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The most important scientific problems have yet to be solved (1897)
- sadmann1 7y agoI do wonder if every generation picks slightly higher hanging fruits in science will there come a time when a single human lifetime won't be enough to digest even the most specialised domain of science in order to build upon it
- uoaei 7y agoScientific "unified" models hide this complexity by abstracting it away so we can keep chipping away at the next level. We can navigate this hierarchy, up or down, to understand respectively large- and small-scale behavior, and the hierarchical model makes it so humans can still comprehend at a given level of abstraction.
- Enginerrrd 7y agoSure, but this doesn't address the possibility that there may well be problems of sufficient complexity that this model doesn't work.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- stabbles 7y agoThat's an interesting question. In Kuhn's view on science the tree would be replaced after a paradigm shift, meaning there is enough low-hanging fruit in a period of normal science (between two major breakthroughs). I wonder if Kuhn had any claims about whether paradigm shifts would happen less often in time.
- SonOfLilit 7y agoThis is a wonderful short story related to this question: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/
- commandlinefan 7y agohttps://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoRight now, science has an emphasis on causal discovery. Showing that X is a mechanism by which Y happens. That includes finding the different X's for a Y and finding evidence for the relationship between a given X and Y. Once you know how a thing works, that doesn't necessarily make it easy to work with it. For example in quantum mechanics, a common phrase is "shut up and calculate" because the mental models are all messy. But as we all know (especially those of us who have refactored many systems), every once in a while you find a new way of looking at a thing that makes it all much simpler. A geometric way to look at an algebraic thing, or vice versa. Or a unifying structure to combine disparate pieces. Or just a "wow that was dumb" undoing of unnecessary complexity. It makes further progress easier. I could imagine that, as the boundaries of science get more complex, there will be more scientists working on making the rest of it less complex. Meanwhile, maybe we get smarter and live longer. The calculations involved with many areas of modern science have already outpaced what we can do by hand, but we invented computers, so I can take the mean of a zillion numbers without much effort and spend my time elsewhere. And in med school, apparently they say "half of what we teach you will be false, but we don't know which half." As science progresses, you don't just add, you prune too.
- n4r9 7y agoNicely put. In fact a lot of the field of quantum foundations (and interpretations) could be seen as an attempt to work towards this sort of perspective/paradigm shift.
- jonshariat 7y agoEver since I saw this animation [1] of the difference between a heliocentric vs geocentric view of the planets, I always see complexity in a new light. The geocentric movements are all technically correct (thats how they move in relation to the earth) but once the true state is discovered it becomes so much more simple. 1. http://www.malinc.se/math/trigonometry/geocentrismen.php http://www.malinc.se/math/trigonometry/geocentrismen.php
- bordercases 7y ago> Meanwhile, maybe we get smarter and live longer. The calculations involved with many areas of modern science have already outpaced what we can do by hand, but we invented computers, so I can take the mean of a zillion numbers without much effort and spend my time elsewhere. With software being as slow as it is despite massive speedups, and even despite despite massive speedups, we really are still not good enough at using our computers to their fullest capacity which still means getting insights into complexity before crunching the numbers.
- hinkley 7y agoA sometimes-spoken hope is that the universe is built on relatively simple rules with complex behaviors. If fields grow too complex, they hope to find some underlying principle that explains (away) that complexity. We started out that way, I dunno if we'll end that way. And even if it does eventually come down to 30 rules that explain everything? How many rules does Chess have? Way more than Go, and both can take decades to really understand.
- klyrs 7y agoIn my exposure to number theory, this certainly seemed to be approaching. Grad students barely have a grasp on the basic definitions; postdocs seemed shaky but familiar; professors "get it" but don't claim to understand. And sure, we've got Terry Tao making everything look easy, but that isn't a comfort.
- dumbfounder 7y agoWe are still in an explosive growth mode, and probably will be for a very long time (>100 years is my guess). But yes, it will be asymptotic at some point, unless you think the amount of science to grasp is infinite.
- dcow 7y agoUntil we can create a copy of our own universe, I don’t think people will stop. It’s possible that in this pursuit we’ll keep discovering higher and levels of understanding or in other words that more answers will always lead to more questions.
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y agoDoubtful. Just look at computer science. How many people actually grasp what the computer is doing at the lowest level? Relatively few compared to the number of developers there are. Abstractions are the key.
- wasdfff 7y agoI don’t think thats a huge worry. Science is pretty much like that now—no one is a walking encyclopedia. Studying all of known physics top to bottom would probably take you a few lifetimes.
