popularizations of quantum mechanics & string theory: c/d, s/d

dammit

Fabric of the Cosmos?
The Elegant Universe?
Dancing Wu-Li Masters?
The Road to Reality?

i tried an elegant universe years ago, but got distracted.

also: isn't string theory perpetually on the verge of being debunked?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Bleep_lg.jpg

lame

i've never met a single person who liked this sort of thing who wasn't full of shit

isn't string theory perpetually on the verge of being debunked?

-- gbx, Wednesday, October 17, 2007 6:40 PM

quite possible. i don't know much about this stuff.

string theory is perpetually on the verge of being FALSIFIABLE you mean
it would have to tell us something useful first in order for it to be able to be debunked

i've never met a single person who liked this sort of thing who wasn't full of shit
word

people only talk about this at coffee shops and in nerve.com personal ads

i've never met a single person who liked this sort of thing who wasn't full of shit

-- omar little, Wednesday, October 17, 2007 6:42 PM

i read "dancing wu-li masters" a few years ago and turned into a new agey douchebag.

then i got into a fight with a guy who loved "what the bleep do we know" while i thought it was utter bullshit.

The Elegant Universe is very good, though probably rather out of date by now.

Actually, as I understand it, next year, with the completion of the latest particle accelerator, could be the year when a lot of string theory gets proven.

The popularization is probably a good thing, as long as no one ever watches that fucking dreadful awful evil FUCK YOU "What the Bleep Do We Know" ever again.

alright like 14 xposts.

next up: tesla's death ray

i actually like this sort of thing but i am full of shit

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cc/Prince_of_Darkness_film.jpg/200px-Prince_of_Darkness_film.jpg

http://www.ghostofaflea.com/archives/RobertAntonWilson.jpg

what the bleep do we fuck

fuck that guy xpost

or not

i applaud how string theorists whimsically fite amongst themselves abt how theres like either 12 or 15 weird little balled up dimensions deep down in there somewhere.

xp: "maybe"

the trippy deep-thinking academic is an excellent ttype of guy.

I think there might be a couple of experiments involving gravity wave detection that supposedly could prove some parts of string theory

i don't think string theory has even been bunked yet.

yah i read some other kind of physicist being all: more like string conjecture lol

new yorker article on string theory:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/02/061002crat_atlarge

this is one of the better books i've read about quantum physics' possible implications for consciousness, etc. without degenerating into new age horse shit (they give "What the Bleep Do We Know" and its ilk a sound debunking):

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Enigma-Physics-Encounters-Consciousness/dp/019517559X

What pisses me off about "What the Bleep Do We Know" is that it takes the genuine philosophical and scientific questions posed by some interpretations of quantum physics and uses it as an excuse to validate crap like people's claims to be reincarnated princesses of Atlantis and other shit like that.

EXACTLY. People with no background in physics use it for all their BS metaphysics. Really upsets me.

I personally find discussions of quantum implications for consciousness to be woefully insipid since the probabilistic nature of the universe (oh right except for when it collapses into our observed macroscopic experience of the world) and the nature of the problems we imagine it causes for consciousness (oh right "free will" except for when we go and look at how decisions are actually made outside of a laboratory) serve to illustrate more gaps in our knowledge of both, the only interesting conclusion to draw is that we don't know what we're talking about, oh and well what omar said

last person i had a conversation about this with moved her hands about her head and gazed off into the distance at a non-extant fixed point and generally came off like the worst sort of empty-headed intellectual. she had a stare like that runaway bride or the cover of that hybrid cd.

wait dude wait I just realized we are just living in one set of electron positions from a multiversal superposition of all electrons ever

these people read a lot of sedaris and really love the music of david gray*

*weak generalization

explain tombot : O

or *does it* explain tombot??

oh man it is just like crisis on infinite earths

This thinking is like the first time I got stoned and was riding my bike over a bridge, got terrified I'd crash into something, and consoled myself by saying my bike actually wasn't touching anything on a molecular level. ie retarded and foolish

xxxxxx-post to tombot

very true, but we're forced make do with what little knowledge (in the grand scheme of things) we've gained. it's better than not thinking about it at all, imho.

i have read about string theory and branes and talked to physicists but i'm not gonna say i understand it. trying.

i'm partial to particles

i can get as long as it's stated conceptually with nicely colored graphs and dumb metaphors. i'm a total math dunce.

