Standard Model
This article is a stub. You can help us by editing this page and expanding it.
2009
Ed Witten has no Nobel Prize.
Now tell me again how this era's physics just feels different because we are too close to it.
So @orzelc the Quetion is: "Is this likely the first era of fundamental physics that could produce a 55+ Witten nonlaureate?"
My friend @orzelc asks: "do you consider Wheeler to be in Witten's class?" Short answer is no. But I never went 1-1 with a young Wheeler.
The nonphysicist disagrees w/ @orzelc. Wheeler lived through the whole build up of the Standard Model. Ed would have pounced repeatedly.
To @orzelc: in your life you'll see Paris and the Taj Mahal. Make sure you meet all the great minds. Go see Ed. He's part human.
The educated are all expected to know Degas from Monet, Sarkozy from Putin, Corfu from Capri. Etc.... But not Fermion from Boson.
With all the physics stories, can't our guys push a 'New Periodic Table' and get more focus on the standard model's 'Elements'?
Does our usual graphic of hadrons, leptons, and bosons need an overhaul? Can we crowdsource that?
I want our particles on the walls of every school next to the periodic table. If you've yet to find the muon, why fund an SSC?
New Topic: A pedagogical critique of the Standard Model of particle theory as seen by a 4 and 7 year old.
4&7YO on the SM: A) Call the last quarks 'Front and Back' because Top and Bottom are the same as Up and Down. But position words 'lie' here.
4&7YO on the SM: B) Don't use 'left & right' handedness differently from up & down to confuse kids. It's really 'mean' because L/R are hard.
4&7YO on the SM: C) Don't call the quarks colored if color comes from light which comes from photons unless gluons feel E-M.
4&7YO on the SM: D) Weak hypercharge and E-M are 'crazy confusing'. If you are going to call one group U(1) call the other group 'We lost'.
4&7YO on the SM: E) Don't say 'weak force' and then 'tell us over and over and over' about gravity being weak. "Why do grown ups do that?"
4&7YO on the SM: F) Anti-red? Anti-green? "Oh man!" Anti-colors are stupid. Also anti-matter should anihilate Uncle-matter.
4&7YO on the SM: G)Leptons should be everything (Bosons too) that doesn't feel strong force if neutral is everything that doesn't feel E-M.
4&7YO on the SM: H) Other than these silly problems....the standard model is the coolest thing in the world because.. it is the world! (4YO)
What I learned about PR&the SM from Kids: we pay a steep price for folksy, misleading or path dependent jargon obscuring regular structure.
The family structure of fermionic matter via the multiplets (quantum numbers) appears easy if false cognates (red, up, left) are given last.
2017
If I had but one paragraph to recommend as the most important in all of literature, it might well be this one. However, as you might imagine, unpacking it, could take up your entire life.
[There is a 'flaw' in the paragraph. The word 'gauge' should be replaced by 'structure'.]
1/ Interesting esoteric features:
i) refers to Einstein Field Equation for the gravitational force. (only implicitly).
ii) refers to the Yang-Mills-Maxwell Equation for the other forces (only implicitly).
iii) refers to the Dirac Equation for matter (yet again, only implicitly).
2/ The Quantum (e.g. quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, quantum measurement, etc...) is relegated to a *secondary* status below the key geometric insights. This was likely done very subtly when the paper was given in the 1980s, as it was, and remains, a revolutionary idea.
End/ An interpretation is that Witten, the greatest living mathematical physicist, was indicating to us that it was only these *abstractions* that were likely to survive, while the instantiations (i.e. the exact equations we still use) would likely perish.
A msg never recieived.
@StretchMcLurch I would reserve 'gauge group' for the infinite dimensional group of automorphisms of the vector bundle and 'structure group' for the (usually) finite-dimensional structure preserving symmetry group of the individual fibers ( e.g. SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) of the Standard Model).
2018
1/ "Theories of Everything": A Taxonomy.
It is often said that "Theories-of-Everything are a dime a dozen" or that "All theoretical physicists worth their salt have several in a drawer." So far as I can tell, this is simply untrue. We've barely ever, if at all, seen candidates.
2/ The Escher Lithograph used in the first tweet points to the core of why TOEs are rare. A candidate TOE has to have some quality of "a fire that lights itself", which is difficult to think about beyond the equations that would instantiate it. Hence very few such theories exist.
3/ I'm going to lean on the following dictionary of analogies:
Physical Paper = Void Pictured Canvas = Manifold and/or Einsteinian Spacetime Ink=Matter & non-gravitational force fields Pencils = Pre-Conscious Lego (e.g. amino acids) Hands = Consciousness Paradox = Self-awareness
4/ In my taxonomy, Type I TOEs are our least ambitious but they best match our state of the world. They are distinguished by two *separate* sources of origin: one for the Canvas (General Relativity or Witten's point i) ) & one for the Ink (Standard Model or Witten's point ii) ).
5 Type II TOE's are more ambitious & seek to derive the Ink from the choice of a mathematically distinguished Canvas that is anything but blank. My arch-nemesis @garrettlisi's theory is Type II. E8 is his 248 dimensional canvas. The intricacy is there, but doesn't quite match up.
6/ In Type III TOEs the ink is to be derived from canvas, but the canvas is essentially blank; it simply permits mathematics to happen (e.g. calculus and linear algebra). In such theories the ink has to be bootstrapped into existence. My lectures on Geometric Unity were Type III.
7/ Type IV TOE's try to change the question from Einstein's "Unified Field Theory." In String Thy, "Quantizing Gravity" became substituted for "Unified Field." For this crowd, many are now betting that the canvas & ink are both *emergent* from some deeper fundamental quantum thy.
8/ Type V TOEs are of a type I've never been able to fully contemplate; they are without boundaries or origins. There is no "Why is there something rather than nothing" within them. That which is not forbidden is compelled into existence. Void creates canvas & canvas begets void.
