"I think that there is a moral to this story, namely that it is more
important to have beauty in one's equations that to have them fit
experiment. If Schroedinger had been more confident of his work, he
could have published it some months earlier, and he could have
published a more accurate equation. It seems that if one is working
from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one
has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there
is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and
experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because
the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly
taken into account and that will get cleared up with further
development of the theory."
-- Paul Dirac, Scientific American, May 1963.

One often hears Dirac's mantra from the modern crackpot theoretical
physicists. Particularly in such fields as string theory, experiment
is not even a concern to the clowns. But this disturbing trend has
been going on for a long time.

For those of you not familiar with the work of Paul Dirac, a bit of the
story will be useful. With the advent of quantum mechanics, it was
discovered that electrons sometimes behave as waves. However, the
theory of electron waves at that time was not consistent with
Einstein's theory of special relativity. Dirac's most famous work was
developing a theory of electron waves consistent with relativity. But
there was a problem: Dirac's theory implied the existence of particles
with the same mass and opposite charge to the electron, which had never
been seen. But Dirac stuck to his theory, and a few years, this
particle, called the positron, was discovered.

Unfortunately, some physicists got carried away with Dirac's success.
It made them willing to construct theories that included all sorts of
things that no one had ever seen, just because it made the theory
nice. They hoped that in a few years, their new inventions would
likewise be detected. But this is usually not the case.

Examples of this kind of thought abound in physics:

The idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking, a part of the modern
Standard Model of particle physics, says that the laws of physics are
symmetric in ways that the results of particle experiments are not
symmetric in. To explain this apparent discrepancy, the direction in
which the symmetry is broken is allowed to vary from place to place.
It is turned into an asymmetry of the world around us instead of the
basic laws of physics. The trouble with this is that if it is true, we
ought to see places where the direction changes abruptly from one way
to another. These places are called "topological defects," and
depending on their shape, they are known as domain walls, cosmic
strings, monopoles, and textures. Many theoretical physics papers have
been written about them. Yet they do not exist.

The modern theoretical model of electrons and related particles called
leptons requires that the particles have no mass. Since they clearly
do have mass, an interaction with a particle called the Higgs particle
was introduced to cause electrons to have mass. But where is the Higgs
particle?

Various theories have attempted to unify all known forces into a single
field described by one gauge theory with one group. A gauge theory,
BTW, is a very symmetrical and elegant way of describing a field, which
of course means that crackpot physicists will want to play with them
whether or not what they are doing described the real world. Some of
these theories predicted that protons, the very stuff most of the non-
imaginary universe is made of, ought to undergo radioactive decay.
Physicists assembled huge tanks of ultra-pure water deep underground,
and waited in earnest for just a few of the hydrogen atoms to decay.
None of them ever did.

The rims of galaxies appear to rotate so fast around the galactic
center that the galaxy would tear itself apart according to current
gravitational theory. This has led to the well-known postulation of so-
called "dark matter."

In addition, observations of the geometry of the universe do not agree
with theories of nuclear reactions in the early universe on how much
stuff there is in the universe. This has led to the idea that most of
the matter in the universe is not made of atoms, but is of an
undiscovered type of particle that passes directly through us without
us even noticing. Worse, neutrinos, which have been observed and are
the only things we know of that do pass through ordinary matter well
enough to make the cut, have been shown not to fit the bill. The
imaginary particles are called "WIMPs."

And even more ... some physicists think that rather than modifying the
equations of gravity to account for the observation that the universe
is flying apart at greater and greater speeds, it is better to
postulate a new, bizzare kind of energy that would be by far the
primary ingredient in the universe, if it existed, beating out even the
WIMPs several times. You have probably heard of it ... it's
called "dark energy."

Supersymmetry, the foundation of crackpot string theory, posits a
suggestion that attempts to one-up Dirac by promising for every
particle a "superpartner." Superpartners, unlike antimatter have
different masses and spins. Not one of them has ever been detected
after many more years of looking.

