Physics at the limits of reality | Sabine Hossenfelder in conversation with Hilary Lawson | In full
Sabine Hossenfelder speaks to Hilary Lawson about physics, reality, and what really motivates her.
What makes a theory 'ascientific'?
Join physicist @SabineHossenfelder and non-realist philosopher Hilary Lawson in riveting conversation. With Hilary interviewing, Sabine outlines her attitude to the problems of modern physics and the importance of philosophy.
#physics #reality #multiverse
Sabine Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist, author, musician, and science communicator who researches quantum gravity. Hilary is a non-realist philosopher known for his theory of closure.
00:00 Introduction
00:45 Can science answer the big philosophical questions?
03:45 What does ‘ascientific’ mean?
07:04 Can maths mask a lack of evidence?
08:08 Are you a realist?
14:30 What really motivates you?
16:30 Where should we be looking for an underlying theory in quantum mechanics?
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I like the fact that Sabine always allows the other person to finish no matter how absurd or provocative they sound.
It's not so great when she's on the stage with Michio Kaku. Man, is that uncomfortable to watch. (He's a certifiable nut.)
actually I thought he did a great job and if you measure carefully his comments they are not at all absurd.
@@tarmaque "certifiable nut" WOW!!! I'd really like to be privy to your resume and renowned reputation.
I love the way you try not to offend the philosopher but you still do.
Some of her answered are “I don’t know”. How often do you hear that statement? She is humble and I like that.
Use of the "Three Words of Power" are a good indication you're in the presence of an intelligent person.
Anyone who cannot answer "I don't know" when they truly don't know the answer could not be a real scientist.
Absolute knowledge comes from blind faith and brain damage.
@@dannewth7149😂
@@dannewth7149 It's the brain damage (psychology is a better word and more correct) that causes the kind of mind that would believe by faith!
Sabine is a giant! She is so refreshing…seeking answers to ‘how things work’ without an agenda, for our knowledge alone. She is a rare individual, indeed!
I like her a lot; I've noticed she's wearing the same pink pullover for a while. Perhaps like Einstein, she bought a dozen of the same shirt so she wouldn't have to think about her wardrobe every day.
What do you mean without an agenda? Which scientists exactlyare pushing an agenda on us?
This is true. We should chip in and get her some better socks.
What do you mean without an agenda? As opposed to who? Which scientists are pushing an agenda?
And shoes 😂
Sabine is great in disentangling Hilayr's questions--many of which I have a hard time grasping. When talking with Sabine, one can get a word in edge-wise and get a well-considered response. This interview is a great example of clarity of expression. And why we subscribe to Sabine's channel.
Hillary's questions where vapid and uninformed, suffering from the navel-gazing dilution of modern philosophy.
exactly!
Truly enjoy Sabines outlook and common sense. I also take issue with the theoretical and mathematical views that are unprovable or unobservable. Anything goes with such illogical accepted rhetoric. Thanks Sabine for saying it out loud.
Even Math itself is "threatened" sometimes, like this recent paper The Periodic Table of primes that coincidentally was withdrawn today.
Inane questions.
I don't think that just because math can be uncannily beautiful in it's proven descriptions of some parts of reality, that the mathematicians can then just say that it's reality itself that has given up the math to us and therefore math has this sort of divinity that can then lead us solely on it's own to all definitions of reality. We need experiments, data, and testable proofs. Sabine of course, goes a lot further on that, on how grifting has got us here.
Sabine is so unusual and refreshing in the world of science. She has the rare and unusual ability to continually review the basic reality of the problem as she works through it without getting entangled solely in the numbers or data. Just because the math works doesn't mean it's real
Why do you think this ability is rare among scientists? What scientist should I compare her to that doesn’t know how to do this?
@@Li-rm2gj "...who doesn't know...?"
Sabine, you are wonderful. I love your no-nonsense approach to these questions and ideas.
Dear Sabine, I do like your almost impeccable english and coherent stories in fysics. And as an old guy I do take joy in your dry humoristic remarks. And I try to understand your great outlines. So thank you❤.
Is this irony?
