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I've said it all before but here we go again

backreaction.blogspot.com

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Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#71

Post by just-tom »

xialvjun wrote: post #57
bjornsing wrote: post #9

I only have a master in (engineering) physics but working with statistical modeling and AI I’ve come to appreciate the “all models are wrong but some models are useful”-mindset, and I’ve started applying that to physical “laws” as well: I no longer see them as some divine truths waiting to be discovered, but more like models of the world that will always be wrong but sometimes useful. From that point of view what’s h…

Einstein discovered the theory of relativity purely through thought experiments. I don't think he thought those thought experiments are that useful.

Why wouldn't Einstein think that his thought experiments are that useful?

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#72

Post by fjfaase »

defrost wrote: post #16
frozenport wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is entirely about the allocation. LHC is a massive jobs program that wastes money and time, perhaps a hundred thousand experiments could fill its place. Large part of the jobs and $$$ go to someone other than a physicist.

And for "all" that we can throw at this kind of program it should be pointed out that perhaps nothing of interest might happen until it scales to energy levels of several of our suns with observations over a scale a little longer than human evolution .. still barely a scratch on the breadth and depth of the universe.

It could even be that there is nothing new to be found no matter how high the energy gets.

But even more fundamentally, she seem to worry about the fact that there are currently no urgent 'holes' that require you to invent new particles. She points out that the method of inventing new particle that worked so well in the past, no longer seems reasonable, but that nevertheless, the high-energy physists stick to it out of tradition. It seems that the field of high-energy physists have become an incrowd that only continues to exist because everybody pads eachothers shoulders and that people on the outside believe that something must be true about it. It sounds as if she as a person is critized (and not her ideas) primarily because of her pointing this out.

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#74

Post by dncornholio »

cma wrote: post #30
frozenport wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is entirely about the allocation. LHC is a massive jobs program that wastes money and time, perhaps a hundred thousand experiments could fill its place. Large part of the jobs and $$$ go to someone other than a physicist.

The world wide web, which came out of the LHC project, alone was worth perhaps millions of experiments.

I would be very interested in hearing where you got this information from.

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#75

Post by jhrmnn »

bjornsing wrote: post #9

I only have a master in (engineering) physics but working with statistical modeling and AI I’ve come to appreciate the “all models are wrong but some models are useful”-mindset, and I’ve started applying that to physical “laws” as well: I no longer see them as some divine truths waiting to be discovered, but more like models of the world that will always be wrong but sometimes useful. From that point of view what’s h…

I rather think that we're past our ability to make useful yet comprehensible (to us) models in physics. The only avenue is to make useful and incomprehensible models. Using machine learning for that is one way. String theory might be on the boundary where it's borderline comprehensible (for a few select people), but at the cost of being only borderline useful (maybe).

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#78

Post by fjfaase »

bjornsing wrote: post #9

I only have a master in (engineering) physics but working with statistical modeling and AI I’ve come to appreciate the “all models are wrong but some models are useful”-mindset, and I’ve started applying that to physical “laws” as well: I no longer see them as some divine truths waiting to be discovered, but more like models of the world that will always be wrong but sometimes useful. From that point of view what’s h…

I understand that her critizism goes beyond the models that are usefull, but address the problem that there is a whole industry (wasting money and human resources) of inventing and promoting models that do not solve any urgent 'gap' and/or are not even practically testable.

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#79

Post by martopix »

quantum_mcts wrote: post #48

Quoted post unavailable.

Governments fund research. It is healthy if civil society discusses this kinds of things. Especially if it's not some populist politician that wants to defund physics, but an experienced physicist that makes clear points.

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#80

Post by stdbrouw »

amelius wrote: post #25

> More importantly, everyone can see that nothing useful is coming out of particle physics, it’s just a sink of money. So is most of botany.

That's not what the author means by "useful". If you spend a year describing a particular kind of plant, then you know that much more about it and that's a useful contribution to science if not society. If you keep coming up with zany theories and predictions that do not just turn out to be wrong (that's fine, "I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work") but where there's really no reason to even suppose they might have been right, then that's scientific busywork.
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