Unelegant, Unnatural, Ugly BSM theme books

[star apple]

What other books are there akin to Peter Woit's "Not Even Wrong" or Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics"? I just learned Sabine has a new book coming but it's more than 8 months from now.. I want to entertain myself reading books like them this weekend.. are there none written like Woit's or Smolin's (perhaps I miss others?).

And.. Are you for or against Naturalness and why?

https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/10/book-update.html

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465094252/?tag=pfamazon01-20

"The book is about the role of arguments from beauty, naturalness, and elegance in the foundations of physics, by which I mean high energy physics, cosmology, quantum gravity, and quantum foundations. Or at least that’s what I thought the book would be about. What the book really is about is how to abuse mathematics while pretending to do science."

...

"While the book focuses on physics, my aim is much more general. The current situation in the foundations of physics is a vivid example for how science fails to self-correct. The reasons for this failure, as I lay out in the book, are unaddressed social and cognitive biases. But this isn't a problem specific to the foundations of physics. It’s a problem that befalls all disciplines, just that in my area the prevalence of not-so-scientific thinking is particularly obvious due to the lack of data.

This isn’t a nice book and sadly it’s foreseeable most of my colleagues will hate it. By writing it, I waived my hopes of ever getting tenure. This didn’t come easily to me. But I have waited two decades for things to change and they didn’t change and I came to conclude at the very least I can point at the problems I see."

 

[Demystifier]

By writing it, I waived my hopes of ever getting tenure.

Wait a minute, Sabine doesn't yet have a tenure? How is that possible?

Speaking of that, I think I have seen somewhere that @vanhees71 also does not yet have a tenure. Something is deeply wrong about funding of science.

 

[mitchell porter]

I want to entertain myself reading books like them this weekend

Just look for self-published theories-of-everything. Most such books should contain a chapter or two explaining how and why modern physics went wrong.

 

[star apple]

What other books are there akin to Peter Woit's "Not Even Wrong" or Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics"? I just learned Sabine has a new book coming but it's more than 8 months from now.. I want to entertain myself reading books like them this weekend.. are there none written like Woit's or Smolin's (perhaps I miss others?).

And.. Are you for or against Naturalness and why?

https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/10/book-update.html

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465094252/?tag=pfamazon01-20

"The book is about the role of arguments from beauty, naturalness, and elegance in the foundations of physics, by which I mean high energy physics, cosmology, quantum gravity, and quantum foundations. Or at least that’s what I thought the book would be about. What the book really is about is how to abuse mathematics while pretending to do science."

...

"While the book focuses on physics, my aim is much more general. The current situation in the foundations of physics is a vivid example for how science fails to self-correct. The reasons for this failure, as I lay out in the book, are unaddressed social and cognitive biases. But this isn't a problem specific to the foundations of physics. It’s a problem that befalls all disciplines, just that in my area the prevalence of not-so-scientific thinking is particularly obvious due to the lack of data.

This isn’t a nice book and sadly it’s foreseeable most of my colleagues will hate it. By writing it, I waived my hopes of ever getting tenure. This didn’t come easily to me. But I have waited two decades for things to change and they didn’t change and I came to conclude at the very least I can point at the problems I see."

I'm reading the paper (pointed out by Sabine in her blog) which was published a few days ago. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.07663.pdf, there is a passage inside at page 5: "The Standard Model is incapable of shedding light on the dynamics underlying electroweak symmetry breaking or explaining the structure of quarks, leptons, and their mass pattern at a fundamental level."

But is it not, electroweak symmetry breaking is believed to be due to the `Higgs mechanism'. In this mechanism, all particles in the Standard Model, including the photon and the

and

bosons, interact with a particle called the `Higgs boson', and it is their differing interactions with this particle that makes them appear so different at low energies.

What did Gian Giudice mean that the Standard Model was incapable of shedding light on the dynamics underlying electroweak symmetry breaking at a fundamental level. What kind of dynamics must be understood or are looking for?

 

[star apple]

Just look for self-published theories-of-everything. Most such books should contain a chapter or two explaining how and why modern physics went wrong.

