But the problem, as I said before, that I have with strings is not the strings, but that the string theorists found themselves needing more than three space dimensions, whereas twisters are very much bound up with having three space dimensions. Because there is a version of twister theory which involves strings as well. . These and other successes that stemmed from string theory seem to cut little ice with Penrose, for whom the whole edifice appears simply fantastical.
Science Friday transcripts are produced on a tight deadline by 3Play Media. ROGER PENROSE: And we’ve got to be prepared for a better theory to come along in which the world does not split in this way, because that’s an absurd contradiction. And why is it that you don’t see this sort of thing? Do we need–. . People believe oh, no. You have your classic weirdness of Einstein’s relativity, there’s the newer weirdness of string theory, and all sorts of theories of theoretical physics and cosmology that seek to answer the questions where the universe came from, how it works, where might be going. There are quantum experiments, which, I think the current record is 143 kilometers. And Schrodinger himself, as I say, pointing this out as a contradiction to experience. ROGER PENROSE: That seems to be very true. He begins by reminding us of kindergarten science, before putting his foot firmly on the accelerator. In fact, acclaimed physicist and bestselling author Roger Penrose argues that researchers working at the extreme frontiers of physics are just as susceptible to these forces as anyone else.
Two theories—quantum mechanics and general relativity—are widely believed to be true.
IRA FLATOW: Talking with Sir Roger Penrose, professor of math at Oxford, author of the new book Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe on Science Friday from PRI, Public Radio International. And I think that’s one of the reasons that– that’s the fashion aspect of it. In this provocative book, he argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important areas--string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology.
IRA FLATOW: Yeah, we could go. Although observations are compatible with such “inflation”, after 35 years, we still have no theory of the microscopic physics that underpins it. I mean, I find this particular– not so much with the quantum mechanics, because I haven’t been trying to do this experiment.
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In his new book, Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe, he turns a skeptical eye on some popular speculative ideas about theoretical physics. Reception. Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of …
IRA FLATOW: That’s the [INAUDIBLE] at a distance concept. But things where I notice the difficulty of getting funding is for the cosmological scheme. Because quantum gravity implies that you’re using standard quantum theory or quantum field theory, and applying it to gravitational theory, or Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Sir Roger Penrose (pictured above) is one of the most important theoretical physicists of the past 50 years. His 2005 The Road to Reality is a huge (over 1000 page), often technical, and masterful summary of the geometrical viewpoint on the fundamentals of physics, masquerading as a semi-popular book.
---Richard Webb, New Scientist, "Physics has been at an awkward impasse for the past century. If it’s not true, you have to have something else which does it. Email:maaservice@maa.org, Spotlight: Archives of American Mathematics, Policy for Establishing Endowments and Funds, Welcoming Environment, Code of Ethics, and Whistleblower Policy, Themed Contributed Paper Session Proposals, Panel, Poster, Town Hall, and Workshop Proposals, Guidelines for the Section Secretary and Treasurer, Regulations Governing the Association's Award of The Chauvenet Prize, Selden Award Eligibility and Guidelines for Nomination, AMS-MAA-SIAM Gerald and Judith Porter Public Lecture, Putnam Competition Individual and Team Winners, Maryam Mirzakhani AMC 10 Prize and Awards, National Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (NREUP), Best Practices Statements from the Committee on Faculty and Departments. Some ideas in physics, he says, are merely fashionable, attracting attention without solid experimental support. And cosmic inflation– you really– you come down very heavily against that. His particular bone of contention is that the theory requires six extra dimensions, not only contradicting reality but massively complicating the physics.
The faith– my chapter about faith is about quantum mechanics.
Who’s going to get a graduate student to work on some of these new Ideas?
The belief is that in the very early stages– a tiny, tiny fraction of a second, the universe indulged in what’s called an exponential expansion, and this stretched everything out to an enormous degree.
The theory is utterly implausible, he says, like many other modern cosmological ideas that still await direct observational confirmation. In Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe . .
