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Theoretical physics are theoretical; that seems to be the crux of her problem. And in that light it makes sense that she's become an influencer who makes conten
by farts_mckensy 2y ago
Theoretical physics are theoretical; that seems to be the crux of her problem. And in that light it makes sense that she's become an influencer who makes content instead of someone who devotes most of their time to advancing the science. Yes, oftentimes people will be paid to work on problems, and they'll end up in a cul-de-sac. That will be the case for the majority of the field in the case of something like quantum physics. But if we pay enough of these people to sit in rooms and work on problems, maybe one of them will figure something out. That's how science progresses.
- lazide 2y ago[flagged]
- farts_mckensy 2y agoThere is no evidence to suggest that string theorists designed the theory to be untestable.
- lazide 2y agoAfter this much time and that much work, how is it possible for a physics theory to not have a single testable/falsifiable prediction without it being intentional? It has been over 80 years. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_string_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_string_theory]. The evidence is in the absence.
- seanhunter 2y agoIt predicted supersymmetry, which has been experimentally disproved.
- zachf 2y agoThe kind of supersymmetry you’re referring to (global spacetime supersymmetry) is not required by string theory; this is a common misconception. Looking for super partners in a collider is actually only telling you about global supersymmetry, which unlike local supersymmetry is not a universal feature of string theory at low energy, in fact the opposite, it is probably non-generic. It so happens that a class of appealingly simple vacua do have this property, which led to some inappropriate optimism among string theorists that has entirely abated with more experiments. Unfortunately this has been widely misunderstood to rule out the whole enterprise of string theory, which is unreasonable for the reason stated above, it is much more likely to not see SUSY below the Planck scale. [0] (Unless you just like to mock string theorists for hoping that the universe would be kind to them.) Also global supersymmetry has not been experimentally disproved (how would you do this, even?) but it is true that current or even near-term experiments are not nearly sensitive enough to get close enough to answering this definitively, which is obviously upsetting. [0] https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/string+theory+FAQ#DoesSTPredictSupersymmetry https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/string+theory+FAQ#DoesSTPredic...
- seanhunter 2y agoNot intending to mock anyone and I don't know nearly enough physics to have a credible opinion either way. Thanks for your explanation.
- zachf 2y agoDon’t worry, I didn’t think you were :) you’re welcome!
- theendisney4 2y agoThat proves it! I mean, you should prove they didnt. If that sounds unreasonable we've made progress. Prove we didn't? Ill let myself out
- Shawnecy 2y agoExactly. Consistently untestable and unfalsifiable claims for decades has to be seriously questioned at some point, and I think we're well beyond that point. This is especially true for string theory. I'm particularly fond of how Angela Collier laid out the timeline of string theory in her video on it[0] as well as the consequences that science communication is now facing as a result. [0] = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kya_LXa_y1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kya_LXa_y1E
- farts_mckensy 2y agoThe same could've been said of atomic theory, neutrinos, gravitational waves, the higgs boson, cmb radiation, plate tectonics, and quantum mechanics at various points in time.
- Shawnecy 2y agoWeren't those all arrived at from a series of falsifiable predictions? What does string theory even predict that can be tested?
- mhh__ 2y agoAs a non string theorist my understanding was that string theory actually makes quite a lot of empirically verifiable statements, just that those statements are only interesting at either never or extremely high energies. I think ppl are asuming that sting theory comes from the meme about turning 1+1 = 2 into some massive integro differential equation. The world is rarely so simple.
- drdeca 2y agoI’ve heard that it also predicts at very low precision, some values that are practically measurable, and, unsurprisingly for how little precision these predictions have, these predictions are correct (I.e. the experimental results are within the predicted range). (Or, maybe “a prediction” rather than “predictions”? I only heard about one, and I forget what it was.)
- btilly 2y agoI think that you have half a point. You're absolutely right that just because people are paid to think about things, doesn't mean that they are making progress. And there is a lot of evidence that this is true today in the foundations of physics. However string theory was not intentionally untestable. In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRzQDyw5C3M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRzQDyw5C3M she gives a good history of why it was originally invented, what testable predictions it made, how it failed those tests. And then how string theorists who were trying to find relevance for their work tried to keep it going as it stumbled into being untestable.
- lazide 2y agoFair point, I guess. It’s easy to also see how it just mostly ended up there. Still. A problem.
- mhh__ 2y agoThis is a very cruel reading of string theory. Intentional? What?
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoHow is it "intentionally untestable"? I get that it is practically untestable, but as far as I know, there are people working to try to find some possible tests.
- dang 2y ago"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- lazide 2y agoHardly a shallow dismissal dang, as the replies show. It’s a very valid critique of where it has ended up, and goes right to the heart of the underlying problem. The challenge is if it’s intentional from the start, or merely ended up being intentional at the end eh? And the folks arguing that the underlying critique are false, as shown in the follow-ups, are wrong. If anything, it’s just getting downvotes because people don’t realize how on the nose it actually is, near as I can tell.
- dang 2y agoSorry, but your GP comment consisted of nothing but putdowns—not just of an entire field but of the people working in it. That is a classic shallow dismissal in the sense that we use the term. Not a borderline call!
- lazide 2y agoI guess we have a different definition of put downs eh? Noted, thanks.
- Koshkin 2y ago> enough of these people There’s more than enough already. (And, historically, you only need less than a dozen.)
- ants_everywhere 2y ago> (And, historically, you only need less than a dozen.) This seems initially like a pretty outlandish claim to me. Could you clarify what you're referring to here?
- btilly 2y agoI'm not the one you're replying to, but the claim seems very reasonable to me. Fundamental breakthroughs in how to think about scientific subjects usually are created by fairly small groups of people. A lot more people are involved in popularizing it, and then filling out the details. But it is rare for it to start with a large number of people. For example that list in the case of quantum mechanics was Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Louis de Broglie, Max Born, Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, and Erwin Schrödinger. You can think of this as the scientific version of the 2 pizza rule.
- feoren 2y agoHumans sure love this story. A dozen Founding Fathers created the United States. A dozen physicists invented quantum mechanics. A dozen innovators caused the Industrial Revolution. It's always wrong. Ask any of those dozen people where they got their ideas and (if they're honest) they'll each have another dozen people to name, and so on. Ask them who made minor contributions and suggestions and they'll again have dozens of people to name. Science is an ever-expanding body of work that always builds on its past successes and it's the height of naivete to reduce humanity's effort in a subject down to its few most visible people. It makes for good stories and trivia questions, but it's extremely far from the actual truth. And even if it were true: how could you possibly identify those dozen people beforehand? It'd be like walking into a publishing house and proclaiming that everyone there is stupid because they waste all this money on books that don't end up best-sellers. Why don't they just only invest in the future best-sellers? Are they stupid?