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Open thread 10/7/22 — 41 Comments

  1. Every day we have new stories of abusive, hateful actions by liberals that should never be tolerated in the US.

    -Google trashes GOP emails.
    -PayPal doubles down on policy to steal cash from customers with unapproved views.
    -Colorado continues to persecute, lie about and slander a baker specifically because he won’t agree to sacrifice his religious convictions.
    -Numerous FBI agents with guns drawn raid the home of a Tenn man because he attended a protest that liberals don’t approve.
    -The president slanders oil companies and gas station owners because of prices he drove up.
    -More FBI whistleblowers go to Congress over egregious corruption at the agency.
    -DOJ proud to arrest 11 abortion protesters while doing nothing to solve over 50 bombings of abortion counseling offices in the months since Dobbs was announced.

    These were just a few of the stories that I read today. I haven’t included all of them because it was getting depressing.

    It’s time to get in their faces and punch back twice as hard. People who favor and vote for these abuses need to be confronted. They need to have their noses rubbed in the messes they are responsible for supporting. They need to be made to own the evil that they cheer for and support. No more passes. No more excuses. It’s time for responsibility and accountability.

    “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”

  2. Nice video. Vincent Vega = vacuum fluctuation? Ha.

    Richard Feynman created a graphical notational method called Feynman Diagrams. Using it one can diagram virtual particles popping into and out of existence and/or interacting with real particles. Too weird for me. I was never a capable quantum mechanic.

  3. TommyJay,

    Before teaching a second semester senior QM course, I learned the basics of Feynman diagrams. What he basically invented was a short hand way of calculating interaction potentials. Draw, the diagrams according to the “rules”, then follow a prescription for setting up the calculation based on the nodes and lines. Was totally in the same vein as the methods chemists use to do QM calculations without having to actually solve the SE and deal with the wavefunctions. Useful, but not very illuminating. Of all the great things Feynman did, this to me, is the least impressive.

  4. physicsguy, No doubt. Just a curiosity to a student who was never particularly comfortable with the notions of vacuum fluctuations and virtual particles.

  5. Ms. Hossenfelder’s accent is nice. German with mostly American inflection, with a hint of British added.

  6. I always thought there was a special kind of “nothing” that children performed when they got real quiet & the mom or dad asked, “Hey…what’re y’all doing?” and they answered, “Nothing.”

  7. “vacuum fluctuations and virtual particles”

    Yeah, those are “allowed” by the Heisenberg Unc. Prin. It’s also consistent with the Dirac Eq…which melds Special Rel into QM and predicts, right out of the solution, antimatter. One can put the antiparticles in filled negative energy states that are then promoted to positive energy states and show up with their regular matter cohort such as when a photon interacts with the large E field near a nucleus and in place of the photon an electron and snit-electron pops out. So, the antimatter could also be said to exist “virtually”.

  8. Physicsguy. I have to disagree with you regarding Feynman Diagrams. They were extremely important in the development of QED, the quantum interaction between light and charged particles. Before them, a typical calculation took six months, afterwards, two hours.

    They also gave new meaning to the famous wave/particle duality in quantum mechanics. Here you had a way of calculating that was “entirely” within the particle point of view despite the basic equations being based on the wave view.

    You may not think much of them, but he was very proud of his idea. https://youtu.be/PDGFUYTOBcI

  9. Sabine approaches but mostly avoids a simple rational answer to the question of “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Based on observations she clearly described in this video, producing quantum phenomena is a quality of the actual physical state of nothing (as opposed to the nothing concept). Other physicists share this aversion to the infinities of physical nothingness, infinities in black holes, etc, assuming that quantifiable values will eventually be found to replace infinity. Amit Goswami and John Hagelin are 2 exceptions I know of who have no problem embracing infinity in nothingness.

    See also Was The Universe Born From Nothing?

  10. Paul, I did say they were useful. If I was a theorist they would be essential. For this experimentalist, even after learning the basics of the diagrams and rereading the QED book, I don’t think it helped me to really understand QED.

  11. Update about the “Greenie Meanie” subway attack: the NYPD has identified four of the perps: Four members of the “Green Goblin” gang who brutally attacked two 19-year-old women on a Manhattan train have 15 arrests between them, authorities said Friday as they identified the suspects. Emily Soto, 34, and Mairam Cisse Issouf, Ciante Alston and Dariana Peguero — all 26 — were among the group of suspects who wore full-body neon green leotards while punching and tossing around two 19-year-old women on a Times Square subway train around 2 a.m. Sunday, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig told reporters.

    https://nypost.com/2022/10/07/4-members-of-green-goblin-subway-attack-crew-idd-by-nypd/

    Well, at least the gang is ethnically diverse.

