Against Symmetry

The term “symmetry” derives from the Greek words sun (meaning ‘with’ or ‘together’) and metron (‘measure’), yielding summetria, and originally indicated a relation of commensurability (such is the meaning codified in Euclid's Elements for example). It quickly acquired a further, more general, meaning: that of a proportion relation, grounded on (integer) numbers, and with the function of harmonizing the different elements into a unitary whole. From the outset, then, symmetry was closely related to harmony, beauty, and unity, and this was to prove decisive for its role in theories of nature. In Plato's Timaeus, for example, the regular polyhedra are afforded a central place in the doctrine of natural elements for the proportions they contain and the beauty of their forms: fire has the form of the regular tetrahedron, earth the form of the cube, air the form of the regular octahedron, water the form of the regular icosahedron, while the regular dodecahedron is used for the form of the entire universe. The history of science provides another paradigmatic example of the use of these figures as basic ingredients in physical description: Kepler's 1596 Mysterium Cosmographicum presents a planetary architecture grounded on the five regular solids.

The basic difference that I see is the way in which Lee Smolin adopts his views of what science is in relation too, "Two traditions in the search for fundamental Physics."

It is strange indeed to see perfection of Lee Smolin's comparison and having a look further down we understand the opening basis of his philosophical thoughts in regards to the title "against symmetry?"

Some reviews on the "Trouble With Physics," by Lee Smolin

Seed Magazine, August 2006

Time magazine August 21, 2006

Discover Magazine, September 2006 &

Scientific American, September 2006

Wired September 2006:15 :

The Economist, Sept 14, 2006

The New York Times Book review, Sep 17, 2006 by Tom Siegfried

The Boston Globe, Sept 17, 2006

USA Today, Sept 19, 2006

The New York Sun, by Michael Shermer, Sept 27, 2006

The New Yorker,  by Jim Holt Sept 25,2006

The LA Times, by K C Cole, Oct 8, 2006

Nature,

by George Ellis (Nature 44, 482, 5 Oct. 2006)

San Fransisco Chronicle , by Keay Davidson, Oct 13, 2006

Dallas Morning News, by FRED BORTZ, Oct 15, 2006

Toronto Star, by PETER CALAMAI, Oct 15, 2006

But before I begin in that direction I wanted people to understand something that is held in the mind of the "condense matter theorist." In terms of the building blocks of nature. This is important basis of understanding, that any building block could emergent from anything, we had to identify where this symmetry existed, before it manifested in the "matter states of reality."

Everyone knows that human societies organize themselves. But it is also true that nature organizes itself, and that the principles by which it does this is what modern science, and especially modern physics, is all about. The purpose of my talk today is to explain this idea.

So it is important to understand what is emergent and what exists in the "theory of everything" if it did not consider the context of symmetry? AS a layman trying to get underneath the thinking process of any book development, it is important to me.

Symmetry considerations dominate modern fundamental physics, both in quantum theory and in relativity. Philosophers are now beginning to devote increasing attention to such issues as the significance of gauge symmetry, quantum particle identity in the light of permutation symmetry, how to make sense of parity violation, the role of symmetry breaking, the empirical status of symmetry principles, and so forth. These issues relate directly to traditional problems in the philosophy of science, including the status of the laws of nature, the relationships between mathematics, physical theory, and the world, and the extent to which mathematics dictates physics.

The idea here then is to find super strings place within context of the evolving universe, in terms of, "the microseconds" and not the "first three minutes" of Steven Weinberg.

So it is important to see the context with which this discussion is taking place, in terms of the high energy and from that state of existence to what entropically manifests into the universe now.

Confronting A Position Adopted By Lee Smolin


A sphere with three handles (and three holes), i.e., a genus-3 torus.

This is only "one point of contention" that was being addressed at Clifford Johnson's Asymptotia.

Jacques Distler :

This is false. The proof of finiteness, to all orders, is in quite solid shape. Explicit formulæ are currently known only up to 3-loop order, and the methods used to write down those formulæ clearly don’t generalize beyond 3 loops.

What’s certainly not clear (since you asked a very technical question, you will forgive me if my response is rather technical) is that, beyond 3 loops, the superstring measure over supermoduli space can be “pushed forward” to a measure over the moduli space of ordinary Riemann surfaces. It was a nontrivial (and, to many of us, somewhat surprising) result of d’Hoker and Phong that this does hold true at genus-2 and -3.

There is no doubt that the "timeliness of statements" can further define, support or not, problems that are being discussed. I don't mind being deleted on the point of the post above, because our good scientist's are getting into the heat of things. I am glad Arun stepped up to the plate.

Part of finally coming to some head on debate, was seeing how Peter Woit along with Lee Smolin were being challlenged for their views, while there had been this ground swell created against a model that was developed, like Loop quantum gravity was developed. One of the two traditions in search for the fundamental physics. Loop qunatum Gravity and String theory(must make sure there is the modification to M theory?) Shall this be included?


Click on link Against symmetry (Paris, June 06)

But as they are having this conversation, it is this openness that they have given of themselves that we learn of the intricacies of the basis of arguments, so the public is better informed as to what follows and what has to take place.


Against symmetry (Paris, June 06)

So while this issue is much more complex then just the exchange there, I have not forgotten what it is all about. Or why one may move from a certain position after they have summarize the views they had accumulated with regards to the subject of String/M theory as a model that has out lived it's usefulness, in terms of not providing a experimental frame work around it.

Visual Abstraction to Equations

Sylvester's models lay hidden away for a long time, but recently the Mathematical Institute received a donation to rescue some of them. Four of these were carefully restored by Catherine Kimber of the Ashmolean Museum and now sit in an illuminated glass cabinet in the Institute Common Room.

Some of you might have noticed the reference to the Ashmolean Museum?


Photo by Graham Challifour. Reproduced from Critchlow, 1979, p. 132.

It seems only the good scientist John Baez had epitomes the construction of the Platonic solids? A revision then, of the "time line of history" and the correction he himself had to make? Let's not be to arrogant to know that once we understand more and look at "the anomalies" it forces us to revise our assessments.

The Art form

I relayed this image and quote below on Clifford's site to encourage the thinking of young people into an art form that is truly amazing to me. Yes I get excited about it after having learnt of Gauss and Reimann's exceptional abilities to move into the non euclidean world.

Some think me a crackpot here? If you did not follow the history then how would you know to also include the "physics of approach," as well? Also, some might ask what use "this ability to see the visual abstraction" and I think this art form is in a way destined, to what was kept in glass cabinets and such, even while the glass cabinet in analogy is held in the brain/space of them) who have developed such artistic abilities.

It's as if you move past the layers of the evolution of the human being(brain casings) and it evolution and the field that surrounds them. Having accomplished the intellect( your equations and such), has now moved into the world of imagery. Closet to this is the emotive field which circumvents our perspective on the greater potential of the world in the amazing thought forms of imagery. This move outward, varies for each of us from time to time. Some who are focused in which ever area can move beyond them. This paragraph just written is what would be considered crackpot(I dislike that word)because of the long years of research I had gone through to arrive at this point.

Of course, those views above are different.

Mapping



Is it illusionary or delusional, and having looked at the Clebsch's Diagonal Surface below, how is it that "abstraction" written?

The enthusiasm that characterized such collections was captured by Francis Bacon [1, p. 247], who ironically advised "learned gentlemen" of the era to assemble within "a small compass a model of the universal made private", building

... a goodly, huge cabinet, wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine has made rare in stuff, form or motion; whatsoever singularity, chance, and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever Nature has wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included.

There is no doubt that the long road to understanding science is the prerequisite to mapping the images from an equation's signs and symbols. While not sitting in the classroom of the teachers it was necessary to try and move into the fifth dimensional referencing of our computer screen to see what is being extolled here not just in image development, but of what the physics is doing in relation.

In 1849 already, the British mathematicians Salmon ([Sal49]) and Cayley ([Cay49]) published the results of their correspondence on the number of straight lines on a smooth cubic surface. In a letter, Cayley had told Salmon, that their could only exist a finite number - and Salmon answered, that the number should be exactly 27

So of course to be the historical journey was established like most things, Mandelstam current and what is happening there as an interlude, as well as helping to establish some understanding of the abstractions that had been developed.



But yes, before moving to current day imagery and abstraction, I had to understand how these developments were being tackled in today's theoretical sciences.

Universal Library

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is perhaps the oldest university in the world."