Many self-published theories of everything have fatal or fundamental flaws. I have dozens of such books in my shelf and wasted so much time in them. That is why what I need are peered reviewed and accepted (but may be disliked) works similar to Woit's Not Even Wrong.

Maybe you mean stuff in Arxiv is the one to look for? But there are literally hundreds of papers. That is why a book should be appropriate as there are wider reviews and criticisms.

Whatever. If Sabine and company were right. It's like when we look at a car or tank, the round wheel or square body or round turret or oblong belt is the symmetry or gauge principle... so the savages just merely noticed the forms. But they don't know function. Likewise. If the standard model is based on emergence in terms of gauge principle.. then beyond the standard the model according to the paper mentioned above is not about gauge principle (akin to the engine of the car or tank).

Maybe there are two kinds of physics for the respective audience (this is my impression after thinking of Sabine blogs and the paper references)

1. Physics of the masses = based on gauge principle
2. Physics of the elite = based on entirely new formalism beyond the standard model

Point is. This is useful to hide to the savages the concept of engines. If beyond the standard model has dangerous application like shifting the metastable vacuum or higgs, then we are in a very fortunate period when the rest don't know the full theory.. maybe it should remain this way until the moral development of humanity deserves it.

You see. This is why I need to read peered reviewed books or else I'll just be exposed to the authors unpeered reviewed ideas. Also Woit and Smolin books were written in 2007. I wonder why there are no major works like it for the past 10 years??

 

[haushofer]

I'm reading the paper (pointed out by Sabine in her blog) which was published a few days ago. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.07663.pdf, there is a passage inside at page 5: "The Standard Model is incapable of shedding light on the dynamics underlying electroweak symmetry breaking or explaining the structure of quarks, leptons, and their mass pattern at a fundamental level."

But is it not, electroweak symmetry breaking is believed to be due to the `Higgs mechanism'. In this mechanism, all particles in the Standard Model, including the photon and the View attachment 213848 and View attachment 213849 bosons, interact with a particle called the `Higgs boson', and it is their differing interactions with this particle that makes them appear so different at low energies.

What did Gian Giudice mean that the Standard Model was incapable of shedding light on the dynamics underlying electroweak symmetry breaking at a fundamental level. What kind of dynamics must be understood or are looking for?

On page 3: "First, no mechanism..." .

 

[haushofer]

What I don't get at this naturalness and quantum contributions to the Higgs mass: doesn't this heavily depend on perturbation theory? Would we still have this issue if we would have a non-perturbative formulation of the SM?

 

[mitchell porter]

If beyond the standard model has dangerous application like shifting the metastable vacuum or higgs, then we are in a very fortunate period when the rest don't know the full theory..

I'm pretty sure there's no physics illuminati who already know the reason why the electroweak vacuum is finetuned to metastability. The theoretical elite were expecting the LHC to reveal supersymmetry, not criticality.

 

[star apple]

What I don't get at this naturalness and quantum contributions to the Higgs mass: doesn't this heavily depend on perturbation theory? Would we still have this issue if we would have a non-perturbative formulation of the SM?

Have you read the paper reference 5 about Naturalness by the same author https://arxiv.org/pdf/0801.2562.pdf

You mean the Hierarchy Problem is solved by non-perturbative approach? any reference about this?

 

[star apple]

about this paper related to Sabine blog, I have a question in page 5 of https://arxiv.org/pdf/0801.2562.pdf

"In the Standard Model there is no symmetry protecting the Higgs mass and this is the basic cause of the large quantum corrections in eq. (5) that bring mH close to Λ. The absence of a symmetry protecting mH is linked to the spin-zero nature of the Higgs boson, as can be understood by a simple argument. Massless particles of spin 1/2 or higher have two degrees of freedom. Massive particles of spin 1/2 or higher have more than two degrees of freedom9. Therefore there is a conceptual distinction between the massless and massive cases. This distinction is due to the presence of an extra symmetry in the massless theory (gauge symmetry for spin 1, chiral symmetry for spin 1/2). The symmetry allows us to eliminate some degrees of freedom from the massless theory. This argument is valid for any particle with spin 1/2 or higher, but not for spin 0. There exist special symmetries able to protect spin-0 masses (non-linearly realized symmetries, supersymmetry) but they are not present in the Standard Model. This is why the Higgs boson is viewed as “unnatural"

