rj40 wrote:My background is geology. Ended up making maps and have now clawed my way to middle management. Subcontracted to oil companies and even the Govt. in the past. Still having fun.
I could never make sense of geology until I had a lot of math; my childhood encounters with it were therefore less than captivating. I liked electronics and telescopes a lot more. My parents got me all of them so I had the chance to decide what I liked, and then encouraged me to explore whatever I found captivating.
By the time I was interested in geology it was mostly because of the solid matter physics of crystals, and especially their applications in optics. So I have general knowledge, and specific knowledge of crystalline structures, as well as general physics and plate tectonics and volcanoes and hot spots and so forth. I expect you have all kinds of specialized knowledge I don't.
I wonder if I've used any of your products? What was that thing called, the Tiger Map Server? I used to use that before Google Earth for astronomical positioning, and before they de-obfuscated the last digits of GPS.
rj40 wrote:Yes, saw some stuff on the amplituhedron. Sounds like it might be significant. But I don't understand how. I read that it might be useful in making equations that simplify all sorts of physics calculations. I will review the link.
The basic two ideas you need to know in order to understand it are the CKM and PMNS matrices. These mathematical artifacts are the ones that define how all the higher-energy matter particles decay into lower-, and eventually lowest-energy particles, like up and down quarks in the CKM matrix, and electrons and electron-neutrinos in the PMNS matrix.
You have probably heard of mixing angles if you've read much about quantum physics. These mixing angles determine how likely, in an interaction, a particle is to retain its original character vs. how likely it is to change to a lower-energy state. Another way of looking at it is that the particle is a "quantum chimaera," a "mixture" of this and that like a lion-goat or a mouse-dog. If you look at it now it's a dog; if you look then it's a parakeet. How likely it is to be each is determined by its Shroëdinger equation, which contains a random element. This is explicitly visible in neutrinos which oscillate between their three flavors and may be detected as a different flavor at various points along their flight path.
Look up CKM matrix and PMNS matrix on Wikipedia and come ask me questions. Basically, to put it in perspective, these crystals allow calculations of the mixing angles in these matrices in much simpler terms than are required using the two matrices separately, and physicists are fascinated because they see the missing chunk in the upper right as the likely domain of the mixing angles of the force particles. This introduces the mixing angles between matter (fermions) and energy (bosons). And that is supersymmetry. So you see that this is the entree of string theory to the Standard Model. Very significant. If string physics is correct, then we will find supersymmetry in the Standard Model. It's mathematically inevitable. Unfortunately proving reality is supersymmetric is not a sufficient condition to prove string physics. Still, we haven't seen it up to now; it's a prediction, and a successful one, and many physicists will see that as an increase in the credibility of string physics.
rj40 wrote:Have not heard of the elemental fermion findings. I don't know what it could mean.
Basically this shows that what remains is refinements of the Standard Model, not overturnings of it. At a sigma greater than five it's pretty much certain at this point. If there are particles creating dark mass, they do not have half-integer spins.
Do you understand the two great moieties, half-integer and integer spins, fermions and bosons? This strongly indicates that there are no more than four generations of bosons; i.e. no more than four forces. However, that's only speculative at this point. OTOH, the existence of only three generations of matter particles implies no more than four generations of force particles.
rj40 wrote:Ah, Bell's theore. I am not qualified to have an opinion. But if they are reproducible, I would think that is significant. Are the experimental results pretty clear, or sort of on the edge?
Sixteen sigma last I heard. This is about as certain as gravity.
There're pretty good explanation of Bell's Theorem and the Bell Test experiments around, including Wikipedia, and Greene's
The Fabric of the Cosmos. If you read
The Dancing Wu Li Masters you should forget almost all of it, and read other sources, and then come back to it. It's not even wrong in a number of areas. It's visionary, but it's not very accurate.
rj40 wrote:My favorite theory of dark matter - I don't have a clue. But a fun one I have read about is that it is an effect of our universe interacting with another universe. That would neat. And potentially informative.
Actually, it's more a matter of another dimension, but in fact defining that dimension defines a multiverse/metaverse/überverse "right next to" ours. Sorta. You're not wrong, just insufficiently descriptive.
Now, me, I'm already pretty much convinced we've detected WIMPs and I think shortly we will have results confirming it from SuperKamiokaNDE.
We need a directorate of science, and we need it to be voted on only by scientists. You don't get to vote on reality. Get over it. Elected officials that deny the findings of the Science Directorate are subject to immediate impeachment for incompetence.