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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

#251

Post by Koshkin »

drdeca wrote: post #122
brummm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no believing in them. Gravitational waves have been observed and you can't "believe" or "not believe" in them anymore than you can "believe" or "not believe" in electricity.

A person can certainly disbelieve electricity, they would just be foolish to do so. While I think a person would also be foolish to disbelieve gravitational waves, I think it wouldn’t be quite as foolish, because while we clearly measure gravitational waves, we don’t exactly use them to do (as opposed to “look at”) stuff, so a person’s everyday life is less impacted by disbelieving GW than by disbelieving electricity…

> foolish to disbelieve gravitational waves

How foolish of Newton!

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

#252

Post by shpeedy »

cygx wrote: post #214
shuspect wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Electromagnetism is a U(1) gauge theory. If you take the accompanying classical geometry at face value, there's hidden state at each point in space, like some sort of dial. The absolute position of the dial is irrelevant, but the gauge potential tells you how the dial turns as you move from place to place. The electromagnetic field strength is something called curvature of the corresponding 'connection'. The mathemat…

So, EM field describes strength of EM force in every point of mathematical model. Nature of EM force is unknown. Right?

Let's talk about nature of EM force.

Analogy: look at a typical tropical cyclone. It rotates. Is it rotating because a unknown property of an air molecule? No. It rotates because our planet rotates, while air molecules are just trying to keep their positions. I.e. it's rotation of planet + inertia of molecules.

Is it possible that EM force is happens because our local space is moving trough global space by non-linear trajectory, so it just non-linear trajectory of local space + inertia of rotating and vibrating particles?

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

#253

Post by drdeca »

Koshkin wrote: post #251
drdeca wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person can certainly disbelieve electricity, they would just be foolish to do so. While I think a person would also be foolish to disbelieve gravitational waves, I think it wouldn’t be quite as foolish, because while we clearly measure gravitational waves, we don’t exactly use them to do (as opposed to “look at”) stuff, so a person’s everyday life is less impacted by disbelieving GW than by disbelieving electricity…

> foolish to disbelieve gravitational waves How foolish of Newton!

Pardon, I meant given the current evidence. Newton didn’t have that evidence. I thought that was obvious.

And at first I had written “probably foolish” as a hedge, but thought “oh, I hedge the things I say too much, and it makes what I say less pleasant and more difficult to read. I’ll leave it out.”.

By “foolish” I maybe I really meant something closer “probably reasoning incorrectly”.

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

#254

Post by shpeedy »

Koshkin wrote: post #250
shuspect wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I feel also air field (wind), height field (land), light field (photons), and so on.

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

#255

Post by ineedasername »

First, I disagree that physics, and its foundations, have not changed. Incrementalism is common in mature areas of study, but the cumulative effect is still felt.

Second, I am reminded of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [0] This work described exact the state, with historical examples of the cycles, whereby progress exhibits peaks and valleys, periods of time wherein little monumental progress is made followed by brief frantic periods of discoveries, often stemming from the fertile ground laid by those who worked in plodding toil.

And so I am more inclines to believe we are in such a trough at the moment and not even a particularly deep one. Various avenues of thought & experiment show amble potential to thrust us forward into one of Khun's Scientific Revolutions.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scientific-Revolutions-50th...

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

#256

Post by PopePompus »

adrianN wrote: post #147
Anon84 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Superconduction is still poorly understood. We don't have a good model that predicts what materials are superconductors.

It's likely though that in the case of superconductivity the problem is the complexity of the calculations, rather than a fundamental theoretical problem. It's like protein folding - we're no where near being able to do an ab initio calculation of the shape of a protein, but that doesn't mean that there is a fundamental problem with quantum mechanics.

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

#257

Post by elfexec »

Do we really want something fundamentally important as the foundations of physics to progress or change quickly?

History of science and the philosophy of science has shown that the foundations of sciences progress a little here and a little there until these "little progresses" gain enough momentum to create a paradigm shift. And we only recognize these "little progresses" in hindsight after the paradigm shift.

Technological advances also tend to progress science. We tend to believe that advances in science lead to advances in technology but historically, it's the other way around.

More likely than not, there are man "little progresses" being made toward an eventual paradigm shift, but until it happens, we won't recognize how important those "little progresses" are.

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

#258

Post by narrator »

Unpopular opinion:

The last time we had progression in the foundation of physics we just got even more powerful world destroying nuclear weapons. Maybe it's just too dangerous to advance physics outside of deeply classified government programs. In order to keep new physics from destroying the earth, funding is diverted to make work projects for physicists working in cosmology and string theory that will never actually have practical significance.

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

#259

Post by Koshkin »

shpeedy wrote: post #254
Koshkin wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I feel also air field (wind), height field (land), light field (photons), and so on.

My point exactly - fields are real, they are not merely mathematical models. (It's just that some words acquire a more precise meaning, being formalized as part of a model, and while it's true that models may contain an additional "scaffolding" that has no analogue in reality, field is not one of those.)

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

#260

Post by Koshkin »

effie wrote: post #221
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…

The things you mention may be useful to science and even help in evolving foundations of physics, but that hasn't happened yet. Ms. Hossenfelder talks about things such as internal consistency of quantum methodologies, consistency of QT and GRT and particle physics. There is no breakthrough in these questions for decades.

What if there aren't any breakthroughs left to be made in those areas?
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