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Particle physicists: scientific criticism? Out of the question!
Human society is built on the production of many of things needed by people. The vast majority of the work is characterized by a collaboration of many people. The progress of science, followed by the astonishing progress of technology, is based on innovation whose nature and quality are not clear in the first place. Therefore, they must stand up to criticism.
The production of goods is under criticism through the market test.
Success in this test requires that the product works properly.
Therefore, factories invest efforts for quality assurance of their
products because they see these efforts as a necessary condition for success.
The scientific work in general and the physical research in particular
are essentially a collective work. Here it is reasonable to assume that
people check their own work as well as the work of their colleagues. Let
us start by looking at the experimental side of physics. To do this we
first examine a hypothetical story based on a famous case occurred a few
years ago in the construction of the LHC particle accelerator at CERN.
This device has been constructed by 10,000 scientists and engineers, and
obviously they were organized in groups and subgroups, each of which was
responsible for a specific task. The hypothetical story begins as follows.
Assume that a team member told his chief that he fears that the
electrical connection of a certain magnet is not perfect and he offers
to check it again . Here the story splits into two options:
-
The Team Leader will look with contempt at the worker and mutter at him: Who
are you to dare to doubt the quality of the work of our experienced and
responsible
employees who do their work faithfully? Get out!
-
The Team Leader will ask the worker why he doubts the quality of the electrical
connection, listen to the explanation and say: We are dealing with a very
important task and a very expensive machine, so we should check
everything carefully. Therefore, even if you are wrong, we should see
the magnet and check again its electrical connections.
It is clear that any reasonable team leader will choose the second option (although it can be assumed that he would not talk so much and go immediately to check the electrical connection). If this story was real then the LHC faulty magnet would have been detected in time, the problem would have been fixed and the operation of the LHC machine would get off on the right foot. Probably this hypothetical story did not happen at all. As a matter of fact, the defective electrical connection was not detected in time, the liquid helium system heated up and an explosion occurred shortly after the LHC operation had begun. The repair of the damage required additional work that lasted 14 months.
This hypothetical story that belongs to experimental physics demonstrates what is understood to everybody. The examination of the work's quality is a task of paramount importance and the more you test, the better.
The Behavior of Niels Bohr
The history of theoretical physics in recent centuries shows that also in this area there was the norm of listening to criticism that enabled its amazing progress. Thus, physics has acquired its well known status of an exact science and is successfully used as a solid basis for today's technological infrastructure. The following noteworthy episode reflects a good behavior.
In the second decade of the twentieth century the acceptable atomic
structure was the Bohr model that describes the atomic nucleus and its
electrons in a form which is similar to the solar system plus a quantize
angular momentum. This model was found to be
quite successful in describing states
of the hydrogen atom which has a single electron. Following this success
people tried to take one step forward and use this model for calculating
states of the helium atom. The helium atom has two electrons, so this
task is a mathematical problem which is much more difficult to solve.
For this reason people were not surprised that the work did not succeed
despite multiple efforts invested by many people.
In 1922 Niels Bohr received the Nobel prize in physics
"for his services in the
investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating
from them".
It took a little more than ten years since Bohr presented his atomic
model and other people came up with another theory which is called
quantum mechanics. In so doing they criticized, at least indirectly,
the Bohr atomic model and offered to go in a different direction. The
new theory was warmly accepted by most physicists of the time.
At this point Niels Bohr was at a crossroads of his scientific life. He
could use his reputation as a Nobel Prize Laureate and
go out furiously against those who ruined his baby. Bohr has not
taken this course. On the contrary, he abandoned the ideas of his previous
model, rolled up his sleeves and joined the efforts to develop the new
quantum theory. As is well known, this decision has enabled him to make
important contributions to the new theory. In so doing he has also
improved his place in the history of science.
Innovation
Before we proceed further, let us have a look at the essence of scientific innovation. Scientific innovation is in a sense similar to technological innovation. In both cases, people try to come up with something not yet known to anybody. To this end it is important to allow people freedom of creativity and initiative. It is also clear that administrators should not be allowed to decide which scientific idea should be investigated by scientists. Scientists accomplish this objective by the practice of academic freedom. Academic freedom is a very important element which is vital for the progress of science, and therefore it should be maintained at all costs.
New ideas of theoretical physics gradually acquire their status. They are
supposed to meet two criteria: They must be approved by experiments and
should also have a contradiction free mathematical structure. Every
physicist or a group of physicists who think on a new idea analyze it
themselves according to these criteria. In due course the new idea
matures and is published. At this point the idea is further examined by
other people. Theoretical physicists should examine the mathematical
side of the new idea and see that it has a solid mathematical structure.
Experimental physicists should design and perform new experiments that
can support or refute the idea in question. Good physical concepts stand
successfully in both these tests and get their rightful place in physics.
Henceforth, the review of a new scientific idea held by members of the
community after the idea has been published is called the
public criticism.
The public criticism is of enormous importance and objection to it can
rely on the extremely unreasonable assumption that says that the people who
have proposed the new idea have superhuman abilities that guarantee
their infallibility.
Unfortunately, it turns out that in the particle physics community
the present state of public criticism is very far from being
satisfactory. Here are two typical examples that briefly indicate
this state of affairs.
