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Lots of physics experiments are actually thought experiments, they don't require money. The motions of the planets and stars had been largely mapped for more th

Lots of physics experiments are actually thought experiments, they don't require money. The motions of the planets and stars had been largely mapped for more than 50 years or more by the time Newton came up with his novel mathematical description of them. > Evolution of ideas is plausible, but it suggests a remarkably homogeneous intellectual environment in a time where communication was expensive. Science doesn't often advance alone, it requires communication between scientists. And that same communication spreads ideas among those scientists, until they build a common understanding.

roenxi 3y ago
> Lots of physics experiments are actually thought experiments It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. There are an infinite number of logically consistent mathematical models of universes out there, only a small subset of them match up reasonably well to the one we exist in. Science requires experiment. It doesn't have to be the same person doing the experimenter and interpreting the results, true enough, but the interpreter is still bottlenecked by data collection. > Science doesn't often advance alone, it requires communication between scientists No it doesn't. The whole point of this thread is that science often advances in parallel with no communication between scientists. Once the raw data has been collected - which is an economic issue - or conditions arise where a new problem needs to be solved - also economics - then it is a relatively short matter of time until someone comes up with a compelling theory. One very bright scientist can often exhaust a big chunk of what can be deduced from the currently collected data. And the implication of this is every time there is an economic advance in the cost of data collection there will be a big boom in scientific understanding. People rediscover calculus to this day, every so often we all get a laugh because some very bright doctor figures out he can sum rectangles under a curve. The only limiting factor is whether people realise that they need to describe curves, areas and tangents precisely.
- GTP 3y ago
  > It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. Thought experiments are an important tool used by many brilliant physicists when it is not possible to carry an actual experiment yet. Their usefulness is in the opposite of what you say: sure, they can't prove a teory correct, but they can point out potential problems by finding contradictions. As an example, here you can find a famous and very important thought experiment in the field of thermodynamics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon
- throwaway8877 3y ago
  > It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. Tell that to Einstein.
- mannykannot 3y ago
  > The whole point of this thread is that science often advances in parallel with no communication between scientists. I can only suppose that you are taking 'communication' to mean only direct communication via face-to face conversation or the exchange of letters, but communication is a transitive operation, and, in fact, your thesis is tacitly predicated on this leading to the dissemination of knowledge. The more I learn about the actual history of science (as opposed to 'scientific genius' hagiography) the clearer this becomes. If you are looking for an economic perspective on this, the emergence of the infrastructure of academic publication would be a good place to start.
- ajkjk 3y ago
  >It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. There are an infinite number of logically consistent mathematical models of universes out there, only a small subset of them match up reasonably well to the one we exist in. Strongly disagree. The mathematical universes are heavily ordered by their simplicity and logical consistency and you can sort through them with thought alone. Also, anyway, the act of 'doing physics' includes a lot more than the somewhat small category of 'testing hypotheses with experiment'. It's like 95% model building and 5% experiment.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  > Science requires experiment. Sure, but for the vast majority of physical theories before electrodynamics, our senses plus a few ancient instruments (meter sticks, hourglass, scales) were plenty enough. Galileo's relativity principle and his observation that all objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum were based on thought experiments and physical intuition, not actual experiment (apparently, he did try later to actually perform the experiment, but I think it didn't really work). > The whole point of this thread is that science often advances in parallel with no communication between scientists. Once the raw data has been collected - which is an economic issue - or conditions arise where a new problem needs to be solved - also economics - then it is a relatively short matter of time until someone comes up with a compelling theory. Sure, people can discover things in isolation. But science only advances when others learn of those things and can build upon them. Neither Newton nor Galileo nor the person in the article invented all of their theories from first principles - they were building on lots of thought and ideas that they had learned from other scientists. > People rediscover calculus to this day, every so often we all get a laugh because some very bright doctor figures out he can sum rectangles under a curve. Actually, calculating surface areas in this way is very very old - according to this Science article [0], it was already in use around 50 BCE. So it's not actually surprising that it has been rediscovered independently. I don't think much of Newton's work has been, apart from Leibniz (though that might also be because it's been so widely disseminated afterwards). [0] https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aad8085 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aad8085

