Overhyped Physicists: Why Gell-Mann was not a Genius

Some myths of particle physics need to be debunked. Murray Gell-Mann was a key figure of the degradation of physics since 1930. More in
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[@richroylance4630]

I believe someone once said "the enemy of knowledge isn't ignorance... it's the illusion of knowledge"

[@twitter.comelomhycy]

This is the problem of the modern world

[@TheMachian]

People attribute it to Hawking... I think it is from someone earlier... Hawking fell victim to that illusion btw...

[@twitter.comelomhycy]

The illusion of knowledge is like Knowledge with a minus sign in front of it.

[@joelwexler]

So well stated! It's true in everything in life, like bad high school coaches.

[@adambased7928]

Please don't talk about the climate

[@robertschlesinger1342]

I took two short courses taught by Gell-Mann. He was an excellent lecturer with very clear and informative overhead lecture notes and diagrams. He was also multilingual and rather picky about proper German pronunciation. One odd occurrence was when I brought him a lengthy article from Foundations of Physics (as I recall) that was critical of the quark formalism, and he stated he was unfamiliar with the paper, the author or its points. I thought his response odd because Gell-Mann was on the Editorial Board of the journal. Having had two short courses from Gell-Mann and having briefly chatted with him several times in each course, he was unusually brilliant, cordial and broadly knowledgeable on many topics outside of physics. Gell-Mann was easily amongst the best physics professors I've ever experienced.

[@TheMachian]

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences. Since I had to rely on books and videos, your assessment of his personality is more direct that mine. I had not the chance to know those sides of his character. However, I believe it is a tragedy that also brilliant minds may heavily mislead the course physics has taken in the postwar period. Having read Pickering's book allowed me no other conclusion.

[@u.v.s.5583]

So, you believe that all people on the editorial board of a paper, even famous one, read all the articles that somehow are close to their subject? Hint: they usually don't.

[@crazedvidmaker]

I don't really find it weird or damning that he hadn't read a paper from a journal he was on the editorial board of. Nobody can or should read all the articles from a particular journal. Reading a paper thoroughly takes several days of hard work usually. Journals simply contain too much information for someone to read all of it and have their own career. I'm not exactly sure what it means to be on the editorial board of a journal, but it definitely doesn't mean you should be expected to read all the papers.

[@joelwexler]

@@crazedvidmaker Even if the paper directly relates to your field and theory?

[@BarriosGroupie]

Out of curiosity, what did he teach and did he take his lecture notes from other books?

[@Primitarian]

I'm trying to get on top of things, so let me ask, what are you saying? You're down on quarks? You're not charmed? You don't see any truth or beauty in it? Just strangeness?

[@minkcos]

To downright top it all off, although not in a charming way, I think he means Gell-Mann can stick this strange theory up his bottom. 🤔

[@jakethemistakeRulez]

Why do truth and beauty have to go together.

[@Primitarian]

@@jakethemistakeRulez They don't, they're just the same flavor. Truth goes with the top quark and beauty with the bottom quark.

[@NichaelCramer]

Well done. Just what this channel needs: A joke. Come to think of it, this is a perfect description of the channel itself.

[@roberttarquinio1288]

Ha Lol

[@CliveMoss]

This guy with an undergrad degree in physics tries to debunk physics! When he actually gets to study physics, then he is worth a look.

[@theboxingbiker]

Genetic fallacy

[@haushofer100]

I can't wait for the speaker to present his own theory about strong interactions compatible with all the experiments done! Seriously, I won't wait for it.

[@aribernabei7946]

Totally. I don't understand his strong distaste for post-War physics.

[@saartv7553]

IF he does not have a theory YET, that does not mean he has to accept any mathematical hogwash. Physics need evidence otherwise it is religion. post war physics in most part is just a sprint to gather Nobel Prize by mathematicians.

[@haushofer100]

@@saartv7553 In most part? That's a bold claim. Can you be a bit more specific? You know, like evidence.

[@mhorram]

@@haushofer100 Well, perhaps you should have a look at theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder's book _Lost in Math_ . She makes it pretty clear that most of the physicists around now are presenting hypothesis (not theories . . . a theory by definition must be falsifiable and as Ms. Hossenfelder has pointed out, 'theories' like _String Theory_ are absolutely unfalsifiable.) Regarding evidence, you have to be consistent in that request. Unzicker in this video asked the same from Gell-mann. As he says, "There should be a mechanism, a single physical reason, why the hell quarks don't show up. There isn't any, in the the worst tradition of bad philosophers . . ." So, Unzicker is claiming that the Emperor of the new physicists has no clothes that he can see. Do you know something relevant that perhaps you should have brought up in your comment to SAAR TV? I don't quite agree with SAAR TV on the Nobel Prize issue. I think the issue is more along the lines of getting one's name publicized and thereby being more likely to be eligible for grants to do new 'research'. Sabine Hossenfeder has discussed this issue too. Apparently, the physics community is asking for astronomical-size funding to make Cern about four times more powerful than it currently is or to build another accelerator of that capability. Ms. Hossenfelder has been quite clear on the issue that doing this is VERY unlikely to discover anything new. This is more a funding issue than a serious attempt to unlock new science. So, I would say SAAR TV is right; but he is too specific on the intent behind these new hypothesis (not theories!).

[@haushofer100]

@@mhorram I agree with a lot of ideas of Hossenfelder. But those are different and much better argumented than Unzicker's. Why quarks don't show up: do you mean confinement? That's not yet well understood, I agree.

[@executivesteps]

“I hate to say it…”. I’ll bet you don’t, well at least just a little bit.

