In the aftermath of the stunning LIGO success using Post Newtonian approximations to obtain GW data to confirm the existence of GW, physics has made only incremental progress in terms of obtaining a robust model as to astrophysics in the early universe. In fact, after String theory took over and missed nailing the conditions of the Early Universe, data set fixation as to markers of early universe conditions has become the norm leading to a marked disinterest in terms of foundational inquiry as to the nature of actual mathematical models. I.e. computer data sets, not just in Astrophysics, but in terms of inquiry as to proving the foundations of quantum mechanics, have taken over scientific conferences, often at the most prestigious conferences, We need to partly reverse this, and be willing to go into serious inquiry as to mathematical foundations again, and to determine if as an example initial conditions stated as to physical processes are doing their initial conditions vetting right. As well as rediscover the universal ability of common sense to alleviate a host of ills affecting modern scientific inquiry

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    22 days later

    Andrew Beckwith
    The problem of the ontological justification /substantiation of mathematics (ontological basification), which means knowledge in general, is becoming more and more acute.
    At the same time, problems with the organization of scientific research and their financing are also becoming more acute.

      Andrew Beckwith
      Hi Magnolia Centipede,

      thanks a lot for your interesting essay! The picture you draw is rather dark, but you also suggest that more time should be allocated to solving fundamental questions to improve the situation. I totally agree to that and I also support the "unpopular opinion" that we should put more funding into mathematical theory instead of relying too heavily on simulations and numerics.
      More often than not, our analytical models are more than a century old but our data and the technology to obtain the data have vastly improved so that a cross-check of the prior assumptions and theorems employed becomes necessary again. One of the most prominent examples being our cosmological model relying on the 100-year-old assumption of homogeneity and isotropy at the largest scales. Back then, simple models were totally appropriate to capture all variances and trends in data. Nowadays, model complexity has vastly grown, so that most of our peers surrender and let computers take over. However, I think they are giving up too early as, with a fresh look it actually is possible to generalise known theorems and to increase the efficiency of numerical data evaluations (as I did in my own research and put forward a systematic way to gain knowledge in this way in my own essay here). Besides that, a careful verification as well as validation for the latter is essential and not always done with due diligence, which is something that I find even more disturbing because it does not require much creativity and is a mere routine from which we can learn a lot, too.

      Hopefully, this essay contest will sketch out many good ways to improve on the situation and more people decide to have another look at the foundations of physics to gain further insights!

      Best wishes,
      Beige Bandicoot.

      actually to fix some of these problems is comaratively easy to do since they are very well defined.

      Its not a herculean task.

      But we need to get it as to how the problems block off scientific advancement

      Andrew Beckwith

      I cannot but have read this essay with great interest, considering the topics it covers and the scientists mentioned in it (Noether and Turing, among others). The main difference with mine is that I took a largely historical approach, while you dwell a lot on the present, because you evidently have a direct perception - which I don’t have - of the current ways of doing science. The result is an obvious and sincere indignation on your part at the undeniable shortcomings of the present lines of research, which you vibrantly and passionately denounce.

      If I may take the liberty of pointing out a probable flaw, in my judgment, of your contribution, it seems to me to be written somewhat "off the cuff," and thus the expository form is not as well attended to as the content would deserve. But I am not a native English speaker and so my judgment on this aspect is worth very little.

      I agree it appears to be off the cuff, but in reality it was not. The first essay I wrote was rejected, and so I did what was a way to obtain direct correlations as to PRESENT problems. So I went through PRESENT problems. If I had known that historical regressions and compare and contrast were allowed, I would have written extensively on them. And I am fully aware of them. Since I did not know what the organizers were really expecting I made a conscious choice . If or not that is satisfactory is one for the readers and committees to decide

      quote, From Arxiv
      Hubble Tension: The Evidence of New Physics
      Jian-Ping Hu, Fa-Yin Wang
      The ΛCDM model provides a good fit to most astronomical observations but harbors large areas of phenomenology and ignorance. With the improvements in the precision and number of observations, discrepancies between key cosmological parameters of this model have emerged. Among them, the most notable tension is the 4σ to 6σ deviation between the Hubble constant (H0) estimations measured by the local distance ladder and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurement. In this review, we revisit the H0 tension based on the latest research and sort out evidence from solutions to this tension that might imply new physics beyond the ΛCDM model. The evidence leans more towards modifying the late-time universe.
      end of quote
      we need a lot more of this. This is what I am talking about

