Crunch time for physics: What's next? (New Scientist)
Editor’s note: Try the options in the previous post Beyond Light – The "flat" science view can easily be upgraded with the curvature addition - a radius of curvature of all natural law.
At
minimum, at least there is some consensus on acknowledging the current stalemate in the standard model of physics.
(Image: Fabrice
Coffrini/AFP/GettyImages)
"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now" was supposedly a common refrain among late-Victorian scientists – shortly before quantum theory and Einstein’s relativity overturned everything.
There is no such arrogance today.
Relativity has produced a supremely accurate model of the cosmos, but to make
it work we must supplement the universe we do see with myriad others that we
don't.
Last year’s discovery of the Higgs boson capped decades of sculpting quantum theory into the standard model of particle physics – yet it, too, is found wanting. Meanwhile, melding the two pillars of 20th-century physics into one "theory of everything" remains a dream.
It may once again be time for a radical rethink, starting with the most fundamental question of all…
Last year’s discovery of the Higgs boson capped decades of sculpting quantum theory into the standard model of particle physics – yet it, too, is found wanting. Meanwhile, melding the two pillars of 20th-century physics into one "theory of everything" remains a dream.
It may once again be time for a radical rethink, starting with the most fundamental question of all…
MATHEMATICS
The
roots of reality?
What makes us so sure that mathematics can reveal nature's deepest workings, asks cosmologist Brian Greene
BIG
BANG COSMOLOGY
The
dark void at the universe's heart
Our
established picture of the universe is supremely successful – maybe because
most of it is completely made up, saysStephen Battersby
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STANDARD
MODEL
Higgs
smashes into a dead end
The discovery of the Higgs boson completed the most precise scientific model in history – and that's where the problems start, says Matthew Chalmers
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THEORIES
OF EVERYTHING
Desperately
seeking everything
An
ultimate theory that unifies all of physics seems as far away as ever – but
that doesn't mean we should stop chasing the dream, says Michael Brooks
Read more
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