Man I thought latebloomer was joking about the Atlantian princess shit. I hate this movie even more now.

very true, but we're forced make do with what little knowledge (in the grand scheme of things) we've gained. it's better than not thinking about it at all, imho.

no I have no problem with using the discussion as a way to point out where the gaps are. but making up multiverse interpretations and other such unfalsifiable shit out of those gaps is no better than explaining a naturally self-immolating dictamnus albus as a telegram from the head office

there's a fine line between science and scientology with this

lol there is never a fine line between science in scientology

AND scientology

I personally find discussions of quantum implications for consciousness to be woefully insipid since the probabilistic nature of the universe (oh right except for when it collapses into our observed macroscopic experience of the world) and the nature of the problems we imagine it causes for consciousness (oh right "free will" except for when we go and look at how decisions are actually made outside of a laboratory) serve to illustrate more gaps in our knowledge of both, the only interesting conclusion to draw is that we don't know what we're talking about, oh and well what omar said

-- El Tomboto, Wednesday, October 17, 2007 7:27 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

it sounds like the question you're really asking is "what the bleep do we know?"

Nothing like going out of a theatre and hearing some ponce on a cell saying, "OH my GOD, you have to see What the Bleep." ahahahahahaha

Wasn't the movie was funded by some cult-ish group? the Temple of Mon Mothma or some shit?

I actually have a fondness for wacky metaphysical speculation and quackery when it's posed playfully as a sort of what-if kind of thing rather than as someone's personal dogma. Which is why I always liked Robert Anton Wilson (the old dude pictured way upthread if anyone was wondering), he had fun with the whole thing. Also drugs, woo.

xx-post

yeah, i wasn't defending any particular interpretation, just saying that as you said "the discussion can point where the gaps in our knowledge are" etc. and that the value of that can be overshadowed by all the other stuff.

ooooo slocki you dirty motherfucker

haha

yeah i read that the other day and was kinda "uh"

Every time I read New Scientist I feel like throwing it across the room, but I do like it -- it's a bit like a Martin Amis book in that respect. That unparticle thing smells of bullshit, but I'm out of my depth. Various co-authors/citing authors/cited authors make me nervous.

http://www.atf.gov/kids/graphics/art_contest/dsc_554820%25.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKxzXAQJvB8

haha music for 18 musicians came on itunes while I was watching that and it was like whoa

http://io9.com/372115/trippiest-twilight-zone-episode-becomes-a-movie

Surprised that wasn't written by Philip K. Dick - that's his kind of time travel paradox

why do i recognise that name?

ah, I Am Legend

you certainly are now

http://www.physics.harvard.edu/about/Phys253.html

What a bro.

is this some sort of egghead rickroll?

haha!

"It is a good book in the sense that it contains few false statements"

historically significant popularization of atomic theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Los_Alamos_Primer

Finally read this after having it bookmarked since April 2006:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/apr/01/scienceandnature.richarddawkins

It's great. I liked this bit:

If we understand science merely as a band of light moving through time, advancing on the darkness, and leaving ignorant darkness behind it, always at its best only in the incandescent present, we turn our backs on an epic tale of ingenuity propelled by curiosity.

The Faber Book of Science he recommends is indeed excellent. Brilliant range of stuff and short enough selections to make it good bathroom reading.

Has anyone read "Antonio Damasio's hypnotic account of the neuroscience of the emotions in The Feeling of What Happens"?

(That's an Ian McEwan article about The Selfish Gene, btw, not Dawkins ranting about something tedious)

Biographical note: on my university application to study physics I spent a paragraph arguing that Selfish Gene is a better book than Brief History of Time. I did this to be contrary in the way that goes over well at Oxford during admissions, but it's true.

I always thought Gene was a pretty nice guy, and while not altruistic, not as greedy as he's made out to be.

Ban Gene.

apparently asking people shit is "crowd sourcing" now, but this is a solid list:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/02/01/the-crowd-sourced-reading-list/

Haha, I got a little too into this stuff some years back. Oh, those were times. I used to get frustrated because all the books would go off on all the dippy implications, on and on, right in chapter one, but I had all these really fundamental questions I wanted to know about still, and I was just so impatient. I mean it's hard to have OMG REVELATIONS when I don't even understand 98% of the theory. I remember enjoying QED cuz Feynman cut a lot of that shit out and just got to the point.

i've come across a lot of novel theories about how to MAGIC (or MAGICK if you prefer) is a quantum phenomenon, very OMNI-magazine wish-fulfillment shit from half-smart escapists / law-of-attraction "The Secret"-type shit for popular science nerds

The taxonomy of popularizations discussed in this article is nonsense, but the article is full of good points, e.g.

