Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by lumpypua 3814 days ago
This is a wrong-headed question to ask about theoretical physics. People have this idea that you can just say crazy physics things and they might be true, but that's not even close to the case. If you want to reach the level of conjecture, there are some incredibly high hurdles to pass. Your conjecture has to be consistent with bothboth general relativity and quantum mechanics, probably the two most experimentally accurate and successful scientific theories in the history of the human race.

Here's a great lecture on this question of "well don't we need experiments? Is this all crazy physics conjecture?"

http://www.cornell.edu/video/nima-arkani-hamed-philosophy-of...

Black holes are the phenomena where quantum mechanics and gravity collide most intensely, and even theories of black hole physics compatible with both GR and QM are major achievements.

Edit: Although I agree the article is fairly opaque.