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Physical theories often go beyond just predictions, and attempt to specify a correspondence between a formalism and physical reality. Quarks are an example. Qu
by millstone 6y ago
Physical theories often go beyond just predictions, and attempt to specify a correspondence between a formalism and physical reality.
Quarks are an example. Quarks were conceptualized as a mathematical simplification, and only later were recognized as real physical things - or at least as real as protons.
In QM we have physical quantities (an electron's mass) and unphysical quantities (an electron's phase). But there's open questions, like the wavefunction - can that be placed in correspondence with reality? We don't really know. This is the "ontic" vs "epistemic" debate.
- lordnacho 6y agoBut isn't that just the theory happening to be "right"? If you have some thing that describes how nuclear physics works, and it happens to predict a particle that turns out to do what was predicted, that means the particle is real in the sense of being described accurately? Reminds me of tunnelling. That's one of those "it's weird but the equation should work on the other side of the barrier" situations, lo and behold stuff goes through the barrier.
- SiempreViernes 6y agoNo, the statement is that even within a theory there are things that are considered real and things that are just mathematical constructs that show up and need to be discarded or otherwise managed. For example in mechanics the coordinate systems being used aren't "real" in a physical sense because you are free to choose things as you wish. But the force you calculate is very much a physical fact, a property of the real world.