ENGLISH

Bankrupting Physics: How Today’s Top Scientists are Gambling Away Their Credibility

By Alexander Unzicker; Sheilla Jones

Book information

Publisher
St. Martin’s Press
Year
2013
ISBN
1137278234, 9781137278234
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (2435095 bytes)
Edition
Hardcover
Pages
288\273
Time added
2019-08-15 06:51:54

Description

The recently celebrated discovery of the Higgs boson has captivated the public's imagination with the promise that it can explain the origins of everything in the universe. It's no wonder that the media refers to it grandly as the "God particle." Yet behind closed doors, physicists are admitting that there is much more to this story, and even years of gunning the Large Hadron Collider and herculean number crunching may still not lead to a deep understanding of the laws of nature. In this fascinating and eye-opening account, theoretical physicist Alexander Unzicker and science writer Sheilla Jones offer a polemic. They question whether the large-scale, multinational enterprises actually lead us to the promised land of understanding the universe. The two scientists take us on a tour of contemporary physics and show how a series of highly publicized theories met a dead end. Unzicker and Jones systematically unpack the recent hot theories such as "parallel universes," "string theory," and "inflationary cosmology," and provide an accessible explanation of each. They argue that physics has abandoned its evidence-based roots and shifted to untestable mathematical theories, and they issue a clarion call for the science to return to its experimental foundation. Title......Page 3 Copyright Notice......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 Prologue   Relaxing, Exciting, and Overstrung Physics......Page 8 Part I   Shortcut......Page 11 Chapter 1.  Not too Bad, Homo sapiens, But . . .    Reasons for Doubt: Something Is Rotten in the State of Physics......Page 12 Chapter 2.  Galileo Would Freak Out!   A Quantum Leap in Measuring Devices: Why We Live in Fantastic Times......Page 27 Chapter 3.  A Speedy Revolution   Why Cosmology Is Going the Wrong Way......Page 39 Part II   Crossroads......Page 51 Chapter 4.  The Basic Story   What Einstein Told Us about Gravity and Space-Time......Page 52 Chapter 5.  Still a Mystery   Newton’s Gravitational Constant: From England to the Edge of the Universe......Page 65 Chapter 6.  The Riddle of Small Accelerations   Are Galaxies Really Just Big Planetary Systems?......Page 75 Chapter 7.  Lost in the Dark   Dark Matter and Dark Energy: Invisible or All in Your Mind?......Page 87 Chapter 8.  Precision in the Tea Leaves   Message from the Cosmic Microwave Background: How Much Is Just Noise?......Page 102 Part III   Dead End......Page 116 Chapter 9.  Muddy Water   The Cosmology of Dark Pixels in the First Dark Age: Giving Work to Supercomputers......Page 117 Chapter 10.  Speculation Bubbles Rise   Expansion, Imagination, Inflation: Do We Know There Was a First Second?......Page 126 Chapter 11.  Blacking Out   Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Quantum Gravity: Ecological Niches for Theorists......Page 135 Chapter 12.  The Fiancée You Won’t Marry   The Standard Model of Particle Physics: How Playing with Mathematical Beauty Took Over Real Life......Page 144 Chapter 13.  Chronicle of a Surprise Foretold   How Higgsteria Delayed the Bankruptcy of Particle Physics......Page 153 Chapter 14.  New Dimensions in Nonsense   Branes, Multiverses, and Other Supersicknesses: Physics Goes Nuts......Page 161 Chapter 15.  Goodbye Science, Hello Religion   String Theory: How the Elite Became a Sect and a Mafia......Page 175 Part IV   Backing Up......Page 190 Chapter 16.  Clear Water   Reason vs. Circular Logic: How Science Should Work......Page 191 Chapter 17.  Welcome to Byzantium   Complications on Complications: How Physics Became a Junk Drawer......Page 202 Chapter 18.  The First Wrong Turn   Deviation Decades Ago: Calculating Replaces Thinking......Page 215 Chapter 19.  The Math Fallout   How Theoretical Fashions Impede Reflection......Page 227 Chapter 20.  Big Science, Big Money, Big Bubbles   What’s Wrong with the Physics Business......Page 237 Chapter 21.  Outlook   Get Prepared for the Crash......Page 249 Appendix......Page 252 Thanks......Page 254 Permissions......Page 255 Notes......Page 256 Literature......Page 263 Index......Page 265 Copyright......Page 273

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