Summa Contra SSC

Summa Contra SSC

Some physicists still mourn the ending of the 54 mile diameter Super-conducting Super Collider, which was started in Texas. But I think it was a wise decision. It is about time someone outside of the profession of physics gave the whole postwar development of physics a critical analysis.

The SSC was supposed to find the boson of the Higgs field, which is supposed to be what gives elementary particles their mass. But why should we think that any explanation of the mass of elementary particles is possible or necessary? All explanation must come to an end at some point, with constants that are just constants of nature, and cannot be explained further. So the first reason for halting the SSC is that physicists have given us no reason for believing that there is such a thing as the Higgs field or Higgs boson.

Is this a prediction of postwar (post WW II) theories? Is that supposed to give us confidence? I will give you several reasons why this postwar theories should be viewed with alarm. Both QED (the theory of the electron) and QCD (the theory of nucleons) requires subtracting one infinity from another to produce a finite quantity, which we know from experiment. Needless to say, this is a completely undefined piece of mathematics.

Another alarming aspect of 20th Century physical theory, dating back to the thirties, is the assumption that Heisenberg's uncertainty law is fundamental, even though we can calculate the individual spreads of each observable using Schroedinger's equation. Heisenberg's rule is that the statistical spread of conjugate variables is equal to Planck's constant. Energy and duration are conjugate, as is position and momentum. Thus, dE*dt=h, and dx*dp=h. It makes quite a difference whether we regard Heisenberg's rule is fundamental or derived. Only if it is fundamental can we justify letting dt become very small, so that dE can become large enough for pairs of virtual particles to spring into existence out of nothing. Virtual particles have now become a well-entrenched part of physical theory, despite the fact that it gives space an infinite mass density. This is a reductio ad absurdem. There is no way out of this conclusion. Yet, it is ignored by physicists. Apparently, we are to accept singularities, and reductio ad absurdem without complaint.