[@mehrdadassar2542]

I am a mathematical physicist but I also know that not every mathematically sound model describes nature!

[@NichaelCramer]

That’s certainly true. The correct way to proceed (as has happened in modern physics since the quark model was first proposed -and which the poster of this video seems incapable of understanding) is to lay out the mathematical model and then experimentally determine if it accurately describes nature. Which, in short, is exactly what happened.

[@ArgumentumAdHominem]

I'd say that this bound on reality is rather loose. A tighter bound would be: "all models currently known, and those that will ever be known do not accurately describe nature". As Box said: "all models are wrong, but some are useful"

[@yasirpanezai5690]

@@NichaelCramer actually its experiment first and than math

[@NichaelCramer]

@@yasirpanezai5690 : As a (single) suggestion, might I suggest looking at the history of the prediction -and then the confirmation/discovery- of the Higgs boson. Or of the various experimental conformations of General Relativity. Or, for that matter, of Special Relativity.

[@yasirpanezai5690]

@@NichaelCramer why is it so hard to believe that science is controlled by humans who are as likely to lie cheat and be corrupt like the rest of us

[@msnbmnt]

My late grandfather had an issue with quarks. His beef was along the lines you explain. Thanks you for sharing.

[@lamalamalex]

Even though philosophy is held in a (today) well-earned contempt by the other college departments, it is philosophy that determines the nature and direction of all the other courses, because it is philosophy that formulates the principles of epistemology, i.e., the rules by which men are to acquire knowledge. The influence of the dominant philosophic theories permeates every other department, including the physical sciences. “THE COMPRACHICOS” Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, 82

[@justinkennedy3004]

It is a pity that the term "Natural Philosopher" was replaced by mere "physicist". Completely strips the importance of the former word.

[@paulwolf3302]

The advantage of being a philosopher is that no type of evidence or proof is ever required. It's not in the science department.

[@giovanniocon5490]

@@paulwolf3302 That’s why science follows from philosophy

[@twitter.comelomhycy]

Wow, so my contempt for philosophy could be a trap!

[@gerhitchman]

4:00 The ideas of quarks *does* explain something! That's why Gell-Mann's theory works. Gell-Mann's theory may be needlessly complicated, and it is likely not the final picture, but as a scientific theory it still has value.

[@dalmudi3539]

The geocentric model of the universe had value. With Ptolemy's model you could predict to remarkable accuracy (relative to the capacity for measurement) the positions of all observable celestial objects. A model having value doesn't mean it can't distract from the larger picture. A model that has value, but is in the wrong direction, will push EVERYONE in the wrong direction. If it is really useful it can also create dogma which can add to STAYING in the wrong direction for a very, very long time. The problem is not the model, but in not appreciating it AS a model. When you realize, deep down inside, that all of physics is just a model and not in any way, shape, or form Reality itself, it frees you to both appreciate the model for what it is, and look beyond it without restriction. We don't generally do that in physics. Instead we force specific lines of inquiry, both through peer pressure, "publish or perish," and through funding availability.

[@gerhitchman]

@@dalmudi3539 "A model having value doesn't mean it can't distract from the larger picture." Agreed 100%. Quarks may well be a distraction in that sense (a useful distraction). However, the video said that quarks doesn't explain anything, which is clearly fucking absurd.

[@dalmudi3539]

@@gerhitchman Fair enough. I'm new to this channel and have watched a few of Mr. Unzicker's videos. I have so far disagreed with several of his statements and conclusions, but I appreciate some of the evidence he brings forth which was never mentioned in my education. Of note is his bringing my attention to Oliver Consa's paper "Something is Rotten in the State of Qed." I need to go through it a bit more to corroborate the evidence and try to see if it has since been shored up by experiment, but it is very interesting to me that the fraud of measurements in establishing QED was never mentioned to me in my education or subsequent discussions or readings.

[@clive1294]

@@dalmudi3539 your qualification of models as models should be completely obvious, but unfortunately to the majority of theoreticians it is not. This stretches to all kinds of disciplines, not limited to nuclear physics. Cosmology is another area where models are confused with reality, and the result is (certainly in my view) an absolute mess of nonsensical theories which are viewed as gospel.

[@ytpah9823]

Gell-Mann was incredibly vain and jealous, even by physicists standards. I once (when I was 23) asked him a question in a public discussion which caused him embarrassment and earned me his eternal enmity.

[@TheMachian]

Interesting! Feel free to post it, for the sake of history!

[@narek323]

I highly doubt that he was jealous of you.

[@nysewerrat6577]

@@narek323 Lmao, true. I don't know what these guys think themselves they are.

[@paulklee5790]

Jealous personalities are just jealous of necessity, they don’t actually need a real reason. It’s not based on an objective evaluation of things....

[@michaelcollins7192]

His vanity, ostentatious erudition, and perhaps his envy, (though he did credit Yuval Ne'eman for also demonstrating Su(3) flavor symmetry), is to be seen in the many interviews he gave. But to be fair to Gell-Mann, he was an incredibly learned, intelligent and hard working scientist and educator. Three quarks for Muster Mark! Sure he hasn't got much of a bark

[@BartvandenDonk]

This reminds me of a riddle. 😁 3 brother received 17 cows after their father died. In the will of the father it says: 1 receives half, 1 receives 1/3 and 1 receives 1/9. So the brothers where trying to come up with a solution. In the end they agreed to ask the rabbi. It is obvious that this was a difficult task. But the rabbi came up with a nifty solution. He asked the neighbor to lent one extra cow. Now there where 18 cows. So one brother got 9 one got 6 and one got 2. The 1 left over was given back to the neighbor, every body happy. 😏

[@twitter.comelomhycy]

Nice!

