Thanks for the link, very nice film. I added to the article.

You cannot dismiss all of 20th century physics in this way, because it succeeds in correctly quantifying a wide range of phenomenon.

Thanks for the comment. Now that you highlighted it this sounds as if it needs some more justification. How come General Relativity and quantum mechanics can be dismissed as scholastic polemics while they are well-tested theories? Their only fault appears to be not being too elegant.

I put a footnote to clarify. The point I would like to emphasize is not how well these theories agree with observations. They may or may not. An ephemeredes agrees with observations to extreme accuracy but it is simply a numerical integration of observations. There is nothing surprising or mysterious when observations agree with observations when they are integrated.

In physics what is rule based theory and what is trigonometric simulation or integration of observations is not clear. Physicists do not have a good track record in their dealings with experiments, laws and theories. Coulomb’s three sloppy measurements entered physics as a law of nature. Physicists declared that Cavendish measured G while he was dead when G was invented. Physicists use engineering equations in experiments then associate them with the theory and claim they proved the theory. The urban legend that GPS will fail if General Relativistic corrections were not used is based on the authority of one physicists who bases his claim on the classified work he did for the government. This claim cannot be verified or refuted but physicists happily repeat it. The issue is a very complicated one.

So, staying clear of this confusion in physics, I would say that the reason these theories exist is because physicists refuse to question Newton’s definition of force. If what Ed Witten writes here is true, Quantum Mechanics and String Theory were developed to explain away the singularity physicists thought existed at R=0 of F=1/R^2. Since the true proportionality is R^3=T^2 there is no singularity at R=0. From this point of view, there is no reason to invent the quantum mechanics or the string theory.

If we deny Newton’s authority and accept Kepler’s Rule as is the singularity disappears.

Thanks again.

You cannot dismiss all of 20th century physics in this way, because it succeeds in correctly quantifying a wide range of phenomenon. Now, I happen to think you’re right that a lot of our present confusion arose from too little respect for Kepler, and that Einstein might have made further progress with Mach’s principle if he had thought more about Kepler and less about Newton, but all ideas have their time in the end, and I’m not sure that it helps to dismiss all post-Keplerian physics outright! After all, it is still a requirement of a more Keplerian Quantum Gravity that it recover both General Relativity and quantum physics, simply because these are established and well-tested theories, whether or not they are elegant.