by Fritjof Capra
In the last two chapters of my book The Tao of Physics, I discussed a theory known as “bootstrap theory,” which was very popular in the 1970s, and on which I worked myself during my ten years at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. This theory, proposed by Geoffrey Chew, is based on the idea that nature cannot be reduced to fundamental entities, like fundamental constituents of matter, but has to be understood entirely through self-consistency. All of physics has to follow uniquely from the requirement that its components be consistent with one another and with themselves.
This idea constitutes a radical departure from the traditional spirit of basic research in physics, which has always concentrated on finding the fundamental constituents of matter. At the same time, it can be seen as the culmination of the conception of particles as interconnections in an inseparable cosmic web, which arose in quantum theory and acquired an intrinsically dynamic nature in relativity theory.
The bootstrap philosophy abandons not only the idea of fundamental constituents of matter but accepts no fundamental entities whatsoever — no fundamental laws or equations, and not even a fundamental structure of space-time. The universe is seen as a dynamic web of interrelated events. None of the properties of any part of this web are fundamental; they all follow from the properties of the other parts, and the overall consistency of their mutual interrelations determines the structure of the entire web.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the bootstrap theory was eclipsed by the success of the standard model, which is very different, as it postulates the existence of fundamental fields and their corresponding particles. And today, bootstrap physics has virtually disappeared from the scene. However, if a theory of quantum gravity continues to remain elusive, and if the a priori assumption of the structure of space-time is broadly recognized as the essential flaw of string theory, the bootstrap idea may well will be revived someday, in some mathematical formulation or other.
Read the entire essay here: http://www.fritjofcapra.net/the-unification-of-physics/
No comments:
Post a Comment