I was wondering why there were lots and lots of hits on this weblog today coming from Google searches for “first evidence for string theory”. It looks like the answer is this lead article from the latest New Scientist magazine. I don’t have access right now to the full article, but it’s clearly based on the usual cosmic string hype. After all, according to the author, string theory “is our best hope of understanding how the universe works”, so anytime astronomers see something unusual, what else could it be but a string?
Update: I finally got ahold of a copy of the full article. It is based on two separate anomalies seen by astronomers. The first is called “CSL-1”, which was first reported nearly two years ago. It appears to be two nearly identical galaxies right next to each other, but the authors of a paper about it would like to believe there is some inter-galactic cosmic string producing two images of a single galaxy via gravitational lensing. Even if you believe this, there’s no evidence this is a fundamental superstring, even Joe Polchinski doesn’t think so (see Lubos Motl’s excited posting about “astronomers prove string theory”).
The second observation actually has nothing to do with the first (despite what the opening sentences of the story suggest). It’s of a quasar called Q0957+561A,B that really is a gravitationally lensed object. One thing I don’t understand is that in the case of CSL-1, the fact that there are only two images is taken as evidence that a string is doing the lensing (and claims are made that lensing by point like objects only produces odd numbers of images), whereas for Q0957+561A,B there are only two images, but an intervening galaxy, not a string, is what is doing the lensing. For the quasar pair, some changes in brightness by about 4% have been observed, so it has been suggested this is due to a nearby cosmic string (inside our galaxy, within 10,000 light years) which is moving around in our line of sight with the quasar pair.
I’d be curious to hear what professional astronomers think of this. To me it looks like just more string theory hype, and I now suspect that for the indefinite future, whenever an astronomer somewhere, somehow sees something anomalous, we’re going to be subjected to claims that “strings have been observed!!”.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.physics.research
All you need is a browser.
Anyone can write a paper and submit it for review. arxiv is more snobby, so ignore it.
I’ll be happy to read your paper. Of course I’m not very optimistic, since dicking around with the constants of nature is not very interesting. But I guarantee you a fair hearing.
-drl
Dr. Lunfords said:
“TAKE IT TO SPR AND GET FLAMED THERE. WRITE A PAPER AND SOLVE THE WORLD.”
I do not have access to SCI.PHYSICS.RESEARCH. For some reason I can no longer post on http://www.physicsforums.com. Repeated email inquiries asking why never gets any answer. If I am banned at least they need to let me know why.
I do not have priviledge to submit to ARXIV either. They now require that you have got to have an endorser first to submit anything at all.
I would love to “Get flamed”. But that never happened. No one listens. I have a great theory that makes correct predictions and results in GR on one end of limit and QM on another, and resolves many of the puzzles that the establishment scientists are puzzling about. But one one seems to even want to listen. Too bad that some of the most intelligent people would have to waste their lifetimes at the end in vain.
Quantoken.
“People tell me not to superpose any theoretical prejudice on their claim that their zodiacal sign is important to their destiny”
Existence of a destiny is already a theoretical prejudice.
DRL,
People tell me not to superpose any theoretical prejudice on their claim that their zodiacal sign is important to their destiny.
This web-page from Jodrell Bank Observatory
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/booklet/GravitationalLenses.html
says:
“…it appears that approximatly one distant radio source in 500 is split into multiple images due to lensing by a foreground galaxy.”
Therefore a quasar and a foreground galaxy lining up seems to be relatively common, and there will be even more cases where one is in the periphery of the other.
-Arun
The authors are observational astronomers – their job is to stoke the theoretical engines, not design them.
See the later papers, mentioned below.
My own opinion is that we are seeing the effect of joint gravitational/electromagnetic physics. However, the most important point is to take the observations at face value, and not to superimpose a theoretical prejudice.
-drl
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0203/0203466.pdf
does not dare conclude that the objects in NGC7603 are physically connected.
What are plausible mechanisms for intrinsic redshifts that would apply purely in quasar neighborhoods, and not hit anything else in astrophysics?
Arun said
I disagree that I’ve complicated things. In my opinion, you’re putting the cart before the horse. How do we first show that the quasar and galaxy are physically associated..
At some point it becomes a matter of good judgment. When you see exact “chance” lineups again and again, the chin stroking begins…In the case of some of these objects, there are *clearly* whiffordills of matter streaming from one to the other. In the case of NGC 7603, this matter bridge *itself* contains two more interesting objects. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar..
The other way to proceed is to say – here is a model of how quasars and galaxies are physically associated, e.g. quasars are ejecta from galactic cores. One immediage prediction is then that there should be star-like objects that are associated with a galaxy like the anomalous redshift quasars are; but are blueshifted relative the galaxy, because there is no reason that ejecta should always be directed away from us or traverse to our line of sight.
Agreed – and it is entirely possible for quasars to have a high intrinsic redshift, because of unknown physics, that swamps any blueshift Doppler-originated blueshift. Indeed the strange appearence of peculiar galaxies leaves one with the powerful impression that something very different is taking place from what we see in our placid corner. Again – all that needs to be shown is physical association of discordant Z objects. The origin of Z is then up for grabs. (Note you can still have the Hubble and Doppler Zs – just that it’s not the whole story.)
If you or Arp or whomever finds such stellar objects, I bet the whole community will pay attention. If Arp has not ever even attempted such a survey, then I must count him among the cranks.
I’m sure Arp would love to do just that. Anyone who could produce “Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies” is permanently out of the crank ranks.
