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New quantum theory of gravity brings long-sought 'theory of everything' a crucial step closer (phys.org)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Although the theory is promising, the duo point out that they have not yet completed its proof. The theory uses a technical procedure known as renormalization, a mathematical way of dealing with infinities that show up in the calculations.

So far Partanen and Tulkki have shown that this works up to a certain point—for so-called 'first order' terms—but they need to make sure the infinities can be eliminated throughout the entire calculation.

"If renormalization doesn't work for higher order terms, you'll get infinite results. So it's vital to show that this renormalization continues to work," explains Tulkki. "We still have to make a complete proof, but we believe it's very likely we'll succeed."

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

"theory" LMAO

I'm not trying to be too flippant but this gets posted over and over again and it's basically gobbledygook and fancy word salad

(Bullshit)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

The word "theory" is misused here. It should be "hypothesis".

A scientific theory is something that's well established, has a working understanding, and is verified through multiple experiments.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It’s so annoying how ridiculously terrible science journalism is. Like weirdly enough it’s probably more clickbait than celebrity tabloids.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 week ago

Oh hell yeah. Just look at quantum computing. It's a giant hoax & funding/investment shell game, and you have journalists who have convinced people but there's actually quantum computers that can do things. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It's so farcical and depressing, every time I point out that quantum computing is a hoax, thousands of uninformed buffoons show up to tell me what an idiot I am. And this is all science, it's a giant bullshit act now.

https://youtu.be/shFUDPqVmTg

[+] [email protected] -10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Although the theory is promising, the duo point out that they have not yet completed its proof

Physics is not math, you can't "prove" a physical theory. You make predictions and through experiment or observation Nature has the last word.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

They are talking about mathematical proofs here. Once the mathematical proof is complete, we can look at the application, i.e. using it to make predictions and seeing how well they do.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Quick, get in contact with the physicists, they need the insight that you got from thinking about a sentence in a pop sci article for 30 seconds.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I am a physicist. String theory already unified QFT and GR and that doesn't mean it's a verified physical theory, you need to validate it through experiment. It's physics 101. Just watch some Sabine H. videos to see how she speaks about string theory being a failure besides being mathematically consistent.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Nothing has unified gr and qft and you're a liar

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"The bonus of string theory is that it has the tenets of a unified theory of all interactions, electro-magnetism, weak and strong interactions, and gravitation" https://arxiv.org/pdf/0809.1036

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago

"tenets"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No string theory has unified them, it hasn't been verified. I'm not familiar with the intricacies of string theory, but presumably it is logically consistent. Or "proven".

It hasn't been experimentally verified

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You have extraordinarily loose standards. Sad.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

What? How do you mean.

I said it was logically consistent, which if it wasn't no one would be shouting from the hills about it, since it would be the same as saying that 5 = 4.

It might be fictious, I.e. the equations don't relate to reality, but it is good fiction, in that it doesn't produce nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You can produce any equation that proves anything. Which is in no way related to physical reality. Get a grip.

This isn't a theory, it isn't a hypothesis. It's the raging of a drunken mind looking for funding sources.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Well I never commented on what it was, although I agree with you on the latter point, string theory doesn't to the best of my knowledge appear to be testable, so its a bit of a waste of time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

If you get ahold of them, I need to tell them why they're wrong because of this one time I watched star trek while I was baked.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes but you can prove that something is true given your set of assumptions about the universe.

A very loose example would be light being constant which could be an assumption, and then you can show that from that relativity is a natural conclusion. Or proof it formally, resulting in the Einstein's equations.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You have no idea what you are talking about. You can't prove mathematically Einstein's equations. No fundamental equations in physics were proved mathematically.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I said they could be proved from assumptions. In the same fashion as mathematical proofs, they aren't actually 100% true, they merely say that given these assumptions, the following is true. In maths the assumptions are so acutely obvious, or essentially definitions that we rarely rewrite our proof as the tautologies that they actually are

I agree with you that the you can't prove a physical theory, but you can TRY to axiomize it. Which is what Hilbert's 6th problem was.

In this way you can show that the equations you have are logically consistent - not that they are 100% true.

The crux of this argument is defintional, not factual, you take proof in an experimental way, as such no theory can be proven. I take proof to mean proven logically consistent. As such any good theory should be 100% proven, otherwise 1 might as be 0.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

That's not how physics works. If you are really interested in such issues read a book on foundations of physics or history of physics to see how physicists arrived at the most famous equations (Einstein,Dirac, Schroedinger or Newton), they are basically "bets" guided by physical and mathematical assumptions, but that is far from being "proved" or "derived", there are no rigorous proofs or derivations involved. The uncertainty remains until an experiment or observation confirms it or rejects it. There's no such a thing as "proving" a physical theory, for the simple reason that any physical theory works in a limited regime or range of validity. Newtonian gravitation and General Relativity are both valid and succesfull theories within their range of validity, but they contradict each other mathematically, in one theory gravity is a scalar field and in the other is a tensor field, so you could use the mathematics of one theory to refute the other, so it makes no sense the concept of proving a physical theory mathematically. You only try to axiomize a theory once is well established, but it's irrelevant concerning its validity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Right you are putting words in my mouth.

I never said that you derive it from axioms first, although I'm sure there exist theories which were derived from previous work especially some classical theories. The point I'm making is that a set of equations has to be self consistent, and sovlable, both of which are provable properties of those equations. That says NOTHING about the physical validity of the equations. However if you can't prove those properties on some level, you have a pretty nonsense set of equations.

Like I said you aren't "proving" that the theory is what governs whatever phenomenon, rather that it is consistent with itself.

As for finding the range of validity, again I agree with on that point, although I'm 100% sure there exists cases where you can predict the theory breaks down - just from looking at the equations, or deriving the bounds. But like I said, the equations still have to be non contradictory and solvable. In fact if they aren't solvable you cannot begin to verify them.

I completely appreciate that you are right about unable to prove a theory like you said. I'm pointing out that most people use proof to refer to showing that the equations aren't contradictory, again that doesn't prove the theory, but we know a good theory doesn't contradict itself, and hopefully it doesn't contradict other stuff, although relativetivity contradicts quatuam, indicating something else is going on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just came across this beautiful video of Richard Feynman.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I mean i agree with most of what you said already, the only disagreement we had was over the definition of proof.

This video doesnt change that particulally

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago

Original free access article :
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6633/adc82e
Gravity generated by four one-dimensional unitary gauge symmetries and the Standard Model

if i get even 0.01% of what this is, then, they really reached a "Theory of Everything" but it can't be experimentally tested until quantum gravity things are detected.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@NoSpotOfGround i think that the "theory of everything" should be called "universal theory of gravity"... What you think

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

ToE is generally taken to mean a theory that accounts for all four fundamental forces in physics, 1) strong nuclear force, 2) electromagnetism, 3) weak nuclear force (unified in some way with electromagnetism now), 4) gravity. The "standard model" only handles the first three, with gravity being separate and very mysterious. I'm skeptical of this new paper on various grounds but who knows.