A tall order Vladimir!
Thank you for your kind remarks, regardless.
I will see how many from your list I can get to in time. The ones I did read were quite interesting. But I have quite a few essays already in my queue. We shall see how quick the time goes.
Regards,
Jonathan
Thank you Hoang Cao Hai,
As your query is a generic message that relates to your essay content (rather than mine), I shall attempt to address your concerns on your essay's forum - instead of here - assuming I can get to reading it in a timely manner.
all the best,
Jonathan
OK Ben,
On 1.) the lack of knowledge about what constitutes the dark sector is something several speakers touched on at FFP11. We don't know exactly what dark matter or dark energy is, so cosmologists are taking a lot on faith IMO. And as you note; the scale dependence of dimensionality is important to consider, and suggests a fractal character to spacetime.
On 4.) yes Twistors are very cool. They address some of the issues you mentioned were raised about points by Grothendieck - on Ian's forum page. They replace points with Rays, as the most fundamental level of structure. I imagine that relates to the concept of causal structure quite explicitly.
On 7.) a holistic approach is essential to complete understanding, and it offers insight that is complementary to those obtained through reductionist means. And as for the sum over histories; you need to learn more about Feynman's forgotten gem - Hamiltonian Phase Space Path Integrals.
Basically you are then looking at dynamism straight on, as a Hamiltonian in phase space, rather than working in the kinematic space of the conventional Lagrangian formulation. The cool thing is that this incorporates quantum uncertainty at the outset, but often resolves into a simpler functional integral along the way. I'll look up a paper by Steven Kenneth Kauffmann you should have.
All the Best,
Jonathan
Thank you for the post in my essay: I am weak in bibliographic search (I apply the Poincaré method)
I am reading the article that you suggest, that is true for a simple (oscillator) system, but have the property to maintain the Plank constant (the weak point in my demonstration) in the Hamiltonization.
I understand that this is a starting point of a possible complete theory, but I share all my ideas because I think that the puzzles are solved combining small pieces of the solution: I shall try to develop more carefully my theory, but it is important that others had, and develop, the same ideas.
Saluti
Domenico
Thank you so much Domenico!
I think you will find Steven Kauffmann's work excellent. He is obviously brilliant, yet I once helped him to get a paper published, breaking a blockade. There is another paper of his, that focuses on the Hamiltonization procedure. I think he cites that work in the paper I forwarded though.
I am glad I could help you out, and I wish you the best of luck.
Regards,
Jonathan
Hello All,
My essay 'Cherished Assumptions and the Progress of Physics' shows how a playful approach to making assumptions yields swifter research progress, which is essential in times where the available knowledge is growing very fast - like the present day. The time lag in the general public, for the adoption of new knowledge from Physics, is apparently about a century.
But for those on the forefront of scientific research; knowledge is doubling every ten years or less. Obviously, scientists must be more agile in their thinking strategies than the average individual. A conceptual approach is what is needed sometimes, but the fact there is more and more information to be learned means that there is a lot of memorization. It's important to also learn how to think and how to learn.
Scientific progress is about learning how to learn about the universe better. This is different from trying to learn all the details perfectly. It is all about trying out possible answers and getting the universe to tell you its secrets. Physics is really about how we learn about the universe.
That's all for now,
Jonathan
If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process. I hope the FQXI community will change the rating process.
Dear Jonathan,
You are right that there is too much to know in science. Yet, your managed to write a well-documented and interesting essay. I appreciate the playful style. I also agree that from time to time at least it is important to try to conceptualize more what we do.
Good luck,
Jonathen
I hope you may still read, absorb and comment on my essay. I did enjoy yours, and think it deserved a higher place, but this years competition runs deep. None the less a high score from me.
Best wishes
Peter
Thank you Peter,
Your thoughtfulness is appreciated. So that I may finish reading and rating papers all the papers I can, before the cutoff, detailed comments will have to wait. Be assured yours was included in those I read.
All the Best,
Jonathan
I wrote that.
Jonathan
Hello All,
I wanted to thank everyone participating for a very lively contest and conversation. If you have time for just one more essay, I would recommend this one Cherished Assumptions and the Progress of Physics, To everyone who reads this; the best of luck.
Regards,
Jonathan
Hi Folks,
My gratitude to FQXi, Scientific American, the Gruber foundation and Submeta. I am glad I could be a participant in this contest. At this point; I would like to congratulate all who made it into the finals. Since displayed rankings changed between midnight and morning, I am not certain whether my essay is among that number, or just below the cutoff, but I realize that it was a close race near the top - so I am privileged to be among the uncertain few.
I thank everyone who took the time to read my essay, and I am thankful I took the time to read so many of yours.
All the Best,
Jonathan
My Thanks!
To all who gave me a high rating, you have my appreciation. It is my pleasure to be in this contest with you, and to still be in the game. I will continue to field any questions that come my way, and to actively participate on the pages of many of the other essay writers. So feel free to comment or ask questions here.