You can practically pick up any theoretical physics paper nowadays to
find a detailed description of something new that does not exist.
Physicists believe in such things not because there is evidence, but
because they want them to be real. It's gotten so bad that it begs a
question. What is the difference between the invisible world of
religion and the invisible world of modern theoretical crackpot
physics? And why is so much taxpayer money wasted on the latter, but
none into the former?

-- Nth Complexity --
-- Have A Nice Day! --
"The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its
authoritarian and elitist characteristics, and the content of these
subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist,
queer, multiculturalist and ecological critiques." -- A.D.S.





--
Sent by nth_complexity from yahoo in area com
This is a spam protected message. Please answer with reference header.
Posted via http://www.usenet-replayer.com

"Nth Complexity" wrote in message
]...
"I think that there is a moral to this story, namely that it is more
important to have beauty in one's equations that to have them fit
experiment. If Schroedinger had been more confident of his work, he
could have published it some months earlier, and he could have
published a more accurate equation. It seems that if one is working
from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one
has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there
is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and
experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because
the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly
taken into account and that will get cleared up with further
development of the theory."
-- Paul Dirac, Scientific American, May 1963.

One often hears Dirac's mantra from the modern crackpot theoretical
physicists. Particularly in such fields as string theory, experiment
is not even a concern to the clowns. But this disturbing trend has
been going on for a long time.

For those of you not familiar with the work of Paul Dirac, a bit of the
story will be useful. With the advent of quantum mechanics, it was
discovered that electrons sometimes behave as waves. However, the
theory of electron waves at that time was not consistent with
Einstein's theory of special relativity. Dirac's most famous work was
developing a theory of electron waves consistent with relativity. But
there was a problem: Dirac's theory implied the existence of particles
with the same mass and opposite charge to the electron, which had never
been seen. But Dirac stuck to his theory, and a few years, this
particle, called the positron, was discovered.

Unfortunately, some physicists got carried away with Dirac's success.
It made them willing to construct theories that included all sorts of
things that no one had ever seen, just because it made the theory
nice. They hoped that in a few years, their new inventions would
likewise be detected. But this is usually not the case.

Examples of this kind of thought abound in physics:

The idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking, a part of the modern
Standard Model of particle physics, says that the laws of physics are
symmetric in ways that the results of particle experiments are not
symmetric in. To explain this apparent discrepancy, the direction in
which the symmetry is broken is allowed to vary from place to place.
It is turned into an asymmetry of the world around us instead of the
basic laws of physics. The trouble with this is that if it is true, we
ought to see places where the direction changes abruptly from one way
to another. These places are called "topological defects," and
depending on their shape, they are known as domain walls, cosmic
strings, monopoles, and textures. Many theoretical physics papers have
been written about them. Yet they do not exist.

The modern theoretical model of electrons and related particles called
leptons requires that the particles have no mass. Since they clearly
do have mass, an interaction with a particle called the Higgs particle
was introduced to cause electrons to have mass. But where is the Higgs
particle?

Various theories have attempted to unify all known forces into a single
field described by one gauge theory with one group. A gauge theory,
BTW, is a very symmetrical and elegant way of describing a field, which
of course means that crackpot physicists will want to play with them
whether or not what they are doing described the real world. Some of
these theories predicted that protons, the very stuff most of the non-
imaginary universe is made of, ought to undergo radioactive decay.
Physicists assembled huge tanks of ultra-pure water deep underground,
and waited in earnest for just a few of the hydrogen atoms to decay.
None of them ever did.

The rims of galaxies appear to rotate so fast around the galactic
center that the galaxy would tear itself apart according to current
gravitational theory. This has led to the well-known postulation of so-
called "dark matter."

In addition, observations of the geometry of the universe do not agree
with theories of nuclear reactions in the early universe on how much
stuff there is in the universe. This has led to the idea that most of
the matter in the universe is not made of atoms, but is of an
undiscovered type of particle that passes directly through us without
us even noticing. Worse, neutrinos, which have been observed and are
the only things we know of that do pass through ordinary matter well
enough to make the cut, have been shown not to fit the bill. The
imaginary particles are called "WIMPs."