-drl
DRL,
I disagree that I’ve complicated things. In my opinion, you’re putting the cart before the horse. How do we first show that the quasar and galaxy are physically associated?
Merely observing two objects along the same line of sight cannot tell us that they are physically associated. Physical interactions between the galaxy, gaseous filaments, and quasars are not observed/observable.
The standard model in fact says that since the redshifts of the quasar and associated galaxy are so different, it is merely happenstance that they appear together in the sky, and they are not physically associated. One way of overturning this is to show that the statistics of such anomalous redshift objects is observed to be different from what one would expect. Absent that, the standard model accomodates these “anomalous” objects quite well. The ratio of such objects to the number of gravitational lensing candidates should be computable.
The other way to proceed is to say – here is a model of how quasars and galaxies are physically associated, e.g. quasars are ejecta from galactic cores. One immediage prediction is then that there should be star-like objects that are associated with a galaxy like the anomalous redshift quasars are; but are blueshifted relative the galaxy, because there is no reason that ejecta should always be directed away from us or traverse to our line of sight. If you or Arp or whomever finds such stellar objects, I bet the whole community will pay attention.
If Arp has not ever even attempted such a survey, then I must count him among the cranks.
—
-Arun
BECAUSE YOU ARE BEING RUDE TO THE HOST AND HIS GUESTS. TAKE IT TO SPR AND GET FLAMED THERE. WRITE A PAPER AND SOLVE THE WORLD. BUT LEAVE IT OUT OF HERE.
-drl
Dr. Lunsford:
I do respect Dr. Halton Arp without necessarily agreeing with him totally.
But what right do you have to ask the establishment to respect his right to develope an alternative theory, when you do not respect mine in the first place.
We can agree to disagree and continue to talk about science. But you’ve got to put your vulgarity aside and pay me some respect.
Quantoken
Q, where did you learn manners? NO ONE HERE IS INTERESTED. TAKE IT TO SPR AND GET FLAMED THERE.
-drl
I might also add that the location relativity, which is a natural derivation from the fundamental principle of my GUITAR theory, also predicts the Pioneer Spaceship Abnormal Acceleration, and it gave the correct quantitative prediction as observed.
The predicted “acceleration”, based on my calculation, is:
(4/PI)*C^2/(Radius of Universe)
This acceleration quantity does not depend on the spaceship’s location. It always point to where the observe is located.
Please note the radius of universe is calculated from alpha, in my natural unit system:
Ru = PI * N
N = PI * exp(2/(3*alpha))
The length unit is equal to classical electron radius. That doesn’t mean it’s classical, but it’s value happen to be calculated the same way as classical electron radius is defined.
It is not purely a numerology coincidence that I got the exactly correct neutron mass, a 9 digits accuracy, among other amazingly correct predictions. It is a real science that describes the nature correctly.
Quantoken
Yes, Arp is flat wrong with some of his ideas – but he’s also an absolutely first-rate astronomer with a great track record, who has been “flat ostracized” by the clergy for speaking blasphemously.
BTW Q, SHUT THE F*CK UP ABOUT YOUR “THEORY” – TAKE IT TO SPR OR THE LIKE.
-drl
I have read about Halton Arp’s point of view and things like “tired light”. I do not agree totally with him. But it is definitely wrong that a well established astronomer be deprived his observation time and his right to look at the sky and study his theory further.
According to the Copernicusian, we do not live in a special time or special place in the universe. It’s absolutely true we do not live in a special generation of human history.
Of course our generations are more advanced than the middle age. But of course future generations thousands of years later would be more advanced than us, too. Frankly, future generations will look at the way how true science is suppressed in the 20-21st century, the same way we look at how the establishment suppressed the opposite ideas in the Middle Age, if not worse.
We truely do not live in a special era.
Now on the Hubble Redshift. It is an observational truth that there do exist such a red-shift that is approximately proportional to distance. That should not be questioned. What needs to be questioned is how to interpret that distance correlated redshift.
I do not think the standard interpretation of Doppler Shift is right. Now do I think the tired light model is right.
We assume that the frequence of light from remote location would not otherwise change, unless there’s either Doppler Effect, Gravity Redshift, or other physical reasons to cause it to change.
But I have the opposite idea. I think the light itself doe NOT change! The frequency does NOT change. What changes is the ruler that we use to measure that frequency!!!
What ruler do we use to measure frequence? We measure frequence by counting number of waveforms per second. So we need to have a clock to measure time to measure frequence!!! I think the very ruler that we use to measure time, the clock, has changed from the remote location to our location.
Yes, I am talking about relativity. Not Einstein’s Relativity, but a more fundamental relativity. Time is different not only when measured on different reference frames. Time is also different when comparing two clocks billions of light years apart.
And just like the case of special relativity. This difference is relative: We see a remote clock billions of years away runs slower than our clock. But the other civilization billions of years away also see our clock as running slower than theirs.
This location related special relativity, relative to Einstein’s inertia reference frame related special relativity, was neccesated, and predicted by the fundamental principle of my GUITAR theory, which believs that the total quantum information of the universe HAS to be conserved, which directly leads to a closed spacetime of the universe.
Certainly, in a closed spacetime, you can not have time propressing at the same pace at all locations! What I mean is you can not have a universal time and at the same time have a close 3-D space. It is that simple. Spacetime is one piece and you really can not separate the two and treat space and time differently. That’s what Einstein told us.
My theory of relativity therefore also answers the observed super nova “time dilation”. Of course time dilates, because clocks at remote location runs slower than ours!!!
