7 ms·

Oh jesus christ, the constant whining! This is science. This is how it works. Maybe there's nothing else to discover, maybe it will take us 100 years, we don't

Oh jesus christ, the constant whining! This is science. This is how it works. Maybe there's nothing else to discover, maybe it will take us 100 years, we don't know, that's why it's called research.

denton-scratch 4y ago
> Maybe there's nothing else to discover AFAICS that is not one of the options; there are mysteries and contradictions whose explanations remain to be discovered. But maybe we can't discover more using the LHC (which I doubt).
- prionassembly 4y ago
  There's the mythology of the heavens being held up by the titan Atlas, who rests on top of a cow, which rests on top of a turtle... the kiddy version continues on top of another turtle, on top of... I once had a vision -- yes, a vision, something deep came to me as I laid half-awake -- that after a few dozen turtles the actual ground was made of jackstraw[1]. It rested on a firm tangle. I've always felt since then that the world and the universe themselves are made of contradictions. That some contradictions are fundamental, and this is why since Socrates we've always been so focused on finding contradictions. Because maybe we can find the ones we can't pick apart. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick-up_sticks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick-up_sticks
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > the world and the universe themselves are made of contradictions. In logic, it's said that from a contradiction you can validly deduce any proposition. The idea that contradictions are fundamental is horrifying; it implies that any attempt to reason about the world is doomed. I don't know how it would affect me if I believed that. I hope you have a good therapist!
Grimburger 4y ago
> Maybe there's nothing else to discover, maybe it will take us 100 years, we don't know, that's why it's called research. At what price?
- highwaylights 4y ago
  Less than it cost to research, develop and manufacture all of the components in the device you typed this on.
  - Grimburger 4y ago
    I'd put that amortised cost at about $1000 upfront in 2022 dollars for my high quality internet comment and many others like it. If you need high energy, pure vacuums and ultra low temps, surely space is where such experiments should be conducted on bigger scales in future to push it further?
    - highwaylights 4y ago
      I can't speak to whether it would cost less to do these experiments in space, I'm no expert on the colliding of particles and the implications thereof. In any case - how much of that $1000 is attributed to the research and development of the wheel in Ancient Mesopotamia? How much is attributed to the discovery of electricity, and to General Relativity? If we weren't attempting to get answers to fundamental questions we'd still be living in caves.
      - Grimburger 4y ago
        Fair chunk of the cost is people working for slave wages in Asia and has nothing to do with with ancient Mesopotamia, let's be honest and not disingenuous here. Are you actually interested in discussing the topic at hand?
        headmelted 4y ago
        Ok. Slave wages too. My point is that all technology is built on prior discoveries and all matter of other factors that produce the civilisation, that produces doohickies, to look up cat memes.
pizzaknife 4y ago
literally my sentiments exactly. Next thing you know, someone will be clamoring to make the LHC a profit center and complain about its solvency! edit: I have no dog in the fight, but I do appreciate the concept of "Art for Art's sake." To me, the LHC embodies the physics equiv of that statement.
- japanuspus 4y ago
  You do realize that most of the money for LHC end up in industry, not academia?
  - pizzaknife 4y ago
    could you rephrase this question?
Certhas 4y ago
You are mischaracterize what's happening entirely. The article is not whining and it's not claiming that this is somehow shaking the foundations of science. But we are potentially in the middle (or even at the end) of a monumental shift inside physics. Particle physics produced fantastic discoveries over the second half of the twentieth century and it might just have hit a major major wall (or in the lingo of the field, encountered a desert) where we can not expect new discoveries in the next decades or centuries. If that's so it will mean a major restructuring of the field of physics. It has vast implications for researchers that chose what to work on or whom to fund. Yes it's all part of research, but the flavor and type of research in one of the most prominent fields of science is undergoing a massive shift. That's news that's well suited for a publication called Science. And it reflects genuine scientific debate that's been going on for more than a decade on the inside.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  It would make sense to more resources to other fields. But institutions don't tend to dismantle themselves, so I expect a few decades of "we might find something soon!" until the leaders have retired.
  - ced 4y ago
    > In 1973, professor Sir James Lighthill was asked by the UK Parliament to evaluate the state of AI research in the United Kingdom. His report, now called the Lighthill report, criticized the utter failure of AI to achieve its "grandiose objectives." He concluded that nothing being done in AI couldn't be done in other sciences. He specifically mentioned the problem of "combinatorial explosion" or "intractability", which implied that many of AI's most successful algorithms would grind to a halt on real world problems and were only suitable for solving "toy" versions.[15] > The report led to the complete dismantling of AI research in England.[15] AI research continued in only a few universities (Edinburgh, Essex and Sussex). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter
    - awhitby 4y ago
bmitc 4y ago
Funding is not infinite.
tokai 4y ago
Which whining? From the article: >It’s too early to despair, many physicists say or >“I very much doubt that in 20 years, I will say, ‘Oh, boy, after the Higgs discovery we learned nothing new.’” The whole article is about how the upgrade to the LHC will give more precision and more data. Even if it was whining, critiquing and bickering over the status quo very much a cornerstone of science. Your annoyance looks like something coming from a place of dogmatism..
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
Are the folks who allocate funding unserstanding of this predicament, the possibility that it will take 100 years to discover anything else?
spicymaki 4y ago
> This is science. This is how it works. Maybe there's nothing else to discover, maybe it will take us 100 years, we don't know, that's why it's called research. I think the argument is not whether we invest in research or not, but are we putting our limited resources into viable research or not. Sabine Hossenfelder argues that many researchers are more interested in testing their pet theory based on mathematical beauty than actually working on more boring forms of fundamental research. This imbalance leads to poor returns on research investments.
adamsmith143 4y ago
>Maybe there's nothing else to discover This is fundamentally wrong. We know the Standard Model is not the final theory of Physics so there are still things to discover.
- NateEag 4y ago
  If you think the Simulation Hypothesis has any merit whatsoever, you should consider the possibility that the Simulation does not have a fully-consistent engine, just one that was "close enough". Note, of course, that the same could be true in a coincidentally-generated universe, as well as a deistic or theistic one (the latter two being effectively indistinguishable from a Simulation).
  - adamsmith143 4y ago
    Not sure it's worth thinking about. You would think that a sufficiently powerful simulation could procedurally generate an arbitrary level of detail so there wouldn't really be gaps.
    - NateEag 4y ago
      Only with a perfect procedural algorithm. Which may not fit with any hypothetical Simulator's goals, anyway. Most games don't feature an absolutely perfect Newtonian physics engine. The physics is just a means to an end, not the fundamental point of the whole endeavor.
  - astrange 4y ago
    It must have a pretty good physics engine since we don’t see any strange artifacts in the sky from the times pre-cosmic inflation. In particular, it can’t be very quantized or we’d see giant “upscaling” artifacts. It also appears to give us exactly enough computational power to build quantum computers, but not any more than that. That seems like a pretty inconvenient choice for us and the simulators.
    - NateEag 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Oh jesus christ, the constant whining! This is science. This is how it works. Maybe there's nothing else to discover, maybe it will take us 100 years, we don't know, that's why it's called research.

