I've suggested (& published in 21 journal papers) a new theory called quantised inertia (or MiHsC) that assumes that inertia is caused by horizons damping quantum fields. It predicts galaxy rotation & lab thrusts without any dark stuff or adjustment. My University webpage is here, I've written a book called Physics from the Edge and I'm on twitter as @memcculloch. Most of my content is at patreon now: here

Saturday 15 February 2014

A diversity of ideas means faster progress.

There are many dull periods in history where the suppression of new ideas held up progress. The Inquisition burned books and drove science out of southern Europe to the benefit of northerners. Nowadays, I'd like to argue that a pointless conformity in western theoretical physics is suppressing badly-needed alternatives to standard physics.

As an example: four months ago I published a paper in the scientific literature that derives gravity in a new way from quantum mechanics (see reference below). Something very new. I'm not saying I'm right, I simply don't know yet, but what I would say is that it is interesting and unique, maybe useful, and crucially: already published. I uploaded this paper to the arXiv, hoping to stimulate some useful debate, which I badly need to further build on it, and four months later anonymous people are still mulling over whether to include or reject it, as if the arXiv is its own journal.

The arXiv is a kind of 'public library' that is supposed to reflect what goes on in the scientific community and make it freely available to all, a noble goal, unless it becomes hijacked by a anonymous group with a bias, in which case the arXiv becomes something else entirely: a way for a biased minority to steer the scientific community their way, circumventing the proper evidence-based scientific debate (this avoidance is useful if you have no evidence at all).

I doubt anyone from the arXiv understands the long-term negative impact of what they are doing, I'm sure they are content to be in the 'cool' crowd, but standard/current physics is provably wrong: it only predicts 4% of the cosmos, it is not even self-consistent, as Einstein knew way back in 1935. The suppression of un-cool alternatives simply delays progress, and game-changing technologies we might have had sooner will be lost, perhaps for decades.

On the other hand if the arXiv return to their job, and objectively reflect all the debates occuring in the scientific peer-reviewed literature then theoretical physics can only gain: it may even cease debating cool but untestable and useless subjects like the interior of black holes and will become evidence-based and scientific again. Inevitably this will make it more useful, practical and interesting.

My, maybe flawed, but interesting paper was published in Astrophysics and Space Science and is: here.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

It all depends on your name. What do you think, if you were written this piece (Consciousness as a State of Matter) would it be approved by arXiv? ;-)

Mainstream physics is like a living thing, it protects itself from the attacks of heretic researchers. Keep on rocking!

Unknown said...

Hi Mike,

You could print this out and take it with you to that gravitational constant meeting ;-)

Mike McCulloch said...

Thank you. I will read it, and try to ask some meaningful questions.

Unknown said...

Thanks Mike,

At least you can exercise your imagination if you build surrounding universe based on those two hypotheses and three laws. It's quite fun and rewarding actually :-)