7 ms·

Well, it’s improbable, not nonsensical. If someone goes and implements a technology that trounces our working theories, we certainly need to update those theori

Well, it’s improbable, not nonsensical. If someone goes and implements a technology that trounces our working theories, we certainly need to update those theories. It’s just that that’s exceedingly unlikely to happen.

nickff 11y ago
Photoelectric cells were invented before we understood the photoelectric effect, alcohol and preserves were used to store drinks and foodstuffs before we understood microbes, forging and annealing used before anyone had a theory on metallic crystal formation, and incandescence was used before anyone understood electromagnetic radiation; to name but a few examples. Why would it be surprising that someone invented a device which functions in a manner which is not understood?
- thaumaturgy 11y ago
  Oh! This is one of my favorite questions about scientific progress. People seem to regard scientific progress as this kind of wave function, where some theory comes along and then some other theory or discovery disproves the previous one and so on and so forth. But if you want to think of scientific progress that way, then you have to think of it as a dampened sine wave (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damped_sine_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damped_sine_wave) -- that is, discoveries and theories tend to refine previous discoveries and theories, and scientific progress over the millenia has been rapidly zeroing in on the truths of our reality. What is left at this point is mostly things at very large scales -- cosmological stuff like dark matter, dark energy -- and very small scales -- stuff like sub-subatomic particles and the Higgs boson and the nature of mass and so on -- and very complex things like biology and climate science. What isn't left at this point is a revision of the laws of conservation. It is exceedingly unlikely that anything will be discovered at any point in the future which will do anything other than add perhaps the very smallest of exceptions to those laws, and even then, I doubt very much that will happen. So, essentially, the age of physics discoveries in garages is mostly over. There will be many more discoveries in physics, but they now require the collective efforts of entire nations.
  - nickff 11y ago
    I'm sorry, but your reasoning completely escapes me. The only things that are left are very big, and very small? In addition to this being an incredibly vague catchall (which misses all the possible discoveries of 'black swans', that is phenomena and occurrences we have never seen), your statement more importantly misses the fact that humans don't even understand what something as common and important as light (or electromagnetic radiation in general) is. Is light really big or really small? We've certainly characterized light's behavior (to some degree), though we still have basically no understanding of what it actually is (though I may be the only one who finds the circular definitions of electromagnetic fields unsatisfying). The same is true of things like matter and gravity. Once we have better understandings of what these are, I may grant that further fundamental insights will be difficult to come by; but we're not there yet. You might be correct in saying that humans have characterized particles, objects, and phenomena that are closest to their scale and location, but we have done a poor job of understanding their fundamental nature. We also don't understand and have not even characterized things we've never observed (the 'black swan' problem).
    - eevilspock 11y ago
      I agree. I also take issue with > rapidly zeroing in on the truths of our reality The truths? No, humans are as likely to arrive at the truths as ants an understanding of a microwave oven.
      - thaumaturgy 11y ago
        A fair reading of that part would assume that I meant truths like, "the cosmos is expanding", not philosophical truths.
      - Analog24 11y ago
        I think it was implied that "truths" meant scientific truths, which are well defined as anything that can be verified beyond statistical doubt with experimental evidence.
    - leni536 11y ago
- leni536 11y ago
  Inventing a device which is not well understood and inventing a device which contradicts things that are thought to be well understood are two different things. The photoelectric effect was pretty big news though and it did break existing laws that time so it doesn't really fit here.
  - nickff 11y ago
    I could argue that all the inventions I mentioned violated one existing theory or another at the time of their creation, though the level of scientific reasoning behind each is different. Remember that at one time, many believed that heat was an element released from logs by fire, which is a theory clearly violated by the incandescent light bulb, and other earlier examples of incandescence (such as that of other heated metals). Regardless, how is it relevant whether a large group of people made a mistake (by coming up with an incorrect theory) before an invention that had no basis in existing theory was made? I do not agree with the premise of the post I responded to, as a new drive does not necessarily contravene existing theories (since we do not understand its principle of operation). I agree that contravening an existing theory is a bit of an odd course for an inventor to take, and may make it difficult to get angel funding, but that's about the only difference I can see.
hekoshi 11y ago
I think it would be really exciting if we found a flaw in our model of physics.