I can't find my copy of Lisa Randall Warped Passages in which she described the same thing. I'd like to see the math or exact details of how massive particles of spin 1/2 for example has extra symmetry in form of chirality and polarizations that can protect it from being pulled into large quantum corrections unlike the higgs mass spin 0. Can anyone point me to any paper that directly show the computations? Thanks.

 

[star apple]

I'm pretty sure there's no physics illuminati who already know the reason why the electroweak vacuum is finetuned to metastability. The theoretical elite were expecting the LHC to reveal supersymmetry, not criticality.

by the way I think the reason no new books akin to Woit's "Not Even Wrong" and Smolin "The Trouble with Physics" was written the past 10 years was because many are waiting for the LHC to find either supersymmetry or new dimensions or WIMPs or whatever... and they don't want to look stupid for speaking too soon.. but in light of null results in almost all departments.. we have new books appearing soon like Sabine "Lost in Math". Wonder what other forthcoming books similar to them. But Woit and Smolin are brave and not proven wrong. Also let's praise Sabine for being so brave as when she wrote regarding sacrificing her tenure:

"Regarding tenure. The game you have to play to get tenure is to convince a committee that you will do more of what they're already doing at that place. You don't get hired for criticizing others. It counts for nothing in the best case, and against you in the worst case.

But please don't misunderstand this, I'm not complaining. I am happy doing what I'm doing because I feel it's the right thing to do. I just meant to say I have debated back and forth with myself for a long time whether I should publicly denounce most of the research in my field as nonsense. It would have been easy enough to write a book about something else, you know, the usual science cheer leading stuff. But it's just not me."

I wonder what parts of her research she denounce as nonsense? anyone knows?

I recalled telling my friend before that the universe with 200 billion galaxies were once at least the size of a gem that can be put in a ring in the finger.. and she said I watched too many Marvel movies.. and it is nonsense to the max and can't be true.. lol.. but I don't think this is what Sabine considered nonsense. Maybe what she considered nonsense are supersymmetry, string theory and the like.

 

[haushofer]

Have you read the paper reference 5 about Naturalness by the same author https://arxiv.org/pdf/0801.2562.pdf

You mean the Hierarchy Problem is solved by non-perturbative approach? any reference about this?

No, I mean I don't understand how finetuning would show up in non-perturbative calculations.

 

[star apple]

The Higgs hierarchy problem can be solved by:

1. Supersymmetry
2. Fine tuning
3. Extra Dimensions (Randall RS1, RS2)
4. Multiverse Anthropic principle
5. Dimensional transmutation see for example https://motls.blogspot.com/2014/08/adimensional-gravity.html#disqus_thread and

https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-a...icists-propose-a-symmetry-of-scales-20140818/

However I'm not sure what Sabine believed in... http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2016/07/why-lhc-is-such-disappointment-delusion.html

Does she believe in fine tuning?

I've been googling a couple of hours and I couldn't find her exact statement. Since this thread is about her.. I want to to know what she thinks. I don't want to ask her directly as I want to save it for more important stuff.

Anyway if the first 3 mechanisms didn't exist.. It seems Dimensional Transmutation is the very likely mechanism.. what you think?

And if the Higgs mass is derived from the dark sector via the higgs portal.. https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.4224

What would happen if you decouple the higgs portal from the dark sector? would all matter suddenly lose all mass and travel at speed of light (except from mass that comes relativistically)? I've googled long for this answer and couldn't find it so I'm asking the experts here. Thanks.

 

[Haelfix]

I haven't read her book, but she does not seem to believe in finetuning arguments in physics in general. Needless to say, many of her colleagues disagree with this position.

