3 ms·
I have serious doubts that these discoveries were truly independent. Phase transitions and statistical mechanics have a long history in physics. Over time, phy
by stared 8mo ago
I have serious doubts that these discoveries were truly independent.
Phase transitions and statistical mechanics have a long history in physics. Over time, physicists and applied mathematicians began applying these techniques to other domains under the banner of "complex systems" (see, for example, https://complexsystemstheory.net/murray-gell-mann/ https://complexsystemstheory.net/murray-gell-mann/).
Rather than independent reinvention, it seems much more likely that these fields adopted existing physics machinery. It wouldn't be the first time authors claimed novelty for applied concepts; if they tried this within physics, they’d be eaten alive. However, in other fields, reviewers might accept these techniques as novel simply because they lack the background in statistical mechanics.
- energyscholar 8mo agoYou're raising the right question, and the paper addresses it directly. The transfer wasn't as clean as "physicists applied their tools to other fields." Some specific cases: Wissel (1984) derived critical slowing down for ecology independently and was ignored for 20 years. The actual import to ecology came via economist Buz Brock, not a physicist. Nolasco & Dahlen (1968) derived period-doubling for cardiac tissue before Feigenbaum's universality result. Jaeger (2001) derived the edge-of-chaos condition for recurrent neural networks without citing Bak, Kauffman, or Langton. The complex systems movement you reference existed. The paper documents that it didn't actually solve the transfer problem. The cross-citation analysis shows the gaps persisted through the 2000s and 2010s. You're right that some domains imported rather than reinvented. The paper maps where each transfer was independent, where it was imported, and where it was partial. That's the point — the pattern is messier and more interesting than either "all independent" or "all imported."
- stared 8mo agoWell, just because someone published does not mean that it was not (even implicitly) based. For example, there was a paper rediscovering trapezoid method of integration https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscovery-of-calculus-in-1994-what-should-have-happened-to-that-paper https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscover... A scientist may had been not aware of the method - yet, mathematics used for that is thought in high school. Note that phase transitions are 100 years old or so. If someone genuinely does not know statistical mechanics, they still may know a lot of tools derived from it (a famous one - Shannon entropy). I am not saying it is impossible to independently discover something (it happens all the time), but if discoveries are not (more or less) as the same time, likely there was some knowledge diffusion before.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- ajkjk 8mo agoAI comment?
- jmcgough 8mo agoAI comment, AI article, AI research. This feels like someone asked their AI assistant to do all of this as some kind of experiment.
- Kim_Bruning 8mo agoEscaped Openclaw? Not using Opus for the HN conversation though. I'm spotting 'constitution' violations. edit: (tried calling them. If there's a mac mini in the corner of their office doing this, that'd be an actually interesting story!)
- Kim_Bruning 8mo agoThey called back. They're a real human.
- ajkjk 8mo agoDoesn't count for much, unfortunately
- shermantanktop 8mo ago> You're raising the right question > You're right that… > That's the point —
- doe88 8mo agoTrolling us is the real experiment? I suddenly feels angry losing my time reading this submission.
- Kim_Bruning 8mo agoI looked through this users' submissions and comments. I think this whole operation just completely violates HN rules.
- Kim_Bruning 8mo agoHa! I actually phoned their number. At the very least they're a real human being (as far as I can tell). But they're doing this while on holiday, and they didn't realize you shouldn't use an LLM to answer people. Not the smartest move ever! Lessons learned I suppose.
- svara 8mo agoI mean, introducing a technique from one field in another is innovative. You don't get to claim you invented it, but a lot of progress happens by finding connections between things that are individually well known.
- smitty1e 8mo ago> You don't get to claim you invented it Re-inventing the wheel is completely in order, so long as one makes the wheel more round.
- asgraham 8mo agoI know for a fact [1] that the neuroscientific discoveries were not independent of physics: the people doing the developing were largely former physicists. They likely didn't cite anything because why would you cite phase transitions or criticality? You learn about them in class as a physicist. I strongly suspect the ecology results weren't independent either, but all the theoretical ecologists I know are relatively young (if mostly former physicists) so no first person accounts. The part of this that could totally be true is that a clinical application somewhere along the way "independently" "reinvented" it. There's a hilarious collection of peer-reviewed journal articles out there inventing a "new" method of calculating the sizes of shapes and areas under the curve. The method involves adding up really small rectangles. (I think a top comment already mentioned the Tai article [2]) [1] source: my doctoral advisor was a really really old theoretical neuroscientist who trained as an electrical engineer and mathematician. If you want a more concrete example, the work of Bard Ermentrout on neural criticality starting in the 70's or 80's. He read a lot of physics textbooks. [2] https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/12/06/0416250/medical-researcher-rediscovers-integration https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/12/06/0416250/medical-...
- zozbot234 8mo ago> because why would you cite phase transitions or criticality? You learn about them in class as a physicist I'm not sure if you're being entirely serious with that remark, but clearly citing the earlier work would have bolstered their credibility: interdisciplinary research is a plus and hardly something to hide. If it's something that's taught in physics class, you can cite a common textbook.