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So where are we now with physics, anyway? Converging on some kind of math/philosophy hybrid? Seems like as time goes by, these theories and constructs become mo

So where are we now with physics, anyway? Converging on some kind of math/philosophy hybrid? Seems like as time goes by, these theories and constructs become more elaborate and abstract, which makes it ever less likely that we'll have the capability to test their predictions.

LPTS 18y ago
String Theory is great math but maybe you cant prove it, and maybe for any way the experiments turn out, you could provide an interpretation of string theory that supports it. Meanwhile Chris King's Biocosmology, quantum loop gravity, orch OR, and doubly special relativity, all of which make really interesting predictions languish with not enough resources to study seriously, because string theorists dominate the academy. We're at the same place now with our science as we were in the dark ages where scientists were called alchemists and had to sit in church and say the right outdated things in order not to be exiled or burned at the stake, basically.
jerf 18y ago
Check out this Google Talk, "Why Physicists Need the Large Hadron Collider": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8xwSfuY8xA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8xwSfuY8xA The problem is that particle physics has a model that perfectly predicts every experiment we've done. However, it is aesthetically unappealing, and even more damning, we know it can't scale to explain everything in the universe. However, until one of our experiments actually does something unexpected, we're sort of twiddling our fingers. In the video, the guy mentions that the worst case scenario for the LHC is to precisely confirm the standard model with no surprises. One person asks him something about what he'd do in that case (the question was muffled), and he replied that his reaction to this conundrum was to develop a sideline in quantum computing, since particle physics is really going nowhere until someone runs an experiment that contradicts the Standard Model. In the meantime, a lot of other physicists spend their time spinning various weird, mutually-contradictory theories as a way to try to find an experiment they can run that would actually generate usable data. The continuous-vs-discrete reality question is scheduled to be investigated by a NASA satellite experiment at some point in the indefinite future, but who knows when it'll actually happen. In the meantime, we've got a lot of smart people stalled on having no (useful) data.

LPTS 18y ago

String Theory is great math but maybe you cant prove it, and maybe for any way the experiments turn out, you could provide an interpretation of string theory that supports it. Meanwhile Chris King's Biocosmology, quantum loop gravity, orch OR, and doubly special relativity, all of which make really interesting predictions languish with not enough resources to study seriously, because string theorists dominate the academy. We're at the same place now with our science as we were in the dark ages where scientists were called alchemists and had to sit in church and say the right outdated things in order not to be exiled or burned at the stake, basically.

jerf 18y ago

Check out this Google Talk, "Why Physicists Need the Large Hadron Collider": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8xwSfuY8xA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8xwSfuY8xA The problem is that particle physics has a model that perfectly predicts every experiment we've done. However, it is aesthetically unappealing, and even more damning, we know it can't scale to explain everything in the universe. However, until one of our experiments actually does something unexpected, we're sort of twiddling our fingers. In the video, the guy mentions that the worst case scenario for the LHC is to precisely confirm the standard model with no surprises. One person asks him something about what he'd do in that case (the question was muffled), and he replied that his reaction to this conundrum was to develop a sideline in quantum computing, since particle physics is really going nowhere until someone runs an experiment that contradicts the Standard Model. In the meantime, a lot of other physicists spend their time spinning various weird, mutually-contradictory theories as a way to try to find an experiment they can run that would actually generate usable data. The continuous-vs-discrete reality question is scheduled to be investigated by a NASA satellite experiment at some point in the indefinite future, but who knows when it'll actually happen. In the meantime, we've got a lot of smart people stalled on having no (useful) data.