That's roughly my recollection as well. I'm liking Brian Cox less and less. "Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it." -Frederick Soddy
And then there's also the fact that he's using non-Relativistic quantum mechanics to make his argument with the double well potential he cites. I'm pretty sure the CPT theorem was already proved for the Standard Model in its current form, and that would explicitly forbid any form of faster than light signalling to occur. Yes there's a probability of a heated diamond "causing" an instantaneous and negligible shift in distant atoms' energy levels, but it's the same as the probability of a shift in those distant atoms "causing" the diamond to heat instead. Invoking the external hand warming the diamond is simply a non-starter in this case, and there's absolutely no need to resort to the shift in energies being less than the Planck mass and hence non-measurable, which is what it seems Dr. Cox was working towards.
Now I don't like to call people dishonest without good reason, but you've given me reason enough. You're being dishonest. Throughout the entire thread you were talking about 2 dimensional objects ..... and so on and so on. If you find correction so eye-wateringly uncomfortable so that you would try to rewrite history rather than accept it, may I suggest you do a little less talky-talky and a little more learny-learny. No, the word bijection doesn't imply continuity. This isn't even a difficult concept -- a bijection is simply a map which is one-to-one and onto. That's it. No mention of continuity. However, given your earlier comments it seems that you're not too sure what continuity is, so perhaps it's unsurprising that you're stuck on this point. The fact that a 3 dimensional ball has a global coordinate system inherited from R^3 is obvious and has nothing to do with what was being discussed in the thread. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I'm blushing! Unfortunately you managed to overlook the big part of my last post in which I had to explain to you, once again, that there is no such thing as an "observer at infinity". To remind you: Is this another instance in which you've realised you've said something stupid, but would prefer not to admit it? Again -- I forgive you. I just hope everyone else feels as charitable. Right, off to polish my halo.
Guest, you did a good job typing that using spinors for hands. Actually I've just thought of an awesome sequel for Johnny Depp to do, Edward Spinorhands! It can open with the tagline "Based on physics arguments by Farsight" and it can involve Edward proving to the Nobel Prize committee that Farsight deserves not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 Nobel Prizes. In the original Edward was silent but that's fine because when they ask him to provide demonstration Farsight's work can model anything in the real world he'll have nothing to say! /edit And congratulations on 1000 posts, if such a thing is a 'good' thing.
My 2c: Check out the Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory, about which Paul Davies says: "Wheeler and Feynman therefore concluded that, in an opaque universe, only retarded electromagnentic waves will occur, even if every individual charged particle radiates symmetrically [in time] both retarded and advanced waves. The astonishing result of the Wheeler-Feynman analysis comes about because, in their theory, the electromagnetic activity of any individual charged particle cannot be separated from that of the entire universe. The waves they produce cannot be untangled from the echoes they induce even from the most distant regions of the cosmos." (my italics)
I thought the Double Twit Experiment link posted by Trooper was good. Mind you, it's perhaps unfair to single out Brian Cox for criticism. IMHO just about every physics documentary I've seen recently has featured stupid patronising inaccurate woo. I'm trying ot think of an example that bucks the trend, and I'm struggling.
James Al Khalili usually makes pretty good documentaies, both on the radio and the TV. I also like in our time on radio 4, which usually does a pretty good job when it covers science subjects.
I've listened to some of the In Our Time programs on radio 4 and thought they were pretty good apart from the physics programs, where I've gained a poor impression. However I can't recall the details of any particular program to back that up. I work from home these days, so I don't drive to work listening to the radio, and to be honest I haven't heard any recent programs. I watched the Horizon program about the Higgs boson. It was screened a week previously, and was presented by Jim Al Khalili. I thought it was dreadfully misleading. He said the Higgs was the "cornerstone" of the standard model when it isn't. He gave a voice-over to the usual molasses nonsense that totally ignores the photon in the box and the E=mc² radiating body losing mass. And there was no mention of the fact that the Higgs mechanism is responsible for only 1% of the mass of matter. Check out A Zeptospace Odyssey: A Journey into the Physics of the LHC by Gian Giudice for this. He describes the Higgs sector as "frightfully ad-hoc" and as the "toilet" of the standard model. OK there were some good bits to the program, like when the guy went into the ATLAS chamber and said something like the theoretical physicists come up with theories and we experimentalists obtain evidence to disprove or support those theories. And I liked the bit towards the end when Jim told us how supersymmetry was threatened by lack of evidence and Frank Wilczek paused really awkwardly. But on the whole I thought it was puff-piece patronising drivel that took the public for fools. I tell you prometheus, I am reminded of Terminator with all this: Sarah Connor: What did he just say? Gas Station Attendant: He said there's a storm coming in. Sarah Connor: [sighs] I know.
What I like about in our time is that it's generally about a particular subject, not a general area so there's enough time to go into things in a bit more detail and as a consequence of that, you come away from it knowing there's a lot more detail and background to the results that get quoted in pop science books. I've not seen that programme so I can't comment, but I would like you to explain why "the Higgs mechanism is only responsible for 1% of the mass of matter." The Higgs certainly is important in the SM. If it's not there then there are at least 2 problems I can think of at 6.25am which definetely require a solution of some sort. If not the Higgs there there must be something else doing the job, like technicolour or something. He is overplaying his hand. The entire standard model could easily be described as ad hoc for many reasons. The Higgs sector is certainly nowhere near as bad for the SM as toilet implies.
Disclaimer: Pre-coffee Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Sorry to revisit this again but I just finished watching this video. I love these Sixty Symbols videos but they always lead to more confusion. I thought that quantum entanglement had to be created by direct interactions between subatomic particles, but one guy in the video said that the entire universe is in this entangled state. Is it? Was Brian Cox Wrong? I also found a poor quality but cool video of John Bell stating, “You cannot get away with saying that there is no action at a distance. You cannot separate off from what happens in one place from what happens in another. They have to be described and explained jointly.” Bell Himself Explaining the Implications of his Inequality Does it prove that the entire universe is in an entangled state simply because there are methods of creating entanglement? Is quantum nonlocality equivalent to entanglement? Aren’t there limits to quantum nonlocality, e.g. Tsirelson's bound? BTW, doesn’t he look like Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!“Oh, you should never, never doubt what nobody is sure about.”~ Willy Wonka
Why do people, mainly men, hate Brian Cox? What's wrong with him? He's kindly, pleasant mannered, good looking, intelligent, wealthy. He is good humoured, well dressed, slim and fit. He's got a great job, and gets sent to exotic places. He is well respected as a scientist, and used to be a pop star. That's enough about what's wrong with him. Surely he must have some good points.
