/sci/ - Science & Math

That's a very absolute way to put it.
I personally don't consider a physical theory to be "right" in the first place.
So I would formulate in terms of the hidden variable alternatives.

>None of the tests of the theorem performed to date has fulfilled all of the requisite conditions implicit in the theorem, and the conditions Bell imposes on local hidden variable theories have been criticized as overly restrictive. Accordingly, experimental results to date cannot be regarded as conclusive proof of non-locality.
Bell's inequality is not only unproven, not only unprovable, but damn silly.

All possible observations can be explained by local hidden variables. People have only been able to argue otherwise by restricting "local hidden variable" to mean something silly, setting up a strawman.

Arguments against local realism always use stupid assumptions and bad logic.

>>4524493
>I personally don't consider a physical theory to be "right" in the first place.

>hurr all of 400 years of physics is wrong
>durr its a pure coincidence that U(1)xSU(2)xSU(3) describes the fundamental forces perfectly
>herp its a pure coincidence that we predict particles before they are discovered with the math
>derp its a pure coincidence that the path integral formulation describes the particles path
>herp its a pure coincidence that field theory includes lorentz invariance by standard

>>4524513
This is fucking retarded, you are retarded. If you consider local hidden variables and locality possible you are a fucking asshole who is denying empirical evidence and the way we see how nature works.

Global hidden variables, such as those found in Bohmian Mechanics, however, are plausible.

>>4524522
I wasn't implying any of that and I certainly didn't use the word coincidence.

>field theory includes lorentz invariance by standard
it doesn't.

>>4524530
Wasn't that shit proven wrong?

>>4524530
The empirical evidence only rules out "local hidden variables" when you pile all kinds of unnecessary conditions on what "local hidden variables" there might be.

The problem is that people can solve the math, but they can't translate ideas properly into math or back from math into ideas. So they do some half-assed translation, pretend that what they end up with means something entirely different from what it actually does, and pretend that this is rigorous thought.

>>4524545
But it does if you start with the path integral formulation and take a continuum limit of the harmonic oscillator mattress

>>4524522

> hurr all of 400 years of physics is wrong
Right, because science is all about never changing the theories to improve, amirite, fuckface?

>>4524558
I seriously hope you dont think that some random theory can come along and completely disprove all of quantum mechanics

It builds up on previously investigated phenomena

>>4524557
>implying that is the standard approach

>>4524557
1. Why would you need the path integral formulation for that?
2. Is that the argument already? Because there cerainly are field theories which break lorentz invariance and you will probably have a hard time getting yang mills theory with couplings to fermions out of (non-stringly) harmonic oscillators.

And again, I'm not implying that there is no hierachy in the applicability of theories, but that doesn't mean that any theory is "right". Whatever, this leads nowhere.

>>4524573
>implying it is not

Look guys, interpretation of QM is a COMPLETELY BATSHIT INSANE field.

Unlike the predictions, interpretations can't be tested, so there's nothing restraining the academics from going full retard, the way they do in every non-empirical field.

Read the abstract of this paper, which was published in Nature and otherwise taken seriously:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17443179

>Most working scientists hold fast to the concept of 'realism'--a viewpoint according to which an external reality exists independent of observation.
They are defining this idea to make it clear what they're attacking. They're trying, and thinking they're making a good case, that "an external reality exists independent of observation" is WRONG.

>>4524560
Not that guy, but it depends on what you mean with disprove.
Did Einstein disprove Newtonian mechanics? In a way yes. Usually people say that Newtonian mechanics is a special case, but that's a half-truth at best. The truth is that in retrospect, the predictions that Newtonian mechanics provide happen to coincide with those of a relativistic view in some special settings, that cannot exist, but can be approximated. So dispite the fact that Newtonian mechanics gave very accurate predictions, it turned out to be completely wrong.

>>4524593
>Usually people say that Newtonian mechanics is a special case, but that's a half-truth at best.
At non-relativstic speeds, newtonian mechanics works fine. Newtonian gravity can be derived from the curvature of time in relativity

>>4524598
>>4524593
Also, just because a Galilean coordinate transformation isn't exactly what works in high velocity cases doesn't mean it is an outright approximation. You need a scale on things

>>4524598
Can't you read? Read the sentence immediately after.
Just because it (sorta) makes the right predictions in certain situations, doesn't mean it's correct.

