Signs of a Stranger, Deeper Side to Nature’s Building Blocks | Hacker News Reader

Signs of a Stranger, Deeper Side to Nature’s Building Blocks

simonsfoundation.org

71 pointsnature2410 comments

Horowitz was my instructor for graduate quantum mechanics and I knew a few of his students. He's the real deal, and apparently well known for some important string theory in the eighties. Think of him as the Charlie Weis of physics (complete with swollen hands due to poor circulation)

The truth is, we don't really know as much as we think we do.

Copernicus and Galileo were both branded as heretics in their day.

Extraordinary claims... as summarized by some guy's foundation's website.

While the whole holographic thing does indeed smell of pseudoscience, it's the real deal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle (and if you still don't believe me, check out the names on Wikipedia's references). I suppose it lies past the frontier where even the interested layman can no longer tell the difference anymore.

James Simons is a billionaire and ran one of the world's most successful hedge funds[0]. It's not directly related to physics, but he did donate a lot to SUNY Stony Brook's science departments (Renaissance Tech is next door to USB)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Simons

Billionaire title doesn't make scientific claims any more true. Tom Cruise may be billionaire too, but claims to believe in some crap, for whatever reasons.

Just to make my point clear, I'm not against J. Simons. I'm against using billionaire titles for defending scientific theories.

The article seems to be published in the Journal of High Energy Physics, which is considered seriously by physicists [0]. That title would be a valid response to schlagetown, of course.

[0] http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?area=3100&category=...

It wasn't clear in my comment, but I wasn't addressing the parent's "extraordinary claim" comment, but the "some guy" part.

TBH I didn't get through the article because my BS-meter went off.

Simons invented a lot of the math that people use to look at this sort of stuff, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chern%E2%80%93Simons_form

This seems very, very strange but seems to be at least tolerated in the Physics world. It was published in a serious journal and has been presented at seminars and meetings. I could not find any discussion - everyone may think it is crazy or wrong or untestable but I just couldn't find anything in writing.

So cool! And quite a good article too - presents quite a mindbending topic in a graspable, compelling manner.

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