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It seems unfair to criticize some physicists for the fact that they haven’t subjected their theories to experiment, when we know that testing certain theories w

It seems unfair to criticize some physicists for the fact that they haven’t subjected their theories to experiment, when we know that testing certain theories would require access to vast levels of energy that the human race doesn’t yet have at its disposal (and may never have).

dnautics 7y ago
No but I think it's fair to criticize any physicist who establishes a theory to be beyond testability and continues work on it, or who works on another physicists theory that is established to be beyond testability. Especially if they are using public money, because public monies need to be accountable.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  >it's fair to criticize any physicist who establishes a theory to be beyond testability and continues work on it Would the same apply to people who further explore questions like P = NP and what happens if it is true or false or what happens if the Riemann hypothesis is true? Sometimes digging more into something that doesn't seem testable results in a finding that is testable or into knowledge that helps advance a related field. I think the deeper question is, how do we make sure that public money is spent in a justifiable fashion. And when it comes to science that is a hard question to answer, especially if one considers that science works a bit differently than the way the average voter thinks about things when it comes to notion such as proven or disproven.
  - andrewflnr 7y ago
    It might apply if P=NP or the Riemann hypothesis were remotely the same thing. An open mathematical conjecture has uncertainty about whether effort into cracking it will produce fruit. That's entirely different from a physical theory where it certainly cannot be tested.
    - chr1 7y ago
      Any physical theory that cannot be tested is a mathematical theory that can produce results useful in other places. In general all of theoretical physics is mathematics that takes inspiration from experiments, and takes shortcuts when proving theorems:).
- throwaway4787 7y ago
  Establishing a theoretical framework only for it to be proved with experimental evidence centuries later is actually common. As some other poster said, it still adds to the knowledge base. Our current society is way to focused on short-term gains, mostly because of profit imperatives. Yet it is becoming increasingly obvious that being short-sighted will eventually doom us all. Coronaviruses were an obscure family of viruses no one but a handful of niche researchers were interested about until it became the most important thing in the world. As for climate change...
  - dnautics 7y ago
    That's not true at all. Coronaviruses are 20% of common colds and were an active, non-niche field of research at least since I was in grad school for biochemistry back in the early aughts.
    - throwaway4787 7y ago
      That's fair, I have to keep reminding myself that "the early aughts" are not less than 10 years ago.
woodandsteel 7y ago
One problem is that some string theorists think this situation means that this type of physics should simply abandon empirical testability as a criterion for evaluating the truthfulness of theory.
adamc 7y ago
I think it is entirely fair to criticize the value of theories that cannot be tested in the forseeable future.

dnautics 7y ago

No but I think it's fair to criticize any physicist who establishes a theory to be beyond testability and continues work on it, or who works on another physicists theory that is established to be beyond testability. Especially if they are using public money, because public monies need to be accountable.

SkyBelow 7y ago
>it's fair to criticize any physicist who establishes a theory to be beyond testability and continues work on it Would the same apply to people who further explore questions like P = NP and what happens if it is true or false or what happens if the Riemann hypothesis is true? Sometimes digging more into something that doesn't seem testable results in a finding that is testable or into knowledge that helps advance a related field. I think the deeper question is, how do we make sure that public money is spent in a justifiable fashion. And when it comes to science that is a hard question to answer, especially if one considers that science works a bit differently than the way the average voter thinks about things when it comes to notion such as proven or disproven.
- andrewflnr 7y ago
  It might apply if P=NP or the Riemann hypothesis were remotely the same thing. An open mathematical conjecture has uncertainty about whether effort into cracking it will produce fruit. That's entirely different from a physical theory where it certainly cannot be tested.
  - chr1 7y ago
    Any physical theory that cannot be tested is a mathematical theory that can produce results useful in other places. In general all of theoretical physics is mathematics that takes inspiration from experiments, and takes shortcuts when proving theorems:).
throwaway4787 7y ago
Establishing a theoretical framework only for it to be proved with experimental evidence centuries later is actually common. As some other poster said, it still adds to the knowledge base. Our current society is way to focused on short-term gains, mostly because of profit imperatives. Yet it is becoming increasingly obvious that being short-sighted will eventually doom us all. Coronaviruses were an obscure family of viruses no one but a handful of niche researchers were interested about until it became the most important thing in the world. As for climate change...
- dnautics 7y ago
  That's not true at all. Coronaviruses are 20% of common colds and were an active, non-niche field of research at least since I was in grad school for biochemistry back in the early aughts.
  - throwaway4787 7y ago
    That's fair, I have to keep reminding myself that "the early aughts" are not less than 10 years ago.

woodandsteel 7y ago

One problem is that some string theorists think this situation means that this type of physics should simply abandon empirical testability as a criterion for evaluating the truthfulness of theory.

adamc 7y ago

I think it is entirely fair to criticize the value of theories that cannot be tested in the forseeable future.