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I have a PhD in physics, and left academia for industry (20 years ago). One of the reasons was that physics today (or at least at that time) was dealing with e

I have a PhD in physics, and left academia for industry (20 years ago). One of the reasons was that physics today (or at least at that time) was dealing with exotic stuff, away from everyday life. It was not the time of Planck or Curie where within 30 years physics was boiling hot, with key discoveries almost everyday. Just look at the picture from the Solvay confrence where you see names of people you read about in a high school book. I would hope we are in a stage like in the late XIX century, where everything seemed to be known in physics, with some tiny things still needing an explanation : the Michelson Morley experiment, the uv catastrophe etc.

bjornsing 7y ago
I got out with just an MSc, for pretty much the same reason. You know physics has lost a lot of steam[1] when the perhaps leading theoretical physicist of our time, Leonard Susskind, regularly gives talks about... how he knew Richard Feynman. Regarding your hope: I very much doubt we’ll get to experience the following stage in our lifetime. 1. It’s amazing to think just how much steam: just as an example, you could argue that physicists determined the outcome of WWII, and with it the whole path of civilization.
- ianai 7y ago
  QTT seems like a path forward from “the breach” of current understanding.
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  > you could argue that physicists determined the outcome of WWII If you're referring to the A-bomb, no. Germany was defeated without it, and the Japanese military didn't really care if civilians were turned to ashes. You could argue that a combination of events ended the Pacific War, including starvation, no fuel, Russians advancing in the north, the destruction of the Japanese navy by the USA, the destruction of the Japanese army in Manchuria/Russian border, plus the A-bomb. The Japanese Emperor was a world-class marine biologist and understood the A-bomb in general terms, but had very little influence over the military. He did a radio broadcast and survived retaliation from the military, so he does get credit for that. Hitler and the Japanese military were die-hard end-of-the-world types. Important to realize when dealing with other tyrants. For them, there is no Plan B or surrender.
  - credit_guy 7y ago
    > > you could argue that physicists determined the outcome of WWII If you're referring to the A-bomb, no. Germany was defeated without it, and the Japanese military didn't really care if civilians were turned to ashes. Germany was defeated, but the USSR was on a roll. Without the A-bomb, there’s a decent chance the Soviet Union would’ve pushed the Anglo-Americans out of the continental Europe.
    - java-man 7y ago
      and took over Japan.
    - Koshkin 7y ago
      That would have been WWIII.
SkyMarshal 7y ago
>I would hope we are in a stage like in the late XIX century, where everything seemed to be known in physics, with some tiny things still needing an explanation I don't see how that's possible given current uncertainties. We still haven't figured out how to relate quantum mechanics and relativity, haven't fully uncovered the deep structure of matter, and are still debating over strings vs membranes and whatnot. It seems more likely we're still missing something something foundational.
- Iwan-Zotow 7y ago
  > We still haven't figured out how to relate quantum mechanics and relativity Huh? Paul Dirac did it quite some time ago. > haven't fully uncovered the deep structure of matter VERY deep, highly irrelevant to our lives.
  - DavidSJ 7y ago
    Huh? Paul Dirac did it quite some time ago. I guess he meant general, not special, relativity.
  - SkyMarshal 7y ago
    >Huh? Paul Dirac did it quite some time ago. General, not special. >VERY deep, highly irrelevant to our lives. 1. What a foolish comment. The ability to understand, and one day control, the strong force of matter, is extremely relevant to our lives. Indestructible building materials, space elevators, economic boom from harvesting the asteroid belt, etc. Use your imagination. 2. For the purposes of this comment thread, it's irrelevant whether it's relevant to our lives our not. The assertion was physics is still far from figuring everything out. Nothing to do with our everyday lives.
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      We understand the strong force well enough to dismiss such possibilities. It has a range of about 1 femtometer. You're not going to be building anything using that except nuclei, and that's not going to give anything like that. I wonder sometimes if this suspension of critical thinking about what physics will be able to give us is due to science fiction. SF from the beginning has been promising far more than science could ever deliver. We're now at the point in history all those fantasies have to be put down.
pfdietz 7y ago
It's possible we've gotten everything practically useful out of fundamental physics that we're going to get. At this point, phenomena not explained by the standard model occur at such extreme conditions that it's difficult to see how they could ever be technologically relevant.
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
The reason physics research of today deals with exotic stuff is that pretty much all of physical phenomena observable with the human eye or simple instruments has been explained. There is a lot not explained, crucial problems that indicate that the very basis of physics have to be revised in multiple ways, but that is all in the exotic domain. That said, there is progress happening in physics, not just in certain fields. Quantum information is probably where most the the novel and insightful fundamental work is being done, and spillovers from it are affecting other parts of physics, including cosmology and condensed matter physics. As for experimental progress, there was recently a "quantum gravity in the lab" conference held at Google X [1], because we are very near the point where we can do experiments that involve both quantum and gravitational phenomena. This line of attack is hopefully going to falsify at least some perspectives on new physics and hopefully lead to some new physics. We will see. [1] https://sites.google.com/view/quantumgravityinthelab/home https://sites.google.com/view/quantumgravityinthelab/home
- fsh 7y ago
  Most of the field where progress is made don't even try to look for "new physics". The foundation for quantum information theory is just classical quantum mechanics.

