I'm No Expert

I'm not an expert. I'm not a scientist. But I like to think that I'm about as smart as the people who make science shows for the Science Channel, and I like to think that I've thought about matters at least as much as they have. So here are my totally unscientific views on matters that seem to excite the TV show producers.

1. Is time travel possible? Yes - but only into the future, and through mechanisms described by relativity (that is, relativistic velocities or really deep and steep gravity wells).

2. Are there alternate universes? I don't think so, but even if there are, we'll never detect them, so we'll never know. I'm wary of the "alternate universes" interpretations of superstring theory and tend to reject the pop culture gosh-wow alternate theory nonsense that grows up like weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk.

3. Are there more than three spatial dimensions? I don't know. And I don't know how to detect them if they exist. 3+N dimensional space continuums seem to always flow out of attempts to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics (superstring theory, loop quantum gravity and so forth) and I'm always tempted to say these are cases where elegant mathematical models lead us to inelegant physical models, but in the end I'm basically agnostic on multiple dimensions.

4. What are the constituents of dark matter? I think WIMPs (Weakly-Interacting Massive Particles) are a reasonable hypothesis.

5. What is the basis of dark energy? I wish I knew! I confess I'm not entirely convinced that expansion is really accelerating - I have a sneaking suspicion we're seeing an artifact of measurement and assumption. But people way smarter than me think it really is happening, so I guess I should too. But what's causing it? Dunno.

6. Regarding the huge disagreement about the value of the cosmological constant, who's right, quantum mechanics or relativity? I side with relativity - it's hard to argue with observational evidence.

7. Are there a lot of Earth-like planets out in the universe? I don't know what "a lot" means, but I think they're going to turn out to be reasonably plentiful. And I'm confident that there is life out there somewhere, and that it is also reasonably plentiful. Is there intelligent life out there? Probably.

8. Why hasn't SETI detected signals from other stars? Given that I think life is common in the universe, and intelligent life not uncommon, why haven't we heard it? My personal guess is that most of the observable universe lies beyond the "life-radio horizon", as it were - we've only been sending out radio signals for about a hundred years, after all, and a civilization in the Andromeda galaxy would have to be millions of years old for us to hear it.

9. Do wormholes exist? Probably, but I doubt that they can be created artificially, or used as a transit system (or even a communications system). But the science fiction fan in me likes to think that some hitherto-unsuspected property of hitherto-undiscovered exotic matter might make such things possible.

10. Is supersymmetry real? I'm dubious, and as the energy of particle accelerators increases and supersymmetrical partners continue to not be found, I grow increasingly dubious.

11. Is superstring theory right? I'm dubious. It seems too convenient to me that the theory can be reformulated as required to justify its lack of experimental evidence, and I'm wary of efforts to define this as a new way of doing science.

12. What is the origin of the Pioneer Anomaly? The engineer in me thinks it's some subtle real-world effect we aren't taking into account and not something fundamentally wrong with our theories of gravity. I'm not sure what real-world effect we're missing - drag from the spacecraft colliding with dust particles, maybe - but I prefer that over the alternative.

13. Does the Higgs Particle really exist? Hell if I know! It's in danger of being dismissed as too convenient, just like supersymmetrical partner particles. Strange, isn't it, that every time we fail to discover the Higgs Particle, someone recalculates its mass so it's just slightly too heavy to appear? But if it doesn't exist, there are ominous implications for quantum theory...

And now, I think I'm going to think about cooking a sausage for lunch.