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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[Tensor]

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

At any particular point in time, there is normally a consensus "best" explanation for whatever phenomena is under question. For example, QCD is the current best explanation for the interaction of electrons and photons and so is considered mainstream. Does that mean it will stay the best explanation? Who knows, but until something better come along, it will remain the best explanation, and, thus, considered mainstream (at least on this board). I see nothing political about it.

[leokor]

At any particular point in time, there is normally a consensus "best" explanation for whatever phenomena is under question. For example, QCD is the current best explanation for the interaction of electrons and photons and so is considered mainstream. Does that mean it will stay the best explanation? Who knows, but until something better come along, it will remain the best explanation, and, thus, considered mainstream (at least on this board). I see nothing political about it.

The practice of labeling is political, especially the kind of labeling that makes people (like the original poster in this thread) ask whether a given *article* (not even a theory but a specific article) is mainstream in character. A scientific theory either agrees with experiment or it doesn't--there is nothing more to it, really. In many branches of science, especially those where it is very easy to put a theory to an immediate experimental test, there is no concept of "mainstream" at all. I suppose that when dealing with stars and galaxies, theories about which are much harder to put to a test, demarcating of "mainstream" may be justifiable. But it still feels supremely weird to me.

Anyway, we're digressing from the original subject. Personally, I doubt that space is discrete, for the same reasons that Ilya Prigogine uses to explain the irreversibility of time. Physical observables *appear* to be discrete in the approximation frameworks that constitute the applicability domain of quantum mechanics and related theories. Time *appears* to be reversible in both classical and quantum dynamical systems, when using the formalism of trajectories and wave functions, respectively. But in the complex systems far from equilibrium, the formalism of density functions and density matrices (respectively) is no longer equivalent to the former. The spectra of the self-adjoint operators cease to be discrete, and the time-reversible equations break down (which is the real reason for quantum uncertainty: when interacting with a complex non-integrable system, like an observer, an integrable quantum system ceases to be integrable).

Leo Korogodski

[Tensor]

leokor, so as not to clog up the thread, I'm going to send you a PM.

[caveman1917]

The practice of labeling is political, especially the kind of labeling that makes people (like the original poster in this thread) ask whether a given *article* (not even a theory but a specific article) is mainstream in character. A scientific theory either agrees with experiment or it doesn't--there is nothing more to it, really. In many branches of science, especially those where it is very easy to put a theory to an immediate experimental test, there is no concept of "mainstream" at all. I suppose that when dealing with stars and galaxies, theories about which are much harder to put to a test, demarcating of "mainstream" may be justifiable. But it still feels supremely weird to me.

The concept of "mainstream", as far as i understand its use here, isn't meant to distinguish between different theories that explain the observations well, but rather as a concept of "correctly following the scientific method". If i for example were to ask wether Brans-Dicke theory is mainstream, i think the answer would be yes, but if i were to ask wether hollow earth theory is mainstream the answer would be no. It's more of a lower level indicator of scientifically "acceptable".

ETA: and as i post this of course a post by Tensor appears with a much better idea.

[Cougar]

If the opinion is by an expert and agrees with subsequent experimental data, then 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.

Or skeptical. Or unbiased.

But the crackpot's opinion does not require "experiment"; it requires the crackpot to demonstrate that the opinion is viable.

[Cougar]

If i for example were to ask wether Brans-Dicke theory is mainstream, i think the answer would be yes....

Not from me. As I recall, Tony Rothman said back in 1984....

"The Brans-Dicke [variable-G] theory has been constrained so much by observations of the binary pulsar's orbital period that it is virtually the same as special relativity. Probably the last believers in the Brans-Dicke theory died at the Port Authority Bus terminal five years ago."

[WayneFrancis]

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

A crackpot's opinion doesn't even need to survive experiments and from a time management point of view you won't even ever investigate such views if you want to get anything done.

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.

[WayneFrancis]

The concept of "mainstream", as far as i understand its use here, isn't meant to distinguish between different theories that explain the observations well, but rather as a concept of "correctly following the scientific method". If i for example were to ask wether Brans-Dicke theory is mainstream, i think the answer would be yes, but if i were to ask wether hollow earth theory is mainstream the answer would be no. It's more of a lower level indicator of scientifically "acceptable".