- m463 7y agoRight now we're getting help though. AI is able to search and sift and pick up patterns and find theories. But you're right, will the human race ever "retire"?
- tom-thistime 7y agoThe author of this essay died in 1934.
- Animats 7y agoRight. "Who, a few short years ago, would have suspected that light and heat still held scientific secrets in reserve? Nevertheless, we now have argon in the atmosphere, the x-rays of Roentgen, and the radium of the Curies, all of which illustrate the inadequacy of our former methods, and the prematurity of our former syntheses." That had to be from the early 20th century. The problems today are either in areas where complexity is the limiting factor, like biology, or beyond current experimental reach, like string theory and dark matter. The complexity problem can probably be overcome with computer assistance. Experimental reach is harder.
- n4r9 7y agoI was going to post a criticism along the lines that all the historical examples given by the author were from the 19th Century until I saw you point this out! The date definitely changes my perspective but I still think the essay is a little too waffley - it doesn't to give any actual examples or indications or where the author thinks important scientific problems lie. In fact it kind of begs the question. In response to a concern over whether there are important scientific problems left to solve, it simply lists some historical important scientific breakthroughs. I suppose the point is that breakthroughs are unexpected...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- scottlocklin 7y agoOne of the great Spanish thinkers, criminally underrated in Anglo countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal
- buboard 7y agoHe s known as the father of Neuroscience, i don't think he s underrated
- enriquto 7y agoI'd rather say he's criminally underrated in Spain. It is definitely easier to hear casually about Ramon y Cajal in "anglo countries" than in Spain. For example, I have spent my childhood in the spanish state, and I first heard about Ramon y Cajal during the first conference that I attended, in Switzerland, from a lovely presentation by an English professor. One of the dramatically few spanish first-rate scientists, and he's not a household name. Very, very sad state of affairs.
- yiyus 7y agoI do not know what you are talking about. We study Ramón y Cajal in school, the most important grants in Spain are named after him, there is a Ramon y Cajal square or street in every city... Even the most ignorant Spaniard knows him and will tell you that he is our most respected scientist from all time. Science, in general, is criminally underrated in Spain, but Ramón y Cajal is literally the household name.
- iagovar 7y agoI'd say he's pretty well known in Spain. I knew about him from school, so maybe your school didn't teach you about him or you didn't pay attention. I studied first in Madrid and later in Galicia.
- scottlocklin 7y agoI learned about him talking to a Spanish plumber while eating a bocadillo.
- luhn 7y ago(1897) An excerpt from Advice for a Young Investigator. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/437689.Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/437689.Advice_for_a_Youn...
- breck 7y agoImpressive how timeless this is. I would say the great problem of science right now is integrating all of the knowledge there is. It's time scientists stopped publishing dumb weakly connected PDFs, and start switching to a GitHub like pull request model. We could build a single strongly typed peer-reviewed repo of all of the world's scientific information, complete with definitions, experiment protocols and data, and make it universally downloadable and usable by all.
- yiyus 7y agoHaving such a repo would be great, but IMO we'd still need those dumb PDFs.
- breck 7y agoOkay okay you can still have your PDFs, but only after you submit your pull requests.
- hyperbovine 7y agoAh yes, the old everything-is-broken-and-software-engineering-has-all-the-answers trope.
- breck 7y agoSometimes things do.
- ibeckermayer 7y agoWho claimed software engineering has all the answers? OP is proposing a tool that could be used to help integrate scientific knowledge better than the disintegrated system of PDF’s that exists, what’s wrong with that?
- at_a_remove 7y agoI am attempting to imagine the horror of wading through all of the pull requests received by, say, the physics department. Requests were awful enough when postage stamps were required. You underestimate the number of cranks who have "great ideas" and "just need someone else to work out the math."
- nxpnsv 7y agoWell, if they were solved, then they would not be regarded as problems...
- deith 7y agoRamón and Cajal, two great thinkers.
- commandlinefan 7y agoWell I definitely didn't expect to see this at the end: Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852 – 1934) But I believe he's probably still right in 2020.
- raymondrussell 7y agoRamón Y Cajal was a contrarian when this was written, but he had great timing. In the late 19th century, it was fairly popular to believe that all the laws of physics had already been established—remaining progress would come from improvements in experimental methods. There's a famous "physics is over" quote misattributed to Lord Kelvin (actually said by Michelson, the guy who measured the speed of light). A few years after this was written, Planck proposed energy quanta. And in 1905, Einstein published his four Annus Mirabilis papers, introducing the photoelectric effect (applying quantum), special relativity, and the mass-energy relationship.
- DevX101 7y agoThanks for the context. Thought that this was contemporary. The language did seem antiquated.
