Relativity, String theory, ‘unified models’ and anti-science theologies

Is Einstein the new Aristotle? Are we in a 1000-year paradigmatic reign? Is it the age of Einstotle?

Einstein was a philosopher not a physicist. If Einstein is the new Aristotle, we might in the early years of a new ‘Thomas Kuhnian’ paradigm. Aristotle’s philosophy dominated science for some 1000 years. Will Einsteinian philosophy persist for a similar duration?

“Philosophy is the true mother of science.”  (attributed to Cicero)

“Truth is the object of philosophy, but not always of philosophers.”  (attributed to John Churton Collins)

Theological sausage making

Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and others convinced the public that heliocentricity was validated science and there was a motion of the Earth around the Sun.  As late as 1900 no mechanical, experimental evidence could be produced to support this concept.  The theory of Relativity was created to resolve the matter.  It was not invented by Einstein but by half a dozen other men in the late 19^th century after the enormous failure of the 1887 Michelson Morley experiment to detect motion. 

There is still no mechanical evidence that we move.  

Relativity is now sold as a ‘scientific fact’.  As with ‘Evolution’ another non-science, the truth is the opposite.  Relativity is philosophy and abstract maths.  It is a theoretical and physical chimera and rubbish.  Many posts outline scientific reasons and experiments why this is true.  DC Miller, another unknown physicist, disproved ‘Relativity’ in the 1920s and 30s with over 200.000 experiments.  Einstein performed none.  DC Miller is never studied.  His experiments have never been invalidated. 

The essence of ‘Special Relativity’ is the symmetry of spacetime. That is, symmetries relate space and time as a single spacetime.  Being homogeneous and isotropic are the key properties of those symmetries and are declared obvious from the perspective of an ‘observer’ who will see homogeneity and isotropy in the universe.

Universal isotropy and homogeneity are however, both wrong.  This fact by itself negates Relativity. 

Cosmic Microwave Background radiation disproves the Big Bang religion.

Philosophical Deformations

Einstein inspired a whole generation of theoretical physicists who have been creating top-down theories from ‘postulates’ (derived from Socratic dialogues and logic) and thought experiments, without recourse to observations from experimental data.  After Einstein’s death in 1955, much work has been invested into ‘unified field theories’.  Einstein’s own work to create a ‘theory of everything’ ended in miserable failure. 

There is no chance of a unified theory of everything.  The universe is far beyond our intelligence to reduce to simple expressions and equations.  Further, Relativity cannot be reconciled with quantum mechanics.  Not now, not ever.  Relativity itself is a false proposition; quantum mechanics suffers from many issues; never shall the twain meet.

Positrons and plasma disprove Einstein, STR and E=mc2. Anderson's 1932 experiment.

For example, we know that space is not a vacuum as proposed by Einstein in 1905.  Quantum electrodynamics, enunciated by R. Feynman and others, teaches that there is no such thing as ‘empty space’, and there is no known way for light to propagate through empty space in a space of ‘nothing’.  Light waves, sound waves, energy, gravity waves, all need a medium.  Full stop. 

Today the word ‘vacuum’ usually means the lowest energy state of the system, not for empty space.  Using the word aether for the quantum vacuum is consistent with the aether that Maxwell, Larmor, and Lorentz wrote about in the late 1800s.  Back around we go.  So much for our ancestors being idiots. 

A very ugly offspring

Relativity’s ugly, deformed offspring ‘String theory’, is further corroboration that the philosophical babble concocted by ‘science’ and Einstein in the early 20^th century, has led us down the wrong path.  The men pushing String theology are incredibly smart, articulate and far more intelligent than I am.  Many of us have read Apostle’s Greene, Weinberg, Smolin and Susskind.  Their gospel treatises are however philosophical abstractions not science.  I don’t see physical evidence, so I don’t believe. 

It is simply astonishing that so much money, energy and intelligence is wasted on such an unscientific model, whose entire premise is to ‘prove’ ‘Relativity’ and unify it with quantum mechanics.  How much better society would be if these highly skilled personalities spent their time and efforts on socially relevant activities.  Maybe a real job somewhere would be a good start.  Say digging holes. 

Violins and imaginary strings

String theory has been deemed so innovative and exciting that it has dominated theoretical physics research over the last 35 years.  It has been a colossal failure.  It is a maths-only thought experiment.  No observational proofs have ever been offered to support the hallucinations. 

String theory replaces particles with tiny strings in a spacetime, within 10 or more dimensions.  (Spacetime as a 4^th dimension does not exist and has never been proven to be true, what then with the 10 or 100 such fantasies?)

The theory envisions that a string undergoing a certain vibration will correspond to a particle with differentiated properties such as mass and charge.

The idea is to incorporate all 4 of nature’s ‘forces’, namely gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force, into a single quantum mechanical framework.

When I play my violin there are real strings.  I don’t imagine that the horsehair productions are imaginary by-products of vibrating stings composed of single particles unified by the 4 ‘forces’ of nature.  The strings exist; therefore, I play.

Endless Dimensions

String theory basically proposes dimensions which combine gravity and ‘quantizes’ general relativity into a quantum theory.  ‘Quantizes’ is itself an issue.  It can mean many things.  Generally, it refers to guessing about a quantum theory based on classical models and discovering the limits and symmetries of that system.  It attempts to reduce the system down to basic mathematical premises. Stochastic, interval and geometric quantisation exist for example.  Entire books attempt to explain what it means and often fail. 

