Wall for Ron Maimon

Ron,

calling out wrong things in physics is ok, but calling people who are honest and serious about their work morons here on PhysicsOverflow has nothing to do with Physics.

I and Dimension10 refrain from ranting about SE too here ... ;-)

You know, not even Lumo called LQG people, quantum interpreters, many-world theorists, etc idiots, morons, etc on TP.SE for example ...

Hi Ron,

You will not go too far thinking smart people are morons. These results are now well acquired and involved people like Zwanziger and Cornwell, well respected experts in quantum field theory. So, I will avoid to comment again on you.

It is just curious that you, without reading any of the papers I pointed out to you, are claiming I am wrong on this. Please, inform yourself. There is something greatly wrong in your statements and would not be rational to avoid to update your knowledge. At the worst, just read Wikipedia article on Yang-Mills theory that presently is more up to date than you.

About me and QCD simulations, you can read my blog posts in recent years. I have equipped my PC with CUDA cards, a 1060 is currently sitting on it, and I have computed gauge field configurations with well known software. Please, take some time to check this before to stay on a throne and pontificate without not even remotely being aware about what you are talking about.

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the prompt reply. I think we have a common misunderstanding. When I talk of Yang-Mills theory I mean without quarks (I think "quenched" could be the right wording). Limiting yourself to lattice simulations of a pure Yang-Mills theory your scenario is simply not confirmed. I invite you to check the papers I posted that present very recent lattice simulations for Yang-Mills theory to study the infrared behaviour. The results is that the theory becomes free at long wavelength and so no randomization takes place in the continuum. This is also confirmed by Dyson-Schwinger equations numerically solved. On the other side, when quarks are present you conclusions apply and QCD confines. But also the gluon propagator is seen to change dramatically. So, we are discussing different sides of a similar problem. Nothing else.

Anyhow, to add a colourful note,  there are respectable researchers that are sceptic yet about the lattice formulation of QCD. Recent results on the spectrum of the theory should have convinced everybody.

Ciao

Hi Ron,

Sorry for the delay in my answer as we are at different sides of the ocean and, that is not enough, I am on vacation now.

Let me recount what you are saying as I would like to know if I have understood it well. Your reasoning is founded on what is called "strong coupling expansion". This is defined on a lattice and was initially devised by Wilson. Indeed, this was the starting point of all the huge work now going on around the world on lattice computations.

Strong coupling expansion, with this meaning, has been widely used also to draw theoretical conclusions on QCD. Wilson obtained from this the famous area-law for confinement.

This theoretical approach is not so widely used now for a couple of reasons. First of all, the limit of the lattice spacing going to zero is not trivial at all. Then, your theory depends on a parameter, beta, that is depending both on the coupling g and the lattice spacing. So, moving from the lattice to the reality is somewhat painful (but non impossible in some cases) and often you are not entitled to draw the same conclusions for the lattice to the continuum. Nobody has been able to prove that such a limit to the continuum indeed exists.

But let us assume for the moment that all goes smooth and you are able to take the limit of the spacing going to zero. You are claiming that, in the infrared limit or long wavelength, the gauge field configurations I get will be a set of random numbers. You are giving this conclusion as a certainty.

Of course, people has done lattice computations since the inception of powerful enough machines. They applied exactly your "strong coupling expansion" increasing volumes and diminishing lattice spacing at will. The results do not go in the direction you are claiming they should. This is the reason why I yielded that references. What people is getting is that Yang-Mills theory is also trivial at long wavelength. This means that there are no random numbers as free fields have nothing to do with random values. Rather, it seems we should refer to some classical solutions yet to be found (I think to have found them but this is another story) to represent such a free field limit. It is like to have quasiparticles in the same way happens in condensed matter physics. These results on lattice were completely confirmed solving Dyson-Schwinger equations numerically. So, I think you should revise your views.

Hope this helps.

Hi Ron,

Yes, I am Marco Frasca. This is clearly stated in my profile where I properly filled the field with the full name and put the link to my website. Did you check it before to post on my wall?

Yes, he was there, and this is the motivation for a lot of the bloggers, once usenet died, the activity moved to wikipedia, then blogs, now it's websites such as this. The freedom of usenet was this siren, luring people to dash their heads against the rocks, the rocks being working against the current academic system. Terrance Tao still gets flak for his blogging, and he is constantly demeaned in mathematics for being low-brow. But he is great. He is also not an elitist, which is strange considering his child-prodigy background. I suspect the reason is the exposure to the democracy of usenet.

Terence Tao posted on Usenet?
I've seen his posts on Wikipedia concerning Yang–Mills existence and mass gap

Hi Ron,

under Admin Tools / Posts / Import (link)

But you have probably found it already, as I see ...

Ron, ignorance is bliss! Keep on rocking :-)