denton-scratch 4y ago

> Maybe there's nothing else to discover AFAICS that is not one of the options; there are mysteries and contradictions whose explanations remain to be discovered. But maybe we can't discover more using the LHC (which I doubt).

prionassembly 4y ago
There's the mythology of the heavens being held up by the titan Atlas, who rests on top of a cow, which rests on top of a turtle... the kiddy version continues on top of another turtle, on top of... I once had a vision -- yes, a vision, something deep came to me as I laid half-awake -- that after a few dozen turtles the actual ground was made of jackstraw[1]. It rested on a firm tangle. I've always felt since then that the world and the universe themselves are made of contradictions. That some contradictions are fundamental, and this is why since Socrates we've always been so focused on finding contradictions. Because maybe we can find the ones we can't pick apart. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick-up_sticks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick-up_sticks
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > the world and the universe themselves are made of contradictions. In logic, it's said that from a contradiction you can validly deduce any proposition. The idea that contradictions are fundamental is horrifying; it implies that any attempt to reason about the world is doomed. I don't know how it would affect me if I believed that. I hope you have a good therapist!

Grimburger 4y ago

> Maybe there's nothing else to discover, maybe it will take us 100 years, we don't know, that's why it's called research. At what price?

highwaylights 4y ago
Less than it cost to research, develop and manufacture all of the components in the device you typed this on.
- Grimburger 4y ago
  I'd put that amortised cost at about $1000 upfront in 2022 dollars for my high quality internet comment and many others like it. If you need high energy, pure vacuums and ultra low temps, surely space is where such experiments should be conducted on bigger scales in future to push it further?
  - highwaylights 4y ago
    I can't speak to whether it would cost less to do these experiments in space, I'm no expert on the colliding of particles and the implications thereof. In any case - how much of that $1000 is attributed to the research and development of the wheel in Ancient Mesopotamia? How much is attributed to the discovery of electricity, and to General Relativity? If we weren't attempting to get answers to fundamental questions we'd still be living in caves.
    - Grimburger 4y ago
      Fair chunk of the cost is people working for slave wages in Asia and has nothing to do with with ancient Mesopotamia, let's be honest and not disingenuous here. Are you actually interested in discussing the topic at hand?
      - headmelted 4y ago
        Ok. Slave wages too. My point is that all technology is built on prior discoveries and all matter of other factors that produce the civilisation, that produces doohickies, to look up cat memes.

