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I hate when people call it a “crisis” . Science has brought us amazing insights and capabilities. It's not in a crisis. They will simply have to shift gears and

I hate when people call it a “crisis” . Science has brought us amazing insights and capabilities. It's not in a crisis. They will simply have to shift gears and work on other projects if they have dug as far as they can for now with today's technology and mathematics. There is still plenty to spend human brain power on and physicists have plenty of new places to go to.

KolenCh 5y ago
Well, it is a crisis to people who bet their career in this field. These people are here to stay (in the field) and since there are no experimental progress that shed lights on fundamental physics, the effort of all these people are stuck in coming up with theories in existing paradigm that is still compatible with the increasingly more stringent limit from experimental physics. They didn't shift gears and work on other projects. The whole field bet in String Theory and are stuck. Like explained in the book "The Trouble with Physics", it is a career suicide for people not wanting to deal with String Theory and still be a theoretical physicists in high energy physics. One may say a similar crisis has happened by the end of 19-th century. All but a few peculiarity in Physics were explained by the then modern physics. Some thought theory of physics were almost "complete", and only later to find out a major paradigm shift (actually 2, quantum theory and relativity) completely changed the way we viewed physics, and now becomes our cornerstone to understand physics. AFAIK, physicists generally like this kind of crisis, some make a career chasing crisis, because this might be the hint of new physics and the next paradigm shift.
joe__f 5y ago
I absolutely agree with this. There's also a quote in the article from one of the scientists saying they don't like calling it a crisis
- KolenCh 5y ago
  You're quoting > “Some people call it a crisis. That has a pessimistic vibe associated to it and I don’t feel that way about it,” said Garcia Garcia. “It’s a time where I feel like we are on to something profound.” They are using past experience of a crisis (say from late 19-century) to infer what comes next is a major paradigm shift. This might very well be true, but we didn't know that. We should be optimistic about our career and the future of physics, true. But we should not be in denial that this is a crisis. There's absolutely no information (but hints) we have right now that tells you a breakthrough is coming. The next paradigm shift may happen in arbitrary far future, or may not happened at all if it is out of the reach of humanity. Also, people don't call it crisis just because we hit a wall. But we're hitting a half century wall now (since 1970s.)
pasquinelli 5y ago
i think you've defined the crisis. > They will simply have to shift gears and work on other projects if they have dug as far as they can for now with today's technology and mathematics. if that's what they simply have to do, is it being done?
piva00 5y ago
I get the same reaction. Makes me think if it isn't the current zeitgeist mindset of continuous and constant growth seeping into scientific evaluation by laypeople. Science doesn't need to constantly grow into all directions it has achieved at the same time, it's not a market competition. I feel that sometimes it gets evaluated as such by some media vehicles...

KolenCh 5y ago

Well, it is a crisis to people who bet their career in this field. These people are here to stay (in the field) and since there are no experimental progress that shed lights on fundamental physics, the effort of all these people are stuck in coming up with theories in existing paradigm that is still compatible with the increasingly more stringent limit from experimental physics. They didn't shift gears and work on other projects. The whole field bet in String Theory and are stuck. Like explained in the book "The Trouble with Physics", it is a career suicide for people not wanting to deal with String Theory and still be a theoretical physicists in high energy physics. One may say a similar crisis has happened by the end of 19-th century. All but a few peculiarity in Physics were explained by the then modern physics. Some thought theory of physics were almost "complete", and only later to find out a major paradigm shift (actually 2, quantum theory and relativity) completely changed the way we viewed physics, and now becomes our cornerstone to understand physics. AFAIK, physicists generally like this kind of crisis, some make a career chasing crisis, because this might be the hint of new physics and the next paradigm shift.

joe__f 5y ago

I absolutely agree with this. There's also a quote in the article from one of the scientists saying they don't like calling it a crisis

KolenCh 5y ago
You're quoting > “Some people call it a crisis. That has a pessimistic vibe associated to it and I don’t feel that way about it,” said Garcia Garcia. “It’s a time where I feel like we are on to something profound.” They are using past experience of a crisis (say from late 19-century) to infer what comes next is a major paradigm shift. This might very well be true, but we didn't know that. We should be optimistic about our career and the future of physics, true. But we should not be in denial that this is a crisis. There's absolutely no information (but hints) we have right now that tells you a breakthrough is coming. The next paradigm shift may happen in arbitrary far future, or may not happened at all if it is out of the reach of humanity. Also, people don't call it crisis just because we hit a wall. But we're hitting a half century wall now (since 1970s.)

pasquinelli 5y ago

i think you've defined the crisis. > They will simply have to shift gears and work on other projects if they have dug as far as they can for now with today's technology and mathematics. if that's what they simply have to do, is it being done?

piva00 5y ago

I get the same reaction. Makes me think if it isn't the current zeitgeist mindset of continuous and constant growth seeping into scientific evaluation by laypeople. Science doesn't need to constantly grow into all directions it has achieved at the same time, it's not a market competition. I feel that sometimes it gets evaluated as such by some media vehicles...