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Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe
Roger Penrose
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Beschreibung
Nobel Prize–winning physicist Roger Penrose questions some of the most fashionable ideas in physics today, including string theory
What can fashionable ideas, blind faith, or pure fantasy possibly have to do with the scientific quest to understand the universe? Surely, theoretical physicists are immune to mere trends, dogmatic beliefs, or flights of fancy? In fact, acclaimed physicist and bestselling author Roger Penrose argues that researchers working at the extreme frontiers of physics are just as susceptible to these forces as anyone else. In this provocative book, he argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important areas—string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology.
Arguing that string theory has veered away from physical reality by positing six extra hidden dimensions, Penrose cautions that the fashionable nature of a theory can cloud our judgment of its plausibility. In the case of quantum mechanics, its stunning success in explaining the atomic universe has led to an uncritical faith that it must also apply to reasonably massive objects, and Penrose responds by suggesting possible changes in quantum theory. Turning to cosmology, he argues that most of the current fantastical ideas about the origins of the universe cannot be true, but that an even wilder reality may lie behind them. Finally, Penrose describes how fashion, faith, and fantasy have ironically also shaped his own work, from twistor theory, a possible alternative to string theory that is beginning to acquire a fashionable status, to "conformal cyclic cosmology," an idea so fantastic that it could be called "conformal crazy cosmology."
The result is an important critique of some of the most significant developments in physics today from one of its most eminent figures.
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Neil Turok, Theory of relativity, Wave function, Power series, Riemann sphere, Physical cosmology, Classical physics, Dimension, Quantum gravity, Calculation, Riemann surface, Theoretical physics, Anthropic principle, Real number, Paul Steinhardt, Theory, Classical mechanics, Measurement, General relativity, Probability, M. C. Escher, Mass distribution, Neutron, Michael Atiyah, Hilbert space, Particle physics, Holomorphic function, Minkowski space, Leonard Susskind, Proportionality (mathematics), Chronology of the universe, Twistor theory, Abhay Ashtekar, Geometry, Einstein field equations, Quantum superposition, Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric, Quantum entanglement, Differential equation, Edward Witten, Quantum field theory, Degrees of freedom (mechanics), Prediction, Photon, Three-dimensional space (mathematics), Massive particle, Physicist, Quantity, Vector space, Inflation (cosmology), Natural units, Supersymmetry, Requirement, Complex number, Phase space, Planck units, Equivalence principle, Mathematics, String theory, Mass–energy equivalence, Quantum mechanics, Magnetic field, Quantum state, Cosmological constant, Gravity, Variable (mathematics), Gravitational constant, Gravitational field, Quantum system, Universe