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Has Physics Gotten Something Really Important Really Wrong? (npr.org)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the stringing-us-along dept.

Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes an article from NPR: Some researchers now see popular ideas like string theory and the multiverse as highly suspect. These physicists feel our study of the cosmos has been taken too far from what data can constrain with the extra "hidden" dimensions of string theory and the unobservable other universes of the multiverse... it all adds up to muddied waters and something some researchers see as a "crisis in physics."
The article quotes Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin, the authors of a new book arguing that "Science is corrupted when it abandons the discipline of empirical validation or dis-confirmation. It is also weakened when it mistakes its assumptions for facts and its ready-made philosophy for the way things are." And according to this analysis of the book, what they're proposing is "to take a giant philosophical step back and see if a new and more promising direction can be found. For the two thinkers, such a new direction can be spelled out in three bold claims about the world. There is only one universe. Time is real. Mathematics is selectively real."

50 of 387 comments (clear)

  1. Michael Moorcock Just Called... by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 5, Funny

    He wants his Multiverse back.

    1. Re:Michael Moorcock Just Called... by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, He was only really using 1 or 2 of them, lately. Not even touching the one I'm from, despite being first documented in only 1964.

      Less than eye-blink, cosmically speaking.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    2. Re:Michael Moorcock Just Called... by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 2

      Bruce Perens is lower.

      Usually has more to offer, too. ;-)

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
  2. old wisdom by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    what they're proposing is "to take a giant philosophical step back and see if a new and more promising direction can be found.

    OK, good advice, now do it. If you think there is some massive new physics to be discovered, then discover it. When you do, you will be admired and respected for generations, instead of mocked by me on Slashdot.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:old wisdom by DogDude · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You didn't RTFA, obviously. You might want to try that. It's super interesting, and brings up an important point that you obviously missed.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    2. Re:old wisdom by haruchai · · Score: 4, Informative

      Smolin & Woit have been harping on this a long time.
      Go read The Trouble with Physics and Not Even Wrong, both published in 2006

      They might be right or they could be (not even) wrong.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    3. Re:old wisdom by Tough+Love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      General physics is more or less solved. It makes sense.

      Is this a troll? OK, if not, then explain to me why there are three generations of leptons, not two or four or some other number. Why do the elementary particles have the particular masses they do? What causes quark confinement? Why does velocity have a limit, and why does the limit have the value it does? Why do any of the fundamental physical constants have the values they do? What about these problems? Should we expect answers in a year of two?

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    4. Re:old wisdom by Hylandr · · Score: 2

      Quantum theory would have them both right and wrong but how would that help us find the truth?

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
    5. Re:old wisdom by Tough+Love · · Score: 4, Informative

      General relativity is very different than particle physics. That's why Einstein chose to ignore it.

      OK, you are a troll or just ignorant. Einstein is one of the great contributors to quantum mechanics and received a Nobel prize for it.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    6. Re:old wisdom by Rei · · Score: 2

      In some universe in the multiverse, there's an alternative Smolin and Woit who are vehemently arguing for the unreality of time and the existence of a multiverse against a mainstream that tends to assume that the universe is only as it appears to be.

      --
      We also have a halon fire extinguisher. Its always nice to have a fire extinguisher that kills people around.
    7. Re:old wisdom by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's unfortunately a common attitude in the physics world that anything that the math allows - anything that you can't rule out - is real. Beyond this, I think the discovery of things like general relativity and quantum physics got us so used to the concept that the universe is wierd that there's few possibilities that come across as "too weird to be real".

      On the other hand, it's sort of like saying, "we know little of the fish that live in the deep oceans, and we've seen fish that come in all sorts of forms.... since I can't rule out that there's a fish down there that looks exactly like Justin Bieber, then there must be one". The ability to deduce the existence of something based on what you can't rule out requires that you can be certain that your model is perfectly describing everything about the dataset that it's supposed to be modeling. But we know that they're not describing everything about the universe. We know that there's things that they specifically don't model.

      --
      We also have a halon fire extinguisher. Its always nice to have a fire extinguisher that kills people around.
    8. Re:old wisdom by rtb61 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Time is arbitrary, it is nothing more than a relative measure of change, how long that change takes is only relative to itself, the time it takes is only ever going to be relative to other changes. That duration in and of itself is completely meaningless. There are at least three greater cosmos, the microverse, the universe and the macroverse. A inherent balance of motion and size, represented differently in different ways within each verse. What exactly is going on in the microverse and macroverse, well trapped in the universe, we can only guess and hint at and try to make use of it as we are both to big and too small to effectively relate to them in any meaningful way, beyond hypothesising on them and trying to make use of the product of those hypothesises in our universe. Beyond the microverse and the macroverse, there is also the chaosverse and we all are a temporary extrusion from the chaosverse, the universe and it's associated microverse and macroverse.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    9. Re:old wisdom by ultranova · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On the other hand, it's sort of like saying, "we know little of the fish that live in the deep oceans, and we've seen fish that come in all sorts of forms.... since I can't rule out that there's a fish down there that looks exactly like Justin Bieber, then there must be one".