Can you imagine if one might have been restricted from the museums of history, based on what another might have thought of the person? To encourage such ideas to blossom, that it is understood the garden has to provide a source from which things can grow. Why not circumvent all views other then one's own, and you shall own those person's too.

If we are to keep one in "ignorance of life" then why not circumvent them to what the world is for them in "their sections and houses on earth? Keep them, to the culture, and not allow for the greater dialogue between these cultures?

While the historical blend here is being extolled, I of course have current thoughts about this in todays world of the internet.


Reconstruction of one of the storage rooms of the Library of Alexandria. From Carl Sagan's Cosmos (1980),

The Royal Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest library in the world. It is generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, during the reign of Ptolemy II of Egypt. It was likely created after his father had built what would become the first part of the library complex, the temple of the Muses — the Musaion (from which is derived the modern English word museum).

It has been reasonably established that the library, or parts of the collection, were destroyed by fire on a number of occasions (library fires were common enough and replacement of handwritten manuscripts was very difficult, expensive and time-consuming). To this day the details of the destruction (or destructions) remain a lively source of controversy. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated in 2003 near the site of the old library.

Now you know that I believe that the resource for such potentials is very capable in anyone's hands. That if they would like to draw from such a resource, that maybe it has to be physical for them. So, they may go to the library.Yet there is the "sublty of the intangile" that is not accepted by those who are "deeply physical" about what they can accept, so they can accept such libraries.

Then again one might think twice about what is in the library of the internet? Yet, it is not without the "subtleness of the intangible" that we see where the "good thoughts/ideas can issue from the expert and the lay person alike. That such things become part of the library of the internet.

How do we know in our heart when such information is true? That we can rest assure that such dangers of misleading do not take us into their world? Do they some how control you by what they like to hear?

Innatism is a philosophical doctrine introduced by Plato in the socratic dialogue Meno which holds that the mind is born with ideas/knowledge, and that therefore the mind is not a tabula rasa at birth. It asserts therefore that not all knowledge is obtained from experience and the senses. Innatism is the opposite of empiricism.

Plato claimed that humans are born with ideas/forms in the mind that are in a dormant state. He claimed that we have acquired these ideas prior to our birth when we existed as souls in the world of Forms. To access these, humans need to be reminded of them through proper education and experience.

Or are we gifted with this innatism about what is good in all people, while there are those who would become rich by such restrictions of a "software selection."

The French librarian Gabriel Naudé wrote:

And therefore I shall ever think it extreamly necessary, to collect for this purpose all sorts of books, (under such precautions, yet, as I shall establish) seeing a Library which is erected for the public benefit, ought to be universal; but which it can never be, unlesse it comprehend all the principal authors, that have written upon the great diversity of particular subjects, and chiefly upon all the arts and sciences; [...] For certainly there is nothing which renders a Library more recommendable, then when every man findes in it that which he is in search of

I mean, if we were restricted to the ability to retrieve from the massive amounts of data being presented, do you think it a good thing to restrict people from being able to develope their intellect? Learn more?

Reaching for the Stars

Mars in 6 weeks? And back in a total of four months? That's the prediction of a design team working on antimatter rocket concepts at Pennsylvania State University. But first, you have to get the stuff - and store it. (PSU)

The popular belief is that an antimatter particle coming in contact with its matter counterpart yields energy. That's true for electrons and positrons (anti-electrons). They'll produce gamma rays at 511,000 electron volts.

But heavier particles like protons and anti-protons are somewhat messier, making gamma rays and leaving a spray of secondary particles that eventually decay into neutrinos and low-energy gamma rays.

And that is partly what Schmidt and others want in an antimatter engine. The gamma rays from a perfect reaction would escape immediately, unless the ship had thick shielding, and serve no purpose. But the charged debris from a proton/anti-proton annihilation can push a ship.

"We want to get as close as possible to the initial annihilation event," Schmidt explained. What's important is intercepting some of the pions and other charged particles that are produced and using the energy to produce thrust."

So our history here in this blog has detailed how we see the issues of "collision processes developed(Cern), that we may now see the cosmological playground teaming with the opportunities to produce this "stuff" that would send our spaceships to Mars?

The extension of the thinking of experimental development, has allowed us to think of "what is possible" and what this propulsion system can do, as we make our way into the new territories? As we set sail our ships, searching for those new lands.


