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"it contains signs of a genuine conceptual breakthrough." It contains claims of such signs, which seems to be the point of this fluff piece. Alarm bells shoul

"it contains signs of a genuine conceptual breakthrough." It contains claims of such signs, which seems to be the point of this fluff piece. Alarm bells should go off when you read statements like this: "...giving up space and time as fundamental constituents of nature and figuring out how the Big Bang and cosmological evolution of the universe arose out of pure geometry." Ah yes, well that solves the mystery, doesn't it. The universe arose out of pure geometry. A more concrete sign of the limitations of this work can be seen in the paragraph prior to the above quote: "Physicists must also prove that the new geometric formulation applies to the exact particles that are known to exist in the universe, rather than to the idealized quantum field theory they used to develop it, called maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory." The problem is that maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory conflicts with experiments (see e.g. http://news.discovery.com/space/lhc-discovery-maims-supersymmetry-again-130724.htm http://news.discovery.com/space/lhc-discovery-maims-supersym...). This is why they hurry to qualify this point by saying: "This model, which includes a 'superpartner' particle for every known particle and treats space-time as flat, 'just happens to be the simplest test case for these new tools,' Bourjaily said. 'The way to generalize these new tools to [other] theories is understood.'" Well that's good, because they're going to need that generalization. Now all they need is to actually produce it. This is the sort of thing that leads these gee-whiz models to end up on the ash heap of history. Don't get me wrong, it would be fantastic if the amplituhedron revolutionizes quantum theory. But based on the red flags in this article, I wouldn't hold my breath.