pizzaknife 4y ago

literally my sentiments exactly. Next thing you know, someone will be clamoring to make the LHC a profit center and complain about its solvency! edit: I have no dog in the fight, but I do appreciate the concept of "Art for Art's sake." To me, the LHC embodies the physics equiv of that statement.

japanuspus 4y ago
You do realize that most of the money for LHC end up in industry, not academia?
- pizzaknife 4y ago
  could you rephrase this question?

Certhas 4y ago

You are mischaracterize what's happening entirely. The article is not whining and it's not claiming that this is somehow shaking the foundations of science. But we are potentially in the middle (or even at the end) of a monumental shift inside physics. Particle physics produced fantastic discoveries over the second half of the twentieth century and it might just have hit a major major wall (or in the lingo of the field, encountered a desert) where we can not expect new discoveries in the next decades or centuries. If that's so it will mean a major restructuring of the field of physics. It has vast implications for researchers that chose what to work on or whom to fund. Yes it's all part of research, but the flavor and type of research in one of the most prominent fields of science is undergoing a massive shift. That's news that's well suited for a publication called Science. And it reflects genuine scientific debate that's been going on for more than a decade on the inside.

BurningFrog 4y ago
It would make sense to more resources to other fields. But institutions don't tend to dismantle themselves, so I expect a few decades of "we might find something soon!" until the leaders have retired.
- ced 4y ago
  > In 1973, professor Sir James Lighthill was asked by the UK Parliament to evaluate the state of AI research in the United Kingdom. His report, now called the Lighthill report, criticized the utter failure of AI to achieve its "grandiose objectives." He concluded that nothing being done in AI couldn't be done in other sciences. He specifically mentioned the problem of "combinatorial explosion" or "intractability", which implied that many of AI's most successful algorithms would grind to a halt on real world problems and were only suitable for solving "toy" versions.[15] > The report led to the complete dismantling of AI research in England.[15] AI research continued in only a few universities (Edinburgh, Essex and Sussex). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter
  - awhitby 4y ago

bmitc 4y ago

Funding is not infinite.

tokai 4y ago

Which whining? From the article: >It’s too early to despair, many physicists say or >“I very much doubt that in 20 years, I will say, ‘Oh, boy, after the Higgs discovery we learned nothing new.’” The whole article is about how the upgrade to the LHC will give more precision and more data. Even if it was whining, critiquing and bickering over the status quo very much a cornerstone of science. Your annoyance looks like something coming from a place of dogmatism..

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

Are the folks who allocate funding unserstanding of this predicament, the possibility that it will take 100 years to discover anything else?

spicymaki 4y ago

> This is science. This is how it works. Maybe there's nothing else to discover, maybe it will take us 100 years, we don't know, that's why it's called research. I think the argument is not whether we invest in research or not, but are we putting our limited resources into viable research or not. Sabine Hossenfelder argues that many researchers are more interested in testing their pet theory based on mathematical beauty than actually working on more boring forms of fundamental research. This imbalance leads to poor returns on research investments.

adamsmith143 4y ago

>Maybe there's nothing else to discover This is fundamentally wrong. We know the Standard Model is not the final theory of Physics so there are still things to discover.

NateEag 4y ago
If you think the Simulation Hypothesis has any merit whatsoever, you should consider the possibility that the Simulation does not have a fully-consistent engine, just one that was "close enough". Note, of course, that the same could be true in a coincidentally-generated universe, as well as a deistic or theistic one (the latter two being effectively indistinguishable from a Simulation).
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  Not sure it's worth thinking about. You would think that a sufficiently powerful simulation could procedurally generate an arbitrary level of detail so there wouldn't really be gaps.
  - NateEag 4y ago
    Only with a perfect procedural algorithm. Which may not fit with any hypothetical Simulator's goals, anyway. Most games don't feature an absolutely perfect Newtonian physics engine. The physics is just a means to an end, not the fundamental point of the whole endeavor.
- astrange 4y ago
  It must have a pretty good physics engine since we don’t see any strange artifacts in the sky from the times pre-cosmic inflation. In particular, it can’t be very quantized or we’d see giant “upscaling” artifacts. It also appears to give us exactly enough computational power to build quantum computers, but not any more than that. That seems like a pretty inconvenient choice for us and the simulators.
  - NateEag 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]