And even more ... some physicists think that rather than modifying the
equations of gravity to account for the observation that the universe
is flying apart at greater and greater speeds, it is better to
postulate a new, bizzare kind of energy that would be by far the
primary ingredient in the universe, if it existed, beating out even the
WIMPs several times. You have probably heard of it ... it's
called "dark energy."

Supersymmetry, the foundation of crackpot string theory, posits a
suggestion that attempts to one-up Dirac by promising for every
particle a "superpartner." Superpartners, unlike antimatter have
different masses and spins. Not one of them has ever been detected
after many more years of looking.

You seem very glib about throwing the word crackpot around. At least string
theory makes predictions (none of which has been falsified) whereas
crackpots that post on sci.physics.relativity are big on saying what is
wrong with current physics (nothing concrete mind you - just rubbish like
math can not be reality and similar junk) but small on making actual
predictions. I suspect there is a moral there somewhere. As someone once
said the difference between philosophers and scientists is scientists have a
full waste paper basket. In a similar vein I hypothesize a difference
between a crackpot and a scientist is crackpots criticize physics on grounds
that can not be tested so can never be proven wrong; (witness Nth
Complexity's effort) while genuine scientists also like to be proven wrong
because at least they know one approach that will not work.

BTW do you really think alt.politics.economics, alt.impeach.bush and
alt.religion.christian.baptist are appropriate groups to post this on -
posting such could be indicative of troll like behavior and we all know Nth
Complexity is not a troll. And alt.fan.nth-complexity?????????????. Yea
Nth Complexity is a dead serious poster interested solely in science - no
doubt about it.

Bill


You can practically pick up any theoretical physics paper nowadays to
find a detailed description of something new that does not exist.
Physicists believe in such things not because there is evidence, but
because they want them to be real. It's gotten so bad that it begs a
question. What is the difference between the invisible world of
religion and the invisible world of modern theoretical crackpot
physics? And why is so much taxpayer money wasted on the latter, but
none into the former?

-- Nth Complexity --
-- Have A Nice Day! --
"The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its
authoritarian and elitist characteristics, and the content of these
subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist,
queer, multiculturalist and ecological critiques." -- A.D.S.





--
Sent by nth_complexity from yahoo in area com
This is a spam protected message. Please answer with reference header.
Posted via http://www.usenet-replayer.com

Nth Complexity:

Examples of this kind of thought abound in physics:

The idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking, a part of the modern
Standard Model of particle physics, says that the laws of physics are
symmetric in ways that the results of particle experiments are not
symmetric in.

There's nothing about spontaneous symmetry breaking that makes it
unique to high energy physics. It happens in a superconductor and
in superfluids.

To explain this apparent discrepancy, the direction in
which the symmetry is broken is allowed to vary from place to place.
It is turned into an asymmetry of the world around us instead of the
basic laws of physics. The trouble with this is that if it is true, we
ought to see places where the direction changes abruptly from one way
to another. These places are called "topological defects," and
depending on their shape, they are known as domain walls, cosmic
strings, monopoles, and textures. Many theoretical physics papers have
been written about them. Yet they do not exist.

Before you offeran opinion, you should learn something about the
subject.


The modern theoretical model of electrons and related particles called
leptons requires that the particles have no mass. Since they clearly
do have mass, an interaction with a particle called the Higgs particle
was introduced to cause electrons to have mass. But where is the Higgs
particle?

Various theories have attempted to unify all known forces into a single
field described by one gauge theory with one group. A gauge theory,
BTW, is a very symmetrical and elegant way of describing a field, which
of course means that crackpot physicists will want to play with them
whether or not what they are doing described the real world. Some of
these theories predicted that protons, the very stuff most of the non-
imaginary universe is made of, ought to undergo radioactive decay.
Physicists assembled huge tanks of ultra-pure water deep underground,
and waited in earnest for just a few of the hydrogen atoms to decay.
None of them ever did.

The rims of galaxies appear to rotate so fast around the galactic
center that the galaxy would tear itself apart according to current
gravitational theory. This has led to the well-known postulation of so-
called "dark matter."