9/ Type VI TOEs begin with the hands. Religions are of this type. I pass over this in silence as they aren't scientific.
I will leave open higher types, but I've really only seen attempts at I-IV & I wouldn't call String-Thy/M-Thy a full TOE try since events of the last 15 yrs.
10/ I believe fundamental physics is stalled out because we are finally at the doorstep of a TOE and we haven't really bothered to think about what that would actually mean because we've never been here before. A final step need not look like any previous one. In fact, it cannot.
END/ My bet is on Type III for a reason:
Type I is not unified.
Type II is possible, but appears to be unworkable in details.
Type IV appears to lack sufficient guidance from Quantum theory to actually 'ship' despite consuming resources for yrs.
Types V & VI lack any progress.
2019
Fascinating. Iâm curious what @EricRWeinsteinâs reaction would be to this
Inneficiant presentation of the Standard Model Lagrangian.
Thanks! I was trying to harmonize, in my mind, how (1) you described gauge theories on the JRE with (2) the formalizations above and was having a shockingly difficult time
Iâve been talking about unmeetable âEmbedded Growth Obligationsâ or E.G.O.s as the reason why all our expert communities are under unbearable pressure to distort across our institutions. The physics community is *very* trustworthy on the experiment-theory level. Yet even here:
Particle physicists surprised to find I am not their cheer-leader
https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/02/particle-physicists-surprised-to-find-i.html?spref=tw
This allows us to use Fundamental Physics as a reference for deception.
These folks are our BEST. They arenât lying about their experiments. They arenât lying about agreement w theory. They arenât wrong about expecting another accelerator imho.
Yet the EGOs make even them fib.
I may disagree with @skdh on whether we should build another multi-billion dollar accelerator. But she is exactly correct that there is no longer any new physics beyond the Standard Model expected to be found. She is telling truths above her pay-grade in the eyes of our leaders.
This is why we need to rescue our experts & institutions. We need to stop asking them to lie to us about their needs for growth. If even high energy physics canât escape its inability to meet growth expectations, then all expert communities are suspect.
These are our very best.
Ok. This is a weird take. The reluctance to engage foundations of quantum mechanics stemmed from the fact that it was far less generative than research in quantum field thy for decades. When Standard Model QFT stagnated & Quantum Gravity stumbled, the opportunity cost decreased.
Shots fired! "Even Physicists Donât Understand Quantum Mechanics. Worse, they donât seem to want to understand it." -- me, in the New York Times @nytopinion #SomethingDeeply
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/opinion/sunday/quantum-physics.html
There was an underlying political economy to the issue masked by âshut up & calculateâ. I agree that the quantum field theorists were often, and words fail me, dicks about quantum foundations. But it was really an overlay on a rational calculation of expected return from 1928-74.
2020
The first talk I ever gave revealing the Physics I was actually working on @ Harvard/MIT was at MIT at the insistence of the great Isadore Singer. The one man who *fully* understood what I said came to me afterwards & insisted we speak. He seemed half mad: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11608
His name was Robert Hermann. I couldn't tell what was going on. He was very excited & wanted to be of any help possible. It was almost terrifying as I was not eager to discuss the work. When I told Singer about it, Singer said "That's a high compliment. Do you know who that is?"
I told Is "I know him from an enormous number of self-published books only" Then the great MIT Professor said: "Eric, that is the first man to figure out that quantum field theory is based on the geometry of Fiber Bundles before Simons, Wu, Yang & I did our work."
I was floored.
This odd man, working outside the University system, outside Peer Review, and outside normal publishing was held in awe by the TOP Mathematician at MIT. The system knew who it had lost and revered him as a serious mind; a man with a viable claim to an earth shattering discovery.
It simultaneously filled me with fear & hope. This odd man was not a nut or lunatic. I had spoken to a true maverick & he had seen me like no one else...even beyond my good friend Is Singer. Years later I tried to contact him but he was in an old age home with dementia. All lost.
A missed moment. I was too scared to leave the damned university system behind me with all of its rules and enforced rituals. I knew what he represented: freedom, genius and irrelevancy except for the tiny number of people at the absolute top of the field.
I was too cowardly.
Robert: I never got the chance to "Thank You" for believing in me and your offer of help. My bad. So thank you.
RIP: Robert C. Hermann (April 28, 1931 â February 10, 2020) Maverick and Likely discoverer of the Geometric Basis of the Quantum Field Theory of the Standard Model.
2021
@elonmusk I would like to have you as a guest on my YouTube channel.
@EricRWeinstein Jordan is stealing your spot
Nah. Jordanâs a friend. Elon is welcome on the Portal of course whenever the time is right, but thereâs no competition.
[And, anyway, Iâd want to talk perpetuation of human (and cephalopod!) consciousness by means of beyond the Standard Model physics for planetary escape. So...]
In strong GU:
SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) (Standard Model)
Is contained in U(3)xU(2) inside
Spin(6)xSpin(4) =SU(4)xSU(2)xSU(2)
(Before the more difficult non compact Spin(6,4).)
Iâd look first to the extra 1D reductive U(1) if the experiments hold up. Then to Spin(6) x Spin(4):
@EricRWeinstein What are your thoughts on this and how does it fit with Geometric Unity? https://www.bbc.com/news/56643677
As far as Fermion quantum number predictions that could open up new channels, Strong GU makes clear predictions. Explicitly, here would be the next Spin-1/2 particles internal symmetries we should find:
Additionally, Strong GU predicts that there will be 16 Spin-3/2 particles with Standard model symmetries conjugate to the Spin-1/2 generations and gives their âinternalâ quantum numbers as:
Now, why if GU makes predictions do I appear to some to shy away from them?
A: I donât.
