Actor Claims His New Theory of Everything Improves Physics

today I want to talk about A peculiar case of let me call it amateur physics that's recently attracted a lot of public attention it's some ideas put forward by Terrence Howard an American actor who has his own theory of everything that he thinks improves physics now there are thousands of people with theories of something that aren't good for anything and normally I don't talk about that I make an exception in this case because Joe Rogan spread these ideas on his podcast and a lot of people seem to think that physicists must pay attention to actors who want to improve physics well I'm happy to help so let's have a look I don't have time to listen to three-hour podcasts and if I did I sure hell wouldn't listen to some actor go on about his theory of everything but I saw that he has a book of sorts and I like books so I had a look at this and I'm now at least as qualified to comment on his ideas as he is to comment on Modern physics Terren Howard's key fundamental Insight the basis of his new Theory of Everything Is that 1 * 1 equals 2 just in case you had any doubts about it 1 * 1 equal 1 that's not a matter of opinion it's not even a matter of science it's a matter of definition the mathematical operation that we call multiplication and the number that we call one are defined so that any number multiplied by one gives the same number consequently 1 * 1 equal 1 we Define multiplication this way just because it's useful you see if you have only addition and I give you seven apples You' have to go 1+ 1+ 1+ 1+ 1+ 1+ 1 equal 7 the operation of multiplication is a way to simplify this long sequence of addition we introduce a new symbol call that times and write 7 * 1 it means the same thing how it goes on to write in order to multiply something by something else they must be dimensionally equal this is not correct if you multiply one quantity that has units with another quantity that has units you multiply the units If I multiply say time measured in seconds with a speed in me m/ second I get a length in meters this is the case for any quantity but a lot of things that you can mathematically multiply don't serve any purpose so we don't multiply them I could for example multiply 18 chopsticks with a magnetic field of two Tesla that would give me 36 Chopstick Tesla but just because that mathematically exists doesn't mean it makes any physical sense but Howard's confusion about multiplication goes so far that he thinks if you multiply a penny with a penny then according to the current rules of mathematics and multiplication that gives you one penny this is not correct it would give you a penny squared which isn't a physical thing but now he has an entire conspiracy theory about how Bank of America miscalculates your pennies oh dear okay so he doesn't understand either multiplication or units which let me just say is a bad start for revolutionizing physics but how does he get from there to rewriting the laws of nature well as I read on it became apparent that Howard confuses mathematical relations with natural laws yes in physics we formulate the laws of nature in form of mathematical relations but that doesn't mean any mathematical relation is a law of nature since he thinks that something is wrong with 1 * 1 equal 1 and he thinks that multiplication is a law of nature he now thinks that physics is wrong he explains the laws of conservation of energy might as well pack up and move away because how can a something multiplied by nothing cause the something to disappear remember energy cannot be created or destroyed that's why there is no law of nature that just multiplies energy by zero a few pages later he has concluded that all visible things things are composed of the properties of light this is what the equation eal mc² is ultimately illustrating that energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared all things are light unfortunately this is not correct this equation doesn't apply to light you see the full equation is actually e equal the square < TK of m² C to 4th plus the square of the momentum times the second power of the speed of light if the object you're looking at doesn't move then the velocity is zero so the momentum vanishes that gives you E equals mc² but light moves well at the speed of light so the momentum can't vanish instead for light it's the mass that's zero so you get e equal p * C and no all things cannot be light most trly because light has no electric charge on page 102 he then begins a crash course into particle physics and quantum mechanics that sounds promising so let's have a look it's an elaboration based on a lecture about Quantum field Theory by David Tong who I'm sure is thrilled to be cited in this groundbreaking work David is quoted as saying that the idea that the world is made of particles is strictly speaking a lie because Quantum fields are the real building blocks of the universe Howard seems to think that this is somewhat of a revelation that the world is made of quantum fields and not of particles but what can I say yes the standard model of particle physics which is half a century old is a Quantum field Theory it is despite its name not a theory of particles but of quantum Fields a Quantum field Loosely speaking tells you how many particles of what type are in which place so even if there's no particle in one place there still the field there that tells you that no particle is there Howard seems to think there's something wrong with it because Tong correctly says that the equations can be extremely difficult to solve so then Howard introduces his new Theory which is that the third power of one is the absolute value of pi and this is the neutral condition of all visible matter the rest of the book is basically pictures he does not make a calculation for any measurement result but complains that quote that's one of the biggest problems in the field of Science and Mathematics it goes beyond the fact that it's outrageously clickish it's as if they never truly left high school and the silly games of unconscious children pretending to be important adults in truth they are just afraid to explore new ideas end quote in summary we have a man who wouldn't pass a primary school math exam who thinks that lumping together words and images will revolutionize physics a man who has zero respect for thousands of years of hardworking mathematicians and scientists whose efforts made it possible that you can see him on a screen and listen to him through a most excellent microphone a man who belittles generations of physicists who have spent their life to figure out what matter is made of and how electromagnetic radiation propagates and how the universe expands achievements that Terren Howard thinks he can improve on by drawing a few lines and squaring pennies now look some people have told me that Terrence Howard has a mental health issue or maybe he's been doing too many drugs or both I don't know if that's correct and I don't want to speculate about it I don't blame him if you can make it through school with that significant deficits in basic educ ation then that's a problem with the educational system no I blame Joe Rogan because Rogan isn't stupid he believes that his audience is stupid he believes that his audience is so stupid to think they'll lap up any nonsense he throws at them is Rogan right well he certainly knows how to multiply his pennies to me science is more than a profession it's a way to understand the world and to solve problems this is why I'm happy to work together with brilliant whose mission is to help you learn science in the easiest and most engaging way possible all courses on brilliant have interactive visualizations and come with follow up questions I found it to be very effective to learn something new it really gives you failing for what's going on and helps you build general problem solving skills they cover a large variety of Topics in science computer science and maths from General scientific thinking to Dedicated courses on differential equations or large language models and they're adding new courses each month it's a fast and easy way to learn and you can do it whenever and wherever you have the time sounds good I hope it does you can try brilliant yourself for free if you use my link brilliant.org Saina that way you'll get to try out everything brilliant has to offer for full 30 days and you'll get 20% off the annual premium subscription so go and give it a try I'm sure you won't regret it thanks for watching see you tomorrow

Channel: Sabine Hossenfelder

Views: 1,038,862

Keywords: science without the gobbledygoook, hossenfelder, science news sabine, science news, science humor, math, mathematics, physics, Terrence Howard, Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan Podcast, science, new theory, new science theory, theory, quantum field, quantum field theory, quantum physics, theory of everything, 1x1=2

Id: GZegwJVC_Pc

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 01 2024