[@TwoForFlinchin1]

I am confused as to how quarks are not experimentally proven. I found some information on deep inelastic collisions that suggest that electrons with high energy collide with protons inelastically whereas low energy protons do not. Does this not suggest an internal structure to protons? Or is there an internal structure that quarks do not wholly predict? If quarks don't exist yet predict phenomenae then how is that different from Bohr models (a useful but inaccurate convention)?

[@TheMachian]

A long story. You may consider "The Higgs Fake" about quarks, or more detailed, Andrew Pickering's book.

[@crazedvidmaker]

No... you're right. Deep inelastic collisions (collisions with electrons with energy well above the mass of the proton) were one of the early confirmations of quarks. But today the quark model/QCD explain so much - the existence of so many composite particles - the calculations of their masses - the cross sections of collisions and particle interactions - etc. That it absolutely cannot be questioned as a whole.

[@zetristan4525]

What is the explanation for the experimental discovery of the top quark then? (I agree that quarks, just like virtual particles, do not really exist. I was going to add the word 'alone', but everything is observed via interactions anyway.)

[@markharris1223]

A refreshing take on this physicist. In the competition to reach the top in any field of endeavour, agreeable people tend to fall by the wayside. The victors all too often start to believe their own myths. Gödel's diary written in America ("Ich habe manchmal Heimweh nach Wien") is delightfully unassuming and domestic. I suppose his incompleteness theorem was so manifestly irrefutable that even he, timid as he was, was unassailed.

[@runrickyrun157]

Which group is Feynman on? Also wanted to say I really enjoy the perspective your videos give.

[@jaycorrales5329]

I believe he was in the first!

[@u.v.s.5583]

Feynman is on the Unzicker's Overhyped group, as we know today.

[@brianhoade1411]

I'm reminded of what. (so I've read) Pauli saying to colleagues, "You're not even wrong." I accepted the standard model, what else am I missing? I love Gell-Mann's interviews, but didn't know there was such an opposition to his idea of quarks. Thanks for the video.

[@jeffreykalb9752]

I once tried to share some ideas with Gell-Mann when he was in Santa Fe. He would not even meet with me. Great men condescend to listen to young men and their ideas.

[@kkgt6591]

You can share your ideas here

[@mattmarkus4868]

@@kkgt6591 yes, provide details please.

[@rodocar2736]

Is there an interquark color force? Or perhaps the internal cohesion of the proton is the result of a relativistic effect of the electric field between quarks. Unification requires that the action that holds protons together within heavy nuclei be of the same nature as the force that holds quarks together.

[@geoffrygifari3377]

Just discovered this channel. Congrats on the new subscriber

[@knutholt3486]

The most illogical thing with the quark theory is the odd fractional charges 1/3 and 2/3, and that compared to leptons with charge 1. This suggests that this quark theory do not tell about the things like they actually are.

[@adrianmuresan7764]

What did they measure at cern and fermilab when they detected the quarks?

[@TheMachian]

No one has ever detected quarks. The "detection" was a long process of wishful thinking and forcefully interpreting ambigous evidence. As I said, I recommend the book by Andrew Pickering.

[@chrimony]

@@TheMachian The good news is that there's room to come up with an elegant theory that sweeps the "Standard Model" away. Historians will look back on decades of group think and ponder in mild contempt about how they all went so wrong.

[@justinkennedy3004]

@@chrimony I want to believe you but there is no proof that we are destined to progress. Could be that, in terms of Unzicker's usage of real physics, we have already hit our zenith...

[@stormtrooper9404]

Prof.Unzicker, would we ever get a series "the wall of shame"? The series or chapter that will pan the cosmologist/cosmogonist and their ideas of CDM,Inflation theory and similar nonsense? As I am aware as an layman,there are way more experimental evidence working against them that was ever the case with high-energy physics. P.S. maybe the well deserved Nobel price for sir Roger Penrose,subtietly means a push for paradigm and group thinking change in that field...

[@paulwolf3302]

Cosmology is a deranged attempt to prove religious theories about how the universe began. It will one day be seen like alchemy or astrology.

[@dennylane2010]

You don’t consider the discovery of JPsi meson as evidence for quarks and confinement?

[@ricardoserra6392]

I'm not aware of any scientific definition of genius, so for me to try to tell who was a genius or not among physicists has no real meaning. Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Dirac, Wigner, Feynman, Gell-Mann and dozens of others made significant contributions to the development of physics and deserve respect. The only criterium for a scientific theory is its power to provide correct predictions. If one prediction is false, the whole theory is flawed or at least incomplete. We know our current theories are incomplete, but they provide results in excellent agreement with observation. Maybe in the future one scientist stumbles on a completelly new approach that resolves the current contradictions. Some will praise this scientist as genius, others maybe not. Does it make a difference?

[@armandopezo685]

Why don't you cite "strangeness minus three"?, Feynman himself looked very enthusiastic abouth the discovery of the omega particle at Brookhaven, in fact, he gives a pictorical description on Gell-Mann and Ne'eman ideas.

[@EasyThere]

OMG did Gell-Mann build his Quark-Gluon theory on Rock-Paper Scissors?

[@davidhand9721]

Gell-mann predicted the omega particle in the same way that people predicted elements that were missing from the periodic table. It's fully legit.

