8 ms·

There's another, more simple, explanation. We have made some fundamental mistake which, due to its 'naturalness' was adopted as all but a certainty. You reach s

by rjf72 8y ago

There's another, more simple, explanation. We have made some fundamental mistake which, due to its 'naturalness' was adopted as all but a certainty. You reach some point that trying to build upon things becomes impossible when your foundation is fundamentally broken. For an example of times past, just consider the geocentric vs heliocentric universe issue. The geocentric universe (that Earth is the center upon which everything else revolves) was fundamentally built upon a model and assumed to be correct. This means that any sort of 'weirdness' that emerged from it was not really a problem but instead just massaged into the model itself. As a couple of examples of this consider the fact that a geocentric universe means the planets that orbit us must travel in these really peculiar swirly type patterns. This happens nowhere else in nature and doesn't really make any physical sense, but when you assume a model of a geocentric universe it's not really a problem - you can just massage it into the model. Another example of a very bizarre oddity that would be seen nowhere else was in things like Mercury suddenly having to stop and start going backwards in its orbit. Again this is not seen anywhere else and doesn't really make much of any physical sense, but if we take a model as reality - then sure, you can massage it into it. Why not? These lead to the real problem. Model based science is a really bad idea, because it's really hard to falsify models. In the case of the geocentric universe it ultimately required being able to see the starts 'through the eyes of god'. A good deal of physics today is built around models. And as these models have absorbed more and more 'oddities' they've started to be seen not as models but as simple reality whose proof is but a mere formality. And as is the case with the geocentric universe, you reach some point at which time further discoveries start to seem ever more elusive. Imagine trying to research orbital mechanics when you start with the assumption that planets travel in 'swirlies' and some can even stop and go backwards! As this articles mentions, modern physics adopted some very substantial changes to the model of universal thinking in the 70s. And those adoptions have now, though unproven, become defacto 'reality.' Yet since then, there's been nothing. And maybe one of the worst problems with models is that they can be completely wrong but you give you valid answers. For instance you could (and can) determine the orbital periods and locations of planets using the geocentric model. And that was done for more than 1500 years! It was incredibly complex, but it was possible. That, in turn, could then be used as 'proof' of the model's correctness, when in reality it was anything but.

meroes 8y ago
You can make naked eye observations but it took the telescope (and more accurate time keeping) to have accurate enough measurements for an actual proof. Multiple ancient Greeks who had strong arguments for Heliocentrism, but there wasn't enough empirical evidence. That took Keplers Laws and a telescope. It could not have been proven without the necessary level of technology. The same is true today. Except we know our theories are incomplete and in many cases we know under precisely which conditions it's incomplete. We simply can't access those energy levels to reach the next step yet. We also know constraints on what can be possible while keeping most of what we think is true, we lack the ability to go further than that however. So we are waiting for the technological breakthroughs to prove or disprove our many candidate theories. It's like Kepler waiting for Tyco's telescope data. We can't rule things out without stronger accelerators or radical ideas that are actually testable.
8bitsrule 8y ago
We have made some fundamental mistake... I was just thinking about how Schroedinger 'worked up' his famed equation. A physics historian told me (not in these words) that he didn't actually 'derive it' but sort of ... 'arrived at' it. The WP bio says that in his fourth paper on the subject (which first involves time), he greatly simplified the -equation- by introducing complex numbers ... and then: "something magical happened, and all of wave mechanics was at his feet.... Schrödinger was not entirely comfortable with the implications of quantum theory. He wrote about the probability interpretation of quantum mechanics, saying: 'I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it.'" Introducing complex numbers -made the equation more beautiful-. The equation e^(i*pi) = i^2 is amazing, but may also suggest that we're not looking at the math's basement level. It's been suggested that all of the pyramids' stones couldn't have been cut with two-foot-long copper saws. It may be that the 'beauty' people are seeking is limited by their tools, as much as their imaginations.
- v_lisivka 8y ago
  > It's been suggested that all of the pyramids' stones couldn't have been cut with two-foot-long copper saws. Pyramid stones are made of concrete and cast in place. It's very primitive technology, which is known for few thousand years.

by rjf72 8y ago

meroes 8y ago

You can make naked eye observations but it took the telescope (and more accurate time keeping) to have accurate enough measurements for an actual proof. Multiple ancient Greeks who had strong arguments for Heliocentrism, but there wasn't enough empirical evidence. That took Keplers Laws and a telescope. It could not have been proven without the necessary level of technology. The same is true today. Except we know our theories are incomplete and in many cases we know under precisely which conditions it's incomplete. We simply can't access those energy levels to reach the next step yet. We also know constraints on what can be possible while keeping most of what we think is true, we lack the ability to go further than that however. So we are waiting for the technological breakthroughs to prove or disprove our many candidate theories. It's like Kepler waiting for Tyco's telescope data. We can't rule things out without stronger accelerators or radical ideas that are actually testable.

8bitsrule 8y ago

We have made some fundamental mistake... I was just thinking about how Schroedinger 'worked up' his famed equation. A physics historian told me (not in these words) that he didn't actually 'derive it' but sort of ... 'arrived at' it. The WP bio says that in his fourth paper on the subject (which first involves time), he greatly simplified the -equation- by introducing complex numbers ... and then: "something magical happened, and all of wave mechanics was at his feet.... Schrödinger was not entirely comfortable with the implications of quantum theory. He wrote about the probability interpretation of quantum mechanics, saying: 'I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it.'" Introducing complex numbers -made the equation more beautiful-. The equation e^(i*pi) = i^2 is amazing, but may also suggest that we're not looking at the math's basement level. It's been suggested that all of the pyramids' stones couldn't have been cut with two-foot-long copper saws. It may be that the 'beauty' people are seeking is limited by their tools, as much as their imaginations.

v_lisivka 8y ago
> It's been suggested that all of the pyramids' stones couldn't have been cut with two-foot-long copper saws. Pyramid stones are made of concrete and cast in place. It's very primitive technology, which is known for few thousand years.