Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 245 posts

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#191

Post by thedragonline »

tjs8rj wrote: post #176
btilly wrote: post #4

The fundamental reason for this is simple. Humans are prone to cognitive dissonance. Meaning, we do absurd things to avoid painful thoughts. And anything that questions our sense of identity, is a painful thought. So if my self-image is, "I've advanced our understanding of the fundamental nature of reality," then the idea that my contributions weren't useful becomes painful. So we avoid thinking it, challenge people…

This is where climate skepticism comes from by the way. Even climate skeptics will acknowledge that climate scientists are well educated, they don’t deny science as a process of truth seeking, the problem lies in the incentives. There’s a lot of prestige and grant money that comes with insisting climate change is true. There’s a lot of political power that gets ceded to the people in charge if we “just accept that we…

What are you talking about? I spent years munging climate datasets from various research institutes around the world. The upshot: it doesn't look good for humanity. I seriously don't understand how a neutral third party can walk away from this climate work and think, 'Nothing to see here folks.' The denialism and willful ignorance of the potential catastrophic consequences is something I find terribly disheartening. Mark my words - the temperature records that keep getting broken year after year are going to keep getting broken. Entire towns going up in flames and cities being wrecked by increasingly more powerful hurricanes will be the new normal.

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#192

Post by Risord »

Risord wrote: post #187
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone claiming that string theory is part of "the standard model", when proposing their alternative theory, is probably a crank. Anyone deriving "E=mc²", and claiming that as evidence of their theory, is almost certainly a crank.

Sometimes I am wondering what if there is theory which have been on right track but it's (false?) falsified and already forgotten. Sure theory could be incomplete or incorrect on some ways but would that right part be noticed? For example I think it's too easy to imagine world where relativity or quantum theory would be socially falsified and/or left without any attention. Simple example experience I had when I was b…

For some reason I cannot reply to your comment wizzwizz4.

We are talking about dynamic friction in it's simplest form. You can treat it as simple math problem too. Let's consider two extreme cases:

A: Side slip is 1m/s and wheel spin zero or very small.

B: Side slip is 1m/s and wheel spin extremely big, let's say 1000m/s.

I think we can agree that friction is always opposite to surface speed. If wheel spin is on x axis and side slip on y:

On A case friction is (0, 1).normalized() * friction-coefficiency => (0, friction-coefficiency)

On B case friction is (1000, 1).normalized() * friction-coefficiency => [approximately] (friction-coefficiency, 0)

On classroom teacher says that slip does not matter. What teacher actually means that slip does not effect into -magnitude- of friction but this is left behind because problem is presented in context of 1D. Tho in 1D slip still matters little bit because there is difference is slip 1m/s or -1m/s.

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#193

Post by wizzwizz4 »

Risord wrote: post #192
Risord wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I am wondering what if there is theory which have been on right track but it's (false?) falsified and already forgotten. Sure theory could be incomplete or incorrect on some ways but would that right part be noticed? For example I think it's too easy to imagine world where relativity or quantum theory would be socially falsified and/or left without any attention. Simple example experience I had when I was b…

For some reason I cannot reply to your comment wizzwizz4. We are talking about dynamic friction in it's simplest form. You can treat it as simple math problem too. Let's consider two extreme cases: A: Side slip is 1m/s and wheel spin zero or very small. B: Side slip is 1m/s and wheel spin extremely big, let's say 1000m/s. I think we can agree that friction is always opposite to surface speed. If wheel spin is on x ax…

> I think we can agree that friction is always opposite to surface speed.

This isn't intuitively obvious to me. One explanation says "must be true", another explanation says "might be false". I'd want to run an experiment with a toy car on a polished surface. Unfortunately, I'm quite a way from the nearest place I could set up such an experiment.

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#194

Post by Risord »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #193
Risord wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason I cannot reply to your comment wizzwizz4. We are talking about dynamic friction in it's simplest form. You can treat it as simple math problem too. Let's consider two extreme cases: A: Side slip is 1m/s and wheel spin zero or very small. B: Side slip is 1m/s and wheel spin extremely big, let's say 1000m/s. I think we can agree that friction is always opposite to surface speed. If wheel spin is on x ax…

> I think we can agree that friction is always opposite to surface speed. This isn't intuitively obvious to me. One explanation says "must be true", another explanation says "might be false". I'd want to run an experiment with a toy car on a polished surface. Unfortunately, I'm quite a way from the nearest place I could set up such an experiment.

In another words friction slows movement down and does not treat some direction on surface more preferable than others. Assuming regular surface this is pretty much definition of friction.

I am not sure how well I have explained stuff but if you are able to experimentally disprove this it's worth of paper.

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#195

Post by aeonik »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #167
zepolen wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this guy has hit the nail on the head: https://energywavetheory.com/subatomic-particles/ Take a look at how stupidly complex the standard model is compared to the other: https://energywavetheory.com/equations/theory-comparison/ Everything in the universe on that site is eloquently and simply explained, including gravity as a shading effect (think an eclipse/water waves acting on an obstacle: https://www.thest…

Anyone claiming that string theory is part of "the standard model", when proposing their alternative theory, is probably a crank. Anyone deriving "E=mc²", and claiming that as evidence of their theory, is almost certainly a crank.

I just read quite a bit of the summary.

Honestly, I don't really care if they are cranks. The theory makes for a fun read, and they have a lot of interesting ideas.

Trying to identify where their theory is wrong is a fun exercise, at least for me. It also helps reinforce my existing physics knowledge when I see multiple perspectives, or alternative models of measurable phenomena.