GUITAR is a self consistent theory and agrees with all observed facts, and have made many amazingly precise predictions, including precisely calculated the CMB temperature, solar constant, proton and neutron mass, within the error bars of observational data.
Quantoken
Arun,
You complicate the issue needlessly. The main point is that quasars are assumed to have high cosmological redshifts, that is, they are far away. The only *first* thing that needs to be shown is that quasars are physically associated with galaxies having a widely discordant redshift (and that peculiar galaxies of discordant redshift are physically associated) – once this is accepted the search for causes can begin. Personally, I *do* think it is new physics – namely, these are situations in which the linking of gravity and light would be expected to show up. Perhaps it can be explained as standard plasma phenomena on a large scale, perhaps not. The main point is that something other than cosmical distance with Hubble’s law is contributing to the redshift. Certainly, nothing will happen as long as pressure from the BB clergy prevents a campaign of observation of these objects. Ask Arp where he’d like to begin, and turn him loose.
-drl
A quick take on anomalous redshift objects:
The anomalous redshift examples consist of quasars with a high redshift, seemingly physically associated with a galaxy of low redshift.
a. Chance juxtaposition – the association is apparent, not real. If things line up often enough for us to have gravitational lensing candidates, then surely things line up often enough to have these anomalous examples; presumably we can work out the statistics.
b. Suppose the quasars are associated with galaxy. Then their high redshifts are either due to their velocities or are intrinsic to them.
b1. E.g., suppose quasars are ejecta from galactic cores. Then we should find also stellar objects associated with galaxies that are blueshifted relative to the galaxies.
b2. Suppose the redshifts are intrinsic – then a blue shift survey would find nothing.
b2a. It could mean Hydrogen is emitting its Balmer spectral lines inside a deep gravitational well; so quasars are super massive objects associated with a galaxy. Perhaps just as exotic as quasars in the standard model, where they are superbright and very far away. Now the quasars are associated with the galaxy by filaments of gas, and we should observe acceleration of the gas into such supermassive objects.
b2b. New physics – this is dubious – which of the very well understood laws regarding electromagnetic radiation would you want to abrogate?
The very first question I’d ask to someone who is pointing to anomalous redshift examples is – has the corresponding blueshift survey been done?
It seems like the word “terrorist” is slowly losing it’s original meaning, in the same way the meaning of words like “Nazi”, “fascist”, “commie” and “communist” changed over the 20th century. People are using “terrorist” to label their opponents in the same way folks used “Nazi” and/or “communist” to slur their opponents during most of the 20th century, where their opponents are anything but fascist or Marxist in political ideology.
It seems that this is the correct moment to inject really provocative experimental findings. I cannot resist the temptation to also say few words about TGD based model for findings. The model provides support for the role of magnetic flux tube structures (having cosmic strings as a limiting case) as carriers of dark matter in quantum states of astrophysical size. The ratio v_0^2= G/R^2, where R is CP_2 length, essentially the ratio of the cosmic string tension to string string tension, appears also as a basic parameter of the model, so that I can argue that the injection is loosely related to
the topic of the discussion.
1. Are planetary orbits Bohr orbits?
The basic finding is that there is evidence that planetary orbits correspond to Bohr orbits in a gravitational potential when Planck constant is replaced with a gigantic “gravitational Planck constant. For various kinds of experimental evidence (our planetary system, radii of exo-planets, matter in galactic halo, morphology of large scale astrophysical objects) see the article
D. Da Rocha and L. Nottale (2003), Gravitational
Structure Formation in Scale Relativity, astro-ph/0310036,
D. Da Rocha and Laurent Nottale have proposed that Schroedinger equation with Planck constant hbar replaced with what might be called gravitational Planck constant hbar_{gr}= GmM/v_0 (hbar=c=1). v_0 is a velocity parameter having the value v_0=about 145 km/s. This is rather near to the peak orbital velocity of stars in galactic halos. Also sub-harmonics and harmonics of v_0 seem to appear. The support for the hypothesis coming from empirical data is impressive. Nottale and Da Rocha believe that their Schroedinger equation results from a fractal hydrodynamics.
2. Is dark matter in quantum states of astro-physical size?
Many-sheeted space-time however suggests that astrophysical systems are not only quantum systems at larger space-time sheets but correspond to a gigantic value of gravitational Planck constant. This would imply astrophysical quantum coherence lengths and times. The gravitational (ordinary) Schroedinger equation or Bohr rules would provide a solution of the black hole collapse (IR catastrophe in case of hydrogen atom) problem encountered at the classical level.
The basic objection is that astrophysical systems are extremely classical. Many-sheeted space-time predicts however macro-temporal quantum coherence in the scale of life time of gravitational bound states. The resolution of the problem inspired by TGD inspired theory of living matter is that it is the dark matter at larger space-time sheets which is quantum coherent in the required time scale.
3. Beraha numbers and quantization of Planck constant
I have proposed
[see the chapter “Intentionality, Cognition, and Physics as Number theory or Space-Time Point as Platonia” at http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/tgd.html#intcognc%5D
the possibility that Planck constant is quantized and the spectrum is given in terms of logarithms of Beraha numbers
B_n= 4cos^2(pi/n), n>=3.
associated with both the so called type II_1 factors of von Neumann algebras, braid group representations, and quantum groups. The lowest Beraha number B_3 is completely exceptional in that it predicts infinite value of Planck constant.
