discrete space

[Copernicus]

Is this article about checkerboard space mainstream?

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-...hessboard.html

How will this researcher be treated. How will his views be examined? Is this rehashing a discredited idea?

Just wondering

[macaw]

Is this article about checkerboard space mainstream?

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-...hessboard.html

How will this researcher be treated. How will his views be examined? Is this rehashing a discredited idea?

Just wondering

The paper published in Phys.Rev.Lett. is mainstream, the commentary in physorg is a (mis)interpretation of mainstream science.

[Copernicus]

I was wondering if you could elaborate on what is the mainstream and non mainstream interpretation.

Thanks

[leokor]

And I am wondering why we need this "mainstream" terminology at all. Every scientific opinion is a priori as good as any other--and, a posteriori, only as good as the experimental data confirming or refuting it.

Leo Korogodski

[WayneFrancis]

And I am wondering why we need this "mainstream" terminology at all. Every scientific opinion is a priori as good as any other--and, a posteriori, only as good as the experimental data confirming or refuting it.

Leo Korogodski

I would disagree. A priori scientific opinion about some topic by an individual that is not an expert in that topic is not as good as a priori scientific opinion about the same topic given by some individual that has a lot of experience in that area.

Beside "mainstream" doesn't relate to priori opinion. Mainstream is the best fit to the current observations. IE nut jobs that have no clue about what the mainstream science says but think their "idea" is a better fit because of some "gut feel" they have are not on equal footing with individuals who's life work is the topic at hand even in the realm of questions about what "may be" but there is no current data on said topic.

[leokor]

I would disagree. A priori scientific opinion about some topic by an individual that is not an expert in that topic is not as good as a priori scientific opinion about the same topic given by some individual that has a lot of experience in that area.

Beside "mainstream" doesn't relate to priori opinion. Mainstream is the best fit to the current observations. IE nut jobs that have no clue about what the mainstream science says but think their "idea" is a better fit because of some "gut feel" they have are not on equal footing with individuals who's life work is the topic at hand even in the realm of questions about what "may be" but there is no current data on said topic.

If the opinion is by an expert and agrees with subsequent experimental data, then it doesn't need to be protected by being incorporated into a "political platform" of any sort. It can stand fine on its own. A crackpot's opinion, if it doesn't survive experiment, doesn't need repudiation, since it will die out on its own. In short, science must always be apolitical.

Leo Korogodski

[Strange]

And I am wondering why we need this "mainstream" terminology at all. Every scientific opinion is a priori as good as any other--and, a posteriori, only as good as the experimental data confirming or refuting it.

Leo Korogodski

The keyword there is scientific. Most (all?) of the non-mainstream ideas presented on BAUT are pseudo-science, rarely even fringe science.

[Tensor]

I was wondering if you could elaborate on what is the mainstream and non mainstream interpretation.

Thanks

Mainstream science currently views spacetime as a smooth manifold (ie:there is no segments as described in the article). However, the find is interesting, due to the concept of Loop Quantum Gravity (I don't normally link ot Wiki science articles, but this one is farily accurate). Which is a competitor to Superstring Theory for a Quantum Gravity Theory. It may be a week or even more before I get to read the actual paper that is referenced by the link you provided and get a chance to comment on a comparison between the two.

[Cougar]

Is this article about checkerboard space mainstream?

At least 5 years ago I met a woman research physicist at a party. I was anxious to talk to her about what she was working on. She said lattice QCD. At the time, that was rather a conversation stopper for me since I'd never even heard of it. Wiki says Lattice QCD is a well-established non-perturbative approach to solving the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) theory of quarks and gluons. Its method is set in discrete rather than continuous spacetime.

[mikeg64]

At least 5 years ago I met a woman research physicist at a party. I was anxious to talk to her about what she was working on. She said lattice QCD. At the time, that was rather a conversation stopper for me since I'd never even heard of it. Wiki says Lattice QCD is a well-established non-perturbative approach to solving the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) theory of quarks and gluons. Its method is set in discrete rather than continuous spacetime.

QCD uses a lattice but physically it's a theory of the continuum.. if I remember correctly then an important feature of QCD
predictions is to demonstrate that they converge to the continuum limit.. if that is not satisfied then the model doesn't work?

I read the Heim papers a couple of years ago. As I understand it this work is definitiely not mainstream. It does not appear to be "crackpot" research but some of the interesting mass relationships for fundamental particles had been described as "numeralogical", is that a polite way of saying fudged?

Interestingly the Heim papers appear introduce the notion space-time discretization...

I had not lingered long on this.

Think about this. You are a scientist. Do you investigate every idea that every crack pot presents to you? If you do you'll probably get nothing done. Those views are NOT on equal footing. Even if some of them are right the odds that science will end up better off as a whole by investigating all of them is mind numbingly remote.