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Just look at HN. Nominally an educated crowd, but talk about physics, and you immediately see terms like "ivory towers" or "return on investment", despite the f

Just look at HN. Nominally an educated crowd, but talk about physics, and you immediately see terms like "ivory towers" or "return on investment", despite the fact that most on HN doesn't understand in fundamental science works.

nradov 1y ago
A lot of the complaints here about physics have to do with focusing so heavily for decades on string theory (or M-theory) which hasn't produced much in the way of practical results. At some point we have to quit throwing good money after bad and redirect funding towards other lines of inquiry.
- OccamsMirror 1y ago
  Is the purpose of life purely to seek a monetary return on investment?
  - nradov 1y ago
    Is the purpose of theoretical physics purely to seek mathematical innovations with no connection to objective reality?
    - Yossarrian22 1y ago
      Define objective
- bxsioshc 1y ago
  [dead]
- nathan_compton 1y ago
  Yes, but this is cartoon shit. String theory was a major research program in theoretical physics for a few decades but theoretical physics involves quite a lot more than string theory and physics involves quite a lot more than theoretical physics and if you stacked up all the budgets you'd find that string theory is a minor footnote. And also, its been a few decades since people took it very seriously as a strong candidate for a TOE. I really don't get it. As a total amount of any budget from any perspective, string theory has always been a blip whose cultural impact is much wider than its actual budgetary one. Like this critique about string theory is just a thing that people who are physics "enthusiasts" say and even to the extent that it is true, its really been more than a decade since it was a problem.
  - bxsioshc 1y ago
    [dead]
  - bluGill 1y ago
    The problem is string theory was pushed by people who were really good at getting attention and so they appeared to be outsized. Eventually everyone realized they were never making good on their promises and it was time to quit given them money - but most people who are not physics insiders don't really understand the other parts and so the total budget was cut to punish string theory - but by more than just the string theory part. There is a warning above about something, but I'm not sure exactly what.
    - nathan_compton 1y ago
      I actually think that for the most part string theory and its detractors and its rise and fall have had little effect on total physics budgets in the last 30 years. I will say that theoretical physics is in a hard spot, but the problem isn't string theory. It is that we are short experimental data because the domain of validity of our theories is currently somewhat larger (in most obvious ways, anyway) than the domains we can reach with experiment. I don't think any amount of clever budget allocation is going to make progress in theoretical physics go faster, nor do I think we'd be in a different position if we had allocated the resources differently. Notably, LQG and similar approaches (of which there is hardly any shortage) have not made noticeable progress either. My perspective is this: string theorists are cheap. We may as well have a few for some long shot research, and while we fund them they teach kids math and physics. Seems like a good trade.
      - bluGill 1y ago
        > My perspective is this: string theorists are cheap. We may as well have a few for some long shot research, and while we fund them they teach kids math and physics. Seems like a good trade. We need kids learning math because it is useful for engineering and other parts of life. However there are large parts of math that are useless in the real world and we don't need to each at all. (we need enough to teach rigorous logical thinking because that is useful in the real world - but there are lots of ways to get there) Is there value in more theoretical physics - at what point do we know the constants to enough values? This is a reference to just before relativity was discovered when it was thought refining the constants was all that was left - it turned out that some major things were left, but is there anything more? This is an unanswerable question, but what if we redirected those working on string theory to a hobby if they want to and made their day job either teaching math (which they are already doing part time), or some engineering type job? If we distribute the workload that implies everyone could work half an hour less every day, is that a bad trade?
cyberax 1y ago
There are _plenty_ of areas in physics where investment is paying off. Condensed matter physics, optics, material research and so on. We mostly question the fundamental subatomic particle physics that is not producing any returns on the investment. E.g. the galvanic effect was discovered in 1780, and there were long-distance telegraph lines by 1845 - so 65 years. The last major theoretical advance in particle physics was around 1965 (Higgs mechanism). That's already 60 years ago.
- bxsioshc 1y ago
  [dead]
- nobody9999 1y ago
  There's at least one actual physicist who will provide you with appropriate counterpoint. Here they are. And you're welcome. a physicist responds: physics has done very little for like 70 years[0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_o4k0eLoMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_o4k0eLoMI
  - nathan_compton 1y ago
    She is speaking about physics in a very narrow sense.
    - nobody9999 1y ago
      >She is speaking about physics in a very narrow sense. In what respect? Did you bother to actually watch the video or read a transcript or did you just watch the first minute and a half and assume that was the point? It wasn't. the ensuing thirty-two minutes serve to debunk the idea that there hasn't been progress in physics over the past seventy years. Which GP claimed was the case. GP is wrong. And she covers a wide array of physics areas -- she even mentions that she could have gone year by year starting in 1953 and cover at least one advancement per year, but she limited it to just her top ten which was pretty wide ranging.
  - cyberax 1y ago

nradov 1y ago

A lot of the complaints here about physics have to do with focusing so heavily for decades on string theory (or M-theory) which hasn't produced much in the way of practical results. At some point we have to quit throwing good money after bad and redirect funding towards other lines of inquiry.

