Jim Baggott

Here's how much I loved this book. Within a week of finishing the copy I'd borrowed from the library (indeed, even before I'd returned said copy), I went out and bought a copy of my own. Because I need this on my shelves. Why? Well, as someone with an M.S. in physics, and whose research appointment as in relativistic heavy ion collions, I'm more frequently called upon than most to explain things like the Higgs boson. But before a month ago, any such request would be met with a deer in the show more headlights stare and a lot of handwaving. My research was more interested in the quark-gluon plasma. So, the strong force. And it has been a very long time since I read The God Particle, okay?

So it's no surprise at all that when I saw this book in the New Books section of the library on my way to the poetry aisle, it stopped me in my tracks. And while it took me a while to get into it, once I did I really geeked out on it, telling friends about cool things I'd learned, asking my professional physics friends questions and doing additional reading on concepts I wanted to understand better. I did work for this book. I'm invested in it. Of course I want to own it now.

Like most books about an emerging concept in science, this one is presented as a history of the idea. Baggott introduces a whole host of key players, many of whom I was previously unaware of. The major players get brief histories and character descriptions as well, and as a result even some of the names I knew I now feel I know much more about. (And now feel I have a better idea which of the books on quantum mechanics on my shelves will be more interesting.)

If all you're looking for is a brief description of what the Higgs boson and Higgs field are thought to be, let me recommend the minutephysics channel on youtube. But if you want a wider survey on how did we get to this moment, and why is it important, I heartily recommend this book. show less

In The Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy, in the very first chapter, the Earth is destroyed (to make way for a hypergalactic bypass). On the one hand this is frightening, as we lose all basis for relating to anything. On the other hand, it frees us to experience and explore new concepts without being prejudiced by our experience.

In Farewell to Reality, Jim Baggott destroys the concept of reality by page seven: “Reality is a metaphysical concept,” he says. This allows him to explore the show more submicroscopic with the same detail and passion as the massive contents of the universe. Unfortunately, we are at such an early state of knowledge, we can’t make reasonable, let alone unified sense of it all. Baggott acknowledges this, but still tries. Hard. He describes the essence of numerous theories, without resorting to Greek-symboled mathematical formulas. He compares and contrasts. He makes it understandable. But problems crop up all along the way.

The essence of the main problem is defined succinctly by Heisenberg very early in the book. The gist of it is we frame everything in terms of what we already know (“…nature, exposed to our method of questioning”), and that makes it impossible to understand the universe. Particles that can also be waves are very hard to digest. We have no idea what gravity is. (The Standard Model, that kludge of patches, holes and exceptions, doesn’t even incorporate it.) Baggott points out there are now at least 61 “fundamental” particles that compose the universe. Imagining them is all but impossible for the earthbound. What we detect and know is only 5% of the true content of the universe. We rejoice when we discover and confirm another fundamental particle, like the Higgs boson, but the jigsaw puzzle still doesn’t even have the edges completed. And that’s the easy part.

By the end of chapter nine, the gloves come off at last. Baggott has had enough. He blasts the dreamy “theories” as mere speculation. They are without substance, evidence, or the slightest suggestion of how to test (let alone prove) their accuracy, foundation or fallacy. He (and some of his peers) calls them damaging to the very notion of science. They are castles in the sky, built on circular logic foundations where string theory depends on the foundation of super symmetry, which depends on the foundation of M-theory, which depends on the foundation of string theory. Meanwhile, none of them has any basis in science at all. But like a good internet “fact”, if millions have read about them, they become part of the canon. In the immortal words of Oliver Norville Hardy, this is another “fine mess.”

Baggott ends up calling it fairy-tale physics, and wonders if we’ll look back on this era with acute embarrassment. The tangents, side trips, philosophical excesses and just plain bad science seem to be the state of the physics art to him. He makes his case well. show less

Outstanding.

For anyone with decent maths (e.g. university entry level, I guess) – basic differential calculus, basic vector calculus (e.g. grad, Laplacian), good algebra (i.e. equation munging) – and some physics, this is by far the best introductory book to quantum theory I've read. It's also a delightful and entertaining read. The chapter on Dirac's derivation of the relativistic wave equation is astonishing – even if you know the QED punchline. I also liked how the prologue put show more classical physics in context and introduced the Hamiltonian.

Baggott dedicates the book: To myself, aged 18, when I took my first class in quantum mechanics. And he's nailed it. I would have giveb my right arm for this book when I began to teach myself quantum theory – albeit armed with a maths degree, which is a enormous help with this topic.

