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I'm sure most theoretical physicists would call themselves mathematicians. I don't agree physics should favour creating testable predictive models, because who
by megalodon 10y ago
I'm sure most theoretical physicists would call themselves mathematicians. I don't agree physics should favour creating testable predictive models, because who are we to say what's testable in the future? Take the theory of relativity, for example. Would you have stopped Einstein et al from researching it, just because it wasn't testable at the time?
In my opinion, physics is and has always been about answering the big questions, the how's, the why's of our existence. That new technology sometimes comes out of it is a bonus, not the ultimate goal.
- ankurdhama 10y agoIf that is so then why don't we just accept the religious answers to these big questions? Some supernatural entity is in the control of everything that's the answer and we are done. The goal of any science should be to answer questions such that those answers can help us solve the problem humanity faces and not just make us feel proud sitting in our chairs that we know answers.
- megalodon 10y agoI think you are generalising my comment quite a bit, it was just a reaction to the poster above. We are never "done", that's kind of the point I was trying to convey. I completely agree that we should use science to help us deal with our current problems. Once we understand more about our world and ourselves, we will automatically get better at solving them. I'm just against the whole short-term, instant results way of thinking.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tolkienfan 10y agoAlthough difficult to test, there were features that were in theory testable! AFAIK this is currently not true with ST