But string theorists hide the fact that they disconnected themselves from normal science by trying to force everyone else *except* String Theorists into answering hyperspecific challenges.
Thus while I can tell you what GU predicts is next, they push for a QFT calculation of energy scale to make others sound vague.
So letâs talk vague: Look at the above containments and SM quantum numbers. Thatâs not vague. Now ask String Theorists the SAME question...and compare.
Lastly: I would caution about getting too far ahead of our experimentalist friends. Let them sort out their confidence and not push them to be too definite prematurely.
But my advice is to watch *relative* predictive responses of those w/ âBeyond the Standard Modelâ theories. đ
P.S. Happy to attempt to sharpen what GU can say. But not working on my own outside the community. If you want more precise predictions than I already have, Iâd need access to normal resources (e.g. constructive QFT colleagues). Working outside from home itâs probably impossible.
P.P.S. Remember that GU rejects three generations. In GU itâs 2 True generations plus 1 imposter. A priori, this could also be an effect of the imposter not being a true generation.
Again I would need QFT colleagues trying to help me see if that is a possible effect.
Letâs try this again. This has almost no engagement. Iâm not buying it Twitter.
We are on our way to having physics declared beyond the Standard Model with new matter/force needed. And, this is quite specific as to what Geometric Unity says comes next: https://geometricunity.org
In strong GU:
SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) (Standard Model)
Is contained in U(3)xU(2) inside
Spin(6)xSpin(4) =SU(4)xSU(2)xSU(2)
(Before the more difficult non compact Spin(6,4).)
Iâd look first to the extra 1D reductive U(1) if the experiments hold up. Then to Spin(6) x Spin(4):
Please retweet the quote tweeted thread above to get sound the Twitter algos. đ
Unlike many theories, GU can already predict a lot about what comes next and even tells us that we have things wrong about particles we think we already know and understand: Why the Muon g-2 Results Are So Exciting!
2022
Huh. Letâs seeâŚ
General Relativity: Fiber Bundle
Our universe: Derived from SM+GR
SoâŚuhâŚyeah. So far. Crazy right?
Weird flex, but it checked out.
When all youâve got is gauge theory, everything looks like a fiber bundle
A claim that you find repeatedly when you look into UFOs is that Aerospace Companies hold the most advanced knowledge of Physics. Not academe.
I do **not** believe this claim. Happy to be wrong. Can someone tell me what its origin is? Why do so many believe it?
Thx #UFOtwitter!
Note: Iâm agnostic on materials science or condensed matter claims. I was trying to engage in fundamental physics beyond the Standard Model or General Relativity here. Likely unsuccessfully.
Video source: @AlchemyAmerican
Iâd like to point out that we donât know whether we are functionally trapped in this solar system.
We are with modern science & technology. But we donât know if it is easy or hard to escape this place. And we wonât know if we stagnate in General Relativity & the Standard Model.
We seem to be rebasing our entire society on aggressive and unquestionable academic theories from the social sciences that appear not to have even existed in 1988.
That seems like a big decision. I mean, I believe in Quantum Field TheoryâŚbut I wouldnât bet the country on it.
I make frequent claims that are counter to the description of the Standard Model of physics. Itâs not fun, but itâs tolerated to question things like âHow well do we know this to be true? How strong is the evidence? How might this all be wrong or formulated in a misleading way.â
When it became clear that the W Vector Boson might be more massive than claimed, we asked such questions. âCould we be wrong here?â
When I question these other theories, no one ever says that. They just call names. How are we more certain of Whiteness Studies than say Einstein?
First slide of a talk on âBeyond the Standard Model physicsâ at the UCLA Schwinger-Fest conference on the g-2 muon anomaly. #Schwingerfest #UCLAPhysics
Sums up the mood of many.
Agreement between collaborations whittles away hope for new physics beyond the Standard Model.
Will try to go over to UCLA to hear what my colleague Laurent Lellouch of the BMW group has to say today at #schwingerfest. He is not hopeful there is ANY easy BSM physics to be found. https://t.co/ISm6VKJOGm
News from lattice land; new study of hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to muon g-2 seems to agree with the BMW result. This would reduce the g-2 anomaly significantly https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.06582.pdf
Itâs worth reflecting today on the oddity of Higgs sector within the Standard Model.
Three weeks ago, I heard Nobel Laureate David Gross single out the Higgs field/particle/sector/mechanism as âunnaturalâ, but what does that mean? Why single the Higgs out? Herein lies a puzzle.
A packed auditorium listens to Peter Higgs within the segment âBrout, Englert and Higgs - memories and reminiscencesâ at CERN's #Higgs10 symposium today. In 2013, the #NobelPrize for Physics was awarded to François Englert and Peter Higgs.
Live webcast: http://indico.cern.ch/event/1135177
Oddly, sectors that gives us the four fundamental forces are not considered fundamentally unnatural. Nor are the sectors that given us matter. They seem like natural structures, that at worst were âdefacedâ with mysterious graffiti (internal quantum numbers, multiple copies..).
So why is the Higgs still under suspicion well after it has been found? Itâs hard to say exactly. In some sense, you can see the rest of the field theory of the Standard Model as being differential geometric in origin with our best comparison of the Higgs sector being Yang-Mills.
If I started talking jargon about a âsector governed by relativistic second order Euler-Lagrange equations, subject to quartic interactions, and coupling to matter fieldsâŚâ you wouldnât be able to tell if it was the natural YangMills sector or supposedly unnatural Higgs sector.
Thus the unnatural nature of the Higgs sector cannot be coming from its analytic description. It is simply that we have learned to see force as coming from geometry we know, while the supremely geometric seeming Higgs comes not from differential geometry, but from our *desire*.
To quote the Architectâs speech, you would think he was describing the life of the Higgs Sector (as Neo) within the Standard Model of Particle Theory (as TheMatrix). The Higgs Mechanism is the remainder of an unbalanced (chiral Weak nuclear force) equation forbidding all mass.
