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Article  All TOEs likely wrong + Too soon to dump string theory + "Shakeup" by new symmetry

#1
C C Offline
All of our “theories of everything” are probably wrong. Here’s why
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...verything/

KEY POINTS: For over 100 years, the holy grail of science has been one single framework that describes all of the forces and interactions in the Universe: a theory of everything. While the original "Kaluza-Klein" model couldn't account for our quantum reality, ideas like electroweak unification, GUTs, supersymmetry, and string theory point toward a tempting conclusion. But our Universe doesn't offer any evidence in favor of these ideas; only our wishful thinking does that. Other attempted theories of everything exist, but are they all without merit? (MORE - details)


It's too soon to dump string theory
https://iai.tv/articles/its-too-soon-to-..._auid=2020

EXCERPTS: . . . Critics dismiss string theory on the charge that it’s not science. A successful scientific theory must incorporate known physical phenomena and make verifiable predictions about the natural world. String theory hasn’t, so it’s just a fantasy, they say; it should be abandoned. Proponents argue this assessment is superficial. They agree that concrete, testable, predictions are an essential feature of a mature theory - and remain an active goal of research - but string theory is still growing. It is not old enough to be oracular. More time is needed, they say; condemning it now would be premature.

[...] You have had decades, the critics object. String theorists respond with a list of the many times this has happened before. From atoms (postulated two and a half millennia before being observed), to gravitational waves (detected a hundred years after prediction), the Higgs boson (found after a half-century long search), quantum entanglement (an empirically falsifiable prediction took three decades to formulate; verification took two more), and countless others. String theory would not be the first theory to ask for a bit of patience, and none has ever had better reason!

[...] From here on, it plays out much as you might expect. Arguments and counterarguments weave back and forth until the landscape makes an appearance and - at the mention of these 10^500 (or so) possible universes the theory describes - we reach the crescendo.

[...] The discussion is so animated, so diverting, that it’s easy to lose track of the fact that when we debate whether or not string theory is ‘true’, we limit ourselves to only one kind of truth. Most evaluations of string theory are based on how well it describes, explains, and predicts observations; in short, on physical truth. This is - as it should be - the central criterion. Physics is, after all, the study of what manifests, not a catalog of what could have been. The importance of physical truth is obvious and uncontested. What is mentioned far less often, is mathematical truth; this too, plays a role.

Just to be clear, physical and mathematical truths cannot - and should not - be conflated. They are neither equivalent nor interchangeable. Every mathematical equation need not be physically realized, but the converse does not hold. Every observable phenomenon is, simply by virtue of existing, a logically consistent system and therefore, mathematically expressible in principle.

But not yet in practice... (MORE - missing details)


A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-kin...-20230418/

INTRO: It’s not an exaggeration to say that every major advance in physics for more than a century has turned on revelations about symmetry. It’s there at the dawn of general relativity, in the birth of the Standard Model, in the hunt for the Higgs.

For that reason, research across physics is now building to a crescendo. It was touched off by a 2014 paper, “Generalized Global Symmetries,” which demonstrated that the most important symmetries of 20th-century physics could be extended more broadly to apply in quantum field theory, the basic theoretical framework in which physicists work today.

This reformulation, which crystallized earlier work in the area, revealed that disparate observations physicists had made in the past 40 years were really manifestations of the same lurking symmetry. In doing so, it created an organizing principle that physicists could use to categorize and understand phenomena. “That’s really a stroke of genius,” said Nathaniel Craig, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The principle identified in the paper came to be known as “higher symmetries.” The name reflects the way the symmetries apply to higher-dimensional objects such as lines, rather than lower-dimensional objects such as particles at single points in space. By giving the symmetry a name and language and by identifying places it had been observed before, the paper prompted physicists to search for other places it might appear.

Physicists and mathematicians are collaborating to work out the mathematics of these new symmetries — and in some cases they’re discovering that the symmetries work like a one-way street, a notable contrast to all other symmetries in physics. At the same time, physicists are applying the symmetries to explain a wide range of questions, from the decay rate of certain particles to novel phase transitions like the fractional quantum Hall effect.

“By putting a different perspective on a known sort of physical problem, it just opened up a huge new area,” said Sakura Schafer-Nameki, a physicist at the University of Oxford... (MORE - details)
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#2
Kornee Offline
(Apr 22, 2023 06:15 PM)C C Wrote: A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-kin...-20230418/

INTRO: It’s not an exaggeration to say that every major advance in physics for more than a century has turned on revelations about symmetry. It’s there at the dawn of general relativity, in the birth of the Standard Model, in the hunt for the Higgs.

For that reason, research across physics is now building to a crescendo. It was touched off by a 2014 paper, “Generalized Global Symmetries,” which demonstrated that the most important symmetries of 20th-century physics could be extended more broadly to apply in quantum field theory, the basic theoretical framework in which physicists work today.

This reformulation, which crystallized earlier work in the area, revealed that disparate observations physicists had made in the past 40 years were really manifestations of the same lurking symmetry. In doing so, it created an organizing principle that physicists could use to categorize and understand phenomena. “That’s really a stroke of genius,” said Nathaniel Craig, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The principle identified in the paper came to be known as “higher symmetries.” The name reflects the way the symmetries apply to higher-dimensional objects such as lines, rather than lower-dimensional objects such as particles at single points in space. By giving the symmetry a name and language and by identifying places it had been observed before, the paper prompted physicists to search for other places it might appear.

Physicists and mathematicians are collaborating to work out the mathematics of these new symmetries — and in some cases they’re discovering that the symmetries work like a one-way street, a notable contrast to all other symmetries in physics. At the same time, physicists are applying the symmetries to explain a wide range of questions, from the decay rate of certain particles to novel phase transitions like the fractional quantum Hall effect.

“By putting a different perspective on a known sort of physical problem, it just opened up a huge new area,” said Sakura Schafer-Nameki, a physicist at the University of Oxford... (MORE - details)
Quote from QuantaMagazine article:
"In an epochal insight in 1915, the mathematician Emmy Noether formalized the relationship between symmetries and conservation laws. For example, symmetries in time — it doesn’t matter if you run your experiment today or tomorrow — mathematically imply the law of conservation of energy. Rotational symmetries lead to the law of conservation of angular momentum.

“Every conservation law is associated with a symmetry, and every symmetry is associated with a conservation law,” Seiberg said. “It’s well understood and it’s very deep.”"

And - in 'rare' but crucial instances, the above 'profoundness' can be shown to be dead wrong. Nothing whatsoever to do with an expanding cosmos which setting is the accepted sole 'out' among mainstream physicists.
One 'toy' example involves permanent magnetism. But not in a way most would imagine. I've presented the basic argument elsewhere. Response is invariably Deer in the Headlights.
No point expanding in a technical way here - it would be entirely a wasted effort.
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