Prof. Englert: We must explain to the public the importance of basic science * Two Nobel laureates in physics answered our question at a press conference held yesterday (Saturday) in the building of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. Today (Sunday) all the prize winners will deliver their Nobel speeches at Stockholm University
At a press conference with the participation of eight Nobel laureates in the fields of physics, chemistry and economics, the Prime Minister was given permission to speak as a representative of the science website. I chose to take this opportunity to ask a question to the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Prof. Peter Higgs and François Englert: Do you think that we will never know what happens beyond the standard model since building an accelerator or even expanding the accelerator in the axis costs a lot of money and public opinion today is against investing money in big science .
In his words, Prof. Peter Higgs referred only to the short term - and not to the question of whether it will be necessary to build a new accelerator with higher energies in the future: "Taxpayers have already financed the LHC infrastructure and what we discovered last year is only the beginning. When the machines start operating again in 2015, I am convinced that there will be lots of new and interesting discoveries, and the public will continue to fund the project, because it is a small addition to the money already invested in building the machine."
Prof. Engler preferred to address the need to invest in basic science broadly: "I would like to address your question in a more general way, regarding the public's desire to invest a lot of money in the development of basic science and in our case to build a machine that will test the theories. I would like to divide the answer into two aspects. On the one hand, basic research is at the core of all applied and technological research and this has been happening for the last 400 years and everything we use, including everything in this place (Swedish Academy of Sciences AB building), came from applied research that followed theoretical research. What is happening at Saran is a very important investment, but it is only a small component of the total global investment in basic science."
"But I must add to that another important area that affects (funding) basic research and that is the dissemination of knowledge about basic research. This is very important for the development of the cultural changes in the education system, to provide the necessary rationality in society to confront the danger in the face of the ideologies that are constantly evolving, without rational thinking, especially in your region (he was referring to the Middle East AB) which hinders the spread of knowledge among the entire population. In relation to this big project (Sarn) designed to develop peace, one should understand that it only costs as much as a few fighter jets."
Among the participants in the press conference are Prof. Aryeh Warshel, Prof. Michael Levitt and Prof. Martin Karpelos. One of the questions Levitt mainly addressed was the issue of brain drain from all over the world to the US. I hope to bring more details soon.
As mentioned in the morning, I plan to hear the Nobel lectures of both of them (and of the winners in chemistry) and I hope they will also refer to the discovery teams, in which Prof. Elam Gross was the head of the search group for the Higgs in one of them - the Atlas project.
You are invited to continue participating in the crowdfunding project. We have increased the number of lectures to 5 - when each person ordering a lecture will receive a series of posters describing the winning and the winners of each of the scientific awards. I will try to look for more beautiful gifts for participants in the financing. Unfortunately, since we are still far from 100%, it is not possible to receive your addresses for sending the postcards. I will look for something else.
Buda Avi Blizovsky
31 תגובות
It turns out that the title was "scandalous" enough, so they did a followup on it
http://www.universetoday.com/107172/why-our-universe-is-not-a-hologram/
What do you think of the following article: "Is the universe a hologram"?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/11/universe-hologram-physicists_n_4428359.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
By the way, Professor Lawrence Krauss calls string theory instead of the Theory of Everthing as the Theory of Anything because of the 10th power of 500 universes that the Torah predicts, in fact the Torah can explain any observation without the possibility of refutation
deer
I now understand what you meant, thanks for the explanation, but the claim you are referring to is not specific to the Torah
The strings can in principle also be referred to quantum theory which also does not have any fundamental guiding principle. in thought
Second, perhaps Feynman's orbital integrals are a kind of fundamental guiding principle underlying quantum theory.
On the other hand, what guiding principle could underpin a fundamental theory? Usually our guiding principles
Taking from the macroscopic world that we perceive. We have principles such as the principle of equivalence or the principle that
An observer at constant speed will see the same physics as an observer stationary relative to him. We have the principle of causality. Which
Could a principle underlie a theory of everything, the laws of logic? A mathematical principle? Ultimately the limitation
The physics over theory comes from macroscopic requirements. Therefore, the main problematic point with string theory is indeed the inability to pass the experimental test. In my opinion, the mathematical world is rich and allows the creation of different theories, but good science is ultimately tested in an experiment that distinguishes between all possible mathematical worlds (sorry for the banal claims).
