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I strongly disagree that the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years. We have been looking really hard for answers to persistent questions. Whi

by ISL 7y ago

I strongly disagree that the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years. We have been looking really hard for answers to persistent questions. While we have not found affirmative answers, physicists have systematically ruled out option after option after option. We have not yet discovered a unified-theory-of-everything, but we know a whole lot more about what that theory is not. Furthermore, the past 40 years have seen the emergence of precision cosmology (and the dark-matter/energy paradigm that it entails), the observation and confirmation of neutrino oscillation, the detection of gravitational waves (and the nuclear physics revolution that has begun with GW170817), SN1987A, and so much more. The coming decades are poised to learn so much more, a lot of it from the stars. GAIA, LISA, updated terrestrial GW detectors, LSST/Rubin, TMT, SKA, and more are all poised to tell us much more about things we don't understand. Particle physics will move forward too, though it is uncertain how quickly. The right breakthrough in wakefield accelerators, though, could be transformative. Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub; It is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore profit comes from what is there; Usefulness from what is not there. Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 11

ssivark 7y ago
Love the Tao Te Ching quote! To add to your point, scientists have been chasing inconsistencies exactly like Sabine said. They’re chasing dark matter, dark energy, quantum gravity, early universe cosmology, naturalness (arguable; more of a theoretical inconsistency), and quantum foundations (smaller effort). So I don’t see the point of vague allusions to the philosophy of science. If anyone has a concrete proposal---inspired from philosophy or whatever else, doesn’t matter---the proposal will typically be treated on its merits. Modulo caveats about humans being humans and all that.
jxy 7y ago
「三十輻，共一轂，當其無，有車之用。埏埴以為器，當其無，有器之用。鑿戶牖以為室，當其無，有室之用。故有之以為利，無之以為用。」
- tasogare 7y ago
  Thanks, I was wondering what was the original quote, which is often tricky to get from unsourced translation (edit: I missed grand parent sourced chapter 11. Btw, I love the parallelism used in Classic Chinese writings)
- Nition 7y ago
  Google Translate on this fails almost completely but somehow turns it into a critique on the Internet Of Things: Thirty spokes, there is a hub. When it is free, it is used for cars. I think it is a device, when it is free, it is used for devices. Profit, useless.
  - tartoran 7y ago
    I get something like this from google translate: Thirty spokes, a total of one hub, when it is not available, there is a car. I think that when there is no device, there is a use for it. The chisel owner thinks that when there is no room, there is room. Therefore, it is good to use it, but not to use it. "
    - Nition 7y ago
      Interesting that we get different results. Google's AI-based translation can get a little crazy sometimes[1] but I would have still expected everyone to get the same result for the same thing. Proof of mine: https://i.imgur.com/hb428NI.png https://i.imgur.com/hb428NI.png [1] DECEARING EGG comes to mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-rfBsWmo0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-rfBsWmo0M Edit: As someone else has now mentioned, it's the difference between leaving the quotes(「 and 」) on the ends or not. So it is just the translate AI being weird as usual.
    - red75prime 7y ago
      I've got your translation variant for the text without quotes (「...」). Does the translation have a peculiar rhythm to it, or I'm imagining things?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
Vysero 7y ago
Agreed, and how is string theory not being considered an attempt at: "resolving inconsistencies" by the author? In fact, imho, any attempt at finding a unified theory is an attempt at resolving inconsistencies.
maxharris 7y ago
Lee Smolin deals with this question in Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum. He relies on the same facts, makes many of the same points you do, and he comes to the exact opposite conclusion (assuming, of course, that I actually understand your position fully, and his as well). That's interesting to me because I think it might point to a philosophical disagreement between your views and his, especially in epistemology.
- ISL 7y ago
  Part of the difference may stem from the fact that I am an experimentalist, and he is a theorist. Theoretical progress has been slow, in large part because Nature has been unwilling to show any new experimental deviations from the Standard Model. Experimentally, people continue to hammer away at the Standard Model (and gravity, my specialty), and the paradigm continues to hold. With few exceptions, most ideas from 40 years ago have been put to significant tests and turned out not to be how Nature operates. From a theory standpoint, without new guidance from us, theorists are forced to attempt to out-think Nature, which is extremely hard to do. Smolin may be bummed, but theorists can take solace in the fact that the problem is extremely difficult. In the particular case of quantum-mechanics, the day that theorists divine a compelling way that one interpretation of QM makes a prediction that differs from that of another interpretation is the day that an experimentalist starts building a test to find out which one is true.
  - cynusx 7y ago
    The original article as I understood it is breaking a lance for more rigorous selection of experiments based on how much more information the experiments can yield. With increasing costs in experimentation it makes sense to prioritize for impact. In a way it is a meta-science because you need to find a methodology to evaluate which theory, when proven or disproven has the most impact. I would imagine that the current working method would be to look at how often theoretical physicists cite a specific theoretical result/paper and hence "popularity" is the prioritization mechanism.
    - 7y ago
mfer 7y ago
> I strongly disagree that the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years. I think, we are getting a peak at the politics of the practice of science when you look at the article and comments, like this ones parent. A bunch of this is about the unobserved. The theoretical rather than then experimentally observed (think scientific method). Whose theories get the funding to be looked into? Whose ideas are published and talked about in the popular places? A post of Sabine's talked about how she thinks the crisis in physics isn't about physics [1]. Is it instead about the politics of the money and popularity? Is it about the psychology of being wrong? I mean, different physicists contradict each other and the truth isn't what's popular it is what's observed, right? If people contradict each other they can't all be right. What's most interesting, to me, is how this isn't about what's been observed but all those human system qualities that people bring to the table. [1] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-crisis-in-physics-is-not-only-about.html https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-crisis-in-phys...
- conception 7y ago
  I think what people miss about the industry of Science is that, logically, if a paper says "A=Foo" then we'd expect it to be true. And if another comes out that says, "A=Bar" then it's confusing, are both wrong, are both right. But instead, the way it works is a consensus is built. Researcher Bob - "We see that A=Foo." Researcher Sally -"Well, I see that A=Bar." Researcher Timmy - "Well, I see that A=Far." Researcher Kimmy - "Well, I see it as A=Fbar." Community over time - "Now the community has seen that A=Fbar is consistently correct and can be relied upon and used." 20 years pass... Researcher Jeff - "Well, I see that Ab=Fbar actually." Community - "That's bullshit." Researcher Betty - "Well, actually I see that too. But I see Ab=FbarC". etc etc Since we don't know what we don't know, it isn't really a "We're done!" situation for someone to get 100% correct, it's a process of evolution in knowledge.
  - mfer 7y ago
    > We see that A=Foo. I think part of this is that scientists don't "see" as in observe these things. Instead they "think that" something is the case. And, they have math and ideas to back that up. If we had repeatable observation of the things it would be much harder to make disagreeing arguments.
deng 7y ago
While I mostly agree with you, this is not really a counterpoint to Hossenfelder's position. There is no denying that experimental physics has produced great results in the last 40 years, but the theories underlying these results have remained unchanged during that time.
effie 7y ago
The things you mention may be useful to science and even help in evolving foundations of physics, but that hasn't happened yet. Ms. Hossenfelder talks about things such as internal consistency of quantum methodologies, consistency of QT and GRT and particle physics. There is no breakthrough in these questions for decades.
- Koshkin 7y ago
  What if there aren't any breakthroughs left to be made in those areas?
  - effie 7y ago
    That is possible, time will tell. It is quite possible (and at this point, even desirable) that breakthrough will be made elsewhere in foundations of physics.
ramblerman 7y ago
> We have been looking really hard for answers to persistent questions. While we have not found affirmative answers, physicists have systematically ruled out option after option after option. We have not yet discovered a unified-theory-of-everything, but we know a whole lot more about what that theory is not. I feel this answer is a bit of a self justifying cop-out. A lot of the value of physics from the perspective of society has been generating understanding about the world that actually translates into manipulating the world. Reaching the moon, superfast internet, gps, microwaves, etc... etc.. You are not wrong of course, but knowledge for the sake of knowledge is not always useful, and also not always worth funding imo.