A Penn State artist's concept of n antimatter-powered Mars ship with equipment and crew landers at the right, and the engine, with magnetic nozzles, at left.

Of course "storage" is always a troubling issue here so they developed what is call the Penning Trap. But it is not without some insight that our geometrical understanding developed in the events in the cosmos, could not be transformed in that same geometrical sense to propel those ships?


This "Penning trap" developed at Penn State University stores antiprotons.

It sounds like science fiction, but researchers are learning to create and store small amounts of antimatter in real-life labs. A portable electromagnetic antimatter trap at Penn State University, for example, can hold 10 billion antiprotons. If we could learn how to use such antimatter safely, we could impinge some on a thin stream of hydrogen gas to create thrust. Alternatively, a little antimatter could be injected into a fusion reactor to lower the temperatures needed to trigger a fusion reaction.

So you ask how is that possible?

The gravitational collapse sets up the very ideas for us as we make use of that "propulsion system" to move that space ship. So in a sense, "the collider process" at Cern is a gigantic model of what we want in the developmental process as the new engine of our spaceship.


A schematic of the heart of a Penning trap where a cloud of antiprotons (the fuzzy bluish spot) is kept cold and quiet by liquid nitrogen and helium and a stable magnetic field. (PSU)

Anti-protons, explained Dr. Gerald Smith of Pennsylvania State University, can be obtained in modest quantities from high-energy accelerators slamming particles into solid targets. The anti-protons are then collected and held in a magnetic bottle

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While previously here I have spoken about how we may use Susskind's thought experiment as a monitoring system of gravitational considerations, it is also this thought process that helps us adjust the ship according to how much thrust is needed in face of the lagrangian views we encounter in star systems?

However, by using "matter/antimatter annihilation", velocities just below the speed of light could be reached, making it possible to reach the next star in about six years.

I think Stephen Hawking is going to have to work faster, in order to elucidate his thoughts on this travel. That while I may have started this lesson from the idea of 1999, it is much more advanced then many had understood. The "experimental process" of Cern is much greater then most of us had realized.

Also there is a developmental "thought pattern" that needs to be understood as we speak about how such a geometrics could have been seen underneath the very structures of our realities. Not only within the cosmos at large but in the dynamical processes of the quantum world.

Angels and Demons



Cern IMagery takes a "dramatic position" on what it is saying about itself? :) I would like to think that the fun is in how "mirror world" has somehow been transposed into what we know of the develpmental processes we are given as we now lok at what may help us move into the cosmos.

If as a society we were "uncultured" we might have thought the tribal influence of the "bad side" of all things? But in that exploratory sense al the tidbits had to add up to something, yet without our understanding of what lies beneath, one might have never gone "past" Robert Mclaughlin, to realize, the geometrical nature that imbues the process we are developing.



This was Riemann lesson to Gauss in his thesis, who like his student had thought for sure "vision capable now," would also have been transferred into a "whole new world" of understanding of the non euclidean geometries.

What do they say about the devil being in the details?

Plato:

This image had horns drawn on it, with a tail attached. Something about “angels and demons?” I don’t think we should take the “anti” too literal in face of an outcome, or should we?

It's about how we can take a legitimate process and build ideas on it, according to the very nature of the "negative and positive expressions" of what Riemann set out to do.

ON a large scale, we see the dynamics of this process, yet failed to see it work at a microcosmic sense as we deal with the colliders? As we move forward in the propulsion systems, it is importance how we see this developmental process take on dynamic views.

Ring World

Impact armor, a flexible form of clothing that hardens instantly into a rigid form stronger than steel when rapidly deformed (for example, by the impact of a projectile such as a bullet) - a technology which is quickly approaching reality; in fact being tested during the 2006 Winter Olympics as a product called d3o

Lest you forget "the concept" above is written in a story form of our past?

How is it possible for the human mind to see itself in some future?

We must ask ourselves about the value of the conscience "in moving backwards in time?" An "image" constructed(memory), while not having this ability to "move forward?"

Imagine that you give weight to the idea of human experience, limiting it, to the shades of darkness in our emotive responses. Yet, there is a time when happiness seems so effortless, that as we check how fast "time" has past, we wonder in amazement?

No need here to draw up Einstein's conclusions about a "pretty girl and the hot stove" again and again, as it should have sunk in by now? You are the observer and you color your world.



