4 ms·

I always say that important scientific discoveries arise from better tools. Once technology can make the tool, it doesn't take long for the discovery to be made

by GuB-42 5y ago

I always say that important scientific discoveries arise from better tools. Once technology can make the tool, it doesn't take long for the discovery to be made. It may take a genius, but there are a lot of geniuses on Earth. Without precision instruments, how can we know that light has a speed, that stars are not points of light on a crystal sphere surrounding the earth, that diseases are carried by microbes... General relativity was a way to solve anomalies in the orbit of Mercury, something only detectable with precise measurement. Without it, general relativity would make no sense: why use all these complex formulas when Newton gravity works just as well? Send Einstein's work to the 16th century and it will be slashed by Occam's razor. The "tenth of a second" problem is just that, technology able to measure tenth of seconds opened new fields. I don't mean that technology is more important than scientific research, but they go hand in hand, no good science without good observation, no good observation without good tech, and no good tech without good science.

beebeepka 5y ago
You are completely right. New discoveries rely on engineering breakthroughs. And engineering breakthroughs rely on new discoveries
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- aaron695 5y ago
  I'd disagree with this tight relationship. I bought an air filter, it has a PM 2.5 meter on it. Everyday I'm discovering and understanding what drives PM2.5 in my house. It's not really an engineering breakthrough, you could loophole it to PM2.5 meters are getting cheaper. But really to me, it's the measurement, just better data. I could have bought a PM 2.5 meter years ago but culture held me back. I personally don't believe in working from home, but if you did, once again the tech has existed for a while there's no real breakthrough happening. Get the tools to the people. Why is there no free easy to use OCR (Tesseract = PITA), I don't think a breakthrough or discovery is needed there.
  - papandada 5y ago
    This has me desiring a PM2.5 meter now. Any unexpected results or significant improvements you've found?
    - aaron695 5y ago
      Cooking without burning things could really spike it. No behaviour change yet. With the fireplace I will behave in a way that creates less spikes now, just more effort to be less smokey. And to light a fire well is a cool skill you can nerd on. I do want to get a better fireplace. Somedays it just spikes, I don't know why. Perhaps pollen, I'll work it out one day perhaps. I bought a Ultrasonic Incense, because I'm a nerd that's kinda techy and fun. Undecided if I like it. And I always run the filter, wattage is less than a led light, and cost a little (Filters aren't real cheap) but way less than my 'longevity' drugs. It could be dumb, but I have more info every day. If you're a hacker who follows through you can make one, mines un-assembled in the cupboard, discussion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20640114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20640114
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    I fail to understand how this is related to the topic of scientific discoveries and the technology underlying it. Yes your personal discoveries might be based on purchasing a PM2.5 meter, but personal discoveries and understanding are not generally related to scientific discoveries or understanding. If you study e.g. quantum mechanics it will not generally advance our (as society) understanding of quantum mechanics. Maybe you will become a great quantum researcher and make discoveries but it will be your discoveries then that advance understanding
    - aaron695 5y ago
      If you want to jump back the the main article around the philosophy of science then yes not relevant. I haven't read the book but I'm not talking temporal consciousness, phenomenologists and philosophy and things. > it will be your discoveries then that advance understanding This in practical reality doesn't really happen. The philosophy fails here. I'm just talking analytically around what happens when people get a device that can measure 1/10 finer or how Excel has pushed science, not related to philosophy or theoretical ideas around purer sciences. More specifically citizen science like this not for profit air quality map - https://waqi.info/ https://waqi.info/ Tools to the people.
unobatbayar 5y ago
The bicycle for the mind.
femto 5y ago
The best tools are typically at the bleeding edge of technology, as the tool generally has to be of better quality than the thing being made/measured with it, so if you are going to make the best you need a tool that is better then the best (typically meaning it costs a lot). If you ever want a hard-core engineering job, go and work for a company that makes the things that make things, whether that be machine tools, electrical measurement equipment, production lines or whatever. For example, ASML make the tools that make chips. Keysight and Tektronix make the tools that measure production. They are just random names. The list goes on. The upper echelons of such companies are at the frontiers of engineering.
- neltnerb 5y ago
  I don't think this is generally true, there are lots of examples where you measure something with higher resolution than the tool's manufacturing precision (for instance, an STM) and similarly lots of examples where you use a lower precision tool to build a higher precision tool (for instance, a mill or lathe but optical focusing would also allow for a shrink if it weren't for the diffraction limit). But moving a generation forward in precision is good, you only ever get close to perfect with diminishing returns.
coldtea 5y ago
>I always say that important scientific discoveries arise from better tools I dunno, from Archimedes to Newton, and from Maxwell to Einstein, most important scientific discoveries arose from thinking breakthroughs (and led to better tools, as opposed to having been caused by them). The "better tools" at most helped verify it after it was expressed, not reach it. It's the incremental, evolutionary stuff, that's mostly helped by better tools...
- DantesKite 5y ago
  Not quite. That's a misconception. "The BS model: Science => Technology => Practice. Historically, the truth: Practice =>Technology =>"Scientific" misattribution" https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1419846623258103809?s=20 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1419846623258103809?s=20
  - arpa 5y ago
    hmmm, how about "no". It really boils down to how you define science. If you define science as "published in peer reviewed journals" or "knee-deep in academia", the statement is correct. If, however, it's knowledge based on observation of phenomena (literally what science means), preferably with understanding why things happen (having a theory), it's so wrong, it's not even funny - it's a very dangerous standpoint, because the alternative to the scientific method is magic thinking and cargo cults.
    - knuthsat 5y ago
      Engineering existed way before any kind of math or symbolic manipulation. It was a collection of heuristics. Information theory came after people were already sending signals over the wire. Similarly, there were architectural feats before geometry or Newton’s laws were discovered.
      - arpa 5y ago
        was it not based on knowledge based on observation (science)? You don't need math and symbolic manipulation, not to mention information theory to do science, even if it helps immensely if you do use these tools!
cycomanic 5y ago
I would say that really it's both, unresolved questions (which can come from experiment or theory) often spur development of new measurement technology. On the other hand new measurement capabilities often spur new scientific discoveries.
- prox 5y ago
  Most new research comes when a researcher has to say “that’s funny…” aka, when something unexpected shows itself.
fumblebee 5y ago
> I always say that important scientific discoveries arise from better tools. This is something I hadn't thought about before, but it makes total sense. When I read that, my first thought for current technological toolage that might lead to new discoveries is the massive transformer language models that Open-AI / EleutherAI / others are building. Some basic extrapolation on how-far-how-soon technology like GPT-X has come suggests that future versions could (should?) be revolutionary for knowledge discovery.
mr_mitm 5y ago
> General relativity was a way to solve anomalies in the orbit of Mercury, something only detectable with precise measurement. Without it, general relativity would make no sense: why use all these complex formulas when Newton gravity works just as well? Send Einstein's work to the 16th century and it will be slashed by Occam's razor. I don't think that's entirely true. As far as I know, the Mercury precession anomaly wasn't considered a serious problem to Newton's theory at the time. Einstein was motivated by theoretical problems that arose from trying to reconcile Newton's theory with special relativity, which inspired him to take the principle of equivalence seriously: the notion that gravitational mass and inertial mass are fundamentally the same. This is what lead to the famous field equations. Their derivation is not some sort of reverse engineering of the Mercury precession anomaly. Someone wrote a few words about it here [1]. The fact that GR could explain the Mercury anomaly was a bonus. The break through, however, came with the first measurement of light being deflected by the sun during a solar eclipse. Einstein's GR truly came out of nowhere. [1] https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/622/what-was-einsteins-motivation-for-relativity-theory https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/622/what-was-einstei...
a9h74j 5y ago
You might be interested in older work by philosopher Larry Laudan. He posited mutual positive feedback (or co-evolution) between: a) better data; b) better models or theories; and c) better instruments. Basically agreeing with you. Likewise, he also noted that constructing better instruments is theory-dependent, as better theory allows a more complete understanding of sources of error (not to mention entirely new technologies). Laudan called his a "tri-partite" model, as I recall.