"The only stupid question is the question you do not ask", I am not so sure. The fact that Sabine can produce coherent answers from a so called non-realist, Philosofer's questions speaks volumes to the nature of Sabine. I love the fact that Sabine sticks to the facts and has an uncanny ability to cut through (insert whatever you want here) and speak intelectually and inteligently in an understandable manner. Sabine is excellent.
Mathematics theoretical speaking is now like magic, you can makes things work that can never be proven, even so it could lead to other answers? Sabine is an excellent people's scientist and doesn't mind telling it as it is, KZhead has proved to be s great platform for her, we wish her continued success.
Hi Ai-he1dp. If you are able, you could consider reading Magic Without Magic: John Archibald Wheeler. Cheers.
@@SystemsMedicine I will revisit John Archibald wheeler, thank you.
There is no proof in science. There is only verification. A proof is something 100% accurate. In science we have measurement errors and approximations. Math is not science.
Her position on multiverse, early big bang, etc, made a lot more sense for me in the context of her video on why she left academia
I love Sabine because she actually expresses when she doesn't know, which is SO important for people to express when they are creating knowledge
Well done Sabine, for avoiding all the traps.
What a great interview! Thanks for sharing!
I love Sabine. I always enjoy listening to her clarity and wisdom. She always teaches me something.
If only I possessed a mere 1% of Sabine's intellect, I would be the happiest person in the known universe!...Sigh...Instead, I'm just a good Ol' average dummie. Thank you for sharing your brilliance with us, Dr. Hossenfelder. 💗
please, stop fawning and stop putting yourself down
Sabine is really a great Scientist with a capital "S" ! ❤
Thanks for the interview. I've watched Sabine for a while, but was unsure of what set her apart. This interview helped clarify why her work is so attractive.
I love Hilary Lawson. Great questions. And not hard to follow at all. Sabine was great too.
Mathematics absolutely can mask the unreality of a theory.
Did you cough and utter “string theory” when you thought this? I did.
A corollary/implication is the deification of a theory via the deification of mathematics & modelling…
Shouldn`t mathematics be unable to?
Oppenheimer movie shows this. His math was wrong, and was inverted by actual observations.
@@robertoverbeeke865 The thing to understand is that mathematics is our way of describing the universe, but the universe doesn't have to follow our descriptions and rules. If the universe wants to show us a situation where 1 + 1 = 3, then we can't say that's impossible. Certainly we should be extremely critical of things that don't match the maths, but that doesn't mean it can't be true. And on the flip side, just because maths predict something about the universe, that doesn't mean the universe must obey. Our maths can be wrong. Our understanding can be flawed. The universe does not need to bend to our will just because it works out so beautifully in a math equation. Basically, it's important to remember that math is a analog for the universe. No analog is perfect, so remember that before you get too wound up trying to force things that don't work.
Sabine is patient with this interviewer
Common sense is the key to science with Sabine !!
That's why she can't get funding.
That is a pretty funny statement considering Science was invented to defeat common sense. I mean, "common sense" is the argument for the idea that the Earth is flat. Duh-huh ...
@@kaoskronostyche9939 Good point but even scientists go too far in their thinking. Most scientists are not trained in philosophy like Sabine and Sean Carroll.
Could listen to Sabine all day.
This is my favorite Sabine interview!
Sabine, keep on being you. Love ur attitude
An excellent interview, thank you both. I really enjoyed it. I can very much understand Sabine's approach, it's basically "Sticking with the principles of science, if there's something we don't know for sure, we should keep the question open instead of just giving a quick answer of for example, multi verse, that would instead; close the question!".. It's a very elegent defence of the scientific method. Personally, this is my method of, inputting accurate data into my world views, I expect from scientific theories to be at least scientific and not merly philosophical predictions.. or else it'll turn into something like politics and religions. I was always blamed of one thing though for having this stand, and I hoped to hear it from Sabine, that is: "What remains then? If you hate politics, don't believe in psychology, or social sciences (Which I don't really consider it science in the first place), how else would you understand the world?", It's a very fair question, I have to confess, because in my views, human phychology for example, is almost impossible to understand scientifically (in my strict definitions of science), while many the experiments done in psychology come up with huge headlines and leaps even than the 'multi verse' in physics, with very narrow and circumstancial experiments and should for example be a statistical data instead. Two points for the above: * First, is that keeping psychology ascientific (thank you Sabine), will pressure us to identify that this field is really important, and we should actually work on, scientifically find proper methods tackle it, instead of giving false headlines and fake ourselves that we understand much about ourselves. (it is one of the most important fields to really tackle), * Second, is that, unfortunatly, this has kept me skeptic, and unwilling to proceed in learning many of the good ideas coming from these ascientific fields, with adapting these views, I'm left with very narrow-scientific findings as products of natural sciences (plus computer stuff, my area of expertise :D), and per my friends, closing my eyes on other important fields.
