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There is this belief propagated among physicists that smaller scales somehow have more to do with reality. I have never been presented with logic or evidence th
by protonfish 12y ago
There is this belief propagated among physicists that smaller scales somehow have more to do with reality. I have never been presented with logic or evidence that convinced me that an electron is somehow more "real" than a molecule or a person or the solar system or the observable universe.
I wish the word "reality" would stop being thrown around without justification. "Fundamental" might be a more appropriate term.
- pfortuny 12y agoI guess you mean "elements." We used to apply the word to earth, air, fire and water. Now it is all about tachions and whatnot. But elements is the word.
- im3w1l 12y agoIt easier to get a detailed understanding of the universe, by observing what happens in extreme cases. The very small. The very big. The very heavy. The very energetic. The very quick.
- afafsd 12y ago>There is this belief propagated among physicists that smaller scales somehow have more to do with reality Only among high-energy physicists. Perhaps not coincidentally there's also a belief among high-energy physicists that only they count as physicists. In reality, they're a small minority of physicists. The largest specialty in physics, accounting for about half of all research, is condensed matter physics. Then in no particular order you've got AMO (atomic/molecular/optical), astrophysics, geophysics, biophysics, and a bunch of other stuff sitting between or outside those categories. With the exception of just a few corners of astrophysics, none of these fields needs, or can make sure of, the stuff being done on fundamental interactions; regular old quantum mechanics plus relativity is good enough for describing everything we can actually measure.