XPost: sci.physics.relativity
From: nospam@de-ster.demon.nl
Bill Sloman wrote:
> On 21/02/2026 3:47 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:
> > On 02/19/2026 11:45 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
> >> On 20/02/2026 10:48 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:
> >>> On 02/19/2026 11:19 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:
> >>>> On 20/02/2026 2:44 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:
> >>>>> On 02/19/2026 01:45 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:
> >>>>>> On 19/02/2026 6:13 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:
> >>>>>>> On 02/18/2026 11:06 AM, Ross Finlayson wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On 02/17/2026 08:35 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> On 18/02/2026 5:37 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> On 02/17/2026 09:47 AM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>> Ross Finlayson wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 02/17/2026 03:49 AM, J. J. Lodder wrote:
>
>
>
> > I'd wonder, have you ever heard any notion that there's a
> > modern, "crisis", in physics? That is to say, when somebody
> > like Penrose points out that GR and QM effectively disagree
> > 120 orders of magnitude, and furthermore, there's no room
> > for gravity in the theory since it would be a constant violation
> > of energy everywhere, are these considered worthy of interest?
>
> I bought and read Lee Smolin's "the trouble with physics"
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_with_Physics
>
> and passed it on to a friend who did undergraduate physics but
> metamorphosed into a statistician. I've also got Roger Penrose's "The
> Emperor's New Mind" which was earlier. For years I read "Physics Today"
> because my wife was a member of the American Acoustical Society.
>
> I'm well aware that there is talk of a crisis in physics, but if you
> want to publish a book about what's going on, you do need to play up the
> drama to give the reviewers something to talk about.
Lee Smolin was a player in the game,
not just a spectator.
And Penrose is an idiot, where physics is concerned
as soon as he gets beyond the technicalities of GR. (just imho)
> Our world view isn't entirely consistent, and it probably never will be
> - the more we learn the harder it becomes to pull everything together
The problem isn't with the world, I think.
It is us humans failing to get the right ideas about it.
> > How about Mathematics, ..., I'm curious what you think that
> > Mathematical Foundations is.
>
> For me mathematics is a tool box. I'm well aware that I'm not a
> mathematician, but I can follow mathematical advice.
>
> > Agreeably, my little video essays are rather dry. That said,
> > some of the modern AI reasoners eat them up. For example,
> > in "Logos 2000: physics today" I gathered a bunch of responses
> > from a sort of model reasoner.
> >
> > How about "continuity" and "infinity", I'm curious what these
> > things mean to you.
>
> Finite and continuous functions can be differentiate and integrated.
> My undergraduate mathematical education concentrated on them. I'd been
> exposed to permutations and combinations at secondary school in
> Tasmania, and one of my cousins is a professional statistician, so I did
> know that there was a world outside calculus.
>
> I know enough to know that the infinite number of integers is a smaller
> number than the infinite number of rational numbers, but I don't get
> excited about it.
You shouldn't. It is another thing that you got completely wrong.
> I knew some of the linguists that tried to describe natural language in
> terms of a generalised phase structure grammar
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalized_phrase_structure_grammar
>
> and got to hear when they decided that it didn't work. That's math too.
Hmmm. Of a kind, I guess.
Just packaging it as math isn't enough,
Jan
(don't want to know)
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