Scott Adams Blog: Science Nerds Only 07/14/2010

Jul 14, 2010 General Nonsense | Notify

Today's blog is for science nerds only. I provide you with three media data points and turn you loose to connect or reject them.

First, the New York Times is reporting that a respected string theorist is saying gravity is an illusion emerging from the mechanics of atoms. Another respected physicist says gravity is an illusion caused by the differences in entropy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13gravity.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&ref=homepage&src=me

In other recent news, physicists working with the Large Hadron Collider are rumored to have found evidence of the so-called God Particle (Higgs boson) that would theoretically explain why other particles have mass.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/7885997/Large-Hadron-Collider-rival-Tevatron-has-found-Higgs-boson-say-rumours.html

Thirdly, I point you to page 55 of my book God's Debris, written ten years ago. It's the chapter titled Physics of God Dust. (It only makes sense if you read the entire book, but most of you have, so this is just to jog your memory of that chapter.) The free pdf download is here: http://nowscape.com/godsdebris.pdf

Years ago I read a fascinating book (I can't recall the title) that described how throughout history the great discoveries of science were preceded by art. In other words, if you looked at the paintings and fiction that were becoming popular just before the scientific breakthroughs of the times, you would see that the styles of thinking necessary for specific scientific breakthroughs had recently begun to permeate society at large. Or to put it in more poetic terms, humanity gains knowledge about its own reality when it is collectively ready for it. That readiness is reflected in art.

Skeptics will rightly point out that you can find any pattern in history if you try. True enough. But it's still such an interesting notion that it's worth considering, even if only for fun.

My discussion of physics in God's Debris isn't an exact match to what the physicists are discussing in the links I provided. But if someday the idea is validated that gravity is an illusion caused by probability and entropy, it will seem as though art, including but not limited to God's Debris, predicted humanity was ready for that knowledge.

Update: Thanks to reader Alanc for correctly identifying the book about art preceding science. The more relevant sequel is Art and Physics by Leonard Shlain.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Physics-Parallel-Visions-Space/dp/0688123058

Votes: +7

Comments

steve69lol

Jul 18, 2010

In God's Debris, the theory was, "Gravity is reducible to probability." In that terrible NY Times article, it's, "Gravity is reducible to entropy." Hey, entropy is like probability! I don't think it's close enough. Especially since ideas like "Let's reduce gravity to a more basic phenomenon," and "everything is reducible to some general law of entropy," have been seriously pursued at least since quantum physics. There's no prediction here.

godotney

Jul 16, 2010

not about today's post, but i hope scott has a phone in his elevator.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100716/ap_on_re_us/us_elevator_couple_dead;_ylt=AgI0HhdkXaB0Zob9iXvKDrGs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJrcXUwa2s0BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNzE2L3VzX2VsZXZhdG9yX2NvdXBsZV9kZWFkBHBvcwM3BHNlYwN5bl9tb3N0X3BvcHVsYXIEc2xrA2VsZGVybHljb3VwbA--

gyrofx

Jul 16, 2010

I'm no where near intelligent enough to understand a 10th of what this is all about. What I can say is that the professor from Amsterdam thinks that reality is an illusion (first link). I spent a weekend in Amsterdam, and I can tell you that I also thought that gravity was an illusion at times.

That's not science thats horticulture!

tgbutz

Jul 16, 2010

Hi Scott,

Is the book title "Proust Was a Neuroscientist" by Jonah Lehrer?

Johnestauffer

Jul 15, 2010

Simple solution
There is gravity because the earth sucks

scothaiullukapattha

Jul 15, 2010

Scott

Thanks for replying. I think The Dilbert Future's appendix on Affirmations Technique is there because you thought it was useful in some way? Perhaps the reason affirmations works is that it helps in self-hypnosis of some sort. I have an issue with the angle where something good is supposed to happen magically through some cosmic forces or something.

opustheblue

Jul 15, 2010

My way of thinking is that gravity is a model, I understand the properties of it and have certain expectations of it and it's met my expectations. The what of what makes the physical world around behave the way it does, is based in a number of theories, still up for debate. It's fun to absorb of all the different concepts and debates on why the 'gravity model' works the way it does. I could say the same thing about the air model on frisbee when I throw it, curse the wind when it affects my air model.

Dalebert7

Jul 15, 2010

I finally got around to reading Gods Debris. Most of it was hardly new to me (like the concept that there is no way to rationalize free will, or that all perceptions are only imperfect models of reality, etc.). The notion of God Dust was interesting, though. I'll have to think of some way to test that theory! ;)

gbeeton

-2

Jul 15, 2010

If the theory of art preceding reality is true then WHERE THE FRACK IS MY FLYING CAR?!?

my2k

Jul 15, 2010

As a larvi I had a dream I was a man in a world with something called gravity that held me fast to the ground, when I awoke I was a butterfly with nothing to hold me from the sky. Now I will never know if I'm a man dreaming I am a butterfly or a butterfly who dreamed I was a man. Envy my dual reality.

sisu

Jul 15, 2010

This is a very good discussion of the entropic explanation of gravity here:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/07/whats_the_most_fundamental_thi.php

stimpathy

Jul 15, 2010

Another great book on this same topic is "Faust was a Neuroscientist"

quantum_flux

Jul 14, 2010

The Universe is a perpetual motion machine in the same way that a casino without betting limits is a bad loans banking machine. For you see, the universe can eternally double or nothing against entropy ;)

anrwlias

Jul 14, 2010

quantum_flux: "I also consider the Universe to be a perpetual motion machine too, so what do I know!?"