[@davidhand9721]

The theory of quarks has made many predictions and the symmetry group approach to bosons/forces through gauge theory has also found undeniable observational support. Glueballs have been observed, as has quark-gluon plasma. The behavior of quark-gluon plasma forms the basis for our predictions of elemental abundance in the early universe, with fantastic precision. If you think it's just a story, you haven't been keeping up with the journals very well.

[@czarekcz1097]

Dr Unzicker, QUESTION: Does antimatter even exist (or can antimatter can be created)?

[@TheMachian]

Of course. there is overwhelming evidence for pair creation and annihilation.

[@hyperduality2838]

@@TheMachian Particles are dual to anti-particles -- Dirac equation. Spin up is dual to spin down -- Dirac equation. Apples fall to the ground because they are conserving duality. Potential energy is dual to kinetic energy. Gravitation is equivalent or dual to acceleration -- Einstein's happiest thought, the principle of equivalence (duality). Syntropy (prediction) is dual to increasing entropy -- the 4th law of thermodynamics. Entropy or information is converted into mutual information (syntropy) via duality -- Shannon's information theory. "Through imagination and reason we turn experience into foresight (predictions)" -- Spinoza describing syntropy. Energy is dual to mass -- Einstein. Dark energy is dual to dark matter. "Always two there are" -- Yoda. Duality creates reality!

[@jaycorrales5329]

@@hyperduality2838 Good points!

[@hyperduality2838]

@@jaycorrales5329 Teleological physics (syntropy) is dual to non-teleological physics (entropy). There is a 4th law of thermodynamics! Randomness (entropy) is dual to order (syntropy, predictability). The Janus point or singularity (big bang, white hole) = two faces or duality! The big bang is a duality. The conservation of duality (energy) is the 5th law of thermodynamics, energy is duality, duality is energy. The infinite negative curvature singularity is dual to the infinite positive curvature singularity! Negative curvature or hyperbolic geometry is dual to positive curvature -- Gauss, Riemann geometry. Space is dual to time -- Einstein. Main stream physics has a big problem with teleology because it leads to the concept of a God or divine being or a target. All observers track targets -- teleology.

[@turbostar101]

I've never heard this. Is this quoted from somewhere? Seems to be brilliantly stated. @@hyperduality2838

[@takashitamagawa5881]

Arrogance of theoretical physicists is nothing new. It was Ernest Rutherford who said "All science is either physics or stamp collecting." His lifespan, 1871-1937, encompassed the revolution and upheaval that is now called "modern physics". Funny thing is that today, with all the unexplained parameters and expedient fixes, one can question how distinct theoretical physics is from "stamp collecting".

[@davidhand9721]

"unmotivated complication"? The particle zoo had dozens of degrees of freedom, and quarks brought it down to essentially two types of particles with a simple SU(3) symmetry. It would be a lot weirder if that didn't expand into three generations of quarks because that's what we also observe about leptons. The two families of particles also link up perfectly through SU(2), making sense of every decay process ever observed. If it's too complicated for you, that's not Gell-Mann's problem, but it is objectively simpler and more coherent than the particle zoo.

[@MiguelGarcia-zx1qj]

Is there any solid evidence that protons and neutrons (and mesons, etc.) have internal structure? Because if it is so, if not quarks with those fancy colorings and rules, something else has to be inside.

[@AAAAAA-zw7oh]

There is. Scattering experiments show that.

[@MiguelGarcia-zx1qj]

@@AAAAAA-zw7oh Thank you very much. I thought so. But better asking; a bit of a rhetorical question :)

[@AAAAAA-zw7oh]

@@MiguelGarcia-zx1qj you're welcome

[@richardmasters8424]

Alex - thanks - I really admire your (and Sabine’s) courage in challenging the establishment.

[@archi124]

science has nothing to do with establishment

[@richardmasters8424]

@@archi124 surely science is about the ‘establishment’ of the truth?

[@archi124]

​@@richardmasters8424 no, no real physicists would say that... physicists develop models describing (mostly approximatley) nature... there are of course good and bad models, therefore some models are ruled out by experiment (the bad ones), some other models make predictions which may be later confirmed (the good ones)...such as the SM... this has nothing to do with "truth" and nobody claims that. its the opposite...every physicists knows that the SM and the quark model is not the "final truth" therefore we are searching for SUSY etc.

[@richardmasters8424]

@@archi124 - I know many scientists who would be very upset to know that you think they are only looking for approximate models and not the complete truths of nature and reality.

[@archi124]

@@richardmasters8424 I doubt it

[@mehrdadassar2542]

Gell-Mann suffered from several types of inferiority complex.

[@charleskramer6189]

Was that because he was inferior? Then maybe it wasn't so "complex." I'm too ignorant to answer such questions, but my impression is Gell-Mann contributed (and what more can any of us ask to do?) but others were his betters.

[@TheDummbob]

I like your critisisms, but isn't it the case that the quark model explains much more than the differential cross section of protons? It's made to also account for all the differnt kinds of particles that where found in the 20th century. So to me it seems a step forward to go from 60 particles or so to 6 (I know these aren't the correct numbers, but you get the point)

[@TheMachian]

The progress, as you say, is only relative. At that time (> 100 elementary "particles") physics was already ailing. Things went in the wrong direction around 1930.