Great Sabine!
Sabine’s poor of view always seems practical but with a depth of thought that I find really interesting. I love listening to her.
Sorry, point of view, is what I meant to write
Excellent interview and interviewer
Sabine is our beloved scientist here on KZhead. ❤
Confused why they weren’t insulting each other. I thought this was Between Two Ferns! 😂 Big fan Sabine!
Never clicked on anything this fast
I am a simple wave function. I see Sabine Hossenfelder and I press like with probability 1
I just wanted to comment the same thing. Maybe we're entangled...
@@BigWhoopZH I thought I was smart, and… Well, you got there first. Must be closer to a black hole, time dilated me…
We must have come from the same beam splitter.
Sounds pretty normal(ized) to me.
Thank you for the reminder. I so often forget to press like.
Sabine, of course, is exactly right in her criticism about the multiverse, although there are lots of other fashionable ideas beyond that are genuinely ascientific. Science is, after all, the realm of testable predictions. It's a shame that more people in science don't have Sabine's humility. I believe that all great scientists experience humility in the face of nature even if they don't articulate it as such. Einstein, for sure, was such a role model on all of this. I'm pretty sure that Einstein would be very proud of Sabine and her work. We need more people educating the public about science and helping people to see the difference between real science and fashionable self-promotion.
Philosophy is the basics of communication, and the ability to question the world is a philosophy exercise that everyone does but doesn't get recognized as philosophy. Everyone is a philosopher to some degree.
In most cases: "I don't know" is the best answer.
And the most humbling which is why so many of us cannot say those three little words.
The always excellent Sabine!!
Sabine is so listenable to.
Sabine is such an awesome human being.
Ah Sabine, the voice of reason
Her name is SabinE not A!
@@clarissamarsfiels7961 SORRY I DO NOT MEAN TO DISRESPECT ThE QUEEN HERSELF.I think it autocorrected
Sabine is absolutely right. I've started to follow her because of philosphical interests. I think the measurement problem really is where science hit a limit. And it needs to get a lot more attention. It might be that the universe really is random at a fundamenal level though. Whether it is or isn't has huge implications for philosphy.
❤Sabine. For Galileo reality/truth is fully reachable and described by math, for Bellarmino we can only produce models of reality. Forgotting that Bellarmino was right, a lot of scientists are going culturally backward, falling in a neo neo neo positivism 😀
Sabine is an amazing person.
Amazing woman Sabine. What efforts she goes to to make science palatable. And she is not afraid to pull punches.
Wellsaid,Sabina and i agree with you. Not because you're a cute little scientist, well maybe a bit. But i am agreeing with you because you are correct. There is an underlying theory that runs the entire system and its close very close. Hope to see more of Ms Hossenfelder on your programs. Peace ✌️ 😎.
Cute little, yes that´s what she is, and so much more. I was on that event, and she gave me an autograph in her new book. She´s a bit shy too. A remarkable personality.
I liked particularly when she said that mathematics is "art" in a sense...
I imagine this was incredibly frustrating for Hilary. The interview/conversation was masterfully done nonetheless and I enjoyed it a lot.
You mean because he knows nothing and she was not willing to engage in philosophization?
@@markhahn0 Partly yes but there is also a degree of misunderstanding and Sabine sometimes failed to put her finger on the intention behind some questions. I feel like he really was willing to meet her on her terms but she was a bit too defensive from her long experience of irrational obstinacy against her arguments.
🌺✨🌺 The comment section here is well worth the read after listening to Sabine.