gaze 13y ago
Things that work on simple models motivate work on more complex models. He STARTS OUT by saying N=4 SYM is a toy model. The klein-gordon equation is unphysical but motivated a lot of good physics.
- selimthegrim 13y ago
  In condensed-matter physics, toy models play with you! http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0007254 http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0007254
- redhat-reallyp 13y ago
  I'm not questioning whether the work has value, but the article is hyping it way beyond justification.
gruseom 13y ago
What you're saying makes it sound comparable to a compelling software demo that only works on simplified test cases.
- Panoramix 13y ago
  Sort of, except in that analogy people like Dijkstra and Knuth are saying "this is a big deal, let's take a closer look".
bsullivan01 13y ago
what are your qualifications? No offense meant, but I am trying to see if this is real or not. Quite a few smart people seem excited by it, yet you dismiss it
- shadowmint 13y ago
  I think the point here is don't hold your breath. Science like this has to be slow and careful. Sudden magical breakthroughs are vanishingly rare, and this probably isn't one; but it is interesting, and worth getting excited about. .. just don't go throwing your Standard Model quite yet. :)
  - bdg 13y ago
    > your Standard Model If you don't understand your standard model, it's merely a standard belief. If you understand it, it can be invalidated and thrown away by the 'magical breakthrough' if it provides evidence. These things shouldn't be treated as a question of political buy-in into to the model.
- redhat-reallyp 13y ago
  "Quite a few smart people seem excited by it" Why aren't you asking them for their qualifications, then? Serious question, think about what your choice implies. Is it that "you want to believe", perhaps? You don't need a PhD in quantum physics to detect the hype in this article. The comment I responded to was reacting more to the unsupported claims and hype than any actual discovery. "yet you dismiss it" I'm not dismissing that the work could have value, but the article makes claims that go far beyond anything that's been demonstrated.
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    In other words you just spent a dozen or so paragraphs venting your bullshit detector in a space where numerous contributors that are much, much smarter than you have indicated otherwise. It's like inverse bike shedding.
loup-vaillant 13y ago
> Ah yes, well that solves the mystery, doesn't it. The universe arose out of pure geometry. That was a serious hypothesis before this. Heard about Tegmark's level IV multiverse? It's the idea that every mathematical structure just "exists", like "poof magic", and the simpler ones would, like, have greater weight. Kind of a literal interpretation of Occam's Razor, really. A corrolary is, the simpler the laws of physics are, the more probable the above hypothesis is. And suddenly we learn that the true laws of physics might be much simpler than we anticipated? This is huge. Or not. The idea of a timeless universe, where our subjective notion of time just arise from its structure has been around for quite some… time. Likewise, Occam's Razor itself suggests that the true laws of physics are simpler than we think. Plus, current human laws of physics are either false or incomplete. I fully expect future physics to be further simplified. Claims of massive simplification are therefore not that surprising. --- That said, I agree with your specific objections (the "work in progress" warnings).
- redhat-reallyp 13y ago
  > That was a serious hypothesis before this. Heard about Tegmark's level IV multiverse? Of course, I love Tegmark's speculative work. But that's all it is, speculative. It's like reading science fiction, one shouldn't confuse it with reality, at least not without evidence to justify that. > It's the idea that every mathematical structure just 'exists', like 'poof magic', and the simpler ones would, like, have greater weight. There's no evidence that this is how reality works, and there's no particular reason to think that it should work this way. > A corollary is, the simpler the laws of physics are, the more probable the above hypothesis is. And suddenly we learn that the true laws of physics might be much simpler than we anticipated? This is huge. Or not. All current evidence is that it's a fantasy, one which happens to be so attractive to some people that they're willing to suspend critical thinking to favor it, much as people do with belief in supernatural beings. There are certainly cases where basic mathematical principles are expressed in a very direct way in the universe. Probability in quantum mechanics is one example, Noether's Theorem is another. But even in these cases, saying that some property of the universe arises from pure mathematics is misleading. To boil down the objection, mathematics is a way to describe and model these phenomena, and shouldn't be confused with the phenomena themselves. Doing so is a map/territory style confusion. If you want to say that the universe arises from pure mathematics, you then have to explain what sort of phenomenon pure mathematics is, that it is capable of producing such effects. To use my analogy, it would be a bit like saying "The topography of Earth arises from a pure map." > The idea of a timeless universe, where our subjective notion of time just arise from its structure has been around for quite some… time. That's a little different from the idea that reality is an incarnation of pure mathematics. In case, the fact that ideas have been around for some time has little bearing on their validity. Consider astrology. > Likewise, Occam's Razor itself suggests that the true laws of physics are simpler than we think. It does not actually suggest that in general. It can mean that in cases where an explanation contains unnecessary elements, but it says nothing about explanations necessarily being simple, or simpler than they already are. > Plus, current human laws of physics are either false or incomplete. I prefer to think in terms of models than laws, and models are always incomplete. The only complete model is the thing being modeled itself. > I fully expect future physics to be further simplified. Claims of massive simplification are therefore not that surprising. By your premise, actual simplification would not be surprising, but claims have no necessary correlation to actual simplifications. Sorry to be picky!

gaze 13y ago

Things that work on simple models motivate work on more complex models. He STARTS OUT by saying N=4 SYM is a toy model. The klein-gordon equation is unphysical but motivated a lot of good physics.

selimthegrim 13y ago
In condensed-matter physics, toy models play with you! http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0007254 http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0007254
redhat-reallyp 13y ago
I'm not questioning whether the work has value, but the article is hyping it way beyond justification.

gruseom 13y ago

What you're saying makes it sound comparable to a compelling software demo that only works on simplified test cases.

Panoramix 13y ago
Sort of, except in that analogy people like Dijkstra and Knuth are saying "this is a big deal, let's take a closer look".