  12. I don’t know whether Neo will want to return to her series of posts on Uvalde, as there are many other concerns in the news right now. OTOH, Uvalde is back in the news, as the town just sacked its entire police force: “The Uvalde, Texas school district suspended its entire police force Friday amid criticism of officers’ delayed response during the massacre at Robb Elementary School in May. The school district requested that more Texas Department of Public Safety troopers be stationed on campuses in the tragedy-struck town and at extra-curricular activities, ABC News reported.”

    https://nypost.com/2022/10/07/uvalde-school-district-suspends-police-force-in-wake-of-mass-shooting/

  13. On the Jane Austen front…

    Last night I watched Whit Stillman’s film, “Love and Friendship” (2016) based on Jane Austen’s early novel, “Lady Susan,” about Susan’s machinations to get herself and her daughter matched and married to men of means, i.e. money.

    Definitely Austen territory!

    It took me a while to get up to speed with the characters, their relationships, and diction. I also had trouble because some of the dialog sounded foolish or terribly selfish and I couldn’t tell if those lines were intentionally so or artifacts of how a bygone age sounds to the current.

    One early lovely quote, half-Shakespeare, half-Austen, foreshadows the rest of the drama, from Lady Susan describing her efforts to get her daughter suitably wed to…
    _____________________

    Susan: Sir James Martin, of Martindale. Vastly rich, rather simple.

    Alicia: Ideal.

    Susan: Miss Maria Manwaring has set her cup for him, considering such an income too large not to be shared, but with a little notice I soon detached him and soon had him in love with Frederica [my daughter].
    _____________________

    Of course, given the Stillman/Austen pedigree, I soon realized the lines were indeed intended and part of the writing’s ironic, often comedic, appeal. I’m watching it again tonight to better savor the film.

    I can see how a lot of guys, such as Mark Twain, aren’t into Jane Austen. But now I understand how the game is played — and it is a valid game — I’ll go farther into the Jane Austen world.

    So, “Love and Friendship” is worth watching, if you’re so inclined. It’s also beautifully shot with marvelous costumes and landscapes.

    If you’re a conservative movie lover, Whit Stillman is a treasure.

  14. huxley, interesting about that movie – I didn’t know Stillman was still (pardon) at work. Metropolitan is one of my lifetime top three movies, so I suppose I should give your recommendation a try.

  15. PA Cat:

    I still plan to write that piece, but obviously it’s not my top priority at the moment.

    However, a correction. Uvalde did NOT sack its entire police force. It suspended the School District Police force, which if I’m recalling correctly was a small offshoot consisting of 6 people, one of whom was Arredondo who was already out. So I believe that this news involves the remaining 5 members of that force.

    The link you gave refers only to the school district police force, but never explains what that police force is.

  16. Philip Sells:

    By all means!

    My impression is Stillman is semi-blacklisted for his conservative politics. So he makes films when he can, as he can.

    He started a video series, “The Cosmopolitans” (2014) about current American expats in Europe. I liked the pilot, apparently he’d like to do more episodes, but it hasn’t happened:

    –“Whit Stillman Has a Plan to Save The Cosmopolitans”
    https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/whit-stillman-the-cosmopolitans.html

    I believe Stillman has a few films in him which will (eventually) reach the screen.

  17. Barcelonas my personal favorite followed by last days of disco thaf was novelized

  18. She has a pretty good video on the costs and practicality of nuclear power. Compares the costs and benefits to other energy sources. I can’t say anything about the accuracy of the costs, however.

  19. When I first went to UCLA I couldn’t decide whether to major in Math or Physics, but since two of my brothers are there majoring in Physics, I decided to go the Math major/Physics minor route. My third brother was there getting his doctorate in Oriental Philosophy and Languages, and in our conversations were heavy on the philosophical and abstract. The natures of “Nothing” and “Something” were important.

    One of my favorite Shakespearian quotes (from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) was extremely relevant to an amazing array of aspects of our studies, plus I think to the subject of today’s video:

    “And as imagination bodies forth
    The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
    Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
    A local habitation and a name”

    It’s even useful when talking to children about the differences in peoples, subjects, religions, and so on. By getting children to deliberately think of the quote and embody whatever topic we were discussing with with things in their “neighborhood” of experiences, the “local habitation” brings them into the familiar and friendly.

  20. Sabine is a delight, but as a physicist she only explores the Cartesian/scientific aspects of Nothing.

    The Existentialists explored Nothing from the vantage of being human. From a human perspective, Nothing or Nothingness, is whatever came before we were Born or, more importantly, the prospect of inevitable Death.

