Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by fao_ » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 10:43 PM UTC

mfer wrote: post #167

ISL wrote: post #86

I strongly disagree that the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years. We have been looking really hard for answers to persistent questions. While we have not found affirmative answers, physicists have systematically ruled out option after option after option. We have not yet discovered a unified-theory-of-everything, but we know a whole lot more about what that theory is not . Furthermore, the past 40…

> I strongly disagree that the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years. I think, we are getting a peak at the politics of the practice of science when you look at the article and comments, like this ones parent. A bunch of this is about the unobserved. The theoretical rather than then experimentally observed (think scientific method). Whose theories get the funding to be looked into? Whose ideas are p…

> A post of Sabine's talked about how she thinks the crisis in physics isn't about physics [1]. Is it instead about the politics of the money and popularity? Is it about the psychology of being wrong? I mean, different physicists contradict each other and the truth isn't what's popular it is what's observed, right? If people contradict each other they can't all be right.

A good book (or two) for this is Isabel Stenger's Cosmopolitics 1 and 2.

She goes into a lot of physics debates from the 20th century, along with a lot of the political debates

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

#242

Post by swayvil » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 10:46 PM UTC

Consider a Venn diagram. 3 circles : the observable, the understandable, the communicable. Intersecting at a chubby triangle. That's physics. And it's pretty darn small compared to the rest of the diagram.

Maybe the triangle is exhausted. All mapped out. The limits of the method have been met. Time to find a new method.

Maybe?

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

#243

Post by DenisM » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #164

Does anyone else feel like the abstractions and models in physics have gone passed the point where the casual outsider (even a technically and scientifically minded one) can no longer intuitively understand it? Because that's how I feel. There are so many things I just don't understand now like: 1. I originally thought the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle was a natural consequence of using particles (photos) for meas…

> 2. What does it even mean to create more space? The universe is expanding. Ok, I can accept that. But what does it mean?

Consider several droplets of water on the surface of a latex-based birthday balloon. The balloon is inflated, and droplets spread further apart, yet each droplet retains its shape and size. If you measure the distance in droplets it appears that you have created space as more new droplets could now fit in between those placed earlier.

We only have two comprehension tools to help in grasping the universe - math and intuition. The above is intuition, and you know better than me where to find math. There isn't more "meaning" to it than that, just the tools.

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

#244

Post by russdill » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

konschubert wrote: post #203

j1vms wrote: post #137

The role of this "era" may be in reformulating quantum physics and, separately, general relativity in new ways that make the ideas more accessible to more people, and earlier in their lives. The goal could be to make of modern physics... the new classical physics. That is, we start to let go the crutches we still teach because it is thought that day-to-day life is more readily explained by Newtonian physics. We are n…

Also, let’s agree on a consistent interpretation of quantum theory. As long as we keep teaching the reckless hand-waving that is the Kopenhagen interpretation, we will keep confusing clear-thinking students.

The historical attitude has been, "it doesn't matter, shut up and calculate". There's been quite a bit of push recently to try and nail down exactly what QM means rather than just what it calculates (See: Sean Carroll, etc)

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

#245

Post by Koshkin » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #197

phkahler wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that physicists are not interested in lowering the bar to understanding advanced theories. Some say it's all fairly simple once you spend a decade learning some very advanced math. The art of teaching is in making the material more accessible, and at that I dont think much progress has been made.

> physicists are not interested in lowering the bar to understanding advanced theories That is not true, geometric algebra is an example of a recent pedagogic improvement that is getting a lot of attention. The problem is that physics will never be easy enough for someone who is not prepared to think deeply, because it is one of the few areas where truly new ideas can be found. Virtually every area of learning involv…

> is getting a lot of attention

Not really. People look at it, marvel, and move on.

