Newtonic Oath 2
Published by admin November 13th, 2007 in Science, Physics, Doctors of Philosophy, LanguageChris Oakley writes:
Renormalizability is a swamp. Yes — you can get the right answer by subtracting infinity from infinity. But you can also get the wrong answer. You can get any answer you want. So why is anything that involves renormalization a scientific theory?
Division by infinity is unscientific.1 To market division by infinity as renormalization is scientific crime.
Scientific criminals exist only in a field where practitioners have total control over the language. In such a pre-scientific industry authority rules. What is defined as legal by the authority of the practitioners is marketed as absolute unquestionable truth. This is where physics is now.
In science error rules. If a theory leads to division by infinity, that theory is reevaluated, it is not rebranded and packaged as renormalization.
Doctors of physics enjoy a hereditary right to define. This is a powerful weapon to have. Unless they are regulated by an independent outside authority, physicists will not give up their absolute power to define. No one gives up power voluntarily. As long as physicists possess this absolute power to define they will keep human knowledge in a corrupt state for their own personal gain. Any professional who possesses an absolute power that gives him to normalize division by infinity, that is, the power to market infinity as not infinity, that professional will use this power for personal gain.
We know from history that unregulated professionals will corrupt for personal gain. It is not surprising that an industry controlled by doctors of philosophy with absolute power will be corrupt. These practitioners will define the questions and then define the answers by using their authority. They will market their authoritative answers to the media to gain personal fame. If you have absolute power to define you would need no other kind of knowledge. You would just define what knowledge is. This is called scholasticism.
Why is Chris Oakley, or anyone else, is surprised that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In order to become science physics must be regulated.
A good place to start is to establish the Newtonic oath as a requirement to become a doctor.
This oath will establish the first rules of regulation toward stripping the absolute authority of doctors. That’s why
I will not divide infinity by infinity and if I do I will not market it as renormalization
would be a good first sentence. So please go to the Newtonic oath wiki and propose your own first clause. I will also create a place where everyone can rate each sentence. I think this will be great for physics. Unless physicists are unified behind a set of precise rules of evidence physics will remain a corrupt bureaucracy.
Funny pal Newton. Of course f(x l)/l is infinity when l is in the ultraviolet limit l->0. But I can substract a term f(x)/l to get a finite result.
Can you please explain this a bit more? I don’t understand. Thanks.
Pioneer1
I don’t mind you quoting me, but please get it right - I am complaining about subtracting infinity from infinity, not dividing.
Alejandro
You are back in Spain, now, no? As regards the current question, my issue is that if a limit depends on the way in which you approach it, then it does not exist - the number is then just indeterminate. The “limit” obtained in renormalization invariably does & therefore does not exist. Anyone who has done the first year of a degree course in mathematics or physics will know all of this, but Nobel prize winners seem to be exempt.
I am complaining about subtracting infinity from infinity, not dividing.
Thanks for the comment. Sorry, I assumed that same worked for division as well. Can you explain when you get a chance the difference? Is it ok to divide infinity by infinity?
Thanks again.
hmm, infty/infty= (1/infty)/(1/infty) = 0/0; and log(0/0)= log 0 - log 0 = -infty infty. So there is a subtle difference, you can say that 0/0 is the exponential of (infty-infty).
Btw, my precious post lost a plus sign; it was (x l), not (x l)
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Chris, yes, back in Zaragoza. Working in a project of volunteer computing, BOINC and all that.
I see your point, I was just amused of the title of the post, “Newtonic Oath”, because it was Newton who introduced us to the enjoyment of 0/0 and infty-infty.
Infinity minus infinity and infinity divided by infinity are both indeterminate, but infinity MINUS infinity is mostly what renormalization is about, although there is a little bit of the latter (multiplicative renormalization constants where infinity times zero is what you want it to be).
Alejandro,
You should try computing where you get PAID for it some time. It really is not as bad as you might imagine.
Alejandro,
Thanks for your comment.
I was just amused of the title of the post, “Newtonic Oath”, because it was Newton who introduced us to the enjoyment of 0/0 and infty-infty.
I would appreciate it, when you have a moment, to expand on these please. I believe that Newton legalized mixed proportionalities, allowing comparison of force and time for instance, and now you say that he also legalized 0/0 and infinity-infinity. Do you think, in the context of Newtonic Oath, these should be legal, or illegal?
If you feel like it, you can comment here as well for Newtonic Oath related issues.
The Wikipedia entry for Newtonic Oath is marked for deletion because it was felt that it was not notable enough to be included in Wikipedia. Let’s make it notable.
Thanks again.
Hi Chris,
The “limit” obtained in renormalization invariably does & therefore does not exist. Anyone who has done the first year of a degree course in mathematics or physics will know all of this, but Nobel prize winners seem to be exempt.
If this is true, how come such a blatant mathematical error exists in physics and it is still taught? There is something wrong here. Do you know others who agree with you? Are there other sites on the subject that I can link to?
Thanks.
Hi Pioneer1,
People in the subject do occasionally agree with me in private, but will never go on record as having done so.
When one joins a club one has to align one’s thought patterns to the group, and suppressing scepticism about renormalization is one of the rules for membership of the Quantum Field Theory Club. So I was not asked to join, and I don’t believe that, presently, you will find an extensive critique of renormalization elsewhere on the web.