Dr. Joseph M. Brown's unified theory of physics

[tycon69]

Has anyone heard of Dr. Joseph M. Brown and his unified theory of physics? I saw this book in my school's bookstore, but I could only find places to purchase it online rather than any actual scientific discussion or commentary. He really thinks that he has it figured out. Here is the description from the website:

 

This book completes the theory of physics as outlined in Principles of Science. The postulates make up an ether gas of identical, perfectly elastic, smooth, spherical particles. Inhomogenieties of this gas exist in volumes with a diameter in the order of the mean free path. These inhomogeneous assemblies are neutrinos. Neutrinos generally have straight paths and travel at the speed of light. Certain mass neutrinos can take circular paths and thus are matter particles. These matter particles interact in various ways to produce gravitation, the weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and the strong nuclear force. The theory is a true unified field theory since it unites all four force fields.

 

And from amazon:

 

The strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, and the gravitational force are all derived from one postulated particle, the postulated velocity of the particle, and the postulated collision mechanism of the particles. Thus, the unified field theory so long sought after by Einstein and others has been obtained. In addition, the unified theory presented here also derives the particles of matter, radiation, and even the neutrinos. A truly unified theory of physics is presented.

 

Here is his website http://basicresearchpress.com

 

Apparently he did all of his research in his spare time. He has published a few books on physics including one claiming to provide a structure for the photon. Is there any reason why this theory did not explode like Lisi's AESTOE? Is it even plausible?

Edited August 31, 2011 by tycon69

[timo]

Has anyone heard of Dr. Joseph M. Brown and his unified theory of physics?

Nope. Just like with the dozens or even hundreds of other engineers who have found the answer to the last and ultimate question (whatever the question may be).

 

Is there any reason why this theory did not explode like Lisi's AESTOE. Is it even plausible?

1) Lisi's paper made significant headlines in blogs and even newspapers, more than any other physics paper I could think of at the moment. Its scientific impact has been much less spectacular, as far as I know.

2) Contrary to Dr. Brown, Dr. Lisi is an actual physicists who is actually working in the field of exotic (particle) physics, is actually paid for doing so, and actually speaks with other professional physicists.

[tycon69]

Haha well that pretty much addresses all of my questions and is to the point. Thanks.

 

However, I disagree with the last part. Dr. Lisi is an independent researcher without an academic position (According to wikipedia). How is that any different than an engineer who may be extremely gifted in mathematics. Dr. Lisi may have gotten a direct Ph. D, but any engineer could easily take his background in physics and self-study the subject deeper with todays easy flow of information. I guess its more about the headlines than it is anything else because it gets the information to the masses.

 

And why would this topic get moved to the speculations forum? Does the book not get enough respect to be in theoretical physics? Is it that bad? Haha.

 

By the looks of it, this is the sub-forum that science forums mods send the shitty crackpot posts that everyone brings up. Why is this like that? I brought up a legitimate topic that wasn't nearly as "outlandish" as the posts I see in the subforum. Maybe I should repost this to physicsforums, maybe they will be more respectful.

Edited August 31, 2011 by tycon69

[timo]

Dr. Lisi is an independent researcher without an academic position (According to wikipedia).

I am not sure what you call "independent", but it certainly is a different flavor of "independent" than that of the engineers who propose the ultimate theory of physics.

1) The idea of Lisi's work was not that new. Even I had heard about the exceptional group and the idea that it may be a candidate for a unification group before Lisi published his paper in which he tried to work out that idea (and I am not exactly from the same field). Admittedly, while the idea may not have been new by the time of publication it could still have been Lisi's idea, just from a few years ago.

2) The work was done in the context of a 77k Dollar research grant given explicitly for working on this (link). Of course he was independent in the sense of not having a direct supervisor and not having a permanent position at a university. But that applies to half of my department once you exclude the doctorate students (who make up the largest fraction - and most of them are also paid from some grant money rather than from university funds). And most of the other half is paid by university but independent in their research by law (possibly even constitution, but I am not sure about that) - as they are tenured professors.

 

I guess the topic was moved to speculations because it is about speculations in the sense of this forum, non-mainstream physics. It is somewhat alien when people complain about their posts about non-mainstream science being moved to the section about non-mainstream science because the other threads about non-mainstream science were all crap. I doubt that your topic will be embraced on physicsforums; I think they actually removed the "independent research" section altogether.

Edited August 31, 2011 by timo

[ajb]

[math]E_{8}\times E_{8}[/math] is the gauge group of one kind of heterotic string and is important in anomaly cancellation in the low energy limit. [math]E_{8}[/math] itself also comes up in the context of supergravity.

 

So the idea the [math]E_{8}[/math] has something important to do with nature is quite an old idea.

 

Lisi work I believe is technically wrong, he makes a mistake with the notion of a superconnetion. Have look at this blog for more details.

 

Lisi's work was covered quite a lot in the press, but made as far as I know little impact in reality.

 

Dr. Joseph M. Brown I have never come across.

[StringJunky]

 

And why would this topic get moved to the speculations forum? Does the book not get enough respect to be in theoretical physics? Is it that bad? Haha.

 

By the looks of it, this is the sub-forum that science forums mods send the shitty crackpot posts that everyone brings up. Why is this like that? I brought up a legitimate topic that wasn't nearly as "outlandish" as the posts I see in the subforum. Maybe I should repost this to physicsforums, maybe they will be more respectful.

 

Anything that's not mainstream finds it's way in Speculations...if your topic was crap it would be in Trash. If SFN mods didn't filter like this then learners (including myself) would get confused as to what is mainstream and what is not.