It's a brief image that I saw myself deploring the satellites in space. Yet, with it the fear of holding on to all that is the firm resolve of one's own focus. Of what is known. Of what we feel is safe? A satellite lost in space. My own fear, as I gazed into the black unknown, possibly lost forever.

It is part of "my" conscious mind that I would produce such imagery? No, my anxieties were manipuated into a picture form. I sent the insecurites of my own awareness of mind deep into the "creativity" of the subconscious mind.

You did not know you had such ability did you?:)

Imagine that I stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon "which I did," and that space spread out before me, is the space of the universe? Imagine indeed, how tight my grip as I look.

Science Fiction

Who is it that could not be touched by the fiction of science to have speculated about how we shall live in another time and place? It comes out when you create the circumstances for the mind to wonder, "creatively."


(Larry Niven's Ringworld, seen from space. Artwork by Harry Frank

Ringworld is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe. The work is widely considered one of the classics of science fiction literature. It is followed by three sequels, and it ties in to numerous other books in the Known Space universe.

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What gives the mind it capabilities to venture forward and we find technologies in the "sports world being demonstrated" to harness the "memories of the geometrics" which will save us?



If you understood the "lighthouse analogy" then why had you failed to realized the most "intense point" of impact/ highest energy particles delivered, arose from such geometrics involved? Hulse and Taylor? How was the binary stars revealed while the revolutions got closer?



Lest some forget too, it is well that the mind see's the value of the "gravity probe b" in such "geometric form" that it has placed a picture(nit it's schematics?) before us, which saids and acknowledges the nature and move to the non-euclidean geometries. Understandng the "lagrangian perspective" is then is a short step away?

Now what has transpired from the fiction of Ring World?


d3o Mesh is a perforated textured sheet which has been specifically designed for comfort and breathability for applications requiring good flexure and medium levels of impact protection and is suitable for all applications.

(dee-three-oh) is a specially engineered material made with intelligent molecules. They flow with you as you move but on shock lock together to absorb the impact energy.

It is okay to thnk about "the theoretical" and push forward the circumstances that allow one to speculate and drawn the new imagery of mind to new horizons. New lives. We do this all the time when we re-assess our lives in face of the directions we would like to go?


Plato:

Now you must remember, as a student and a older one at that, there will always be mistakes. Being granted this reprieve for a time(writing our fiction?), while we look at the question asked, what do I think? Hmmmm.... interesting question.

What is your story of creation? What hides underneath the story, what is it 's nature, that we may have "created the myth" and let one believe it is just a story?

Below the Surface is a Pattern

Stephen Hawking:

However, by using "matter/antimatter annihilation", velocities just below the speed of light could be reached, making it possible to reach the next star in about six years.

While I presented the "break through in propulsion system" used for space travel by explaining the ideas behind Susskind's "thought experiment." It is with that thinking, one can go back and re-assess what we had thought about "time travel" and such?

Some say it is like conscience effort of reflection? That we go back to the "memory reservoir (where is it-a space between the neurons?)" a "QFT realization" and drag it back up from the field to focalized surface awareness imaging, as some feature of this "time travel scenarion" currently being talk about in spacetime geometrics as warpage? As "an analogy" of the "negative aspect" of conscience?

What is this Inductive/deductive feature then of consciousness?



What is Toposense? A struggle between "discreteness and continuity?" On "large scale" we get "the jest" I think.

It's a problem though, when it becomes chaotic and complex. An "entropic" realization. As if "arrow of time" goes forward, then how is it memory can be retrieved? Or that what exists "in" the blackhole can be used to ascertain what is going on inside and adjust for the "gravitational attraction" outside?"

Perplexities of the theoretical mind

Is mind, the "brain organ?" Did "mind" evolve "according to" the brain organ? If this is so, then what new "appendage" is currently being developed now? What "attribute of mind" will define it?

I'm theoretically challenged. :)

Or, does mind "evolve" the brain matters? If this is so, then "mind" is ahead of the brain matters? What new appendage is formed depends on the mind's development?

It's as if there was another stage "before" the spacetime fabric? :) That the spacetime fabric is "the result."