      No. It's like having a model of fish growth that predicts there are fish shaped like Elvis, Frank Sinatra and Justin Bieber down there, and you already captured Elvis and Frank.

      Your example is intentionally ridiculous, but seemingly ridiculous predictions of quantum physics keep on being shown to be correct.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    10. Re:old wisdom by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 2

      You're absolutely right. But it's also true that Einstein did not like quantum mechanics, and never made his peace with it before he died. One of the reasons he contributed to it so much is he wanted to prove it wrong. He would come up with things that he thought were preposterous, but would be true under quantum mechanics, like "spooky action at a distance".

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    11. Re:old wisdom by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Science isn't about being right or wrong, it's about making useful predictions. If your theory lets people make predictions about a system that you can then validate and see that they were mostly correct, then it's science. Newton's laws of motion are a good example of this. They're categorically wrong, as various experiments have shown, but for things the size that a human will typically deal with the errors from failures of the model are far less than the errors from measurement. For very large, very small, or very fast things, the errors will be greater and so you need different models (and, eventually, we hope a single model that works for all scales). If your model doesn't make any predictions, then it isn't science, it's speculative fiction.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    12. Re:old wisdom by silentcoder · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The good physicists say "This fits the math - so it's possible, let's see if we can make useful predictions from it and see where it leads". The trouble with assuming absurd possibilities cannot be true is that they all too often end up being true. The most obvious example in physics is Galileo - whose idea of the sun being the center of the solar system was deemed quite absurd by the orthodoxy of his time - yet turned out to be true.

      But even in the modern age we've seen that happen repeatedly - notably with your example of the ocean. We found ceolacanth fossils since the 19th century and were aware that some 230 million years ago a fish like this existed. It was always POSSIBLE they still survived and had just avoided detection all this time - but nobody really thought it was likely, and indeed if you stated that possibility to scientists you would have been laughed at... until we found some living specimens and suddenly it was true.
      Another example is the giant squid. We've had tales of them dating back at least 3000 years. And science rejected their existence as myths pretty much from the birth of naturalism as a field of science (the precursor to biology). Just another ridiculous myth of ancient people. Over the centuries evidence kept building up - which kept the conspiracy theories going, most notably whales caught with wounds that appeared to come from massive suckered-arms. But scientists wouldn't buy the possibility - and came up with any number of 'more plausible' explanations for the evidence before them.

      They didn't get serious about the possibility of the giant squid until the 1850s when portions of one that had been stranded arrived in France. Today we know that not only does the giant squid exist - it's not even the largest squid around. The Colossal Squid is even bigger (we don't know which one Aristotle had written about - only that he didn't know there were two, since he specifically wrote about one gigantic squid much bigger than the common ones).

      So we should at least consider the possibility that the Justin Bieber fish does in fact, exist. The biggest evidence for it's existence is that apparently they can breath air and one of them is currently a multi-platinum recording artist, based on the recordings from that specimen I would advance the conjecture that their air-breathing is limited and in an early stage of evolution (pre-booklung even) - more akin to a catfish crossing between ponds than a lungfish.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    13. Re:old wisdom by painandgreed · · Score: 2

      The most obvious example in physics is Galileo - whose idea of the sun being the center of the solar system was deemed quite absurd by the orthodoxy of his time - yet turned out to be true.

      A better one for the modern age would be anti-matter. It was proposed simply because the math allowed it. A few years later, they had experimental evidence of it.

  3. But Seriously... by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 5, Insightful

    String theory, multiple universes, complexity, quantum teleportation... these are to Physics what Division I football is to college, which is to say, it sells tickets and opens purse strings. No one is going to buy a book on Newtonian physics and relive their junior year in high school. But let Brian Greene write something crazy and out there about a "Holographic Universe" or somesuch and the peeps will scoop it up, and maybe even decide to become physics and math majors, and there are lots of worse results than that. So let the alumni donate for the football team, and let the googley-eyed high schoolers all plan on high-paying and fulfilling careers as Quantum Mechanics. It puts butts in the seats...

    1. Re:But Seriously... by DogDude · · Score: 2

      I don't know what "Division I" is, but quantum physics isn't a game, or something to sell books. It's the nature of our reality, and as we understand it, it doesn't make sense. That's pretty awesome!

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    2. Re:But Seriously... by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, they're are postulates that even their strongest adherents admit cannot be tested at the moment, and may not ultimately be true. The authors confuse researchers tendency to argue in favor of theories with researchers overestimating the evidence.

      The problem, as always, is people judging science by press releases, documentaries and the utter idiocy and ignorance of most scientific journalism.

      Within physics itself, you know, the actual community of physicists, string theory is seen as an interesting model, but one that as of yet simply cannot be stated even in the most tenuous terms as an actual description of reality. That being said, string theory and other related theories have contributed a considerable amount to the mathematical toolkit available to physicists, so that even if they are ultimately discarded, they will have had their use.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:But Seriously... by fermion · · Score: 4, Insightful
      On the other hand, we do think that the laws of the universe should be based on the same principles at all levels, so the fact that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics do not mesh well is a problem we need to solve. If some physics people want to look for other ways to solve the problem fine, but we do not discount a theory in modern physics simply because we cannot observe the phenomena with out current equipment.