There was a thread recently with respect to the particle physics side of things:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/sabine-on-strong-cp-hiearchy.919386/

 

[star apple]

I haven't read her book, but she does not seem to believe in finetuning arguments in physics in general. Needless to say, many of her colleagues disagree with this position.

There was a thread recently with respect to the particle physics side of things:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/sabine-on-strong-cp-hiearchy.919386/

Thanks for the link. I read it and more enlightened on the issue. Mitchell Porter summarized it well in message 31 what I was trying to inquire:

"... The real hierarchy problem is not the problem that one number is small and the other number is big. The problem is that we have theories in which, to match experiment, we need an observed quantity to come out small, and the way we do that is to employ a fundamental parameter that is very big, but which is finetuned so as to be almost entirely canceled out by quantum effects.
Originally I thought Hossenfelder understood this, and was taking the attitude, so what? ... in an example of that hardboiled empiricism which says, to hell with preconceptions and common sense and human intuition; what matters in science is agreement with experiment, and these finetuned theories agree with experiment. She does actually say something like that, it's just that I am no longer sure whether she thinks finetuning means huge cancellations, or just small numbers."

Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/sabine-on-strong-cp-hiearchy.919386/page-2

What's bothering me is it appears she actually believes that as quanta explains that the Higgs boson mass seems as if it is reduced not by mirror-image effects but by random and improbable cancellations between unrelated numbers — essentially, the initial mass of the Higgs seems to exactly counterbalance the huge contributions to its mass from gluons, quarks, gravitational states and all the rest! she really believes this? It's unlikely, but yet she believes this. This is what is puzzling.

If she really believes this (does she). Then it's like Lubos defending superstrings at all costs.

I'd like to know the case because Sabine seems to be the our Last Hope. If she can denounce most of her field as nonsense (as she put it). Then if we can show her some proof. Then she can be persuaded. The situation now is not because we don't have any new BSM data.. but simply no one wants to look at it. So I'm hoping she could. And her future book can influence the other 10,000 physicists on the planet.

 

[haushofer]

The problem is not just convincing physicists by content to explore new paradigms. The problem is that modern academia gives little room for young people to explore new stuff. It's much easier to write the zillionth paper on technical stuff in a well-understood paradigm than to take the risk to develop new ideas.

 

[atyy]

Nowadays, we consider the standard model to be an effective field theory. The roots of naturalness are effective field theory. However, there is more than one notion of naturalness, and this has been discussed eg.

https://arxiv.org/abs/0903.4055v1
Which fine-tuning arguments are fine?
Alexei Grinbaum

There are also interesting comments on naturalness in

https://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-th/0510023v1
Five lectures on effective field theory
David B. Kaplan

https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0509029
2004 TASI Lectures on Supersymmetry Breaking
Markus A. Luty

 

[mitchell porter]

Sabine seems to be ... our Last Hope... if we can show her some proof. Then she can be persuaded. The situation now is not because we don't have any new BSM data.. but simply no one wants to look at it. So I'm hoping she could.

What proof? What data? What are you talking about?

 

[star apple]

What proof? What data? What are you talking about?

Oh. I just thought out of desperation Sabine and her kids can join me to visit a haunted house (hey it's Halloween in a few days so have some fun) and witness poltergeists where objects move on their own and stones teleporting from places to places.. Me and my friends are witness to this.. But I know forum rule says never to mention any experience beyond the standard model.. so hmm.. treat it as a Halloween thing (let's say for fun really). I just can't imagine why scientists have no difficulty accepting the universe with 200 billion galaxies were once the size of the Earth or even a marble. While they can never just imagine the simpler idea of poltergiests (even while many physicists are considering the dark matter sector as composed of complex things too, so what's wrong with dark matter sector organisms). With Sabine I just hope or say wish it may be about to change and if she witnessed them too and wrote a book about her experience.. maybe it can convince other physicists.

Ok. Let's go to on topic and the meat of the thread (lest the mods be angry. Mods, I won't mention about the above again sorry and consider it a special occasion because it's Halloween). Let's talk about Agravity now as this seems to be the most promising solution to the Higgs Hierarchy Problem.