Finiteness of String Theory and Mandelstam

It might be that the laws change absolutely with time; that gravity for instance varies with time and that this inverse square law has a strength which depends on how long it is since the beginning of time. In other words, it's possible that in the future we'll have more understanding of everything and physics may be completed by some kind of statement of how things started which are external to the laws of physics. Richard Feynman

I was lead into this subject of Quantum Gravity, by Lee Smolin's book called, "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity." As a lay person reading what our scientist's have to say, I have a vested interest in what can start one off and find, that changes are being made to the synopsis first written. Did I understand his position correctly from the very beginning? I'll have to go back over my notes.

But with this format now I have the opportunity to...ahem... get it..directly from the horses mouth(no disrespect intended and written based on knowing how to read horses). As I said, I tried early on to see how the situation of string theory could be refuted. I "instigated" as a comparative front for Lubos Motl and Peter Woit to speak from each of their positions. I had to disregard "the tones" set by either, as to the nature of whose what and how ignorant one might be, and comparatively, one might be to intelligent design? To get "some evidence" of why string theory might not be such a good idea?

Now I believe this is a more "civil situation" that such a format has been proposed and that Lee Smolin can speak directly. As well as, "further information" supplied to counter arguments to Lee's position.


A sphere with three handles (and three holes), i.e., a genus-3 torus.

Jacques Distler :

This is false. The proof of finiteness, to all orders, is in quite solid shape. Explicit formulæ are currently known only up to 3-loop order, and the methods used to write down those formulæ clearly don’t generalize beyond 3 loops.

What’s certainly not clear (since you asked a very technical question, you will forgive me if my response is rather technical) is that, beyond 3 loops, the superstring measure over supermoduli space can be “pushed forward” to a measure over the moduli space of ordinary Riemann surfaces. It was a nontrivial (and, to many of us, somewhat surprising) result of d’Hoker and Phong that this does hold true at genus-2 and -3.

Just a reminder about my skills. While I do things like carpetry, plumbing, electrical, I do not call myself a Carpenter, a Plumber or a Electrician. Nor shall I ah-spire to be more then I'm not, as I am to old this time around.

Greg Kuperberg:

The string theorists are physicists and this is their intuition. Do you want physical intuition or not?

Okay, Smolin is also a physicist and his intuition is radically different from that of the strings theorists. So who is right?

Yet, least I not read these things, can I not decipher "the jest" while it not being to technical? Shall I call it a Physicists intuition or I will only call my intuition what it is?

Jacques Distler:

When most people (at least, most quantum field theorists) use the term “finiteness,” they are referring to UV finiteness.

While the things above talked about from Jacques are served by hindsight, "the jest" follows what comes after this point.

The Jest of the Problem?

My present research concerns the problem of topology changing in string theory. It is currently believed that one has to sum over all string backgrounds and all topologies in doing the functional integral. I suspect that certain singular string backgrounds may be equivalent to topology changes, and that it is consequently only necessary to sum over string backgrounds. As a start I am investigating topology changes in two-dimensional target spaces. I am also interested in Seiberg-Witten invariants. Although much has been learned, some basic questions remain, and I hope to be able at least to understand the simpler of these questionsStanley Mandelstam-Professor Emeritus Particle Theory

Gina has asked questions in context of "academic excellence" in relation to what is being seen in relation to string theory. Of course we thank Clifford for providing the format for that discussion.

“The Trouble With Physics,” by Lee Smolin, Index page 382, Mandelstam, Stanley, and string theory finiteness, pages 117,187, 278-79, 280, 281, 367n14,15

For reference above.

Gina:

I raised 16 points that I felt Lee’s arguments were not correct or problematic. This is an academic discussion and not a public criticism, and I truly think that such critique can be useful, even if I am wrong on all the 16 points.

Three of my 16 points were on more technical issues, but I feel that I can understand Lee’s logical argument even without understanding the precise technical nature of “finiteness of string theory” (I do have a vague impression of what it is.) I think that my interpretation of this issue is reasonable and my critique stands.

I find this interesting based on what information has been selected to counter the arguments that Lee Smolin used to support his contentions about what is being defined in string theory.


Stanley Mandelstam Professor Emeritus Research: Particle Physics

My research concerns string theory. At present I am interested in finding an explicit expression for the n-loop superstring amplitude and proving that it is finite. My field of research is particle theory, more specifically string theory. I am also interested in the recent results of Seiberg and Witten in supersymmetric field theories.