OccamsMirror 1y ago
Is the purpose of life purely to seek a monetary return on investment?
- nradov 1y ago
  Is the purpose of theoretical physics purely to seek mathematical innovations with no connection to objective reality?
  - Yossarrian22 1y ago
    Define objective
bxsioshc 1y ago
[dead]
nathan_compton 1y ago
Yes, but this is cartoon shit. String theory was a major research program in theoretical physics for a few decades but theoretical physics involves quite a lot more than string theory and physics involves quite a lot more than theoretical physics and if you stacked up all the budgets you'd find that string theory is a minor footnote. And also, its been a few decades since people took it very seriously as a strong candidate for a TOE. I really don't get it. As a total amount of any budget from any perspective, string theory has always been a blip whose cultural impact is much wider than its actual budgetary one. Like this critique about string theory is just a thing that people who are physics "enthusiasts" say and even to the extent that it is true, its really been more than a decade since it was a problem.
- bxsioshc 1y ago
  [dead]
- bluGill 1y ago
  The problem is string theory was pushed by people who were really good at getting attention and so they appeared to be outsized. Eventually everyone realized they were never making good on their promises and it was time to quit given them money - but most people who are not physics insiders don't really understand the other parts and so the total budget was cut to punish string theory - but by more than just the string theory part. There is a warning above about something, but I'm not sure exactly what.
  - nathan_compton 1y ago
    I actually think that for the most part string theory and its detractors and its rise and fall have had little effect on total physics budgets in the last 30 years. I will say that theoretical physics is in a hard spot, but the problem isn't string theory. It is that we are short experimental data because the domain of validity of our theories is currently somewhat larger (in most obvious ways, anyway) than the domains we can reach with experiment. I don't think any amount of clever budget allocation is going to make progress in theoretical physics go faster, nor do I think we'd be in a different position if we had allocated the resources differently. Notably, LQG and similar approaches (of which there is hardly any shortage) have not made noticeable progress either. My perspective is this: string theorists are cheap. We may as well have a few for some long shot research, and while we fund them they teach kids math and physics. Seems like a good trade.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      > My perspective is this: string theorists are cheap. We may as well have a few for some long shot research, and while we fund them they teach kids math and physics. Seems like a good trade. We need kids learning math because it is useful for engineering and other parts of life. However there are large parts of math that are useless in the real world and we don't need to each at all. (we need enough to teach rigorous logical thinking because that is useful in the real world - but there are lots of ways to get there) Is there value in more theoretical physics - at what point do we know the constants to enough values? This is a reference to just before relativity was discovered when it was thought refining the constants was all that was left - it turned out that some major things were left, but is there anything more? This is an unanswerable question, but what if we redirected those working on string theory to a hobby if they want to and made their day job either teaching math (which they are already doing part time), or some engineering type job? If we distribute the workload that implies everyone could work half an hour less every day, is that a bad trade?

cyberax 1y ago

There are _plenty_ of areas in physics where investment is paying off. Condensed matter physics, optics, material research and so on. We mostly question the fundamental subatomic particle physics that is not producing any returns on the investment. E.g. the galvanic effect was discovered in 1780, and there were long-distance telegraph lines by 1845 - so 65 years. The last major theoretical advance in particle physics was around 1965 (Higgs mechanism). That's already 60 years ago.

bxsioshc 1y ago
[dead]
nobody9999 1y ago
There's at least one actual physicist who will provide you with appropriate counterpoint. Here they are. And you're welcome. a physicist responds: physics has done very little for like 70 years[0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_o4k0eLoMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_o4k0eLoMI
- nathan_compton 1y ago
  She is speaking about physics in a very narrow sense.
  - nobody9999 1y ago
    >She is speaking about physics in a very narrow sense. In what respect? Did you bother to actually watch the video or read a transcript or did you just watch the first minute and a half and assume that was the point? It wasn't. the ensuing thirty-two minutes serve to debunk the idea that there hasn't been progress in physics over the past seventy years. Which GP claimed was the case. GP is wrong. And she covers a wide array of physics areas -- she even mentions that she could have gone year by year starting in 1953 and cover at least one advancement per year, but she limited it to just her top ten which was pretty wide ranging.
- cyberax 1y ago