We’re on the sensible channel. In the past science has been suppressed , bound and gagged by religion. Religion and philosophy in explaining the World was usually nasty and didn’t work. Physics, it must be said, is an empirical science and mathematics just a tool. It should lift us above prejudice and bigotry when allowed to work properly. It usually isn’t but in a fair fight wins against the rest.
Sabine!!!!! ❤❤❤
I feel the issue is that the difference between Maths and physics is that Physics is an application of Math, but Math is NOT physics... Hence Mathematical speculations are abstract logical theory which may or may not relate to observable events whereas Physics is observation and explanation of those 'events' - one can fit many mathematical formulae / solution to an event described by a set of data however the event described by the data is a singular event so all the varied mathematical possibilities would likely get more and more constrained with better data till ideally there is only one mathematical solution. Hence math is not reality but can become our best description of reality An example is Newtons gravity which varies with 1/R^2... If R=0 then there is a mathematical singularity... but we accept that because most observations show that mass is not a point mass, it has volume, so below a certain radius eg Earths surface... the formula fails/requires more sophisticated interpretation because the mass is no longer 100% below that R value so gravity in fact reduces from the earths surface to Zero at the centre NOT infinity as the simplistic interpretation of Newtons formula would give... Perhaps Einstein's gravity has some similar limiting case where extension of the simplistic interpretation again 'assuming a point mass' is no longer valid hence again singularities though simplistic mathematical extension into the unknown are 'not real' and there is some other physical concept required that prevents the mathematical singularity - ie. the physical reality will not be a simple extension of the math into an area we have no data.... And hence GR perhaps does NOT fail it just has ranges of applicability (like with Newton) after which there have to be modifications due to currently unknown physics in GR's case (as in Newtons case where a new physical regime takes over - gravity 'inside' the mass). An aside is that one should not forget that GR describes what we see as an observer NOT what is as the object being observed... eg if a particle accelerates continuously at 1g towards alpha centauri it would arrive there "before" a light beam would... yet we have never exceeded the speed of light to the observer at take off. So we could theoretically get to alpha centauri faster than light... The particle would find it arrives there after only months... yet never "BE OBSERVED" going faster than light... The paradox of light speed or time would not apply to either the observer nor the particle. So the problem is NOT that Einstein's GR is wrong - it's that we have no data - and so we only have a myriad of mathematical extensions which, though 'logical', lead to apparently crazy speculations - they explain nothing physically/in reality, until we have more data ;) I personally might suspect the black hole is just a region of pure energy supporting the event horizon, with no singularity and with Gravity dropping to Zero in the centre - but I have no data.
It was interesting to hear Sabine talk about the need for new theoretic development in quantum mechanics, but what is unclear to me is whether there is any currently unexplainable data that would motivate theoretic development.
Actually there is a new theory which is explaining the unexplainable data and the reason why the Quantum mechanics is so weird - It is in the book - "Theory of Everything in Physics and The Universe"
She makes suggestions to test hidden variables since one decade or so. Nothing happened.
She is a true prophet. Only a whole and gifted person could have the humility to wear those shoes !
Or that shirt as often as she does lol
As a bald man, I am deeply envious of Hilary Lawson's hair. It is exquisite.
It is a wig an expensive one as is Sabine's
@@johnmorgan5495 Haha. Yeah. Sure.
@@johnmorgan5495 didn't he say he's not a realist? So how are we supposed to "see" his hair? And which roles do scissors, combs and brushes play in his life?
I think his brain has leaked out into his hair.
It’s an illusion
Finally a scientist that understands the role of science... well, mostly. Better than most.
Why is "I don't know" such a difficult thing to say, even for philosophers? Sabine is really taking the words out of my mouth. "I don't know" "I don't know if we'll ever be able to know", so some questions will be forever unanswered; or will they.
Wow. Science edition of Between Two Ferns!
Sabine is definitely a very intelligent scientist
11:00 my gosh, he decided to grasp that ascientific nettle. To paraphrase: q: Can language describe EvERytHhiNg to the nth degree? a: Your terms are not defined.
she's had an ok career but she's clearly not done yet, so eager to see where sabine ends up, love her no nonsense personality
They managed to find chairs that are clearly not comfortable for someone who is not tall as well as someone who is not short
Sabine is one smart cookie.