    I’m taking another run at Heidegger, an Existentialist in his first book, “Being and Time,” Here’s the best 20 minute summation of Heidegger’s B&T I’ve found or can imagine:
    ___________________________

    On the opposite of the finite spectrum of life we have Das Nichts, which roughly translates into Nothing. This is likely symbolized as death, as completely void, as something at the end of the journey.

    Heidegger saw the realization of the finite span of time that we have as the ultimate gateway towards Authenticity and the ultimate gateway, towards being in the world, because ultimately understanding time and our place within it is ultimately understanding Dasein [Human-Being-In-The-World].

    –Martin Heidegger, “Being and Time”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_nNEN7JUiM

    ___________________________

    Dasein literally translates as “Being-There.” (The Kosinski novel and Peter Sellers film came much later.) It’s what it means to be a human being, inseperable from the world, not a subject surrounded by a universe of objects.

    An inevitable aspect of Dasein, according to Heidegger, is the awareness that one comes to an end and that end is Nothingness.

    There may or may not be a God or Afterlife, but for whoever you are right now, you don’t really know, but you know today is not forever.

  21. And the Kerch bridge is down!

    Both spans of the highway bridge have been dropped and the railroad bridge is on fire.

    I’ve been telling people Ukraine is not going to give up Donbas and Crimea. They want their country back. Their whole country. And it looks like they just might get it.

  22. I loved this observation from Sabine:
    10:35 “People are way too respectful of all the stuff the physicists made up and get away with just because their maths are incomprehensible.”

  23. Oh, so THAT’S why Heidegger became a Nazi…

    (An AUTHENTIC Nazi, that is…because, I guess, NOTHING says “SELF-ACTUALIZATION” more than being a National Socialist…)

  24. that’s deep dude, actually very shallow, deman was his belgian counterpart who was a nazi sympathizer, derrida came from the left, and offered his own foolishness,

    as d’souza pointed out, heidegger mentored some of the frankfurt school philosophes

  25. Oh, so THAT’S why Heidegger became a Nazi…

    Barry Meislin:

    Sort of. It’s complicated and troubling.

    I’ve read enough Heidegger to understand how early Nazism looked like a reasonable bet to Heidegger. He ceased being active after 1934. However, he never recanted, he never explained, and that goes down against him and his philosophy.

    I’ll not rationalize Heidegger beyond he was human, a particularly brilliant human IMO, but still human and, as I say repeatedly, that means Ape on the Planet of the Apes.

    As Socrates was at pains to note on more than one occasion, a fool may be a fool, but still be correct on some particular matter.

    Heidegger was a terribly flawed human being, but I am persuaded he got it right that Western philosophy’s fixation on dividing the world into subjects, objects and properties missed the huge area of what it is to be a human being indivisibly in the world.

  26. Well what is the consequence of heideggers philosophy theres the recognition of suffering but there is no redemption no joy what a terrible way to like
    The poison well of german philosophy is there are no natural rights so kant leads to hitler and stalin

  27. Miguel cervantes:

    So Heidegger doesn’t scratch the fur behind your ears properly.

    Got it.

    I suggest the possibility that Heidegger might still have something important to say beyond your more particular concerns.

    Some people, including myself, don’t see Heidegger leading inevitably to Hitler and Stalin. For my purposes, Heidegger does have something to say about leading a more authentic life.

    You are welcome to disagree.

    Life is complicated.

  28. Yes life is nasty brutish and short and heidegger contributed in making it so (because he was an academic he had a responsibility to be more ethical: did i say that out loud

  29. Miguel cervantes:

    So you say.

    When I read you, I often feel like I’m listening to a lazy stoner laying flat on his back who can’t be bothered to make a coherent point, much less argument.

    How about some paragraphs, sentences, punctuation, and capitalization … to start with? We’ll deal with the reasoning later.

  30. And yet i find that amoral philosophes like heidegger and sartre are the bane of existence tomato tomatoe

  31. I’m a physicist, although not into quantum and particle theories so much. I think it worthwhile that Hossenfelder at least make mention that there are limits to physics. While she posits philosophy as the meta-realm of discourse, I think that it is more accurate to label the field of inquiry “theology”, or which philosophy may be a definite subset.
    In a way it resembles the old nonsense question bromide of “if everything has a cause, then what caused God?” That is a nonsense question, such as “what color is time?” The question, “what is ‘nothing’?” only makes sense within our cosmos of space and time. Any existence outside of our space-time is not a “thing” or a “nothing”: it is something that we have no vocabulary nor reference for.
    God is not (merely) a “thing” within our space-time, although we are limited in having to use such language. Removing Him from the box-of-nothing birthday present is a nonsensical idea.

  32. Those are theoretical constructs with the proviso you cant prove the theory hugh everett posited the multiverse because he figured that many actions have different results a multiplicity of choices

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