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.

Comments

Is it really surprising?

[Jon Erikson]

Scientists are people too... and like all men, they are not perfect beings by any stretch of the imagination. They seek after false goals, make mistakes in their logic, and get attached to ideas that they should now better about.

Unfortunately as the article says in the world of "cosmology" these scientists are unconstrained by the things that has made science such as useful part of our everyday lives... the need for experimental verification and some kind of connection with the real world. Instead, pesudo-scientists like these can come up with pie in the sky theories about bangs, splats, inflation or whatever the latest piece of mumbo-jumbo is. As long as they can justify their next grant check by pointing to their latest chin-stroking piece of nonsense, they just don't seem to care whether it actually contributes anything to science

The field of cosmology is a bust, and is never likely to produce anything other than windy speculation and an endless source of free taxpayers money to pay for ivory tower academics who could be doing something far more useful instead. The government needs to realise this, and stop wasting our money on something for which no explaination is needed - we already now how the Universe came to be!

There is no justification for this kind of science. Without an end goal in sight, this field of "science" is as empty of meaning as advertising.

I've read this paper and it was clear enough to me

[PhysicsGenius]

Let me try to put it into terms the educated laymen of Slashdot might understand.

Take two hemispherical cylinders and fasten them together with a differential offset. Allow matter in a fluidic state to pass over the orifices thereby created. With a probability approaching Aleph Naught, some particles will necessarily be transmuted hyperspatially and re-emerge with reverse lepton numbers. When these shifted particles recombine on the other side, they will annihilite in a (small) burst of pure negative energy, cooling the atmosphere. Basically it's a cure for global warming.

Re:Contemporary physics is just groping around

[aminorex]

Oh this is a lark indeed! (It's funny, laugh!)
The above is moderated as 5 - Informative as
I write, while in fact it contains a grotesque
fallacy which should be apparent to anyone with the
capacity to walk and chew gum:

"If the theory were false, then I could disprove it
by performing an experiment where an action does not..."

This is called begging the question. The poster
assumes that the claim (equal and opposite...)
is falsifiable, and concludes:

"Thus, the theory is hypothetically falsifiable".

Wow. it's no wonder we elect bald-faced liars
to lead us into wars of aggression.