[@TheDummbob]

@@TheMachian Thanks for your answer! Ah ok, so you think it was already wrong to interpret the data as many different new particles? I'm interested in that, can you recommend a book or article that talks about how this interpretation may be misguided, or which mistakes maybe where made? (If I understood you correctly)

[@crazedvidmaker]

Yes at this point the "quark model" explains so much that it simply cannot be questioned. It's not valid to go back to the state of experiments just a few years after the original theory and to say that the evidence isn't good enough at that point in time so we should reject it today. It's not 60 particles to 6 anymore. At this point it's literally thousands of composite particles, most of which were predicted ahead of time using the "quark model" - often coming with precise predictions of the masses before the particles discovery. It's not just a vague guess of three generations of two kinds of particles and 8 kinds of gluons anymore. It's a mathematical theory that starts from simple concepts, and although the calculations are difficult and long, it eventually gives uncountable accurate predictions that are later verified by experiments.

[@dankurth4232]

The fundamental problems with the Standard Model are a) it was already overly complex in the beginning b) it became increasingly more complex from then on, and c) it’s stitched together by an abundance of merely assumed free parameters. For a), b) and c) it massively defies the explanatory claim of scientific reductionism. As such it resembles - as Unzicker at many occasions points out - the Ptolemaic epicycle model of planetary motion, which actually had been (due to the punctum aequans, which somewhat substitutes for elliptic kinematics) far better in predicting the planetary motion than the Kopernican model, but was nevertheless abhorrent for its ridiculous complexity (or rather complication)

[@Erik-ko6lh]

Quantum Mechanics like Thermodynamics has revolutionized human technology and society. What has the standard model done? Has it had any impact on engineering, chemistry or medicine?

[@paulwolf3302]

Real physicicts work on semiconductors and in materials science.

[@hansvetter8653]

Dear Dr. Unzicker! In your line of best physicists I am missing badly Madame Curie and Ernest Rutherford!

[@robertparadis6840]

To challenge the existence of quarks is one thing and, refuting the Gell-Mann interpretation is something else. It must be replace by another one having more value. My works confirm the quark's existence, the said quark "down". I cannot explain here how that can be except to state knowing the particles genesis at the Big Bang.

[@seandavies5130]

Isn't this how science has always been? Paradigms which are eventually overturned as they become better studied and refuted on either theoretical or experimental bases. Paradigm shifts seem to occur when some long running dogma is overturned and generally seems to be the way science progresses where humans are involved

[@paulwolf3302]

In the long run, truth will win. As someone pointed out above, quantum mechanics actually works and can be used in other fields of science and engineering. But once you have entered the realm of unprovable theories, the strangest ones get the most attention in the news, and I guess, easier to use to get grants.

[@JasonCunliffe]

In 1963, when I assigned the name "quark" to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been "˜kwork'. Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word "quark" in the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark". Since "˜quark' (meaning, for one thing, the cry of the gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with "˜Mark', as well as "˜bark' and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as "˜kwork'. But the book represents the dream of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the "portmanteau" words in "˜Through the Looking-Glass'. From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry "˜Three quarks for Muster Mark' might be 'Three quarts for Mister Mark', in which case the pronunciation "˜kwork' would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature. Source: 10 Words Invented by Authors BY STACY CONRADT Mentalfloss

[@Kounomura]

Art and quantum physics need crazy people.

[@lukestockett252]

The fact that Quarks can't be seen is what makes them fun to figure out, since the majority of the Universe is unseen/dark.

[@danielstump3204]

Quarks can be and are observed when electrons scatter from protons; the quarks are "constituents" of the protons. The fact that the quarks do not emerge as free particles from the collision has been understood since about 1975. Then QCD and lattice field calculations verified the fact. Unzicker is either just ignorant or just a conspiracy theorist.

[@LukeAquilina]

This is a fallacy. When you fire an electron at a proton and observe scattering, your observing just that, a scattering. This is resolved if you account that the underlying “particle” is actually made up of the quantum field. The result of scattering only proves the quantum probabilistic nature of our reality, not the existence of quarks. It cannot be particle turtles all the way down.

[@danielstump3204]

@@LukeAquilina Quarks and gluons are fields. QCD is the field theory of strong interactions.

[@LukeAquilina]

@@danielstump3204 so your argument is that the proton is indeed made up of the fields and not particles…. But instead of them being made of the one field we know to exist, they are made of imaginary fields that have no relation to our actual reality? Seems simpler if all matter is governed by one field, not an innumerable number of imaginary fields. It seems we both agree they are made of field energy, we just disagree on the number of fields involved and where the particles end and the field begins.

[@333dsteele1]

Philosophy is the primordial intellectual swamp. Everything that is useful crawled out, evolved, and and in so doing became useful. Particle physics is the first science to devolve back into philosophy.

[@jaycorrales5329]

I think we'll find a hard stop in forward progress if the underlying theories are incorrect?!

[@0xcc32sys_err4]

or maybe we'll finally start moving forward

[@user-pw8no6ni8x]

I wonder why the aether physics worked out by Harold Aspden was paid attention by physics community. I thought his deriving the gravitation constant in terms of parameters of the aether structure was impressive with such precision of the resulting value of G without Einsteinian relativity.

[@lamalamalex]

Philosophy is the foundation of science; epistemology is the foundation of philosophy. It is with a new approach to epistemology that the rebirth of philosophy has to begin. “THE COGNITIVE ROLE OF CONCEPTS” Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 74

[@yourcousinsshow5540]

The study of philosophy is a study of pretense.

[@paulwolf3302]

As long as you can just make things up and never have to prove them, that is.

[@donaldkasper8346]

You make a kilo of a quark to test, you found quarks.

[@Feldeffekt]

Herr Unzicker, ich bin so baff das sie hier das Quarkmodell zerlegen. Das Modell der Farbladungen hatte in mir immer Bauchschmerzen ausgelöst. Ich bin überascht das es nicht nur mir so geht. Danke Danke Danke!!!!!!

