Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The Sex of String Theory & 3 Questions for her...


Dialogue at the 1998 gathering of Pastors Promise Keepers Atlanta...largest gathering of pastors in one place in history:

Rev. Kevin ("Topless Beach Bum"..story told in
" God, beach and breasts" ) Clancey:
"Is this the Fourth Great Awakening, or just a bunch of pastors getting together?"


Me: "Yes."




As we move even more into this current, and unsettling churchwide Reformation/Reorientation/Awakening;
it is obvious we have lots to learn from the current and unsettling Reformation/Reorientation/Awakening
in physics.

Same thing; mas o menos.

The attraction of string theory (the scientific theory, not the band) is that it offers a practical paradigm for a potential "Theory of Everything," something that even a literal Einstein glimpsed, but could not reach in his lifetime.

Maybe Brian Greene and gang are Joshua to Einstein's Moses.
Hmmm, "subtle is the Lord," indeed.

To get a sense of string theory via Brian Greene, you can "watch" his book" The Elegant Universe") on YouTube?PBS here;

or for a hilarious quickie,

see his hilarious quick interview with Stephen Colbert here below.
String theory is also cool enough to



have "her" own MySpace (become her friend, or she may vaporize you into a black hole) website. And whether it's (she's) right or not, it may be "not even wrong."

As Karl Marx once said, and as Jesus...independently of Marx (: .... seemed to tell me,
"Nothing is more practical than theory, (and nothing is more theoretical than practice)."



But you may know the apparent dilemma; as summarized by Greene:

For many years, physicists found that the central obstacle to realizing a unified theory was the fundamental conflict between the two major breakthroughs of twentieth-century physics: general relativity and quantum mechanics. Although these two frameworks are typically applied in vastly different realms-general relativity to big things like stars and galaxies, quantum mechanics to small things like molecules and atoms-each theory claims to be universal, to work in all realms.Link However, as mentioned above, when the theories are used in conjunction, their combined equations produce nonsensical answers....Calculations...simply show that the combined equations...have gone haywire."
-Brian Greene, "The Fabric of the Cosmos," p. 16

I am guessing I am not the first to ask (but can't hurt to ask) if that apparent haywire is actually "OK"; or to be expected....or not truly haywire. What of the "nonsense" answers actually and ultimately make sense, or are super-sensible/suprasensible/surrational? If there are indeed multiple dimensions, might there not also be parallel ways/means of doing math, so that these "nonsense" equations only "tilt" the pinball game because of the way we are looking at them?

What if the "fundamental conflict" is not fundamental/foundational at all, but only relative..in a quantum kinda way, of course (:

Studies in synesthesia and nueroscience suggest much that appears fundamentally non-sensical
makes more sense than common sense.

A reading of "The Divine Voice,"an amazing theological acoustemology, might even suggest that the primacy of sound would connect with superstring theory (summarized by Len Sweet as "the universe at base is music" ...or sound. See Sweet's seminal "Summoned to Lead"). We need to interpret data through sound sense..pun intended..more that common sense...

or "math as usual" sense.

Comic relief:

Q.Did you hear the one about the constipated mathematician?
A. Yeah, he worked it out with a pencil.




Second question...in light of the following thoughts by Greene...and just replace "third revolution" with "third reformation," small/quantum" with "small Kingdom gatherings" and "large/general relativity" with "large Kingdom gatherings", "independent" with "apostolic networks", etc:



If I were to hazard a guess on future developments, I'd imagine that the background-independent techniques developed by the loop quantum gravity community will be adapted to string theory, paving the way for a string formulation that is background independent. And that's the spark, I suspect, that will ignite a third superstring revolution in which, I'm optimistic, many of the remaining deep mysteries will be solved....I believe that such a (union)...between general relativity and quantum mechanics would yield a gratifying resolution..."
-Greene, 491



...Why in the world (universe?) don't we appropriate the findings of physics even more? In any number of areas imagined above...and also including time travel (a basic definition of The Kingdom in Hebrews 6:1-4..see "THE KINGDOM’S RETROACTIVE RETROFUTURE: SEND ME MORE ARROWS")
Thank God for Kester, Len H., Len S. and tribesters. But the tribe must increase! And embrace Margaret Wheatley and Bono the physicist...

...and Bono's friend Christopher Nolan!

Why in the...heck/hell/quantum dimensions...did the non Christian physicist have to write the book "The Physics of Christianity"?!

THAT's emerging, baby.

Third question:

If you have been brave or bored enough to read this far, aren't you ready for a bad string theory joke (click here)..or the video, "Can String Theory Detect God?" ..one person's attempt to put (Scriptural) chapter and verse to string theory):




"If my thesis is correct...Christianity will become a branch of physics."
-Frank Tipler

1 comment:

  1. Hi, Dave. Concerning the correct Theory of Everything (TOE) in physics, see further below.

    Regarding God, He/She has been proven to exist based upon the most reserved view of the known laws of physics. For much more on that, see Prof. Frank J. Tipler's below paper, which among other things demonstrates that the known laws of physics (i.e., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model of particle physics) require that the universe end in the Omega Point (the final cosmological singularity and state of infinite informational capacity identified as being God):

    F. J. Tipler, "The structure of the world from pure numbers," Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 68, No. 4 (April 2005), pp. 897-964. http://math.tulane.edu/~tipler/theoryofeverything.pdf Also released as "Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything," arXiv:0704.3276, April 24, 2007. http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3276

    Out of 50 articles, Prof. Tipler's above paper was selected as one of 12 for the "Highlights of 2005" accolade as "the very best articles published in Reports on Progress in Physics in 2005 [Vol. 68]. Articles were selected by the Editorial Board for their outstanding reviews of the field. They all received the highest praise from our international referees and a high number of downloads from the journal Website." (See Richard Palmer, Publisher, "Highlights of 2005," Reports on Progress in Physics. http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=extra.highlights/0034-4885 ) Reports on Progress in Physics is the leading journal of the Institute of Physics, Britain's main professional body for physicists.

