[FOM] Question about theoretical physics

Lukasz T. Stepien sfstepie at cyf-kr.edu.pl
Wed Jul 10 07:12:31 EDT 2013


A bug appeared in my previous post. I apologize for it. Obviously, it
should be:

"The first paper, devoted to this theory, was
published about 25 years ago".


But as a comment, one may say that Staruszkiewicz's theory is based on
reliable mathematical fundamentals, in contrary to the quantum
electrodynamics, which, as one can see, excites doubts, as far as its
mathematical fundamentals are concerned, although it is consistent with
the experimental data.


                                 Łukasz T. Stępień

-- 
Lukasz T. Stepien

The Pedagogical University of Cracow
Chair of Computer Science and Computational Methods,
ul. Podchorazych 2
30-084 Krakow
Poland

tel. +48 12 662-78-54, +48 12 662-78-44

URL  http://www.ltstepien.up.krakow.pl


Dnia 8 Lipca 2013, 3:42 pm, Pn, Lukasz T. Stepien napisał(a):
>   Well, as far as I am concerned, I reactivated the discussion about
> theoretical physics, because one of the aspects of this discussion was the
> problem of fine structure constant. Thus, I wrote some informations about
> the quantum theory of electric charge, constructed by Professor Andrzej
> Staruszkiewicz (Marian Smoluchowski Institute of Physics,  Jagiellonian
> University, Krakow, Poland). This theory explains, what is the origin of
> fine structure constant. The first paper, devoted to this theory, was
> published about 25 years later, so I have been surprised that nobody of
> the Disputants knows it and I gave the references to several papers
> devoted to this theory.
> I have some reflections to this discussion, but now I participate in a
> organization of a Conference, so I will write my reflections in next week.
>
>
>                                        Łukasz T. Stępień
>
> --
> Lukasz T. Stepien
>
> The Pedagogical University of Cracow
> Chair of Computer Science and Computational Methods,
> ul. Podchorazych 2
> 30-084 Krakow
> Poland
>
> tel. +48 12 662-78-54, +48 12 662-78-44
>
> URL  http://www.ltstepien.up.krakow.pl
>
>
> 8 July 2013, 5:41 am, Mo, Timothy Y. Chow wrote:
>> I can't, of course, answer Joe Shipman's more technical questions.
> However, I can say which of his demands I believe are reasonable. On Sat,
> 6 Jul 2013, joeshipman at aol.com wrote:
>>> (1) Can the result of Laporta and Remiddi be regarded as a rigorous
> theorem of mathematics?
>> This doesn't seem relevant to me.  They have written down a well-defined
> number and have officially proposed it as a theoretical prediction.  That
>> should be enough.
>>> (2) considering this experiment only (anomalous magnetic moment of the
> electron), does the fourth-order coefficient that has been calculated come
> with a rigorous upper and lower numerical bound?
>> Here I agree that this is a reasonable demand, although I would replace
> "rigorous" with "explicit".
>>> (3) Is there any reason to believe that an analytic expression of the
> type that Laporta and Remiddi established for the third-order
>>> coefficient does not exist for higher-order coefficients?
>> A reasonable question, though somewhat tangential in my opinion;
> question
>> (4) below is more to the point.
>>> (4) Is there a method in principle to calculate arbitrarily precise
> bounds for the fourth-order and higher coefficients, which we may
> regard
>>> as algorithmic by applying the Church-Turing thesis to the mind of
> either Professor Neumaier, or of some more expert specialist in the field
> whom Professor Neumaier could name?
>> This is a reasonable question in the sense that the answer might be yes,
> in which case Joe Shipman's objections should be satisfactorily
> answered.
>> I'm not convinced, though, that the answer *needs* to be yes.  Suppose,
> for example, that the calculation is "open-ended" in the following sense.
>> There is an outline of a procedure to be followed, whose initial steps
> are
>> clearcut.  At some point, however, one may need to verify that certain
> calculations do indeed produce answers of a certain form that we expect
> them to have.  If they do, then all is well and we can continue.  But if
> they don't, then it may not be quite clear how to proceed, depending on
> how badly the intermediate calculation violates expectations.
>> In this scenario, there is strictly speaking no "algorithm."  At best we
> have a "conjectural algorithm" where some steps are only conjectured to
> terminate.  In my mind this would still be good enough as long as the
> details of the fourth-order case have been worked out in enough detail to
>> produce sufficient precision (note: not "arbitrary precision") to make a
> meaningful theoretical prediction.  The important thing is that the
> calculation that has been done already is verifiable by someone else who
> is willing to study the subject in detail, and it's not so important that
>> the procedure be defined in a way that guarantees the ability to
> extrapolate the results indefinitely.
>> For a more mathematical analogy, one could imagine some calculation that
> requires computing the ranks of certain elliptic curves over Q, where one
>> conjectures, but cannot prove, that the elliptic curves that come up
> have
>> ranks that are computable using known methods.
>> Tim
>> _______________________________________________
>> FOM mailing list
>> FOM at cs.nyu.edu
>> http://www.cs.nyu.edu/mailman/listinfo/fom
>
>
> --
> Lukasz T. Stepien
>
> The Pedagogical University of Cracow
> Chair of Computer Science and Computational Methods,
> ul. Podchorazych 2
> 30-084 Krakow
> Poland
>
> tel. +48 12 662-78-54, +48 12 662-78-44
>
> URL  http://www.ltstepien.up.krakow.pl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> FOM mailing list
> FOM at cs.nyu.edu
> http://www.cs.nyu.edu/mailman/listinfo/fom
>





More information about the FOM mailing list