James,
You are correct that "Theory has become an end in itself". This, in my opinion, is due to a 'perfect storm' of theory and experiment and history and economics. The theory may trace back to 1929 when Rutherford's proposal for a magnetic-like nuclear force was too early, and Yukawa's 'pion exchange' model was adopted based on the misinterpretation of the muon as a pion. By the time the pion was discovered, things were locked in. As a consequence, the particle accelerators in the 60's saw behavior that could have been interpreted as quarks on a self-induced solenoidal flux tube but was instead interpreted as 'strings'. Then QCD and 'colors' arose, leading to the inability to get closer than a few percent, and then we ran out of particles for 3 or 4 decades, leaving theorists to flounder around with no new data to choose between theories. The strings introduced multiple dimensions, and these led to multiverses. As you state: "my impression is that curled up dimension theory was an important part of freeing theorists from being confined to firm footholds." And, concurrently, Bell's incorrect calculation led to the so-called 'violations' of his inequality, which led some to give up locality and real particle properties in favor of 'non-locality' and 'non-reality' which led further to ideas of information and 'out-of-this-world' computers. And the publish-or-perish nature of the game, combined with the loss of firm footholds, keeps the ball rolling in wider and wider circles, instead of honing in on some truth, while the appreciation of physics gained in WW-II kept the dollars flowing, and the universities kept the (over?)supply of new physicists.
As Planck said, "Physics advances funeral by funeral" but the problem today is there are too many physicists to all die off at once, allowing corrections to arise. Instead, physics has become a self-justifying enterprise, funded by taxpayers who can't possibly judge the validity of these wild models.
The range of ideas in fqxi alone is incredible. Some brilliant theories, but most seem to apply to a small part of reality and ignore the rest of reality (assuming one still believes in 'reality').
I'm surprised you have not received more votes, but even more surprised at my current place in the ratings, since I am firmly in the local realism camp that is rejected by most 'serious' physicists today. I guess it will be up to the final judges to correct that 'mistake'.
I have been impressed by the range of ideas and the cleverness of many in this contest, and have learned a few things and been pointed in some new directions. In particular, I have been applying my ideas to photons, which I had largely overlooked in favor of predicting the massive particles. Also looking more closely at special relativity.
I have been so busy with these ideas that I have not had time to look at entropy issues, so I do look forward to reading your ideas when you are ready. By the way, if you haven't read Joel Mayer, MD's paper, I recommend it. It is unique and worthwhile, and will probably appeal to you.
In summary, you and I are lucky, in that we are independent and free to pursue our aims without the pressures that go with a place in the establishment.
Edwin Eugene Klingman
PS. And there is always room for one more insight. I like yours below: "Calculus is not based upon instantaneous anything. I saw it said in a forum that "Calculus is based upon instantaneous speed." So, I wish to affirm that calculus is based upon the right triangle. It is not based upon a dot."
