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The crisis in physics is not only about physics

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Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#81
Plenty of good points being made in this thread.

I'd like to point out that discoveries in fundamental physics do not always come from work in fundamental physics. Physical systems exhibit some "holographic" or "self-similar" tendency where high-level statistical effects will often mimic low-level fundamental dynamics. For example, wave propagation was originally described for pressure waves propagating in a physical medium, then applied to light waves after the work of Maxwell. More recently, the Lorentz transformations, originally used to calculate the effects of finite-speed electric fields on susceptible particles, turned out to be a fundamental property of the universe. And the Hamiltonian path integral formulation, originally a mathematical curiosity, turned out to be crucial for describing relativistic quantum interactions.

Some of the work that `yummypaint describes which is being done in quantum chromodynamics -- a field in which we have a working "lattice" approximation but almost no real analytical solutions -- may eventually prove useful for a theory of quantum gravity. However, QCD is still very immature. Those with a little experience will recognize the phrase "non-perturbative" which describes some QCD problems -- this also appears in quantum gravity, where perturbation theory fails. The lattice gauge theory model used to solve QCD problems today cannot be extended to gravity, but other methods might not have this limitation.

So the lack of clear and demonstrated progress in fundamental physics does not mean that we are not learning real facts which can eventually be useful for describing fundamental physics. The situation is not so dire.

As for critiques of Hossenfelder, it's certainly true that her writing tends to the dramatic. Just last year she was optimistic about asymptotically safe quantum gravity:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-an-old-theory-of-everythi...

technical FAQ: http://www.percacci.it/roberto/physics/as/faq.html

One might guess that her tone of despair here is a little performative as well.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#82
post #32
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost any material hard metrics you look at like life expectancy, economic growth or whatever you could consider a sign of technological advancement, even tens of billions in investment seem to produce only marginal improvements. We are not living in the golden age of science. As a knit pick, these metrics are all derivatives of science output, and not science itself. For example, detecting gravity waves does move…

> For example, detecting gravity waves does move the needle on any of these metrics It will surely do. Those achievements are not possible without staggering advances in technology that can be later applied in different fields. The same technology that we first developed for those expensive colliders is now used in MRI and others diagnosis tools that we have for granted today.

> The same technology that we first developed for those expensive colliders is now used in MRI and others diagnosis tools that we have for granted today.

The question is, how much better would "MRI and other diagnosis tools" if that money had been spent actively trying to improve them instead of mostly going to detecting gravity waves? That's the question you need to answer to justify spending billions chasing physicists latest "fetish".

"Big physics" proponents always justify wasting (in my opinion) billions in colliders and observers by the unintended benefits that accidentally derive from them but they never mention how much more progress those other ares could make by directly using that money.Instead of spending $40B in the next big collider, what if we were spent developing CRISPR and related technologies? Or on a "moon-shot" for AGI? On developing new tools and techniques to study and understand large scale social systems?

P.S.: I have a BS/MS/PhD in Theoretical Physics

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#83

There is alot going on in physics besides things directly related to the standard model. Running out of important things to study is of no concern. As a random example check out the microscopy work by recent nobel prize winner Eric Betzig. I think people fail to appreciate the many frontiers that exist in just understanding how matter interracts with itself. The past was exciting because we got to discover new buildi…

Also, astronomy exists!

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#84
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…

Well, she’s out of a job by the end of the year it looks like, so I guess she’s preparing to live on the ads and the book sales?

Still, I don’t think Hossenfelder is a reason to be this salty! Just post links to some other physics blogger that contradicts her and move on. That’s how Lubos is handled and it works ok as far as I can tell (I can’t actually tell very well on account of all the ignoring of Lubos I’m doing).

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#85
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…

Having worked with scientists and mathematicians with PhDs, I can relate to the notion that they could have difficulties when it comes to identifying what is important and what to focus on. Their lack of eagerness to find real-world applications for their substantial skills is perhaps what had allowed them to stay at university and keep studying for so many years in the first place. It's no coincidence that, on the o…

Once upon a time, people spoke about the inherent value of knowledge, not just about if it can help patch your leaky conversion funnel.