by GuB-42 5y ago

beebeepka 5y ago

You are completely right. New discoveries rely on engineering breakthroughs. And engineering breakthroughs rely on new discoveries

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
aaron695 5y ago
I'd disagree with this tight relationship. I bought an air filter, it has a PM 2.5 meter on it. Everyday I'm discovering and understanding what drives PM2.5 in my house. It's not really an engineering breakthrough, you could loophole it to PM2.5 meters are getting cheaper. But really to me, it's the measurement, just better data. I could have bought a PM 2.5 meter years ago but culture held me back. I personally don't believe in working from home, but if you did, once again the tech has existed for a while there's no real breakthrough happening. Get the tools to the people. Why is there no free easy to use OCR (Tesseract = PITA), I don't think a breakthrough or discovery is needed there.
- papandada 5y ago
  This has me desiring a PM2.5 meter now. Any unexpected results or significant improvements you've found?
  - aaron695 5y ago
    Cooking without burning things could really spike it. No behaviour change yet. With the fireplace I will behave in a way that creates less spikes now, just more effort to be less smokey. And to light a fire well is a cool skill you can nerd on. I do want to get a better fireplace. Somedays it just spikes, I don't know why. Perhaps pollen, I'll work it out one day perhaps. I bought a Ultrasonic Incense, because I'm a nerd that's kinda techy and fun. Undecided if I like it. And I always run the filter, wattage is less than a led light, and cost a little (Filters aren't real cheap) but way less than my 'longevity' drugs. It could be dumb, but I have more info every day. If you're a hacker who follows through you can make one, mines un-assembled in the cupboard, discussion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20640114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20640114
- cycomanic 5y ago
  I fail to understand how this is related to the topic of scientific discoveries and the technology underlying it. Yes your personal discoveries might be based on purchasing a PM2.5 meter, but personal discoveries and understanding are not generally related to scientific discoveries or understanding. If you study e.g. quantum mechanics it will not generally advance our (as society) understanding of quantum mechanics. Maybe you will become a great quantum researcher and make discoveries but it will be your discoveries then that advance understanding
  - aaron695 5y ago
    If you want to jump back the the main article around the philosophy of science then yes not relevant. I haven't read the book but I'm not talking temporal consciousness, phenomenologists and philosophy and things. > it will be your discoveries then that advance understanding This in practical reality doesn't really happen. The philosophy fails here. I'm just talking analytically around what happens when people get a device that can measure 1/10 finer or how Excel has pushed science, not related to philosophy or theoretical ideas around purer sciences. More specifically citizen science like this not for profit air quality map - https://waqi.info/ https://waqi.info/ Tools to the people.