In addition, observations of the geometry of the universe do not agree
with theories of nuclear reactions in the early universe on how much
stuff there is in the universe. This has led to the idea that most of
the matter in the universe is not made of atoms, but is of an
undiscovered type of particle that passes directly through us without
us even noticing. Worse, neutrinos, which have been observed and are
the only things we know of that do pass through ordinary matter well
enough to make the cut, have been shown not to fit the bill. The
imaginary particles are called "WIMPs."

And even more ... some physicists think that rather than modifying the
equations of gravity to account for the observation that the universe
is flying apart at greater and greater speeds, it is better to
postulate a new, bizzare kind of energy that would be by far the
primary ingredient in the universe, if it existed, beating out even the
WIMPs several times. You have probably heard of it ... it's
called "dark energy."

Supersymmetry, the foundation of crackpot string theory, posits a
suggestion that attempts to one-up Dirac by promising for every
particle a "superpartner." Superpartners, unlike antimatter have
different masses and spins. Not one of them has ever been detected
after many more years of looking.

You can practically pick up any theoretical physics paper nowadays to
find a detailed description of something new that does not exist.
Physicists believe in such things not because there is evidence, but
because they want them to be real. It's gotten so bad that it begs a
question. What is the difference between the invisible world of
religion and the invisible world of modern theoretical crackpot
physics? And why is so much taxpayer money wasted on the latter, but
none into the former?

-- Nth Complexity --
-- Have A Nice Day! --
"The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its
authoritarian and elitist characteristics, and the content of these
subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist,
queer, multiculturalist and ecological critiques." -- A.D.S.





--
Sent by nth_complexity from yahoo in area com
This is a spam protected message. Please answer with reference header.
Posted via http://www.usenet-replayer.com

Hell, forget all the fancy theories. All we need is Intelligent Design
(TM). Just sit there with gaping mouth like the moron in the White
House, and marvel at the complexity of it all. And pray.

------

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for
Texas."
- Texas governor Miriam "Ma" Ferguson

"Bilge" wrote in message
...
Nth Complexity:

Examples of this kind of thought abound in physics:

The idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking, a part of the modern
Standard Model of particle physics, says that the laws of physics are
symmetric in ways that the results of particle experiments are not
symmetric in.

There's nothing about spontaneous symmetry breaking that makes it
unique to high energy physics. It happens in a superconductor and
in superfluids.

To explain this apparent discrepancy, the direction in
which the symmetry is broken is allowed to vary from place to place.
It is turned into an asymmetry of the world around us instead of the
basic laws of physics. The trouble with this is that if it is true, we
ought to see places where the direction changes abruptly from one way
to another. These places are called "topological defects," and
depending on their shape, they are known as domain walls, cosmic
strings, monopoles, and textures. Many theoretical physics papers have
been written about them. Yet they do not exist.

Before you offeran opinion, you should learn something about the
subject.

I second that.

You use the term "crackpot" string theory, but offer no suggestions why it
isn't as good as any other theory when it comes to explaining observed
phenomena. Yes there are some far out theories in physics, and many of them
may be shown false, or at least not completely true. So what? That's how
science works. I'm guessing Einstein's theories of relativity were pretty
far out at the time as well. I mean, would you have guessed that time wasn't
constant? That a clock at a higher altitude would count at a different rate?
Certainly not obvious.


The modern theoretical model of electrons and related particles called
leptons requires that the particles have no mass. Since they clearly
do have mass, an interaction with a particle called the Higgs particle
was introduced to cause electrons to have mass. But where is the Higgs
particle?

Various theories have attempted to unify all known forces into a single
field described by one gauge theory with one group. A gauge theory,
BTW, is a very symmetrical and elegant way of describing a field, which
of course means that crackpot physicists will want to play with them
whether or not what they are doing described the real world. Some of
these theories predicted that protons, the very stuff most of the non-
imaginary universe is made of, ought to undergo radioactive decay.
Physicists assembled huge tanks of ultra-pure water deep underground,
and waited in earnest for just a few of the hydrogen atoms to decay.
None of them ever did.

The rims of galaxies appear to rotate so fast around the galactic
center that the galaxy would tear itself apart according to current
gravitational theory. This has led to the well-known postulation of so-
called "dark matter."