I only got to read about one fifth of the total number, but I made a special effort to read and rate the essay of every visitor to this page. I hope that by giving some of you high ratings, I added to your overall rankings to give you the attention you deserve. I shall continue to read and comment, so long as there is an interest in discussion on these pages.
All the Best,
Jonathan
Jonathan,
Congratulations on a well written finalist essay. Your insights have justly been rewarded. Good luck in the final process.
Rick
Hi Jonathan,
Sorry again for taking so long to get to your essay. At any rate, I enjoyed it and had a few comments. Regarding the cosmological theories you discuss on the second page, I think that for all theories, the question is how well they work with other theories. I look at it this way. Physics should aim to explain the world in the most complete but simplest manner possible. So it is often a balance between simpler v. more encompassing. That said, when presented with competing theories that are essentially equivalent in what they encompass, I see no reason not to go with the simpler theory.
I thought you had some excellent points to make, notably that we should not conflate simplifying assumptions with predictions and I particularly liked what you had to say about space and dimensionality (and I tend to agree - it makes little sense to talk of dimensionality in completely empty space as it has no meaning). I also agree with your point about entropy and have long tried to make the same point myself (it's interesting that you mentioned Sean Carroll's take on that since it was a bone of contention at the FQXi meeting last year, though not one captured on all the conference videos).
I'm not sure I understand, though, your comment that we should stop looking to unify the forces and start observing how nature is already unified. In my mind, those are the same things. I don't particularly agree with the current field-theoretic approach since it is largely predicated on a non-emergent spacetime, but I still think it is, to some extent, "observational" (string theory being the potential exception).
My only other criticism is that I'm not sure I saw a convergence of your ideas to a single answer to the posed essay question. Rather it seemed more of a general critique of how science operates. While valid, I wonder if it wasn't a bit too general.
Anyway, nice essay though.
Cheers,
Ian
Thanks Ian,
Good comments all.
My point regarding unification was mainly that we need to assume the unification of fundamental entities already exists in nature, in order to find it. It is absolutely accurate that crafting a solution to the problem of unification and finding out how nature has unified reality at some fundamental level are exactly the same.
I think the statement you cite was probably my advocacy of Osheroff's ideas on scientific advancement I'd cited earlier in the paper - that we should enter the process with open minds (after making our best guesses) and see what nature shows us. But he is, after all, an experimentalist and not a theoretical physicist. I obviously believe it's OK to 'peer behind the curtain,' though, by crafting theories that attempt to reproduce the form we observe in nature.
But I agree that I did too much casting about, in this paper, talking about one questionable notion after another - without a clear theme to tie it all together. Be assured there actually is a unifying theme, however, which I am developing behind the scenes. I have a paper in progress, using many of this essay's points as stepping stones. I will inform you when it is published.
All the Best,
Jonathan
It's not that I think Ian's criticism is not valid -- it's that what he considers a weakness, I consider a strength. The point was strongly made in the beginning (Osheroff) and throughout that good science is theory-driven; in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "If you don't know where you're going, you might end up somewhere else."
So I think that in itself does question the foundations of physics, along with the foundations of science itself. One sees a hearty dose of inductive reasoning, in these fora and elsewhere, from those who would replace theory with experimental data. Is that a good idea? Definitely, a foundational question.
Tom
Hello Jonathan,
Well done, and good luck in the finals...
I see you say that you'll continue to read and comment - thanks, (there's certainly interest in discussion from my end, if you feel there's reason to discuss anything - but far from essential). Ben Dribus posted this about my essay on my page:
"I think your essay is right on target, and it rates very high in my opinion", and some others made similar comments.
Anyway, best wishes, Jonathan
Hello to all,
While I have remained available for questions here, I have not seen any, but I have made several comments about questions raised on other essay forum pages, and raised a few of my own. So those who wanted comments from me can find plenty elsewhere on the FQXi site. However; I want to take this opportunity to thank everybody who read my essay and commented, as well as the folks who had exchanges with me on other pages - and have not gotten here yet.
As this year's contest draws to a close, I wanted to again thank FQXi, Scientific American, the Gruber Foundation, and Submeta, for providing the means for this event to take place. I am still a bit surprised I made it into the finals, given all of the high-quality essays I read from other entrants. There were at least twice as many essays that deserve top-tier placement as were allowed, and some folks who did not qualify - despite the high score I gave them - wrote essays I liked better than mine. So I am humbly grateful for your support.
I just want folks to know that this has been a learning experience for me, and that I have used the opportunities afforded by this contest to further my Physics research in many areas. My essay may seem like a laundry list of my pet peeves and favorite answers, but it is actually almost entirely about a single line of research - a theory to which I alluded time after time without actually stating the details. I was admittedly testing the waters with bits and pieces of my ideas - but you may rest assured that I have a big picture in mind.
Over the coming months; you will see some of the ideas in my essay linked up into a single congruent thread. And since what I am doing is linking up the learning process and the creative process, this seems quite appropriate for the FQXi major grant offering for the current cycle. So with luck, and quite a lot of work preparing; I'll be among the people applying for those grants. I'll say more about my proposal in another post below - at some point.
All the Best,
Jonathan
