Saturday, September 13, 2014

Theoretical Physics News.

And now for the theoretical physics news. In theoretical physics news:

Fluid Mechanics Findings: An Alternative to Quantum Orthodoxy

I know that this is potentially BIG. I know that quantum mechanics is and has been for a long time the "orthodoxy," that in Thomas Kuhn's terminology it is, and long has been, "normal science." I know that there has been a problem with quantum mechanics from the beginning. 

I know that the problem has been that quantum mechanics cannot explain matter existing at a fixed position in space-time.


I understand how that would be a problem. I know that this problem has vexed theoretical physicists. I know that it has given rise to clever attempts like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to somehow fit the problem into quantum mechanics orthodoxy, that these attempts have not been entirely successful, and to outright denial that there is a problem at all.
I know that these fit Kuhn's description of how theoretical physicists behave with challenges to normal science. It sounds to me like the normal science of quantum mechanics is now, in Kuhn's term, in "crisis" and that the result will be either fixing the problem within the quantum mechanics model or overthrowing it with this proposed mathematical model or with something else. That is all I know.