Explaining quantum theory, for instance, seems both to require and to shipwreck metaphors — for what is “down there” just does not behave like what is “up here”. A common tool is to anthropomorphize, personifying elements of the quantum world. Certain books, such as George Gamow’s Mr Tompkins Explores the Atom, use such anthropomorphic metaphors guilelessly, trusting the reader to recognize the difference between what is literal and what is not. Others, especially the “new-age” accounts, tend to deliberately blur that difference for their own ends. These include Zukav, who moves from a claim about the role of observation on atomic systems to the claim that “physics has become a branch of psychology”.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/38460

Also, can't really think of anywhere else to put this, but I enjoyed this piece about post-culture wars/Sokal science studies: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7234/full/458030a.html

Seems like a great argument for shit-canning the whole science studies enterprise, if they're only now just getting round to realising that Thabo Mbeki's policies might have been a bad thing.

Some saw this as a justified blow against Western imperialism, given that the safety and efficacy of the treatment cannot be proven beyond doubt.

Really? I mean really? Not just some cranks, but people worth mentioning in an article about science studies?

The hard problem for social studies of science is to show why, although he was right in logic, he was wrong for all practical purposes.

Or, the easy problem for anyone with half a clue.

But the view gained from the Internet is not always the view developed within the scientific community.

HOLY SHIT STOP THE PRESS

It seems a decent enough article to me, even where Collins is stating what ought to be obvious. If Science Studies has been prone to faddishness - shock horror - I don't think that invalidates the usefulness of meta-thinking about Science.

Meta-thinking about science is fine, I'm just astonished that apparently up until now they've been doing it in such a dunder-headed way.

Whenever a scientist, acting in the name of science, cheats, cynically manipulates, claims to speak with the voice of capitalism, the voice of a god, or even the voice of a doctrinaire atheist, it diminishes [...] science

Another gem from the book of No Fucking Way

oh a btw that bit about doctrinaire atheist doesn't fit and is a typical attempt to seem relevant.

what ought to be obvious = what is obvious to many scientists. Ok sure this message needs to be dissemanited much more widely, but the article to me shows that science studies has so far been worse than hopeless at this.

dissemanited i can spell really

Here's a far better article about the role of science in policy making:
http://www.environmentmagazine.org/March-April%202009/Nisbet-full.html

ledge, relax. that nature article isn't about the role of science in policy making. it's a rather abstract article about changes within the culture of an academic discipline which is notoriously crazy.

The craziness certainly comes across. But so does the idea that science has a role to play in policy making (true), that it is important how we delineate that role (also true), and that doing so is part of the remit of science studies. If the Enivornment Magazine article is an indicator of the state of science studies, then fine. If the Nature article is more representative then I fear for us all.

"fear for us all"? really?

hey caek im assuming u saw this: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13361472 do u have any ops on how credible it is?

i fear for you my child.

ledge u mad & i cant really figure waht about

lamp, interesting. i'm saying not very credible, but that's based on snobbery rather than knowing the science very well. the field is truly crazy and sociopathic though, so anything is possible.

haha reading it i was lol 80s revival hits the hard sciences but it does seem like such a wonderful pipe dream

i could get behind reviving this

http://starringthecomputer.com/snapshots/real_genius_hp_150_1.jpg

(yes max, we know)

this is a nice article on: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13403121. this is the collision between clusters of galaxies they're talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster

okay QPhysics and stuff, I've just about had it. I'm finally labelling you in the drawer "joseph matheny and RAW and Tim Leary and etc etc and basically people who do love physics but have had too many magic mushrooms and don't know when to quit".

ie, drawer closed and you mean nothing to me anymore.

recommended reading: http://www.amazon.com/How-Hippies-Saved-Physics-Counterculture/dp/0393076369

I enjoyed this - a bit long but fairly entertaining and yes I may have had more or less the same misconception. I especially liked the bit about covalent bonds at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkHFXZvRNns

The experiment is not intended to be actually performed on a cat, but rather as an easily understandable illustration of the behavior of atoms. Experiments at the atomic scale have been carried out, showing that very small objects may exist as superpositions; but superposing an object as large as a cat would pose considerable technical difficulties

place the cat in quantum superposition u cowards