i love sabine. she's speaking the lived experience of quite a few of us who lost faith in the academy.
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Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
91–100 of 245 posts
Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
#92Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
#93My understanding of the situation (which may be wrong, in which case please let me know) is that physics is stuck at a local optimum. There are two obvious ways to get out (1) Surprising physical observations, or (2) Mathematical advances Way (1) is what kicked off quantum mechanics. Way (2) is what kicked off Newtonian mechanics. I see string theorists and loop quantum gravity people as working on (2). Their models…
Those mathematical advances weren't developed in a vacuum, but made to solve some very specific problems which came from better measurements. So even Newtonian mechanics originated in solving problems trying to explain measurements, not that someone sat in their chamber and dreamed up cool math that happened to be very useful.
Number theory and algebraic geometry were developed for their own sake (i.e. "it is cool"), but later people found practical applications in cryptography.
So "useful math must be motivated by practice" is empirically false
Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
#94Physicist here.. I will not give Sabine more YouTube views, justifying clickbait titles.
Below is just my opinion.
There are certainly issues in theoretical physics. I think particularly string theory was a massive waste of effort in physics and to some degree illustration of failure of the whole system.
Despite that most of other physics I would say in sensible shape, it is just harder to make progress given that we have to push to higher energies, more accurate measurements etc.
The question whether there will be major advance in fundamental physics to some degree depends on new discoveries. Many people are pushing, but it is not guaranteed.
Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
#95I have a pet conspiracy theory for why there has been so little progress in physics for so long. The invention of the nuclear bomb scared a lot of people, it made them scared of physics. What else might physicists turn up that could change the world in dramatic ways? Anti-gravity? Ray guns? Other dimensions? Travel to other worlds? All bad for business, no one is going to buy your airplanes or air craft carriers if t…
The theory stops working imho if you take competition into account. The world is not aligned as a single bloc of power. While it’s not completely unthinkable (but extremely unlikely, imho) that some scientists plus some decision makers from, say, the liberal west might collude to achieve this kind of suppression, their counterparts from one or multiple other blocs might not, because they want to dominate and anti-gravity guns surely give you some nice advantage.
Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
#96I have a pet conspiracy theory for why there has been so little progress in physics for so long. The invention of the nuclear bomb scared a lot of people, it made them scared of physics. What else might physicists turn up that could change the world in dramatic ways? Anti-gravity? Ray guns? Other dimensions? Travel to other worlds? All bad for business, no one is going to buy your airplanes or air craft carriers if t…
Perhaps this is of interest to you.
Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
#97I have a pet conspiracy theory for why there has been so little progress in physics for so long. The invention of the nuclear bomb scared a lot of people, it made them scared of physics. What else might physicists turn up that could change the world in dramatic ways? Anti-gravity? Ray guns? Other dimensions? Travel to other worlds? All bad for business, no one is going to buy your airplanes or air craft carriers if t…
The theory stops working imho if you take competition into account. The world is not aligned as a single bloc of power. While it’s not completely unthinkable (but extremely unlikely, imho) that some scientists plus some decision makers from, say, the liberal west might collude to achieve this kind of suppression, their counterparts from one or multiple other blocs might not, because they want to dominate and anti-gra…
You'd be amazed how quickly powerful discoveries find military purpose.
Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
#98I've said this before in not the same words, and I am always downvoted here on hackernews: people need to understand theory of knowledge before they understand science. Physics and physicists are the worst offenders.
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Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
#99i love sabine. she's speaking the lived experience of quite a few of us who lost faith in the academy.
I like her message, but some of her recent videos have me a little worried about her. She seems on the edge of a breakdown at times.
> She seems on the edge of a breakdown at times.
Academia does this to you. She's a really well controlled case.
Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well, if you want a simple argument from authority, John Carlos Baez's confirmation that she's right is pretty good. If you want a better one, she very rarely gets any of her facts wrong. It is not what I want. I read the linked comment by John Carlos Baez[1] and do not agree with the wording of your conclusion "that she's right". There is some alignment, but you have removed any nuance. > Again, that would be a ve…
Your complaint is that it is hard to extract truth from her videos. However extracting truth from what you said is trivial if you believe that what she reports as fact, is fact. And what she reports as her opinion, is her opinion. If you pick any 5 videos you want, I'd be happy to help you spot check them. Just like I did with this one. Now I'd like to pull out three specific issues. 1. Your point about settling phys…
> Your complaint is that it is hard to extract truth from her videos.
>
> However extracting truth from what you said is trivial if you believe that what she reports as fact, is fact. And what she reports as her opinion, is her opinion.
So the level of doubt and or critical thinking I apply to Sabine's videos is not much different than what I would apply to a physic paper out of journal and I feel like I can often apply less than what I apply while reading many popular science articles. That is no where close to the level of trust I would put in to a well grounded physics text book though.
This sort of doubt is critical to most people while reading journal articles, double checking, verifying, not assuming ground truth for what a paper says to uncover hidden assumptions, mistakes, and differing interpretations.
~"Just believe" is not conductive to learning science and is not going to make for curious or simulating conversation.
> If you pick any 5 videos you want, I'd be happy to help you spot check them. Just like I did with this one.
You did not extract the value from this video though. You reference other resources to try and get the value. I am not interested in doing something similar with her other videos.
> 1. Your point about settling physics with experiment is not applicable here. The result is about what the math will predict if you make a specific assumption in a specific mathematical model. Testing that is like trying to test the frequency with which 1+1 gives you 3. It's a question of logic. What becomes a question of experiment is whether a particular model is a good description of reality.
If physical reality does not, can not matter to resolving a question, your question may not be about physics. This one point is not enough, like I said original, by itself, to make the apparent contradiction obviously non interesting.
> 2. She may not be skewering cows that are sacred to all of physics. But a lot of her videos skewer cows that are sacred to some group, and she's constantly getting an earful about it.
Is the earful about any sacred cows though? Are their other viable explanations You may have evidence for you conclusion, but it is not here.
> I think it is very important to be aware how easily branches of science become pseudoscience.
Sabine asserts this has happened to quantum loop gravity but doe snot show it. If I thought what she said was true and I wanted to make convincing case I would have to go out and do considerable research and put together a case, I could not simply reference this video.
> And with John Baez' support, it's clear that her complaint is more than simple sour grapes.
Sour grapes normally means that when someone can not have something they want they go negative on it instead. Does this saying even apply here? Nothing in the video made me think she was sour about anything.