When antimatter particles were first considered in equations, they seemed like negative energy. In Agravity, there are ghosts that produce negative probabilities, does anyone or any new arxiv paper has other interpretation for them akin to identification of antiparticles from the negative energy in Dirac equation?

Here's a good description of them at https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-a...icists-propose-a-symmetry-of-scales-20140818/ or in the serious Agravity paper https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.4226

A theory called “agravity” (for “adimensional gravity”) developed by Salvio and Strumia may be the most concrete realization of the scale symmetry idea thus far. Agravity weaves the laws of physics at all scales into a single, cohesive picture in which the Higgs mass and the Planck mass both arise through separate dynamical effects. As detailed in June in the Journal of High-Energy Physics, agravity also offers an explanation for why the universe inflated into existence in the first place. According to the theory, scale-symmetry breaking would have caused an exponential expansion in the size of space-time during the Big Bang.

However, the theory has what most experts consider a serious flaw: It requires the existence of strange particle-like entities called “ghosts.” Ghosts either have negative energies or negative probabilities of existing — both of which wreak havoc on the equations of the quantum world.

“Negative probabilities rule out the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, so that’s a dreadful option,” said Kelly Stelle, a theoretical particle physicist at Imperial College, London, who first showed in 1977 that certain gravity theories give rise to ghosts. Such theories can only work, Stelle said, if the ghosts somehow decouple from the other particles and keep to themselves. “Many attempts have been made along these lines; it’s not a dead subject, just rather technical and without much joy,” he said.

Strumia and Salvio think that, given all the advantages of agravity, ghosts deserve a second chance. “When antimatter particles were first considered in equations, they seemed like negative energy,” Strumia said. “They seemed nonsense. Maybe these ghosts seem nonsense but one can find some sensible interpretation.”

 

[star apple]

Ok, this is an easier problem in contrast to Agravity ghosts above.

In the Hierarchy problem, for the Higgs to be 125 GeV instead of 10^18 GeV, there must be opposite contribution or as https://www.quantumdiaries.org/2012...why-the-higgs-has-a-snowballs-chance-in-hell/ put it "
then the only way to make sense of the 1018 GeV mass contribution from the loop diagram above is if the “classical” (or “tree”) diagram has a value which precisely cancels that huge number to leave only a 125 GeV mass"

Is Sabine arguing that there is no problem for that kind of incredible calculations? (can someone definitely confirm this is the what she thinks). It's not clear on her writing and even amongst you. I can't believe it is normal. Do you believe it's normal.. why?

Without Supersymmetry. and Multiverse and Randall Extra Dimensional not detected. It seems scale symmetry like Agravity is the best option. What you think?

 

[star apple]

Ok, this is an easier question in contrast to Agravity ghosts above.

In the Hierarchy problem, for the Higgs to be 125 GeV instead of 10^18 GeV, there must be opposite contribution or as https://www.quantumdiaries.org/2012...why-the-higgs-has-a-snowballs-chance-in-hell/ put it "
then the only way to make sense of the 1018 GeV mass contribution from the loop diagram above is if the “classical” (or “tree”) diagram has a value which precisely cancels that huge number to leave only a 125 GeV mass"

Is Sabine arguing that there is no problem for that kind of incredible calculations? (can someone definitely confirm this is the what she thinks). It's not clear on her writing and even amongst you. I can't believe it is normal. Do you believe it's normal.. why?

Without Supersymmetry. and Multiverse and Randall Extra Dimensional not detected. It seems scale symmetry like Agravity is the best option. What you think?

 

[atyy]

Is there any relationship between agravity and the Higgs mass prediction by Shaposhnikov and Wetterich? Strumia, who is an author of the agravity paper has a later paper with different co-authors about the Higgs mass and asymptotic safety https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01453, and the Shaposhnikov and Wetterich paper is also about asymptotic safety https://arxiv.org/abs/0912.0208.

 

[star apple]

Is there any relationship between agravity and the Higgs mass prediction by Shaposhnikov and Wetterich? Strumia, who is an author of the agravity paper has a later paper with different co-authors about the Higgs mass and asymptotic safety https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01453, and the Shaposhnikov and Wetterich paper is also about asymptotic safety https://arxiv.org/abs/0912.0208.

