I started this blog on physics a bit more than a decade ago. It was then titled ‘Reading Penrose’s Road to Reality‘ (or something similar). I soon realized Penrose is/was just rambling, as evidenced by his latest theory relating quantum physics to consciousness. The only difference between Penrose and a weird physics teacher in Santa Barbara who tried to convince me of the existence of microgeons with in-built conscience is that Penrose had a rather distinguished career before he came up with all of this nonsense.
I am done with physics. I studied economics as a student. It was the only university study my father would let me do: he wanted me to do something useful and, looking back, he was right and made the right choice for me. One can study philosophy and physics as a hobby, which I did (I got a degree in philosophy but, because of my controversial take on the science of physics, I do not have the patience to get a degree in physics).
I think I have pushed it as far as a human being possibly can. Not economics, but physics is the ‘dismal science‘ nowadays. The Nobel Prize committee has played a very sad role in promoting theories that cannot be proved, but call for ever larger investments in huge technical facilities, such as CERN (very useful) or ITER (not useful at all). Today, I just stopped working on a paper challenging the usefulness of the concept of intermediate vector bosons. Then I thought: it is no use. It is like taking to the streets against the Gaza crisis, which a lot of people are doing but with no result in terms of making politicians change their mind.
So, I just put it online (there are no dark forces on ResearchGate), and then people can think about it and make up their own mind. I quoted Boltzmann a couple of times over the past few years: “Bring forth what is true. Write it so it it’s clear. Defend it to your last breath.” I do not have the required energy to do the latter bit: defending something – even if it is truth – to one’s last breath is not a recipe for good mental and physical health, and surely not for happiness.
We should go with the flow and take care of the ones that are near to us. I want to re-connect with my body. I am 54 years old now, and it is time to stop thinking and just work on technical things (I am an ICT consultant, after all). That will make me happy, and so that is what I am going to do.
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I am happy I read the originals: Einstein in German, de Broglie in French and, of course, all of the Solvay papers. I am very grateful to my Jesuit professors – who taught me not only economics, but also math and philosphy – for having put up with me thirty years ago, and always insisted I should read great thinkers in the language that they were using to write up their great works. [I now think that is the only reason they let me pass, because I tended to disagree on everything else they were trying to teach me.]
It makes me think that modern education (with its emphasis on using AI and the incredible repository of knowledge on the web) is great but, frankly, I think the younger generation should do a lot more slow and deep reading: Aquinas, Wittgenstein, Ryle, and yes: Schrödinger, Einstein and Maurice/Louis de Broglie. I can only provide some pointers: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341269271_De_Broglie’s_matter-wave_concept_and_issues. The Universe is simple and most wonderful at the same time.
As for the best quote of all times, I think it must be what Keynes famously said: “You can bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink.” [This is a proverb that goes back to the 12th century, apparently.] 🙂
Post scriptum: I baptized the paper on intermediate vector bosons – a pure fiction of the mind, if you ask me – Mystery 101. I thought it was a fun title, so I also wrote a Mystery 102 paper. That one takes a jab at myself. Indeed, when everything is said and done, one should not criticize others if you cannot criticize yourself, can you? 🙂 It is on my proton model: all equations make sense and yield the measurements or results that one wants out of such models, but – for some reason – I did not find a ‘Royal Road‘ to its equations of motion. Not yet. I am not so worried about that. Perhaps it is like the two-body problem: there may be no analytical solution. The interesting thing is that I now think the trajectory of the proton’s Zitterbewegung charge might not be on some spherical surface, but on a sphere turned inside out: like a double-conical structure or something. Who knows? 🙂
Reading Feynman 