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Do you think there's a limit on how much we can understand in physics/any field? My reasoning on this is that since everyone has a finite lifespan, understandi

by pwnna 11y ago

Do you think there's a limit on how much we can understand in physics/any field? My reasoning on this is that since everyone has a finite lifespan, understanding/work will be lost as the researcher retire, move to a different field, or die, unless this information is transmitted to someone else during their life time. However, as we understand more, we have to teach people more. This brings in two problems that I see: - It takes longer for people to learn up to the frontier of science, which means they might be in their 30s, 40s, and that number may keep getting larger. - We might be able to teach these things in the same amount of time, but the understand of these topics by the younger generation might be less overall, which makes it difficult for them to make certain connections, as they might not have the deep enough understanding to see a connection. My worry is the eventually we will reach a stage where the amount of knowledge we have is so much that no one can feasibly master a field. We can subdivide the fields, but no one will know enough general knowledge to make insightful connections that simplifies our models, or something to that effect. As an example: my fluid dynamics professor said that the fluids mechanics I course we take in second year undergrad is what people worked on as their masters/phd thesis 100 years ago, whereas we don't even derive the formulas anymore now simply because we do not have the time to do so.

mdup 11y ago
The point of your comment is disproved by your last paragraph! The more science is discovered, the more it gets compacted into the essentials of this knowledge. If 100 year old PhD level fluid dynamics can be taught to undergrads, this means it got digested into the most useful part of the work. Similarly, it's considered basic undergrad work to understand Fourier decomposition; but the notations and clarity we get the insight from is the result of two centuries from the 1807 paper by Fourier. It was certainly PhD level at the time. Certainly science is compacted and that's how it gets transmitted to younger generations. And remember that our brains get bigger, so maybe we'll never hit any "limit" to understanding? :)
- nvader 11y ago
  Not to mention that lifespans get longer!
- pwnna 11y ago
  My worry is that as we split knowledge out, no one will understand the big picture as they're always focused on their specialty of their specialty. Since we are teaching people less in depth stuff as they need to go very far into science, it seems like building knowledge with unstable foundation. The lack of branching out may also inhibit discovering certain connections between fields that may proved to be enlightening.
twerkmonsta 11y ago
I'm not physics expert, but I think there may be a limit to what we can understand about the physical world. Especially when we get down to such small scales. However, I don't think this is because of limited lifespans. I've heard it said that string theory could never be scientifically tested in a traditional sense. People sometimes compare it to a religious philosophy because of this quality of untestability. Maybe the logic of the universe at the lowest levels are hidden from us. If the universe is a computer simulation then we almost certainly are not exposed to the underlying mechanisms of how it works at the lowest level. The fluid in a fluid simulation doesn't have access to the knowledge of how the computer on which it is running functions. The fluid is just information. That information is manipulated by the running program, but the code of the simulation is not built into the information representing the fluid. Maybe the matter in our universe exists in the same way, as information. Maybe the mechanics that drive the motion of the smallest particles are not exposed. I'm sure I'm not the only person to postulate on this. People have probably written very scientific papers on this very topic. I honestly don't know, but it's what my programmer brain leads me to believe.
- ChrisGranger 11y ago
  Is digital physics what you're getting at here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics I'm also reminded of Dr. Nick Bostrum's writings on the topic of simulated existence.
sampo 11y ago
> It takes longer for people to learn up to the frontier of science (1) It takes much less time to teach something, than was spent to figure things out the first time. (2) When teaching improves, the essential points of a topic can be taught in less time, then what was spent when the topic was new. Then a topic is new, usually it is first taught following the lines and chronology on how it was discovered. Later improved teaching can figure out ways to get free of the chronology of the original story, and just teach the plain fact. While Darwin's finches are still sometimes mentioned when teaching evolution, the whole story of measuring all kinds of properties of those birds in different islands, and presenting this data, and what can we deduct from it, is rarely presented. We just jump to the main point: species adapt and evolve. Arguable, teaching physics still almost everyplace follows the historical chronology: mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, which usually pushes quantum mechanics to the 3rd year in a university. The mathematical machinery of quantum mechanics however shouldn't take two full years to master, so maybe there could be a route to proceed quantum mechanics faster, not trying to cover all of classical physics first. (3) I assume the success of future researchers is party build upon that they had access to good teachers, or good textbooks, which made it possible for them to quickly absorb the present state of knowledge. But there are voices complaining that producing good teaching material is not incentivized in the present academic system.
stared 11y ago
I agree with your observations. One of the biggest problem is fragmentation. People used to be "philosophers of the natural science", now they are experts in "implementations of quantum algorithms with cold ions". So its unlikely to get so many good people in one place (as the number of fields is astonishingly high) and to get progress between/outside of fields (many fields are a bit historical/arbitrary) - as many scientist (even eminent) lack of even basis knowledge in other sciences (or even - subfields). So things requiring bigger picture may be already out of scope. When it comes to switching fields or dying - did you read: http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2015/07/will-our-understanding-of-math.html http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2015/07/will-our-und... ?

