In recent posts I have suggested that the physics ox is in the ditch and this is bad for the economy and for all of us. That physics is mired in difficulties is no secret. American physicist and economist Lee Smolin says: A growing number of theoretical physicists … see the present situation as a […]
Physics―I assert―should be unmoved by religion. Recent posts show many physicists avoiding religious issues by turning to a multiverse. I name names of some who have succumbed (like Andrei Linde, Steven Weinberg and Brian Greene; far from the only culprits). In fairness, then, let’s check out who was first to stray. His name is Einstein. […]
Last week we saw leading physicists seducing themselves into a multiverse. Most accomplished their mental gymnastics in one of three weird ways: a many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics; an inflationary cosmology; or a string-theory landscape. All three have in common that they are at best ‘nice ideas’, not physics. So, what’s going on? These physicists […]
Last week we took a wide-lens look at the multiverse phenomenon that’s sweeping through the global physics village. Let’s look closer. South African cosmologist George Ellis says (about the simplest multiverses): The proponents are telling us we can state in broad terms what happens 1,000 times as far as our cosmic horizon, 10100 times, 101,000,000 […]
In the physics stratosphere a great debate is going on. Physicists say it is about the future of physics and the nature of everything.This may be true, but the issues are also personal. The story starts (or so it seems) with multiverses. Not long poems (though those still get more Google hits), I mean multiple-universe […]
A question guitar-player Swarup Sinhato posted on Time One’s Facebook Page gets me thinking. He wonders why we hear so little about Tesla these days. I’m not sure. But Nikola Tesla seems to have a way of crossing my trail. (Of course it’s vice versa.) In my teens I was intrigued by Tesla. I built electrical transformers and my own Tesla […]
Last week we looked at how adopting smart sun habits―tan, but never burn―minimizes your risk of many cancers and of other serious diseases. Now let’s take a closer look at physics that is triggered when you catch some rays, because there’s something else that you may want to do. A solar UVB photon has enough […]
Fair Skin and the 737: Deadly Combination? It’s northern summer so let’s speak about the m-word: Melanoma. We evolved in a wide range of sunshine so it’s no surprise that our relationship with it is complex. Equatorial peoples have dark skins and can take (and need) lots of sun; high-latitude peoples take and need little. […]
In previous posts I’ve quoted leading physicists as saying fundamental physics is in trouble. But why should you care how well (or how badly) physics goes? Here’s short answer #1: It supports a lot of paychecks. How this works may not be obvious so let me illustrate. In the late 1600s Isaac Newton kicked off […]