Poll!

I'm putting a poll on the sidebar to find out what y'all want to hear about on Strangely Charming next. Please, please, please vote!
Physics forever,
CoolCat

The Five Problems of Modern Physics

I'm sure everybody who reads this blog will sooner or later get thoroughly tired of me talking about Lee Smolin. Nevertheless, in the hope that it's "later" rather than "sooner," here's yet another thing inspired by Smolin: my list of Five Problems of Today's Physics. The general outline of the problems is his; some of them are taken almost exactly from his book The Trouble with Physics (speaking of which, read it), and some, especially the last one, I have changed to reflect my worldview and my beliefs about cosmology.

Enough preface already!

The Five Problems of Today's Physics

largely taken from Lee Smolin, The Trouble with Physics

1. The problem of quantum gravity: Combine general relativity and quantum theory into a single theory, preferably with no infinities, singularities, or universe-eating monsters.

2. The foundational problems of quantum mechanics: Resolve the philosophical problems in the foundations of quantum mechanics, either by making sense of the theory or by inventing a new theory that does make sense.

3. The problem of the unification of particles and forces: Determine whether or not the various particles and forces can be unified in a theory that explains them all as manifestations of a single, fundamental entity.

4. The problem of the adjustable constants: Explain how the values of the free constants in the standard model of particle physics are chosen in nature. [I think this one is not such an issue, because I believe that God could have set the constants to whatever He pleased. However, it does seem possible that He might instead have chosen a scheme for nature that sets its own constants; we can see from the universe and from His Word that He loves beauty and order.]

5. The problem of cosmology: Describe what the universe used to be like and how it got to what it is like now. [Smolin has this as “Explain the dark matter and dark energy.” I have adjusted it to reflect the need to offer a biblically-consistent alternative to the big bang model.]

Physics forever,
CoolCat

Another Physics Cake

This one isn't a birthday cake, either, but it's pretty awesome.

Yes, those are Maxwell's equations. Written in icing.

I love this cake decorator.

(Google "physics cake" and you'll find even more. Physicists like their cake, especially grad students. There's even a Fermat's Last Theorem cake, which is technically math, but... oh well.)

Physics forever,
CoolCat

Happy Birthday CERN!

Exactly 56 years ago today, a convention was signed creating the European Organization for Nuclear Research, otherwise known as CERN. In those 56 years, CERN has produced 5 Nobel prizes for its physicists, discovered innumerable particles and effects (including "neutral currents" and the first antihydrogen atoms, to name just a few), nurtured many bright young physicists, and created the World Wide Web -- originally intended to enable easy communication of results among researchers! So happy birthday, CERN, and may you have many more decades of discovery.

(Yes, I know this is a wedding cake, but isn't it amazing? Besides, the only physics-related birthday cake photo I could find was kind of ugly.)

Physics forever,
CoolCat

Science Has Limitations

As I like to say: "Even if we find a TOE*, where's the rest of the foot?"

As C. S. Lewis put it in Mere Christianity: "Suppos[e] science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, 'Why is there a universe?' 'Why does it go on as it does?' 'Has it any meaning?' would remain just as they were?"

Although Lewis put it better than I can, the thrust of these comments is that science has limitations -- it cannot deal with beauty and ugliness, with good and evil, probably not with thought and consciousness, and it can never, ever explain anything which is not observable in the physical universe, such as the reason for things. Science can never answer the last of the small child's string of "why"s. It can explain why the sky is blue, why the photons behave that way, but it can never explain where its own physical laws come from -- why, for instance, there are exactly three dimensions of space and one of time. (If some future theory should explain this, then the question will simply be: why does this theory apply to the universe?) While this may seem a strange thing to emphasize on a science blog, it is actually the most important thing in all the philosophy of science. Science has limitations, but science's limitations are a good thing. By delineating the boundaries of science, the limitations turn our experimentation to areas where it can produce results, and turn us to the Word of God for those essential questions that science cannot answer: Is there meaning in the universe? Does anything exist beyond matter and energy? What is right and what is wrong? Is there a God? What is God's nature? How can a mere human become accepted by the Creator?



*Theory Of Everything, a scientific theory that (if ever discovered) would explain the actions of every physical object in the universe

In case you haven't heard about it...

Wolfram|Alpha! It's a "computational knowledge engine", which means that rather than searching the web for relevant links, it translates your question into computer code, then uses its own (enormous) databases to calculate the answer to your question, which it then returns, in comprehensible English! It's a very useful piece of software, and although it's not perfect, it can calculate the answers to questions on topics from math to linguistics -- and, of course, physics.

So why are you still reading my confusing explanation? Go try it out at www.wolframalpha.com, or in the search box labeled "Wolfram|Alpha" right here on Strangely Charming!

Physics forever,
CoolCat
P.S. Sorry this isn't exactly physics-related, but I felt the need to explain the W|A search box on the blog. :D

A bit of physics-related fun

This is "The Particle Physics Song" sung by the CERN Choir. Yes, there is a CERN Choir.
I thought some of y'all might enjoy it!


Explanation: SUSY is supersymmetry, a much-sought-for but never yet found phenomenon that physicists hope to simplify the laws of physics with. "Higgs" is the Higgs boson, another predicted but not found particle that many physicists spend their lives looking for. It's supposed to explain where mass comes from.
Physics forever,
CoolCat