bsullivan01 13y ago

what are your qualifications? No offense meant, but I am trying to see if this is real or not. Quite a few smart people seem excited by it, yet you dismiss it

shadowmint 13y ago
I think the point here is don't hold your breath. Science like this has to be slow and careful. Sudden magical breakthroughs are vanishingly rare, and this probably isn't one; but it is interesting, and worth getting excited about. .. just don't go throwing your Standard Model quite yet. :)
- bdg 13y ago
  > your Standard Model If you don't understand your standard model, it's merely a standard belief. If you understand it, it can be invalidated and thrown away by the 'magical breakthrough' if it provides evidence. These things shouldn't be treated as a question of political buy-in into to the model.
redhat-reallyp 13y ago
"Quite a few smart people seem excited by it" Why aren't you asking them for their qualifications, then? Serious question, think about what your choice implies. Is it that "you want to believe", perhaps? You don't need a PhD in quantum physics to detect the hype in this article. The comment I responded to was reacting more to the unsupported claims and hype than any actual discovery. "yet you dismiss it" I'm not dismissing that the work could have value, but the article makes claims that go far beyond anything that's been demonstrated.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  In other words you just spent a dozen or so paragraphs venting your bullshit detector in a space where numerous contributors that are much, much smarter than you have indicated otherwise. It's like inverse bike shedding.

loup-vaillant 13y ago

> Ah yes, well that solves the mystery, doesn't it. The universe arose out of pure geometry. That was a serious hypothesis before this. Heard about Tegmark's level IV multiverse? It's the idea that every mathematical structure just "exists", like "poof magic", and the simpler ones would, like, have greater weight. Kind of a literal interpretation of Occam's Razor, really. A corrolary is, the simpler the laws of physics are, the more probable the above hypothesis is. And suddenly we learn that the true laws of physics might be much simpler than we anticipated? This is huge. Or not. The idea of a timeless universe, where our subjective notion of time just arise from its structure has been around for quite some… time. Likewise, Occam's Razor itself suggests that the true laws of physics are simpler than we think. Plus, current human laws of physics are either false or incomplete. I fully expect future physics to be further simplified. Claims of massive simplification are therefore not that surprising. --- That said, I agree with your specific objections (the "work in progress" warnings).

redhat-reallyp 13y ago
> That was a serious hypothesis before this. Heard about Tegmark's level IV multiverse? Of course, I love Tegmark's speculative work. But that's all it is, speculative. It's like reading science fiction, one shouldn't confuse it with reality, at least not without evidence to justify that. > It's the idea that every mathematical structure just 'exists', like 'poof magic', and the simpler ones would, like, have greater weight. There's no evidence that this is how reality works, and there's no particular reason to think that it should work this way. > A corollary is, the simpler the laws of physics are, the more probable the above hypothesis is. And suddenly we learn that the true laws of physics might be much simpler than we anticipated? This is huge. Or not. All current evidence is that it's a fantasy, one which happens to be so attractive to some people that they're willing to suspend critical thinking to favor it, much as people do with belief in supernatural beings. There are certainly cases where basic mathematical principles are expressed in a very direct way in the universe. Probability in quantum mechanics is one example, Noether's Theorem is another. But even in these cases, saying that some property of the universe arises from pure mathematics is misleading. To boil down the objection, mathematics is a way to describe and model these phenomena, and shouldn't be confused with the phenomena themselves. Doing so is a map/territory style confusion. If you want to say that the universe arises from pure mathematics, you then have to explain what sort of phenomenon pure mathematics is, that it is capable of producing such effects. To use my analogy, it would be a bit like saying "The topography of Earth arises from a pure map." > The idea of a timeless universe, where our subjective notion of time just arise from its structure has been around for quite some… time. That's a little different from the idea that reality is an incarnation of pure mathematics. In case, the fact that ideas have been around for some time has little bearing on their validity. Consider astrology. > Likewise, Occam's Razor itself suggests that the true laws of physics are simpler than we think. It does not actually suggest that in general. It can mean that in cases where an explanation contains unnecessary elements, but it says nothing about explanations necessarily being simple, or simpler than they already are. > Plus, current human laws of physics are either false or incomplete. I prefer to think in terms of models than laws, and models are always incomplete. The only complete model is the thing being modeled itself. > I fully expect future physics to be further simplified. Claims of massive simplification are therefore not that surprising. By your premise, actual simplification would not be surprising, but claims have no necessary correlation to actual simplifications. Sorry to be picky!