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Yes, I am sure that 99% of your colleagues would agree with you. But modern astrophysics seems to be stuck in a rut, wasting decades on string theory, and now s

Yes, I am sure that 99% of your colleagues would agree with you. But modern astrophysics seems to be stuck in a rut, wasting decades on string theory, and now steadfastly determined that no advancements beyond relativity quantum mechanics can ever be accomplished. Even discussing such is met with disdain, dismissiveness, and ridicule. And absolute confidence that this is the correct take. Now, I understand that the experimental evidence underpinning modern astrophysics is very, very sound. But if that is truly the end, and no further discoveries of any note are ever to be had beyond Solvay 1927… well, perhaps the modern astrophysics community should just collectively hang it up and start a landscaping business.

Mistletoe 4y ago
They could always switch fields to where we need help. People are still dying from cancer and Covid won’t be the last pandemic the human race encounters. We also need plumbers and air conditioner repairmen.
ianburrell 4y ago
String theory is not astrophysics but particle physics.
taylodl 4y ago
Wasting decades on String Theory? We've learned String Theory and Brane Theory both yield the same results as the Standard Model (QFT). Nowadays physicists use the model that makes the computations easiest for the problem at hand. My own thoughts as a well-learned armchair physicist is GR is the wrong model and Einstein's field equations aren't the right model allowing us to include gravity in QFT. This is what most actual physicists believe, and for good reason. Of course it's entirely possible that QFT is also the wrong model and we need a completely different model from everything we have today in order to form a theory of everything. That's what String Theory and Brane Theory attempted to do. The problem being is thus far the new models don't predict any different results than does the existing model - they all appear to be equivalent. But you can't know that unless you tried, so it's not a waste of time.

Mistletoe 4y ago

They could always switch fields to where we need help. People are still dying from cancer and Covid won’t be the last pandemic the human race encounters. We also need plumbers and air conditioner repairmen.

ianburrell 4y ago

String theory is not astrophysics but particle physics.

taylodl 4y ago

Wasting decades on String Theory? We've learned String Theory and Brane Theory both yield the same results as the Standard Model (QFT). Nowadays physicists use the model that makes the computations easiest for the problem at hand. My own thoughts as a well-learned armchair physicist is GR is the wrong model and Einstein's field equations aren't the right model allowing us to include gravity in QFT. This is what most actual physicists believe, and for good reason. Of course it's entirely possible that QFT is also the wrong model and we need a completely different model from everything we have today in order to form a theory of everything. That's what String Theory and Brane Theory attempted to do. The problem being is thus far the new models don't predict any different results than does the existing model - they all appear to be equivalent. But you can't know that unless you tried, so it's not a waste of time.