I think Sabine is wonderful - and it was academic Physics loss that she’s not a Professor somewhere. A fresh perspective
They could have provided more comfortable chairs.
If I got Sabine’s take on philosophy right (hopefully…), she’s in line with an ever increasing number of scientists across most fields - according to their own accounts. Philosophy in general used to be the origin of “thinking” (severe simplification…) before the modern reduction towards all the (very useful) separate sciences. I do think any scientific specialties need some form of ‘dialectic’ back and forth between holistic philosophy and the specifics of actual science. Inspiration, intuition, time or creativity have their values as counterweights to pure empirical findings. Not for the “answers” themselves, but maybe for context and presence…?
Bingo!......intuitive intelligence is more dispersed/yin than the yang-heavy linear intellect foundational to today's "science"......its got to "whole up" if its going to evolve.....
What do you mean that this is how an “ever increasing” number of scientists think? Do you mean two or three that you’ve seen on KZhead? There are roughly 100,000 physicists alone in the world. I’m not aware of any actual trend that exists.
@@Li-rm2gj As I said, by their own accounts. Publications, books, and debates on campuses. Places like LSE, Gresham, Brown, Watson, NE Uni. Influenced by e.g. McGilchrist, Galbraith, Kastrup, Gerber, Keen, Ypi, Klaas. Further by tendencies in corporate economy (grants, deliverables, IP) , shifting policies & fiscals across OECD, academic career conformity, “meaning crisis”, metamodernism, AI influence, ecology, degrowth…. Not saying “every scientist” at all. Just that a few more posit importance of philosophy than five or ten years ago. A trend that wasn’t so visible under a generation ago. Example of source; Current Trends in Philosophy of Science (Gonzalez, 2022)
@@musiqtee You’re right. I followed your source and found evidence of a trend, where more scientists seek interdisciplinary help from philosophers to clarify and organize scientific theories. Thank you for your reply.
@musiqtee If I can add my 20 cents worth. Many people in physics scoff at philosophy and metaphysics as if it were some form of voodoo witchcraft. But here is the problem, all that we call physics and math is a man made concept that oozes out of our subjective minds. These are concepts that we impose upon the objective universe in an effort to describe the indescribable in a neat human ordered way. The Universe has no concept of human labels, names, physics, algebra, math, seconds, meters etc and neither does the universe care what we think of it. Philosophers are best seen as translators between the high abstractions of human thought and the objective universe. They are also valuable translators of raw thought (high level mental abstractions) that we struggle to describe to anyone outside of our own mind.
Kant put this idea to rest a long time ago. He called it an antinomy (sp); it was in his discussion of "first cause". The idea is one is asking a question using set different from the set one is asking the question about. He was saying that one cannot answer a question about first cause, as it is outside of time and space, with the tools of causality which exits in time and space, it simply makes no sense. To put it simply, you can't get there from here. Good for Sabine for holding the line against gobbledygook.
Great interview the questions intrigued me more than the answers
She is realy patient...
Sabine is a star.
11:05 -- SHE'S RIGHT. I'm sick of the whole "unreasonable effectiveness" argument in favor of math somehow being the blueprint for reality. I can imagine the ancient Greeks arguing in favor of epicycles by using the same argument -- but its math is so unreasonably effective that it must be true, which is exactly what today's physicists say about their latest crop of super-symmetric stringy whatnots. Math is just as unreasonably effective at describing bunk as useful stuff!
'Open to refutation' is perhaps a more elegant phrase, a la Popper?
I love Sabine. She is down to earth and patient. I find Hilary rather frustrating in the way he tries to put far fetched ideas of his own in to her mouth. You can tell he has read a lot of books but his style is not really that of being investigative it is rather to show of he has read a lot of books. Thomas Kuhn's(The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) perspectives written in the 1960's very much outlines the way Sabine is thinking, and if Hilary had read it and understood it this interview would have been so much better.
For a second I thought I clicked on 'Between Two Ferns' (Zack Galaf...etc) Lol.
