The Response

Actually Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity are not contradictory at all.  There is every reason to believe that they are compatible with the biggest problems arising from the fact that General Relativity is background independent while Quantum Mechanics is background dependent (holding time to be invariable).  The Higgs mechanism is a proposed explanation for why there are massive particles.  It works well on paper and in mathematical simulations but it may, of course, be incorrect in reality.  What makes it scientific, though, is that it is a testable hypothesis.  As you’ve acknowledged by mentioning the experiments, being done at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider later this year and around the end of last year.  The data is still being analyzed, and the experiments aren’t specifically looking for a higgs boson, but if one is found that would verify the higgs mechanism.  And if one is not found that would falsify the proposed higgs mechanism.  Personally I would be inclined myself to think of the higgs boson as most likely nonexistent except that it’s not too different from the W and Z gauge bosons that transfer the weak force (and to which they are supposed to give mass) or to phonons, in another way.  There’s also the fact that virtual particles seem even more unreal than the higgs boson, and yet have been demonstrated to exist.  So in light of the fact that weirder things have been proposed and confirmed I’m not as quick to dismiss the higgs boson out of hand.

My confidence that a theory of quantum gravity will be found that does not invoke the supernatural has a couple of sources.  First of all Loop Quantum Gravity is already able to eliminate the singularity around the planck epoch.  New research is always being done and the Large Hadron Collider gets stronger and stronger.  There are also some fascinating suggestions that gravity is itself an emergent entropic phenomenon.  This was suggested years ago by the fact that general relativity can be derived from thermodynamics, and was recently suggested again by Verlinde who argues that  gravity is not a fundamental force, but an emergent phenomenon which arises from the statistical behavior of microscopic degrees of freedom encoded on a holographic screen.  Lee Smolin subsequently demonstrated that Loop Quantum Gravity is a holographic theory which is not only compatible with Verlinde’s argument but which, when assuming a classical spacetime outside of the bounds of the entropic system, can derive newton’s equation of universal gravitation.  Further suggesting that Loop Quantum Gravity is a serious contender as a quantum theory of gravity.

By the way geometry is itself an abstraction, there’s no such physical thing as a circle or a sphere or a square.  Early geometers looked at things which were circular, spherical, or square and distilled from these objects those properties which they shared in common to develop the abstract concept of circularity, spherical, and squareness.  I dismiss only the assertion that your book actually offers new concepts which are actually insightful about quantum gravity, not any evidence which you so far, at least here, have not produced.  But more to the point you have yet to demonstrate here a particularly good understanding of what physicists are actually talking about or even what I’m saying.  Like when I mentioned the planck epoch in reference to why a quantum theory of gravity is needed, or what would be lost without one.  Likewise when you claim that general relativity and quantum mechanics are contradictory you demonstrate a lack of understanding of what you’re talking about.  In order for two things to contradict each other one of them has to be false if the other is true.  Which is false?  So are you saying that if General Relativity is correct Quantum Mechanics is false?  Or is it the other way around?  If either way is the case then why are scientists trying to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics at all?  It’s much more accurate to characterize the two theories as being complimentary than as being contradictory.

Including something is generally only done when something is demonstrated to exist.  I would love to see actual evidence of the supernatural.  Scientists actually already know what a quantum theory of gravity should and should not look like, what they don’t know are the specific details of the mathematical formulation.  In case I’m not being clear, by this I mean scientists already know specifically what questions a theory of loop quantum gravity must answer, we also have ideas about how to answer these questions.  These ideas lead to the various competing lines of inquiry which are attempting to tackle them.  String Theory, M Theory, Loop Quantum Gravity, just to name a few.  Personally I think the answer will be found in a combination of various techniques which will most likely only be possible when more time has been dedicated to trying to find a quantum theory of gravity.  Remember we’ve only been looking for a quantum theory of gravity for less than about 95 years.  Given that General Relativity is only about 95 years old I would say several years less than 95 years, even.  Afterall we couldn’t have been looking for a theory to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics before there was a theory of general relativity to reconcile with quantum mechanics.  We should also keep in mind that Quantum Mechanics was itself an infant science when general relativity was discovered, and it most likely took some time for people to explore both sciences relative to each other and discover that they were incompatible with one another.  And it should be noted that another important part of the problem is that not even all of the consequences of general relativity have been explored yet, and thus a better understanding of general relativity itself could likely suggest more solutions to the problem of reconciling it with quantum mechanics.  Conversely quantum mechanics has not been completely explored and more solutions will likely be suggested from that direction as well.  This is partially evident in the fact that already is the case, where deeper understandings of general relativity and quantum mechanics already are suggesting solutions to the problem of reconciling the two sciences to each other.

I’m sorry I’m boring you with my lectures and refresher courses in physics theory, I’m finding your condescension highly amusing, especially coupled with the fact that I only feel the need to explain what your comments seem to suggest you don’t understand.  Of course I’m not telling you anything new, but I suspect I’m telling you things which are actually new to you, which is probably partially why you haven’t really addressed much of what I’ve actually said in response to what you’ve said directly preferring instead to bring up new subjects in support of your position or nonsense or pointless phrases like “Quantum gravity possesses different and distinct qualities within the multi-level scaffolding of spacetime structure.”

I also get the “I’m a busy man” brushoff a lot.

I also think you flatter yourself if you think any serious scientist will read your book and feel worried or threatened by your proposals.  Or if you think your book will “shake up” or “challenge” their “entrenched institutions”