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John Carlos Baez thinks Sabine has a point. https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/113285631281744111 https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/113285631281744111

by nabla9 2y ago

John Carlos Baez thinks Sabine has a point. https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/113285631281744111 https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/113285631281744111 >Despite the silly clickbait title of this video, Sabine says a lot of interesting stuff in it: her criticism of claimed deviations from Lorentz invariance in loop quantum gravity is about as good as you'll get from anyone who hasn't actually worked on loop quantum gravity. I worked on it for about 10 years, and the situation is even a bit worse than she makes it sound.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dang 2y ago
I know people have strong reactions to her and her sensational style, but that is a serious recommendation from a knowledgeable person, so I think we can give this thread a second chance. (Someone emailed and asked us to.) All: please let's keep the comments on topic and substantive (and avoid the sensationalism and personality aspects). Edit: this subthread was getting too off-topic so I moved the replies to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41814764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41814764. Feel free to reply there if you want.
notamy 2y ago
> John Carlos Baez For those like me who didn't know, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Baez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Baez > John Carlos Baez (/ˈbaɪ.ɛz/;[2] born June 12, 1961) is an American mathematical physicist and a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Riverside (UCR)[3] in Riverside, California. He has worked on spin foams in loop quantum gravity, applications of higher categories to physics, and applied category theory. Additionally, Baez is known on the World Wide Web as the author of the crackpot index.
- dang 2y ago
  And https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=johncarlosbaez https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=johncarlosbaez! Perhaps he'll contribute to this thread (or perhaps it would waste his time)
- lamontcg 2y ago
  And he was known on Usenet and sci.physics before the World Wide Web was invented...
- AdamH12113 2y ago
  He was also a long-time maintainer of the Usenet Physics FAQ and has been writing about physics and mathematics on the internet for decades. So not only is he the real deal in terms of knowledge, he also has a long history of communicating that knowledge to the public, albeit typically for a more advanced audience.
- btilly 2y ago
  He is better known within physics as the author of This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics, an archive of which is at https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/TWF.html https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/TWF.html. His more current blog is available at https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/ https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/.
hggigg 2y ago
30 years ago I spoke to a fairly well known and regarded physicist who said something rather interesting along the same lines. Quoting as accurately as I can "physics looks sexy from the outside due to some celebrities but inside it's mostly worse than anyone wants to admit.". He also suggested I go and study mathematics instead because at least there will likely be some applications for it. I did and I am glad I did.
- Gooblebrai 2y ago
  Sounds like this criticism would be valid for fundamental physics but there are many other physics fields with experimental results that become technology.
  - retrocryptid 2y ago
    if you want to do applications, engineering will get you a 10% higher salary for the same job.
  - jerf 2y ago
    Yes, there's definitely some interesting fields that are making progress that are still in the purview of "physics". Materials science, or condensed matter physics, is doing a lot of fascinating work with quasiparticles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle There's a number of fields you could call "quantum engineering" where physics and engineering work together on the cutting edge. Some of the output of that is why our TVs are so good. There's a lot of work to be done on how big systems, where "big systems" can be as small as hundreds or even dozens of atoms, behave, where you can't "just" throw the whole wavefunction into a computer and crunch away on it. It's particle physics that seems to be stuck in a rut. Fundamentally, they're starved for useful data. Until that is resolved, the science really isn't going anywhere. Since people on the internet frequently seem to operate on the silly theory that someone pointing out a problem has some sort of obligation to propose a solution, let me say outright I have no more clue how to resolve this than anyone else does, except to hope that some sort of other progress in other fields creates new opportunities for new experiments.

by nabla9 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dang 2y ago

I know people have strong reactions to her and her sensational style, but that is a serious recommendation from a knowledgeable person, so I think we can give this thread a second chance. (Someone emailed and asked us to.) All: please let's keep the comments on topic and substantive (and avoid the sensationalism and personality aspects). Edit: this subthread was getting too off-topic so I moved the replies to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41814764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41814764. Feel free to reply there if you want.

notamy 2y ago

> John Carlos Baez For those like me who didn't know, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Baez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Baez > John Carlos Baez (/ˈbaɪ.ɛz/;[2] born June 12, 1961) is an American mathematical physicist and a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Riverside (UCR)[3] in Riverside, California. He has worked on spin foams in loop quantum gravity, applications of higher categories to physics, and applied category theory. Additionally, Baez is known on the World Wide Web as the author of the crackpot index.

dang 2y ago
And https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=johncarlosbaez https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=johncarlosbaez! Perhaps he'll contribute to this thread (or perhaps it would waste his time)
lamontcg 2y ago
And he was known on Usenet and sci.physics before the World Wide Web was invented...
AdamH12113 2y ago
He was also a long-time maintainer of the Usenet Physics FAQ and has been writing about physics and mathematics on the internet for decades. So not only is he the real deal in terms of knowledge, he also has a long history of communicating that knowledge to the public, albeit typically for a more advanced audience.
btilly 2y ago
He is better known within physics as the author of This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics, an archive of which is at https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/TWF.html https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/TWF.html. His more current blog is available at https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/ https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/.

hggigg 2y ago

30 years ago I spoke to a fairly well known and regarded physicist who said something rather interesting along the same lines. Quoting as accurately as I can "physics looks sexy from the outside due to some celebrities but inside it's mostly worse than anyone wants to admit.". He also suggested I go and study mathematics instead because at least there will likely be some applications for it. I did and I am glad I did.

Gooblebrai 2y ago
Sounds like this criticism would be valid for fundamental physics but there are many other physics fields with experimental results that become technology.
- retrocryptid 2y ago
  if you want to do applications, engineering will get you a 10% higher salary for the same job.
- jerf 2y ago
  Yes, there's definitely some interesting fields that are making progress that are still in the purview of "physics". Materials science, or condensed matter physics, is doing a lot of fascinating work with quasiparticles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle There's a number of fields you could call "quantum engineering" where physics and engineering work together on the cutting edge. Some of the output of that is why our TVs are so good. There's a lot of work to be done on how big systems, where "big systems" can be as small as hundreds or even dozens of atoms, behave, where you can't "just" throw the whole wavefunction into a computer and crunch away on it. It's particle physics that seems to be stuck in a rut. Fundamentally, they're starved for useful data. Until that is resolved, the science really isn't going anywhere. Since people on the internet frequently seem to operate on the silly theory that someone pointing out a problem has some sort of obligation to propose a solution, let me say outright I have no more clue how to resolve this than anyone else does, except to hope that some sort of other progress in other fields creates new opportunities for new experiments.