String theory - the only game in town
In recent decades many theoretical physicists have dedicate their research efforts to string theory. (See
here
.) This subject has acquired a dominant position in the research agenda of theoretical physicists. (For example, putting in Google the words
"String theory" the only game in town
yields 8,000 web pages.) Taking into account the above mentioned principle
of academic freedom, one concludes that this is a legitimate research
direction.
Several decades after physicists have begun to study intensively the
string theory, two books were published in 2006, each of which claims
that despite all these prolonged efforts, string theory has not yielded
an experimental option that can test the physical acceptability of this
idea, neither by the currently available equipment nor by that which is
supposed to be at hand in the foreseeable future. (See
here
, published on April 25, 2006 and
here
, published in the same year. The Wikipedia item mentioned at the
beginning of this section discloses names of other physicists who
criticize string theory.) Of course this argument casts a shadow of
doubt on the physical admissibility of string theory.
In contrast to the enormous importance of public criticism for the progress of physics, this opinion was not accepted favorably by Edward Witten, who is a leading figure in the study of string theory. In a Letter to Nature magazine Witten declares that he intends to ignore the criticism because responding to it will add fuel to controversy. He even went so far as to implicitly mention physicists who criticize string theory together with ideological arsonists who burn research laboratories in the name of protecting the environment. No less! (See Nature 444, 16 November 2006, p. 265.) Of course, Witten has acquired a status which allows him an academic freedom and therefore he has the right to ignore criticism. However, the question is why proponents of string theory do not introduce an appropriate scientific response to the claims of the authors of the books and the other people who criticize this idea? Moreover, why string theory still occupies a dominant place in the theoretical efforts of physics?
The Strange Case of the Strange-Quark-Matter
About 30 years ago Edward Witten has introduced an idea which relies on the theory called quantum chromodynamics (QCD). (QCD is a sector of the standard model of particle physics.) According to Witten's idea, nuggets of electrically neutral material which is similar to the atomic nucleus should exist in Nature. This material is called Strange Quark Matter (SQM) . (See E. Witten , Phys . Rev. D 30, 272 (1984).)
This idea has been taken very seriously and various laboratories around
the world tried to find SQM. After decades in which all the efforts have
ended in vain, physicists tried to find SQM in rocks brought from the
moon. It turned out that this attempt has failed like all its predecessors.
(See Phys. Rev. Lett., 103. 092302 (2009).) Attempts aiming to detect
SQM still continue and international conferences dedicated to this issues
are regularly organized.
It is interesting to compare the systematic
failure of all attempts to detect SQM
with a correct prediction of a particle called Ω-
which was made in the early 1960s. This particle was found after few years, using the relatively underdeveloped technology of that time. The prediction of the
Ω- took place before the birth of quantum chromodynamics and is independent of it. The Ω-
discovery was an important step in the course that led to the establishment of quarks as physical objects.
In spite of the systematic failure of all efforts to find SQM, not a
single person of the establishment has published the idea that the
scientific validity of quantum chromodynamics should be reevaluated.
It means that although it is clear to everybody that the theory is
inconsistent with experiment, not a significant voice in the community
of particle physicists dare to demand that the validity of the underlying
theory has to be reviewed. On the contrary! Establishment particle
physicists do not allow solid facts to confuse them and declare publicly that
the standard model fits all reliable experimental results and that it is
the best theory ever constructed by mankind. More important - there is no
currently leading personality of the physical establishment who denies
publicly these bombastic and groundless statements.
Conclusions
Note that the failure to find SQM is just one example out of many other quantum
chromodynamics failures. It turns out that practically the entire physical
establishment categorically ignores all these failures and their meaning
is not properly discussed in the physical establishment journals.
Further evidence of well founded
experimental results that contradicts
quantum chromodynamics are described in publications mentioned below.
As a matter of fact, nobody has denied these claims but
community members continue to argue openly that the standard model in
general and quantum chromodynamics in particular are the most successful
theories which have
been constructed by mankind...
It is clear that this unfortunate situation has evolved over a long
time because the particle physics
establishment does not allow a proper public
criticism. In this respect it is interesting to mention the recently
published book named: Science or
Fiction? The Phony side of Particle Physics
by Ofer Comay, Dekel Publishing House. This book contains a compilation
of many experimental failures of QCD and explains their interrelations.
It is written at the level of popular science books, but the arguments
presented are well documented and the reader can acquire the knowledge
that will enable him to form a good understanding of the basic structure
of matter and the laws of the relevant force that operates in this
important area. The book can also be helpful to professional physicists
who will become acquainted with a variety of scientific material that
was published in official scientific journals, but is not included in
contemporary textbooks. In addition, physicists can broaden and deepen
their knowledge and make use of the large number of references
mentioned in the book.
This unbelievable predicament of the present
particle physics establishment has evolved
during many decades of a systematic denial of public criticism and people
who tried to break this "law"
have been banished from the community. After reading
the above mentioned book people will acquire the understanding of how far
have contemporary particle physicists departed from reality.
Furthermore, the particle physics prevailing
practice of criticism denial is certainly a fertile ground for
error pile-up. Indeed, physicists
can see short proofs of quite a few erroneous elements of the
Standard Model. (See
here
.) Each of these proofs negates the boastful declarations that
praise the Standard Model as the best theory ever made by mankind.
Supporters of the Standard Model are kindly invited to face the challenge and
write a text aiming to refute at least one of these proofs.
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