In addition, observations of the geometry of the universe do not agree
with theories of nuclear reactions in the early universe on how much
stuff there is in the universe. This has led to the idea that most of
the matter in the universe is not made of atoms, but is of an
undiscovered type of particle that passes directly through us without
us even noticing. Worse, neutrinos, which have been observed and are
the only things we know of that do pass through ordinary matter well
enough to make the cut, have been shown not to fit the bill. The
imaginary particles are called "WIMPs."

And even more ... some physicists think that rather than modifying the
equations of gravity to account for the observation that the universe
is flying apart at greater and greater speeds, it is better to
postulate a new, bizzare kind of energy that would be by far the
primary ingredient in the universe, if it existed, beating out even the
WIMPs several times. You have probably heard of it ... it's
called "dark energy."

Supersymmetry, the foundation of crackpot string theory, posits a
suggestion that attempts to one-up Dirac by promising for every
particle a "superpartner." Superpartners, unlike antimatter have
different masses and spins. Not one of them has ever been detected
after many more years of looking.

You can practically pick up any theoretical physics paper nowadays to
find a detailed description of something new that does not exist.
Physicists believe in such things not because there is evidence, but
because they want them to be real. It's gotten so bad that it begs a
question. What is the difference between the invisible world of
religion and the invisible world of modern theoretical crackpot
physics? And why is so much taxpayer money wasted on the latter, but
none into the former?

-- Nth Complexity --
-- Have A Nice Day! --
"The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its
authoritarian and elitist characteristics, and the content of these
subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist,
queer, multiculturalist and ecological critiques." -- A.D.S.





--
Sent by nth_complexity from yahoo in area com
This is a spam protected message. Please answer with reference header.
Posted via http://www.usenet-replayer.com

Nth Complexity wrote:
"I think that there is a moral to this story, namely that it is more
important to have beauty in one's equations that to have them fit
experiment. If Schroedinger had been more confident of his work, he
could have published it some months earlier, and he could have
published a more accurate equation. It seems that if one is working
from the point of view of getting beauty in one's equations, and if one
has really a sound insight, one is on a sure line of progress. If there
is not complete agreement between the results of one's work and
experiment, one should not allow oneself to be too discouraged, because
the discrepancy may well be due to minor features that are not properly
taken into account and that will get cleared up with further
development of the theory."
-- Paul Dirac, Scientific American, May 1963.

One often hears Dirac's mantra from the modern crackpot theoretical
physicists. Particularly in such fields as string theory, experiment
is not even a concern to the clowns. But this disturbing trend has
been going on for a long time.

For those of you not familiar with the work of Paul Dirac, a bit of the
story will be useful. With the advent of quantum mechanics, it was
discovered that electrons sometimes behave as waves. However, the
theory of electron waves at that time was not consistent with
Einstein's theory of special relativity. Dirac's most famous work was
developing a theory of electron waves consistent with relativity. But
there was a problem: Dirac's theory implied the existence of particles
with the same mass and opposite charge to the electron, which had never
been seen. But Dirac stuck to his theory, and a few years, this
particle, called the positron, was discovered.

Unfortunately, some physicists got carried away with Dirac's success.
It made them willing to construct theories that included all sorts of
things that no one had ever seen, just because it made the theory
nice. They hoped that in a few years, their new inventions would
likewise be detected. But this is usually not the case.

Examples of this kind of thought abound in physics:

The idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking, a part of the modern
Standard Model of particle physics, says that the laws of physics are
symmetric in ways that the results of particle experiments are not
symmetric in. To explain this apparent discrepancy, the direction in
which the symmetry is broken is allowed to vary from place to place.
It is turned into an asymmetry of the world around us instead of the
basic laws of physics. The trouble with this is that if it is true, we
ought to see places where the direction changes abruptly from one way
to another. These places are called "topological defects," and
depending on their shape, they are known as domain walls, cosmic
strings, monopoles, and textures. Many theoretical physics papers have
been written about them. Yet they do not exist.

