Slashdot Mirror
Theoretical Physics Breakthrough or Hoax?
Brooklyn Bob writes "Ever get the feeling that some theoretical physics papers just don't make sense? According to this New York Times article, you may be right. Genius or gibberish? Who knows?" This belongs on your virtual refrigerator with nice big virtual magnet.
Partner Link Bypassing Registration
Did you read the article? It clear that these guys have a shady past at best, previously guilty of plagiarism. Also, a few other noted scientists stated that these guys 'do not know how to do physics' based on their conversations with them. Most of physics does make sense because it is basic laws of motion and gravity. The stuff that is hard for most people to understand are things like quantum physics and theoretical physics.
What?
Besides, the article focuses more on the integrity of articles printed in scientific journals, and how it is hard to figure out if something is worthwhile or if it is crap when they're so hard to understand.
What?
For a collection of stuff on this subject, search google groups on ``reverse sokal hoax''. Then read the (long) thread in sci.physics.research.
I'm not a string theorist so I can't be 100% sure, but this stuff sure sounds like nonsense. The part about the Foucault pendulum aligning with the initial singularity sounds really silly. To quote John Baez, a mathmatical physicist (see below for a link)
It [one of the papers in question] goes on to discuss the supposed connection between N = 2 supergravity, Donaldson theory, KMS states and the Foucault pendulum experiment, which he claims "cannot be explained satisfactorily in either classical or relativistic mechanics". If you know some physics you'll find this statement slightly odd.
As I said, I'm not a string theorist, so I don't know for sure, but some very sharp people seem to support the contention that this is nonsense. John Baez has compiled some of the relvent stuff on his webapge, here. Jacques Distler's blog also contains some good analysis.
The other highly suspcious aspect of this whole affair is that the work was never published online prior to being submitted to a journal.
Some background for non-physicists: thesedays the primary venue for publishing new works is the arXiv. Several hundred papers per day are uploaded here in various categories, and it is the de facto standard library of modern research in physics.
After publishing your work on the arXiv, physicists around the work can and will read your paper and submit feedback. Typically, after publication on the arXiv you might submit your work to a paper-based journal, but this is only a secondary procedure, and the only real point is to give you bonus points for your resume.
Here is the main point:
No-one reads paper journals any more!
The fact that the Bogdanov papers were never uploaded to the arxiv meant that apart from the 2 referees (who basically seem to have abdicated responsibility), no-one had, or ever would have read their work!.
If the authors were serious researchers, they would have submitted their work to the arxiv so it could be read and critiqued by their peers.
I hope you aren't saying that being falsifiable is the same as being demonstrated to be false; because that isn't true. Falsifiable is a concept coined by Karl Popper and it doesn't mean that a statement is false. It means that a statement has to "expose itself to disproof." Only if a hypothesis or theory is falsifiable can it be considered truly scientific.
In other words when a knowledgeable reader sees a hypothesis or theory he must be able to envision evidence that would disprove said theory - otherwise the theory is not scientific. For example if my theory is "all foo's are bar" a knowledgeable reader can realized all she needs to find is a single foo that isn't bar. So that statement is falsifiable. But if my theory states "all people are controlled by little green men (LGMs) that live inside their heads and the LGMs disappear the moment they could be observed" then it is not falsifiable. No matter what evidence a reader envisions (ie. I cut open a head and find no LGM) I can always show that this evidence doesn't out right contradict my theory (ie Well the LGM disappeared moments before you cut open the head).
Maybe I'm being naive and everybody is already clear on what falsifiable actually means. It should be understood that falsifiable statements can be true. And non-falsifiable statements can be false.
Rethinking Everything. The above quote is on page 4.
Software Wars