George F. R. Ellis

What do we know about General Relativity now that we did not back then, say, in 1975 when this book first came out? Not much General Relativity wise:

1. Take a space and curve it;

2. Transport a vector round a loop in said space which gives a measure of the space;

3. Realize you can find a frame which looks locally Euclidean;

4. Do a little bit more maths like the one in Hawking’s and Ellis’ book;

5. Work out the Laplacian for the space;

6. Find out that a mass gives the space curvature;

7. Write down Einstein's equation.

Hey presto! The above is confirmed by experiment.

Lucky to have re-read another good oldie physics book. After all these years, it’s refreshing to see this book is still able to defend the honour of dame "spacetime" and her beauty.

Let’s take the first one:

1. Take a space and curve it.

Please bring to me a piece of “Space”, so that I can curve it and make a hat for my rabbit. Until that we are stuck and cannot follow the other steps. Meanwhile please read (at least) the following links carefully and come back to me so that then we can proceed further.

1. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/supersymmetry-fails-test-forcing-physi...

2. http://www.fis.cinvestav.mx/~lmontano/sciam/scientificamerican0514-34.pdf

3.http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/06/28/483805061/has-physics-gotten-something-really-important-really-wrong

4. https://www.wired.com/2011/10/solvay-congress/

Have you read them?

(putting my devil's advocate hat now): Dialectical thought and the latest results from the LHC has now undone the ontological and the philosophical foundation of “spacetime” manifold and mathematical idealism based on GR. The virtual pillars of Einstein’s “Castle in the Air” made of “Continuous fields” (along with Gravitational Waves, Higgs boson etc. ad nauseum of official physics) have been demolished. “Matter in motion” as the primary aspect of the universe and objective reality – the brilliant intuition of Heraclitus is being confirmed as natural science slowly emerges from the alienating “spacetime” fog.

Of course, I wouldn't get my hopes up too high regarding link 3. ("The Singular Universe and The Reality of Time"). I read this again and found nothing to get too excited about.

Smolin's contribution was the most interesting (generally for the way he writes), but again, rather similar ground to what he had already covered in his previous (solo) work ("Time Reborn"). Roberto Mangabeira Unger's (majority) contribution was well written, but rather lacking in substance (and overly repetitive) I thought. Scanning at a selection of critiques, I don't seem to be far removed from the 'more qualified others' on this.

I fear that proving that Time is Real, might be just as difficult as proving it to be emergent, unreal, or quite simply illusory. This was true in 1975 and it’s still true today.

My point is that if SUSY falls on its sword, it will drag down with it all continuous (independent) field-based physics, Higgs field, spacetime field etc. and most of New Physics (as Einstein himself feared); only QED and technologies based on quantum dynamics of New Physics will survive and may in fact now even prosper in new directions. Physics will be back to square one that it was before the spacetime fog set in!

Book Review General Relativity Particle Physics Physics Quantum Physics Riemannian Space SUSY… (mer)

South African Cosmologist George Ellis was awarded the Templeton prize for progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities. On his visit to London to receive the prize, he gave a talk about the interaction of science and religion, at an event organized by Quaker Quest at Friends House. This pamphlet is an edited version of the talk. Physics alone cannot account for intentional factors in everyday life, like why someone shaped these spectacles with their particular curvature. So how do theories of the universe relate to human ethics and values, to faith and hope?… (mer)