The Larson Research Center

In their books, Lee Smolin and Peter Woit characterize string theory and its accompanying ad hoc inventions, such as its extra dimensions of space and its landscape of solutions, as symptoms of the actual trouble with physics.  As usual, however, the trouble itself is more interesting than the symptoms.

Fundamentally, the trouble with physics comes down to one question: how can nature be both discrete and continuous, at the same time?  Of course, there are many other fundamental physics questions. Such questions as, What is the answer to the foundational problems of quantum mechanics? How can particles and forces be unified? How can general relativity and quantum mechanics be unified? Why are the free constants of the standard model what they are? What is dark matter and dark energy? are all noted by Smolin in his book.  Nevertheless, all of these problems are probably related to the root problem of understanding how nature can be discrete and continuous, simultaneously.

In the mind of Smolin, and that of most theoretical physicists in the LST community, this problem of fundamental unification is understood as the problem of inventing a theory of quantum gravity.  String theorists approach it from the point of view of the invention of particle physics, turning the invention of a dimensionless entity, a point, into an invention of a dimensionful entity, a string, and seeking to integrate the theory of gravity, which appears to come easily from this approach, with a suitable theory of particles, which is much more difficult to attain. 

Non-string theorists, on the other hand, who believe that the string approach is doomed, are also pursuing an integrated theory of quantum gravity, from the point of view of point particles, but, in their inventions, the theory of particles appears to come easily, while the theory of gravity is the much more difficult aspect of the challenge.

Then there is a smaller group of theorists, to which Smolin belongs, who believe that the lesson to be learned from Einstein is that the problem of quantum gravity should be approached from the point of view of the invention of general relativity. For members of this group, it’s not a matter of integrating existing discrete, or continuous, theories, but rather coaxing both theories out of the “ether,” based on Einstein’s invention of spacetime.  The latter approach is admittedly a much more risky and demanding approach, which probably explains why this group is so small.

While these three approaches are very different, they still have a lot in common.  First and foremost, they are all examples of inventive science, not inductive science. Inductive science, as we’ve discussed before, is more rigorous than inventive science, because it must stem from the consequences of hypotheses formed from observation. It does not enjoy the liberty of “free invention.” Nevertheless, the approaches based on inventions are all successful to one degree or another, unifying at least some of the discrete and continuous aspects of nature, and thus their respective adherents eventually become crusaders for their own approach.  That this situation can lead to some very unflattering behavior has become the fodder for physics blogs in the blogosphere that are sometimes not unlike esoteric versions of what used to be called “yellow journalism,” but is now known popularly as the tabloid press, or even just “the tabloids.”

Ironically, however, it’s the blogs that have given the non-professionals greater insight into the nature of the extremely technical issues related to the different approaches to quantum gravity.  Indeed, since even the professionals are non-professionals outside their own speciality, the blogs have greatly enriched the understanding of these issues among the pros, as well. In Woit’s latest post, entitled “Too Much Good Stuff,” he illustrates this new phenomena and identifies an associated dilemma it raises:

I’ve been finding recently that an increasing serious problems with blogs is that there are too many good ones with material worth reading. I’ve learned quite a lot recently from many well-informed blog postings, but the sheer number of these makes it hard to find the time for other things one should be doing.

Of course, because of his stand against the abuses of the string theory community and his book on the subject, his own blog, like several others that are similar, has become a focal point in the interaction between the different camps of theorists, or at least a good reflection of that interaction, with the regular contributors, becoming a lot like the paparazzi of an analogous tabloid, watching and reporting on the moves of the star players in the physics drama.

Thus, the Internet, and the world-wide-web developed on it, is changing the rate of interaction between the scientists allied with the different camps of followers in the three approaches to the theoretical invention of quantum gravity. 

Interestingly enough, however, Peter is not a professional theoretical physicist, but a professional mathematician with a heavy interest in theoretical physics - a virtual physicist, so-to-speak, who is able to say and do a lot of things that a leading real physicist, like Smolin, can’t say or do, like blogging, without causing a lot of professional discontent among his colleagues. 

Without virtual physicists, those of us who are neither professional mathematicians nor professional physicists would have very little access to the insider world of LST physics, but with these guys, the esoteric world that used to be confined to the halls and conference rooms of academia, is now open to the common man on the Internet. 

Perhaps the prototype of the virtual physicist is John Baez, who’s blog is often referred to as the proto-blog for physicists.  John turned from his theoretical physics work to work in mathematics, because he felt that the progress of theoretical physics had stagnated, but then he found that studying mathematics renewed his interest in physics, because of the intriguing connections that were uncovered by the mathematics of obscure, but fascinating patterns in topology, abstract algebra, and group theory.

Like most people who have something to say about these very technical and involved subjects, John is a very smart guy.  Us non-professionals can learn a lot from them about the unification debacle in modern physics, even though many times their “simplified” explanations are still nauseatingly complex.  A very good example of this is the latest entry on John’s blog, pointed to by Peter on his blog.  It’s number 253 in “This Week’s Finds in Mathematical Physics.”

In Week 253, John explains his friend Garrert Lisi’s innovative work on unification that constitutes a new direction:

Garrett is a cool dude who likes to ponder physics while living a low-budget, high-fun lifestyle: hanging out in Hawaii, surfing, and stuff like that. He recently won a Foundational Questions Institute award to think about ways to unify particle physics and gravity. That’s an institute devoted precisely to risky endeavors like this.

Lately he’s been visiting California. So, before giving a talk at Loops ‘07 - a loop quantum gravity conference taking place in Mexico this week - he stopped by Riverside to explain what he’s been up to.

Briefly, he’s been trying to explain the 3 generations of elementary particles using some math called “triality”, which is related to the octonions and the exceptional Lie groups. In fact, he’s trying to use the exceptional Lie group E8 to describe all the particles in the Standard Model, together with gravity.

It’s fascinating to see how these guys jet all over the world to listen to each other’s ideas in conferences and coffee shops.  When I first began to read the above entry on John’s blog, I was excited with anticipation of learning something really insightful.  Unfortunately, however, I was once again disappointed, as I became lost in the complexity of this stuff, which is just mind boggling to me, even with John’s patient and articulate explanations of what they are doing. 

I’ve had this kind of experience so many times before you would think I would get used to it, but, no, it still leaves me with the depressing feeling of exclusion.  Exclusion based on an inability to follow what they are talking about and the inertial mass of it all. It just seems so dense and obtuse, as to be practically impenetrable, at least in a reasonable lifetime. 

However, one wants to believe that the unification of nature simply can’t be based on these elaborate and complex principles that are so esoteric.  Whether it’s the ornate and baroque inventions of the string theorists, the less baroque, but just as abstract inventions of the particle theorists, or the very bizarre inventions of the loop theorists, the conclusion is the same: Isn’t there a simple inductive principle that we can discover that will return us to the good old days of inductive science, which will serve as the basis of a reasonable hypotheses of unification, instead of these learned Rube Goldberg-like contraptions of the LST physicists?

Of course, our firm conviction here at the LRC is that the answer to this important question is definitely yes. The beginning of this understanding is found in Larson’s work, where the principle of reciprocity unveils a whole new foundation upon which the unification of the discrete and continuous aspects of nature are explainable on a grade school level.  As a dramatic illustration of what I mean, I will shortly be sharing the details of a new and exciting development along this line, on The New Math blog.

Stay tuned.