The first interesting paper above has the following passage (p3) "The other possibility is that the SM itself might be asymptotically safe. The hypercharge gauge coupling gY becomes non-perturbative at Λ ∼ 1040 GeV, hitting a ‘Landau pole’. It is not known what it means. It might mean that the SM is not a complete theory and new physics is needed at lower energy"...

ok please share papers where new physics at low energy are mentioned and what they are... I can't believe new physics is all in the high energy sector..

 

[star apple]

The first interesting paper above has the following passage (p3) "The other possibility is that the SM itself might be asymptotically safe. The hypercharge gauge coupling gY becomes non-perturbative at Λ ∼ 1040 GeV, hitting a ‘Landau pole’. It is not known what it means. It might mean that the SM is not a complete theory and new physics is needed at lower energy"...

ok please share papers where new physics at low energy are mentioned and what they are... I can't believe new physics is all in the high energy sector..

No one asks whether the pixel of a computer screen is a point with zero radius or has coupling strength (or electrical current) that reaches infinity.. so the say electron self energy and vacuum polarization and the separate QFT concept of Landau pole is possibly due to another theory taking over if the electroweak scale won't control it. What I was asking is how low do they mean by low energy for the new physics. Is it at the Mev or maybe at 100 Gev or beyond the reach of the LHC? But is it not dark matter dynamics is in the MeV and it's new physics so maybe there are many categories for new physics. I couldn't search for over 10,000 archive papers for the categorization so if you have come across it.. do give us some link. I just want proof the coupling strength of the forces (especially where they coincide at certain running energy) are not due to some unknown field. And if HEP can prove all of them are taken into account. Then at least I don't have to think otherwise. And I wrote this to organize my thought as particle physics is just very complex.

 

[star apple]

I was checking what's new with Peter Woit's and read that http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=9691

"I’m glad to see that Natalie Wolchover has just won an AIP award for her writing about physics, in particular for a piece on how physicists are dealing with the “nightmare scenario”. While she’s perhaps the best professional journalist writing about these topics, for coverage of this from a professional physicist, the best you can find is Sabine Hossenfelder’s blogging at Backreaction. I’m pleased to hear that the two of them will be appearing at an event here next month in NYC, talking about Making Sense of Mind-Blowing Physics at NYU on Nov. 16"

I wonder how article about nightmare scenario can win awards (?)

https://www.aip.org/news/2017/2017-aip-science-writing-award-winners-announced

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-no-new-particles-means-for-physics-20160809

Well. Even without Supersymmetry. It is still possible for Naturalness to be saved. They were treating the Standard Model and the normal BSM theories like supersymmetry as self contained.. as if the world was only composed of them. Of course the universe is much more complicated. The standard model particles and forces could just be one of the sets or domain. So there is still possibility Naturalness can be saved.

By the way. Scale symmetry is also considered part of Naturalness (or not)? Hmm... I'm still familiarising with the word Naturalness especially as regards the Hierarchy Problem which Natalie article said was one of the most important stuff "The main reason physicists felt sure that the Standard Model could not be the whole story is that its linchpin, the Higgs boson, has a highly unnatural-seeming mass."...

So Naturalness in the Hierarchy Problem means the answer lies or is due to some formula or equations and not accidental fine tuning or multiverse (?)

 

[ohwilleke]

Naturalness, in general (in physics, obviously, not in biology), is a philosophically bankrupt concept.

 

[mitchell porter]

Naturalness, in general (in physics, obviously, not in biology), is a philosophically bankrupt concept.

What about the notion that (as @star apple puts it) "the initial mass of the Higgs seems to exactly counterbalance the huge contributions to its mass from gluons, quarks, gravitational states and all the rest"?

 

[ohwilleke]

What about the notion that (as @star apple puts it) "the initial mass of the Higgs seems to exactly counterbalance the huge contributions to its mass from gluons, quarks, gravitational states and all the rest"?