nickff 11y ago

Photoelectric cells were invented before we understood the photoelectric effect, alcohol and preserves were used to store drinks and foodstuffs before we understood microbes, forging and annealing used before anyone had a theory on metallic crystal formation, and incandescence was used before anyone understood electromagnetic radiation; to name but a few examples. Why would it be surprising that someone invented a device which functions in a manner which is not understood?

thaumaturgy 11y ago
Oh! This is one of my favorite questions about scientific progress. People seem to regard scientific progress as this kind of wave function, where some theory comes along and then some other theory or discovery disproves the previous one and so on and so forth. But if you want to think of scientific progress that way, then you have to think of it as a dampened sine wave (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damped_sine_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damped_sine_wave) -- that is, discoveries and theories tend to refine previous discoveries and theories, and scientific progress over the millenia has been rapidly zeroing in on the truths of our reality. What is left at this point is mostly things at very large scales -- cosmological stuff like dark matter, dark energy -- and very small scales -- stuff like sub-subatomic particles and the Higgs boson and the nature of mass and so on -- and very complex things like biology and climate science. What isn't left at this point is a revision of the laws of conservation. It is exceedingly unlikely that anything will be discovered at any point in the future which will do anything other than add perhaps the very smallest of exceptions to those laws, and even then, I doubt very much that will happen. So, essentially, the age of physics discoveries in garages is mostly over. There will be many more discoveries in physics, but they now require the collective efforts of entire nations.
- nickff 11y ago
  I'm sorry, but your reasoning completely escapes me. The only things that are left are very big, and very small? In addition to this being an incredibly vague catchall (which misses all the possible discoveries of 'black swans', that is phenomena and occurrences we have never seen), your statement more importantly misses the fact that humans don't even understand what something as common and important as light (or electromagnetic radiation in general) is. Is light really big or really small? We've certainly characterized light's behavior (to some degree), though we still have basically no understanding of what it actually is (though I may be the only one who finds the circular definitions of electromagnetic fields unsatisfying). The same is true of things like matter and gravity. Once we have better understandings of what these are, I may grant that further fundamental insights will be difficult to come by; but we're not there yet. You might be correct in saying that humans have characterized particles, objects, and phenomena that are closest to their scale and location, but we have done a poor job of understanding their fundamental nature. We also don't understand and have not even characterized things we've never observed (the 'black swan' problem).
  - eevilspock 11y ago
    I agree. I also take issue with > rapidly zeroing in on the truths of our reality The truths? No, humans are as likely to arrive at the truths as ants an understanding of a microwave oven.
    - thaumaturgy 11y ago
      A fair reading of that part would assume that I meant truths like, "the cosmos is expanding", not philosophical truths.
    - Analog24 11y ago
      I think it was implied that "truths" meant scientific truths, which are well defined as anything that can be verified beyond statistical doubt with experimental evidence.
  - leni536 11y ago
leni536 11y ago
Inventing a device which is not well understood and inventing a device which contradicts things that are thought to be well understood are two different things. The photoelectric effect was pretty big news though and it did break existing laws that time so it doesn't really fit here.
- nickff 11y ago
  I could argue that all the inventions I mentioned violated one existing theory or another at the time of their creation, though the level of scientific reasoning behind each is different. Remember that at one time, many believed that heat was an element released from logs by fire, which is a theory clearly violated by the incandescent light bulb, and other earlier examples of incandescence (such as that of other heated metals). Regardless, how is it relevant whether a large group of people made a mistake (by coming up with an incorrect theory) before an invention that had no basis in existing theory was made? I do not agree with the premise of the post I responded to, as a new drive does not necessarily contravene existing theories (since we do not understand its principle of operation). I agree that contravening an existing theory is a bit of an odd course for an inventor to take, and may make it difficult to get angel funding, but that's about the only difference I can see.

hekoshi 11y ago

I think it would be really exciting if we found a flaw in our model of physics.