6 ms·

Huh? I'm new to much of this but keep thinking the Lagrangian is incredibly elegant: a tool which boils the determination of a physical system's behavior down t

Huh? I'm new to much of this but keep thinking the Lagrangian is incredibly elegant: a tool which boils the determination of a physical system's behavior down to minimizing a single definite integral. That takes my breath away.

whatshisface 8y ago
You're talking about the idea of the Lagrangian, the parent was talking about the specific Lagrangian that describes the standard model of particle physics. If you write it all out it takes about a page.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  It's a Frankentheory - a collection of reanimated theory body parts sewn together. I totally get why physicists want something more elegant. The problems are social. Financialisation means a lot of smart PhDs get hoovered up by Wall St to do (effectively useless) work as quants. At the same time, pressure in academia - also created ultimately by financialisation - has made genuinely original creative work an extremely risky career move. So PhD advisors are far more likely to say "Don't do that" when a hot prospect says "I want to explore this unusual thing which i found from way back which no one else is looking at." And the idea that a patent clerk without a formal academic affiliation could publish papers that transform physics has become ridiculous. Conversely mainstream ideas of questionable value - like string theory - which should only ever have remained a fringe interest have become absolutely central, because they're a relatively easy way for ambitious PhDs aiming for tenure to produce plausible physics-like content. Science was working pretty well around the turn of the century. Now there's sand in the gears, and the entire machine is in danger of seizing up.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    What do you mean by "financilisation?"
  - gammatrigono 8y ago
    Oh no, don't say the physicist quants are wasting their time. All they ever wanted to do was get rich!
frutiger 8y ago
Not minimizing the Lagrangian, but finding the extrema.

whatshisface 8y ago

You're talking about the idea of the Lagrangian, the parent was talking about the specific Lagrangian that describes the standard model of particle physics. If you write it all out it takes about a page.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
It's a Frankentheory - a collection of reanimated theory body parts sewn together. I totally get why physicists want something more elegant. The problems are social. Financialisation means a lot of smart PhDs get hoovered up by Wall St to do (effectively useless) work as quants. At the same time, pressure in academia - also created ultimately by financialisation - has made genuinely original creative work an extremely risky career move. So PhD advisors are far more likely to say "Don't do that" when a hot prospect says "I want to explore this unusual thing which i found from way back which no one else is looking at." And the idea that a patent clerk without a formal academic affiliation could publish papers that transform physics has become ridiculous. Conversely mainstream ideas of questionable value - like string theory - which should only ever have remained a fringe interest have become absolutely central, because they're a relatively easy way for ambitious PhDs aiming for tenure to produce plausible physics-like content. Science was working pretty well around the turn of the century. Now there's sand in the gears, and the entire machine is in danger of seizing up.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  What do you mean by "financilisation?"
- gammatrigono 8y ago
  Oh no, don't say the physicist quants are wasting their time. All they ever wanted to do was get rich!

frutiger 8y ago

Not minimizing the Lagrangian, but finding the extrema.