relativity · science

Tom Bethell and the Romance of Scientific HeresyBack in November I linked to Stephen Barr’s post spanking American Spectator columnist Tom Bethell for his long held, ideological grudge against Einstein –and further, his irresponsibly uncritical championing of a pet theory devised by his friend and fellow traveler, the late Petr Beckmann–which Bethell has now summarized… Continue reading

relativity · science

New steps toward quantum gravity: Despite the success of general relativity, one of the most important problems in modern physics is finding a theory of quantum gravity that reconciles the continuous nature of gravitational fields with the inherent ‘graininess’ of quantum mechanics. Recently, Petr Hořava at Lawrence Berkeley Lab proposed such a model for quantum… Continue reading