So of course, here, I am drawn to the content of his book and what is the basis of his argument from those four pages. I hope my explanation so far summarizes adequately. For the lay person, this information is leading perspective as to the basis of the argument.

Lee Smolin:

Perturbative finiteness is a major element of the claim of string theory as a potential theory of nature. If it is not true then the case for string theory being a theory of nature would not be very strong.

-Perturbative finiteness has not been proven. There is evidence for it, but that evidence is partial. There is a complete proof only to genus two, which is the second non-trivial term in an infinite power series, each term of which has to be finite. The obstacles to a complete proof are technical and formidable; otherwise we would certainly have either a proof or a counterexample by now. There is some progress in an alternative formulation, which has not yet been shown to be equivalent to the standard definition of string theory.

-This is not an issue of theoretical physicists rigor vrs mathematical rigor. There is no proof at either level. There is an intuitive argument, but that is far from persuasive as the issue is what happens at the boundaries of super-moduli space where the assumption of that argument breaks down. In the formulation in which there is a genus two result it is not clear if there is an unambiguous definition of the higher order terms.

Is string theory in fact perturbatively finite? Many experts think so. I worry that if there were a clear way to a proof it would have been found and published, so I find it difficult to have a strong expectation, either way, on this issue.

It should be known here and here that all along I have been reacting to Lee Smolin's new book. The title itself should have given this away?

The explanation of scientific development in terms of paradigms was not only novel but radical too, insofar as it gives a naturalistic explanation of belief-change. Thomas Kuhn

So of course knowing the basis of my thought development is a "good idea" as the links show what spending our dollars can do, having bought what our good scientist Lee Smolin has written.

There is a little "tit for tat" going on right now, but I think the point has been made sufficiently clear as to where Gina's thoughts in regards to the points on Finiteness is being made beyond 2?

In these lectures, recent progress on multiloop superstring perturbation theory is reviewed. A construction from first principles is given for an unambiguous and slice-independent two-loop superstring measure on moduli space for even spin structure. A consistent choice of moduli, invariant under local worldsheet supersymmetry is made in terms of the super-period matrix. A variety of subtle new contributions arising from a careful gauge fixing procedure are taken into account.

Yes I think I have to wait now to see if the discussion can now move beyond the first three points raised? Hopefully Lee will respond soon?

How do you fight sociology

Because this by any of the leaders of string theory. it was left to someone like me, as a quasi "insider" who had the technical knowledge but not the sociological commitment, to take on that responsibility. And I had done so because of my own interest in string theory, which I was working on almost exclusively at the time. Nevertheless, some string theorists regarded the review as a hostile act.

The trouble with Physics, by Lee Smolin, Page 281

I have discovered one of Lee Smolin's objection to a string theorist. They are only craftsman, and not seers.

Liminocentric Structure and Wholeness

What is a Medicine Wheel?

The term "medicine wheel" was first applied to the Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, the most southern one known. That site consists of a central cairn or rock pile surrounded by a circle of stone; lines of cobbles link the central cairn and the surrounding circle. The whole structure looks rather like a wagon wheel lain-out on the ground with the central cairn forming the hub, the radiating cobble lines the spokes, and the surrounding circle the rim. The "medicine" part of the name implies that it was of religious significance to Native peoples.

Figure 4 - Distribution of medicine wheel sites east of the Rockies

Theoretical Challenges

Stephen Hawking from the University of Cambridge, one of the world's leading theoretical physicists, addresses the audience during a ceremony in Beijing, June 19, 2006. Hawking, author of the best-selling 'A Brief History of Time,' said on Thursday humans must colonise other planets in different solar systems or face extinction. (Jason Lee/Reuters)

However, by using "matter/antimatter annihilation", velocities just below the speed of light could be reached, making it possible to reach the next star in about six years.

It's just one of those things that attracts our attention as we ponder the nature of the universe and how our modelling may change the way we see now. What proof for such things and we look at the basis of what we had been doing and we make changes accordingly.

More modern variations of tomography involve gathering projection data from multiple directions and feeding the data into a tomographic reconstruction software algorithm processed by a computer. Different types of signal acquisition can be used in similar calculation algorithms in order to create a tomographic image. With current 2005 technology, tomograms are derived using several different physical phenomena including X-rays, gamma rays, positron electron annihilation reaction, nuclear magnetic resonance, ultrasound, electrons, and ions. These yield CT, SPECT, PET, MRI, ultrasonography, 3d-TEM, and atom probe tomograms, respectively.

