Dark Matter/Energy

The Loop Quantum Gravity community grew out of the belief that gravity isn't a force in spacetime, so we need a different way to do things.

Personally I think the Loop Quatum Gravity theory is more to my taste, though still not entirely, it's still got some "hairys" I don't like, but I do think it's a more accurate model.

Getting back to GR. It still baffles me how many physicists have still not grasped it's significance/importance - they still try to marry classical and GR physics - which seems an impossibility. Again, I say that that once a student reaches third level that all notions of newtonian physics (apart from obviously the working ones) be thrown out, and that the midset of GR be instilled. Else, we will continue to have ridiculous theories on gravity leaking thro' dimensions, when gravity iteself is only an observabale result of spacetime curvature. What physicists should be concentrating on is why matter causes spacetime to curve. ( I have some ideas on the subject, but until I have I have it fully worked out in my own spacetime I won't elaborate, and I certainly won't be showing the math).

You're gonna be horrified by this but I have an honours physics degree and I NEVER did GR as part of my degree. That was reserved for the single honours people, us double honours people were obviously not worthy!

Bart.

I have an honours physics degree and I NEVER did GR as part of my degree.

There you go - just proves my point. GR is not generally something you read and understand first off. Secondary schools is where we should start teaching this stuff, not leaving it up to students to read and interpret/misinterpret themselves. It can take a while to get your head around GR, a lot of it is mindset. If you're coming from a long term classical physics background it's very hard to park Newton and accept GR, the temptation is to try to meld the two and this usually ends in confusion and failure. I don't have a physics degree - just Electronics - so I have had to find my own way by self education, and extensive and cross discipline reading. Maybe that's why I'm more questioning of some of the above theories.
Physicists need to get out more - what I mean by that is read up on whats going on in other disciplines and fields as diverse as Biology. Too much of physics nowadays is specialised in small compartments and nobody is sticking their heads out of their own box, this will ultimately lead to an ingenuity gap.

I have an honours physics degree and I NEVER did GR as part of my degree.

There you go - just proves my point. GR is not generally something you read and understand first off. Secondary schools is where we should start teaching this stuff, not leaving it up to students to read and interpret/misinterpret themselves. It can take a while to get your head around GR, a lot of it is mindset. If you're coming from a long term classical physics background it's very hard to park Newton and accept GR, the temptation is to try to meld the two and this usually ends in confusion and failure. I don't have a physics degree - just Electronics - so I have had to find my own way by self education, and extensive and cross discipline reading. Maybe that's why I'm more questioning of some of the above theories.
Physicists need to get out more - what I mean by that is read up on whats going on in other disciplines and fields as diverse as Biology. Too much of physics nowadays is specialised in small compartments and nobody is sticking their heads out of their own box, this will ultimately lead to an ingenuity gap.

I agree with you. I have a pretty balanced and rounded education because most of it I picked up myself. If I only knew what I was tought in my degree I'd be a rubbish computer scientist and a hopless physicist!

As for the compartmentalization that definitly exists in physics, it is FAR broader than that. It is a feature of science as a whole these days. If you don't believe me, try working accademically in a cross disciplinary area, you'll soon find that you fall between all the stools and find it very hard to get funded because science has been broken up in to separate pigeonholes and funding is so specific that if you don't fit into a slot you are in trouble. My PhD is on e-learning and has a very distinct physics and more precicely Astronomy slant. The Comptuer science funding agencies see it as being too education related so they won't fund, the education agencies see it as too computer sciency so they won't fund and the physics agencies see no hard physics there so they too are not interested. This is the closed, compartmentalised attitude you described realised in practice and it's not at all a healthy thing for science.

BB

This is the closed, compartmentalised attitude you described realised in practice and it's not at all a healthy thing for science.

I agree totally - Science does not benefit from compartmentalisation. And I'm sorry to hear about your funding problem but that's probably par for the course anyway - people run a mile whe you look for funding and generally try to blame it on someone else, but thats not science - it's politics and administration.

This is the closed, compartmentalised attitude you described realised in practice and it's not at all a healthy thing for science.

I agree totally - Science does not benefit from compartmentalisation. And I'm sorry to hear about your funding problem but that's probably par for the course anyway - people run a mile whe you look for funding and generally try to blame it on someone else, but thats not science - it's politics and administration.

I did eventually manage ot get some funding but 3 out of hte 5 years of my PhD were un-funded, which makes life very difficult. Mind you funding is a major problem here. Regardless of how great the research you are doing is you will always have to work hard for funding but if you don't fit nicely into a compartment then you are at a dissadvantage straight away.

if you don't fit nicely into a compartment then you are at a dissadvantage straight away

Ever decreasing circles - and we know how that ends - a black hole!