A curiosity that I assume you are familiar with. You wrote that if they had presented to a mathematician - about the principle of equivalence
He would certainly have developed the theory of general relativity. You probably know that in the formulation of general relativity
Einstein competed with Hilbert, one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, who also tried to develop a theory
In the end it was Einstein who won this close contest.
deer
I now understand what you meant, thanks for the explanation, but the claim you are referring to is not specific to the Torah
The strings can in principle also be referred to quantum theory which also does not have any fundamental guiding principle. in thought
Second, perhaps Feynman's orbital integrals are a kind of fundamental guiding principle underlying quantum theory.
On the other hand, what guiding principle could underpin a fundamental theory? Usually our guiding principles
Taking from the macroscopic world that we perceive. We have principles such as the principle of equivalence or the principle that
An observer at constant speed will see the same physics as an observer stationary relative to him. We have the principle of causality. Which
Could a principle underlie a theory of everything, the laws of logic? A mathematical principle? Ultimately the limitation
The physics on theory comes from macroscopic requirements. Therefore, the main problematic point with string theory is indeed the inability to pass the experimental test. In my opinion, the mathematical world is rich and allows the creation of different theories, but good science is ultimately tested in an experiment that distinguishes between all possible mathematical worlds (sorry for the banal claims).
A curiosity that I assume you are familiar with. You wrote that if they had presented to a mathematician - about the principle of equivalence
He would certainly have developed the theory of general relativity. You probably know that in the formulation of general relativity
Einstein competed with Hilbert, one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, who also tried to develop a theory
In the end it was Einstein who won this close contest.
deer
Surely the Higgs boson (and the field) constitutes some kind of "fundamental principle" in our understanding of physics... we'll wait and see))
Miracles
I'm glad you understood and agreed with my words. (Not because I tried to convince you - because I didn't. But because you understood).
deer
Surely the Higgs boson (and the field) constitutes some kind of "fundamental principle" in our understanding of physics... we'll wait and see))
Miracles
I'm glad you understood and agreed with my words. (Not because I tried to convince you - because I didn't. But because you understood).
sympathetic,
I will explain in more detail what I mean when I say that string theory does not (for now) have a single guiding principle corresponding to the principle of equivalence in general relations.
The idea that the particles are not point-like, but have a finite size is certainly new (assuming it is true), but it certainly does not give the whole of string theory. Beyond this principle, it is necessary to assume certain symmetries and, of course, above all, these string equations must be written. From what I understood from Brian Green's book, currently they do not know how to write these equations and certainly they do not derive directly from the idea that the particles are strings (or multidimensional sheets).
By and large, from what I understand, it seems that they are trying to write classical equations and then quantize them (as is known - replacing Poisson brackets with a commutator, etc.), conceptually there are two problems here:
- As Green pointed out in his book, it is not certain that the rules of the quantet will catch on at such scales, it is very possible that this game of writing a classical equation and then quantizing it, works in relatively large things. In string theory, according to him, there may be a need for a quantum theory from beginning to end, and we have no idea how to write that yet.
- From the "Torah of Everything" I would expect you to be able to explain these incomprehensible quantization rules and not to take them from the ready.
It is possible that in the future string theory will know how to answer these things and really know how to explain it, but for now it is not enough to say that the particles are strings, in order to accept the entire Torah.
The principle of equivalence, on the other hand (together with the assumption that all systems are equivalent) really gives the whole theory of relativity. If I had met a great mathematician long before Newton, and I had whispered in his ear that all systems are balanced, that the speed of light is finite, and that all bodies fall with the same acceleration regardless of their mass, that imaginary mathematician could have deduced the wave of relativity, including black holes, including radiation Gravitational and all-inclusive (of course, in the relativistic sense of these things and without their quantum properties).
In the meantime, at least in my understanding, quantum theory (including string theory) does not have a well-understood basic principle (corresponding to equivalence) that can provide a theoretical explanation for the entire Torah.
Anonymous (unidentified) user
The mind is not "created". It developed in stages. Neurons are not just part of the brain - they are the essence of the brain.
ב
This mind is not a sponge.
Neurons are a cardinal part of the brain.
Without nerve cells and a nervous system - the brain would not have been created at all.
Only our universe has Wikipedia?? Please give a reference…..