So what. Standard Model parameters aren't random variables and the claim that we have any plausible basis upon which to expect that they have any particular value a priori is nothing but disciplinary folk myth. The laws of Nature should fit together exactly perfectly and lo and behold, they do. If one wants to have an a priori assumption, the suggestion, I think it was in one of Lubos's blog posts, that the universe likes to be as extreme and "unnatural" as possible without breaking is probably a better hypothesis than "naturalness". (To be clear, he himself is a strong proponent of the idea that "Naturalnesss" is a valid and useful idea.)

 

[star apple]

So what. Standard Model parameters aren't random variables and the claim that we have any plausible basis upon which to expect that they have any particular value a priori is nothing but disciplinary folk myth. The laws of Nature should fit together exactly perfectly and lo and behold, they do. If one wants to have an a priori assumption, the suggestion, I think it was in one of Lubos's blog posts, that the universe likes to be as extreme and "unnatural" as possible without breaking is probably a better hypothesis than "naturalness". (To be clear, he himself is a strong proponent of the idea that "Naturalnesss" is a valid and useful idea.)

Can someone confirm if Sabine reasoning is similar to Lubos' and ohwilleke's? I'm trying to understanding Sabine reasonings...

But I still have a hard time believing that in the Higgs hierarchy problem...

1,000,000,000,000,000,125 GeV is canceled by another
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 GeV negative contribution to come up with the 125 GeV!

Please try to convince me more as it's much more logical only Multiverse scenerio can make it happen.. not just one time.

 

[atyy]

The first interesting paper above has the following passage (p3) "The other possibility is that the SM itself might be asymptotically safe. The hypercharge gauge coupling gY becomes non-perturbative at Λ ∼ 1040 GeV, hitting a ‘Landau pole’. It is not known what it means. It might mean that the SM is not a complete theory and new physics is needed at lower energy"...

ok please share papers where new physics at low energy are mentioned and what they are... I can't believe new physics is all in the high energy sector..

I think what Pelaggi and colleagues mean by lower energy is an energy below the Landau pole, which is 10⁴⁰ GeV, so they don't mean an energy scale near the LHC's energy scale of about 10⁴ GeV. So this new physics at "lower energy" includes what you mean by all new physics being at very high energies.

I think what is interesting about both papers linked to in post #22 is that they consider that there may be no new physics, even at very high energies, ie. the standard model is asymptotically safe. Asymptotic safety of some form not a new idea, and researchers such as Weinberg have studied both supersymmetry as well as asymptotic safety. Polchinski's famous string theory textbook also mentions asymptotic safety as an alternative approach. However, Weinberg and Polchinski were referring to asymptotic safety of gravity, rather than the standard model, so there asymptotic safety refers to a group of ideas, rather than a single idea.

 

[Demystifier]

The laws of Nature should fit together exactly perfectly and lo and behold, they do. If one wants to have an a priori assumption, the suggestion, I think it was in one of Lubos's blog posts, that the universe likes to be as extreme and "unnatural" as possible without breaking is probably a better hypothesis than "naturalness".

Lubos uses a very vivid metaphor, arguing that Nature is like James Bond and unlike European Union.

 

[atyy]

If one wants to have an a priori assumption, the suggestion, I think it was in one of Lubos's blog posts, that the universe likes to be as extreme and "unnatural" as possible without breaking is probably a better hypothesis than "naturalness". (To be clear, he himself is a strong proponent of the idea that "Naturalnesss" is a valid and useful idea.)

But that is only true of the true ultimate theory. If one additionally considers that our present theories are not the true ultimate theory, then naturalness is a very natural idea. If one thinks our current theories are already close to the final theory, then naturalness is a less important consideration. So no, I don't think Sabine Hossenfelder is making an important point that many are ignorant of.

 

[star apple]

But that is only true of the true ultimate theory. If one additionally considers that our present theories are not the true ultimate theory, then naturalness is a very natural idea. If one thinks our current theories are already close to the final theory, then naturalness is a less important consideration. So no, I don't think Sabine Hossenfelder is making an important point that many are ignorant of.