Not a gripe, more a suggestion: Baggott, quite rightly, doesn't derive Maxwell's equations and instead points to Melia's, Electrodynamics. I think Griffiths's, Introduction to Electrodynamics, is more appropriate at this (and my) level. show less

“Now, through the efforts of a number of dedicated theorists, a resolution appeared to be at hand. Remember, this was a theory [LQG] that drew all the lessons about the nature of space and time from general relativity into a structure that closely resembled a quantum field theory. It produced a set of equations that could be solved without the need for messy and tedious renormalization procedures, and whose solutions could be shown to be completely independent of any choice fo coordinate show more system - it was genuinely independent of any kind of spacetime background. What’s more, this was a theory founded directly on accepted , empirically tried-and-trusted structure - there had been no need to second-guess physical reality any further by introducing supersymmetries, or hidden dimensions. But any jubilation that the theorists [Smolin, Rovelli, etc.] might have experienced was shortlived. Because, just a few months before Rovelli and Smolin’s paper was published, some statements delivered to a conference by Edward Witten sparked a second revolution [String Theory].”

In “Quantum Space - Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe” by Jim Baggott

“M-Theory is not a theory. To this day, nobody knows what M-theory looks like, although many theorists have tinkered with structures that they believe it could or should possess.M-theory is really the presumption that there must exist a unique, eleven-dimensional superstring theory.”

In “Quantum Space - Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe” by Jim Baggott

Firstly, there is a limited number of top quantum/relativity scientists in the world. This fact is extremely important, because a big portion of those work on M-theory with the rest working on LQG (I’m exaggerating, but you get the gist). People argue that M-theory is so complex that you need many of the top minds working on it (are they?), BUT that actually limits the brain resources for the rest of the fields. And I do not only mean science, but also ideas that could one day lead to science.
One of that majorities’ main argument is, quantum physics has hit a roadblock last 30 years, only discovered things that was more or less already expected, and only real progress come from astronomy. Well, if old experts keep saying that to young students, they are going to choose something like M-theory, and they don't want to devote their career on something that has no promise of big breakthroughs. But younger generations have often in science history come up with radical new ideas that can make a stale field move forward. Well, that might take a long time now that many of the brightest works on M-theory.

And another thing. Even if M-theory can be applied to our universe(s), it looks to be a long way from science. People often say M-theory is like next centuries science, by accident discovered in the last. Well, it sure looks that way, also in terms of when it will become science. Likely not next 10 years or 50. As far as I understand, it does not even have the string equivalent of fields yet. And, with the 10^500 permutations of possible universe configurations, it’s not even sure it will ever be useful, even if does fit the world we live in.

I am not saying it should be thrown away, it just vacuums too many bright minds away from other fields like LQG.

As my father used to say, one step at a time, i.e., not all the steps at once, is what I vote for. Cannot force LQG on people; people should research what they feel like. Like doing more research into Grand Unified Theory (GUT), instead of trying to skip directly to Theory of everything (TOE), like M-theory. I just think it’s a problem, and a big one.

Many scientist working in quantum theories, often also believe in M-theory, even though it is not the field they work in. That could also be a problem, as they might for example think, "hmm, I would not spend my time on GUT, as M-theory will be the theory on that". Which would also limit competing theories on aspects M will cover.

First place to start; top m-theory experts should stop trying to paint opponents of M-theory as crackpots (I’m one of those crackpots). It's not done directly, but can often be read between the lines. And stop calling it science, until it is. I hope this gets better, so science can move forward faster. I see only one reason to stop progress, that is if the scientists suspect new insight can lead to unwanted weaponization. Like antimatter bombs or something similar that is too powerful for us to handle. Then of course scientists should find ways to prevent progress in that field. But this does not seem to be the case, so please let’s get more research diverted from M-theory into improving our current framework of nature, so we can understand dark matter/energy, and other weird empirical data from the universe.

The entire basis of any 'theory of everything' is the rather presumptuous notion that what we can currently observe IS actually 'everything'. If we have actually only uncovered 1% of what exists, then we'd be in the absurd position (which I think we actually are) of trying to find an 'all-encompassing' theory that left the bulk of reality unexplained.

My suspicion is that the reason why quantum theory and gravity (LQG) have yet to be unified is not for lack of mathematical geniuses but because the lack of unity suggests there is more physical reality that we have not yet arrived at. Only when we find the missing physics will we stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It is true that one has the impression that science at the present cutting edge is rather theory rich and data poor. However, I suspect that this is always the case, because at the frontier of science it is usually easier to theorize than to gather and interpret data. As the frontier moves on, unsuccessful theories fall by the wayside and are forgotten. We thus suffer from a sort of historical tunnel hindsight in which we see the path that science has traversed as an obvious high road, and forget that it was usually far from obvious at the time.

At the end of the day there is no problem with spinning all kinds of theories, because ultimately the facts will decide the issue. Scientists know that. There's no downside. Nobody is about to take string theory or whatever as fact and base their actions on that.

Jim Baggott has written an honest book, while some String Theorists (e.g., Susskind and Greene) have fought many fights in blogsphere and exploited journalists as far as it goes. It is hilarious how they exploit quantum information to support string theory while privately, string theorists consider colleagues working with quantum information as dumb-fucks who tailor with trivial finite dimensional matrices. Esteemed Professors Susskind and Greene, don't steal others horses when your own old cow gets tired! show less