Sir Roger Penrose Faith, Fantasy, and the Big Questions in Modern Physics (#324)

Watch the video of Sir Roger's lecture here:
https://youtu.be/smUYz9ti_bA Sir Roger Penrose, the celebrated
English mathematician and physicist as well as author of numerous
books, including The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers,
Minds, and the Laws of Physics, joined the Clarke Center to share a
talk titled "Fashion, Faith and Fantasy and the Big Questions in
Modern Physics" based on his book of the same name. In his book
Fashion, Faith and Fantasy and the Big Questions in Modern Physics,
Roger Penrose argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while
sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading
today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important
areas—string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology. * **String
theory** is a branch of theoretical physics that attempts to unify
all of the fundamental forces of nature in a single framework.
However, string theory requires the existence of six extra hidden
dimensions, which Penrose argues is not physically plausible. He
also cautions that the fashionable nature of string theory can
cloud our judgment of its plausibility. * **Quantum mechanics** is
a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the
physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic
particles. However, Penrose argues that quantum mechanics is based
on a number of unproven assumptions, and that it may not be
applicable to all physical systems. * **Cosmology** is the study of
the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe. Penrose
argues that many of the current fantastical ideas about the origins
of the universe cannot be true, but that an even wilder reality may
lie behind them. Penrose concludes by arguing that fashion, faith,
and fantasy should be replaced by physics: theories which, although
they may be completely wrong, can at least be tested in the
foreseeable future and discarded if they disagree with experiment
or investigated further if not excluded by the results. The book
has been praised by some physicists for its insights into the
current state of physics, while others have criticized it for its
negative tone and its lack of constructive proposals. Subscribe to
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