unobatbayar 5y ago

The bicycle for the mind.

femto 5y ago

The best tools are typically at the bleeding edge of technology, as the tool generally has to be of better quality than the thing being made/measured with it, so if you are going to make the best you need a tool that is better then the best (typically meaning it costs a lot). If you ever want a hard-core engineering job, go and work for a company that makes the things that make things, whether that be machine tools, electrical measurement equipment, production lines or whatever. For example, ASML make the tools that make chips. Keysight and Tektronix make the tools that measure production. They are just random names. The list goes on. The upper echelons of such companies are at the frontiers of engineering.

neltnerb 5y ago
I don't think this is generally true, there are lots of examples where you measure something with higher resolution than the tool's manufacturing precision (for instance, an STM) and similarly lots of examples where you use a lower precision tool to build a higher precision tool (for instance, a mill or lathe but optical focusing would also allow for a shrink if it weren't for the diffraction limit). But moving a generation forward in precision is good, you only ever get close to perfect with diminishing returns.

coldtea 5y ago

>I always say that important scientific discoveries arise from better tools I dunno, from Archimedes to Newton, and from Maxwell to Einstein, most important scientific discoveries arose from thinking breakthroughs (and led to better tools, as opposed to having been caused by them). The "better tools" at most helped verify it after it was expressed, not reach it. It's the incremental, evolutionary stuff, that's mostly helped by better tools...

DantesKite 5y ago
Not quite. That's a misconception. "The BS model: Science => Technology => Practice. Historically, the truth: Practice =>Technology =>"Scientific" misattribution" https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1419846623258103809?s=20 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1419846623258103809?s=20
- arpa 5y ago
  hmmm, how about "no". It really boils down to how you define science. If you define science as "published in peer reviewed journals" or "knee-deep in academia", the statement is correct. If, however, it's knowledge based on observation of phenomena (literally what science means), preferably with understanding why things happen (having a theory), it's so wrong, it's not even funny - it's a very dangerous standpoint, because the alternative to the scientific method is magic thinking and cargo cults.
  - knuthsat 5y ago
    Engineering existed way before any kind of math or symbolic manipulation. It was a collection of heuristics. Information theory came after people were already sending signals over the wire. Similarly, there were architectural feats before geometry or Newton’s laws were discovered.
    - arpa 5y ago
      was it not based on knowledge based on observation (science)? You don't need math and symbolic manipulation, not to mention information theory to do science, even if it helps immensely if you do use these tools!

cycomanic 5y ago

I would say that really it's both, unresolved questions (which can come from experiment or theory) often spur development of new measurement technology. On the other hand new measurement capabilities often spur new scientific discoveries.

prox 5y ago
Most new research comes when a researcher has to say “that’s funny…” aka, when something unexpected shows itself.

fumblebee 5y ago

> I always say that important scientific discoveries arise from better tools. This is something I hadn't thought about before, but it makes total sense. When I read that, my first thought for current technological toolage that might lead to new discoveries is the massive transformer language models that Open-AI / EleutherAI / others are building. Some basic extrapolation on how-far-how-soon technology like GPT-X has come suggests that future versions could (should?) be revolutionary for knowledge discovery.

mr_mitm 5y ago

> General relativity was a way to solve anomalies in the orbit of Mercury, something only detectable with precise measurement. Without it, general relativity would make no sense: why use all these complex formulas when Newton gravity works just as well? Send Einstein's work to the 16th century and it will be slashed by Occam's razor. I don't think that's entirely true. As far as I know, the Mercury precession anomaly wasn't considered a serious problem to Newton's theory at the time. Einstein was motivated by theoretical problems that arose from trying to reconcile Newton's theory with special relativity, which inspired him to take the principle of equivalence seriously: the notion that gravitational mass and inertial mass are fundamentally the same. This is what lead to the famous field equations. Their derivation is not some sort of reverse engineering of the Mercury precession anomaly. Someone wrote a few words about it here [1]. The fact that GR could explain the Mercury anomaly was a bonus. The break through, however, came with the first measurement of light being deflected by the sun during a solar eclipse. Einstein's GR truly came out of nowhere. [1] https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/622/what-was-einsteins-motivation-for-relativity-theory https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/622/what-was-einstei...

a9h74j 5y ago

You might be interested in older work by philosopher Larry Laudan. He posited mutual positive feedback (or co-evolution) between: a) better data; b) better models or theories; and c) better instruments. Basically agreeing with you. Likewise, he also noted that constructing better instruments is theory-dependent, as better theory allows a more complete understanding of sources of error (not to mention entirely new technologies). Laudan called his a "tri-partite" model, as I recall.