Philosophy Discussion Forums

MGrinder:

Unfortunately it doesn't. Physicists have yet to come up with a way to unify the strong and electroweak forces...

Yes, what I meant was that these three/two interactions are at least understood within the same type of model - the particle exchange model. Unlike gravity, which, despite the efforts of such things as string theories, is understood within a spacetime geometry model.

That's what scientists do. If your elegant simple theory doesn't agree with reality, then you go back to the drawing board. unification of the strong force is a case in point. I'm not sure what you're asking. This is what scientists do, isn't it? What's the philosophical question here?

Yes, this is indeed what scientists do. They look for universal invariants. This is essentially the same as looking for simplicity and symmetry, because invariance means applying the same description to a large number of observations. I guess my philosophical point (if I can claim to have one at all) is: Could the universe be fundamentally, at its deepest level, messy, complex, ugly, non-symmetrical and impossible to entirely describe using a single model? Or is there an anthropic principle at work which means that any universe capable of containing creatures like us must have, at its heart, elegant symmetrical and universally applicable patterns/laws? Is it possible that General Relativity will never, no matter how much time passes, be unified into a cohesive model with particle physics/Quantum Mechanics/The Standard Model?

Just some idle thoughts, possibly based on ignorance of recent developments.


Greta:

What did you make of the more recent LHC findings where no evidence of supersymmetry was found? Some claim that it's all over for string theory and others claim that the LHC needs more power. That would seemingly look good for proponents of loop quantum gravity although I understand that that theory is less mathematically coherent than string theory, running into relativity problems when scaled up to large objects.

To be honest, I don't know without brushing up on at least some of what Loop Quantum Gravity says! I'll do some reading about it and get back to you and try to sound vaguely like I know what I'm talking about!

Trying to remain germane to the topic, still searching for a form of dualistic, holistic monism, etc, as a realistic form of some kind of seeming panpsychism. It appears the more we use our symbols (words, diagrams, etc) to unify, the more we spiral out in chaos. Nevertheless, the desire for predictability is interesting, and appears worth exploration, to a point.

My torodial based vector is wholistic in that I believe it--- Space - Time - Space --- is present in ever particle of Universe.

Each particle will be composed of various number of great tubes, that are likened to the way great circles of specific set of fundamental polyhedra are patterned. Ex

http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergeti ... 3201b.html

I associate two great tubes with one/singular quark---- OO or as (( )) (( ))

Proton with three quarks ergo a 4-fold oriented three sets two great tubes vi 3-fold tetrahedrons 6 great circles/tubes
http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergeti ... f5511.html

I associate mesons { unstable two quark nuclear force/interaction } wit 4-fold oriented two sets of four great circles/tubes. See latter link above for those 4 on same page as the 3-fold orientation of 6 great circles.

I associate the photon with 5-fold set with four sets of 4-fold great circles { cubo-octahedra }. See this link to understand how the 5-fold icosahedron contains the 4-fold 4 great circles in a total set of 10 great circles.
http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/Lynn/LynnS54.html

I associate the electron 3 great circles that, are doubled-bonded/valenced
http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergeti ... f6008.html

All of these 3-fold, 4-fold and 5-fold great circles/tubes/tori in the 4-fold VE and the 5-folkd icosahedron

5-fold ---6, 10, and 15 = 31

4-fold as 3, 4, 6 { 3-fold tet } and 12 = 24

Each of my tori is likened to slinky torus, however, my torodial slinky tube has the inversions from surface gravity and surface dark energy as our observed sine-wave frequency reality ^v^v or as \/\/\

Think of these toroidal slinkys as web of spiral frequencies that inter-mesh with other. Ex take your two hand, with fingers extended, out in front of you, now turn hands so fingers pointed toward each other, now move our hands toward each other and have them fill the gaps between the fingers.

Think of the great torus as a vector having momentum and direction. A toroidal vector

Like gears meshing. Were dealing with;

} surface geodesic trajectory arcs of positive shaped gravity ( )

} inversion trajectory's as observed time frequencies ^v^v^ or as \/\/\

} surface geodesic trajectory arcs of negative shaped dark energy )(

IF we have a whole Universe of these space - time - space tori, the outer most perimeter, of our finite, occupied space Universe, will always have positive shaped gravity arcs at the outer most perimeter and that is why Universe, as occupied space, can never be destroyed--see 1st law of thermodynamics.


OOOOOOOOOOOOOO....
..OOOOOOOOOOOOOO....
......OOOOOOOOO.............
OOOOOOOO......
..............OOOOOOO...
........OOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....

r6

Steve3007 wrote:Unification of multiple separate laws into single, simpler overarching laws has been a major driver in physics for some time. The realization that electricity and magnetism are the same phenomenon (electromagnetism) seen from different reference frames was a classical example of this about 150 years ago.

For a long time now, one of the central issues (if not the central issue) in physics has been the attempt to unify gravity with everything else.

The "Standard Model of Particle Physics" unifies the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism into a cohesive whole. It encompasses Quantum Physics and the Special Theory of Relativity into a system from which all other currently known physics except the General Theory of Relativity can be derived. From it can be derived, as special cases, such things as the classical theories of electromagnetism embodied by Maxwell's Equations or the classical theories of mechanics, embodied by Newton's laws.

The Standard Model (like physics in general) is closely tied to the concept of symmetry, partly because symmetry is related to simplicity. The more symmetries there are in a physical system the simpler it is to describe and the wider its applicability. At very high energies (i.e. particles travelling at very high speeds) the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces are unified. But gravity has not been unified with them yet.

It is theorized that the ultra-high energies found in the very, very early stages of the Big Bang might be sufficient to unify all of the forces, including gravity. It is theorized that in that very early universe there was a symmetry that was "broken" as it expanded and cooled.

But what if it turns out that this isn't true? What if, no matter how high the energies involved, there is always some asymmetry and lack of simplicity which is fundamental to the laws of physics? This appears to go against some of our deepest instincts as to how the Universe "ought" to turn out to operate. The belief in the idea of beauty, order and simplicity beneath the complexity and chaos appears to be a deep part of our nature. But it is at the heart of the scientific method that we must follow where observed reality leads us regardless of what our instincts or aesthetic needs tell us.

If it leads us to somewhere that we consider ugly and unsatisfying then we must follow, right?

Interesting thoughts. Yes, science is driven for thousands of years now by the search for symmetry and beauty. And this is more an intuition than something "solid" (whatever that means). However we must acknowledge that the ugliness to which you refer to is mainly the notion that "More than One exists". Parmenides talked about One thousands of years ago and it was our ugly search for the truth that lead to the division of that One into "many things" which we now try again to unify...