I didn't expect you to understand... but the second part (there are animals with a backbone and no brain) convinces you?
Jellyfish are a lower level of development.
The brain only developed after the nerves developed.
And to keep the brain a bone was probably needed.
The bone began its development without connection to the brain.
The brain began its development without connection to the bone.
But a combination of the two created a great advantage.
Miracles
I don't know what universe you live in, but in the only universe where Wikipedia exists, you are welcome to read alone and learn.
ב
What you wrote is not really related.
In jellyfish, for example, there are no vertebrae, but there are nerves.
In which universe does "the brain is made of nerve cells" + "nerve cells developed before the spine" ==> "the brain began to develop before the spine" ???????????
It just so happens that there are species of methrans that don't have brains.
Do you really think their brains have degenerated???
The spinal cord and the spinal bones that protect it evolved together.
This is a good example of a pair of features that accelerate each other.
That is, if there is feature A alone, then it does not give a great advantage, and also if there is only feature B, it also does not give a great advantage.
But a combination of feature A and feature B gives a great advantage and therefore they develop together and each of them accelerates the rate of development of the other.
Miracles
The brain is made up of nerve cells. These (nerve cells) developed before the spinal column. So basically, the brain started to develop before the spine (which is - you could say - the hard shell that protects nerve cells).
deer
I'm not well versed in string theory either but I tend to disagree with your statement,
"What is at least clear to me is that, at least for now, this is not the elegant and beautiful Torah that the physicists dream of.
The general theory of relativity (the most impressive example of such an elegant theory) takes one simple principle, which every person can understand, and builds from it a string of incredible ideas that, at least to the point of quantization, hold up well - string theory has no such principle!"
In my opinion string theory is based on a basic and elegant principle that fundamental ecstasies are strings and not
punctuation Regarding the confirmation of the theory, I agree that the experiments that can possibly confirm or refute the
The theory is very far away but as far as I know string theory is closely related with
supersymmetry and in the last experiments at the LHC no traces of any supersymmetric particle were discovered, on the other hand
Second, I heard a paradoxical claim in a lecture by John Ellis that the fact that the standard model
Confirmed so far with astonishing accuracy only strengthens the basis for supersymmetry as the model is known
The standard fails at high energies and nowadays only supersymmetry can cover this, but
Again I am very far from understanding the subject.
Anonymous (unidentified) user
The brain developed long after the spine.
And it is certainly reasonable to say that our brain is no longer developing - genetically. A condition for evolution is choice and humans today have no choice. This is a claim of course that needs to be tested, but it is very reasonable in my opinion.
Thanks to Zvi for reviewing the status of string theory. I also delved into the book "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Green. He is a true follower of the Torah. When he gets into the thick of it, it's a little hard to understand. May I recommend the beginning of the book, where you can find, in my opinion, good explanations of relativity and quantum theory. Beyond the fact that string theory is somewhat complex (even though it presents an elegant universe according to the author), and beyond the energetic orders of magnitude required to confirm the Torah, and which we are very far from, I express the opinion that there may be forces and parameters in the universe that are unknown to us and therefore we cannot yet find a theory of everything. As at the time the Kalutza-Klein theory described a mathematically perfect universe that was five-dimensional, but did not take into account the nuclear forces that were unknown at the time.
deer
Says briefly:
I disagree with your statement.
"Our brains evolved to hunt antelopes and run away from lions" - our minds still continue to evolve.
And just as at the beginning of the evolution of creatures the brain learned to build a backbone and a more complex ability to move, so also (over time) the brain learned to develop simple and complex physical theories. And even (in our era) to build a more sophisticated type of brain (computers; artificial intelligence, etc.).
Intuition, in my opinion, is not related to the subject. Because these theories are built according to mathematical models and not according to human intuition.
(In my opinion, you are tapping from human intelligence - instead of seeing the totality of knowledge accumulated by the organ called the brain. Which exists not only in humans).
deer
Says briefly:
I disagree with your statement.
"Our brains evolved to hunt antelopes and run away from lions" - our minds still continue to evolve.
And just as at the beginning of the evolution of creatures the brain learned to build a backbone and a more complex ability to move, so also (over time) the brain learned to develop simple and complex physical theories. And even (in our era) to build a more sophisticated type of brain (computers; artificial intelligence, etc.).
