The Next Great Awakening?

“The next great awakening of the human intellect may well produce a method of understanding the qualitative content of the equations.” Richard Feynman

For the last century or so physics has totally bought into the assumptions of strict reductionism and absolute scale, which means that things always get more fundamental as you go to smaller scales. There has been some interest in emergent modeling, but this still puts the most fundamental phenomena on the smallest scales.

In a discrete global fractal paradigm, reductionism works very well within the limited context of single cosmological Scales, such as the Atomic Scale, Stellar Scale or Galactic Scale. But crucially, this reductionism does not work between and among cosmological Scales. In this new paradigm each cosmological Scale is equally fundamental, i.e., none is more fundamental than any other.

This is a radically new way of looking at nature, i.e., a new over-arching conceptual framework for understanding the cosmos.

Dimensional constants (except velocities like c which are completely scale invariant) are different on different Scales. The gravitational constant, for example, has values that differ by ~10³⁸ on neighboring Scales. This changes everything in a profound manner. It yields a far more natural, physical and sensible Planck mass and length. It radically changes the dynamics of the microcosm.

A large amount of empirical and theoretical evidence supporting the discrete fractal paradigm can be found at http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw . Any question one might ask is answered there in one or more places. I am also more than willing to help with explanations, or listen to thoughtful comments and criticism.

We desperately need a new cosmological paradigm in theoretical physics. Not a new mathematical model detached from observations, not a highly abstract theory that takes 10 years to master and yet still fails to make definitive predictions, but a new and comprehensible conceptual paradigm that is founded on observational knowledge, that makes testable predictions, and that can actually successfully pass those predictive tests.

Discrete Scale Relativity/Fractal Cosmology