The inverse of the gravitational Planck constant could correspond a gravitational perturbation of this as 1/hbar_{gr}= v_0/GMm. The general philosophy would be that when the quantum system would become non-perturbative, a phase transition increasing the value of hbar occurs to preserve the perturbative character and at the transition n=4–>3 only the small perturbative correction to 1/hbar (3)=0 remains. This would apply to QCD and to atoms with Z>137 as well.
4. The parameter v_0 in terms of the ratio G/R^2
TGD predicts correctly the value of the parameter v_0 assuming that cosmic strings and their decay remnants are responsible for the dark matter. v_0 is essentially the ratio sqrt(G)/R, where R is CP_2 size: v_0^2 gives also the reduction of cosmic string tension from its stringy value 1/G consistent with the velocity of orbiting stars in the galactic halo.
The harmonics of v_0 can be understood as corresponding to perturbations replacing cosmic strings with their n-branched coverings so that tension becomes n^2-fold: much like the replacement of a closed orbit with an orbit closing only aftern turns. 1/n-sub-harmonic would result when a magnetic flux tube split into n disjoint magnetic flux tubes.
5. Quantum model for evolution of planetary system
The study of inclinations (tilt angles with respect to the Earth’s orbital plane) leads to a concrete model for the evolution of the planetary system as being induced by the quantum evolution of the dark matter. Only a stepwise breaking of the rotational symmetry and angular momentum Bohr rules plus Newton’s equation (or geodesic equation) are needed, and gravitational Schroedinger equation holds true only inside flux quanta for the dark matter.
a) During pre-planetary period dark matter formed a quantum coherent state on the (Z^0) magnetic flux quanta (spherical shells or flux tubes). This made the flux quantum effectively a single rigid body with rotational degrees of freedom corresponding to a sphere or circle (full SO(3) or SO(2) symmetry).
b) In the case of spherical shells associated with inner planets the SO(3)–> SO(2) symmetry breaking led to the generation of a flux tube with the inclination determined by m and j and a further symmetry breaking, kind of an astral traffic jam inside the flux tube, generated a planet moving inside flux tube. The semiclassical interpretation of the angular momentum algebra predicts the inclinations of the inner planets. The predicted (real) inclinations are 6 (7) resp. 2.6 (3.4) degrees for Mercury resp. Venus). The predicted (real)inclination of the Earth’s spin axis is 24 (23.5) degrees.
c) The v_0–> v_0/5 transition necessary to understand the radii of the outer planets can be understood as resulting from the splitting of magnetic flux tube to five flux tubes representing Earth and outer planets. The flux tube has a shape of a disk with a hole glued to the Earth’s spherical flux shell.
d) A remnant of the dark matter is still in a macroscopic quantum state at the flux quanta. It couples to photons as a quantum coherent state but the coupling is extremely small due to the gigantic value of hbar_gr scaling alpha by hbar/hbar_gr: hence the darkness.
6. Connection between dark matter and living matter?
What is amazing that the period T =hbar_gr/E associated with n=1 orbit in the case of Sun is 24 hours within experimental accuracy for v_0. This and other rather amazing coincidences between basic bio-rhythms and the periods associated with the states of orbits in solar system suggest that the frequencies defined by the energy levels of the gravitational Schroedinger equation might entrain with various biological frequencies such as the cyclotron frequencies associated with the magnetic flux tubes.
These findings encourage to take with some seriousness the TGD based quantum model of living matter involving macroscopic quantum coherence in even astrophysical length scales (at space-time sheets representing topological field quanta of various fields with frequencies in ELF and ULF range) and flow of matter between different space-time sheets as basic mechanism of quantum control and metabolism. It would be quantal dark matter at topological field quanta which makes visible matter living.
For more details see either the article “Gravitational Schrödinger equation as a quantum model for the formation of astrophysical structures and dark matter?” at
http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/articles/nottale.pdf or the chapter “TGD and Astrophysics” at http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/padtgd.html#astro“.
Matti Pitkanen
http://www.metaresearch.org/publications/books/SeeingRed-Arp.asp
Quote:
Here are some brief quotes outlining what Arp has learned from these exchanges.
“When presented with two possibilities, scientists tend choose the wrong one.” ”
The stronger the evidence, the more attitudes harden.”
“The game here is to lump all the previous observations into one ‘hypothesis’ and then claim there is no second, confirming observation.”
“No matter how many times something has been observed, it cannot be believed until it has been observed again.”
“If you take a highly intelligent person and give them the best possible, elite education, then you will most likely wind up with an academic who is completely impervious to reality.
“When looking at this picture no amount of advanced academic education can substitute for good judgment; in fact it would undoubtedly be an impediment.”
“Local organizing committees give in to imperialistic pressures to keep rival research off programs”
“It is the primary responsibility of a scientist to face, and resolve, discrepant observations.”
“Science is failing to self-correct. We must understand why in order to fix it.”
A Arp-Bahcall debate on anomalous redshifts occurred in 1972. What has changed since then?
OK Arun, but this is rather more important:
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401596
Another one, this time, with Zs from .12 to .22.
Ok, clear now everyone? The above is science, with spectrometers and eyeballs and brains.
-drl
Congrats. to Iyam for injecting some humor into this vitriolic thread.
There are a lot of hurdles to be cleared before we know whether we are seeing gravitational lensing by a dense quasi-one dimensional object (dunno why people object to the word ‘string’ 🙂 ). Let there be independent observations of this object; let the Hubble or Keck get some observation time. Remember that it is the astronomers, not the string theorists, who get the final say as to whether something is there. Meanwhile, the theoretical community, well symbolized by the barracuda, will come out with a burst of speculative papers.
