Thursday, March 7, 2019

Quantum Monism Could Save the Soul of Physics

“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible, ”Albert Einstein famously once said. These days, however, it is far from being a matter of consensus that the universe is comprehensible, or even that it is unique. Fundamental physics is facing a crisis, related to two popular concepts that are frequently invoked, summarized tellingly by the buzzwords “multiverse” and “uglyverse.”
Multiverse proponents advocate the idea that there may exist innumerable other universes, some of them with totally different physics and numbers of spatial dimensions; and that you, I and everything else may exist in countless copies. “The multiverse may be the most dangerous idea in physics” argues the South African cosmologist George Ellis.
Ever since the early days of science, finding an unlikely coincidence prompted an urge to explain, a motivation to search for the hidden reason behind it. One modern example: the laws of physics appear to be finely tuned to permit the existence of intelligent beings who can discover those laws—a coincidence that demands explanation.
With the advent of the multiverse, this has changed: As unlikely as a coincidence may appear, in the zillions of universes that compose the multiverse, it will exist somewhere. And if the coincidence seems to favor the emergence of complex structures, life or consciousness, we shouldn’t even be surprised to find ourselves in a universe that allows us to exist in the first place. But this “anthropic reasoning” in turn implies that we can't predict anything anymore. There is no obvious guiding principle for the CERN physicists searching for new particles. And there is no fundamental law to be discovered behind the accidental properties of the universe.
Quite different but not less dangerous is the other challenge—the “uglyverse”: According to theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, modern physics has been led astray by its bias for “beauty,” giving rise to mathematically elegant, speculative fantasies without any contact to experiment. Physics has been “lost in math,” she argues. But then, what physicists call “beauty” are structures and symmetries. If we can’t rely on such concepts anymore, the difference between comprehension and a mere fit to experimental data will be blurred. 
Both challenges have some justification. “Why should the laws of nature care what I find beautiful?” Hossenfelder righteously asks, and the answer is: They shouldn’t. Of course, nature could be complicated, messy and incomprehensible—if it were classical. But nature isn’t. Nature is quantum mechanical. And while classical physics is the science of our daily life where objects are separable, individual things, quantum mechanics is different. The condition of your car for example is not related to the color of your wife’s dress. In quantum mechanics though, things that were in causal contact once remain correlated, described by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance.” Such correlations constitute structure, and structure is beauty. 

25 comments :

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEq_rd_bouM

    ReplyDelete
  2. See http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23556
    “But there are divorces. There are times when someone says, “Blessed is the G-d who redeems and saves. I am the hell out of here!” And that moment hit the Deep South when George McGovern ran against Richard Nixon. It hit blue collar European-ethnic Catholics when Ronald Reagan ran against Jimmy Carter, then Walter Mondale. And now it has hit the Jews of America. Orthodox Jews always are the bellwether of the Jewish community because we adhere to Judaism. If Jews are society’s “canary in the coal mine,” we are the canary’s canary. We wear identifying garb, whether a fedora and long earlocks or simply, as I do, a knitted yarmulka. We eat only kosher food, only in kosher restaurants. We walk to shul on Sabbath, push our baby carriages within regions encompassed by special boundary designations (“eruv”) that we construct at great expense with city approval. While the long-lost and assimilated Jews like George Soros, whom we despise, and Bernie Sanders dance with the dictators and marvel over the wonders of socialist bread lines, we the Orthodox already are placing our orders for special “shmurah matzos” seven weeks before Passover.”
    Beautiful. Dov Fischer says it so well. I made aliya 1991. That was my “Blessed is the G-d who redeems and saves. I am the hell out of here!”

    ReplyDelete
  3. KA is my good friend He is just misguided and lost

    but actually good comes out from his stubbornness
    in that the true torah message gets out widely!

    ReplyDelete
  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEJlSuMbePU
    Chinuch for the mitzvah of Kanaous!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kalonymus AnonymusMarch 8, 2019 at 1:27 PM

    Berel needs help in learning texts, understanding the Rambam, and logical thinking. I'm trying to help with his chinuch.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kalonymus AnonymusMarch 8, 2019 at 4:30 PM

    when Moshiach comes, they will be wearing military uniform and fighting for EY , every inch of it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. If I dare reply to the posted article ...
    Why should we expect physics to be beautiful? Because that's worked so many times in the past. It really has -- to have a run like that would be extremely unlikely under the hypothesis that it isn't almost always beautiful.

    Hossenfelder knows more physics than I do, but I still think she's obviously wrong. But if she's just trying to say we're wasting time and money on string theory, she might well be right and she'd be far from the first.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Kalonymus AnonymusMarch 10, 2019 at 1:47 PM