The modern theoretical model of electrons and related particles called
leptons requires that the particles have no mass. Since they clearly
do have mass, an interaction with a particle called the Higgs particle
was introduced to cause electrons to have mass. But where is the Higgs
particle?

Various theories have attempted to unify all known forces into a single
field described by one gauge theory with one group. A gauge theory,
BTW, is a very symmetrical and elegant way of describing a field, which
of course means that crackpot physicists will want to play with them
whether or not what they are doing described the real world. Some of
these theories predicted that protons, the very stuff most of the non-
imaginary universe is made of, ought to undergo radioactive decay.
Physicists assembled huge tanks of ultra-pure water deep underground,
and waited in earnest for just a few of the hydrogen atoms to decay.
None of them ever did.

The rims of galaxies appear to rotate so fast around the galactic
center that the galaxy would tear itself apart according to current
gravitational theory. This has led to the well-known postulation of so-
called "dark matter."

In addition, observations of the geometry of the universe do not agree
with theories of nuclear reactions in the early universe on how much
stuff there is in the universe. This has led to the idea that most of
the matter in the universe is not made of atoms, but is of an
undiscovered type of particle that passes directly through us without
us even noticing. Worse, neutrinos, which have been observed and are
the only things we know of that do pass through ordinary matter well
enough to make the cut, have been shown not to fit the bill. The
imaginary particles are called "WIMPs."

And even more ... some physicists think that rather than modifying the
equations of gravity to account for the observation that the universe
is flying apart at greater and greater speeds, it is better to
postulate a new, bizzare kind of energy that would be by far the
primary ingredient in the universe, if it existed, beating out even the
WIMPs several times. You have probably heard of it ... it's
called "dark energy."

Supersymmetry, the foundation of crackpot string theory, posits a
suggestion that attempts to one-up Dirac by promising for every
particle a "superpartner." Superpartners, unlike antimatter have
different masses and spins. Not one of them has ever been detected
after many more years of looking.

You can practically pick up any theoretical physics paper nowadays to
find a detailed description of something new that does not exist.
Physicists believe in such things not because there is evidence, but
because they want them to be real. It's gotten so bad that it begs a
question. What is the difference between the invisible world of
religion and the invisible world of modern theoretical crackpot
physics? And why is so much taxpayer money wasted on the latter, but
none into the former?

Great post! I fully agree (except for the funding of religion).
"Beauty" plays too much a role in physicists' thinking.
When faced with new facts many of them prefer to cling to the old
"beautiful" theory and invent more and more bizarre assumptions
rather than critically re-examine the fundamentals of the old theory
and come up with new alternative approaches.

We all laugh at 19th century physicists that believed in the aether
that cannot be directly observed and yet penetrates everywhere.
Look how many non-observable things the physics of the 20th century
has produced: virtual particles, ghost fields, "physical" vacuum,
quarks, gluons... I am even not talking about strings.

I don't think that theoretical beuty is equivalent to having a small
number of short equations (this seems to be the prevailing view).
It is more important, in my opinion,
to avoid logical contradictions and to have directly observable
counterparts to all ingredients of the theory.

Eugene.

Eugene Stefanovich:

We all laugh at 19th century physicists that believed in the aether
that cannot be directly observed and yet penetrates everywhere.
Look how many non-observable things the physics of the 20th century
has produced: virtual particles,

So, in your theory of the weak interaction, the decay of the
neutron occurs how?


n --+-- p
? Fill in the question mark and explain the
--- e reason for the existence of non-virtual W.
\
\nubar

ghost fields,

Here, you are being more than merely hypocritical. Ghosts occur
as an artifact of gauge fixing in a gauge invariant theory as part
of an intermediate step. The significance of the ghost field is
only as physical as choosing a particular gauge, which is to say,
none. On the other hand, you attach great importance to the choice
of gauge, as you think the coulomb gauge is not merely a gauge, but
an exact physical description. You attribute all sort of physical
effects to the artifacts associated with a choice of gauge. So,
basically, you have it backwards. You just neglected to mention
who is attributing physical effects to mathematical artifacts - you
are.

"physical" vacuum,

So, you think there is no state which can't be lowered with
an anihilation operator, or what?

quarks, gluons...

