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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

#111

Post by micmil »

mellosouls wrote: post #18
cjfd wrote: post #7

Actually, string theory arose as a way of doing exactly what this person requests. It was noticed that quantum field theory and gravity do not go together, so it was attempted to do something about this. So, it did not really work out? Well, you know the thing with this kind science is that it is unknowable beforehand what you are or are not going to find.

The claim of sceptics along these lines is that string theory has produced nothing in 50 years and some string theorists appear to be in denial of that.

Said skeptics are blissfully unaware of the contributions that working on string theory has made to other branches of physics and mathematics. To say it's produced nothing is to admit ignorance.

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

#112

Post by Anon84 »

paganel wrote: post #33
Koshkin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point was, math is one thing, reality is another.

From an outsider's point of view (i.e. mine) it looks like physics has become too enamored with mathematics, "thinking" that reality can be totally described by mathematics. Which brings us to one of the author's point of views, the fact that physicists (and I guess most scientists) nowadays dismiss things like philosophy of science or epistemology, they just continue head-on on their "quest for knowledge" not realiz…

If the past is any guide, whenever reality isn’t adequately described by mathematics we just come up with new mathematics.

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

#113

Post by bordercases »

Psyladine wrote: post #76
SiempreViernes wrote: post #71

Personally I find it amusing Hossenfelder is now invoking the need for learning philosophy of science, given how hostile she's been to it before. See for instance http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-unbearable-ligh... that begins with: "Philosophy isn’t useful for practicing physicists. On that, I am with Steven Weinberg and Lawrence Krauss who have expressed similar opinions." Though to be fair, she clarifi…

>Like a psychologist, thus, the philosopher of physics succeeds by eventually making themselves superfluous. Yes, my doctor too has a thankless job of treating disease & injury in me, where once he succeeds, he has no purpose in life.

His purpose is the next patient!

A better analogy is "once my doctor successfully advocates for better health habits and I achieve them, they are purposeless."

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

#114

Post by brutt »

jml78 wrote: post #82
nablaoperator wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But physicists aren't probing QM anymore Physicists are probing the heck out of every theory. However, QM has proven to be _extremely_ reliable, even some 'Gedankenexperimente' by Einstein trying to make it look wrong turned out to be true ('geisterhafte Spukwirkung'). >> There is a lot to be explored there but academia tells people to avoid it. I don't think so. I mean just look at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)…

By probing, I mean looking beyond predictions, the underlying nature of it. The equations of QM give us great results but it is very much an oracle type situation. We ask a question and we get a good answer. But why? Theoretical physicists are told not to look behind the equations and figure more out. Why is it this way? Let me be frank I am getting way outside my true understanding and parotting what I have read. Bu…

I received hundred of downvotes just asking questions here (like "Why we have right hand rule for current? What must be changed in properties of Nature to make it left hand rule?"). It's sad that I need to use throwaway accounts to talk about physics.

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

#115

Post by wallace_f »

Pigo wrote: post #43
wallace_f wrote: post #25

Physics has made a lot of progress in social justice and representation and these kinds of comments putting down "her point of view" is the type of toxic masculinity that will send us back 100 years.

Just out of curiosity, how was op supposed to phrase that sentence in order to keep from being toxic? Was it just the pronoun that was offensive, or was it just having any critique at all? Disagreement and critique is a positive thing if it's done with respect. Handling someone with kid-gloves is demeaning.

See below comments, particularly shkmmo's. My comment above was socratic irony.

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

#116

Post by throw0101a »

davidivadavid wrote: post #88
throw0101a wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What actually is the foundation of physics? See Naturalism: > 1. that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers.[20][21] > 2. that this objective reality is governed by natural laws;[20][21] > 3. that reality can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation.[20][21] > 4. that Nature has uniformity of laws and most if not all things in nature must have at least a natural…

Another relevant segment of the Philosophy of science article is the realism/anti-realism dichotomy. I find it an interesting line of reasoning that the current lack of progress is due to the default naturalistic approach whose sole purpose is finding "truth" vs. a more pragmatic, non-realist approach that would have a much more concrete purpose (e.g. solving particular problems). Truth for the sake of it with no pra…

It can be argued that it is up to engineers, not scientists, to develop the practical uses of 'raw' science.

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

#117

Post by leereeves »

Anon84 wrote: post #108
throwlaplace wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's because experiment drives physics rather than mathematical consistency (no matter how much people pretend it's about "beauty"). plenty of mathematically consistent physical theories have been falsified by experiment and plenty of mathematically inconsistent physical theories have made precise and accurate predictions.

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

Observations of the cosmic microwave background, galactic rotation, gravitational lensing, and redshift led to the concepts of "dark matter" and "dark energy" that aren't yet explained by theory.

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

#118

Post by achillesheels »

snowwrestler wrote: post #56

What actually is the foundation of physics? The observations or the theories? We believe, as an assumption (or nearly as a matter of orthodoxy) that there are simple universal laws that govern consistent natural phenomena. One could argue that that is the foundation of our science of physics in that if that wrong, the whole thing falls down. But that has not “progressed” and really should not change... which seems co…

The foundations are in the mathematical sciences, beginning with Galileo and Kepler and wrestled with by Descartes until Newton came up with a brilliant work on mechanics. It’s focus has been on the mechanical, ie numerical and geometrical, principles of motion and not on substance. Studying not what it is but where it will be, giving us greater certainty of phenomena and thus greater self-determination in an unpredictable world.

This intellectual current is now upheld by the engineering sciences. The physicists are too glued to the Bohr Model and a particle universe to concern themselves with a new mechanics in light of the quantum wave phenomena discovered last century.

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

#119

Post by brutt »

hhas01 wrote: post #59
typon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop working on string theory, multiverse, or some of the other mainstream theories she mentioned. Start fresh about how to approach theoretical physics instead of taking the above mentioned theories almost as a given and trying to do science within that framework.

Except, string theory and multiverse aren’t theories . Heck, they’re not even hypotheses (since they offer no means to test them). They’re simple speculation; what philosophers right back to the ancient Greeks were only too happy to rest on for 2000 years, until Persian protoscientists, during their own all-too-brief golden age, annoyingly said “but wait, don’t you think we should at least test our beliefs before we…

> († So no Warp Drive either, kids… sorry!;)

Warp drive will be real when we will crack vacuum. Maybe we will be able to condensate vacuum, or make a supercavitating shield, or something else.

I have idea of an engine, but a) it must be supertiny, b) the only possibility to feed enough energy into engine is to launch it through Sun.

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

#120

Post by mellosouls »

micmil wrote: post #111
mellosouls wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim of sceptics along these lines is that string theory has produced nothing in 50 years and some string theorists appear to be in denial of that.

Said skeptics are blissfully unaware of the contributions that working on string theory has made to other branches of physics and mathematics. To say it's produced nothing is to admit ignorance.

In the context of this article - physics progression - what specific theoretical discoveries or predictions has it produced that can be verified or disproven via experiment in the forseeable future?
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