Re: [OT] Re: [gentoo-user] Question of quantum computer

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 7:02 PM, Peter Humphrey <peter@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> On Friday 03 April 2015 17:11:11 Fernando Rodriguez wrote:
>
>> That's the problem with science in general. The one thing it may never be
>> able to answer is "why?".
>
> I think that's the crux of the problem with some current approaches to
> physics. Science does not answer the question "why?". That isn't its job.
> Its job is to explain show "this is how the world works."

I think the ultimate goal though is to get down to root cause.

I can have a model that does a great job explaining the behavior of a
magnet without ever mentioning what a photon or electron is.  However,
compared to our current understanding of electromagnetism such a model
is rather poor.

This is how science has worked for hundreds of years.  It has really
only become a fashion in the last few decades to lower the bar and say
"well, we'll probably never understand how this works - that isn't
science's job - my theory predicts the results of most of the
experiments we can do within some realm of precision and that is good
enough."

As I said, I think this is hubris.  We think that the fact that we
haven't figured out the answer means that nobody can figure out the
answer.

> It seems to me that prodigious amounts of time, energy and money are being
> squandered on trying to find a graviton when no such beast is required to
> exist. Gravity, as Einstein taught us, is an emergent effect of mass in
> space-time. It isn't a force; it's an effect. Yet how many theorists and
> experimenters are thrashing themselves trying to find this imaginary
> particle which is supposed to moderate this imaginary force?

It might have something to do with the fact that gravity as described
by relativity doesn't account for the behavior of matter at small
scales and high densities, or for the overall structure of the
universe.  Clearly SOMETHING is missing.  Maybe that something is
something other than gravity, but you can't rule out gravity not
working the way we think it works.  Plus, warping of space is a great
concept, but what is it about massive objects that causes space to
warp?  Is there some underlying mechanism at work?

>  No mechanism is required because no process is operating.

You have no proof of this assertion at all.  Certainly there is no
proof to the contrary either, but we know that our understanding of
gravity is incomplete at best, so it seems a bit odd to stop
investigating on the basis that we have it all figured out already.

-- 
Rich