I’ve been deleting comments that seem to me off topic, repetitive, and purely designed to promote the interests of the writer. This has nothing to do with censorship of unpopular scientific ideas, I’d do the same if someone tries to promote their mainstream work on string theory or anything else here this way.

If I allow you to continually post long comments promoting TGD, I also end up with long, multiple comments from Quantoken promoting GUITAR, and others promoting their favorite ideas, together with many hostile comments from other people who are annoyed that the comment section is being taken over by this kind of thing.

If you want to write in detail about TGD, please do it on your own weblog, not on mine. If something I’ve posted seems to you really relevant to TGD, it would be best if you write a short comment here with a link to a longer discussion on your own weblog. I won’t delete such short comments and links, as long as there is not an excessive number of them, and they do have some kind of relation to the topics I’m posting about.

Therefore the The Road to Reality was of special significance to me since it gives a clear signal for Paul Ginsparg and those responsible for this scandalous black-listing and also contains a reference to p-adic TGD. It is difficult to imagine that physicists like Roger Penrose would refer to the work of a crackpot.

Roger Penrose’s book The Road to Reality comes in two editions:

UK edition (ISBN: 0224044478, Publisher: Jonathan Cape, July 29, 2004)

and

USA edition (ISBN: 0679454438, Publisher: Knopf, February 22, 2005).

The two editions are NOT identical.

For example:

The UK edition on page 1050 says in part:
“… Bibliography There is one major breakthrough in 20th century physics that I have yet to touch upon, but which is nevertheless among the most important of all! This is the introduction of arXiv.org, an online repository where physicists … can publish preprints (or ‘e-prints’) of their work before (or even instead of!) submitting it to journals. …as a consequence the pace of research activity has accelerated to unheard of heights. … … In fact, Paul Ginsparg, who developed arXiv.org, recently won a MacArthur ‘genius’ fellowship for his innovation. …”

but

The USA edition on its corresponding page (also page 1050) says in part: “… Bibliography … modern technology and innovation have vastly improved the capabilities for disseminating and retrieving information on a global scale. Specifically, there is the introduction of arXiv.org, an online repository where physicists … can publish preprints (or ‘e-prints’) of their work before (or even instead of!) submitting it to journals. …as a consequence the pace of research activity has accelerated to an unprecedented (or, as some might consider, an alarming) degree. …”.

However, the USA edition omits the laudatory reference to Paul Ginsparg that is found in the UK edition.

For another example:
The USA edition adds some additional references, including (at page 1077): “… Pitkanen, M. (1994). p-Adic description of Higgs mechanism I: p-Adic square root and p-adic light cone. [hep-th/9410058] …”.

I hope that this would serve as some kind of a signal also to Peter Woit, who has been continually censoring out my messages. This just to help the raise the level of discussion from what it is now.

Matti Pitkanen

http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/

http://matpitka.blogspot.com/

The two editions are NOT identical.

For example:
The UK edition on page 1050 says in part:
“… Bibliography
There is one major breakthrough in 20th century physics thatI have yet to touch upon, but which is nevertheless among the most important of all! This is the introduction of arXiv.org, an online repository where physicists … can publish preprints (or ‘e-prints’) of their work before (or even instead of!) submitting it to journals. …as a consequence the pace of research activity has accelerated to unheard of heights. … In fact, Paul Ginsparg, who developed arXiv.org, recently won a MacArthur ‘genius’ fellowship for his innovation. …”
but
the USA edition on its corresponding page (also page 1050) says in part:
“… Bibliography
… modern technology and innovation have vastly improved the capabilities for disseminating and retrieving information on a global scale. Specifically, there is the introduction of arXiv.org, an online repository where physicists … can publish preprints (or ‘e-prints’) of their work before (or even instead of!) submitting it to journals. …as a consequence the pace of research activity has accelerated to an unprecedented (or, as some might consider, an alarming) degree. …”.
However,
the USA edition omits the laudatory reference to Paul Ginsparg that is found in the UK edition.

For another example:
The USA edition adds some additional references, including (at page 1077):
“… Pitkanen, M. (1994). p-Adic description of Higgs mechanism I: p-Adic square root and p-adic light cone. [hep-th/9410058] …”.
Note that Matti Pitkanen was in 1994 allowed to post papers on the e-print archives now known as arXiv(obviously including the paper
referenced immediately above), but that since that time Matti Pitkanen has been blacklisted by arXiv and is now barred from posting his work there. His web page account of being blacklisted is at http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/blacklist.html

It seems to me that it is likely that the omission of praise of arXiv’s Paul Ginsparg and the inclusion of a reference to the work of now-blacklisted physicist Matti Pitkanen are deliberate editorial decisions.
Also,
since the same phrase “… physicists … can publish preprints (or ‘e-prints’) of their work before (or even instead of!) submitting it to journals. …” appears in both editions, it seems to me that Roger Penrose favors the option of posting on arXiv without the delay (and sometimes page-charge expense) of journal publication with its refereeing system.
Therefore,
a question presented by these facts seems to me to be:

What events between UK publication on July 29, 2004 and USA publication on February 22, 2005 might have influenced Roger Penrose to make the above-described changes in the USA edition ?

There are two possibly relevant events in that time frame of which I am aware:
1 – The appearance around November 2004 of the ArchiveFreedom web site at http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/blacklist.html which web site documents some cases of arXiv blacklisting etc;
2 – According to a CERN web page at http://documents.cern.ch/EDS/current/access/action.php?doctypes=NCP “… CERN’s Scientific Information Policy Board decided, at its meeting on the 8th October 2004, to close the EXT-series. …”. Note that the CERN EXT-series had been used as a public repository for their work by some people (including me) who had been blacklisted by arXiv .

Maybe either or both of those two events influenced Roger Penrose in making the above-described changes in the USA edition.
If anyone has any other ideas as to why those changes were made, I would welcome being informed about them.

Tony Smith http://valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/

-drl

Now correct me if I am wrong, or if I am not even right?..but Penrose clearly leaves the doors and windows open for ‘a breath of fresh air’, a humble way to entice the reader, whatever her/his previous thoughts were, you cannot help but wonder and reason?

I think it is a shame that Wilzeck seems to be riding the ”BIG-NOBEL-WAVE”, as his current joint undertaking in gravitational anomilies clearly shows?..would he have stepped into this arena previous to his ‘nobel-prize’?..I think not, quantum-waves have more energy, and can travel further

Lubos would never read such a book, but if the Epilogue is anything to go by, then he would definatly not understand the experience of…

I dont know what Wilczek thinks or what he has said about extra dimensions. But here is something that could help round out the picture. Wilczek is evidently interested in quantum gravity and has just posted this paper with Sean Robinson
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0502074
A Relationship Between Hawking Radiation and Gravitational Anomalies

—exerpt from Wilczek/Robinson introduction—
Hawking radiation from black holes is one of the most striking effects that is known, or at least widely agreed, to arise from the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity…
…The literature contains several derivations of Hawking radiation, each with strengths and weaknesses. …

…Derivations based on string theory have a logically consistent foundation, but they only apply to special solutions in unrealistic world models, and they do not explain the simplicity and generality of the results inferred from the other methods[4, 5]…
—endquote—

to draw the obvious conclusion, Wilczek seems willing to entertain reservations about current attempts to join quantum mechanics and general relativity and to go out on his own looking for new ones, as in the case of this paper.
Hope this helps, even though not directly responding to the question.