The Manifesto of the Ultra Heretics

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

With the launch of the website, some of the Heretics, the ‘Ultras’, want to present a more extreme position than the mainstream Heretics. . They are sceptical of the rich jungle of ‘fundamental entities’ in orthodox theory and want to be ruthless with ‘Occam’s razor’: ‘entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily’.

This is their manifesto:

‘One of the drivers of the Heretics has been the desire for parsimony, economy of concepts. It used to be a driver for physics. Our faith is that the universe starts simple and the complexity we now see comes from the interaction of few and simple entities.

WE, the Ultra-Heretics, are sceptical of many conclusions derived from experiments – not of the experimental results – but of their interpretation as fitting pre-conceived theories. Smashing things produces a mess. At least 200 different mesons have been found, short-lived junk that emerges from accelerator experiments. Before we allow accelerator observations to be co-opted into someone’s theory, we need to be confident that it isn’t just another bit of meson junk. We must have solid proof before we accept that the theory works and the ‘particle’ detected is, indeed, the one predicted.

Examples of ‘particles’ that have been claimed to be found but that may simply be bits of smashed up junk:

W+, W- and Z particles. These were predicted to exist to explain radioactive decay via the concept of the ‘Weak Force’ and were ‘found’ in smashing tests a few years later. We note that the life of the W and Z is around 3 x 10^-25 seconds. For comparison, the number of seconds since the Big Bang is around 4 x 10¹⁸ seconds (assuming the BB was around 13.8 billion years ago). Yes, something of this description probably exists; no, we cannot be confident that they are the particles that fit the theory – for a period ten million times shorter than one over the history of the universe in seconds. The Theory of the ‘Electroweak Force’ needs to be included under ‘speculation’ and the Heretics idea of random ‘thermodynamic style’ shaking bits out of large atoms (the most noticeable effect attributed to the ‘weak force’) considered. After all, that jiggling is going to be there for sure, so why wouldn’t it have the effect of occasionally shaking a bit off the atom? There is no need for the weak force. Come back, thermodynamics, you’ve always been right in the end.

The Higgs Boson. Yes, there is something at around the size the theory predicts but to link it to the Higgs field theory is a step too far. The Heretics do not need the Higgs field anyway,  as mass arises in ball-waves from the combination of their inherent (Pauli) exclusion and inertia, caused by the need to shorten the wavelength in the direction of acceleration. The Higgs had been predicted for over 50 years and was desperately sought (although it did not fit the ‘standard model’ pattern). Something at around 125GeV (with an approximate lifetime of 1.5 x 10^-22 seconds!) was observed to exist in 2012 and could fit the Higgs theory. But there is, in reality, very little to distinguish it from a wide range of other possibilities – for example, it could be the next stage heavy electron after the tau. Since the Heretics cannot see the need for Higgs at all, it must be erased by Occam.

It is worth noting that the Heretic scheme does not allow for Bosons, longitudinal waves, to have mass at all. The, W, Z and Higgs are all (Ultra-) massive bosons.

And Quarks? Who needs them? The nucleus is simple, it is made up of two types of things, neutrons and protons. OK, smash it to pieces and all kinds of junk emerges, but the junk was not there to start with, it is smashed bits of small objects. Quarks – and gluons – have never been found, although excuses for their non-observation have been found.  They are speculative ideas from the period when people thought mesons mattered. Bring it on, Occam, let’s get rid of them. Protons are simple ball-waves, neutrons a compressed combination of a proton and an electron, with the doughnut of the electron outside, helping to stick large atoms together. The neutron alone actually falls apart into a proton and an electron, we just don’t need complex dances of quarks to explain this.

The Ultra-Heretic slogan is: “One Field, One Force, Keep Simple”

And while we’re at it, how about neutrinos? Such a simple idea, simple spinning things. The Heretics see them as small vortices in the Field, ‘dust-devils’ or mini-vortices in the Field. But orthodoxy has six or so varieties (some say more), interchanging and with a characteristic, ‘chirality’ that is more-or-less inexplicable in a simple object (It needs a complex shape, like a glove, in normal usage, so that it comes in two, very similar, but not identical, varieties).

We, the Ultra-Heretics, believe that Physics has lost its driving force: to explain the complex in terms of the simple. It is now the task of every post-Doc. to come up with yet another fanciful ‘particle’. And who can blame them? The system taught is riddled with mystery and complexity, largely derived from the category error that math describes the world rather than predicting outcomes.

Rise up! Throw off the accreted concepts of the past with the slogan ‘Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht‘, God is subtle but not malicious. Thanks, Albert.’