by ISL 7y ago

ssivark 7y ago

Love the Tao Te Ching quote! To add to your point, scientists have been chasing inconsistencies exactly like Sabine said. They’re chasing dark matter, dark energy, quantum gravity, early universe cosmology, naturalness (arguable; more of a theoretical inconsistency), and quantum foundations (smaller effort). So I don’t see the point of vague allusions to the philosophy of science. If anyone has a concrete proposal---inspired from philosophy or whatever else, doesn’t matter---the proposal will typically be treated on its merits. Modulo caveats about humans being humans and all that.

jxy 7y ago

「三十輻，共一轂，當其無，有車之用。埏埴以為器，當其無，有器之用。鑿戶牖以為室，當其無，有室之用。故有之以為利，無之以為用。」

tasogare 7y ago
Thanks, I was wondering what was the original quote, which is often tricky to get from unsourced translation (edit: I missed grand parent sourced chapter 11. Btw, I love the parallelism used in Classic Chinese writings)
Nition 7y ago
Google Translate on this fails almost completely but somehow turns it into a critique on the Internet Of Things: Thirty spokes, there is a hub. When it is free, it is used for cars. I think it is a device, when it is free, it is used for devices. Profit, useless.
- tartoran 7y ago
  I get something like this from google translate: Thirty spokes, a total of one hub, when it is not available, there is a car. I think that when there is no device, there is a use for it. The chisel owner thinks that when there is no room, there is room. Therefore, it is good to use it, but not to use it. "
  - Nition 7y ago
    Interesting that we get different results. Google's AI-based translation can get a little crazy sometimes[1] but I would have still expected everyone to get the same result for the same thing. Proof of mine: https://i.imgur.com/hb428NI.png https://i.imgur.com/hb428NI.png [1] DECEARING EGG comes to mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-rfBsWmo0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-rfBsWmo0M Edit: As someone else has now mentioned, it's the difference between leaving the quotes(「 and 」) on the ends or not. So it is just the translate AI being weird as usual.
  - red75prime 7y ago
    I've got your translation variant for the text without quotes (「...」). Does the translation have a peculiar rhythm to it, or I'm imagining things?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

Vysero 7y ago

Agreed, and how is string theory not being considered an attempt at: "resolving inconsistencies" by the author? In fact, imho, any attempt at finding a unified theory is an attempt at resolving inconsistencies.

maxharris 7y ago

Lee Smolin deals with this question in Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum. He relies on the same facts, makes many of the same points you do, and he comes to the exact opposite conclusion (assuming, of course, that I actually understand your position fully, and his as well). That's interesting to me because I think it might point to a philosophical disagreement between your views and his, especially in epistemology.

