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As long as you hold onto the assumption that all physical phenomena on the macro scale can in a (perhaps not useful) sense be explained reductively by particle/

As long as you hold onto the assumption that all physical phenomena on the macro scale can in a (perhaps not useful) sense be explained reductively by particle/field physics of some sort, it's clear that poking at the particle/field/whatever substrate is more foundational than studying high level emergent phenomena. That isn't to say that high-energy particle physics is the best or only avenue of fundamental exploration; obviously, much of the last century's advancements came from cosmology. There's nothing wrong with studying condensed matter physics, and there is a huge amount to learn. But I don't see a conceivable way in which discoveries made by studying complex behavior closer to our scale will help solve quantum gravity or dark matter. Then again, if humanity were one big game of Civilization, I'd be directing my tech tree towards engineering and applied physics research at the moment: we probably don't need any more fundamental physics to build sustainable fusion reactors.

roenxi 8y ago
> But I don't see a conceivable way in which discoveries made by studying complex behavior closer to our scale will help solve quantum gravity or dark matter. In the main I only see reason and balanced in this post, but this particular statement is a bit risky. Historically, big breakthroughs in the sciences happen when new measurement techniques become available or existing measurement techniques are refined to produce a "significantly" greater level of accuracy. A breakthrough in our understanding of reality could come from anywhere that anyone pushes the bounds of what we can measure; which admittedly is probably the folk with the budget for a big particle accelerator, but one could imagine a path for almost anybody to make a contribution. One of the take-aways of the whole quantum vs classical business is that just because the evidence seems to be converging on a well respected model doesn't mean that the evidence is actually going to converge.
- jakeinspace 8y ago
  I definitely agree with you and mathgenius that mathematical techniques and technological progress created while investigating macroscopic behavior may be useful for making breakthroughs in "fundamental" physics. There is certainly precedent for that sort of thing. Perhaps complexity theory will have some significant impact on physics this century, who knows. But it's unclear whether there's anything that pure mathematics or mathematical analogies to the macro world can tell us about how gravity and quantum mechanics are unified, or any of the other big open questions at the bottom.
mathgenius 8y ago
There is a large overlap of mathematical techniques between cond-mat and high energy physics. This has led some to speculate that particles are just excitations in some deeper "condensed matter" substrate. Overall I find Hossenfelder's attitude to be far too negative. I'm fine with canning the big particle accelerators, but apart from that, there is a huge amount of exciting research going on in physics, theoretical physics (not just high energy stuff!), and mathematics.
madhadron 8y ago
> There's nothing wrong with studying condensed matter physics, and there is a huge amount to learn. But I don't see a conceivable way in which discoveries made by studying complex behavior closer to our scale will help solve quantum gravity or dark matter. Interestingly, this does actually work out. Excitations in solids are often described by quantum field theory, and many of the exotic ideas of field theorists in fundamental physics turned out to be things you can actually find in a sufficiently exotic material.

roenxi 8y ago

> But I don't see a conceivable way in which discoveries made by studying complex behavior closer to our scale will help solve quantum gravity or dark matter. In the main I only see reason and balanced in this post, but this particular statement is a bit risky. Historically, big breakthroughs in the sciences happen when new measurement techniques become available or existing measurement techniques are refined to produce a "significantly" greater level of accuracy. A breakthrough in our understanding of reality could come from anywhere that anyone pushes the bounds of what we can measure; which admittedly is probably the folk with the budget for a big particle accelerator, but one could imagine a path for almost anybody to make a contribution. One of the take-aways of the whole quantum vs classical business is that just because the evidence seems to be converging on a well respected model doesn't mean that the evidence is actually going to converge.

jakeinspace 8y ago
I definitely agree with you and mathgenius that mathematical techniques and technological progress created while investigating macroscopic behavior may be useful for making breakthroughs in "fundamental" physics. There is certainly precedent for that sort of thing. Perhaps complexity theory will have some significant impact on physics this century, who knows. But it's unclear whether there's anything that pure mathematics or mathematical analogies to the macro world can tell us about how gravity and quantum mechanics are unified, or any of the other big open questions at the bottom.

mathgenius 8y ago

There is a large overlap of mathematical techniques between cond-mat and high energy physics. This has led some to speculate that particles are just excitations in some deeper "condensed matter" substrate. Overall I find Hossenfelder's attitude to be far too negative. I'm fine with canning the big particle accelerators, but apart from that, there is a huge amount of exciting research going on in physics, theoretical physics (not just high energy stuff!), and mathematics.

madhadron 8y ago

> There's nothing wrong with studying condensed matter physics, and there is a huge amount to learn. But I don't see a conceivable way in which discoveries made by studying complex behavior closer to our scale will help solve quantum gravity or dark matter. Interestingly, this does actually work out. Excitations in solids are often described by quantum field theory, and many of the exotic ideas of field theorists in fundamental physics turned out to be things you can actually find in a sufficiently exotic material.