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Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years

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Re: Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years

#101

Post by 7532yahoogmail »

hhas01 wrote: post #34
7532yahoogmail wrote: post #2

I've read several of Sabine's blogs over several months. I think she has very good ends in mind, has courage to push back on corporate/academic inertia ... such inertia comes with any human organization ... On the negative side she's big on complaining but small on alternatives. She's also a bit too blunt/dismissive of people -- this from a person who also dislikes corporate happy talk. As such it's not clear if she'…

Aye, it’s easy to make criticisms (and Zeus knows the price of good science is eternal vigilance), but the easiest and most satisfyingly Ockhamite explanation of the slowdown in physics remains: all its low-hanging fruit is long since taken. And while there’s no harm in pondering the philosophical origins of the scientific method while debating where to go next, we should take care not to go backwards either, as that…

Agree!

Re: Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years

#102

Post by throwlaplace »

d--b wrote: post #87

Short version, without the anger and bitterness: Theoretical physicists' way of working is to put forward baseless mathematical models and build $40bn machines to prove them wrong. They should instead work on theoretical inconsistencies that have been known for a while.

that's because experiment drives physics rather than mathematical consistency (no matter how much people pretend it's about "beauty"). plenty of mathematically consistent physical theories have been falsified by experiment and plenty of mathematically inconsistent physical theories have made precise and accurate predictions.

Re: Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years

#103

Post by seemslegit »

micmil wrote: post #98
seemslegit wrote: post #53

I really really want a reason to not dismiss this as vapid demagoguery running on the "Woman scientist challenges predominantly male establishment on stagnant paradigms" ticket because this is absolutely what it reads like. "But for all I can tell at this moment in history I am the only physicist who has at least come up with an idea for what to do. " This is one heavy claim (two actually), is there some place where…

If your primary takeaway from this is "woman write thing" then you may need to read it again.

If that's your primary takeaway from my comment you may need to read it again.

Re: Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years

#104

Post by brutt »

nablaoperator wrote: post #58
jml78 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quantum mechanics is an example. We know how to use QM. It is an amazing theory. But physicists aren't probing QM anymore. Well most aren't. It does such a good job spitting out answers, we don't ask why. There is a lot to be explored there but academia tells people to avoid it. They say don't look at the man behind the curtain. QM is equations that gives good answers but we don't really know why. Something Deeply Hi…

>> But physicists aren't probing QM anymore Physicists are probing the heck out of every theory. However, QM has proven to be _extremely_ reliable, even some 'Gedankenexperimente' by Einstein trying to make it look wrong turned out to be true ('geisterhafte Spukwirkung'). >> There is a lot to be explored there but academia tells people to avoid it. I don't think so. I mean just look at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)…

Good video on this topic:

What does the future hold for particle physics?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go2TaEUQpF

Re: Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years

#105

Post by plmu »

Thinking about dark energy and the renewed controversy about it, e.g. https://www.space.com/dark-energy-not-debunked.html.

We have grave inconsistencies in cosmology, yet very bold conclusions are made, assuming that our theoretical understanding of gravity and general relativity is 100% correct at all scales.

The claim about accelerated expansion, only 30 years old, is an example of the enormous arrogance of modern science, knowing that such theories have been developed and debunked every few decennia in the past 100-200 years.

The historical perspective seems to fail completely, and todays physicists seem to be so confident even though their colleagues of only a few generations ago have been proven wrong many times. Why would anything be different now, because we throw so much money at it, because we have wonderful computers, have we become so much more intelligent as a species?

Re: Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years

#106

Post by nonbel »

kosievdmerwe wrote: post #97
nonbel wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"the problem has been that there was a theory that could explain almost perfectly everything within a certain region of physics, but can't easily be extended." Sounds a lot like overfitting.

Sounds more like a formula that needs more terms. Compare the classical physics formula for momentum, p=mv, vs relativistic formula, p=γmv. γ is almost 1 for most low velocities, it only starts jumping up to infinity when we get close to c. The point being that the classical formula is pretty good in it's zone of low velocities, but as soon as you get too far out of the implicit term's "constraints" the formula break…

Adding more terms sounds like more overfitting.

Re: Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years

#108

Post by Anon84 »

throwlaplace wrote: post #102
d--b wrote: post #87

Short version, without the anger and bitterness: Theoretical physicists' way of working is to put forward baseless mathematical models and build $40bn machines to prove them wrong. They should instead work on theoretical inconsistencies that have been known for a while.

that's because experiment drives physics rather than mathematical consistency (no matter how much people pretend it's about "beauty"). plenty of mathematically consistent physical theories have been falsified by experiment and plenty of mathematically inconsistent physical theories have made precise and accurate predictions.

When was the last time an experiment had a result that wasn’t explained by theory (supralumimal neutrinos aside)?

Re: Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years

#110

Post by drdeca »

celticmusic wrote: post #96
ocfnash wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not miss this statement; for me this does not constitute a recommendation. Indeed I think many of the researchers of whom she is critical could claim that this is what they're doing.

more than a tad unfair to accuse her of not offering suggestions by claiming her suggestion isn't a suggestion.

I think whether it is unfair would hinge on whether it is true that the thing isn’t a “recommendation”.

I have no firmly held answer to the question of whether it is.

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