      Not enough of this done. This is an excellent start in a new direction

      To those whom claimed my writing was ad hoc or a rant
      A. I wanted to discuss the historical feed in to certain scientific solutions, and I wrote an essay, which was rejected for being too model dependent.
      B. Had I been allowed to do historical analysis, as I understand it, the flavor of what I would write would be entirely different. I have a very good knowledge of history. The question which was asked for was too vague for me to pick a path more to my liking

      So, first of all I'm more of a "Universe is Number Theory and Discrete Math First" and maybe fractional derivatives etc. might be useful I don't know kind of guy.

      That said, science has been (has allowed itself to be) co-opted by bankers and administrators, and these are the people scientists are ultimately dumbing themselves down to keep happy. Their ignorance of and indifference to the affairs of the larger world, upon which their own prosperity depends, is a feature of this corruption. Which the mainstream scientific community has largely bought into. The fact that a scientific career is increasingly unaffordable (and problematic) for most to pursue is one aspect of the decline of science in the eyes of the financial powers that be. As financial returns on most research continues decline, when scientists can no longer answer the questions of the powerful: What have you done for us lately?" scientists, and science, will be dis-enfranchised. Sorry guys, the post industrial society just isn't making us any richer. Your new toys are just too expensive, the returns just to small, for continued funding of your- rather marginally relevant activities.

      Interesting how the members have ended up struggling for place on a sinking ship, rather than banding together to try to figure out how to keep the ship afloat. Longer.

      Anyway, science, nor scientists will not serve man by serving men. Science will best serve man by serving nature, whose betrayal and destruction science has been critically instrumental in.

      An enjoyable read, MagnoliaCentipede. I largely agree, but you do not go far enough. The institutional settings, the boundary conditions, have- de-natured the interior. Scientists are so deluded as to imagine they will survive the 6th extinction, being the Apex of the Apex predator. What ignorance will buy you. Study the consequences of the Data Processing Inequality! Stop chewing over the same old fodder! Explore the ramifications and intricacies of new axioms. Escape the narrow confines of your too narrow and too to overgrazed, fields! Just because you stick around for the money doesn't mean you have to waste all your time chasing after it.
      Or is the competition so intense that you do?
      "How fast can you run?" asks the Red Queen
      (glancing over her shoulder)

      Scientists must face
      their own
      inner emotional barriers
      to change.
      If science does not change,
      it will cease to be relevant,
      a trend already being demonstrated
      by diminishing returns
      and diminishing opportunities.

      If science ceases to be relevant, it will cease to be funded.

      No longer do scientists
      sit at the policy tables
      Of politics and finance

      Apparently
      The requirements
      Of the real world
      Are no longer relevant
      To those who decide
      Mankind's future.

      quote
      An enjoyable read, MagnoliaCentipede. I largely agree, but you do not go far enough. The institutional settings, the boundary conditions, have- de-natured the interior. Scientists are so deluded as to imagine they will survive the 6th extinction, being the Apex of the Apex predator. What ignorance will buy you. Study the consequences of the Data Processing Inequality! Stop chewing over the same old fodder! Explore the ramifications and intricacies of new axioms. Escape the narrow confines of your too narrow and too to overgrazed, fields! Just because you stick around for the money doesn't mean you have to waste all your time chasing after it.
      Or is the competition so intense that you do?
      "How fast can you run?" asks the Red Queen
      (glancing over her shoulder)