And it’s like a two-slit experiment but with doors and cats. . While acknowledging some of the achievements of inflationary theory, part of his critique is related to that of Paul Steinhardt and others, showing that the theory doesn’t accomplish what it sets out to do, with the exponential expansion not providing a way to get observed homogeneity from arbitrary initial conditions. In this provocative book, he argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important areas-string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology. If you like what you're reading online, why not take advantage of our subscription and get unlimited access to all of Times Higher Education's content?
And I found that rather discouraging.
This reviewer can’t here do justice here to the depth and complexities of his arguments in this section. The eminent mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose identifies several possible sources of the rot.
Copyright © 2016 Science Friday Initiative. So somehow the world is viewed as splitting. ROGER PENROSE: It’s a bit like that, too.
But it does do other things– which, if it’s true– there are certain puzzles. Roger Penrose rejects many of the widely accepted ideas in modern cosmology as ‘fantasy’.
IRA FLATOW: Mm-hmm. . He rejects many of the widely accepted ideas in modern cosmology as “fantasy”, especially the theory that the universe very briefly inflated at an increasingly rapid rate before settling down to a slower rate of expansion.
That’s exactly [INAUDIBLE]. omething is rotten in the state of physics. Penrose is sometimes described as a “maverick”, but his point of view on physics and mathematics is in many ways quite conservative. But it’s more that– most people, when they think about uniting quantum theory with gravity or general relativity, they think of what’s called quantum gravity. .
Last modified on Thu 22 Feb 2018 07.37 EST. String theorists brush this aside, says Penrose, mesmerised by the mathematical beauty of their scheme and its generalisation, M-theory, and by the fact that it is the only quantum theory known to incorporate Einstein’s theory of gravity. He writes with clarity and authority in this dense but rewarding discussion of scientific stumbles in the search for truth. The quantum principles themselves will have to change.
Acknowledgements ix Preface xi Are fashion, faith, or fantasy relevant to fundamental science? "Physics has been at an awkward impasse for the past century. But they contradict each other in basic ways--they cannot both be entirely true.
So he was arguing that there needs to be something else which goes beyond the evolution that he had put forward, the Schrodinger equation. And this can be at a very tiny scale– that you might think it was tiny. You talk about how difficult it is for new theories to be accepted by scientists.
IRA FLATOW: Tell us about why that is so difficult.
In this provocative book, he argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important areas-string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology. Forty-five years ago, a collaboration between Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking transformed perceptions about black holes and the beginning of the universe. My objection to strings is more that the higher dimensional idea doesn’t really make sense in the physical world in which we live.
And not just Schrodinger, I should say– three hours of the fundamental people who founded quantum mechanics– Einstein, De Broglie, and most surprisingly, perhaps, Dirac, who was the one who formulated the rules that all quantum mechanics people use. But these two instances of the same person would then be thought of as inhabiting two separate worlds.
Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. [CHUCKLES]. And some– he’s not such a fan of some of them. Very few string specialists agree with him, but he is not one to be intimidated by an overwhelming majority, no matter how illustrious and vocal it is. ROGER PENROSE: Well, I think we do. So it’s when the curvature of space-time starts to become significant. It doesn’t actually stretch the universe out. This is probably the least controversial of Penrose’s fears about the direction of modern physics. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom.
ROGER PENROSE: The trouble is quantum gravity, to my mind, is the wrong thing to do. Chapter one "Fashion" focuses on string theory, chapter two, "Faith" on quantum mechanics, and chapter three "Fantasy" on cosmology.
IRA FLATOW: Is that where the faith comes in? And they’ve been working on an experiment, which puts a little tiny mirror– this mirror is about a tenth of the thickness of a human hair in diameter– and this mirror would be put into a superposition of two different locations.
ROGER PENROSE: Yes, it is. You can have quantum effects which straddle at least that distance [INAUDIBLE].
What can fashionable ideas, blind faith, or pure fantasy possibly have to do with the scientific quest to understand the universe? For terms of use and more information, visit our policies pages at http://www.sciencefriday.com/about/policies/. It’s very hard. Surely, theoretical physicists are immune to mere trends, dogmatic beliefs, or flights of fancy?
I have a picture where you see all the different curves that people sort of draw by hand, more or less, in order this particle, referred to as the inflaton which nobody has really observed or anything, but is supposed to be what is responsible for the inflationary scheme.
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