But, of course, The Matrix wasnât about The Architect. It was about Neo. Neo was protagonist, not the Architect.
And the Higgs isnât a mere differential geometric anomaly. Nor is it unnatural. Itâs just not *understood* as geometry. Yet, that is.
Do stay tunedâŚ
Happy 4th all!
A surprisingly deep simple question.
There appears to be a mysterious circle at every point in spacetime which physicists accept but cannot explain. And, every type of particle is endowed w/ a mysterious complementary âď¸. The spacetime âď¸ rotates the particleâs sympathetically.
The charge on the particle is the gearing ratio of the spacetime âď¸ with the particleâs âď¸. Itâs like a bicycle where the pedal gearâď¸ is the spacetime âď¸ and the particle âď¸ is the rear wheel âď¸. Positive charge is clockwise drive. Negative charge is counterclockwise.
An electrically neutral particle is like a particle not having a chain hooked up between the pedal and wheel. So a +2/3 Up Quark will be driven around 2 times clockwise for every three times an electron goes counter-clockwise with charge -1=-3/3.
That may sound weird. So be it.
@TEMguru That U(1) is the circle at every point in space time. Itâs minimal gauge coupling via a character is the chain between the gears. Câmon.
Uh. Thatâs *exactly* how itâs done. There is a principal U(1) (circle) bundle. But it isnât the U(1) that you refer to which is weak-hypercharge. And the analogy makes perfect sense based on internal quantum number
\chi_n:U(1) â> Aut(C)
before tensoring with the spinor bundles.
Let me just say that there is a community of academics who throw a lot of nasty anti-collegial scientific shade that just isnât scientifically accurate. Donât know what to do about that. These people try to cast a spell of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt.
I stand by what I say here.
@sluitel34 Let me help you then. You have a group:
G=SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1)
And a homomorphism:
rho: G â> U(16)
So
Spin(1,3) x G â> SL(2,C) x U(16)
represents on C^2 tensor C^16, and its conjugate, to give one generation of the Fermions (with Right handed neutrinos assumed). With me?
@sluitel34 Now the U(1) âď¸ of the original description lives inside the SU(2) x U(1) via bundle reduction or symmetry breaking as you see fit. The gearing ratio I mentioned is simply the integer indexing all irreducible representations of U(1) which are all 1-dimensional characters. Clear?
@sluitel34 Every U(1) character can be visualized as two circular gears connected by a chain with some integer ratio of the circumferences. Negative integer representations are ones with the chain having a half twist. The trivial representation has no chain at all.
Hope that helps.
@sluitel34 @FrankWilczek Not true at all. @FrankWilczek correctly points out that there is something super compelling about SO(10) Grand Unified Theory. Both space time and internal representations are spinorial if this is true.
I just donât know from what position youâre speaking so authoritatively.
@sluitel34 @FrankWilczek This should be in any book that discusses the standard model via groups, representations, bundles, etc.
It really depends. Being totally honest:
âString Theoryâ has done a *tremendous* amount of good while âString Maximalismâ has done even more harm.
If the String Theorists who led the movement were to undo some of the damage by admitting what happened, itâd be a major positive.
Here is where I respectfully disagree with my colleague @skdh. You canât âget rid of string theoryâ. String-like objects are natural and have an unbelievably rich and beautiful interlocking mathematics. The beguiling beauty isnât the problem in my opinion. Beauty is the excuse.
The problem is that string theory on its own has taken the last 40years to PROVE it doesnât work as a stand alone path by gobbling up mind share, students, resources and (to be fair) most of the most brilliant brains. So much that no one dares say the full extent of the disaster.
During that time String Theory diverted the entire field into a magical never-land of âtoy physicsâ. Models that arenât in any way real. You now have âparticle physicistsâ at the end of their careers who have never worked with anything like a particle and canât remember them.
So, hereâs my analysis. In a world where David Gross, Ed Witten, Lenny Susskind, Cumrun Vafa, Michio Kaku had a public Come To Jesus moment where they admitted the disaster in front of the community faithful, Iâd be up for having ST as a major theory. But without that Iâm unsure.
The damage to the culture of High Energy Physics is more severe than the damage done by Geoffery Chew in a different era. And here I support @skdh, Peter Woit, Lee Smolin etc. These are brave people who paid with abuse to communicate that physics was diverting into pure fantasy.
So to sum up:
String Theory deserves to be a major branch. But it has already mostly given up on the â80s promises/lies it told us to gobble up all the resources of the community (brains, mind share, $$$). That was a crime which may prove fatal to our being able to do physics.
But it is also so thoroughly investigated and badly behaved relative to scientific norms that it deserved to be shrunk. And that happened to a large extent already. The most important thing to realize is that physics is still about the physical world. Not Calabi Yau. Not AdS/CFT.
And we need our brilliant failed string theorists to admit the disaster within a scientific paradigm.
Science is a culture. Perhaps the most fragile one. It wonât survive this suspension of collegiality, decency and self-critical behavior. We need to go back to real physics. đ
@martinmbauer String theory was a giant percentage of a tiny priesthood. That was the same tiny priesthood that brought us Thermo Nuclear devices. And if you want to pay for me to research the numbers Iâm willing to hire somebody to put together the data after 1984. Itâs not usually contested.
@DontsitDJ @martinmbauer I wasnât aware of it like that. I think he disagrees with me and has a bit of an edge. But maybe I missed a tweet or two. I havenât seen much interaction and he has written some things I liked.
@DontsitDJ @martinmbauer I love a good critique. Itâs hard to find. Most people out here develop a side hustle in interpersonal drama. I try not to.
@martinmbauer I donât know which version of âThe Fieldâ you mean.
Physics in total? Is a large field.