Sabine H?? HERE FOR THE SPICY SCIENCE
The conversation got much better towards the end. I was worried when they started talking about the importance of philosophy (which I love), as I worry that it cannibalizes physics talent as mentioned by the host, but then with the help of Lawson as he pressed on got some good responses from Sabine! I was reminded why I enjoy her content - I've always felt that theories that involve assumptions about "other worlds" are very interesting, but if these worlds can "never" be reached then maybe our greatest minds shouldn't be wasting their time on such theories. Only thing I disagree with Sabine on is that she thinks science should just be about understanding things, which may be true in principle, but that is not very inspirational.
- oh as for the other worlds - they are simply possible math objects of the objective math that is organising the observable events. People can choose what form of the math they use.
If in the future "other worlds" turned out to be part of the ontology of the best scientific theory for describing this world, then there's a good reason to say they exist, whether they can be observed directly or not.
So... Since all our measuring apparatus is based on electromagnetic interactions, all particles except the electron have in fact never been observed... only inferred. Do they fall outside of science as well?
With science the question of why has to be limited to the horizon of testability
well, and observability. no honest scientist ever disputed the concept of non-overlapping magisteria.
Dr Hosdenfelder always has something to say which allows me to consider a different possibility for integration into my personal world view.
Why science works? you observe, generate a model, test your model and if the experiment is succesful it's a valid model with certain criteria. Of course later some observation compromises the model but that's to be expected, it's a model, not the real thing, whe're always generating more accurate and compatible models but they are still abstractions of reality, i don't understand the question, why woldn't it work?
Love Sabine and how practical she is. I don't know if you know but the multiverse people are a bit arrogant in how they talk down to those who disagree.
the philosophical is the output of the information we get from the world, mathematical figure out the information, work to improve and decipher. Believes are the conclusions, algorithms we have, that makes a pattern in our behavior, when we think (philosophically), and thoughts shapes the reality. philosophy -> mathematical thinking -> believes patterns and behavior -> philosophy... beyond that, the thought content is in the void. Void which is the space. As much awareness (attention) we have without distractions in the present, the consciousness rise up and you start to sense other dimensions. We have to see the world (objective) and the inner space awareness (subjective) as a one whole like a neuronal system that interact each other sharing information in both directions objective and subjective at the same time. That shapes the perceptions of reality.
❤
Sabine is very honest with her ignorance about the nature of reality. Though she said that she is not a realist in the usual meaning of the term, she believes that with theory, but not probably with mathematics, we can approach or uncover reality. On the other hand, Lawson does not seem to think the same.
“Physicists haven’t payed enough attention to philosophy, and now they are stuck”. More or less quoting Sabine, around 3 minutes into this video. My questions: which parts of philosophy are meant, which fundamental thoughts? Like, do Kant or Schopenhauer come close? And in which way would that philosophy, those thoughts have prevented those physicists from getting stuck? Maybe an idea: could Sabine spend a video on her channel on this topic? It really would be insightful and interesting, hopefully within a ten minute time frame.
📍12:47 2📍 14:30 3📍 12:44
The great Gauss said about philosophy , “when a philosopher says something correct , it is usually trivial , and when he says something non trivial , it’s usually wrong. “
It's hard to say where our ability to represent reality will hit hard limits. Yes, LIKELY we'll never get it exactly, but we keep edging closer than we thought we could. And if the universe is fully quantized, is that discrepancy a sure thing, or is it possible the "mismatch" is less than a basic quantum of reality?
"Physics at the limits of reality"... Plural... so many limits... What a bombastic catch! Physics is at the limit of its models. As if there is some Physics beyond reality. Why not being simple? We need a fresh model(s). It happens all the time. This is the bread and butter of the Physicists: new models.
❤❤❤
18:50 The asymmetry of time actually implies the accumulation of time, more precisely, history, variety. Instead of the Copenhagen and/or multi-world interpretations of quantum mechanics, the presence of spontaneous Lorentz transformations seems to be more physical. The observer can choose the observable Universe as his own frame of reference, and then the redshift of spectral lines in the global/own frame of reference is characterized by the value: z= [w-w(0)]/w(0)=Hl/c, where l is the characteristic size of the frame of reference, and in this case l=l(universe). Then, for the reference frame, where for the light signal ds^2=0, the invariance of the speed of light c=cdl/dx(0) follows with respect to spontaneous Lorentz transformations. That is, the world itself already has many-sided (~ "multi-world") and improvisational (~"probabilistic") properties. P.S. The inscription on the ancient Roman clock: “More than you think”.