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

#246

Post by SiempreViernes » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 11:04 PM UTC

nonbel wrote: post #184

SiempreViernes wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it ”overfitting” is actually you overfitting your model of how theory works on this one concept from machine learning. The actual events of the 750 GeV peak are much closer to neural networks hallucinating, and the diversity of models created doesen’t strike me as evidence of overfitting... Anyway, you clearly didn’t trust my summary, and I no longer trust you have an honest interest in learning more, so I’ll…

If you can come up with 300 different explanations for a random blip, your theory is obviously very flexible. You are probably overfitting. If your solution to the problem of not being able to generalize your model to new/other data is to add more parameters. You are probably overfitting. These are the hallmarks of overfitting. Sorry that you cannot learn from others and only expect them to learn from you.

Look at this: theorists come up with something like 300 different models, and you declare they all used the same theory to do it? Of course they didn't! Why would you assume they all did the same thing?!

Further, of the various frameworks used, many will have been created by imposing some further symmetry on the standard theory, in effect decreasing the number of free parameters!

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

#247

Post by SiempreViernes » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 11:06 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #200

nonbel wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding more terms sounds like more overfitting.

It sounds like that only because scientists reformulate their models in terms that people are familiar with. Actual physicists don't work in terms of the gamma correction factor; they work in tensor fields that don't look anything like conventional arithmetic. But they can pare all that down to something expressed in terms people are familiar with. And that has the bonus purpose of helping them understand why the fam…

Don't worry about it, I think you're talking to a NN stuck in a local optima around the term "overfit".

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

#248

Post by wallace_f » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 11:06 PM UTC

armatav wrote: post #150

wallace_f wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t think physics operates on anything resembling a social-justice system Physicists are chosen within the Academic-Governmental Complex, and as such physicists are chosen according to its preferences. Maybe this is a big problem? It's not just with respect to selection based on gender, race or socioeconomics. Have you read Paul Graham's Lesson to Unlearn, about the adverse incentives and maligned merits which a…

You aren’t getting my position - results drive the field, whether those results come from a tenured professor and his team of PhD students, or some kid in his garage with no formal training. Physicists are not “chosen”. They are built and trained. There’s no conspiracy here.

These argumentative tactics are of poor conduct, and seem to be clearly made in bad faith.

Someone who disagrees with you is just someone who has a different opinion, and that does not make it appropriate for you to attack them.

In other words, what you are doing is wrapping your argument in argumentative tactics. Instead of acknowledging another user has a different conclusion than you, you assert that they "don't get your position." In this context, all you did was reiterate your disagreement, and so the personal attack comes across as either a put down or an statement of arrogance.

At the end of your statement about physics being a meritocracy, you again use argumentative tactics, suggesting that any disagreement is a conspiracy.

First of all, the poor results of physics as a field is not a conspiracy. And you do not need to be a conspiracy theorist to criticize the field of physics. That is just ridiculous. Did you even take a moment to look at the Paul Graham post I referenced? Something tells me you are more interested in broadcasting and arguing about your world view than you are in engaging in though-provoking discussion.

But finally, social justice in academia is blatantly obvious. For example, affirmative action awards up to a few standaDs deviations of promotion in rank alone in just undergraduate admissions. Also, the author of the OP has written about social justice in the field herself. It is just both dishonorable and disingenuous for you to ignore the truth and be so argumentative.

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

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Post by Koshkin » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 11:06 PM UTC

ibeckermayer wrote: post #187

frenchyatwork wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But physicists have given up on figuring out what it IS. It depends on what you mean by that. What they've given up on is trying to find some sort of anthropocentric analogy. It's understandable that this is unsatisfying, since analogies are fundamental to how we understand things. Unfortunately, there's no reason to believe that a good analogy will exist.

We shouldn't be looking for analogies, we should be looking for theories consisting of precise concepts that directly explain what is happening in the universe.

Ultimately, math is the only "explanation" that physics will ever offer.

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

#250

Post by Koshkin » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

shuspect wrote: post #183

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the mainstream physics reply is "It's a quantized excitation of the electromagnetic field." since that's a perfectly reasonable reply to a perfectly reasonable question.

"Height field" is mathematical model of land. Electromagnetic filed is mathematical model of what?

Not exactly only mathematical, though - you can feel it as you walk across.