3 ms·

This reminds me what Feynman talk to us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM-zWTU7X-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM-zWTU7X-k > If you can find any other vi

This reminds me what Feynman talk to us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM-zWTU7X-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM-zWTU7X-k > If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery. It is very nearly impossible, but not quite, to find any theory which agrees with experiments over the entire range in which all theories have been checked, and yet gives different consequences in some other range, even a theory whose different consequences do not turn out to agree with nature. A new idea is extremely difficult to think of. It takes a fantastic imagination.

jiggawatts 6y ago
This sums up the last decade of my life. In my spare time I stare out the window trying to dream up a "rule system" that coughs up both relativity and quantum mechanics. It's very hard to even reproduce the basics, let alone the more irritating things like the three generations of particles. That in particular is a good "acid test", and it isn't even mentioned by 90% of the conceptual papers I've been skimming. Quantum gravity, loop this, string that... show me three generations and how those particles conspire to make gravity waves, and then I'll be interested. Right now I'm toying around with a particularly mathematically elegant model with (IMHO) incredibly beautiful "symmetry" in the sense that the equations are both trivially simple yet capable of producing a rich particle zoo, but still limited to a small finite set. My problem is that I'd need a few petabytes of memory to play around with it sufficiently to see if it passes the basic tests. I'm hoping Moore's law will allow me to run some simulations before I die of old age...
- miscPerson 6y ago
  I was curious, so I did the math: It’s $5M/mo to rent 1 PB of RAM on EC2 and $21,000/mo per PB in S3. Conceivably, your dreams will be possible in a decade — they are feasible, but likely too costly now.
  - jiggawatts 6y ago
    That, or I get way better at mathematics. At this rate, I think Moore's law will win. Apparently TSMC is mass-producing 5nm chips and they're building their 3nm fab...
    - miscPerson 6y ago
      As someone who also works on physics models in their spare time — the computational hurdles are real. Best of luck!

jiggawatts 6y ago

This sums up the last decade of my life. In my spare time I stare out the window trying to dream up a "rule system" that coughs up both relativity and quantum mechanics. It's very hard to even reproduce the basics, let alone the more irritating things like the three generations of particles. That in particular is a good "acid test", and it isn't even mentioned by 90% of the conceptual papers I've been skimming. Quantum gravity, loop this, string that... show me three generations and how those particles conspire to make gravity waves, and then I'll be interested. Right now I'm toying around with a particularly mathematically elegant model with (IMHO) incredibly beautiful "symmetry" in the sense that the equations are both trivially simple yet capable of producing a rich particle zoo, but still limited to a small finite set. My problem is that I'd need a few petabytes of memory to play around with it sufficiently to see if it passes the basic tests. I'm hoping Moore's law will allow me to run some simulations before I die of old age...

miscPerson 6y ago
I was curious, so I did the math: It’s $5M/mo to rent 1 PB of RAM on EC2 and $21,000/mo per PB in S3. Conceivably, your dreams will be possible in a decade — they are feasible, but likely too costly now.
- jiggawatts 6y ago
  That, or I get way better at mathematics. At this rate, I think Moore's law will win. Apparently TSMC is mass-producing 5nm chips and they're building their 3nm fab...
  - miscPerson 6y ago
    As someone who also works on physics models in their spare time — the computational hurdles are real. Best of luck!