Physics is just a giant mathematical circle jerk, locality and Bells Inequality included. The minimal supersymmetric Standard Model has like 20 or something scalar fields? I mean, what the fuck? Finding a Lie Group that unifies all of the interactions is cool and all, but why do we need so many fields? I think the true beauty and reality of the universe will come out When and if we write down all of the interactions in terms of one field.

>>4524593
>Newton mechanics
>gave very accurate predictions
>completely wrong
Yup, I guess all the models humanity came up with so far (or will ever come up with) are completely wrong. Nice to know, thanks.

>>4524615
>Physics is just a giant mathematical circle jerk

>>4524615
>implying you can write down the higgs and bosonic fields as one field

>>4524615
Personally, my money's on a resurrection of ether theory.

A whole lot of quantum mechanics and relativity stuff starts to make a lot more sense if we assume that space is full of some fluid made of particles that only interact when they touch, and all of what we've been calling "particles" are just disturbances of that fluid, and fields (including the "curvature of space") are variances in its density and general flow.

We get relativity (and relativistic effects like magnetism) because, as in superfluids, the ethereal fluid we're moving through moves with massive particles moving "through" it. That's part of the mechanism of inertia. You can't detect your speed of travel through the ether because the ether is coming along for the ride.

"Virtual particles" are transient disturbances of the ether, while stable particles are persistent ones. Quantum randomness comes from the entropy of the ether.

There is no physicist so depraved as one in the depths of an ether binge.

>>4524663
YES

BEC VACUUM MASTER RACE

*brofist*

>>4524680
>>4524663
lol@superfluid vacuum fags

Shit makes no sense, the universe is better modeled with some algebraic structure like a field

>>4524663
But you really only desire such a theory, because of interpretations of physics, don't you.
I think "make a lot more sense if we assume that space is full of some fluid" are very problematic, because you're just extrapolating the experiences of a world more close to you, more macroscopic, to the microscopic world.
I mean I'd also like the things to be in a way I can simply grasp and understand them, but what I want or what I find reasonable ("make a lot more sense") will not have any influence on how nature is coming out to be.
As far as physics is concerned, nothing has "to make sense", other than that you want your mearureable observables to be represented in the theory, and that it's mathematically self consisted.
"shut up and calculate".

>>4524663
I dont like this. What about the continuity of space and time?

>>4524698
You can say "shut up and calculate" all you like, but people will be much better able to apply the theory if they have some way to visualize what's happening.

>>4524693
But strings are simpler than fields and the dimensonality of elementary paricles helps explain a lot of things.

Occam's razor

>>4524722
>d-branes and t-duality
>simplifying the physics
pick one

>>4524710
An illusion.

Anything that changes over time (including decay) does so by the motion of its internal components. On the most fundamental level, everything moves at the speed of light.

In order to move at the speed of light, an object's internal components may not move at all in relation to each other: they must all be moving in parallel at 1 light second per second, while as a whole it ages at 0 seconds per second. When remaining perfectly stationary, an object's internal components only move in relation to each other, without the object's center of mass going anywhere, so it ages at 1 second per second, while moving at 0 light seconds per second.

So there is a compromise between rate of motion and rate of evolution, such that rate of motion (in light seconds per second) squared plus rate of evolution (in seconds per second) squared equals 1.

Motion contributing to rearrangement of a larger structure is essentially orthogonal to motion contributing to collective motion of the entire structure (contributing to one reduces its contribution to the other), so this "timewise" movement closely resembles movement along a fourth dimension, even though there are only three dimensions.

Time is entirely distinct from space, and goes along ticking at the same absolute rate regardless of anything else. Only the rate at which things age varies depending on how those things move.

I've got the perfect thing for you guys to read:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080709031637/http://www.msubillings.edu/CASFaculty/Plank/THE%20IMPLICAT
IONS%20OF%20QUANTUM%20NON.htm