drwayne":1spfmr79 said:
I also find it interesting when people say "no scientist" has considered something, its a very
strong statement, requiring strong facts and a TON of serious historical research.
Wayne
It's also an untrue statement
This is a line that a great many scientists have followed (and some continue to follow to this day). As a matter of fact, probably the most advanced such theory, 10-dimensional supergravity, has been incorporated in ways into string theory.
But, as I said in my post, such efforts have run into serious complications.
That said, I found the logic of your post (emperor_of_localgroup) very interesting. Physics isn't philosophy - at least, not anymore! Not since Newton's day does simply having an interesting idea qualify as a breakthrough, or even something worthy of sharing with the community. Eugene Wigner noted "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences," and it's true - any theory of physics worth anything has to be formulated in mathematical terms, and agree strictly with what we've observed about the universe. That's why we have math - without it, we have no firm way of comparing the explanations we dream up to the phenomena we see.
So, that's what I found interesting about your post - the idea that some interesting thoughts will explain the universe, and that if one hasn't heard scientists talk about an idea it must mean scientists have never considered it. It's a perfectly understandable impression, don't get me wrong, but there is a startling number of people who fancy themselves the next Einstein (conveniently ignoring the years Einstein spent struggling to learn differential geometry before he could finish his breakthrough in gravity
) and put out their grand theories made of nothing but loosely-gathered jargon and some high-sounding ideas.
Physics is a deep, very beautiful science. Without proper training, unfortunately, it's hard to properly understand a good deal of it (this is as true for most physicists, who have specialties and weak points, as it is for laymen). But, even if we can never understand it fully, perhaps at the very least we can come to appreciate the tremendous difficulty that goes into figuring it out.