This is the way it has always worked, string theory hasn’t changed anything.
Dear Quantoken,
A colleague has pointed out to me your entries on this blog and I have to tell you that scientific plegiarism is a very serious issue! Your derivation of the CMB temperature and baryon masses look suspiciously like my cosmological work on Scalar-Hadron Interactions and Thermal Excitons (S-H.I.T.E), where I derive these numbers. I have 2 papers that I published on this while a visiting scholar at the Yonkers Institute of Technology in New York.
I derived an explicit differential equation for a time-dependant dimensionless quantity N(t)(although in my paper it is called B(t)) and get a solution in the infinite time equilibrium limit
such that N(t)–>N=4 pi exp(a/3alpha) where constant “a” is fixed by initial conditions (the Planck temperature). As the universe cools off and expands and energies fall below 100Gev the running coupling constant alpha falls from 1/128 to its present constant value of 1/137. The effective gravitational constant is then essentially “condensed” out from thermal quantum vacuum fluctuations, much like Sakharov said it should, and thats why it can be related to alpha via N. Because the solution is essentially a thermal equilibrium limit I can compute the CMB temperature and get an accurate answer within current experimental bounds.
The vacuum fluctuations also create regions of trapped quantum information called “excitons” which we experience as protons, neutrons and other baryons and hadrons, and the amount of information determines their masses since I can relate entropy S to E and get the masses from m=sqrt(E/C^{2}). When alpha is 1/128 the fluctuations are much greater at the beginning of the universe and the regions of trapped information are therefore heavier and within their own horizons, so they are actually microscopic quantum black holes with a Bekenstein entropy (equal to their von neumann entropy). But these can decay via Hawking radiation and contribute to the CMB. Only as
N–>N=4pi exp(a/3alpha)=const=1/137, as the universe cools, do the trapped regions become much lighter and stable so that they appear as massive particles like protons.
Although there are differences in my model the similarities are too much of a coincidence and you will not get credit for computing the CMB temperature, since I clearly did it first. I would expect that you would at least quote my work rather than shamefully present it as your own. Anyone visiting your blog will be made aware of this. The advantage here is that I am in print for all to see.
Yours
Iyam deRanjeed
India
Lubos
For not lack of trying to understand, I appreciate the work you are doing to bring comprehension to this subject. I am always revising, to understand the theoretical positions people adopt.
According to T-duality, universes with small scale factors are equivalent to ones with large scale factors. No such symmetry is present in Einstein’s equations; it emerges from the unification that string theory embodies, with the dilaton playing a central roleby
Gabriele Veneziano
regards,
Those who are more interested in physics than the “Gentlemen”‘s inability to learn even the very basics of this subject (and their political statements) – I am not sure whether anyone like that attends this blog – should read my article about it
http://motls.blogspot.com/2004/12/astronomers-prove-string-theory.html
and the articles linked in it.
An idiot posted a nonsense above my message, so it may be safer to post my message once again:
It’s a waste of time. I will just keep on returning to these dangerous places to emphasize that the owner of this blog and most of the contributors on this blog are scientifically illiterate morons. They have no idea what they are talking about, and they have no respect to the basic rules of scientific integrity.
Lubos said:
“It’s a waste of time. I will just keep on returning to these dangerous places to emphasize that the owner of this blog and most of the contributors on this blog are scientifically illiterate morons. They have no idea what they are talking about, and they have no respect to the basic rules of scientific integrity.”
In that case I do will delete them so my readers do not waste time. But I will keep an archive of all your shits and explain why I have to delete them.
But for now, don’t start to “waste” your time there yet. I have not put anything there yet. Posting a ton of your rants there without me starting to say a word yet only make you look silly.
Quantoken
It’s a waste of time. I will just keep on returning to these dangerous places to emphasize that the owner of this blog and most of the contributors on this blog are scientifically illiterate morons. They have no idea what they are talking about, and they have no respect to the basic rules of scientific integrity.
Damn, another typo. I guess I really don’t type well on a keyboard when do it in a hurry:
t0 = time for light to go across the classical electron radius
t0 = C/(classical electron radius)
t0 = 2.817940325×10^-24 seconds
The middle line was wrong although the numerical value is correct. Waht I meant to say is:
t0 = (classical electron radius)/C
Quantoken
Chris:
Thanks.
And, peter, thanks for providing a place where I can discuss my thoughts, even just a small glimpse of my theory.
Indeed I have been a bit too lazy and havn’t even got a web site set up to discuss my theory fully. I will do it as soon as I find some time dealing with the chore of getting the typesetting right.
In the future, here is my BLOG:
http://quantoken.blogspot.com
There is nothing there yet at this moment. When time comes I will disclose the full details of how I achieve those amazing results of computating the CMB temperature, solar constant, proton and neutron mass, etc, all from one consistent theory.
I am not going to deal with Lubos any more. I thought he was a smart guy having got that ln3 result. But since he is not willing to admit mistakes like another guy who got ln3 wrong did, he is just too stubburned to be persuaded. I do hope he has a calculator and punch in numbers to try to verify my calculation, trying to pick my any possible arithmatic mistakes. Here is the source of oficial physical constants:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/index.html
I will try to post less on Peper’s blog if I can control myself a bit. He is a nice and tolerate guy. No surprise that he is a mathematician!