[@TheMachian]

Wenn Sie es noch etwas ausführlicher wollen, "The Higgs Fake" oder auch "Constructing Quarks" von Andrew Pickering. Sehr zu empfehlen! :-)

[@kasel1979krettnach]

Discovered particles should have a label like an ( * ) symbolzing actually having been observed via a track in a chamber. I assume the W and Z and several others don't fall in that category. What always puzzles me is that charge conservation is always taken for granted, yet not every particle has seen some Milikan type of experiment ?

[@didarbhuiyan9435]

Please tell something about Nima Arkani Hameed and his works

[@TheMachian]

Don't know his work in detail, but I am sure I wont miss anything. Someone who has always adapted his views to experimental failures.

[@didarbhuiyan9435]

@@TheMachian Glad to know from you Professor. Keep making us enlightened with your insights and truth exposings.

[@goedelite]

I think it possible to criticize a theory without so personalizing the criticism.

[@briankleinschmidt3664]

It is. It is!

[@brucesmith1544]

of course it's going to be personal when you're talking about a fart-sniffing charlatan.

[@cedricpod]

@@briankleinschmidt3664 to what purpose ? to avoid a struggle session ? ?

[@goedelite]

@@cedricpod No, not to avoid anything but unnecessary nastiness.

[@johnsolo123456]

And a silly idea if the theory is bound up in the personality.

[@ThurVal]

Maybe they are not sub-constituents in the normal sense. Let us imagine hadrons are already elementary and represent a kind of field excitation. Then quarks are perhaps just special density zones of the field. And confinement would be unnecessary!

[@baraskparas9559]

Gell Man was forced to tender answers. Under those circumstances guestimates are allowed as long as they are explanatory of the data and macroscopic phenomena. Mistakes and inadequacy are inevitable in those difficult circumstances. To keep saying I don't know after years of funded research and effort is unacceptable.

[@mahoneytechnologies657]

I have seen the term Group Science and Group Physics but I would use the Terms Herd Science and Herd Physics! Lemmings come to mind. Lead by leaders who what to be successful at any cost! Everyone wants to be as successful and as respected as Einstien, Feynman, Fermi ... What is a Nobel Prize really? A group of people in Sweden look at what they think is a great idea then give out a prize! It is political, how else could someone like Obama get a Peace Prize after having done nothing at all, a Joke! When someone comes up with a Theory, gets a Nobel Prize, then someone proves the theory wrong is the Nobel Prize then taken away from the person who got the Nobel Prize that was proven wrong? It seems like the science community is becoming like Hollywood, giving out prizes for self-gratification, getting together to tell each other how great they are. Then there is the reality of getting funding! Or another way to look at it is the modern way of giving every student in a class an award for doing great work no matter how they did in the class. A scientist should have to do more than getting a piece of paper from a university to earn the title "Scientist" in fact a Piece of paper does not make one a Scientist, Michial Faraday comes to mind, being a Scientist is a thinking process to discover and to investigate the unknown.

[@mahoneytechnologies657]

@Martin Baldwin-Edwards A very good and thought out reply!

[@soheil527]

even ariel sharon the jew butcheer got one nobull prize

[@MisterrLi]

Since it is very hard to find a genius more intelligent and productive than Gell-Mann, why on earth would you NOT call him a genius?

[@edwardgalliano9247]

Touche you got me but when things collide together and fly straight apart at right angles it does seem like there's something solid inside them yet protons, electrons and photons also seem to have mathematical variations that are the same thing. Maybe the standard model will end up in the trash someday.

[@paulwolf3302]

Now they will have to build an Extra Large Hadron Collider.

[@feynman6625]

I do not know if he was a genius...Leonard Susskind had an elevator talk with him, ( I do not know the details) and , very rudely , Gell-Mann laughed at him. A couple days later, he apologized. Very noble on his part. This happened when Susskind was very young. I think he was sick and tired of Feynman' s fame. Envy? I do not think so.Who was more intelligent, Feynman or Gell-Mann? I am biased toward Gell-Mann. Feynman was a very intelligent hillbilly.

[@TheMachian]

As a character, I prefer Feynman. Gell-Mann appeared to be in first place fascinated by himself. As Einstein once saifd about Pauli, a "well-lubricated brain"(capable of doing calculations quickly, but bad on reflecting profoundly).

[@NothingMaster]

Gell-Mann suffered from a severe case of jealousy and a fragile ego; especially when it came to competing with Feynman.

[@francishunt562]

Fair to say that they hated each other.

[@drbonesshow1]

Gell-Mann complained about Feynman, but he was just as self-absorbed.

[@rafaelalvesdasilva6013]

Gell-mann was among the greatest when it comes to ego

[@francishunt562]

He's not alone there is he, many famous physicists have huge egos..... e. g. Stephen Hawking, Brian Cox...., de Grasse Tyson.

[@Domi2gud]

That was absolutely brutal!

[@brendawilliams8062]

Colors for numbers when you don’t know either one. What

[@irishguy200007]

The problem with most teachers, mathematics, science etc is they cannot talk to the ordinary person.

[@tenbear5]

Yes, it all went down hill after the 1920s…

[@TheLuminousOne]

I need Gel, mann.

[@kambal6746]

Brilliant video❗️

[@tomctutor]

Basically the Omega minus particle is triplet SSS quark state, that should not be allowed by the Pauli Exclusion Principle (applied to fermions). The modern quark model is the synthesis of Gell-Mann's work "The Eightfold way" referring to the application of group theory to sub atomic particles. It _was_ a prediction that was verified. Not a guess as you suggest. @3:14 The reason singlet quark states are not observed is that they can't have a neutral color charge, also explained by QCD.

