crooked, rigged to send him to the poorhouse. And he says, haggardly, I know, I know. But its the only game in town. - Kurt Vonnegut, The Only Game in Town [13]

'This is a quotation from a short story by Kurt Vonnegut which Peter Woit recently used in one of the chapters in his forthcoming book entitled Not Even Wrong : The Failure of String Theory & the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics (using a famous phrase by which Wolfgang Pauli characterized ideas which either had not even the quality of being wrong in an interesting way or simply lacked the scientific criterion of being falsifiable).' - Professor Bert Schroer, arXiv:physics/0603112, p1.

Predictably, Dr Motl has launched into a paranoid attack on Professor Bert Schroer, just because of a poem in the paper which happened to mention someone called Motl: http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/03/bert-schroers-paper.html. But, alas, the issues are real:

'I argue that string theory cannot be a serious candidate for the Theory of Everything, not because it lacks experimental support, but because of its algebraic shallowness. I describe two classes of algebraic structures which are deeper and more general than anything seen in string theory...' - T. A. Larsson, arXiv:math-ph/0103013, p1.

'The history of science is full of beautiful ideas that turned out to be wrong. The awe for the math should not blind us. In spite of the tremendous mental power of the people working in it, in spite of the string revolutions and the excitement and the hype, years go by and the theory isn’t delivering physics. All the key problems remain wide open. The connection with reality becomes more and more remote. All physical predictions derived from the theory have been contradicted by the experiments. I don’t think that the old claim that string theory is such a successful quantum theory of gravity holds anymore. Today, if too many theoreticians do strings, there is the very concrete risk that all this tremendous mental power, the intelligence of a generation, is wasted following a beautiful but empty fantasy. There are alternatives, and these must be taken seriously.' - Carlo Rovelli, arXiv:hep-th/0310077, p20.


‘With such a dramatic lack of experimental support, string theorists often attempt to make an aesthetic argument, professing that the theory is strikingly ‘elegant’ or ‘beautiful.’ Because there is no well-defined theory to judge, it’s hard to know what to make of these assertions, and one is reminded of another quotation from Pauli. Annoyed by Werner Heisenberg’s claims that, though lacking in some specifics, he had a wonderful unified theory (he didn't), Pauli sent letters to some of his physicist friends each containing a blank rectangle and the text, ‘This is to show the world that I can paint like Titian. Only technical details are missing.’ Because no one knows what ‘M-theory’ is, its beauty is that of Pauli's painting. Even if a consistent M-theory can be found, it may very well turn out to be something of great complexity and ugliness.' - Dr Peter Woit, ‘Is string theory even wrong?’, American Scientist, March-April 2002, http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/18638/page/2#19239