The Big Bang Theory

Just watched a few more episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon is such an obnoxious physicist but it makes for great comedy I also enjoy the series as it has a hot toddy in the next flat, called Penny, plus it focuses on cutting edge science.

As Wikipedia states here -

Much of the show focuses on science, particularly physics. The four main male characters are employed at Caltech and have science-related occupations. The characters frequently banter about scientific theories or news (notably around the start of the show), and make science-related jokes.
Science has also interfered with the characters’ romantic lives. Leslie broke up with Leonard when he sided with Sheldon in his support for string theory rather than her support for loop quantum gravity. When Leonard joined Sheldon, Raj and Howard on a three-month Arctic research trip, it separated Leonard and Penny at a time their relationship was budding. When Bernadette took an interest in Leonard's work, it made both Penny and Howard jealous and resulted in Howard confronting Leonard, and Penny asking Sheldon to teach her physics. Sheldon and Amy also briefly ended their relationship after an argument over which of their fields was superior to the other's.

On BBC 4 earlier Horizon was looking at asteroids and how they could have given the early earth water to sustain life and how they could threaten us all with an impact, such as the air burst that hit Tunguska way back in 1908.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

My tweets

• Thu, 16:14: Ashford and Canterbury Visit http://t.co/i9kIGbd4
• Thu, 16:22: I've favourited an @YouTube video http://t.co/NMYiuZnS The Fascinations - I'm So Lucky (He Loves Me)
• Thu, 16:25: I've favourited an @YouTube video http://t.co/zTcQq7BP MITCH RYDER AND THE DETROIT WHEELS-BREAK OUT
• Thu, 16:30: I've favourited an @YouTube video http://t.co/Ehip9AxS The Sonics - Louie Louie
• Thu, 16:40: http://t.co/YV7XRTdl My muisc playlist from You Tube, cool, funky stuff and it rocks!
• Fri, 00:57: The search for the Higgs Boson at the LHC Cern Charlie Rose -Lisa Randall (09/16/11): http://t.co/dAjzItQp via @youtube
• Fri, 01:36: The Big Bang Theory http://t.co/h4nIbBNh
• Fri, 09:18: Still ruddy cold but no frost. Might go out today then.

The Sittingbourne Charity Shop Anomaly

A visit to Sittingbourne this afternoon and a couple of charity shop purchases made. One by Arthur C Clarke “The Fountains of Paradise” (Gollancz) , Anthony Burgess “A Clockwork Orange”(Penguin) and David Nicholls “Starter For Ten” (Penguin).

Watched a BBC 4 documentary about prog rockers going to America, such as ELP, King Crimson,Yes, Jethro Tull and so on, plus the great Led Zeppelin.

Read , and finished in one day, an Ikon book on the Universe. Then back to reading the F. David Peat book on “Superstrings”.

Also, keeping my fingers crossed that the snow does not come Saturday evening.

The Anti-String Theory Conjecture

Another book completed a few days ago, but not on my list of challenge books -

Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Continuing Challenge To Unify The Laws of Physics
Peter Woit (Jonathan Cape)


The subtext of this book closely describes only the last third of it, so I consider it's rather misleading. It's not mainly about the failure of string theory, more history of the development of particle physics. . Lacks cohesion as a complete book, reads more as a series of essays, also a tad too self-conscious. The last third is the most interesting and could I think have been expanded to the whole of a shorter book with the first 13 or so chapters compressed to a concise summary, along with some biographical details of major contributors (e.g. Ed Witten).

He argues persuasively that string theory is fatally flawed due to a lack of any predictions and a propensity to fall back on anthropic arguments or multiple universes (or just invent a new variable) to explain experimental data not predicted by the theory.

The book itself is dense by popular science standards. Given that Woit's book appears to be a direct answer to those put out by Greene, Kaku, and others, he would have done well to incorporate metaphor and modelling to help his arguments convey to the reader. Even as someone who enjoys dense math books, this one's hundred-page foray into complex mathematics was tough to slog through. In the end, his direct arguments against string theory barely referred back to the symmetry discussions. String theory itself was not even mentioned until the latter half of the book, making the grind through symmetries a bit frustrating and dry.

The early history of particle physics experimentation is excellent, and the end of the book has much greater readability to the average reader. Woit has strong arguments about why string theory emerged (lack of other options, some nifty math tricks) as well as why it maintains dominance after decades of what Woit describes as a 'failure' to produce any proof of being on the right track (grandfathered tenured professors, decreasing funding for new hires, etc.).

All in all, despite its flaws, the book establishes a clear line of attack against string theory for the reader, but does suffer severely from a long section of advanced math which is not very well demonstrated to the average reader. Woit's general bitter tone is a bit off-putting and won't be well received by those who like the lighter, cheerier moods of Brian Greene and Michio Kaku.