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Hawking: No 'Theory of Everything'
Flash Modin writes "In a Scientific American essay based on their new book A Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow are now claiming physicists may never find a theory of everything. Instead, they propose a 'family of interconnected theories' might emerge, with each describing a certain reality under specific conditions. The claim is a reversal for Hawking, who claimed in 1980 that there would be a unified theory by the turn of the century."
He's a theoretical physicist. Theories ARE his results.
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I'm reminded of a scene from DS9. Sure it's fiction, but it always held some sway with me:
Bashir: "Trevean was right. There is no cure. The Dominion made sure of that. But I was so arrogant, I thought I could find one in a week!"
Jadzia: "Maybe it was arrogant to think that. But it's even more arrogant to think there isn't a cure just because you couldn't find it."
Hawking a smart guy, but he by no means knows everything. Throwing in the towel and declaring that there is no right answer simply because he hasn't found it just doesn't hold much water with me. We might not figure it out for 100 years. We might figure it out tomorrow. We might NEVER figure it out, but simple logic says that there is a unified equation. It might not be simple or pretty, but if the universe operates on a consistent set of physical laws, it's out there.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Godel used the term "formal system" to specifically mean a recursive axiomatic system that can do arithmetic. I don't think it really applies here.
I don't actually mind if this is the case. What it means then, is that new properties of aggregated matter emerge as you go up, and up in scope and scale, and that there does not have to be a set relationship on what rules must emerge.
Other than aesthetics, those emergent rules don't have to carry a thread of logic visible at all scopes. Rather, you just need to have the large number of interactions actually occur in relationship to eachother to see the combined effect, with many aspects unforeseeable by only observing the elements many magnitudes smaller.
Whether this might make the universe a more or less beautiful puzzle to figure out is open to interpretation.
Ryan Fenton
It seems like he's been saying stuff recently just to say stuff.
Totally. He just likes to hear his own voice.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I'm right here. I promise I do exist. Really.
You know, it's no longer necessary to actually link to xkcd from /.
Just mention the number.
We'll laugh just as hard.
We work on the assumption that the laws of physics are perfect and complete, and we are just trying to reveal them. The laws of physics could work well enough but actually be incomplete and consistent as you point out. They could even bebe crappy, bloated and buggy with lots of missing chunks, unused bloat and even errors.
... these worked well enough, but were ultimately wrong, the truth was more complex and nuanced, but now we're finding the universe is fuzzy, clumsy and possibly buggy (inflation, possible variations in c, other weirdness).
If the laws of physics emerged naturally, for example budding off from a parent universe, and subject to a process of evolution I would expect theories of everything to be 'just good enough' and barely work rather than somehow perfect and elegant and mystical. Much like the junk DNA, apendix and mens nipples that rides along with us because evolution didn't really have pressure need to get rid of them.
I would say we should by default expect a theory of everything a whole basket of seemingly clumsy unweildy theories that barely fit together - after all they only need to be just good enough for us to be here and not any better. If we expect flawless elegant unified symmetry and beauty, then we'd need to demonstrate why (without invoking God to explain etc).
Researchers have been seduced by subjectively elegant and simple equations all the way back to F=MA
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Instead, they propose a "family of interconnected theories" might emerge
Which, if you read them all at the same sitting and follow all the connections, just might read like one big...unified theory.
This seems very, very close to a distinction without a difference.
No, there is a very important difference. Hawking is stating that there may be "locally everywhere solutions" without a "global solution." This is a very important concept in advanced mathematics. Go read about the mathematical terms "sheaf" and "local-global principle."
Hawking is essentially saying that there very well may not be one single theory which explains everything. Instead, there may be a bunch of theories, each of which is valid only in certain areas, and which agree with one another where they overlap, even without a global solution.
For a simple example which many readers may already be familiar with, consider the complex logarithm (e.g. the natural log on the complex numbers). To make it well defined, you must make a "branch cut" and decide which branch you want to take. Different branches agree where they overlap, but there is no single global solutions... just a patchwork of solutions that agree where needed (blah, blah lift to a covering space). Pick up a book on complex analysis for details.
But, Hawking is past his prime.
He's only ten years older than me, kid. He's a physicist, not a football player. Unless you get alzheimer's or drink a lot or play high impact sports (boxing or non-US football) your brain doesn't suffer much if any.
Like one of my old college profs was fond of saying, "kid, I've forgotten more than you've ever learned".
However, after his comments on active SETI being dangerous
I agree with him about that. Actively hunting for species that make us look like chimpanzes by comparison doesn't seem like the smartest thing we can do.
coaching a crappy minor league team
I'd say that research at Cambrige is hardly equivalent to coaching a crappy minor league team. And the list of his accomplishments puts your "past his prime" into perspective (see the wikipedia article on him):
1975 Eddington Medal
1976 Hughes Medal of the Royal Society
1979 Albert Einstein Medal
1981 Franklin Medal
1982 Order of the British Empire (Commander)
1985 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
1986 Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
1988 Wolf Prize in Physics
1989 Prince of Asturias Awards in Concord
1989 Companion of Honour
1999 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society[45]
2003 Michelson Morley Award of Case Western Reserve University
2006 Copley Medal of the Royal Society[46]
2008 Fonseca Price of the University of Santiago de Compostela[47]
2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the United States[4]
"When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol." -- Stephen Hawking
I think I'll change my sig...
Free Martian Whores!
You're conflating blings with accomplishment. Should have listed his papers instead of awards given to him.
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