It never made much sense to me as time progressed, yet, I found myself challenging the very notions of what physics and experiment leads us, and what thoughts generated, could help propel our thinking forward. Why sound? If we thought such analogies are going to serve us then why would scientists be so misleading as to say "sound is the way we think about the universe?"

Now it is something much different that I think about these things. What caused this?

A way in which one can think and see and not have noticed the universe looks much differently from adopting these views. So of course I speak about lagrangian views and gravitational influences as a much different picture of the cosmos then the one we see as we look up. Or, as how we might look at the sun. The sun's eye?

So as usual today as I move through the "bloggeries of scientists," I look at what they are displaying. The post previous to this one of my article was instigated by reading John Baez's site and what he had there of course sparked what had written previous on the topic of, "Megalithic carved stone balls from Scotland." Yes that was in December of 2004 I wrote my article.

Artifacts of our thinking?

Now this morning of course I went over to Clifford's Blog, "Asymptotia" to have a look there to come to see what he had posted today. The Antikythera Mechanism



Now considering the information about our beliefs of what transpired in our history about gears and such, how is it we could have lost sight of mechanisms like this to have to re-invent the gear?

While occasional discoveries, such as the Antikythera mechanism, have forced scientists to reassess the technology of ancient civilization, critics regard most cases of OOPArt as the result of mistaken interpretation or wishful thinking. Supporters regard them as evidence that mainstream science is overlooking huge areas of knowledge, either willfully or through ignorance.

For me it has been an interesting journey having the freedom's to explore. Try and make sense of the world. Now I am experiencing the frustrations I have about the trends towards capitalism and sociological deconstruction of those things I would think should be the basis of our social fabric "as signs" of our sisterly and brotherly of caring for each other.

Plato:

So should we let the resistance of fear insight distrust of the media, and have good science minds disrupt by instigating false reports like the one did by Alan Sokal in regards to quantum gravity? Nice way to treat those who move up to face the challenge of a theoretical world that expects the same validation as any process?

AS if the Sokal affair wasn't enough, that one could use a computerized program to write a paper on quantum gravity? That those of us being ignorant of the process could be so easily fooled, has some how taken on a new thought here. About what String theory has done? What Peter Woit has placed in his information?

Hopefully this was not the nefarious intent of such information being divulged to the public as a speculation on "science's part" to do battle with the "evil forces of disinformation?"


Alone in the Universe?

So left alone to ponder the nature of the universe how can we not be affected by what has been put out there by scientists for us lay people to ponder about the directions we are going. That in our own thinking now biased, we move forward?

What will become of the understanding of our nature as we explore those things with which we are not accustomed to seeing? Do we "shake the resolve to do the things we have done in a logical and developmental thinking?" To destroy what has been the leading theories toward what goal? Of course not.

But it is such things that ask us to consider the "anomalistic nature" that we delved ever further into the wonders of science and what will become of us? What may be revealed by discovering more of our history, and what is yet to be "reawakened" in our continuance forward.

We must look deeper into the "fabric of reality" that we can see the world in much different way. At first, some might have only recognized the "beauty of the cosmos" and it's natural designs. Then, some wondered what are these things that they become what they are?

So we were forced to consider a much greater dimension to the reality then what was just there on appearance. Of course we might have wondered what made these move the way they do, and again we ask ourselves, "what is the motivator behind these things." How is it we might see what drives this process?


This is a computer-rendered model of a partially telescoped nanotube with a Leonardo DaVinci manuscript as the background. In the manuscript, DaVinci considers the construction of bearings, and also the frictional forces that might be encountered in bearings and sliding surfaces. He also has a drawing of a constant force spring (a mass hanging from a cord over a pulley). A nanotube bearing may be the ultimate realization of some of DaVinci's dreams.

Megalithic carved stone balls from Scotland

With the discovery of sound waves in the CMB, we have entered a new era of precision cosmology in which we can begin to talk with certainty about the origin of structure and the content of matter and energy in the universe-Wayne Hu

I mean what influence might we have gained from looking at such ancient pieces?

The balls were located at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK at one time, so I do not know if they are still there.


Photo by Graham Challifour. Reproduced from Critchlow, 1979, p. 132.