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Were we reading the same article? "But when you accept the weirdness of quantum mechanics [in the macro world], you have to give up the idea of space-time as w

by dstorrs 17y ago

Were we reading the same article? "But when you accept the weirdness of quantum mechanics [in the macro world], you have to give up the idea of space-time as we know it from Einstein. The greatest weirdness here is that it doesn’t make sense. If you follow the rules, you come up with something that just isn’t right." "You’re led to a completely crazy point of view." "My own view is that quantum mechanics is not exactly right, and I think there’s a lot of evidence for that." "INTERVIEWER: In general, the ideas in theoretical physics seem increasingly fantastical. Take string theory. All that talk about 11 dimensions or our universe’s existing on a giant membrane seems surreal. PENROSE: You’re absolutely right. And in a certain sense, I blame quantum mechanics, because people say, “Well, quantum mechanics is so nonintuitive; if you believe that, you can believe anything that’s nonintuitive.” But, you see, quantum mechanics has a lot of experimental support, so you’ve got to go along with a lot of it. Whereas string theory has no experimental support." "[My new book] is called Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe. Each of those words stands for a major theoretical physics idea. ['Fantasy'] is quantum mechanics at all levels...." All of those quotes sound to me like pretty clear rejection of string theory and quantum mechanics and an implied rejection of much of modern higher physics. Yes, he accepts experimental proofs where available, but he seems to be saying that these theories are wrong because they don't make sense to him, or because they don't match the way we perceive the world. But when I look at the Hacker New logo, I don't perceive photons of wavelength 590 nanometers bouncing off my retina--I pereceive the color orange. Personally, as I read this, I kept hearing Clarke's 1st law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws) looping in my head: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

camccann 17y ago
But when I look at the Hacker New logo, I don't perceive photons of wavelength 590 nanometers bouncing off my retina--I pereceive the color orange. If you did perceive photons at 590nm that would be rather remarkable! More likely, you would perceive a mixture of photons at different wavelengths, mainly a combination of 615nm and 550nm or thereabouts. In actuality, you perceive this "orange" concept; in fact, you would perceive the same orange whether exposed to 590nm photons or the mixture, which emphasizes the point that what we experience in the real world doesn't necessarily relate to reality in an obvious way.

by dstorrs 17y ago

camccann 17y ago

But when I look at the Hacker New logo, I don't perceive photons of wavelength 590 nanometers bouncing off my retina--I pereceive the color orange. If you did perceive photons at 590nm that would be rather remarkable! More likely, you would perceive a mixture of photons at different wavelengths, mainly a combination of 615nm and 550nm or thereabouts. In actuality, you perceive this "orange" concept; in fact, you would perceive the same orange whether exposed to 590nm photons or the mixture, which emphasizes the point that what we experience in the real world doesn't necessarily relate to reality in an obvious way.