Beyond the standard model theory? Is a small field. Tiny. But hugely consequential. And the percentage and effect wasnât small. Do you really dispute this??? Look at the IAS professors.
@martinmbauer Seiberg/Witten/Dijkgraaf/Maldacena
All string folks.
Maybe get a string theorist to admit this to you. Brian Greene likely wouldnât disagree with me.
Physics in 1980: âIâm trying to grasp why nature has 3 generations of chiral fermions with SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) internal symmetry.â
Physics Today: âRemind me again what the internal quantum numbers are? I do quantum gravity so itâs not something Iâve worked with since my QFT class.â
What has string theory done to become the poster child of failed physics? It hasnât even failed.
A) High energy physics of real particles became the no-energy physics of toy models.
B) Quantizing Gravity was substituted for unification or extension of the Standard model.
C) Other research programs were obliterated because ST claimed it had it all rapped up.
D) Hype won.
E) Focus shifted to mathematical structure of abstract field/String/M theory. Not our particular worldâs choice of thy.
F) Standards of scientific progress were rewritten to disguise failure.
G) Differential application of standards became the norm.
It ended physics culture
String Theory isnât the problem. String culture is poisonous to science.
String theory, like love, means never having to say your sorry. Or mistaken.
Itâs the January 6 problemâŚbut in science. But where the physics versions of Mike Pence often got fired for not going along. đ
*youâre
P.S. âIt hasnât even failedâ because it canât fail. So far as I can see, it can never fail. In the minds of the faithful, Itâs unable to fail because it *has* to be the way forward. Itâs hard to explain whatâs wrong with that to the enlightened who see its infinite power & glory.
What has string theory done to become the poster child of failed physics? It hasnât even failed.
@DrBrianKeating I am not aware that the standard model and GR âwork fineâ: CKM, PNMS, Strong CP, Mass Hierarchy issues, CC origin, origins of internal symmetry, initial singularity and black hole singularity, Miniboone, etc. all require explanation.
If thatâs what she means, I say itâs wrong.
One of the questions about UFOs that needs to be asked, and that I donât hear much about, is: âHas the US government built fake UFOs?â
UFO people are so focused on whether there are real UFOs that they donât push hard enough on this question.
Allow me to share a thought or two.
When I first realized I was totally wrong about UFO/UAP, I was shocked by how many folks have very similar stories about recovered crashes of very similar advanced vehicles.
It was mind blowing in 2 ways.
A) We have real crashed vehicles. And/Or B) We built fake alien vehicles.
At this point Iâm reasonably sure there are things that look like cool alien vehicle in some hangers. But I also grew up near Hollywood and remember super cool looking fake space cars visible off the Hollywood freeway.
So: does anyone have stories of building fake UFOs for USG?
As you likely guessed, all the photos in this thread are fake military equipment. The airbase is totally fake. The dummy tanks are often inflated on the battlefield. The fake tank pieces are bolted on to real cars.
Q: Did we build fake UFOs in places like Wright-Patterson AFB?
After studying this issue for 2yrs, Iâm pretty convinced that there ARE wild looking vehicles in secret high security locations. But I also find NO SIGN OF OUR TOP PHYSICISTS. That is a huge red flag. If you had fake UFOs, you would have a puzzle for physics: What is the science?
A true recovered interstellar craft would be like LHC or LIGO data: potential scientific data for physics beyond the Standard Model and General Relativity.
But if the crafts are fake, you would be crazy to let the A-team physicists near them. It would blow up in your face.
So my ignorant question is this: are there stories of building fake UFOs for sites in Nevada? Ohio? Are there fake retrieval teams? To what extent does faking military equipment spill into faking a UFOgasm for decades?
Because there are too many very similar craft stories.
So, at this point, the stories of craft kept at secret locations is most likely to be true in my opinion. But it is also true that all the top physics talent that was working only semi-covertly on suspicious gravity projects left by the early 1970s. So any craft may be faked.
Either way, itâs a big deal. Everything changed in the early 70s. Itâs impossible to say how much. The moment the Mansfield amendment came in, physics began to stagnate. And âQuantum Gravityâ destroyed our culture of science. We donât even whisper about its âAnti-Gravityâ origin.
Note Added: many readers are making wild inferences about me talking about flying fakes. I was very clear that this was about apparent crafts on the ground and in Hangars in Nevada, Ohio & elsewhere.
Wild or bad inference patterns will get you blocked. I donât have time. Thx.
2023
Now I feel completely alone.
I want our wanting out of this story. I have a huge dog in this fight. I spend every day fighting my own human desire for GU to be proven correct.
I believe this is how String Theorists stopped being scientists.
I just want our data & the physics.
If biological aliens were here from others star systems in crafts that defy the current physics of the standard model and, more importantly, general relativity, I would be one of the few people who would have a guess on day one as to how they must have gotten here. Itâs tempting.
I donât think biological interstellar alien visitors using GR and the SM make much sense. So I try to have a war *inside* my own mind as to what is true. I have a genuine âNeed to Knowâ as to whether this is BS NatSec space opera disinformation theater. Because to me, it is data.
What just happened isnât data. Itâs that a sober individual just pushed one of the many longstanding highly conserved NHI narratives collected from *many* diverse sober NatSec informants over the sworn testimony line. And it gets a LOT crazier from here. But itâs not science yet.
As Iâve been saying, there is so much deliberate NatSec BS out here that our own scientists are being propagandized. Weâre drilling holes in our own scientistsâ lifeboat. Last time we saw this it was virologists/immunologists/epidemiologists being gaslit. Now itâs physicists.
Let me be very careful in what I am about to say. We have at least the appearance and optics of scientific self-sabotage. And wanting things to be true is how science dies.
I fight like hell to promote my theory. But Iâd sign on to another to know the truth if I was wrong.
