On the Current State of Fundamental Physics

Videotaped in Prague 2019. Alexander Unzicker is a theoretical physicist and science writer. More:

1:42 Elemination: meant to be Elimination

[OrphanRed]

"Physics has become a high-tech sport which does not ask the fundamental questions any longer." This is absolutely brilliant!

[uberobserver]

"You are either a rational person, or you believe in constants in nature." What amazing timing when I found this talk. Just last week I was pondering this and thinking about how they've relativized the definitions of various things circularly, such as mass, the speed of light, and how these are all being defined in such a way as to hide their fundamental variability.

[MrEolicus]

I find this exposition highly interesting.
6:54 There might be a problem with the expression of the Rydberg constant, specifically with the factor associated with the reduced mass. I think two indexes, 'e' and 'p', one in the numerator and the other in the denominator were swapped. I'll check it myself later.
Cheers.

[radiofun]

Dr. Unzicker I have 3 questions. A) I have learned that in a vacuum electromagnetic waves of different frequencies (say between 20 KHz and 1 Gigahertz or higher) all move with the speed of light. In an atmosphere (say: earth) there is damping (frequency dependent). My question is: is there a explanation why this happens? I mean (correct me when this sounds stupid): why do all this different frequencies move with the same speed in a vacuum? Must we merely accept this as a nature (measured) constant? (I have watched many of your video's). And (B): are all these different frequencies (waves) effected by gravity in the same way? C) when white light bends in a gravitational field, does this effect the waveform (s), is there (say) a kind of “distortion” or change in “phase” or whatever. Does this differ from frequency to frequency, because white light (as I have learned) consists of more than 1 frequency. I hope you find time for an answer.

[nafeesaneelufer]

Only little bit of known matter but universe is full of dark matter and dart energy. It very well matches with the quote ' Known is a drop and unknown is an ocean' .

[aubreydebliquy]

Check all the heads looking around for the reaction of their colleagues to this attack on the comfortable science of consensus and the stifling tyranny of peer review.

[someone]

Several hunderd years ago it was mere philosophy then mathematics blended with it a little and then more and more but for explanations and prediction purposes now mathematics has hijacked physics and philosophy has been dumped down and thrown into the garbage bin recently.I think it is not fair I mean the physics that is done nowadays is knowing what just happens (that also usually in a wrong way) and we have lost interest and courage to ask why exactly does this happen and what might be the secret.I wish badly now that we can return to the scientific enthusiasm of the early twentieth century.You are a great person sir.Thanks alot and I hope that we realize that physics is the combination of mathematics and philosphy not any single one of them.

[RohitSharma-migt]

There are fundamental questions not just about physics but about the nature of valid knowledge itself. People from all communities should think about this. I’m confused why the particle physics community ignores Mr Unzicker. He’s raising new questions, challenging some existing notions which is what Physics is all about. He might be wrong but being wrong is not a crime. Not being open to debate May we’ll be.

[BartvandenDonk]

I like the oversight of the history of physics. Very informative and interesting. 😁😏

[ydnklms]

The agitated responses at the end are really just symptomatic of a total and complete refusal to accept that their life's work might have just been totally useless. It's ego. This is why modern physics is so troubled; follow the leader, do not question!

[slickwillie]

These lectures in classrooms have a distinct echo, which I feel detracts from the message. I only say this to help get the message out, but I doubt if there is anything you can do about poor acoustics in classrooms. Perhaps there is software that could clean up the audio.

[mksensej]

Well, there are constant but why they can't be a sort of local invariant variables? . You can name them constant as they are an expression of empirical formula that has to fit with experiment .

[philipsinger]

The more I hear Unzicker's Real Physics, the more I am convinced that the $20 billion (or more) spent at CERN, and all those talented physicists’ time, should have been allocated to nuclear fusion research at ITER. If so, perhaps we would be closer to nuclear fusion on earth, and perhaps we would be closer to solving our energy and environment crisis. Instead, all we have now is a standard model with 18 parameters, with prospects of additional parameters in the future.

[nafeesaneelufer]

Fantastic presentation Sir. As in case of PLANETS if we stand on Earth and on Mars we have different weights because of two DIFFERENT values of ACCELERATION due to GRAVITY which is decided by mass of the particular planet. So if there are several other UNIVERSES in addition to ours each made of different types of matter, DIFFERENT CONTENTS, it's own SHAPE and it's own dark matter content can we predict this as the reason for having PARTICULAR VALUES of G, c, h in our universe. Or else is it true that all the universes have SAME value of G, c, h as we are having. If different Universes are having DIFFERENT values then is there any AVERAGE of all these numericals.

[keredine]

Excellent presentation. I came to very similar conclusions.

[richroylance]

I really enjoy your work expounding the work of the great physicists who built the foundations of modern physics, but when I learned more about the personal conduct of Erwin Shroedinger I was sickened. It certainly can't diminish the greatness of his work, but my personal regard for him was shaken.

[brendawilliams]

Enjoy your work. You have a path. After all. It was meant to be enjoyable.

[commonsense]

I have a very simple fundamental theory of my own that explains much without math Could it be? Nah, too simple.

[jacobvandijk]

Testing, testing and testing. Anyone seen a stray quark yet? ;-)

[cymoonrbacpro]

Free parameter (Constants of nature) are actually necessary specifications specific to working blueprint of nature, theoretical physicists are insisting that everything has to be derived from a simple beginning. This notion comes from the idea of evolution (the gradual development of something) this is in fact a ‘bottom up’, reductionist concept. But this Approach might be totally wrong.