» The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next

The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: very informative
Comment: I like how the author is willing to point out the problems within the scientific movement in general, including his own particular field. I don't feel he unfairly bashes string theory, as some other reviewers have claimed, as he is willing to bash loop gravity as well. Reviewers claiming he is just bashing the group (string theory) that gets the most funding because he is not in the "in crowd" is pretty stupid, given that most reviewers here who criticize Smolin of this are similary not in the "in crowd" among the reviewers here. Those reviewers claim that as a result of the way Smolin "bashes" string theory, he loses credence. It seems that for similar reasons, one could argue Smolin's negative reviewers lose credence.

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Summary: A Book Which May Be Considered Historic in the Future?
Comment: In this book, physicist Lee Smolin discusses the current state of knowledge in physics, reviewing how discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries have largely ground to a halt. Now, a large portion of the field has become absorbed with "string theory," which purports to explain and unify the areas of Newtonian mechanics, relativity, and quantum physics. However, as the author points out, it is not even a "theory" in that it doesn't provide any testable hypotheses for experiment. Instead, string theory is in danger of becoming a modern-day cargo cult, wherein someday we will get all our answers and all we need, in the future, so we have to "trust" it.

The author reviews the discoveries of physics and five unanswered questions that remain. He then reviews the history and development of string theory, and how it is deficient. He describes several other areas of study in physics which have potential to provide breakthroughs in knowledge, if enough study were devoted. The concluding chapters then review the sociology of science and academia, and how string theorists are in danger of manifesting tendencies of "groupthink" and peer pressure that stifle work in any area other than string theory.

Whether string theory proves to be valid or not, this book may be considered historic in that it can help to focus the issues for both sides, and helpfully point out neglected approaches that may provide breakthroughs akin to those of Einstein, Newton, and the other "greats" of physics.

I found the author's discussion of academia to be interesting, as he describes why many undergraduate physics majors lose interest and drop out of the field. I too, was once an undergrate physics major who dropped out for another field of study. I had read extensively about Einstein, relativity, quantum physics, etc. but was unable to master deriving equations for the first-year Newtonian force diagrams. So for me this was an interesting section, to see that I was not alone in my experience, and that many other potential "seers" with new insights in physics were mediocre at math (like Einstein). Maybe I wasn't such a failure after all... :-)

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant account of the present state of physics
Comment: Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin notes, "One question that has bedeviled the [quantum] theory from the beginning is the question of the relationship between reality and the formalism", that is, between the real material world and our ideas about it. Smolin backs materialism against idealism writing, "It cannot be that reality depends on our existence."

He attacks the idea that it is 'as though the universe had been designed to accommodate us'. The universe has evolved in a way that has produced the conditions that make our lives possible. This does not mean that it was designed, still less that it was designed for us.

Smolin tells the story of how the American physicist Freeman Dyson in 1947 read Einstein's efforts to construct a unified-field theory and decided that they were junk. Unfortunately he didn't have the nerve to tell Einstein this - but he should have done, because it might have helped Einstein to do better.

Currently, string theory is the leading paradigm in physics. But its research programme has found no grounding in experimental results or mathematical formulation. As one of its pioneers, Daniel Friedan, later wrote, "String theory cannot give any definite explanations of existing knowledge of the real world and cannot make any definite predictions. The reliability of string theory cannot be evaluated, much less established. String theory has no credibility as a candidate theory of physics." Smolin writes, "the existence of a population of other universes is a hypothesis that cannot be confirmed by direct observation; hence, it cannot be used in an explanatory fashion."

Fortunately, there are approaches other than string theory, new theoretical and experimental developments, like doubly special relativity, which claims that in the early universe the speed of light was faster.

Smolin argues that there was continual progress in physics between 1780 and 1980, but none since. University physics departments have become dominated by conventional research programmes, threatening both academic freedom and progress. Original minds are dismissed as 'too intellectually independent'.

He argues that physics needs a revolution questioning the basic assumptions of relativity, quantum theory and the foundations of space and time. He ends by urging young people never to let others do their thinking for them.

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Summary: The Trouble with Metaphysics
Comment: Lee Smolin is quite a writer. He is able to explain some of the more complicated ideas in the physical universe with surprising ease. And his ability to entertain and engage the reader -- even while juggling some very mysterious and abstract entities -- makes you want to read more, even if you are having difficulty grasping the theory.

After reading the book, I believe that Lee Smolin has correctly identified "The Trouble with Physics." And the trouble with physics appears to be its overspecialization in pure mathematics, which has managed to make theoretical physics as susceptible to sophistry and illusion as was once the case with metaphysics.

It was not always this way. Einstein distrusted pure mathematics to some extent. He even said: "In so far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality they are not certain and insofar as they are certain they do not refer to reality." By this he meant that "Experience remains, of course, the sole criterion of the physical utility of a mathematical construction. But the creative principle lies in mathematics."

Einstein explains (in his writings) that he tended to see "entities" during his initial phase of creative activity. And it was only after long and painstaking effort that he was able to formalize his thinking into a rational mathematical structure. He may have read something -- Einstein read a lot of philosophy -- or seen something in the field of experimental physics that caused him to question the fundamental premises upon which some aspect of scientific certainty was based. For instance, Newton's assertion that "space was absolute" was one premise that he began to question, and from there he was able to completely modify his concept of space and time.

But Einstein was always careful. For even though he believed that pure thought could, in and of itself, apprehend a credible model of the universe "as the ancients dreamed," and that mathematics was the most reliable tool that the mind could utilize in order to accomplish this feat, without experimental evidence it was all just "empty talk."

Speaking of empty talk, Lee Smolin also recommends a return to philosophical discourse as a way to rectify "The Trouble with Physics." Einstein has something interesting to say about this as well. With respect to epistemology he said: "The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent upon each other. Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is - insofar as it is thinking at all - primitive and muddled."

So the key to success appears to be triangulation between the epistemological, the mathematical, and the experimental, as truth and reality are so elusive that no one technique on its own will suffice.

Lee Smolin has done a great thing for science by writing this book. He may have succeeded in reminding us that in science, each generation must start anew and regard all that has come before them as signposts along the way, and not as a complete picture of physical reality.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Food for thought
Comment: I don't read very much since I read slow but I was glad I finished through this book. There is a very good background of the state of physics in the first 3/4ths of the book. The ending could be skipped if you aren't all that interested in the authors prescriptive suggestions for addressing the state of academia and research funding.

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