Quantoken
Peter –
Please don’t – I’m enjoying it.
Quantoken –
Repeating your theories in the comments section of physics blogs will get you nowhere. Collect your thoughts on a web site & if people see fit, they will visit it.
Lubos –
The image of knowing an aeroplane is going in the wrong direction without necessarily being able to operate the controls is very apt. I have talked to laymen who have read “The Elegant Universe” & come away with the impression that the whole thing is going nowhere without any prompting by me. It’s not good enough to be able to sell your ideas to fellow believers. Ultimately you have to sell your ideas to the rest of the world as well & behaving like a spoiled brat is not going to help your case.
Regarding the CMB discovery, that’s the whole point I want to make. They discovered CMB and explain it as the remains of Big Bang and hence a supportting evidence for Big Bang, and they obtained the Nobel. If they discovered the CMB and explain it as star radiations, then that trivializes their discovery and there is no way they can get a Nobel out of it, even if it is the same discovery.
It’s the whole secret how you cook your data. As I have shown, without dispute, that CMB is indeed just star radiations: I obtained the absolutely correct CMB temperature that matches oberved value exactly. No one else have obtained such a precise calculation of CMB. I got it out of the simple assumption of star radiation.
Actually Sir Eddington did similar calculation and obtained 3K, a very precise number, far before CMB discovery. BigBangers can’t even hope to get 3K correct today. I got all digits correct!
BTW, Lubos, are you making physical threats to me? Science can not develop if physical threats like this exists. Scientists must be able to express any idea free of fear of threats, AND free of fear of FUNDING. Unfortunately the later part is lacking.
I am putting up a BLOG of my own and I guarantee no one will be censored there. Not even you, Lubos.
Quantoken
I enjoy the spectacle of vigorous scientific debate as much as the next person, but calling for physical violence (by the US military or anyone else) against one’s intellectual opponents is beyond the pale. I’ll be deleting any future comments by anyone that do this.
I missed something in the middle due to typo. It should be
sqrt(beta) = ((2/3)*(1/alpha) + (3/2)*ln(PI))/ln (sqrt(2/PI)*(Tau/(PI*t0)))
Not
sqrt(beta) = ln (Tu/sqrt(PI))/ln((Tau/(PI*t0))*sqrt(2/PI))
The starting formula and the numerical results are all correct:
sqrt(beta) = ln (Tu/sqrt(PI))/ln((Tau/(PI*t0))*sqrt(2/PI))
Lubos:
Go away. Your “explaination” of what I wrote is simply erase my words on your blog. “Explanation” by censorship is not an explanation and I am not interested in dialoging with a censorship dictator.
I am not commenting on you more and you should not comment on me more either. Is that fair enough?
Now my derivation of the exact neutron mass. So that you don’t bullshit more on me. I am not going to give any reasoning. Just the formula. Any one can calculate and get the same result:
Theoretical Proton mass:
Mp = Me*(1/alpha)*(ln(2*(1+3*5!+7!))/ln2)
Mp = Me*137.03599911*(ln(10802)/ln(2))
Mp = 9.1093825×10^-31 kg * 1836.146836
Mp = 1.672626404×10^-27 kg
Theoretical Neutron Mass:
Mn = Mp + Me*beta
sqrt(beta) = ln (Tu/sqrt(PI))/ln((Tau/(PI*t0))*sqrt(2/PI))
Tu is age of the universe expressed in My Natural Unit Set, where the unit of time
t0 = time for light to go across the classical electron radius
t0 = C/(classical electron radius)
t0 = 2.817940325×10^-24 seconds
Age of universe
Tu = PI * N
with
N = PI * exp (2/(3*alpha))
So:
sqrt(beta) = ((2/3)*(1/alpha))/ln (sqrt(2/PI)*(Tau/(PI*t0)))
Tau is the free Neutron mean lifetime, 885.7 seconds.
You get:
sqrt(beta) = 93.07442757(31)/58.4372(9)
beta = 2.53677(9)
The brackets above means the possible discrepancy of the last few digits.
So:
Mn = Mp + beta*Me
Mn = 1.672626404×10^-27 + 2.31084(7)x10^-30
Mn = 1.67492724(7)x10^-27 kg
The above is my calculation result. The official value is:
Mn = 1.67492728(29)x10^-27 kg
(see http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?mn|search_for=neutron+mass)
My result matches up to the ninth digit and is completely within the experimental margin of error.
My computation is elegant all the way and there is absolutely no adjustable parameter, no fractional number, no expansion series. Only one additon occured to calculate neutron mass from proton mass. I obtained both the correct proton mass and the correct neutron mass. Can you say a theory that achieves 9 digits accuracy this way, is crackpot?
I can not disclose my reasoning behind because the kind of Lubos will probably erase my messages and then write up a string paper to publish and claim to have calculated neutron mass.
Quantoken
It’s just totally incredible what all of you imagine science is.
Concerning “bird shits on the telescope” – there were some shits indeed, but even without the shits the signal survived. This is why Kapitsa, Penzias, and Wilson made the biggest discovery in cosmology in the last 50 years, and were awarded by the 1978 Nobel prize for their discovery of the microwave background.
You will probably never understand what science is. Science requires absolute integrity. Science cannot be done under threats. I insist that if a complete moron with 0 knowledge about physics tries to rape physics and force the scientists to publish whatever he wants, then this moron should be eliminated by the government’s bodies if the government has any control over the security situation in the country.
It is also a very personal responsibility of every individual scientists to resist all pressures, threats, and blackmailings that are intended to twist his or her honest scientific investigation.