Please respect those that still think there need not be any base reason for learning about the world

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#86
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a PhD in physics. Even though I have left the field, I’ve hung around with enough of them, and occasionally tried to raise some more philosophical questions with them. Sabine is unfortunately spot on.

> tried to raise some more philosophical questions with them. Like what? Genuinely interested, not seeking to argue.

This is 10 years ago, so unfortunately I don’t remember details about discussions I never got going. Some were able to argue for their favourite interpretation of QM, or rather, how to resolve the measurement problem, but I mostly got blank stares when I tried to probe a bit more about the ontology.

One of the reasons I left academia was that I never found the intellectual and curios environment I longed for. The successful people were successful mostly because they knew how to write grant proposals and which committees they should be on, not because they did really interesting science.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#87
I approve of the message that perhaps a 40 billion dollar particle accelerator is an unwise investment. Otherwise, I'm not sure there's useful information here.

"I try to explain to a cosmologist or particle physicists that we need smarter ways to share information and make decisions in large, like-minded communities."

Making decisions in large, like-minded communities? When has that ever been successful? Isn't that pretty much the opposite of what has led to physics breakthroughs, up and to this point?

"And please spare me the complaints that I supposedly do not have anything better to suggest, because that is a false accusation. I have said many times that looking at the history of physics teaches us that resolving inconsistencies has been a reliable path to breakthroughs, so that’s what we should focus on."

If I was a physicists and some random other physicist of little renown was to suggest that I (and everyone else) need to "focus more on the inconsistencies", I wouldn't exactly be swayed. I would be rolling my eyes. It's just not a very useful suggestion to make.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is the science would be better served if it focused on solving problems for people, rather than exploring knowledge for the sake of it. But really I think that is the realm of engineering, and science is really just pursuing knowledge for the sake of it. It's impossible to know what will be useful - Richard Feynman thought it would be fun to analyze the flight characteristics of a flying plate. He l…

Reading your 1st sentence made me think "But that's engineering, it's application. Basic science is getting knowledge just for the sake of it." And you basically followed with it. Basic science is the foundation engineering builds on. I believe 1st semiconductors were a science experiment. Em waves were. Gigantomagnetoresistance was. The internet was an academic curiosity. It think it's important to blow some of huma…

> I believe 1st semiconductors were a science experiment.

I'm pretty sure the transistor [1] was invented specifically to solve a real engineering problem.

[1] I'm taking your use of "semiconductor" to mean transistor because my understanding is semiconductors are a kind of material that was discovered, not invented.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#89
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…

> As usual with Sabine, this article blatantly misrepresents how science is done and how actual scientists think No offence but she is a trained physicist so she too is an 'actual scientist' by the very definition of the term. And she's completely right about the neglect of economic reasoning. The arguments against blowing 40 billion bucks on an accelerator that will likely not surface anything new is valid. Physicis…

> We see diminishing returns everywhere, and if this is not stopped and we don't manage to drastically increase the efficacy of scientific research we'll effectively flatline at some point.

Most likely there is no way to increase efficacy, because the problems we try to solve become harder and harder as we go. This is why the predictions of singularity are unrealistic, the self improving AI, and constantly increasing number of human researchers will go into merely not flatlining instead of solving everything at once.

Re: The crisis in physics is not only about physics

#90
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…

> As usual with Sabine, this article blatantly misrepresents how science is done and how actual scientists think No offence but she is a trained physicist so she too is an 'actual scientist' by the very definition of the term. And she's completely right about the neglect of economic reasoning. The arguments against blowing 40 billion bucks on an accelerator that will likely not surface anything new is valid. Physicis…

Reasearch and scientific knowledge may well prove to be bottomed wells after all, from which there is only so much to draw.
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