Intuition, in my opinion, is not related to the subject. Because these theories are built according to mathematical models and not according to human intuition.
(In my opinion, you are tapping from human intelligence - instead of seeing the totality of knowledge accumulated by the organ called the brain. Which exists not only in humans).
Humans are macroscopic creatures living in a quantum world but don't feel it.
Zvi, make me a boy!
Aryeh Seter,
I don't really know (it's not my field) and it seems to me that this is more or less the situation of most physicists.
I will describe what I do know, mainly based on a book called "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Green, one of the fathers of string theory.
String theory was initially invented to explain something completely different (properties concerning the nature of the strong force), it failed in this regard but then, somewhere in the 80s it was discovered that it might be more than that - it might unify gravity with quantum theory.
The assumption that this theory unites gravity with quantum theory is that the theory predicts the existence of the graviton - the particle that supposedly carries the gravitational force (allegedly because this particle has not yet been discovered and unlike say gravitational radiation, it is not completely clear that it must exist even according to the understanding the current of gravity). The point is that apart from the graviton, the theory also predicted the existence of many particles that do not exist, including tachyons (particles that move faster than the speed of light and create countless paradoxes).
In the meantime, they also changed the number of dimensions from 10, to 26, then to 11 and discovered that there are actually 5 different string theories which may very well be different aspects of the same theory ("the M theory") and may not - it's hard to know because in the meantime no one knows What are the basic equations of the theory.
in brief,
In the opinion of the people of string theory, this is a theory with tremendous potential which, unfortunately, has almost no chance of being directly recovered or disproved by the reasonable technologies in the next decades. The main attempts on their part (at least on the part of the pragmatic ones) to find residual effects that can be discovered in today's low energies - so far without success.
In my opinion (and it seems to me that this is the opinion of a large part of the physicists who are not involved in the subject) - I don't know. It may be that this is really the "true" theory that describes the universe, but in the meantime it has been on the standard of the great promise of tomorrow for 30 years and in the meantime it does not seem that anyone outside the world of strings has been convinced of its truth.
What is at least clear to me is that, at least for now, this is not the elegant and beautiful Torah that the physicists dream of.
The general theory of relativity (the most impressive example of such an elegant theory) takes one simple principle, which every person can understand and builds from it wires and wires of amazing ideas that, at least to the point of quantization, hold well - string theory has no such principle!
However, it is important to understand that reality may very well be cruel and humans - macroscopic creatures living in a classical and non-quantum world, simply cannot expect to intuitively understand the "idea that stands at the base of physics" (hoping that it even exists).
With all due respect, our brains evolved to hunt antelopes and run away from lions and not to explore the basics of physics,
It's nice that we manage to intuitively understand the idea that leads to understanding the existence of black holes, but it is possible that this is a chopper that we got from evolution by chance and we won't get more than that.
Aryeh Seter
Zvi probably knew a better answer, but as far as I know - string theory is currently the leading candidate in this regard.
But in any case the scientists first need to understand the meaning of the Higgs boson in order to know how to proceed from there.
Zvi - and what is the status of string theory?
Ori,
It seems that the theory has pretty much fallen out of favor, certainly in relation to what the author of the article himself attributed to it (his name is Lizzie)
According to Lizzy himself (the wave surfer) his theory is really incomplete:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Garrett_Lisi
A more complete review, more deadly and in more Hebrew, you can find here
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~barak_kol/Frontier/On-sense-n-nonsense.pdf
I have a question, several years ago a "surfer" made headlines who developed a very interesting theory - E8, which, if correct, unites all the forces known to science (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force) in a simple and elegant way:
https://www.hayadan.org.il/surfer-stuns-physicists-with-theory-of-everything-1911071
It was discussed that his theory could be tested in a particle accelerator because it predicts the existence of certain particles whose existence could be confirmed in a particle accelerator.
Has there been progress since then? Has his theory been confirmed or refuted?
Science is a possibility, not an importance. Science does not develop rationality but connects rationality to knowledge. Rationality supported by science leads to both good and bad no different than rationality connected to religion or any other superstition.
I wanted to, they didn't let me ask a second question,
Not to mention the budget of the State of Israel in science...
Filled with their leftist political views; Why didn't you ask him what the discovery of the Higgs boson contributes to science? (so that lay people have an idea of what the revelation means)