Every scientist with healthy enough muscles should give a proper thrashing to terrorists like Chris Oakley who are openly trying to destroy the very basic principles of unbiased scientific research.
Dear Quantoken,
I’ve already explained the reality about all the stupidities that you wrote, and your latest rant does not contain anything new that has not been explained yet.
Of course that I think that Oakley’s comments about funding of these amazing projects are horrible. It’s an approach of a totally uniformed terrorist. People like Oakley should be dealt with by the US soldiers with the gun – and I am sort of ashamed to waste my time with such immoral idiots.
Sincerely Yours
Lubos
Chris said: “I would love to be the person who cuts the grants of scientists who resort to bullshit explanations whenever they see anything slightly out of the ordinary.”
Chris, unfortunately you can not do it even if you have that power. That’s the most people there are in the fields. The culture is cultivated by “publish or perish.” You would want to provide bullshit explanations than trivial, common sense explanations or nothing at all, if you want something published. Claiming “My telescope does not work perfectly because a bird shit on it” does not get your paper published. Claiming “this peck of dust is not peck of dust but something explainable by superstring” will guarantee publication. You can’t cut them all.
One big exception I must make is for mathematicians. They do not have the burden of observation and proving their result by experiments. All they ever do is the most strict mathematical reasoning. So there is absolutely no room to be bullshiting in the field of mathematics.
So mathematicians are the most honest people on the earth. That’s why we do not see a single politician came from a mathematics background.
Quantoken
Lubos:
Looks like Chris’s comment of “cut funds” really hurt your feeling more than the language of “crackpot”, right? Talking is cheap, but funding is not. “Publish or perish”.
Regardly your ln3 result. Are you sure you are the only surviver? You are not, you are just still breathing. The other guy has been proven to be wrong, and you got the same answer as the wrong guy got. If you have the SAME wrong answer, how come he were wrong and you were correct. It’s just no body has bothered to check your mistaken yet. That’s worse than being found to have made a mistake: You know your answer is wrong but you do not know how you made that mistake.
Regarding your comment of seeing the picture of the paper to believe these are two identical images, not one. My comment is smart people do NOT always believe what they see. They have brains, they subject everything they see, hear, or touch to logic reasoning, filtering all the information, before deciding which part is to be believed, and which part is not. If your brain does not have that filtering or processing power and simply take everything published as granted, then it serves no better purpose than a paper recycling bin.
You say they hide the coordinate of that particular object so no one else can see it before they collect more data. But then they claim the phenomena is so common place that within 16 square arcseconds, a visual area just a size of one galaxy at 10 billion light years awy, they could find 11 pairs. Then any one can look at any part of the sky and find plenty of this sort of things.
The center of such “two” images being so close, even closer than the radius of a typical galaxy, the object itself. Even if you think you see two separate but identical images, it could be easily explain away by a few hundred different artifacts I can think of.
The simplest and easiest explaination is they are indeed just one slightly distorted image, wrongly interpretted as two images.
For example, do you have an idea how weak the light would be if it comes from a galaxy 10 billion light years away? Radius of the universe is only 14 billion light years. Do you know how many photons they would be able to collect, during a course of several hours observation?
You probably don’t know the stuff, being working in such a narrow field. Astronomical observation is not taking point and shot photos. To get anything at all, you have to aim your telescope exactly towards the same object for several hours to collect a few photons to form an image. On the earth, that means you have to rotate your telescope all the time in a very precise way to keep it targeted.
If some how it is not targetting very precisely, during the whole course of several hours, like it is off just a little bit, 2 arcseconds, then the photos would not focus on exactly the same spot, but will form a slightly distorted image.
2 arcseconds is not much. All it take, is probably a fly by bird shitting on the telescope and the tiny extra weight bends the telescope so slightly. Or a truck drive by to dent the ground surface ever so slightly.
Even without bird shits or drive by trucks, an earth surface based telescope would have to deal with the fact that star lights were bend by the atmosphere. During different part of the day the injection angle is different and the bending will be different. Different weather condition or atmosphere composition also may cause the bending to be slightly different and it is hard to model it and compensate it, on top of compensating for the rotation of the earth.
On top of all these, you have the “atmospheric seeing”. The lights are distorted due to random thermo movements of the molecules in the atmosphere. This seeing makes it hard to obtain anything better than 1 arcsecond resolution even under even most optimal observational condition. So 2 arcseconds is reall not that much!!!
I have done scientific experiments so sensitive that I absolutely have to conduct it under the ground, after 2:00am, and I must not make the slighted muscle movement even to type on a computer keyboard. It’s damn too easy to introduce artifacts in observational data nowadays. Being a theoretician you probably know nothing more than your blackboard.
Quantoken
Fortunately, the people in the agencies are not idiots like you, Chris. On the contrary, some of them know much about physics. Chris, I know that you would like to be powerful, much like Peter (well, and many others for that matter, too). But one can’t get too powerful if it is too obvious that he or she is a complete idiot.
If the images are confirmed identical and identially strong and undistorted, a huge cosmic string’s gravitational lensing is the only acceptable explanation. I am sure that the most important people in the agencies can understand why it is so.
I would love to be the person who cuts the grants of scientists who resort to bullshit explanations whenever they see anything slightly out of the ordinary.
Peter Woit obviously has not understood the basic points about gravitational lensing yet.
For generic, point-like sources of gravitational lensing, one obtains several images that are highly distorted and that have very different intensities.