We may be looking at the birth of a new UFO religion. Or a moment of contact. Or a long running Disinformation campaign. Etc.
To go beyond GR, letâs be scientists & get NatSec out of our data first. Where is our data pruned of space opera disinformation and cultic religiosity?
What I want to know:
Why was the Mansfield Amendment passed?
Why did NSF fake a labor shortage in our MARKET economy destroying American STEM labor markets?
What stopped the Golden Age Of General Relativity?
Why was the SSC really cancelled?
StringTheory & STAGNATION: WTF?
What the hell was the 1957 Behnson funded UNC Chapel Hill conference actually about?
Why are we not stopping to QUESTION quantum gravity after 70 years of public *FAILURE* inspired by Babson-Behnson patronage of RIAS, the Institute of Field Physics and the precursor to Lockheed?
This is the 50th year of stagnation in the Standard Model Lagrangian. It is AS IF we are deliberately trying to forget how to do actual physics. Everyone who has succeeded in Particle Theory in standard terms is now over 70. This is insane. In 25 years there will be no one left.
Why are we not admitting that quantum gravity is killing physics and is the public respectable face of 1950s anti-gravity mania that lives on to murder all new theories in their cradle?
Quantum Gravity is fake and works to stop actual physics.
There. I said it. Now letâs talk.
If you want to know whether there are biological interstellar visitors here observing us, the short answer is âAlmost *certainly* not if they are using our current stagnant non-progressing theories of physics.â
Letâs finally get serious about this whacky subject? Thanks. đ
I swear I didn't write my tweet to make you feel alone and I'm genuinely sorry if that was the result. That said, I think it's better to acknowledge one's hopes and desires than to pretend they don't exist and thereby overestimate one's own rationality.
@skdh I acknowledge my desires as you see from what I wrote. But a stagnant community always wants outcomes. It wants SUSY. Or Strings. Or some g-2 muon anomaly. Etc.
I want too. But what I want is mostly just a desire to get the BS out of physics so we can get back to succeeding.
Thought experiment. Assume the final theory exists, is agreed upon in 2024, and has nothing to do with String Theory.
How would historians account for the monomania of the last 40 years? As a cult? A scientific mass delusion? The political economy of a failed generation? A hoax?
Alternate thought experiment. 20 years from now there has been no progress beyond the standard model of particle physics. @FrankWilczek is the last living particle theorist to have made traditional contact with the physical world. What is a leading particle theorist in 2044, when no one has made progress in 70 years? Will we even know if anyone is really doing physics at that point when there are no traditionally successful theorists left but one?
âString Theory is absolutelyâŚthe most likely to be true set of ideas about what sits at the intersection of the Standard Model and quantum gravity.â
I can confirm this indeed blows up ones notifications.
But, in case of doubt or misunderstanding, string theory is absolutely the deepest, most consequential and most likely to be true set of ideas about what sits at the intersection of the Standard Model and quantum gravity.
Yes, that is precisely what I think.
If you said âelectrons are absolutely fractional spin fields in the standard modelâ I wouldnât disagree with that statement. It isnât at all about what you think. It is a true statement.
Here you are assuring lay people about what is absolute about String Theory within physics.
My responsibility is to make accurate statements (and yes, everything is my (professional) opinion).
As the book quote indicates, I try not to overclaim. But: that string theory and the complex of ideas are around it are more serious than any competitors, IMO objectively true.
âIMO objectively trueâ
As with so many of these String Theoretic claims I have no idea what that means.
So for example if I make an argument that this is NOT objectively true, do you fall back on the idea that it was opinion?
âObjectively, Electrons are field theoretic at observed energy scales.â My opinion doesnât enter into it. The claim that it is objectively true eliminates the role of opinion.
Does that mean that all who disagree with you and your String community are ânot seriousâ as per the above?
The arguments become more convincing/objective, the more one can use graduate-level theoretical physics in them.
But in 280 characters and no equations, itâs hard to develop these
In a book, easier to do so.
I donât think thatâs the issue Joseph. At all.
Feynman, Glashow, Wilczek never found them objectively or absolutely compelling.
String theorists like Friedan have written harshly of the Failures.
And what you are saying about subjective opinion and absolute objective fact doesnât make sense. I mean you can just see that, no? Not trying to be mean here. But I donât see what you are claiming is absolute and objective beyond your opinion.
What you seem to be saying is the usual trope: âThe more you understand about the difficulty of quantizing a spin 2 gravitational field the more you appreciate how string theory has taught us so much about how it is to be done eventually, and that there is no remotely comparable framework for doing so!â
Again. Not trying to be combative. Feel free to correct me if I have this wrong.
It is not objective or absolutely true that String Theory is our best theory. In fact, it has become, 40 years after the anomaly cancelation, our most thoroughly explored idea. No other path has been picked over like this one.
Waited a few days. I donât think you are making sense about your *opinion* that it is *objectively* and *absolutely* dominant. And that is the problem. String theorist deliberately leave others with the impression that they are following something scientific, objective and absolute. But it is really just a shared subjective hunch. And this does science and physics a terrible disservice.
The question about where string theory stands in comparison to other approaches to quantum gravity. I think it objectively true that string theory has given lots of stuff that is useful/foundational to cognate areas (eg QFT) than any other approach to quantum gravity. 1/n
Holography and AdS/CFT is the clearest example but there are others.
I think this is objectively, uncontroversially true â once people have the background in theoretical physics that they understand topics like QFT on a technical level and have some real sense of the subject.
But most people (reasonably) donât have this background. So I preface this with âmy opinionâ in recognition that the core and guts of the argument, and the real reasons behind it, are not accessible to most people who read these tweets.