by pwnna 11y ago

mdup 11y ago

The point of your comment is disproved by your last paragraph! The more science is discovered, the more it gets compacted into the essentials of this knowledge. If 100 year old PhD level fluid dynamics can be taught to undergrads, this means it got digested into the most useful part of the work. Similarly, it's considered basic undergrad work to understand Fourier decomposition; but the notations and clarity we get the insight from is the result of two centuries from the 1807 paper by Fourier. It was certainly PhD level at the time. Certainly science is compacted and that's how it gets transmitted to younger generations. And remember that our brains get bigger, so maybe we'll never hit any "limit" to understanding? :)

nvader 11y ago
Not to mention that lifespans get longer!
pwnna 11y ago
My worry is that as we split knowledge out, no one will understand the big picture as they're always focused on their specialty of their specialty. Since we are teaching people less in depth stuff as they need to go very far into science, it seems like building knowledge with unstable foundation. The lack of branching out may also inhibit discovering certain connections between fields that may proved to be enlightening.

twerkmonsta 11y ago

I'm not physics expert, but I think there may be a limit to what we can understand about the physical world. Especially when we get down to such small scales. However, I don't think this is because of limited lifespans. I've heard it said that string theory could never be scientifically tested in a traditional sense. People sometimes compare it to a religious philosophy because of this quality of untestability. Maybe the logic of the universe at the lowest levels are hidden from us. If the universe is a computer simulation then we almost certainly are not exposed to the underlying mechanisms of how it works at the lowest level. The fluid in a fluid simulation doesn't have access to the knowledge of how the computer on which it is running functions. The fluid is just information. That information is manipulated by the running program, but the code of the simulation is not built into the information representing the fluid. Maybe the matter in our universe exists in the same way, as information. Maybe the mechanics that drive the motion of the smallest particles are not exposed. I'm sure I'm not the only person to postulate on this. People have probably written very scientific papers on this very topic. I honestly don't know, but it's what my programmer brain leads me to believe.

ChrisGranger 11y ago
Is digital physics what you're getting at here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics I'm also reminded of Dr. Nick Bostrum's writings on the topic of simulated existence.

sampo 11y ago

> It takes longer for people to learn up to the frontier of science (1) It takes much less time to teach something, than was spent to figure things out the first time. (2) When teaching improves, the essential points of a topic can be taught in less time, then what was spent when the topic was new. Then a topic is new, usually it is first taught following the lines and chronology on how it was discovered. Later improved teaching can figure out ways to get free of the chronology of the original story, and just teach the plain fact. While Darwin's finches are still sometimes mentioned when teaching evolution, the whole story of measuring all kinds of properties of those birds in different islands, and presenting this data, and what can we deduct from it, is rarely presented. We just jump to the main point: species adapt and evolve. Arguable, teaching physics still almost everyplace follows the historical chronology: mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, which usually pushes quantum mechanics to the 3rd year in a university. The mathematical machinery of quantum mechanics however shouldn't take two full years to master, so maybe there could be a route to proceed quantum mechanics faster, not trying to cover all of classical physics first. (3) I assume the success of future researchers is party build upon that they had access to good teachers, or good textbooks, which made it possible for them to quickly absorb the present state of knowledge. But there are voices complaining that producing good teaching material is not incentivized in the present academic system.

stared 11y ago

I agree with your observations. One of the biggest problem is fragmentation. People used to be "philosophers of the natural science", now they are experts in "implementations of quantum algorithms with cold ions". So its unlikely to get so many good people in one place (as the number of fields is astonishingly high) and to get progress between/outside of fields (many fields are a bit historical/arbitrary) - as many scientist (even eminent) lack of even basis knowledge in other sciences (or even - subfields). So things requiring bigger picture may be already out of scope. When it comes to switching fields or dying - did you read: http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2015/07/will-our-understanding-of-math.html http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2015/07/will-our-und... ?