    Further, Reports on Progress in Physics has a higher impact factor (according to Journal Citation Reports) than Physical Review Letters, which is the most prestigious American physics journal (one, incidently, which Prof. Tipler has been published in more than once). A journal's impact factor reflects the importance the science community places in that journal in the sense of actually citing its papers in their own papers. (And just to point out, Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper could not have been published in Physical Review Letters since said paper is nearly book-length, and hence not a "letter" as defined by the latter journal.)

    See also the below resources for further information on the Omega Point Theory:

    Theophysics http://geocities.com/theophysics/

    "Omega Point (Tipler)," Wikipedia, April 16, 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Omega_Point_%28Tipler%29&oldid=206077125

    "Frank J. Tipler," Wikipedia, April 16, 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frank_J._Tipler&oldid=205920802

    Tipler is Professor of Mathematics and Physics (joint appointment) at Tulane University. His Ph.D. is in the field of global general relativity (the same rarefied field that Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking developed), and he is also an expert in particle physics and computer science. His Omega Point Theory has been published in a number of prestigious peer-reviewed physics and science journals in addition to Reports on Progress in Physics, such as Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (one of the world's leading astrophysics journals), Physics Letters B, the International Journal of Theoretical Physics, etc.

    Prof. John A. Wheeler (the father of most relativity research in the U.S.) wrote that "Frank Tipler is widely known for important concepts and theorems in general relativity and gravitation physics" on pg. viii in the "Foreword" to The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986) by cosmologist Prof. John D. Barrow and Tipler, which was the first book wherein Tipler's Omega Point Theory was described.

    The leading quantum physicist in the world, Prof. David Deutsch (inventor of the quantum computer, being the first person to mathematically describe the workings of such a device, and winner of the Institute of Physics' 1998 Paul Dirac Medal and Prize for his work), endorses the physics of the Omega Point Theory in his book The Fabric of Reality (1997). For that, see:

    David Deutsch, extracts from Chapter 14: "The Ends of the Universe" of The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications (London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1997), ISBN: 0713990619; with additional comments by Frank J. Tipler. http://geocities.com/theophysics/deutsch-ends-of-the-universe.html

    The only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to invent tenuous physical theories which have no experimental support and which violate the known laws of physics, such as with Prof. Stephen Hawking's paper on the black hole information issue which is dependant on the conjectured string theory-based anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory correspondence (AdS/CFT correspondence). See S. W. Hawking, "Information loss in black holes," Physical Review D, Vol. 72, No. 8, 084013 (October 2005); also at arXiv:hep-th/0507171, July 18, 2005. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0507171

    That is, Hawking's paper is based upon proposed, unconfirmed physics. It's an impressive testament to the Omega Point Theory's correctness, as Hawking implicitly confirms that the known laws of physics require the universe to collapse in finite time. Hawking realizes that the black hole information issue must be resolved without violating unitarity, yet he's forced to abandon the known laws of physics in order to avoid unitarity violation without the universe collapsing.

    Some have suggested that the universe's current acceleration of its expansion obviates the universe collapsing (and therefore obviates the Omega Point). But as Profs. Lawrence M. Krauss and Michael S. Turner point out in "Geometry and Destiny" (General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol. 31, No. 10 [October 1999], pp. 1453-1459; also at arXiv:astro-ph/9904020, April 1, 1999 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9904020 ), there is no set of cosmological observations which can tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse.

    There's a very good reason for that, because that is dependant on the actions of intelligent life. The known laws of physics provide the mechanism for the universe's collapse. As required by the Standard Model, the net baryon number was created in the early universe by baryogenesis via electroweak quantum tunneling. This necessarily forces the Higgs field to be in a vacuum state that is not its absolute vacuum, which is the cause of the positive cosmological constant. But if the baryons in the universe were to be annihilated by the inverse of baryogenesis, again via electroweak quantum tunneling (which is allowed in the Standard Model, as B - L is conserved), then this would force the Higgs field toward its absolute vacuum, cancelling the positive cosmological constant and thereby forcing the universe to collapse. Moreover, this process would provide the ideal form of energy resource and rocket propulsion during the colonization phase of the universe.

    Prof. Tipler's above 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper also demonstrates that the correct quantum gravity theory has existed since 1962, first discovered by Richard Feynman in that year, and independently discovered by Steven Weinberg and Bryce DeWitt, among others. But because these physicists were looking for equations with a finite number of terms (i.e., derivatives no higher than second order), they abandoned this qualitatively unique quantum gravity theory since in order for it to be consistent it requires an arbitrarily higher number of terms. Further, they didn't realize that this proper theory of quantum gravity is consistent only with a certain set of boundary conditions imposed (which includes the initial Big Bang, and the final Omega Point, cosmological singularities). The equations for this theory of quantum gravity are term-by-term finite, but the same mechanism that forces each term in the series to be finite also forces the entire series to be infinite (i.e., infinities that would otherwise occur in spacetime, consequently destabilizing it, are transferred to the cosmological singularities, thereby preventing the universe from immediately collapsing into nonexistence). As Tipler notes in his 2007 book The Physics of Christianity (pp. 49 and 279), "It is a fundamental mathematical fact that this [infinite series] is the best that we can do. ... This is somewhat analogous to Liouville's theorem in complex analysis, which says that all analytic functions other than constants have singularities either a finite distance from the origin of coordinates or at infinity."

    When combined with the Standard Model, the result is a Theory of Everything (TOE) correctly describing and unifying all the forces in physics.

    ReplyDelete

Hey, thanks for engaging the conversation!