This is not ideal - but while saying âgo buy my bookâ is a slight cop out, the book is my full argument at a level as non-technical as possible of why string theory has the position it does DESPITE the lack of direct experimental evidence for it
Joseph. Imagine I were to temporarily stipulate to the idea that of all the known approaches to quantizing the metric field that leads to gravitation, String Theory is by far the most advanced. I donât think that is unreasonable whether or not it is true. Itâs a solid argument.
I donât think that is the relevant argument anymore. So you are framing it in such a way that âString Theoryâ is the answer to a question you formulated: âOf all the approaches to quantizing gravity which havenât worked, which is the best?â
My argument is with that framing.
The problem I have is with string theorists framing of the field and its issues and questions. I think String Theory is dangerous for this reason.
Try these instead:
A) Which approach is most likely to successfully alter or explain the Standard model?
B) Same as A) but for General Relativity?
C) Which approach is most likely to shed light on why there are 3 generations of observed fermions?
D) Which approach is most likely to shed light on why the generations are chiral?
E) Which large community most regularly makes sweeping claims that it later must privately invalidate while publicly claiming a new revolution?
F) Which large community is most likely to ignore other ideas?
G) Which is the most aggressive large community despite no proven connection to observed reality?
H) Which community is most likely to spend all their careers working on toy models with the wrong dimensions, signatures or field content claiming that we are building up the toolkit?
I) Which community is least likely to own up to the disaster of past public declarations about accessible energy SUSY?
J) Which approach has been the most investigated and thus thoroughly picked over for low hanging fruit?
K) Which approach best explains the odd nature of a seemingly fundamental Higgs sector?
L) Which approach is most dogmatic that âQuantum Gravityâ rather than âUnificationâ or âGravitational Harmonyâ or âIncremental understandingâ etc. *Is* the path forward when we donât even know if gravity is quantized as we expect it at all in models beyond relativitistic QFT?
M) Which approach comes closest to explaining the origin of the internal symmetry structure group of the Standard model?
N) Which approach comes closest to explaining why there appear to be 16 particles in a generation with their observed internal quantum numbers?
O) Which approach is most at risk of invoking âThe Landscapeâ of impossibly many theories to test after saying that the power of the approach was that there were only 5 possible theories?
P) Which community brags about âpostdictionâ the most because it has failed at predictions?
Q) Which community is least collegial and most insulting to colleagues outside the approach?
R) Which HEP theory community consumed the most in resources over the last 40 years?
S) Same for brains?
T) Same for producing PR and puff pieces?
U) Which community has broken the most trust with lay people in HEP theory?
V) Which community substitutes mathematics results for results about the actual physical world we live in when talking to the public?
W) Which community is most likely to restore the culture of successful physics research to HEP theory?
X) Which not yet successful approach has been most self-critical?
Y) Which community is most respectful in absorbing the results by others with proper credit?
Z) Which community relentless makes its argument by mis framing the question as if the question were simply âWhat is our deepest collection of ideas of how to quantize a massless spin 2 gravitational field?â when the previous 25 framings are all arguably more important after 39 years without contact with physics?
That is why this conversation doesnât work. It is what magicians call âMagicians Choiceâ: the lay person is lead into thinking they are free to disagree. But the question you keep asking is DESiGNED to make it look like String Theory is our top community.
Joseph: it failed in the terms it gave for taking over. It chose the terms. It said what it was and what it was going to do. And it flat out failed in EXACTLY those terms it chose when it said âHold my beer!â back in 1984.
To sum it up: when string theorist are no longer in a position to keep changing the goal posts set by the physical world, isnât it the case that from A-Z maybe string theory is not being honest?
Again. Not personal to you. At all. But it is not a fair move to say âItâs the best yet-to-succeed approach to quantum gravity.â in front of the public. No?
đ
2024
I'm confused. This lecture doesn't negate the geometric foundations of GR. Einstein differentiates between how gravity and electromagnetism relate to the structure of space, all the while pointing to his ultimate goal of unification. As for the rest of the original article linked, I'm unsure how the quotes from Einstein support the author's title. GR is indeed a geometric theory; however, Einstein's viewpoint was that its geometric nature doesn't singularly distinguish it from the broader domain of physics, where geometry has always played a fundamental role. If anything, Einstein is saying not to confuse the map with the territory.
He is correctly anticipating the Simons-Yang discovery of the âWu Yang dictionaryâ.
Maxwell became Yang Mills
Yang Mills became Simons Yang.
Simons Yang became the Wu Yang Dictionary.
Wu Yang was (except for one entry) was Ehressmann fiber bundle geometry.
Think of metric geometry, fiber geometry and symplectic geometry as the geometry of symmetric metric 2-tensors, fiber bundle connections and anti-symmetric 2 tensors respectively.
[Note for Curt: This is the whole point of Geometric Unity. They are three geometries. Which are all one geometry, and that is only possible in the rarest of circumstances. Which we are in oddly.
Metric Geometry: General Relativity GR Fiber Geometry: Standard Model SM Symplectic Geometry: Hamiltonian Quantization of the SM. ]
Interesting. If thatâs whatâs wrong, what would physics done right be?
Q1: What are the 3 most promising general lines of attack on fundamental physics?
Q2: Who are 5 theorists, in your opinion, closest to pursuing a breakthrough beyond the Standard Model/General Relativity? đ
Yet another cut would be:
If the caption were instead reversed to read âAll that is right with theoretical physics in one simple graph.â, what would that look like visually?
Iâm genuinely super curious to learn about what youâre most excited, as I realized I donât really know!
NOTE: I was addressing these questions directly to my friend @skdh as a reponse to the OP when I posted. That said, many people are interpreting this as a general request and I am delighted to hear their takes as well.
This is what is blocking progress in my opinion for physics to go beyond Einstein and General Relativity.
40 years ago, the leaders of physics started claiming that gravity had to be quantized to be compatible with the Standard Model.