ISL 7y ago
Part of the difference may stem from the fact that I am an experimentalist, and he is a theorist. Theoretical progress has been slow, in large part because Nature has been unwilling to show any new experimental deviations from the Standard Model. Experimentally, people continue to hammer away at the Standard Model (and gravity, my specialty), and the paradigm continues to hold. With few exceptions, most ideas from 40 years ago have been put to significant tests and turned out not to be how Nature operates. From a theory standpoint, without new guidance from us, theorists are forced to attempt to out-think Nature, which is extremely hard to do. Smolin may be bummed, but theorists can take solace in the fact that the problem is extremely difficult. In the particular case of quantum-mechanics, the day that theorists divine a compelling way that one interpretation of QM makes a prediction that differs from that of another interpretation is the day that an experimentalist starts building a test to find out which one is true.
- cynusx 7y ago
  The original article as I understood it is breaking a lance for more rigorous selection of experiments based on how much more information the experiments can yield. With increasing costs in experimentation it makes sense to prioritize for impact. In a way it is a meta-science because you need to find a methodology to evaluate which theory, when proven or disproven has the most impact. I would imagine that the current working method would be to look at how often theoretical physicists cite a specific theoretical result/paper and hence "popularity" is the prioritization mechanism.
  - 7y ago

mfer 7y ago

> I strongly disagree that the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years. I think, we are getting a peak at the politics of the practice of science when you look at the article and comments, like this ones parent. A bunch of this is about the unobserved. The theoretical rather than then experimentally observed (think scientific method). Whose theories get the funding to be looked into? Whose ideas are published and talked about in the popular places? A post of Sabine's talked about how she thinks the crisis in physics isn't about physics [1]. Is it instead about the politics of the money and popularity? Is it about the psychology of being wrong? I mean, different physicists contradict each other and the truth isn't what's popular it is what's observed, right? If people contradict each other they can't all be right. What's most interesting, to me, is how this isn't about what's been observed but all those human system qualities that people bring to the table. [1] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-crisis-in-physics-is-not-only-about.html https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-crisis-in-phys...

conception 7y ago
I think what people miss about the industry of Science is that, logically, if a paper says "A=Foo" then we'd expect it to be true. And if another comes out that says, "A=Bar" then it's confusing, are both wrong, are both right. But instead, the way it works is a consensus is built. Researcher Bob - "We see that A=Foo." Researcher Sally -"Well, I see that A=Bar." Researcher Timmy - "Well, I see that A=Far." Researcher Kimmy - "Well, I see it as A=Fbar." Community over time - "Now the community has seen that A=Fbar is consistently correct and can be relied upon and used." 20 years pass... Researcher Jeff - "Well, I see that Ab=Fbar actually." Community - "That's bullshit." Researcher Betty - "Well, actually I see that too. But I see Ab=FbarC". etc etc Since we don't know what we don't know, it isn't really a "We're done!" situation for someone to get 100% correct, it's a process of evolution in knowledge.
- mfer 7y ago
  > We see that A=Foo. I think part of this is that scientists don't "see" as in observe these things. Instead they "think that" something is the case. And, they have math and ideas to back that up. If we had repeatable observation of the things it would be much harder to make disagreeing arguments.

deng 7y ago

While I mostly agree with you, this is not really a counterpoint to Hossenfelder's position. There is no denying that experimental physics has produced great results in the last 40 years, but the theories underlying these results have remained unchanged during that time.

effie 7y ago

The things you mention may be useful to science and even help in evolving foundations of physics, but that hasn't happened yet. Ms. Hossenfelder talks about things such as internal consistency of quantum methodologies, consistency of QT and GRT and particle physics. There is no breakthrough in these questions for decades.

Koshkin 7y ago
What if there aren't any breakthroughs left to be made in those areas?
- effie 7y ago
  That is possible, time will tell. It is quite possible (and at this point, even desirable) that breakthrough will be made elsewhere in foundations of physics.

ramblerman 7y ago

> We have been looking really hard for answers to persistent questions. While we have not found affirmative answers, physicists have systematically ruled out option after option after option. We have not yet discovered a unified-theory-of-everything, but we know a whole lot more about what that theory is not. I feel this answer is a bit of a self justifying cop-out. A lot of the value of physics from the perspective of society has been generating understanding about the world that actually translates into manipulating the world. Reaching the moon, superfast internet, gps, microwaves, etc... etc.. You are not wrong of course, but knowledge for the sake of knowledge is not always useful, and also not always worth funding imo.