Does this mean you think that rutherford scattering can't be used to
determine anything about the objects being scattered?

I am even not talking about strings.

You aren't talking about much of anything, but your self-inconsistent
philosophical beliefs.

I don't think that theoretical beuty is equivalent to having a small
number of short equations (this seems to be the prevailing view).
It is more important, in my opinion,
to avoid logical contradictions and to have directly observable
counterparts to all ingredients of the theory.

I guess the angular distributions obtained from high energy
scattering experiments, baryon and meson spectroscopy don't count,
since that would force you to accept nucleonic structure and
of course, everyone knows that the periodic table and rutherford
scattering are phenomena unique to chemistry and can't be used
for anything beyond 19th century physics...

Bilge wrote:

So, in your theory of the weak interaction, the decay of the
neutron occurs how?


n --+-- p
? Fill in the question mark and explain the
--- e reason for the existence of non-virtual W.
\
\nubar

I would something like

n --+-- p
W
--- e
\
\nubar

where W is real (not virtual) particle which (unfortunately)
cannot be observed (in this case) due to poor time resoultion
of modern instruments.


ghost fields,

Here, you are being more than merely hypocritical. Ghosts occur
as an artifact of gauge fixing in a gauge invariant theory as part
of an intermediate step. The significance of the ghost field is
only as physical as choosing a particular gauge, which is to say,
none. On the other hand, you attach great importance to the choice
of gauge, as you think the coulomb gauge is not merely a gauge, but
an exact physical description. You attribute all sort of physical
effects to the artifacts associated with a choice of gauge. So,
basically, you have it backwards. You just neglected to mention
who is attributing physical effects to mathematical artifacts - you
are.

Gauges is another good example of a theoretical invention that
has no observable meaning. I prefer theories in which each ingredient
can be (at least in principle) observed.


"physical" vacuum,

So, you think there is no state which can't be lowered with
an anihilation operator, or what?

There is a vacuum state. Application of annihilation operators
to this state yields zero. However, in contast to the "physical"
vacuum state of QFT (which is a boiling soup of virtual photons and
particle-antiparticle pairs - a non-observable nonsense),
in my vacuum the number of particles is strictly zero.


quarks, gluons...

Does this mean you think that rutherford scattering can't be used to
determine anything about the objects being scattered?

I know that existence of quarks and gluons was inferred from nuclear
scattering experiments. It may well be the case that there is no way
to explain the properties of baryons without considering quarks and
gluons. Modern theory tells us that quarks, gluons, and their color
cannot be directly observed. I am wondering if an alternative theory
can be formulated which does not involve any non-observable ingredients?

Eugene.

"Eugene Stefanovich" wrote in message
...
|
|
| Bilge wrote:
|
| So, in your theory of the weak interaction, the decay of the
| neutron occurs how?
|
|
| n --+-- p
| ? Fill in the question mark and explain the
| --- e reason for the existence of non-virtual W.
| \
| \nubar
|
| I would something like
|
| n --+-- p
| W
| --- e
| \
| \nubar
|
| where W is real (not virtual) particle which (unfortunately)
| cannot be observed (in this case) due to poor time resoultion
| of modern instruments.
|
|
| ghost fields,
|
| Here, you are being more than merely hypocritical. Ghosts occur
| as an artifact of gauge fixing in a gauge invariant theory as part
| of an intermediate step. The significance of the ghost field is
| only as physical as choosing a particular gauge, which is to say,
| none. On the other hand, you attach great importance to the choice
| of gauge, as you think the coulomb gauge is not merely a gauge, but
| an exact physical description. You attribute all sort of physical
| effects to the artifacts associated with a choice of gauge. So,
| basically, you have it backwards. You just neglected to mention
| who is attributing physical effects to mathematical artifacts - you
| are.
|
| Gauges is another good example of a theoretical invention that
| has no observable meaning. I prefer theories in which each ingredient
| can be (at least in principle) observed.
|
|
| "physical" vacuum,
|
| So, you think there is no state which can't be lowered with
| an anihilation operator, or what?
|
| There is a vacuum state. Application of annihilation operators
| to this state yields zero. However, in contast to the "physical"
| vacuum state of QFT (which is a boiling soup of virtual photons and
| particle-antiparticle pairs - a non-observable nonsense),
| in my vacuum the number of particles is strictly zero.

