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There are no more 'revolutions' left for physics? And I'm not talking about tomorrow but imagine a 1000 years from now. It seems a bit arrogant to assume that.

There are no more 'revolutions' left for physics? And I'm not talking about tomorrow but imagine a 1000 years from now. It seems a bit arrogant to assume that. I also dislike the pseudo pop-science, but the visceral close mindedness is just another side of that coin imo.

SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
"overhauled" is not the same as "broken". It's bit arrogant to assume that all those GPS measurements that pinpoint our location will one day be proven wildly incorrect. They clearly aren't. They might be refined, but are not all that wrong. Even Newtonian physics is under many circumstances a close approximation of reality. Further reading from Dr Asimov: https://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm https://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.ht... > living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after. > What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete. > Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement were needed, then the old theory would never have endured.
- deytempo 8y ago
  It’s quite possible to have an understanding of something that works in some situations but does not explain every situation. I would say that we have mathematics models of fairly large portions of physics but they are limited because they can’t explain how gravitation works. We can describe how we see it working but not explain how and why it works. I think there will always be new more complete models that encompass more and more of what we cannot explain.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    > It’s quite possible to have an understanding of something that works in some situations but does not explain every situation. Ah. You're thinking of engineering, not theoretical physics.
- sgt101 8y ago
  >They might be refined, but are not all that wrong. Even Newtonian physics is under many circumstances a close approximation of reality. They might become wrong; we assume that the laws of physics are fixed and immutable, that they have operated unchanged for all time so far and will continue to operate unchanged for the rest of time. Some physics acknowledges that that they may change at the edges of time, but it may also be the case that they are subject to sudden radical shifts.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Depends on what you define as the laws of physics. We have cases where the laws of physics break for example singularties and it’s generally accepted that at certain energy levels forces can join or split for example during and shortly after the Big Bang the it’s assumed that all of the forces were joined together. There is also the Higgs field which is not clear if it can change states or not and if it has done so at any period in the past which is not directly observable. In fact the laws of physics “changing” is one of the possible answers to how the matter anti matter symmetry broke in the first place and allowed the universe as we know it to form. However ofc any global change in any of the “fundamental” laws/constants will end all existence as we know it.
    - sgt101 8y ago
      I didn't say that it would be all funshine and icecream!
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  The point isn't that you get a few more significant figures of accuracy on a slightly larger set of problems, but that you use completely new tools, techniques, and ideas to tackle completely new classes of problems. Heliocentrism isn't a "refinement" of geocentrism. It's a completely new way of understanding the universe. The fact that you can make geocentrism work if you make your epicycles complicated enough doesn't change the fact that it's conceptually incorrect, and not a useful way to think about the solar system. Likewise GR isn't a "refinement" of Newton. It drives a tank through the middle of the Newtonian world view and burns it to the ground. Then it says "New physics, this way" and off it goes, thinking about phenomena that are literally inconceivable in a Newtonian universe. You can consider GR a more accurate refinement for certain problems only. There's a limited set of problems - large in everyday human terms, but extremely limited in cosmological terms - where Newton gives you all the accuracy you want. But if your understanding stops there, you're missing the point of these revolutions. They're not about improved accuracy, they're about new world views that give access to entirely new problem classes. You literally cannot imagine these problems if you consider Newton as a mostly correct foundation and GR as a kind of philosophical epicycle added to it later. And that means you cannot do useful new physics.
  - honestoHeminway 8y ago
    There are edgecases though, where a currently percieved constant- is shown to be only the local galactic wether - or worser- easy influencable using the right tool. If such a shaddy-bike-shed constant falls, new physics are possible, as in the underlying mechanism influences alot of old formulas and allows for boldly tweaking what no oman has tweaked before.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
    When Asimov says that "the model of a flat earth is nearly right, it's only wrong by 8 inches per mile" it's supposed to be an outrageous statement - the earth is not flat, that way of understanding is completely incorrect, and the (Newtonian level) correct model can help you solve new problem classes such as travel to the moon. He's making the point of how the existing understanding can't give wildly wrong answers which are ready to be "upended", or else it would not have persisted. The understanding can be upended, sure. But the new theory has to account for everything existing.
ConceptJunkie 8y ago
> There are no more 'revolutions' left for physics? Sounds like how people were talking around the turn of the last century. Then came special and general relativity and quantum physics in about 20 years' time. Not to mention similar revolutions in math.

SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago

"overhauled" is not the same as "broken". It's bit arrogant to assume that all those GPS measurements that pinpoint our location will one day be proven wildly incorrect. They clearly aren't. They might be refined, but are not all that wrong. Even Newtonian physics is under many circumstances a close approximation of reality. Further reading from Dr Asimov: https://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm https://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.ht... > living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after. > What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete. > Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement were needed, then the old theory would never have endured.

deytempo 8y ago
It’s quite possible to have an understanding of something that works in some situations but does not explain every situation. I would say that we have mathematics models of fairly large portions of physics but they are limited because they can’t explain how gravitation works. We can describe how we see it working but not explain how and why it works. I think there will always be new more complete models that encompass more and more of what we cannot explain.
- ethbro 8y ago
  > It’s quite possible to have an understanding of something that works in some situations but does not explain every situation. Ah. You're thinking of engineering, not theoretical physics.
sgt101 8y ago
>They might be refined, but are not all that wrong. Even Newtonian physics is under many circumstances a close approximation of reality. They might become wrong; we assume that the laws of physics are fixed and immutable, that they have operated unchanged for all time so far and will continue to operate unchanged for the rest of time. Some physics acknowledges that that they may change at the edges of time, but it may also be the case that they are subject to sudden radical shifts.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  Depends on what you define as the laws of physics. We have cases where the laws of physics break for example singularties and it’s generally accepted that at certain energy levels forces can join or split for example during and shortly after the Big Bang the it’s assumed that all of the forces were joined together. There is also the Higgs field which is not clear if it can change states or not and if it has done so at any period in the past which is not directly observable. In fact the laws of physics “changing” is one of the possible answers to how the matter anti matter symmetry broke in the first place and allowed the universe as we know it to form. However ofc any global change in any of the “fundamental” laws/constants will end all existence as we know it.
  - sgt101 8y ago
    I didn't say that it would be all funshine and icecream!
TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
The point isn't that you get a few more significant figures of accuracy on a slightly larger set of problems, but that you use completely new tools, techniques, and ideas to tackle completely new classes of problems. Heliocentrism isn't a "refinement" of geocentrism. It's a completely new way of understanding the universe. The fact that you can make geocentrism work if you make your epicycles complicated enough doesn't change the fact that it's conceptually incorrect, and not a useful way to think about the solar system. Likewise GR isn't a "refinement" of Newton. It drives a tank through the middle of the Newtonian world view and burns it to the ground. Then it says "New physics, this way" and off it goes, thinking about phenomena that are literally inconceivable in a Newtonian universe. You can consider GR a more accurate refinement for certain problems only. There's a limited set of problems - large in everyday human terms, but extremely limited in cosmological terms - where Newton gives you all the accuracy you want. But if your understanding stops there, you're missing the point of these revolutions. They're not about improved accuracy, they're about new world views that give access to entirely new problem classes. You literally cannot imagine these problems if you consider Newton as a mostly correct foundation and GR as a kind of philosophical epicycle added to it later. And that means you cannot do useful new physics.
- honestoHeminway 8y ago
  There are edgecases though, where a currently percieved constant- is shown to be only the local galactic wether - or worser- easy influencable using the right tool. If such a shaddy-bike-shed constant falls, new physics are possible, as in the underlying mechanism influences alot of old formulas and allows for boldly tweaking what no oman has tweaked before.
- SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
  When Asimov says that "the model of a flat earth is nearly right, it's only wrong by 8 inches per mile" it's supposed to be an outrageous statement - the earth is not flat, that way of understanding is completely incorrect, and the (Newtonian level) correct model can help you solve new problem classes such as travel to the moon. He's making the point of how the existing understanding can't give wildly wrong answers which are ready to be "upended", or else it would not have persisted. The understanding can be upended, sure. But the new theory has to account for everything existing.

ConceptJunkie 8y ago

> There are no more 'revolutions' left for physics? Sounds like how people were talking around the turn of the last century. Then came special and general relativity and quantum physics in about 20 years' time. Not to mention similar revolutions in math.