4 ms·
I'll take a stab (I Am Not A Physicist (in fact I couldn't handle the math and moved to CS ;-) ). Parameters or constants in a theory generally have units (i.e
by mikekchar 9y ago
I'll take a stab (I Am Not A Physicist (in fact I couldn't handle the math and moved to CS ;-) ). Parameters or constants in a theory generally have units (i.e. speeds, density, whatever). But lots of things (usually ratios) have no units because they all cancel out. Those are called "dimensionless". Pi is dimensionless, as is e.
What the naturalness property seems to be saying is that these dimensionless parameters (which you have to stick into the equations to make the math work out) should all be around the same order of magnitude and not require too much precision. If there is such a parameter that is super huge or super small (in relation to the others) or requires a lot of precision, it's an indication that the theory is incomplete. There should be an observable reason for that difference/precision.
If I've gotten that right, then I can see why people would be sceptical of naturalness. If naturalness was correct, I would actually be curious of why it was correct.
- manyoso 9y agoMoreover, "naturalness" is not mathematically well-defined even though many of its most passionate proponents claim that it is. This is one of the primary objections that Sabine has of "naturalness", not only might it be wrong, but when you plumb the motivations for it and actually try to make it mathematically well-defined, the motivations turn out to all disintegrate.