bjornsing 7y ago

I got out with just an MSc, for pretty much the same reason. You know physics has lost a lot of steam[1] when the perhaps leading theoretical physicist of our time, Leonard Susskind, regularly gives talks about... how he knew Richard Feynman. Regarding your hope: I very much doubt we’ll get to experience the following stage in our lifetime. 1. It’s amazing to think just how much steam: just as an example, you could argue that physicists determined the outcome of WWII, and with it the whole path of civilization.

ianai 7y ago
QTT seems like a path forward from “the breach” of current understanding.
redis_mlc 7y ago
> you could argue that physicists determined the outcome of WWII If you're referring to the A-bomb, no. Germany was defeated without it, and the Japanese military didn't really care if civilians were turned to ashes. You could argue that a combination of events ended the Pacific War, including starvation, no fuel, Russians advancing in the north, the destruction of the Japanese navy by the USA, the destruction of the Japanese army in Manchuria/Russian border, plus the A-bomb. The Japanese Emperor was a world-class marine biologist and understood the A-bomb in general terms, but had very little influence over the military. He did a radio broadcast and survived retaliation from the military, so he does get credit for that. Hitler and the Japanese military were die-hard end-of-the-world types. Important to realize when dealing with other tyrants. For them, there is no Plan B or surrender.
- credit_guy 7y ago
  > > you could argue that physicists determined the outcome of WWII If you're referring to the A-bomb, no. Germany was defeated without it, and the Japanese military didn't really care if civilians were turned to ashes. Germany was defeated, but the USSR was on a roll. Without the A-bomb, there’s a decent chance the Soviet Union would’ve pushed the Anglo-Americans out of the continental Europe.
  - java-man 7y ago
    and took over Japan.
  - Koshkin 7y ago
    That would have been WWIII.

SkyMarshal 7y ago

>I would hope we are in a stage like in the late XIX century, where everything seemed to be known in physics, with some tiny things still needing an explanation I don't see how that's possible given current uncertainties. We still haven't figured out how to relate quantum mechanics and relativity, haven't fully uncovered the deep structure of matter, and are still debating over strings vs membranes and whatnot. It seems more likely we're still missing something something foundational.

Iwan-Zotow 7y ago
> We still haven't figured out how to relate quantum mechanics and relativity Huh? Paul Dirac did it quite some time ago. > haven't fully uncovered the deep structure of matter VERY deep, highly irrelevant to our lives.
- DavidSJ 7y ago
  Huh? Paul Dirac did it quite some time ago. I guess he meant general, not special, relativity.
- SkyMarshal 7y ago
  >Huh? Paul Dirac did it quite some time ago. General, not special. >VERY deep, highly irrelevant to our lives. 1. What a foolish comment. The ability to understand, and one day control, the strong force of matter, is extremely relevant to our lives. Indestructible building materials, space elevators, economic boom from harvesting the asteroid belt, etc. Use your imagination. 2. For the purposes of this comment thread, it's irrelevant whether it's relevant to our lives our not. The assertion was physics is still far from figuring everything out. Nothing to do with our everyday lives.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    We understand the strong force well enough to dismiss such possibilities. It has a range of about 1 femtometer. You're not going to be building anything using that except nuclei, and that's not going to give anything like that. I wonder sometimes if this suspension of critical thinking about what physics will be able to give us is due to science fiction. SF from the beginning has been promising far more than science could ever deliver. We're now at the point in history all those fantasies have to be put down.

pfdietz 7y ago

It's possible we've gotten everything practically useful out of fundamental physics that we're going to get. At this point, phenomena not explained by the standard model occur at such extreme conditions that it's difficult to see how they could ever be technologically relevant.

abdullahkhalids 7y ago

The reason physics research of today deals with exotic stuff is that pretty much all of physical phenomena observable with the human eye or simple instruments has been explained. There is a lot not explained, crucial problems that indicate that the very basis of physics have to be revised in multiple ways, but that is all in the exotic domain. That said, there is progress happening in physics, not just in certain fields. Quantum information is probably where most the the novel and insightful fundamental work is being done, and spillovers from it are affecting other parts of physics, including cosmology and condensed matter physics. As for experimental progress, there was recently a "quantum gravity in the lab" conference held at Google X [1], because we are very near the point where we can do experiments that involve both quantum and gravitational phenomena. This line of attack is hopefully going to falsify at least some perspectives on new physics and hopefully lead to some new physics. We will see. [1] https://sites.google.com/view/quantumgravityinthelab/home https://sites.google.com/view/quantumgravityinthelab/home

fsh 7y ago
Most of the field where progress is made don't even try to look for "new physics". The foundation for quantum information theory is just classical quantum mechanics.