7 ms·

This gets rolled out all the time. Except that that is not Hossenfelders argument. In the very article she is quoted with: “We do know that the only way to fin

This gets rolled out all the time. Except that that is not Hossenfelders argument. In the very article she is quoted with: “We do know that the only way to find answers is by experiment and the only place to find them is where we haven’t been able to look yet.” Further, it's an utterly superficial analogy. Physics 2020 is completely different than Physics 1894. We don't just have a complete understanding of the fundamental principles [1] underlying all terrestrial observations/experiments ever performed, but also a complete inventory of the involved matter. And we have had for decades. [1] It's important to understand this in a strict reductionist way. Of course knowing the axioms is completely different from understanding their implications. And when studying their implication you are bound to encounter many novel principles not anticipated in the axioms. Thus even in the absence of what is by particle physicists "new physics" there is much to discover.

btilly 6y ago
Physics 2020 is completely different than Physics 1894. We don't just have a complete understanding of the fundamental principles [1] underlying all terrestrial observations/experiments ever performed, but also a complete inventory of the involved matter. And we have had for decades. NOT true. The Standard Model does not explain neutrino behavior. See https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/february-2013/neutrinos-the-standard-model-misfits https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/february-2013/neutr... for a some examples of that. Unfortunately a large particle accelerator is not designed to tell us much about neutrinos...
- kelsolaar 6y ago
  XENON1T is relevant here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-matter-experiment-finds-unexplained-signal-20200617/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-matter-experiment-finds-...
  - btilly 6y ago
    That result is cool, but experimental error is still in the list of plausible explanations. It is too early to say definitely that something outside of the Standard Model is going on.
    - madengr 6y ago
      Wasn’t dark matter recently found as intergalactic hydrogen?
- Certhas 6y ago
  How does the fact that we need a small modification to the Standard Model to account for Neutrino masses contradict what I said?
  - btilly 6y ago
    You claimed a complete understanding of the fundamental properties of every kind of matter we have done terrestrial physics on. But we still don't have a complete understanding of the properties of neutrinos, nor a definitive understanding of how to properly tweak the Standard Model to include them. They are the only area of particle physics where experimental evidence did not fit the Standard Model, and therefore evidence of that discrepancy should be no more ignored than the failure of attempts to measure ether dragging should have been in Rutherford's day.
    - Certhas 6y ago
      I claimed fundamental principles, not fundamental properties. :) I think there are a number of ways to add neutrino mass to the standard model without introducing new principles. But this is at the end just semantics. We don't know by which mechanism neutrinos gain mass yet. We don't know any number of things about non-terrestrial observations. There clearly is plenty of physics to discover. But it's easy to underestimate the discrepancy to Kelvins days. When he made that statement the existence of electrons had not yet been discovered. Atomism was something coming out of chemistry, not out of physics, and at the close of the 19th century time it was still possible to doubt the reality of atoms. You focus on ether dragging, but in fact it was not understood what the mirrors Michelson used were made of, or how they got their reflective properties.
Retric 6y ago
The standard model and relativity are treated as two completely separate things. This means we don’t actually understand the underlying physics the universe operates on. Even some very basic questions are completely unknown. PS: By unknown I mean experimentally.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  $21bn would buy a lot of blue sky PhDs who could consider new kinds of theory - actually new metaphors - which could suggest new kinds of experiments which might not need gigantic hardware or impossible energies. At this point, spending more money on banging very small rocks together is unlikely to be useful. It might work, but a pause for creative and original thought seems like a more productive idea.
  - spekcular 6y ago
    We have a lot of blue sky physics PhDs doing just that right now, and they're not getting too far since the theory is massively under-determined given our lack of data. Re: "unlikely to be useful," consider that every other major collider exploring new energy levels so far has found a new fundamental particle.
- Certhas 6y ago
  That's why I was talking about the physics underlying terrestrial experiments explicitly. The intersection of GR and QFT does not appear here. We all desperately wish it were different of course. A new accelerator is also exceedingly unlikely to contribute anything to this question.

btilly 6y ago

Physics 2020 is completely different than Physics 1894. We don't just have a complete understanding of the fundamental principles [1] underlying all terrestrial observations/experiments ever performed, but also a complete inventory of the involved matter. And we have had for decades. NOT true. The Standard Model does not explain neutrino behavior. See https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/february-2013/neutrinos-the-standard-model-misfits https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/february-2013/neutr... for a some examples of that. Unfortunately a large particle accelerator is not designed to tell us much about neutrinos...

kelsolaar 6y ago
XENON1T is relevant here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-matter-experiment-finds-unexplained-signal-20200617/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-matter-experiment-finds-...
- btilly 6y ago
  That result is cool, but experimental error is still in the list of plausible explanations. It is too early to say definitely that something outside of the Standard Model is going on.
  - madengr 6y ago
    Wasn’t dark matter recently found as intergalactic hydrogen?
Certhas 6y ago
How does the fact that we need a small modification to the Standard Model to account for Neutrino masses contradict what I said?
- btilly 6y ago
  You claimed a complete understanding of the fundamental properties of every kind of matter we have done terrestrial physics on. But we still don't have a complete understanding of the properties of neutrinos, nor a definitive understanding of how to properly tweak the Standard Model to include them. They are the only area of particle physics where experimental evidence did not fit the Standard Model, and therefore evidence of that discrepancy should be no more ignored than the failure of attempts to measure ether dragging should have been in Rutherford's day.
  - Certhas 6y ago
    I claimed fundamental principles, not fundamental properties. :) I think there are a number of ways to add neutrino mass to the standard model without introducing new principles. But this is at the end just semantics. We don't know by which mechanism neutrinos gain mass yet. We don't know any number of things about non-terrestrial observations. There clearly is plenty of physics to discover. But it's easy to underestimate the discrepancy to Kelvins days. When he made that statement the existence of electrons had not yet been discovered. Atomism was something coming out of chemistry, not out of physics, and at the close of the 19th century time it was still possible to doubt the reality of atoms. You focus on ether dragging, but in fact it was not understood what the mirrors Michelson used were made of, or how they got their reflective properties.

Retric 6y ago

The standard model and relativity are treated as two completely separate things. This means we don’t actually understand the underlying physics the universe operates on. Even some very basic questions are completely unknown. PS: By unknown I mean experimentally.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
$21bn would buy a lot of blue sky PhDs who could consider new kinds of theory - actually new metaphors - which could suggest new kinds of experiments which might not need gigantic hardware or impossible energies. At this point, spending more money on banging very small rocks together is unlikely to be useful. It might work, but a pause for creative and original thought seems like a more productive idea.
- spekcular 6y ago
  We have a lot of blue sky physics PhDs doing just that right now, and they're not getting too far since the theory is massively under-determined given our lack of data. Re: "unlikely to be useful," consider that every other major collider exploring new energy levels so far has found a new fundamental particle.
Certhas 6y ago
That's why I was talking about the physics underlying terrestrial experiments explicitly. The intersection of GR and QFT does not appear here. We all desperately wish it were different of course. A new accelerator is also exceedingly unlikely to contribute anything to this question.