Now we could be closing in on an explanation of where gravity comes from: it might be an emergent property of the way objects are organised, much as fluidity arises as a property of water…. This idea might seem exotic now, but to kids of the future it might be as familiar as apples.
In a new preprint, Lee Smolin uses Verlinde’s work in a very different way, to show that Newton’s law of gravity must emerge from the microscopic quantum gravity approach Smolin favors, that of loop quantum gravity.
Daring to speculate in the absence of well-confirmed theory, Carroll jumps from clue to clue, from black hole physics to string theory to the holographic principle, until he arrives at his destination: an eternal “mother space-time” from which a multiverse of baby universes are continually bubbling up and pinching off. The mother space-time is a high entropy vacuum that gives birth to universes like our own, some of which we can expect to begin with low entropy. Problem solved, says Carroll, because that is natural.
Carroll seems slightly embarrassed by the many leaps of faith he asks of his reader in proposing this solution, and the prose of Part IV sometimes reads like the pitch of an honest used-car salesman: “This car is a dream! True, the tyres are bald, brakes unsound and transmission sticky, but you’ll love it!”
Carroll and other peddlers of multiverses make us an offer: we will explain the unexplained if you add vast unconfirmable matters of fact into your ontology. In this case that includes a host of disconnected baby universes, an eternal mother universe entirely unlike ours, and half a dozen unknown mechanisms to get all this working. Assuming this explains the low entropy past – and with so much unknown it is hard to be sure another conspiracy isn’t lurking within – is this a good deal?
In most cases I don’t think so. Why is Manchester United perennially a good soccer team? Surely most solutions of the laws of physics don’t have them winning so much. How unnatural (and unfair) those initial conditions are! Nonetheless, a frothy sea of baby universes tempts no one. We shrug and say, that’s just the way it is. Sometimes it is best not to scratch explanatory itches.
It’s not clear if there are any implications for mathematics publishing, with this perhaps just a transfer of control of the mathematics literature from one group of private equity firms to another.
According to the promotional material, the author
describes efforts to link string theory to experimental physics and uses analogies that nonscientists can understand. How does Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu relate to quantum mechanics? What would it be like to fall into a black hole? Why is dancing a waltz similar to contemplating a string duality?
and
After reading this book, you’ll be able to draw your own conclusions about string theory.
The introduction is available here, and ends with this description of recent debates over string theory:
I don’t aim to settle any debates about string theory in this book, but I’ll go so far as to say that I think a lot of the disagreement is about points of view. When a noteworthy result comes out of string theory, a proponent of the theory might say, “That was fantastic! But it would be so much better if only we could do thus-and-such.” At the same time, a critic might say, “That was pathetic! if only they had done thus-and-such, i might be impressed.” in the end, the proponents and the critics (at least, the more serious and informed members of each camp) are not that far apart on matters of substance. everyone agrees that there are some deep mysteries in fundamental physics. nearly everyone agrees that string theorists have mounted serious attempts to solve them. And surely it can be agreed that much of string theory’s promise has yet to be delivered upon.
Update: The Onion carries the news that World Physicists Complete Study of Physics. The quote from a physicist is:
Yeah, that about does it for physics. All done. Math can pretty much take it from here.
Update: Robert Helling gives his take on the Verlinde paper here. It reminds him of a certain proof that reaches an unreasonable conclusion using the rules “time=money” and “money is the root of evil”. I noticed this via an arXiv trackback. Funny, for some reason there are no trackbacks to my postings on this topic