- dekhn 7y agoThis book tries to argue that we've got as close to objective truth about the universe as we'll ever do: https://www.amazon.com/End-Science-Knowledge-Twilight-Scientific/dp/0465065929 https://www.amazon.com/End-Science-Knowledge-Twilight-Scient... and that most remaining science is just find of filling in the tiny bits. I personally don't expect anything that will change with respect to backwards time travel or faster than light travel.
- whatshisface 7y agoWhy are time machines and Starship Enterprises a good standard of scientific progress? Why not immorality, sentient computers, and stuff like that, which is equally science-fictiony but possible?
- dekhn 7y agoI just said time machines and faster than light travel are unlikely to ever occur; I do think life extension and AGI are not technically impossible, but rather inevitable (my training is in biology, and I work on machine learning). For the first two, we'd need to have a radically different physics than the current model, while the last two, they seem like reasonable extrapolations from modern technology.
- mtnGoat 7y agoWhy come up with new ideas and solve hard problems when you can just be the User for X and become a unicorn based no nothing but smoke, mirrors and clever accounting like WeWork?
- dang 7y ago"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mtnGoat 7y agostrange how this is selectively enforced around here. :x
- dang 7y agoIt always feels that the mods are against you. The other side feels the same way. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22always%20feels%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... It's true that moderation isn't consistent, but that's not because it's selective in the way you imply. Rather, it's because we can't come close to reading everything, and can't moderate what we don't see. If you notice a post that breaks the site guidelines and hasn't been moderated, the likeliest explanation is that we haven't seen it yet. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20likeliest&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- anarbadalov 7y agoJust a quick note to the moderators: thanks for adding (1897) to the title and clearing up the confusion that i caused! i assumed Ramon y Cajal was more of a household name.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- carapace 7y agoORT (Only Read Title) but uh... WTF is gravity? Why is gravitational mass and intertial mass identical (in all known situations)? Do we orbit the Sun or the image of the Sun? In other words, what's the speed of gravity? Can we control gravity? - - - - What is subjectivity? Why is "it" always now? "You" and "now" are synonyms, why? - - - - WTF is up w/ the structure and dynamics of the Solar System? ( 97.77° axial tilt!? Go home Uranus you're drunk!) - - - - QM and Relativity, chocolate and peanut butter? Or the Universe is messing with us and actually is describable by multiple irreconcilable models?
- earenndil 7y ago> WTF is gravity? That's metaphysics, not science. > Do we orbit the Sun or the image of the Sun? In other words, what's the speed of gravity? The image. Speed of gravity is the same as the speed of light.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago> It is nevertheless true that if we arrived on the scene too late for certain problems, we were also born too early to help solve others. I think this could be used to describe almost any point in history though. The greatest discoveries in science have always required massive breakthroughs in thinking, that typically defy conventional intuition. Perhaps there are some rare moments in time following a major discovery where the fruitful areas of inquiry seem obvious. But “I don’t even know where to start looking for the next major scientific discovery” or “this hypothesis might be wrong and we could potentially spend the rest of time investigating it” seems to be the default state of trying to make major breakthroughs in science.
- lordnacho 7y agoWell written. One thing that I keep thinking is that even if you know the law, there's still a lot of applications where its use is unobvious. For instance, you might be satisfied you know how a pendulum works. Now put another pendulum on it. Or you think you understand gravity, because you got taught the inverse square law. And you then get Kepler's laws. But then with three bodies, things get really hairy. Or you understand statics and materials. But how do we shove that into finite elements? Not an obvious thing, and required some real investigation. There's also completely new ways of seeing things. Who would come up with information theory? Doesn't seem like something that would obviously be found, despite not really requiring any physical experiment. And then there's things like algorithm research that turn out to be really big once there's a bit of computational power on the horizon. (Probably people think about the algo before they can try it on a machine.)
- yters 7y agoMost of reality is inexplicable according to modern science. So, there are probably vast quantities of discoveries to still be made.
- rygh 7y agoMay be it's yet to be discovered
- prostaff 7y agowww.aeroworxglobal.com We can sovle them!
- webdva 7y agoVery inspiring rhetoric. Should encourage any curious soul that seeks to expand the knowledge base.
- grabbalacious 7y agoWhat a contrast with Albert A. Michelson, speaking in 1894: >most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. It is here that the science of measurement shows its importance — where quantitative work is more to be desired than qualitative work. An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.
- bingeworthy 7y agoAgreed. Thanks, dude.
- LastZactionHero 7y agoThis is a great rebuttal to about 90% of HN comments.