      Scientists must face
      their own
      inner emotional barriers
      end of quote
      I merely was trying to start a process where there would be science for the entire world, and not the bankers. Let me state this one. and it is nasty, brutish and short. The fact is, that what made me realize how money driven a lot of scientific inquiry is, is when I saw INDUSTRIAL laboratories systematically GUTTED from the 1990s up to 2022. I.e. the lifeblood of a lot of innovation, i.e. chief example BELL LABORATORIES, turned over to CEO salaries, with HELL we don't need no pure scientific INQUIRY. PERISH the thought.
      And why this is DANGEROUS
      I go back to the example of Srinivasa Ramanujan, the GENIUS whom Dr. Hardy introduced to the entire world. I can imagine in 2023, there would be in the corporate world the following discussion about Ramanujan
      " He's a bloody genius, and we think his notebooks are INTERESTING. However, since we have to refer to the corporate profit margin, we have to ask what benefits to the company CEO will accrue if we give him a JOB ?"
      Think I am joking ?
      Not a bit. I have seen people who got PhDs in General relativity, whom when hired by CEOs were put on exciting tasks like making reports to shareholders, on how to MAXIMIZE profits. Their abstract theoretical physics attainments were maybe something which could be used if they would be baby sitters for BILLIONARES, rather than perish the thought, actually be paid to THINK! "
      This is MADNESS.
      We need people who THINK.
      Not enough of them
      " But our responsibility is just to the company shareholders. So how can we PROFIT from abstract thought ? "
      This again is madness. For 30 years, Bell laboratories did instanton physics research. Result ? trans continental calls anywhere in the world for pennies to the minute.
      However, with the thinking of TODAY maybe JIM JORDAN would hold hearings in the US Congress about Bell laboratories being "woke" if instanton physics research were restarted. Marjorie Taylor Greene would be declaiming and denouncing independent THOUGHT as a COMMUNIST WOKE PLOT\
      Please
      I want the 1950s to 1980s environment back where people were not so INTERESTED in the immediately money creating potential of thinking but who had respect for speculation and for breakthrough science
      Already members of congress are about ready to declare war on University education and it is all about this issue
      We need to value the intrinsic worth of real thinking, and stop holding scientists hostage to a money meter

      12 days later

      I did not know how to write for this competition
      A. My initial attempt was called too model dependent. So I did a broad brush
      B. My favorite essay discussed the history of black hole physics and quantization. That one was brilliant.
      C. I apologize as to seemingly whining in the essay which may have come across earlier, whereas what I
      wanted to do was to go through a history review.
      Due to the fact my earlier essay was called too "model dependent" I avoided the history discussion which I felt was the only proper way to answer this sort of question asked for this competition

      Again I wish to thank all those who did historical analogies and more. I learned much from you and I thank you

      I found your 'broad brush' covered most important central issues really well. I agree with each point you made, indeed I found intelligent aliens apparently do as well, imparting the outcomes of that better thinking! How we've overlooked so much of the great value in J.D.Jackson I'll never understand! I (and the aliens!) propose new & better ways of teaching physics, and indeed thinking, also agreeing the dangers of reliance on simulations and AI. I also wasn't sure how to approach this essay, but, like mine, I think you settled on a very original and hopefully valuable method. Well done. Good score coming.

      Your LIGO statement in your abstract drew my attention. I had just read of 2 of our LIGOs being put online. Much can be learned using the LIGO-detector-network for gravitational waves: limits of neutron star mass, origin of elements, location of collisions, even the rate of the universe's expansion. Only 2 of LIGOS now viable. Knew about the early universe application but checked it out: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.14707.pdf. Seems it is a future expectation after more upgrades. Is that true. Agree with your examples of gender biases and bias against new ideas. I deal with that and more in "Global Externalities and a new science". Also mention corporate influence in science. The new particle fixation for Dark Matter and Dark Energy is akin to a new product fixation in commercial products, MOND not fitting into their picture. As an old English teacher, I find your outlined examples of science slights quite organized and readable. I find this anonymous contest short on ratings so I'm trying to make it up before the deadline.

      thank you but for the record, here is a reply as to what I am thinking about, and not just about LIGO: This is in my direct reply as to another essay, but it is relevant in answering what you raised and what I am trying to say:
      quote
      Here is my nit and it is a big one. The idea of "change" means that there is change as to the , say the parameters of nature, i.e. say the fundamental constants of nature.

      What evidence is there for this ?

      That is my nit in a nutshell. The bromide of 'acceptance of change' sounds euphoric and a panacea, but in reality change in physical models comes out from the "irresistable force " meeting the immovable object. I.e. if you want a great example of this, look at the 19th century Ultraviolent catastrophe which eventually frustrated Planck into his black body spectrum. This only after the 19th classical physics laws were shown as worse than useless

      Every single advance in physics has come from the WTF mode of, "dear this ain't working" clash between an old model and then DATA which flatly contradicted the old model.

