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Physics is very broad and encompasses concepts at all scales (from subatomic to cosmological scales) and all levels of complexity——“Complex systems” is a branch

by pama 3y ago

Physics is very broad and encompasses concepts at all scales (from subatomic to cosmological scales) and all levels of complexity——“Complex systems” is a branch of physics. Economics is a form of applied philosophy that is not yet mature enough when compared to most branches of physics and is significantly smaller in total volume of published literature when compared with all branches of physics put together. Economics does however affect policy and politics directly in the last hundred years or so, whereas physics ends up guiding the technology, which eventually feeds back to society in multiple indirect ways. Physics did have a lot of early bloomers in its young branches eg, quantum mechanics, semiconductors, lasers, computational physics, but it also tends to split up and create a new branch whenever there is a new part of the world that needs some explaining. I’d expect that with economics increasingly becoming a data-driven science, including what used to be macro economics, there will be new crowds of young people blooming until the computational simulation models become much better and practical compared to any simplified high level models we’ve had in the past. A similar transformation is already well underway in physics, where computational physics and simulation have altered the course of the study of complex systems in all branches of physics from condensed to soft matter, astronomy to particle physics, polymer, and biophysics.

whimsicalism 3y ago
Agreed. I didn’t bother replying because I thought it was obvious how they were wrong but as someone who has worked in condensed matter, the ‘simple systems’ claim is ridiculous.
jltsiren 3y ago
Physics is simple, because it studies reality at the fundamental level. New ideas in philosophy / religion / politics / art rarely change how physical systems work. Because physics is so self-contained, you can become good at it by studying primarily physics. Economics is complex, because it depends on every other human activity. You can't become good at economics by studying it. You also have to study everything else.

by pama 3y ago

whimsicalism 3y ago

Agreed. I didn’t bother replying because I thought it was obvious how they were wrong but as someone who has worked in condensed matter, the ‘simple systems’ claim is ridiculous.

jltsiren 3y ago

Physics is simple, because it studies reality at the fundamental level. New ideas in philosophy / religion / politics / art rarely change how physical systems work. Because physics is so self-contained, you can become good at it by studying primarily physics. Economics is complex, because it depends on every other human activity. You can't become good at economics by studying it. You also have to study everything else.