Why is naturalness less important in the final theory, any reference?

By the way.. is scale symmetry approach like Agravity and Higgs dark sector portal version considered naturalness? Or is naturalness only valid if there is a preexisting scale?

 

[star apple]

Lubos uses a very vivid metaphor, arguing that Nature is like James Bond and unlike European Union.

I can't help not comment on Lubos critiques in https://motls.blogspot.com/2017/04/like-james-bond-nature-loves-to-walk.html especially now that it's Halloween eve. So let's sit back and have fun and not be too serious (at least for this evening only).

Lubos stated:

"At the end, it's very natural for Nature to be courageous in this sense – to exploit all the possibilities that are still compatible with the survival. When something is possible and/or compatible with a logically consistent theory of Nature, it will almost certainly be exploited by Nature. Cowardliness is anthropomorphic and it's just silly to assume that Nature is afraid of the same things as beginners who start to learn modern physics."

Let me emphasize Lubos statement : "When something is possible and/or compatible with a logically consistent theory of Nature, it will almost certainly be exploited by Nature."

Can't ghosts exist? Some of us spend our entire lives dealing with ghosts. And we pretend it's separate from physics.. but what if the LHC just can no longer find anything new. In the 1960s when we asked this. It was a very silly question because the quarks and electroweak had nothing to do with ghosts. So we accepted they were separate. But now what if we need to integrate them for the final theory?

Anyway. Talk is useless. Do they hold yearly Halloween costume parties at the LHC too? All right. If we won't have new physics in the next five years. Then I really request let's make the LHC haunted. To conjure other forces, we don't use electrons or accelerators but spells (or sentient programming to initiate the Hamiltonian to bring down other dynamics). Because science forcibly forced it out of any studies. The public use very medieval terms for it. In this CNN article. They used the medieval language of exorcism. But the point is the same and effect. Summon the beyond standard model extra Hamiltonian forces especially the Poltergeist to make them focus at the Large Hadron Collider so scientists have something new to work with (it would be fun to watch dials at the control room moving on their own and ALICE detector detecting massive anomaly) :

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/04/health/exorcism-doctor/index.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/09/23/living/crisis-apparitions/index.html

All right. I promise I won't talk about this after Halloween tonight (and if I talked about it again.. then I'm welcomed to be banned.. but not now.. I'm just using Lubos statement against himself.. and Sabine's statement against herself). This two loves to critiques.. It's time they also get critiqued by us who can see it so obvious what they weaknesses are (they both swear they were no ghosts or anything like it but they are dead wrong). Again don't forget Lubos golden statement:

"When something is possible and/or compatible with a logically consistent theory of Nature, it will almost certainly be exploited by Nature"
If nature can exploit the entire 200 billion galaxies fitting into a marble ball.. why not ghosts?

Happy Halloween!

(tomorrow let's not talk about this anymore lest Greg gets angry.. thank you)

If the mods don't agree with Lubos statement. just delete this thread (even if it's just a Halloween cheer up mood message).. then please let atyy and ohwilleke first answered my questions to them.. thanks)

 

[star apple]

I think what Pelaggi and colleagues mean by lower energy is an energy below the Landau pole, which is 10⁴⁰ GeV, so they don't mean an energy scale near the LHC's energy scale of about 10⁴ GeV. So this new physics at "lower energy" includes what you mean by all new physics being at very high energies.

I think what is interesting about both papers linked to in post #22 is that they consider that there may be no new physics, even at very high energies, ie. the standard model is asymptotically safe. Asymptotic safety of some form not a new idea, and researchers such as Weinberg have studied both supersymmetry as well as asymptotic safety. Polchinski's famous string theory textbook also mentions asymptotic safety as an alternative approach. However, Weinberg and Polchinski were referring to asymptotic safety of gravity, rather than the standard model, so there asymptotic safety refers to a group of ideas, rather than a single idea.

You mean our search for new physics is because the standard model is not asymptotically safe? and if it is safe.. no need for new physics even at the general relativistic level? no need for superstrings and loop quantum gravity, etc.? hmm...