ETA: and as i post this of course a post by Tensor appears with a much better idea.

That is a very good point. 2 different theories can both be "mainstream" even if they use completely different mechanism for their models. Most likely in the future one of them will rise up over the other with new observations or maybe both get completely replaced. But the issue is that mainstream views have gone/are going through the proper scientific process of investigation.

[caveman1917]

Not from me. As I recall, Tony Rothman said back in 1984....

"The Brans-Dicke [variable-G] theory has been constrained so much by observations of the binary pulsar's orbital period that it is virtually the same as special relativity. Probably the last believers in the Brans-Dicke theory died at the Port Authority Bus terminal five years ago."

If it is virtually the same as general relativity, what is not mainstream about it?

ETA: you are of course correct that it's a bad example since we're not really talking about different theories anymore.

[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.

[leokor]

That is a very good point. 2 different theories can both be "mainstream" even if they use completely different mechanism for their models. Most likely in the future one of them will rise up over the other with new observations or maybe both get completely replaced. But the issue is that mainstream views have gone/are going through the proper scientific process of investigation.

Quite right. I like caveman1917's opinion that the distinguishing factor is whether the scientific method is followed properly, which doesn't exclude the possibility of multiple alternative theories doing so. (And, to answer WayneFrancis, if a crackpot doesn't bother putting his/her theory to a test, you don't have to do that for them; that'd just mean they have no experimental evidence.)

I'm curious, though, how open the people on this forum really are to the possibility of alternative theories following the scientific method properly. Would you say the following articles are mainstream or not?

http://plasmascience.net/downloadsCo...att86TPS-I.pdf
http://plasmascience.net/downloadsCo...tt86TPS-II.pdf

Leo Korogodski

[Tensor]

I'm curious, though, how open the people on this forum really are to the possibility of alternative theories following the scientific method properly.

It depends on whether or not we agree on if the assumption made in a particular paper are valid or mistaken. Just because a particular paper or idea follows the scientific method doesn't mean the assumptions or starting point for that paper or idea isn't flawed or mistaken. Or, the ideas and thinking, in the body of the paper, is flawed or mistaken. And, having seen it over and over again here, when someone questions the openess of the people here, they are usually getting ready to show off an idea they think is new, but that's been refuted here over and over and over again.

Would you say the following articles are mainstream or not?

http://plasmascience.net/downloadsCo...att86TPS-I.pdf
http://plasmascience.net/downloadsCo...tt86TPS-II.pdf
Leo Korogodski

And, bingo. Over and over again. Those papers are not. Those two particular papers have been thoughly discussed and refuted (the last time back in 2006, I beleive). One of our moderator's current field of study is Plasma Physics and he's explained in several different threads why (He was also the one who did the work on Wiki's article on double layers). I would suggest you check the ATM forum and read the sticky on EU and Plasma Universe posts. And do a search on Peratt if you want to see tusenfem's refutations, along with Tim Thompson's and a few others. It's not that were not open minded, it's that we've seen them before and the've been thoughly refuted.

[Copernicus]

Thanks for all the comments. I also did propose a discrete space model that was discussed at another black hole proposal. It was discussed in January of 2010. It was refuted in against the mainstream, rightly and wrongly refuted at times. In the thread I had trouble conveying the ideas in the correct physics terminology. At one time someone complained that hertz and revolutions per second were different units.
I think there must be a discrete aspect to space and it probably follows normal rules of mechanics, but is just difficult to get at the real structure.
I know the people that run this board are extremely knowledgeable about physics. Ken G and Tusenfem seem to be able to talk about any physics subject. There are a few other that are awesome as well. Wish I could go back in time and follow that same path.
I started out in Chemical Engineering working in the discrete electronic component industry. That dried up and move overseas. I decided to go into healthcare afterwards because it is a growing industry and I still had to support a family, including aging parents and inlaws.
I've had many experiences in life and seen people support a lot of bad ideas in industry and or health care because there jobs are on the line or credential were on the line. I've had to do the same thing, because of the golden rule, he who owns the gold makes the rules.
It these experiences that make me believe that the answer to the universe has much to do with the main stream physics, but it is also full of political dogma of the physics community, that prevents us from finding a real answer.