3 ms·
> Having said that, what do you think I think about Lisi’s and Weinstein’s and Wolfram’s attempts at a theory of everything? Well, scientific history teaches us
by mxcrossb 6y ago
> Having said that, what do you think I think about Lisi’s and Weinstein’s and Wolfram’s attempts at a theory of everything? Well, scientific history teaches us that their method of guessing some pretty piece of math and hoping it’s useful for something is extremely unpromising
Is this really true? Perhaps we can make this critique of string theory but what about other cases?
- QuesnayJr 6y agoEinstein had the physics idea for general relativity first, and adopted the mathematics of differential geometry to try to implement it. People had the idea for quantum mechanics first, and then discovered that there already existed mathematics for it. For quantum field theory, there was no existing mathematics for it, so they invented their own. For gauge theories (such as the Standard Model), I'm not quite sure the initial motivation. On the other hand, I think you could argue that Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics were developed for aesthetic reasons, and these both proved influential for twentieth-century physics.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoLagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics were useful early on, though. They make perturbative calculations much easier in classical mechanics. If you want to analyze the effect of one planet on the time evolution of another planet's orbital parameters, Hamiltonian mechanics is the formalism to work in.