March 2008 Archives

Super String theory, interesting it is. But how useful and possible is it?
The companion paper I select is "String Theory: An Evaluation" written in 2001 "from the perspective of a quantum field theorist now working in the mathematical community".

In this paper, the author regarded that the super string theory has been extremely successful only in terms of public relations. Which means that super string theory has made many best selling books. It becomes a fashion among both lay-men and researchers. But so far no one has managed to "extract any sort of experimental prediction out of the theory". It cannot be falsified by any conceivable experimental result. Although there has not been any breakthrough in the super string theory in recent decades, more and more researchers, graduate student are still devoting themselves to this theory. The author thought that this is not a good sign for the development of physics because the author is not optimistic about super string theory.

To me, I am neutral about super string theory. I would like to analyze it from the perspective of philosophy of science. According to Lakato's principles of scientific change, it is acceptable to protect a research program for a while, during a period when it is degenerating. As to super string theory, it is hard to say that it is degenerating since it is now a very popular, hot topic in physics. But it is hard to say that it is progressive because really there has not been significant process over the past decades. We can say that super string is stable at the best. So, from the philosophy of Lakatos, it is tolerant that we provide some more and time space for super string theory to develop, and to see what will happen.

Also according to Lakatos, there should be competing research programs operating in parallel and compete in an ongoing way. From this perspective, the dominance of super string theory right now is really not a good sign for the sake of the development of physics. Right now, "graduate students, post-docs, and untenured junior faculty interested in physics..,. are under tremendous pressures in a brutal job market to work on the latest fad in string theory". Too much emphasis has been put on this. For the development of physics, we need a change.

Chaos theory is interesting, but it seems to me that it is far away from our daily life, except for the researchers who are doing chaos research. I was trying to find some application of chaos theory, but failed. All I can find is some researcher applied the theory to some data and confirm that there is a phenomenon of chaos. For example, Apostolos Serletis and Periklis Gogas tested and concluded that there was evidence consistent with a chaotic non-linear process in all five natural gas markets.

It is interesting, so what? Can it help human being predict the chaotic future? So far until now, the answer is no. I post this argument based on my knowledge about chaos theory, feel free to correct me or criticize if you find I am wrong.

Thanks

After reading these two articles, my first reaction is why Dr.Jim Jansen chooses these two inventors? Obviously there two articles come from different books. The article about Ts'ai Lun comes from the book: The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. The article about Leonardo da Vinci comes from the book  The Renaissance (The Story of Civilization V).

In The 100, the top 10 are
1     Mohammed     
2     Isaac Newton     
3     Jesus Christ     
4     Buddha     
5     Confucius     
6     St. Paul     
7     Ts'ai Lun     
8     Johannes Gutenberg     
9     Christopher Columbus    
10   Albert Einstein
Why does Dr. Jim Jansen choose the 7th, rather than the 1st?

As to Leonardo da Vinci, there is not doubt that he was one of the greatest figures at that time.
My question is why pick a 7th from on place and then pick another great man from another place, and put them parallel with each other, labeling them as two smart dudes? What is the rationale behind the selection?

While I am happy that Hart put Ts'ai Lun in front of Gutenberg, but I really doubt some of the arguments the author provided. For example, the author mentioned that "It is true, of course, that agriculture and writing developed earlier in the Middle East that they did in China. That alone, however, would not explain why Chinese civilization consistently lagged behind that of the West". Firstly, the latest archeology discovery confirms that the area of downstream Changyang River is the earliest agriculture place that have been discovered. Secondly, there is no evidence to confirm that Chinese civilization consistently lagged behind that of the West. Actually, the West consistently lagged behind that of China.

I admitted that China did lag behind the West from the 18th century. The reason for this is not because of printing, but because of industrial revolution. China did not catch up with the industrial revolution not because Chinese do not have enough books for people to read, but because China was closed to the outside world. At that time, Chinese did not bother to learn science and technology. At that time, Chinese paid most of their attention on the philosophy of Confucius. Lack of communication with the Western world and do not bother to learn technology which was looked down upon at that time made China lag behind.

As to the chapter introducing Leonardo da Vinci, I wish I could have read that before the Spring break. During the spring break, I went to New York and visited the Metropolitan Museum. I just browsed the exhibits without understanding the story behind that. Although I know some of them, but it is far from enough.  Is it a failure of eduction, which make us a Ph.D in technology and engineering and at the same time make us a blind in front of arts?

    

Why human beings take so much efforts in pursuing science? At first glance, the answer to this question is obvious. Science is fascinating. It can help people better understand the world. It can make a people live a better life. For example, when human beings began to have a primarily scientific mind, we began to have the ability to move out of the forests where we used to live in and started living in houses which is much more comfortable. With a scientific mind we began to know how to plant and we could get enough food. With science, right now, we can have so many advanced equipments, like cars, cellphones, computers. We can even explore the out space. The benefits science has brought to us are enormous. We are glad to have science with us.

However, to my opinion, this argument is just a post-hoc examination. The benefits science has brought us the just the result of implementing science, not the driving force of science. As far as I am concerned, science is only a means which is used by human beings to meet our needs. Because our antecedents wanted to live more comfortably, they wanted to eat full, and they wanted to survive, they began to think about ways that could help them build houses, that could make them full. Science is the tool that could help them make the needs. So human needs are the ultimate driving force of  science.

Today, in this much more civilized world, human needs are still the the ultimate driving force of  science. A slight difference right now is that human needs are on longer still focusing physical needs, for example food, shelter etc. Some more subtle needs become dominant, for example the desire for safety, the desire for respect, the desire for self-realization. Science here is still the best tool that human can use. Being a scientific man means that you have more chance of meeting your needs because the whole society respects science.

So far until now, we are still focusing on needs as the driving force of science. What will happen if in the future, when the society is highly civilized, highly affluent, every one being equal, all the needs of human being met, do human being still need science? As far as I am concerned, I think such an 'Utopian' is really likely to be realized with the science being extremely mature. In such a society, human needs are no longer driving force of science. Instead, the driving force would be human interest. I think interest is the ultimately driving force at that age. Although some people would say that right now interest has become the driving force. I would contest that right now the reason human being have interest in science is that being a scientist, they could live a better life. That is a very pragmatic view. But it is true.

Finally, I think although both human needs and interests are all sciecne driving forces, the effects of the two are different. I think that the driving power of interest may be higher than the driving power of human needs...Just maybe... I do not know....