Fortunately, "your" vacuum is only half the story. And this is exactly
why you get *unphysical* instantaneous action at a distance in your
theory. The other half of the story is that our "Universe's" "now" is a
physical event horizon that moves at c. What's on the other side of
that horizon from us? Is it unphysical simply because we can't get
there until "now"?

FrediFizzx

http://www.vacuum-physics.com/QVC/qu...uum_charge.pdf
or postscript
http://www.vacuum-physics.com/QVC/qu...cuum_charge.ps

Eugene Stefanovich:


Bilge wrote:

So, in your theory of the weak interaction, the decay of the
neutron occurs how?


n --+-- p
? Fill in the question mark and explain the
--- e reason for the existence of non-virtual W.
\
\nubar

I would something like

n --+-- p
W
--- e
\
\nubar

where W is real (not virtual) particle which (unfortunately)

You're about 82 GeV short of the energy required to produce a real W.
It should obvious that the W cannot be on mass shell or else the
neutron could ``decay'' into a medium heavy nucleus. Use your head.


cannot be observed (in this case) due to poor time resoultion
of modern instruments.

You really think the instruments cant resolve the neutron mass
better than 939 MeV +83/-0 GeV ? Use your head.

[...]
an exact physical description. You attribute all sort of physical
effects to the artifacts associated with a choice of gauge. So,
basically, you have it backwards. You just neglected to mention
who is attributing physical effects to mathematical artifacts - you
are.

Gauges is another good example of a theoretical invention that
has no observable meaning.

That's the point. You attribute observable effects to a choice of gauge.
Most every other physicist doesn't. Why do you insist on getting it
backwards?

[...]
"physical" vacuum,

So, you think there is no state which can't be lowered with
an anihilation operator, or what?

There is a vacuum state.

You just criticized physicists for saying that.

Application of annihilation operators
to this state yields zero. However, in contast to the "physical"
vacuum state of QFT (which is a boiling soup of virtual photons and
particle-antiparticle pairs - a non-observable nonsense),

Another strawman. Physicists don't say that, except perhaps in
a sesame street explanation aimed at little kids. If you'd like
I can quote an example from a real physics textbook written by
a real field theorist (r. haag).

in my vacuum the number of particles is strictly zero.

yada, yada, yada... Have you actually ever read a real quantum field
theory text?


quarks, gluons...

Does this mean you think that rutherford scattering can't be used to
determine anything about the objects being scattered?

I know that existence of quarks and gluons was inferred from nuclear
scattering experiments.

The existence of nuclei was inferred from nuclear scattering
experiments. The existence of electrons and protons was inferred
from scattering experiments. The existence of atoms was inferred
from scattering experiments and the periodic table. The existence
of quarks and gluons was inferred inferred from scattering experiments
and a peridic table. The existence of trees is inferred from a
scattering experiment. In short, you have a very naive idea of
what constitutes an observation - that of a little kid who cannot
understand that eyes are nothing but detectors for visible light
that detect scattered light.

It may well be the case that there is no way
to explain the properties of baryons without considering quarks and
gluons. Modern theory tells us that quarks, gluons, and their color
cannot be directly observed.

No, modern physics doesn't say that. There's a huge difference
between observing quarks or gluons and observing _free_ quarks
or gluons. If you believe that it's impossible to determine the
structure of a bound state, then you must also think that it's
impossible to figure out the neutron and proton configurtion
in a nucleus or even the electron structure of an atom. How do
you think rutherford managed to infer that the nucleus was very
small relative to the atomic dimensions or that the positive
charge was all located in the nucleus? He certianly didn't go
borrow a magnifying glass from sherlock holmes and stare at it,

I am wondering if an alternative theory can be formulated which
does not involve any non-observable ingredients?

You might start with a theory of atomic structure, since no one
has observed that any better than hadronic structure. Same tools,
different energy.