In the first few days of October 2019, fascinating writings by Kirsten Hacker caught my eye. Kirsten writes books and social media posts about a variety of topics, including physics and justice, which are two of my favorite subjects. So on a lovely Saturday in October, I dedicated time to consume more of Kirsten’s media and ideas. My first impression is that we have a number of similar observations on social issues in physics and life. I also saw some tantalizing technical physics posts that appear to dovetail well with my work on Neoclassical Physics and Quantum Gravity. I plan to study Kirsten’s writing more and blog about potential integration with 𝗡𝗣𝗤𝗚. It is truly wonderful and promising to find someone, especially an individual as bright and creative as Kirsten, thinking and writing along similar lines in physics and cosmology. And on top of all that, Kirsten has a Ph.D. in physics and ample experience in the field.
Kirsten has published several books available on Amazon, and has written on Quora and Medium for quite some time and now here on WordPress.
Reading Kirsten’s article True Genius reminded me of my reaction to Walter Isaacson’s writing on Albert Einstein’s treatment of Mileva Marić. Einstein’s treatment of Mileva Marić is infuriating. In 2018, I listened to the Audible version of Walter Isaacson’s book Einstein while walking in the park over a series of days. Isaacson lays out the facts, and my conclusion is that Albert Einstein used and leveraged Mileva Marić in nearly every way imaginable. I lost a huge amount of respect for Einstein upon learning of the extent of his exploitation of Mileva intellectually and personally.
Yet, I have wondered, often late at night, …. Is there more to the story? I’m not big on conspiracies, but there is still the occasional question in my mind, Did Mileva, or Mileva and Albert, discover the fundamental reality of nature, and keep it secret? Or through collaboraton, was such a secretive course of action determined by 1927 Solvay? If so, why? If so, what is the provenance of that knowledge since that time?
Kirsten’s posts also notice a pattern in the fields of physics and cosmology that are difficult to explain. Is the vast confusion and paucity of fundamental progress in these fields due to lack of imagination, incompetence, the natural artifact of power and funding struggles, or conspiracy? If you read Unzicker, you will find that Einstein had a classical particle based solution and he abandoned it. Unzicker calls this a great mistake. Later, circa 1927, De Broglie’s pilot wave ideas seemed to have been abandoned. And again with Bohm and what is now called de Broglie-Bohm mechanics. There does seem to be a pattern here. There has been an immense negative pressure and paucity of funding on any classical theory. The overwhelming marketing and funding has gone into the mostly impossible to understand quantum mechanics which has been held out as the single path forward. As if quantum mechanics were a religion. Amplify all that with the bizarre notions of a Big Bang, a singularity, dark matter, and dark energy. Really? From there you can invent anything to WOW the funding agencies and the public. Many worlds! Wormholes! and on and on. All pure nonsense!
J Mark Morris : San Diego : California
Neoclassical Physics and Quantum Gravity 