For those who live in reality, we inhabit a Euclidean 3-dimensional universe.  For those who live in a fantasy world, you live in 4 dimensions (Relativity) or 10 to 100 (string theory, M-theory, Hawkings ridiculous scribblings).  None of String theories claims have ever been proven of course for the simple fact that none of their dimensions exist. No 10-100 dimensions, no string theory. Further:

·        No proof exists to connect strings with electrons, photons, or any other known particles.  

·        No proofs exist which satisfy equations of motion.  

·        No proof exists to relate string theory to gravity or any other known force.

The only ‘insight’ gleaned from string theory, is that gravity is conjectured to have a ‘spin2 massless graviton’.  Whatever that means. If string theory has a ‘massless 2 particle’ it might have some relation to ‘quantized gravity’ or gravity within quantum mechanics.  Quantised gravity is itself a very contentious theory.  After 35 years and tens of billions in spend, this is a meagre return. 

The anti-science hurts

String theory is anti-science.  The Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit detailed many of the problems with string theory back in a 2006, in his book entitled Not Even Wrong.  A wrong theory will at least make some wrong predictions, but a not-even-wrong theory will fail to do even that.  In other words, String theory is useless. Woit’s work is unrefuted.  It is a good read.  Based on this book and other studies we can list some problems with Einstein’s ugly child:

·        String ‘theory’ makes no predictions, it cannot therefore be tested (you need to head back to the ‘beginning’ of the universe to test the theory, which is impossible).

·        Particle accelerators do not find evidence for extra dimensions, mocking the entire premise of String theory theologians. 

·        String theory has nothing to say about real-world forces, particles or fields.

·        String theory has nothing to say about the aether (vacuum in today’s newspeak), by predicting or elucidating on its energy. 

·        String theory predicts a ridiculously large number of possible aether/vacuum states, each with different physical properties.  No information is ever provided about these properties. 

·        No physical experiments have been performed to align theories with the physical properties espoused by the contrived mathematics. 

Steven Weinberg, a String apologist laments: “A disappointing aspect of string theory is that it has so far failed to shed any light at all on what is probably the biggest outstanding problem in the physics of what we can actually see in nature — the failure to understand the energy of empty space, the so-called cosmological constant.”

Steve has admitted that String theory is irrelevant. Space is not empty Steve. Read Feynman, Maxwell and Lorentz. String theology offers no insights whatsoever. It is the endless streams of public money being invested into this fiction which keeps it alive and gives its Apostles the leisure to market and propagate their propaganda and theologies. Leisure begets philosophy.

‘Ein-stotle’ and the Bottom Line

String theory itself is not mathematics.  It is not experimental science.  It is philosophy.

The purpose of string theory is to create a philosophical-Einsteinian ‘revolution’, and justify Einstein’s theories. It is not intended to prove mathematical theorems, nor to prove physical observations.

In this philosophical ‘revolution’ Einstein is the new Aristotle. Physicists love to ridicule Aristotle for his non-quantitative theory of physics, for his thought experiments, for his ‘unsubstantiated realism’. He was critcised for describing the world as he thought it might be, rather than what the world actually is.

Modern physicists pour scorn on Aristotle’s followers for idolizing the master, and for blindly following his dictums for over a millennia. They also calumny the ‘Schoolmen’ of the Middle Ages who dethroned Aristotle and by the 12th century were inventing the antecedents to modern physics and science. You can’t win with these people. The only true philosophical-theology is that of Scientism.

What then should we make of the pathological slavering after Einstein who theories are wrong, unproven, abstract, fanatical, fantastical and which sound oddly pantheistic and Aristotelian? String theory is simply a philosophical offshoot of failed Einsteinianism.

Is not modern science a knave to a theory called Relativity and obeisant to its chief marketer, who espoused a philosophy which long ago should have been demised and replaced?  Isn’t Einstein, the great plagiariser, the new Aristotle? Maybe we can call him ‘Einstotle’?

All hail.

====Nota bene

(Stoics and Atomists in ancient Greece mused about multi-verses. Bruno, who was not a scientist, but a deranged philosopher burned at the stake in 1600, sermonised on multi-verses, multi-earths and parallel realities. Truly nothing is new under the Sun.)

Ecclesiastes v1 has more sense than most of ‘modern science’:

⁹What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done,
    and there is nothing new under the sun.
¹⁰ Is there a thing of which it is said,
    “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.
¹¹ There is no remembrance of former things,
    nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be among those who come after.

=====

Sources

Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe, 2010.

Steven Weinberg, What we know and don’t know, Nature, Nov 7 2013.

The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow. 2010 (discusses the ridiculous notions of the M-theory of everything, another example of where ‘scientists’ need to get a real job)

Graham Farmela, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom, Basic Books, 2009

String theory: Hanging on by a thread?, USA Today, Sept. 18, 2006

Edmund Taylor Whittaker (1910), A History of the theories of aether and electricity

Roger Schlafly (2011), How Einstein Ruined Physics: Motion, Symmetry, and Revolution in Science

Dwight Garner, Many Kinds of Universes, and None Require God, NY Times book review of The Grand Design, September 7, 2010

L. Susskind, Lectures on new revolutions in particle physics, Jan. 2010

Superconductivity’s Smorgasbord Of Insights: A Movable Feast, AAAS Science, 332 p.192, Apr. 8, 2011

Garrett Lisi, An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything, 2007.