The speed of light varies all the time in all the locations we have measured it.
@@ftlbaby "It is absolutely necessary to insist that such a fundamental statement as the principle of covariance should be derived, if possible, from the simplest BASIC provisions. Einstein showed, and this is his great merit, that for this purpose it is enough to accept only the following electrodynamic position: the speed of light does not depend on the motion of the source. If the light source is a point, then in all cases the wave front is a sphere with a resting center. We will, as is customary, briefly call this provision the provision on the "constancy of the speed of light", although such a name may give rise to misunderstandings. The universal constancy of the speed of light in the void is out of the question already because the speed of light is constant only in Galilean reference frames. The independence of the speed of light from the motion of the source is preserved in the general theory of relativity." (Pauli, RT, paragraph 3, The postulate of the constancy of the speed of light).
P.S."The postulate of relativity includes the statement that the uniform and rectilinear motion of the "center of gravity" of the universe relative to some closed system does not affect the processes in this system," (Pauli, RT). Obviously, for an expanding universe, the opposite is true. Apparently, the researcher can detect and measure the effect of the aging process in his own frame of reference caused by the phenomenon of global time t(universe)=1/H: ds^2=c^2dт^2=g(00)c^2dt^2=(1-Ht*)c^2dt^2, where the Ht* parameter shows which part of the global the time "elapsed" in its own frame of reference, t* is the measurement time according to the clock of the resting observer, t is the duration of any physical process in its own frame of reference. That is, an observer can measure the increase in the duration of processes in the laboratory frame of reference: dт=[√ g(00)]dt=[√(1-Ht*)]dt~(1-Ht*)dt
I summarised the problems with the mathematics underpinning the Big Bang in ‘Refuting Relativity’.
The CTMU shows the true relationship between science and philosophy.
16:19 I think a better name would inspire better understanding. I propose Waveform mechanics, the compressible currents within a defined space. I think that name is much more on point.
We love the knowing of we we found out and what may never be found out. I don't know.
6:02 Sabine did say the multiverse is religion, verbatim, she has a video specifically about that. Even if the specific comment was not so much about the multiverse I'd expect her to lump together with the other theories she calls religion here because that's exactly what she said about the multiverse, unless she has since changed her mind.
At around the 16-min mark, Sabine says she doesn't believe quantum mechanics (QM) is complete and she hopes she's not making unnecessary assumptions in her approach to completing QM. If you view QM as a "principle theory," it is as complete as special relativity (SR). Then, you can decide for yourself whether or not those who want to complete QM via causal mechanisms are making the unnecessary assumption that QM must be a "constructive theory." This is just a summary, for a full explanation see “Einstein’s Entanglement: Bell Inequalities, Relativity, and the Qubit” forthcoming in June 2024 with Oxford UP. If you believe QM is complete, then there is no causal explanation for the mysterious correlations of quantum entanglement. Most researchers in foundations of physics want such a “constructive” account of QM, so they believe QM is incomplete. However, there is an alternative to constructive explanation that Einstein himself used to produce his theory of special relativity (SR), i.e., “principle” explanation. The story of SR mirrors that of QM as Carlo Rovelli pointed out in 1996, so let me summarize it. In the late 1800s, physicists were trying to explain why everyone measures the same value for the speed of light (denoted c), regardless of their relative motions. This empirically discovered fact is called the “light postulate,” since it is a postulate of SR. The light postulate is very counterintuitive because it would mean that if I move towards you at 0.5c and shine a flashlight at you, I will measure the speed of the light beam moving away from me at c, AND you will measure the speed of that same light beam moving towards you at c. Intuition says the light beam must be moving towards you faster than c because I’m moving towards you at 0.5c and the light beam is moving away from me at c. So, it should be moving towards you at 1.5c, right? Physicists tried to find a cause for this counterintuitive fact and believed they had a good candidate in the luminiferous aether. That is, since light is a wave, some ‘thing’ must be waving. For sound waves it’s air that is waving. For ocean waves it’s water that is waving. So, they posited that for light waves it’s the hypothetical aether that is waving. Oliver Heaviside showed that a charge's electric field would be distorted when the charge was moving in the aether. Since an object is made of charged particles held together by their electric fields, George FitzGerald and Hendrik Lorentz conjectured that an