[@johnsolo123456]

huh?

[@tomctutor]

@@johnsolo123456 huh what?

[@lerssilarsson6414]

@3:49 "even less skill man" machine translated from "even less Gell-Mann".

[@lokeshmohan__I_am__]

Sir please comment on the recent proposition of the universe being e-dimensional instead of 3.

[@TheMachian]

Why should I? Please comment on pi-dimensionality first. :-)

[@paulwolf3302]

It's 3-D plus. Three spatial dimensions plus time which is a scalar quantity. Therefore, the correct mathematical model for it is a quaternion, which is a combined scalar and vector. Wikipedia explains quaternions well. Amazingly, William Hamilton thought of this himself, some time in the mid 1800s, maybe 75 years before Einstein used tensors as the mathematical model of space-time. Why did Einstein choose tensors over quaternions? Especially when there is really no way to define time as a vector quantity.

[@inflivia]

I watched a long biographical interview with Gell-Mann and on multiple occasions he made fun of older physicists. I remember him belittling one legendary physicist for having 'everything written down in a notebook'. He told a story about watching Einstein lecture and he said he didn't pay attention to what Einstein was saying - because he was too busy laughing at Einstein having his trouser fly down. He also apparently knew nothing about physical mechanics - he once asked the head accelerator scientist at SLAC to help him with his car (an insult in itself), and it turned out he didn't understand that his car wouldn't run without the radiator cap on. Very strange behaviour from a respected physical scientist.

[@TheMachian]

That is why I do not respect him too much.

[@critical_analysis]

@@TheMachian Problem I found with Gell-Mann was he seems to be thinking too much of himself. He makes mockery of Fermi, Heinsenberg, Schwinger, von Newmann and so many.

[@coraltown1]

for Overhyped just look into any handy mirror ..

[@Burevestnik9M730]

Sbh = Area x c3 / 4Gђ This is worth a founding father status, no? Thermodynamics = Geometry x Relativity / Math x Gravity x QM

[@twitter.comelomhycy]

Ooh

[@melvynbraithwaite8563]

The addition of Time into the statement. The Fine Structure Constant Time!MBraithwaite zYorkshire Viking

[@PaulMarostica]

I understand doubting quarks. But is there a better theory of what, if anything, composes protons, neutrons, etc.?

[@JohnChen-ot2ui]

How about Chen-Ning Yang?

[@teok7735]

this is like a natty or not but for physicists

[@oriraykai3610]

You can't blame him for the mainstream physics community that accepted his findings and made them part of the main curriculum.

[@12388696]

Frankly I clicked this video because I saw the name of Gell-Mann.

[@kamalansari1417]

I think all theories has fallacies for example Bohr model of hydrogen atom and so on.

[@peterfireflylund]

Yes. Bohr knew perfectly well how incomplete it was when he made it: it only handled hydrogen and it had no explanation for *why* the electron was confined to precisely those orbits. It was a good start and it predicted certain known experimental data and used the new quantum idea from Planck and Einstein. It was a good start, though. A very good start. I'd say Gell-Mann's quarks were a good start as well.

[@MT-2020]

Three colors... Monet disagrees.

[@yatnavalkyan]

What is your definition of a genius? You can always define it in such a way that it excludes some people. It is a semantic exercise which pivots on your idiosyncratic definition of what are the criteria for calling some one a genius. Why waste time on attacking dead but illustrious people and place yourself as the Ultimate Judge, Jury, Witness, Law all rolled into your amazing personage.

[@alecmisra4964]

Yes science should be a worshipful church you are right.

[@rbr1170]

This is actually a good way to remind science newcomers not to get tangled with the fallacy of appeal to authority. This is a ranking. As any ranking goes, it is up to the creator of the list. You, as a consumer go decided if you agree or not but as this is his list, he rules. But since you are of independent mind, feel free to disagree.

[@Eikinkloster]

In the context of the video I believe he means a genius is someone who brings a deeper and novel understanding of reality. Einstein would be one and Gell-Mann not because Gell-Mann's theories are just mumble jumble.

[@Chr15T]

High-energy "deep inelastic" electron-proton collisions performed at SLAC in 1968 and later, very cleverly designed and suggested by none other than Feynman, were able to experimentally establish the fractional electrical charges of partons just as predicted by the quark theory, among other things. The confinement remains a mystery, and it is a problem that QCD is "easy" to formulate (SU(3) gauge theory) but impossible to solve analytically even for simple cases and even approximately. But the idea of color electric flux tubes makes a lot of sense, and in lattice QCD calculations, it has been found that flux tubes will form and have properties consistent with the model assumptions. It remains that physicists have not yet been able to determine any dominating and few degrees of freedom whose analysis would make it "easy to see" that flux tubes will form. Summarizing, Mr. Unzicker is quick with his (harsh) criticism without having taken notice of the scientific process and achievements he is criticizing.

[@pcarter1989]

Wait, who called it the eight fold path? Lol

[@laxtose]

It's similar to Star Trek impossible Mr. Spock solutions. Fiction divorced from reality.

[@pukulu]

Actually, we don't really know quite yet if physics has degraded. Of course evidence for various modern theories are incomplete but maybe it's simply our fault as limited creatures that are unable to formulate or carry out sufficiently effective experiments. Gell-Mann was just trying to unify the confusing array of evidence that was seen in particle physics. He was keenly aware of the unsatisfactory nature of his own theories. Anyway, from my limited perspective, Gell-Mann, and later, Edward Witten, qualify as geniuses, even if many of their contributions to theoretical physics belong more in the realms of pure mathematics rather than in science.