 

I lurk the Physics Forums boards...they are quite ruthless and not amenable to discussing non-mainstream ideas. If there is a forum that can be labelled 'religiously' dogmatic it is that one. It's good in one way if you want rock-hard black and white science with a good dose of intolerance. It serves it's narrow focus and purpose well but the real world isn't like that and SFN suits me better as I know I can challenge the scientists here and they won't throw their qualifications at me as a rebuttal or wear them by their usernames like a suit of armour.

 

I personally don't see Speculations as "the bin" although there is some crap there and I'm sure most of the seasoned users here don't either. Speculations is a symbol of SFN's flexibility and tolerance...you will certainly not find one in Physics Forums.

 

You need to hang out here a bit more and you will see the method in their madness...it's entirely logical and without malice aforethought or narrow-mindedness.

[tycon69]

I understand what you all are saying and agree. I guess it just annoyed me that nobody has really given this guy the time of day because he didn't go about his research in the traditional way. I'm sure he has at least showed it to a few physicists and if it were really that promising it would have caught on. The possibility that this may not be the case, that nobody ever gave the guy a chance because he is not a traditional physicist, is what was bothering me. It would truly be a disgrace to the scientific community if he were right though, IMHO, though I seriously doubt this is the case. Another reason why I was so troubled by this, is because I always thought that I may want to tackle the problem myself after accumulating a reasonable amount of success in my own field (organic chemistry). But the whole reason I chose O-chem over physics in the first place was because of the relatively large chance of never making any significant impact in physics (especially in theoretical physics). I just don't know if I would ever want to waste as much time as Dr. Brown on something that will never even be considered appropriately.

[timo]

I guess it just annoyed me that nobody has really given this guy the time of day because he didn't go about his research in the traditional way[...]. The possibility that this may not be the case, that nobody ever gave the guy a chance because he is not a traditional physicist, is what was bothering me. It would truly be a disgrace to the scientific community if he were right though, IMHO, though I seriously doubt this is the case.

Just imagine that some radical monotheistic group believing in a punishing god is right and science has tried to work in directions that contradict the respective holy book - even though that is unlikely, of course. Man, some people are so in for trouble, then. Makes overlooking the ultimate theory of explains-everything-predicts-nothing appear like a piece of cake.

 

Ok, a bit more seriously: Apart from a complete underestimate of the complexity of modern physics the idea that outsiders' ideas should be given more attention essentially suffers from the incorrect assumption that professionals' ideas were given sufficient attention. Quite contrary, professionals must work pretty hard for getting the attention of their colleagues, and many never get enough to make the jump to a permanent position. In fact, you should have already noticed that in the whole of today's society, attention is a scarce and valuable good that you are not given for free just because there is a remote chance that you might have something to say. If you want to put a number on it send a mail to Google and ask them what they charge you for putting your homepage on rank #1 for the search term "theory of everything".

 

Another reason why I was so troubled by this, is because I always thought that I may want to tackle the problem myself after accumulating a reasonable amount of success in my own field (organic chemistry). But the whole reason I chose O-chem over physics in the first place was because of the relatively large chance of never making any significant impact in physics (especially in theoretical physics). I just don't know if I would ever want to waste as much time as Dr. Brown on something that will never even be considered appropriately.

You're best advised to entirely concentrate on the part about "reasonable success" in organic chemistry. Considering that you seem to think that a retired electrical engineer who never held a Bunsen burner in his hand may make significant contributions to be most puzzling problems in organic chemistry (whatever those may be) I think there is a bit of way ahead of you. Edited September 2, 2011 by timo

[pantheory]

Has anyone heard of Dr. Joseph M. Brown and his unified theory of physics? I saw this book in my school's bookstore, but I could only find places to purchase it online rather than any actual scientific discussion or commentary. He really thinks that he has it figured out. Here is the description from the website:

 

This book completes the theory of physics as outlined in Principles of Science. The postulates make up an ether gas of identical, perfectly elastic, smooth, spherical particles. Inhomogenieties of this gas exist in volumes with a diameter in the order of the mean free path. These inhomogeneous assemblies are neutrinos. Neutrinos generally have straight paths and travel at the speed of light. Certain mass neutrinos can take circular paths and thus are matter particles. These matter particles interact in various ways to produce gravitation, the weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and the strong nuclear force. The theory is a true unified field theory since it unites all four force fields.

 

And from amazon:

 

The strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, and the gravitational force are all derived from one postulated particle, the postulated velocity of the particle, and the postulated collision mechanism of the particles. Thus, the unified field theory so long sought after by Einstein and others has been obtained. In addition, the unified theory presented here also derives the particles of matter, radiation, and even the neutrinos. A truly unified theory of physics is presented.

 

Here is his website http://basicresearchpress.com

 

Apparently he did all of his research in his spare time. He has published a few books on physics including one claiming to provide a structure for the photon.

Of course as all realize the devil is in the details. But as far as the logic of it goes, in my opinion, it is totally plausible. I like his general approach which has similarity to my own model

 

Is there any reason why this theory did not explode like Lisi's AESTOE? Is it even plausible?

His website generally gives no details that I could find. It seems that the purpose of it is to sell the book.

 

In my opinion, it's irrelevant how good a theory is, even if it is 100% correct, and it's not how well it is explained, it's how it stacks up against present interpretations of observations. If there are no recognized interpretations of observations to support it, it might take centuries for a "correct theory" to get recognized. Once dark matter of some kind, or some other particulate(s) is recognized as being part of the Zero Point Field, then aether theory seemingly might again become more than just hypothetical like Dr. Brown's model appears to be.

 

Lisi's model had lots of cool math and as far as I know, had no new foundation particles of reality. It's just the kind of mathematical model theorists like to play with.

Edited September 3, 2011 by pantheory