object's length would shrink along the direction of its motion in the aether. So, if meter sticks would shrink in just the right amount, people would erroneously measure the same speed c for a light beam, regardless of how fast they were moving in the aether (where the *real* speed of the light beam *is* c). Even Einstein participated in such “constructive efforts” before writing: “By and by I despaired of the possibility of discovering the true laws by means of constructive efforts based on known facts. The longer and the more despairingly I tried, the more I came to the conviction that only the discovery of a universal formal principle could lead us to assured results.” The universal formal principle he used was the relativity principle - The laws of physics (to include their constants of Nature) are the same in all inertial reference frames. [Let me call that “no preferred reference frame” NPRF.] In other words, rather than using a causal mechanism like the aether to explain the light postulate, Einstein simply pointed out that the light postulate has to be true given the relativity principle. Why? Because Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism predicted a specific speed c for light, so NPRF says everyone has to measure the same value for it, regardless of their inertial reference frames, which includes reference frames in different uniform relative motions. To this day, physicists accept this principle account of the light postulate and have long ago stopped looking for a causal mechanism/constructive account. As it turns out, QM has a very similar story. In 1996, Rovelli pointed out that the formalism of QM was introduced some 70 years earlier, yet physicists still hadn’t agreed on a constructive account of QM, e.g., via causal mechanisms like that of superdeterminism or the pilot wave of Bohmian mechanics. He suggested that physicists stop trying to “interpret” the formalism of QM constructively and instead *derive it* via some compelling fundamental principle like Einstein did for SR. Lorentz produced the formalism of SR (Lorentz transformations) before Einstein explained it with NPRF, so this is a perfect analogy. Rovelli specifically suggested using principles of information theory and in 2001, Lucien Hardy produced the first so-called reconstruction of QM via information-theoretic principles. The empirically discovered fact that gives us the finite-dimensional Hilbert space formalism of QM is Information Invariance & Continuity (wording from 2009 by Caslav Brukner and Anton Zeilinger). If you couch that physically, it means everyone measures the same value for Planck’s constant h, regardless of their relative spatial orientations or locations. Let me call that the “Planck postulate” in analogy with the light postulate that gives us the Lorentz transformations. Since h is a constant of Nature per Planck’s radiation law just like c is a constant of Nature per Maxwell’s equations, and since inertial reference frames are related by spatial rotations and translations as well as boosts, NPRF says the “Planck postulate” must be true just like it says the light postulate must be true. All of this means that QM is as complete as SR. Do you think SR needs a causal mechanism like the aether to explain the light postulate? If not, you probably believe the assumption that QM must be a "constructive theory" is likewise unnecessary 🙂
If we take the analogy that is said to come from Isaac Newton: What we know is a drop, what we not know is an ocean, would you say that has changed considerably or even turned? If not why are you so sure that we never find a method to detect other universes or look at what happened before the big bang? I think if you had asked Newton to construct a handheld device to share moving images about cats and science around the world instantly he would have said that's currently totally off limits but maybe far out in the ocean.
Must admit like with many theories the Multiverse thing it is just like show me the evidence that constitutes proof if you want me treat in some tangibly meaningful way so it is up for critique and discussion. I don't think it's an excuse to try and dunk on the competition so to speak but it viability of the premises should be debated on it purely theoretical grounds. I do like the focus on needless assumptions and the schools of thought that is being spoken to when highlighting this very good. Sometime to progress we must reorient ourselves so that we are facing in the right direction again; this commentary does touch on that a bit in a indirect way. Can say the same for dark matter mind something that's a bit of pink elephant but still.
One thing should be evident: There is an objective reality but we will never be able to have a full knowledge about everything. We can only get closer and closer to it.
Trying to decipher intelligence and not recognizing that intelligence as being intelligent is a crime . Go Sabine ! :O)
The multiverse hypothesis was an attempt by some physicists to explain the mystery of quantum entanglement. We need to look more into the concept that space doesn’t have a beginning, rather time has a beginning inside space. I explained this (entanglement/universe) better on my channel and book.