The cool part about this theory is they have some pretty specific predictions, like the resting mass of the Neutrino (~2.2eV).

They also hypothesize that the Electron is made up of 10 Neutrinos arranged in a Tetrahedral pattern, and also hypothesize that the weak force can be explained via solar Neutrino bombardment. Which would theoretically be pretty easy to test, just test the radioactive decay of different materials in different Neutrino densities.

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#196

Post by rapjr9 »

pfdietz wrote: post #162
rapjr9 wrote: post #86

I 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…

An easier theory is that the Standard Model is so good that it's very difficult to find anywhere it fails. So there's no experimental fuel to propel physics forward.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_p...

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#197

Post by Log_out_ »

drpossum wrote: post #189

I'm not hot on what fundamental physics looks like now or in the future, but there's an attitude that Sabine promotes that I see echoed in a lot of comments here which feeds into problems with research. I don't think the work put into studying fundamentals was "a waste of time" thus far. It's dangerous to label experiments and ideas that were acted on in good faith as the best options at the time but didn't yield pos…

The whole of human society is a combustion engine for life, barely held from going full self destruction by a science driven economy consuming resources in a unsustainable way. Science is what kept us peaceful and nice since WW2. And the breakthroughs are needed not some time far far away ,they are needed now. This is not about the purity of approach or some hypocritical game. This is a dependancy of life and death on the results ..

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#198

Post by BoiledCabbage »

drpossum wrote: post #189

I'm not hot on what fundamental physics looks like now or in the future, but there's an attitude that Sabine promotes that I see echoed in a lot of comments here which feeds into problems with research. I don't think the work put into studying fundamentals was "a waste of time" thus far. It's dangerous to label experiments and ideas that were acted on in good faith as the best options at the time but didn't yield pos…

I'm not in any way an expert in this area, but here is what I see. I don't think the argument is that it's being said as "bad faith after the fact". I think the argument is that the approach was told it had fundamental flaws. Those were ignored / denied. People continued to invest in it and suck up all of the research and bright minds in the field. Decades later it still has those fundamental flaws and has taken over all other possible avenues of progress as it has all grant money and and the majority of all departments working on it.

It's more "you were told this is broken before. It's decades later and it's broken in the same way. At what point to you admit that this approach isn't working so try something else?" And the answer is "No, we're going to keep digging deeper".

Fundamentally, approaches need to be falsifiable. If your theory is "falsifiable" in the small scale but ultimately unfalsifiable in the large scale then it's is fundamentally unfalsifiable and we can't use it to lead experimentation.

It's a breadth vs depth search question. We've lost all breadth of search in physics, because a little ways back we stumbled upon a branch that happened to have a (for practical purposes) infinite number of subbranches relating to ways to roll up string dimensions. So physics is stuck exploring all of those sub-branches instead of backtracking one level and exploring any other parts of the tree.

The argument is that everyone is looking under the lamppost for the keys. After 4 decades of searching there, maybe it's time to search somewhere else. And the argument is made even strong when decades back they were told, "Hey, I didn't drop by keys by the lamppost. I dropped them somewhere else". And yet most people keep looking there.

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#199

Post by drpossum »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #198
drpossum wrote: post #189

I'm not hot on what fundamental physics looks like now or in the future, but there's an attitude that Sabine promotes that I see echoed in a lot of comments here which feeds into problems with research. I don't think the work put into studying fundamentals was "a waste of time" thus far. It's dangerous to label experiments and ideas that were acted on in good faith as the best options at the time but didn't yield pos…

I'm not in any way an expert in this area, but here is what I see. I don't think the argument is that it's being said as "bad faith after the fact". I think the argument is that the approach was told it had fundamental flaws. Those were ignored / denied. People continued to invest in it and suck up all of the research and bright minds in the field. Decades later it still has those fundamental flaws and has taken over…

Sabine's argument has been frequently bad faith after the fact and currently. Just skimming some of her written work:

"Before the Large Hadron Collider turned on, particle physicists claimed that it would either confirm or rule out supersymmetry. ... The answer is that the LHC indeed did not rule out supersymmetry, it never could."

https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/04/did-w-boson-just-b...

"I hope they’ll finally come around and see that they have tried for several decades to solve a problem that doesn’t exist"

https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/02/what-does-it-mean-...

Here she says physicists will just keep building bigger colliders because they can and not on merit

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-world-doesnt-...

Here she said CERN's push for an FCC is "full of lies"

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/12/cern-produces-marke...

When people are accused of ignoring or dismissing credible points where a program is legitimately problematic is exactly an accusation of operating "bad faith". "Good faith" means doing legitimate and believable science with the best information. These are claims it was done to the contrary.

Re: Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

#200

Post by smegger001 »

thedragonline wrote: post #191
tjs8rj wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where climate skepticism comes from by the way. Even climate skeptics will acknowledge that climate scientists are well educated, they don’t deny science as a process of truth seeking, the problem lies in the incentives. There’s a lot of prestige and grant money that comes with insisting climate change is true. There’s a lot of political power that gets ceded to the people in charge if we “just accept that we…

What are you talking about? I spent years munging climate datasets from various research institutes around the world. The upshot: it doesn't look good for humanity. I seriously don't understand how a neutral third party can walk away from this climate work and think, 'Nothing to see here folks.' The denialism and willful ignorance of the potential catastrophic consequences is something I find terribly disheartening.…

Its hard to claim its a narrative created out of grant money incentives when the first people to come to these conclusions and make an acurate predictive model was the oils companies who have tried to deny their own conclusions ever since.
Post reply on HN