    You regularly call him ein apikores, your good friend. 😂

    ReplyDelete
  9. Kalonymus AnonymusMarch 10, 2019 at 7:39 PM

    One should be suspicious of brisker/nk nutters, when they claim that Gedolim are not really rabbis, but laymen. This they say of Rav Shach, Rav elyashiv ztl, presumably a Zionist like Rav shteinman would not stand a chance with such animals from the eidah zoo.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Torah thought on parshat ויקרא
    “If a person incurs guiltונפש כי יחטא— When he has heard a public imprecation [namely, against one who withholds testimony] ושמעה קול אלה and—although able to testify והוא עד as one who has either seen או ראה or learned of the matter או ידע —he does not give information אם לוא יגיד, so that he is subject to punishment ונשא עונו.” (Leviticus 5:1).
    תורה תמימה ויקרא פרק ה פסוק א
    ונפש כי תחטא - מדכתיב ונפש כי תחטא והדר ושמעה קול אלה, שמע מינה דאפילו בלא שבועה נמי איכא חטא, אלא דבשבועה חייב קרבן [שאלתות דרא"ג]
    תורה תמימה ויקרא פרק ה פסוק א
    אם לוא יגיד - תניא, ר' נתן אומר, שומעין דבריו של עד אחד היום ולכשיבא חבירו למחר שומעין דבריו, דכתיב או ראה אם לוא יגיד ומקשינן הגדה לראיה [סנהדרין ל' ב']
    Sanhedrin 30a-b
    “Or [in interpretation of] a Biblical text “If a person incurs guiltונפש כי יחטא— When he has heard a public imprecation [namely, against one who withholds testimony] ושמעה קול אלה and—although able to testify והוא עד as one who has either seen או ראה or learned of the matter או ידע —he does not give information אם לוא יגיד, so that he is subject to punishment ונשא עונו.” (Leviticus 5:1). Now, both agree with the Rabbis who disagree with R. Joshua b. Korha [I.e., they hold that the act must be witnessed by both witnesses simultaneously]: they differ as to whether the uttering [of the testimony] is assimilated to the seeing [of the fact attested]. One Master [the first Tanna] maintains that uttering is assimilated to seeing [i.e., just as the act must be seen by both simultaneously, so also must it be attested simultaneously. He deduces this from the juxtaposition of the witnessing of the act and the giving evidence of it.]; the other [R. Nathan] holds that they are not assimilated.”
    Now I like the view of R. Nathan. Why? Surely, the act does have to be seen simultaneously in many monetary cases to be re relevant/critical to require giving the testimony to be at the same time. Meaning one day one witness tells his story and the next day the other witness tells his story.
    Beautiful law. In a monetary battle, say, who should get the house-Gerald or Susan? Anyone who has relevant evidence and keeps quiet is sinning. Wow. Please speak up, out there, follow?
    I see that the midrash cite here
    “Better a poor man who lives blamelessly Than one who speaks perversely and is a dullard. A person without knowledge is surely not good; He who moves hurriedly blunders ואץ ברגלים חטא.” (Proverbs 19:1-2).
    רש"י משלי פרק יט פסוק ב
    גם בלא דעת נפש לא טוב - אין טוב לאדם שהוא בלא תורה:
    ואץ ברגלים חוטא - החוטא רופס ודש העונות בעקביו ואומר קל הוא זה אעבור עליו, ורבותינו פירשו גם בלא דעת, בכופה את אשתו לתשמיש המטה בעל כרחה:
    ואץ ברגלים חוטא - זה הבועל ושונה, ד"א זה המהלך על גבי עשבים בשבת:
    תורה תמימה ויקרא פרק ה פסוק א
    ונפש כי תחטא - מדכתיב ונפש כי תחטא והדר ושמעה קול אלה, שמע מינה דאפילו בלא שבועה נמי איכא חטא, אלא דבשבועה חייב קרבן [שאלתות דרא"ג]
    Yes I can win my house back!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Nabach an apikores oich an apikores so says Reb Chaim Brisker

    ReplyDelete
  12. Kalonymus AnonymusMarch 11, 2019 at 9:37 PM

    Rambam says not to make ikkarim of aggadot, or details of the end of days. Nothing heretical about religious Zionism.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Rav David Friedman of Karlin denied the general takkanos of Rav Diskin against secular studies. Only valid in his own small community.

    ReplyDelete
  14. The Tzaddik, Rav Pines ztl was unjustly banned by the small Eidah. Rav DAvid friedman of Karlin rejected the validity of the ban against secular education. Rav David ztl was not Modern O, and also he was a major major hareidi poseq.



    http://traditionarchive.org/news/article.cfm?id=104556

    ReplyDelete
  15. Shows how much you know (nothing) of yershami history !

    Rav diskind reb yehoshuah leib was the undisputed leader in his time died in 1998

    ReplyDelete
  16. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sent?projector=1

    ReplyDelete
  17. I read that the Gra refused to meet with the baal haTanya, and one of the reasons was that he might be influenced by his charm or impressed by his scholarship. i take the same approach with you guys

    ReplyDelete
  18. shows how much you know of history, he died in 1898


    in 1998, rav shach was still alive, but everyone else was gone from that era

    ReplyDelete
  19. Kalonymus AnonymusMarch 12, 2019 at 1:04 AM

    It also shows how little you know of halacha. yes, Rav Diskin was undisputed leader in frum Jerusalem, but one of the Gedolei hador takes issue with his ban on all secular studies, and the scale and scope of this ban. Actually, Rav David Friedman uses one of the arguments that I brought, namely he is unable to impose a gezeirah on all world Jewry to abstain form secular studies. Even today, the Eidah cannot impose its Kashrus on anyone outside the Eidah /Hareidi sector. It is plain halacha. Look it up.

    ReplyDelete
  20. only those that have no fear of punishment for any sins they might have done.

    ReplyDelete
  21. no, those who are not in the first year of marriage, or built a new home...

    ReplyDelete
  22. so you apologize for a silly typo, but have no problem attacking major Tzaddikim who differed with your guys...

    ReplyDelete
  23. The concept of nebach apikores is one who reaches that by error. It means everyone is potentially susceptible to error or bribes.

    ReplyDelete

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE POSTED!
please use either your real name or a pseudonym.