Популярно о конечной математике и ее интересных применениях в квантовой теории - Феликс Лев Страница 71

В рецензиях все как обычно: ничего не понимают и понимать не хотят, но раз у меня не QFT, то сразу посылают подальше. Что здесь особенно странно: эта секция в Springer называется FTPH – fundamental theories of physics, и в правилах написано, что надо предлагать что-то фундаментально новое, а не стандартное. Т.е., как бы рецензент должен понимать, что может быть что-то необычное. Но, как обычно, для них правила не писаны и если они не понимают, то сразу отвергают. Например, одна из главных целей моей работы – объяснить, что стандартная непрерывная математика – частный вырожденный случай конечной математики, а не наоборот. Но менталитет этого тупицы такой: он сразу решает, что дискретное это приближение к непрерывному и пишет отрицательный отзыв. Мой ответ на рецензии такой:

Monograph proposal: "Finite Quantum Theory and Applications to Gravity and Particle Theory" by F. M. Lev

Author's Comments on FTPH Reviewer Reports

My first observation is about the attitude of the reviewers from the formal point of view. My experience is that in many cases reviewers do not think that they are bound by the editorial policy of the journal for which they write a report and they believe that they know better what should or should not be published.

The FTPH editorial policy says in particular: «Although the aim of this series is to go beyond established mainstream physics, a high profile and open-minded Editorial Board will evaluate all contributions carefully to ensure a high scientific standard». As follows from this sentence, the reviewers MUST read the author's proposal carefully and at least to have a minimal understanding of what the author proposes. Without this understanding it is not possible to make a conclusion whether «a high scientific standard» is met or not. In addition, the reviewers should be open-minded, i.e. they should accept that in physics different approaches have a right to exist and so they should not reject the proposal only because it is not in the mainstream.

In my proposal I describe the motivation in great details but the reports do not give any indication on whether the reviewers carefully read the proposal, whether they made any efforts to understand it and whether they are qualified to understand.

As I explain, in my approach quantum theory is based on finite mathematics, it is more fundamental than standard continuous mathematics and the latter is a degenerated special case of the former. So for understanding those key statements the reviewers should have at least very basic knowledge in finite mathematics. However, the reports do not show any sign that the reviewers have this knowledge.

Let me quote an extract from my proposal: «… the majority of physicists do not have even a very basic knowledge in finite mathematics. This is not a drawback because everybody knows something and does not know something and it is impossible to know everything. However, many physicists have a mentality that only their vision of physics is correct, they do not accept that different approaches should be published and if they do not understand something or something is not in the spirit of their dogmas then this is pathology or exotics which has nothing to do with physics». This extract fully applies to the reviewer reports.

For example, Reviewer 1 thinks that since my approach is based on discrete mathematics then it is simply an «approximation to the standard continuum theory». First of all, if my approach is only an approximation then it is not FTPH at all. So it should be rejected right away and the remaining part of the report is obsolete. The mentality of the reviewer is that discrete is an approximation to continuous. This mentality is based on standard mathematical education where, for example, integral sums are treated as an approximation to the «true» value obtained by integration. In my proposal I explain why in the given case standard mentality does not work and below will explain this again.

Reviewer 1 writes that «The criticisms of the mainstream continuum theories are, for my taste, too commonplace and unspecific…» First of all, my remarks about problems of those theories are not a criticism but simply a reminder of well-known facts. The reviewer says that this «have already been responded to within the usual mainstream theories» but gives no specifics. For example, does he/she think that the problem of infinities has been already solved? Or in his/her opinion this problem is not important? For example, Weinberg, who is a famous physicist, writes in his textbook on QFT: «Disappointingly this problem appeared with even greater severity in the early days of quantum theory, and although greatly ameliorated by subsequent improvements in the theory, it remains with us to the present day». The title of one Weinberg's paper is «Living with infinities». He also writes that a new theory may be «centuries away». Do those Weinberg statements have been already refuted and if yes then when and where? Do we have quantum gravity where the renormalized perturbation series does not contain infinities?

As I note in the proposal, several famous physicists discussed a possibility that fundamental quantum theory will be based on finite mathematics and one of the arguments is that in this case infinities cannot exist in principle. Reviewer 1 says that «Some of the papers cited to support the author's criticism of the mainstream theories are known to present misguided views that have been clarified elsewhere in the literature» but does not give any explanation on what is misguided, what has been clarified and no references are given.

Reviewer 1 says: «It is also not really clear how the author's approach would