I think that you may be a bit confused by what constitutes a perpetual motion machine. The hallmark is a perpetual motion machine is that you can continuously extract work from it without it ever running down.

This is why atoms don't qualify even through a given electron will orbit a given nucleus for, essentially, forever (depending on whether or not protons are stable, but let's not get into that). In spite of the electron being in constant motion, you can't get any work out of it unless it's falling from a higher energy state to a lower one (and you can only go so far down before you have to pump more energy into it).

The universe is much like that. To get work out of the universe you need a differential where you convert potential energy into real energy. The classic way to do this is with a heat engine where you can extract work by exploiting the thermal difference between something that is warm and something that is cool, at the cost of producing waste heat.

The laws of thermodynamics means that, over time, the number of differentials you can exploit diminishes as the system trends towards thermodynamic equilibrium, where everything is at the same temperature and there is no more free energy to exploit.

All evidence says that this is exactly what's happening to the universe. As time passes, the universe approaches a state of equilibrium where everything has the same temperature (which is very, very cool), which is why cosmologists talk about the heat death of the universe.

Eventually, you reach a point where you simply can not extract any more work and the universe becomes perpetually cold and dark. The good news is that's a long, long, *long* way off in the future, however. The universe is, in fact, still very young and quite hot.

anrwlias

Jul 14, 2010

Shamefully, I haven't read God's Debris, quantum_flux, but if that excerpt is representative, I don't think that describing gravity in such probabilistic terms gets you very far. The problem is that the "goddust" needs some way to "know" that it's near a large mass, which means that we're right back to needing some kind of particle to pass the information along, which means that you're talking about something along the lines of the Higgs boson.

anrwlias

Jul 14, 2010

webgrunt, I'm so not getting into the whole "is centrifugal force a real force" debate, but you've got the right idea.

To be more exact, something is emergent when you have some interaction at a lower level that produced a phenomenon at a higher level. Let's take the slipperiness of ice as an example. An individual molecule of H20 is not slippery, but if you put a bunch of water molecules together in a solid lattice, the slipperiness emerges as an epiphenomenon.

If I'm reading the paper correctly, the proposition is that gravity isn't a force in the traditional sense, which means that we shouldn't expect to find a force carrying particle, nor can we expect to unify it with the other forces (electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces). Instead, gravity is an epiphenomenon caused by the universe's tendency to maximize entropy. In other words, gravity is a side effect of thermodynamics.

This is, to say the least, a pretty bold claim. As I mentioned down below, the theory has aesthetic appeal, but not many people find this idea very convincing. I'm sorry to say that I'm in that camp. The mechanism whereby entropy gives rise to gravity is given a very vague description, and it may well be that, when you boil the idea down, he's saying something that's only trivially true. In other words, he might actually be saying that gravity helps to maximize entropy, which isn't a particularly bold claim, nor one that proves that gravity isn't a fundamental force.

The thing about cutting edge theoretical physics is that it's filled with a lot of cool and wacky ideas. In many ways, it's like a giant brainstorming session where people throw out ideas, left and right, in the hope that something will stick. It's not until you go through the peer review process and vigorous rounds of public debate that you can even begin to separate the wheat from the chaff. As interesting as this idea is (and it is interesting), it's still pretty far out there. Check back in ten years and we'll see if its gained any momentum.

quantum_flux

Jul 14, 2010

God's Debris P. 58

â€œReality has a pulse, a rhythm, for lack of better words.
Godâ€™s dust disappears on one beat and reappears on the
next in a new position based on probability. If a bit of Goddust
disappears near a large mass, say a planet, then probability
will cause it to pop back into existence nearer to the
planet on the next beat. Probability is highest when you are
near massive objects. Or to put it another way, mass is the
physical expression of probability.â€

quantum_flux

Jul 14, 2010

I'm open to the idea of reducing gravitation down to entropy and probability, and to be fair, Scott did say that in his God's Debris book too. I also consider the Universe to be a perpetual motion machine too, so what do I know!? (alot ;)

quantum_flux

Jul 14, 2010

Perhaps gravity is generated by quantum light cones.

TommyTM

Jul 14, 2010

I love the quote at the bottom of the follow-on article on the Telegraph site (the 'rumours denied' story) from one of the scientists describing the friendly rivalry between the Tevatron and the LHC:

"Leon Lederman, a Nobel laureate in physics who has worked at both sites, said last year that if the LHC beats the Tevatron to the discovery, he will have mixed feelings. He said: "It would be a little like your mother-in-law driving off a cliff in your BMW." "

Sounds like a Scott Adams-esque quote!

Showing 1-20 of total 39 comments

Old Dilbert Blog

Share on Digg

Share on Reddit

Woh! What is this thing?!

Email link to a friend

Comments