roenxi 3y ago

> Lots of physics experiments are actually thought experiments It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. There are an infinite number of logically consistent mathematical models of universes out there, only a small subset of them match up reasonably well to the one we exist in. Science requires experiment. It doesn't have to be the same person doing the experimenter and interpreting the results, true enough, but the interpreter is still bottlenecked by data collection. > Science doesn't often advance alone, it requires communication between scientists No it doesn't. The whole point of this thread is that science often advances in parallel with no communication between scientists. Once the raw data has been collected - which is an economic issue - or conditions arise where a new problem needs to be solved - also economics - then it is a relatively short matter of time until someone comes up with a compelling theory. One very bright scientist can often exhaust a big chunk of what can be deduced from the currently collected data. And the implication of this is every time there is an economic advance in the cost of data collection there will be a big boom in scientific understanding. People rediscover calculus to this day, every so often we all get a laugh because some very bright doctor figures out he can sum rectangles under a curve. The only limiting factor is whether people realise that they need to describe curves, areas and tangents precisely.

GTP 3y ago
> It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. Thought experiments are an important tool used by many brilliant physicists when it is not possible to carry an actual experiment yet. Their usefulness is in the opposite of what you say: sure, they can't prove a teory correct, but they can point out potential problems by finding contradictions. As an example, here you can find a famous and very important thought experiment in the field of thermodynamics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon
throwaway8877 3y ago
> It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. Tell that to Einstein.
mannykannot 3y ago
> The whole point of this thread is that science often advances in parallel with no communication between scientists. I can only suppose that you are taking 'communication' to mean only direct communication via face-to face conversation or the exchange of letters, but communication is a transitive operation, and, in fact, your thesis is tacitly predicated on this leading to the dissemination of knowledge. The more I learn about the actual history of science (as opposed to 'scientific genius' hagiography) the clearer this becomes. If you are looking for an economic perspective on this, the emergence of the infrastructure of academic publication would be a good place to start.
ajkjk 3y ago
>It is impossible to do physics by thought experiments. There are an infinite number of logically consistent mathematical models of universes out there, only a small subset of them match up reasonably well to the one we exist in. Strongly disagree. The mathematical universes are heavily ordered by their simplicity and logical consistency and you can sort through them with thought alone. Also, anyway, the act of 'doing physics' includes a lot more than the somewhat small category of 'testing hypotheses with experiment'. It's like 95% model building and 5% experiment.
tsimionescu 3y ago
> Science requires experiment. Sure, but for the vast majority of physical theories before electrodynamics, our senses plus a few ancient instruments (meter sticks, hourglass, scales) were plenty enough. Galileo's relativity principle and his observation that all objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum were based on thought experiments and physical intuition, not actual experiment (apparently, he did try later to actually perform the experiment, but I think it didn't really work). > The whole point of this thread is that science often advances in parallel with no communication between scientists. Once the raw data has been collected - which is an economic issue - or conditions arise where a new problem needs to be solved - also economics - then it is a relatively short matter of time until someone comes up with a compelling theory. Sure, people can discover things in isolation. But science only advances when others learn of those things and can build upon them. Neither Newton nor Galileo nor the person in the article invented all of their theories from first principles - they were building on lots of thought and ideas that they had learned from other scientists. > People rediscover calculus to this day, every so often we all get a laugh because some very bright doctor figures out he can sum rectangles under a curve. Actually, calculating surface areas in this way is very very old - according to this Science article [0], it was already in use around 50 BCE. So it's not actually surprising that it has been rediscovered independently. I don't think much of Newton's work has been, apart from Leibniz (though that might also be because it's been so widely disseminated afterwards). [0] https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aad8085 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aad8085