Studying physics is a broad process - as well as formal study, questions arise which lead to reading recommended material, which shows that the experts are scratching their heads. The fact that some physicists are almost in despair that their quest for the truth appears further, not closer, indicates a huge challenge ahead.
Richard Feynmann said that if you watch a safecracker trying to crack a combination, there is no point in asking "Have you tried 10-20-30?". Of course he has, and many others besides. Yet it is as if science is taking a blind turn, and could be relaxing its rules of evidence to accept bizarre theories while curtailing its ability to question some of its fundamentals.
Reading of Lee Smolin and John Gribbin (I have Penrose but no time yet to read) indicates that space itself is quantised, but with enormous problems of scale; that string theory proceeds with no predictions or evidence in a closed shop; that our view of reality is subjective no matter how objective we try to be, as we use our photons and electrons to observe - photons and electrons. SR limits to light speed, yet wave functions collapse everywhere at the same instant.
However, as I continue to have assessments to submit and exams to take, there are plenty of my original questions still to tackle. There is no real progress on dark matter or dark energy; the subject of the number of dimensions is still apparently open, despite GR appearing to stick with 3s+t; he distinction between gravity and the other three main forces is very confused.
No answers here, but it is fun trying to understand the questions. What a subject to be working in!
I often muse how fortunate we are to be living at a time when most of us live comfortably, have all this information and IT at our disposal, and can can probe to the smallest and largest scales in the universe. We should be walking around in wonder at it all. Well in a sense we are, even as we take it in our stride and press on . . .
Monday 30 April 2012
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