[@saifahmad141]

Couldn't have said better excellently put 👏 👏

[@gibbogle]

Thanks for reassuring me about my long-ago decision to quit theoretical physics. At the time it felt like a failure, but now it feels like a wise move.

[@problematic7993]

the quark chart looks like a diagram of the trinity 🤣

[@ZeroOskul]

8:28 It is my unqualified opinion that Feynman introduced people to String "theory" as a joke to give them something harmless to look at while the real physicists worked on physics.

[@davidsaintjohn4248]

It's possible that there is more than one physics snipe hunt...

[@twitter.comelomhycy]

Haha

[@gastronic]

I read MGM's "Strange beauty", and thought it was clickbait. 'The jaguar' was consequently obviously such a hoax that I didn't even consider reading. It's been a mess for me in physics after that. Glad I didn't choose to study physics, but instead to fool around, party and play the clown. 😁

[@debunkthis]

There is a reason why single quarks don’t show up

[@himanshusingh5214]

Why are you blaming him? Blame the people who hyped him and fave him a Nobel prize. He was born in USA.

[@richmahogany1710]

Not disagreeing, but you seem to be very skeptical of all things standard model or lets say the world smaller than the neutron. What do you suppose all that stuff is that they’re supposedly detecting and recording at the multi billion dollar particle accelerators around the world?

[@TheMachian]

This needs a broader discussion, important to look at the history. You may read my "Higgs Fake" or Andrew Pickering's "Constructing quarks". There are also more videos about the SM in my channel.

[@solaireofastora4091]

It can be demonstrated, using QED, that the ratio of probabilities of the decays R=(e+e- -> Hadrons)/(e+e- -> mu+mu-) should be dominated by the sum of the quarks’ relative charges that should constitute the hadrons. Below the charm-anti-charm threshold for centre of mass energy you should only ever expect to get up, down or strange quarks in the final state leading to the ratio (-1/3)^2+(2/3)^2+(-1/3)^2=2/3=R. What you get from experiment is 2. That’s because there is a degeneracy factor you’re missing which is the colour charge for each quark. There’s a red, blue and green variant for each. In order to match experiment, we then propose that there exists a quantum number for colour charge and demand that any physical states are colour singlets of SU(3) and therefore colourless. This requirement makes sense as we do not see any individual particles distinguished by this quantum number in reality. We might not directly observe quarks, but the hints that an SU(3) gauge theory is called for are there and quarks with their fractional charge play a key role in the predictions you make for the probability of decays in QED. I wouldn’t consider any of this an unnecessary complication because it works and it’s quite an appealing theory. I’d also suggest that rejecting the multiplet states from SU(3) is no more arbitrary than rejecting the negative sign you get from solving a suvat equation for time, or rejecting the infinitely many solutions to a differential equation in favour of the one that satisfies the boundary conditions. Perhaps there is an easier way to do the same thing as QCD and for that I’d be all ears. To me it’s rather remarkable that symmetry groups describe anything at all in physics, but they work perfectly fine as a theory for angular momentum in quantum mechanics for example. Even trivial facts about the symmetry group like that the generators do not commute is indicative of the uncertainty principle. Plus they play a key role in the foundations of quantum mechanics as it is possible to show that any unitary transformation has a corresponding generator, infinitesimal transformation, which is Hermittian and therefore an observable as per the axioms of quantum mechanics. So the non-commutativity of generators and the infinitesimal transformations you make to a quantum system underpin real physics, here corresponding to the uncertainty principle and observability respectively. Group theory is a rich and beautiful mathematical structure which can be used to great effect in physics. I’m sure Unzicker is familiar with most, if not all, of what I have said here. I agree with his sentiment about String Theory and the endless epicycles (as in common parlance) that the theory seems to generate but I do not know enough about it to judge whether or not such epicycles actually make sense. Who has the time for that? My view is that we should not be producing metaphysics and that we should learn from history that the most reliable way to create predictive models is to pay more attention to the mathematical formulation than the explanation of the theory, insofar as that does not prevent us developing it. I think predictive capability is paramount, and would argue that Newton’s success was owed to his ignoring the conceptual problems with action at a distance with his inverse-square law. At the risk of sounding sanctimonious I would prescribe the same attitude, admittedly with very limited experience myself, as I see Nature as the arbiter of whether or not a theory is worth our time. To summarise I think a useful fiction is as good as reality, so long as we can predict what happens in reality.

[@steveballzack1409]

QED is bullshit too, according to this guy. Try to keep up, bro.

[@solaireofastora4091]

@@steveballzack1409 Well then you and him should try to ‘keep up’ with the evidence of the success of QED.

[@steveballzack1409]

@@solaireofastora4091 Unzicker would tell you to read Oliver Consa's paper which apparently debunks QED. Really bro, try to keep up because this is becoming tiring.

[@holretz1]

Mr. Unzicker is just a small-time physics teacher (like me), but has taken it up on himself to chastise all the major physicists that contributed to the standardmodel. That's hilarious...

[@TheMachian]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/lX-9mnaIps15f8k

[@SuperMagnetizer]

Quarks remind me of something Alice might find in Wonderland. Never observable otherwise. Great video, thanks!

[@Mostafa-jf4nr]

What about the ether as wave function

[@paulwolf3302]

What about the Michelson Morely experiment?