Who wants to get a feeling why it’s so can play with the following simulation applet:
http://www.iam.ubc.ca/%7Enewbury/lenses/lensdemo/demo.html
It’s of course the case of the other lensed object, too – the two images are NOT identical. Moreover, it is known which object is causing the lensing.
CSL-1 is special among all lensings in having two IDENTICAL images – the spectra are equal with 99.999 percent confidence level or so. This occurs for lensing by cosmic strings, but not by pointlike objects.
Concerning the last paragraph.
Peter obviously cannot or does not want to understand that in the case that the images of CSL-1 turn out to be identical indeed (and not just two similar “twin” independent galaxies), then it is just guaranteed that it is either a big coincidence (poinlike particle lensing fine-tuned to give unusually similarly strong images), or a cosmic string.
If the other possibilities are excluded, then OF COURSE that conclusion will be “a string has been observed” because only the cosmic strings naturally produce identical images via lensing. The open question will then be “what kind of string have we seen”. But yes, if Peter is afraid that these strings will either be a support for string theory (fundamental strings themselves) or Grand Unification (that Peter Woit also hates) or a similar theory at the same scale, then he is very correct to be afraid, because the scale simply works this way.
If the deficit angle is between 10^-7 and 10^-6, then the tension of the string is at the GUT scale (which is near the string scale in the more-or-less conventional models), and it is naturally a GUT object, or a string theory object.
It’s certainly not guaranteed that these “anomalies” will survive and be interpreted in this exciting way, but if it happens to be so, then only a complete idiot will be able to oppose the statement “a string has been observed”. Already today, Peter Woit is obviously getting ready for playing this role. 😉
Peter, could not you reduce your insults, at least against other people than me?
What do you mean by “What professional astronomers think of this”? Is not Sazhin a professional astronomer? The professional astronomers, such as Mikhail Sazhin,
http://xray.sai.msu.ru/~sazhin/
think exactly the same thing as everyone else who understands what’s going on. It’s a potentially very important observation (let me talk about CSL-1 now), and it is either a weird coincidence of lensing by a pointlike object that happens to create two identical images – which is very unusual – or it is a pair of 2 different galaxies that look almost identical, or it is evidence for a cosmic string seen in the telescopes.
If you ask a professional astronomer which kind of cosmic string it is, he will tell you his theories but he will also add that he does not understand the stuff enough, and you should ask professional particle physicists or string theorists.
Sorry, but I will continue to be excited about exciting things, and angry about outrageous things, because this is one of the motors that drive science and not only science. If you deliberately want to be a bitter cynic, it’s YOUR problem.
Lubos –
I do not see how anyone can conduct science in the kind of emotionally-charged atmosphere that you seem to want to carry around with you.
It is not just about being clever. I’m sure that you are cleverer than I am and – who knows – you may be cleverer than Peter. Science is not just about that, it is about exercising judgement. If in the cold light of day, after you have thought about something a lot it appears to be especially good or especially bad, then you are duty bound to follow where that leads. And in my case, the direction is not towards yet more levels of abstraction. I seems likely, therefore, that I will continue to be the the bitter, cynical old sod that you describe.
Chris Oakley, you may be looking for unique exact predictions or whatever, but what you’re looking for is absolutely irrelevant for the question how Nature works.
If there happens to be a cosmic superstring – macroscopic fundamental string, for example – 10,000 light years from the Sun, then it will become a fact of Nature and we will have to live with it – and scientists will have to give a proper explanation. If this turns out to be the case, it will be absolutely obvious that no one could have predicted this string in advance.
We have not mastered the most subtle details of string theory and therefore we can’t still calculate every detail of reality accurately and unambiguously, nevertheless string theory is making so many bold and relatively specific qualitative predictions that most of you, the bitter critics, are – politely speaking – shitting into your pants in awe (so much that you are forced to move some of this stuff on the internet).
In the real history of physics, there have never been so many truly new predictions done in advance, before they’re actually measured, as in the case of string theory. Most of previous major breakthroughs in physics started by observations that were later interpreted in a new theory. Theories of relativity are, in some sense, exceptions, and string theorists are following this example.
We would be much happier if the gap between the theorists – which are much ahead today – and the experimenters and their experimentalists shrink. It’s YOU who does not want it, and therefore you’re scared by every possible new experiment that could give us some hints about the truth.
Let me emphasize once again that cynicism of sourballs like you, Chris Oakley, has no consequences for physics whatsoever. You’re just annoying and obnoxious, but your contributions to science are exactly zero. If you think that it is easy to make reliable and unique new predictions of phenomena beyond the Standard Model, try to compete with us.
The problem is that you could not make even 0.0001% of what the average particle physicist or string theorist does. The only thing you are able to do is to spread bitter remarks and stupidities.
“Most people would think that someone who runs around saying they have a wondrous TOE that predicts amazing new things, but they’re not sure whether the amazing new things happen at the Planck scale or the scale of a galaxy, would have to be almost by definition a crackpot”
I think, Lubos, that you’re missing the point here, perhaps deliberately.
Peter and a large number of others, including myself, are looking for a specific predictions which can be tested with specific experiments. If you cannot advance any, then what you do does not deserve the label “physics”.
Calm down, calm down. In the UK this soothing turn of phrase will be forever associated (thanks to the comic Harry Enfield)with feuding Liverpudlians (natives of Liverpool, for non-UK readers). Somehow, it seems only too appropriate that it should be deployed in this context. Get a grip guys.