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We need some more excitement from physics, urgently. Higgs boson, while exciting, was just a confirmation of long-standing theory. Holographic universe hypothes

We need some more excitement from physics, urgently. Higgs boson, while exciting, was just a confirmation of long-standing theory. Holographic universe hypothesis is almost discredited (thanks to Holometer experiment), and we are back to square one. Not anymore, I hope. Changing fundamental properties of matter with muon rays — now that's something! We are back at sci-fi territory. (And probably it will turn out to be just another boring experimental error. Sigh.)

deleted 10y ago
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mikhailfranco 10y ago
Firstly, the Holometer is either inadequate [0] or discredited [1], take your pick. Hogan invents a theory, then invents the apparatus that 'tests' it, but there is no way a couple of 40m interferometers are probing the Planck scale. The paper [2] quotes 10^-18 m for a single interferometer, and implies 10^-23 m for both, which is about 12 orders of magnitude above the Planck scale. Secondly, quantized space-time is a slightly separate issue from the Holographic Principle [3], you can have discreteness without holography, but there has been huge theoretical progress in these subjects in the last 5-10 years and a revolution is underway - see ER=EPR and all that [4], if you need more physics excitement. [0] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/12/controversial-experiment-sees-no-evidence-universe-hologram http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/12/controversial-experim... [1] http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2015/12/what-fermilabs-holometer-experiment.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2015/12/what-fermilabs-holo... [2] http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.01216 http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.01216 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle [4] http://www.nature.com/news/the-quantum-source-of-space-time-1.18797 http://www.nature.com/news/the-quantum-source-of-space-time-...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mikhailfranco 10y ago

Firstly, the Holometer is either inadequate [0] or discredited [1], take your pick. Hogan invents a theory, then invents the apparatus that 'tests' it, but there is no way a couple of 40m interferometers are probing the Planck scale. The paper [2] quotes 10^-18 m for a single interferometer, and implies 10^-23 m for both, which is about 12 orders of magnitude above the Planck scale. Secondly, quantized space-time is a slightly separate issue from the Holographic Principle [3], you can have discreteness without holography, but there has been huge theoretical progress in these subjects in the last 5-10 years and a revolution is underway - see ER=EPR and all that [4], if you need more physics excitement. [0] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/12/controversial-experiment-sees-no-evidence-universe-hologram http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/12/controversial-experim... [1] http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2015/12/what-fermilabs-holometer-experiment.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2015/12/what-fermilabs-holo... [2] http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.01216 http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.01216 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle [4] http://www.nature.com/news/the-quantum-source-of-space-time-1.18797 http://www.nature.com/news/the-quantum-source-of-space-time-...