      That has been a given for over 180 years and it is going to be the same in the future. I.e. we do not get an idealized "acceptance" of change for its own sake. What we do get is that we find that what we THOUGHT was true, simply blows it as far as what we OBSERVE

      The latest WTF moment we have will be eventually say when people GET IT, that ahem SUSY, as romantic as it sounds does not have EXPERIMENTAL data sets supporting it directly. I like GW physics. The issue of if we have massless or massive Gravity remains a hotly contested area (classical versus heavy gravity). How many of you have heard of spin 3/2 Gravitinos directly OBSERVED

      Well we DO NOT HAVE DIRECT confirmation'

      This is what made the Higgs discovery so welcome and fantastic. It was and is observed directly

      Bonus points , do we have HIGGSINOS, or say Susy partners of the Higgs directly oberved?

      Ahem, NO

      And this is the same banging ones head against the wall datum, in a dance which is how we stubbornly blunder from one insight to the next\
      end of quote
      A. The problem why we get stuck as we were for over 30 years about the Ultraviolet catastrophe, is that the fundamental issues as to the organization of theories is often sadly neglected. Planck came up with his ad hoc Planck distribution rule, to fit the data, but over 30 years commenced before anyone asked really what was WRONG with the classical laws which lead to the birth of Quantum physics. Why 30 years ?

      My proposal is to mandate that we have a bit more attention paid to the foundations.

      B. As a GW scientists (yes I am one) I applaud LIGO, up to a point. It served ALL of us well. But here is the problem

      We have a current debate between massless and "massive " gravity. That is all to the good, As you know far better than I, Gravitons with say 10^-65 grams travel a weensy bit slower that Spin two gravitons.

      This should be cleared up. Is Massive gravity actually the way to go ? YES OR NO. The rewards for paying attention to getting a real answer would be cataclysmic.

      However, the duet as to massless and massive gravity is NOTHING compared to the SUSY super partner to the GRAVITON- i.e. the Gravitino

      Do we have DIRECT evidence that it exists ? We really should focus on what is, or is not it, and SUSY is necessary

      There are all sorts of loose ends on these topics.

      Having people pay attention to the foundations may revolutionalize science as we know it.

      Finally, I firmly stand behind getting rid of class , race, and sexual discriminatory practices. If you want to consign half the human race to being not contributing, COUNT ME OUT. If you wish to penalize "foreigners" who are brilliant ? Count me out

      That is the sort of thing I am bringing up with feeling

      4 days later

      Hi Magnolia Centipede, You said, that:
      'We need to partly reverse this, and be willing to go into serious inquiry as to mathematical foundations again, and to determine if as an example initial conditions stated as to physical processes are doing their initial conditions vetting right.'

      You have to think big!
      It is known that Newton determined the gravitational coefficient through the parameters of the orbits of the planets of the solar system. If the gravitational coefficient is determined in a similar way from the parameters of the orbits of electrons in the Hydrogen atom, then the gravitational coefficient of the planetary system of the Hydrogen atom becomes 40 orders of magnitude greater than in the solar system. Then the Planck parameters of the Hydrogen atom are the parameters of an electron with its radius equal to the radius of the Compton wave of the electron. Those. each level of fractal matter has its own “Planck parameters”, and the generally accepted Planck parameters are an abstract delusion and have no real meaning at all. Indeed, what relation does the gravitational coefficient from the parameters of the Solar system have to the parameters of the planetary system of the Hydrogen atom? None!!!

      You have to think big!
      The fine structure constant can be easily calculated with an accuracy of up to 7 digits, assuming that all elements of matter have a fractal structure. Then, therefore, "black holes" do not exist, and there is no event horizon. Those. inside putative "black holes", there is deterministic matter that obeys the simple quantum laws of fractal matter, which unify gravity and quantum phenomena of the deterministic functioning of matter on all scales of the universe [ appendix: https://s3.amazonaws.com/fqxi.data/data/essay-contest-files/16/reference_id_2304.pdf
      https://qspace.fqxi.org/competitions/entry/2304#control_panel ].

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