Not your grandfather’s gravity

Talk tomorrow at the Baltimore Science Fiction Convention:

Several possible modifications to Einstein’s theory have been proposed & may even have some experimental support; in addition to string theory & loop quantum gravity, is gravity a thermodynamic effect? Astronomers are looking hard at gravity waves in search of clues as to the origin of the universe (or even as to whether the universe had an origin), and …!

I’ve just finished the talk — main problem, too many interesting possible side channels — and have uploaded it as pdf,  keynote, power point, & html.  Comments welcome!

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  By waltman, May 27, 2011 @ 6:21 pm

  The links for the pdf and keynote are broken — you left off the “.com” from your domain.

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  By John Ashmead, May 31, 2011 @ 6:41 am

  Thanks Walt! I’ve fixed. Once again, never put in a link without testing it.

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  By tom flink, May 31, 2011 @ 4:10 pm

  Hi John, I talked to you after your Balticon talk about the Hubble red shift. Here is a link to the white paper I mentioned. http://www.nullphysics.com. click on intergalactic redshift pdf. Please read it to the end.

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  By John Ashmead, June 1, 2011 @ 3:02 pm

  Hi Tom,

  I’ve looked at the nullphysics.com website, particularly at the intergalactic redshift paper (http://www.ourundiscovereduniverse.com/downloads/whitepaper2.pdf). There are three problems with this paper:

  1) it does not appear to have been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

  2) it assume the steady state universe, but does not address some of the very serious problems with that theory. As the wikipedia article on the steady state puts it:

  “Problems with the steady-state theory began to emerge in the late 1960s, when observations apparently supported the idea that the universe was in fact changing: quasars and radio galaxies were found only at large distances (therefore existing only in the distant past), not in closer galaxies. Whereas the Big Bang theory predicted as much, Steady State predicted that such objects would be found everywhere, including close to our own galaxy.”

  3) it is incomplete: Witt expounds his theory at length but does not appear to give any observational tests to discriminate between his “null hypothesis” and the Big Bang. No tests means no point.

  Given the extensive tests of the redshift & the Big Bang theory, the burden of proof is on Witt to prove that his theory is better. He hasn’t even started.

  Thanks for letting me know about this,

  Best,

  John

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  By Kelle, June 4, 2011 @ 12:11 pm

  Hi John,

  I enjoyed your (Really) Hard Science for Beginners panel at Balticon last weekend. We spoke briefly afterward but since you were on your way to another session, you told me to send you an e-mail.

  I’m looking for some resources that explain multi-world theory and higher dimensional physics in a way that a layman can understand. I figure that’s a tall order but I was hoping you might have some ideas on where I could look.

  Thanks for your time.

  Kelle Campbell

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  By John Ashmead, June 4, 2011 @ 3:03 pm

  I’m glad you enjoyed the panel. For reading on multi-worlds & higher dimensional physics you might try:

  Kaku – Parallel Worlds – 2005
  Randall – Warped Passages – 2005
  Susskind – Cosmic Landscape – 2006
  Barrow – New Theories of Everything – 2007
  Green – Hidden Reality – 2011

  Probably enough reading! 🙂

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