But the incompatibility is *not* Quantum vs Classical field theory. The *classical* field theory of the Standard Model is already not compatible with classical General Relativity.
General Relativity, at least as it is now, simply cannot be gauged so as to make it a true gauge theory, because Gauge transformation does *not* commute with the Ricci Contractions used in the field equations, and within the Einstein Hilbert action.
I wish I deserved the heretic moniker, but isnât asking whether spacetime is quantum or classical just common sense? After all, general relativity (GR) - our theory of gravity and spacetime - is special. It isnât a gauge theory, and gravity isnât a force. 1/
For some reasons that have never been explained or justified leaders in physics started making the claim that GR *was* also a gauge theory. This was done by claiming that general coordinate invariance in the form of the diffeomorphism group is a kind of Gauge Transformation. Which it clearly is not.
This is absurd. Gauge transformations move the fibers and are defined not to move space time where as diffeomorphisms move space time directly.
So: why claim that GR is a kind of gauge theory? The only payoff I see is that this allows us to pretend that the SM vs GR incompatibility is classical vs quantum where it is staring us in the face that it is instead contraction-based (GR) vs Gauge Transformed (SM).
The only reason this is at all controversial is that the people saying it were thought to be the leaders 40 years ago.
That didnât work out. We have 40 years lost as a result.
But the truth is anyone can see the incompatibility between gravity and gauge theory if they are not being told that gravity is a special kind of gauge theory. Which it absolutely is not as formulated by Grossman, Einstein and Hilbert.
Moral: The problem holding us back from a Theory of everything is **Classical**, and not Quantum. The quantum comes as desert after classical compatibility. Itâs not the main issue. A red hearing that throws us off following the scent. Itâs a distraction that should have fooled almost no one who was thinking for his or her self.
2025
There is a tell when listening to physics folks as to whether theyâre captured by the 1984 Quantum Gravity virus.
They either say:
A) âGeneral Relativity has to be reconciled with the Standard Model.â
or
B) âGeneral Relativity has to be reconciled with Quantum Theory.â
So, what is the difference?
In the latter case of B), the diagnosis has already been definitively made. The problem is thus at the level of frameworks, not the level of theoretical models of the actual world. The issue has been made into â*THE* problem is that the classical theory of Gravity must be quantized.â That is, the classical framework of gravity must be dragged into our general quantum framework as the top priority. Seen this way, it is more of a technical math problem rather than something hyperspecific about our two theories of our physical world.
OPINION: There is absolutely no basis for this B) being an absolute whatsoever. This is a madness which started appearing as a String Theory mantra around 1984 and has led to a crisis.
In the case of A) that definitive diagnosis has *not* been made. The case is still Open. The issue is thus that âWe have two specific physical theories that donât quite fit together for multiple reasons. We need to figure out a physical framework to accommodate them both. That may be a third framework that harmonizes them rather than forcing one into the framework of the other. We need to consider all clues before reaching a definitive diagnosis.â
OPINION: It made absolutely no sense to have closed the case in 1984âŚand after 40 years of continuous failure, the issue is the leadership of the field. Opening the case and saying âGR and the SM have multiple issues. Not just quantization. Why are we not considering that the strong leadership forced THE WRONG DIAGNOSIS on the entire community??â
This is like saying âMaybe COVID came from NIAID/NIH/DTRA/EcoHealth/Daszak/Fauci/Collins/BaricâŚcan we consider that??â
And the answer is âNoâ.
But that is why we are stuck in my opinion. We are stuck because we canât question physics leadership without being thrown out of the community.
The dogmatic zealous leadership of physics totally failed. That is what happened. That cost us 41 years.
We canât get to COVID origins for the same reason we canât get to String Theory origins as âthe only game in town.â
The imposed absolutist central narrative is simply a lie.
One manâs opinion.
I don't see the difference. Seems to me one could interpret B the same way you are interpreting A.
âThe top priority is that the Standard Model has Internal Symmetry while General Relativity does not.â
âThe top priority is that the Standard Model is a full Gauge Theory while General Relativity has no gauge invariance.â
âThe top priority is that GR allows contraction across the tensor product of bundles while the Standard Model does not.â
âThe top priority is that GR has well defined Contorsion tensors while the Standard Model does not.â
Those are all possibile research programs within A. Not within B.
Letâs try a science post to show you the problem with the hijacking of science:
CLAIM: Quantum Gravity has been a 41 year disaster for physics. EVERYONE knows the String Theory leadership told us exactly what they were about to do, and then FAILED physics.
A mitigated disaster:
Everyone who has followed fundamental physics closely since â84 knows this is true.
If science were healthy we would discuss that. But we canât, because we have unwanted leaders. Those leaders are refereeing their OWN games. And, they win all games that they both play & referee.
So has physics failed you? No! Fundamental Physics is fine. But it got hijacked by a crew. That crew created a cult called âThe Only Game In Townâ or TOGIT. Literally. That is what they called it. Pure hubris and murder.
TOGIT failed you. And TOGIT hijacked fundamental physics for 41 years. But science didnât.
Fundamental physics is sitting right where it was overpowered, mugged, robbed, and tied up by String Theory and Quantum Gravity and left for dead in 1984.
Itâs fine. The Standard Model is amazing. As is general relativity. In fact: itâs totally spectacular. We could get back to work tomorrow if we could get out from under the cult and get our own resources back.
But we canât yet run De-Stringification schools, undo Quantum Gravity Indoctrination and get back to actual science. We are still run by zombie ideologies refereeing fundamental physics. Or what is left of it. And that is why I post like this. Itâs a fight to get you to grasp what happened.
Similarly for COVID Zoonotic origin theory. Or Economic Theory and Neo-Classical theory. Or Neo-Darwinism. Etc. Etc. You got hijacked. We all did.
One and all. And I am suggesting we take OUR cockpits back.