So far so good. But I guess the way I understand the objective of a grand unified theory, it involves the attempt to produce a set of axioms and theorems from which the important results in *both* QM and GR can be derived/proved. I'm as reluctant as the next person to extend Goedel's work into areas where it shouldn't really go (like a lot of the so-called new-age folk wisdom does). But I honestly think that if we spin the universe around and look at it from a different angle, Goedel's work might apply here. Obviously I haven't made a compelling enough case to persuade you or m50d, so I guess it's back to the drawing board for another few years. I also don't think I'm in agreement with making an impermeable barrier between physics and math. I mean, it seems to me that the language of physics *is* math. And for proof of that, I resort to xkcd. http://xkcd.com/435/

Thanks for this - I've been struggling for ages to figure out how Goedel's theorem might be applicable to the search for a Grand Unified Theory. If I understand what you're saying, then it does if either General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics involves the use of second order predicate logic. I'm guessing that because they both involve math that is somewhat more complex than arithmetic, that the answer to that is yes, but I'm not sure. So if we pretend that they both do involve second order predicate logic (or that at least one of them does), does it mean that the search for a grand unified theory is doomed? If you've got one theory (QM) that is consistent for small things but not complete (i.e. for heavy things) and another (GR) that is consistent for heavy things but not complete (for small things), does Goedel's theorem prove that neither GR nor QM can be extended to cover the case of small heavy things without sacrificing consistency? Or does it prove that the case of small heavy things is undecidable? Or is it just irrelevant?

I'm reading this story while sitting in limbo waiting for a replacement card to arrive, because my CC issuer recently called to say that my card had been flagged as "vulnerable". Of course the guy I'm talking claims (and I believe him) to have no information about what exactly led them to believe that my card is as vulnerable as they think it is.

So that got me thinking: wouldn't it be nice if I could know which vendor was responsible for the security breach? I'd definitely make it a point not to go back there, at least unless and until they demonstrated to me that they'd taken appropriate measures to reduce the likelihood of another breach happening. I've had probably half a dozen such reports from my cc company over the past five years. I always wondered what was up, because I kind of make a point of not using my card in a place that looks shady. But I do stay in a lot of hotels. So thanks to the originator of this story for helping me make sense of my experience.

I'm sure there would be lots of problems with forcing cc issuers to disclose the name of the vendor when cancelling a card for security reasons. But i'd still like to have that information to guide my future choice of vendors! It would also apply some market pressure to have hotels, or whoever else, get their security acts together.

Here's an interesting article that you might also enjoy, by one of the foremost thinkers in the field. His theory is that smart people don't experience enough failure: they're too often right, and they're right immediately. If you don't seem so sure of yourself immediately, you have a better chance of attracting collaborators. It's a little like agile development, where you release stuff that you know isn't exactly "it" but it's a good start, works, and makes a meaningful improvement in people's lives. If you've always succeeded in "brilliant loner" or "cathedral" style development, you don't know how to function in the bazaar. http://www.velinperformance.com/downloads/chris_argyris_learning.pdf

It's interesting to see this debate happening here on Slashdot. I spend my life immersed in the world of health care, and a large part of my job is trying to figure out ways to deal with folks like Dr. House. It's a big, big cultural transformation, or at least it is in health care. One of the reasons that it's so hard to deal with is because in "fixing" a problem like Dr. House you run the risk of treading on people's autonomy. And part of the reason that folks like this get as far as they do is because of all the places in our broad culture where autonomy reigns supreme as a guiding value. Now don't get me wrong, I support autonomy in a big way! I'm just saying that we need to think of some of the unintended side effects that brings along when we perhaps push the dose a bit too much. Ironically, I often use the analogy of an open-source software community to help people envision what health care might look like if we did a good job of improving its culture. If only hospitals had a modding system that allowed flame-bait to be identified and screened out in policy debates!

For example, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (which funds a most of the research in the health sciences in Canada) has this policy: http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/34846.html