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“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” -Ernest Rutherford Is this stamp collecting? Do these exotic hadrons mean anything?
by Mistletoe 2y ago
“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” -Ernest Rutherford
Is this stamp collecting? Do these exotic hadrons mean anything?
- ur-whale 2y ago>Do these exotic hadrons mean anything? Given their horribly short lifespans, probably not much other than the fact that they manage to exist for however short a time might vindicate QFT a tad more (I'm assuming that QFT somewhat predicts their likelihood to show up). Or maybe they'll bring a deeper understanding of the strong force. But generally speaking, I feel you: lots of work and energy spent to create these exotic things, but that may or may not have an actual use or even meaning. A lot of science is like this these days, it looks like we're hitting exponentially diminishing returns (as in: useful applications) in some areas of science.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- iterance 2y agoThat quote isn't real; it was a metaphor Rutherford purportedly once used, posthumously recalled by John Bernal. It was incorrectly converted into a direct quotation by later writers. But even then, you're misunderstanding the quote, by which is meant that physics has supremacy and all other sciences are collecting specific instances of physics; the LHC is decidedly doing physics. However, even if you take the quote to mean what you imagined, it is unnecessarily cynical. LHC has advanced our understanding of physics.
- whatshisface 2y agoLearning about the properties of exotic hadrons clarifies our understanding of nuclear forces.
- olooney 2y agoMight be useful someday: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtotechnology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtotechnology