Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The crisis in physics is not only about physics

backreaction.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 179 posts

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#61

Post by ColanR »

btrettel wrote: post #29
ColanR wrote: post #23

I wonder if what the author is observing is an effect of the industrialization of science. As she pointed out, > Because the existing scientific system does not encourage learning. Physicists today can happily make career by writing papers about things no one has ever observed, and never will observe. Maybe what's really going on is that almost every scientist out there is forced to chase grants and maintain a steady…

The inability to make long-term investments is a major reason I don't intend to stay in academia after my PhD. Government and corporate labs don't seem better in my view either. At present my plan is the following: Keep the amount of time spent making money to the minimum needed to support myself. Then I can invest my own time and money into research. I could make money from research via grants/contracts like normal…

That is almost precisely my own intention. There should be a club. Have you heard of one?

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#62

Post by btrettel »

ColanR wrote: post #61
btrettel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inability to make long-term investments is a major reason I don't intend to stay in academia after my PhD. Government and corporate labs don't seem better in my view either. At present my plan is the following: Keep the amount of time spent making money to the minimum needed to support myself. Then I can invest my own time and money into research. I could make money from research via grants/contracts like normal…

That is almost precisely my own intention. There should be a club. Have you heard of one?

I set up this forum a while ago: https://www.indiesciforum.com/

But I got busy and never launched. I guess this is the launch then? Feel free to join, post, etc. I'd love to discuss this with like-minded folks.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#63

Post by ColanR »

scott_s wrote: post #47
ColanR wrote: post #23

I wonder if what the author is observing is an effect of the industrialization of science. As she pointed out, > Because the existing scientific system does not encourage learning. Physicists today can happily make career by writing papers about things no one has ever observed, and never will observe. Maybe what's really going on is that almost every scientist out there is forced to chase grants and maintain a steady…

Your suggestion about jumping on the EM drive is in direct opposition to what Sabine suggests: "The only way to avoid being sucked into this vicious cycle is to choose carefully which hypothesis to put to the test. But physicists still operate by the “just look” idea like this was the 19th century. They do not think about which hypotheses are promising because their education has not taught them to do so. Such self-r…

You call the originator of the EM drive a crank; I am proposing that the widespread adoption of your dismissive attitude is in large part the cause of the current scientific stagnation observed by the author.

I also suggested that the other large cause of the current stagnation is that we do not have enough scientists pursuing outlandish theories - we should hear about things like the EM drive far more frequently, and we should be excited about new ideas, not dismissive of anything foreign to the current 'groupthink'.

Also, returning to your first point, the author pointed out just the opposite to the point you're attempting to make:

> With fewer experiments, serendipitous discoveries become increasingly unlikely. And lacking those discoveries, the technological progress that would be needed to keep experiments economically viable never materializes. It’s a vicious cycle: Costly experiments result in lack of progress. Lack of progress increases the costs of further experiment. This cycle must eventually lead into a dead end when experiments become simply too expensive to remain affordable. A $40 billion particle collider is such a dead end.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#64

Post by perlgeek »

For a less negative view, I recommend the podcast by Sean Carrol, another physicist: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/

There's a broad spectrum of topics there, and quite a few episodes talk about the foundation of physics, including the quantum measurement problem (several episodes about that, in fact), string theory and several cosmology topics.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#65

Post by ColanR »

btrettel wrote: post #62
ColanR wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is almost precisely my own intention. There should be a club. Have you heard of one?

I set up this forum a while ago: https://www.indiesciforum.com/ But I got busy and never launched. I guess this is the launch then? Feel free to join, post, etc. I'd love to discuss this with like-minded folks.

Nice! I'll check it out.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#66

Post by nxpnsv »

trixie_ wrote: post #59
dwaltrip wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they do exist. See the CERN supercollider, LIGO, the DEMO fusion reactor, and many other projects.

But is the research using these tools coordinated? Or are these tool created and then independent researchers schedule time to use them?

I worked many years in particle physics. It is coordinated within each experiment. You can’t just publish as a lot of people stand behind the work there must be consensus. There are abundances of physics sub groups, article review boards, research strategies, etc.q

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#67

Post by nxpnsv »

buboard wrote: post #7

FFS what crisis. Oh I get it, soon they 'll be talking about a "physics emergency" to get clicks.

This is exactly what she’s doing. I don’t understand why, but she seems to love controversy and has a very high opinion of herself. She’s clearly not stupid, but it is so tiresome.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#68

Post by jcranmer »

dannykwells wrote: post #2

This was great until the bit about medicine. Medicine has made huge, tremendous progress in the past 30 years. And there are still many serendipitous discoveries happening that lead to new drugs. I mean jesus for the first time ever, a company is going to put up a drug for approval to treat alzheimers. Let's not lump medicine in with physics, please. Medicine has always been skeptical of theories without data and, wh…

> I mean jesus for the first time ever, a company is going to put up a drug for approval to treat alzheimers.

Derek Lowe isn't quite so optimistic about it: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/23/th...

(tl;dr--the anti-amyloid hypothesis you should be extremely skeptical about, and the inconsistency in the trial data here is signalling that statistical fluke should be a high concern).

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#69

Post by knzhou »

mfer wrote: post #27
knzhou wrote: post #8

As usual with Sabine, this article blatantly misrepresents how science is done and how actual scientists think, and serves mainly to portray herself as the only person in the field capable of rational thought. People in the comments here are picking up on this when it takes an unfair swipe at medicine, but it really applies to the whole article. I am not going to bother doing a line-by-line rebuttal, because I've alr…

> actual scientists and > I am a working scientist, which means I have neither the time to keep up nor the audience. For those that don't know about Sabine, who is criticized in the parent, you can read about her at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Hossenfelder Short summary... she is a research fellow, theoretical physicist, and of course has a PhD in physics. I fully expect scientists to disagree with each othe…

I'm not taking shots at qualifications. I only say that people should be defined by what they spend the majority of their time doing, not their job title.

Sabine has more qualifications than me, but like Michio Kaku and NDT, she now spends most of her time promoting a certain message to the public in a very one-sided way. That's why I called her a popularizer. Like Michio Kaku, she can afford to spend the time on that, and I can't.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#70

Post by knzhou »

xpuente wrote: post #12
qnsi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, this quote „I am the only physicist who has at least come up with an idea for what to do.” Seemed pretty arrogant. But I have no knowledge of her

Kevin was also pretty arrogant, but when you see is a newcomer to the field, it is understandable.

Yeah, do call me out if I'm still this arrogant in 10 years. ;-)
Post reply on HN