      We have to recall the Quantum mechanics was a radical explanation for a real problem. Theory says that if you put a heat source in a black box the universe should be destroyed. This does not happen so the theory was wrong and we ended up with a theory was very difficult to prove. I have had professors tell me that the absolute proof of quantum mechanics, i.e. an experiment that could not be explained using an alternative theory, did not exist until the 1960's when lasers were used. That does not mean that an alternative theory will win out, but there is a great deal of support for QM.

      Likewise, general relativity is only now getting empirical evidence that supports it as the most likely out of competing theories. We must recall that the impetus of general relativity was a lack of symmetry in the mathematics of Maxwell laws, having to do with identical magnets moving with respect to one another. Warped space is an elegant explanation for why things happen, but it may not be the best explanation.

      Time is more complex. Right now thermodynamics, which is not considered as grounded as Newtonian mechanics, says the the universe evolves in one direction defined by the fact that entropy always increases. The are some measurements of the asymmetry of a nucleus that indicates that direction of time is a constant, but I don't think anything in physics right now decisively says there is an arrow in time, just an arrow in the evolution of the universe, which is why we don't have perpetual motion.

      This guy is nothing more than the friction described in The Structure of Scientific Revolution. There are always going to be people who do not assimilate the growing accumulation of data, who are stuck in the current paradigm, and who will oppose all efforts to a paradigm shift. They understand that Physics does change, but they get hung up on disproving new theories and not their pet theories that they assume are already beyond reproach.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    4. Re:But Seriously... by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We have to recall the Quantum mechanics was a radical explanation for a real problem. Theory says that if you put a heat source in a black box the universe should be destroyed. This does not happen so the theory was wrong and we ended up with a theory was very difficult to prove. I have had professors tell me that the absolute proof of quantum mechanics, i.e. an experiment that could not be explained using an alternative theory, did not exist until the 1960's when lasers were used. That does not mean that an alternative theory will win out, but there is a great deal of support for QM.

      The other thing with quantum mechanics is we use it everyday, and we still don't know how it works. LEDs, flash memory and many other technologies we use today all apply quantum mechanical principles in order to work.

      I suppose that's where the conflict lies - we assume a traditional model - science makes a discovery, engineers apply it to create technology. Unfortunately, these days it's a blended set - engineers may discover something and then ask science to explain it while they figure out how to exploit the something.

      And understanding why is key - if we properly understood how LEDs work, we can make brighter, more efficient LEDs that last longer, and exploit that to create better say, OLED panels or even matrix LED panels (LEDs are relatively big, which is why we generally go OLED, but if we can improve thengs, maybe we can avoid using OLED and just have our screens made up of LEDs). Or flash memory that's denser and lasts longer (the buried or floating gate gets its charge put on and taken off by electron tunnelling, but we only have crude control over it - so electrons are left during erasure, and we damage the insulation during programming/erasure which leads to charges leaking off and limited life).

      There's plenty of stuff where we know how to exploit QM to do what we want, but we can certainly do better. We know the how, but not the why

  4. My thoughts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have spent the last 14 years of my life studying fundamental theoretical physics and mathematics. I find a lot of the research in cosmology very unappealing, because it is way too speculative and far-fetched (multiverse, eternal inflation, bounce, cyclic cosmology, etc). And the mathematics behind these things is very primitive and simple, there is no elegance.

    But string theory is different. Although it has not been a success phenomenologically, it has led to many beautiful results in mathematics and field theory, such as Mirror Symmetry and AdS/CFT. Further research in string theory is definitely worthwhile, and Lee Smolin is unreasonably biased against it. These other "quantum gravity" approaches that Smolin champions are completely disconnected from any kind of real physics, and they have not led to any kind of deep mathematical insights.

    1. Re:My thoughts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When you have something insightful to say, please log in. Most people with mod points don't like throwing them at AC's. Your argument is cogent, well thought out, and interesting.

      People with mod points should be browsing with no filters.

      If you are moderating an already filtered view you are doing it wrong. Also, what does AC vs another pseudonym matter, because if you're using past posts to moderate a current one, you're doing it wrong again. People share accounts, misrepresent themselves, use multiple accounts, so don't put any weight on post history, just read the post.

    2. Re:My thoughts... by DogDude · · Score: 2

      That's your opinion. I very, VERY rarely mod AC's up, because usually, posting as AC doesn't create quality conversations.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    3. Re:My thoughts... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So you are one of those judgemental people who check out peoples history and downvote it when someone says something you disagree with rather on the quality of argument while failing to provide a counter argument.

    4. Re:My thoughts... by bsolar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't see how the "overall view" of a poster has anything to do to with moderating a new post: even a troll can be insightful once in a while and even a very informative poster could happen to be overrated.

  5. History repeats itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There was a time when humanity believed that everything could be explained by mechanics.
    Higgs was ridiculed for good 50 years.This is no different.
    String theory evolved great deal from where it was first formulated, thins that were not good are already invalidated.
    There is no crisis of physics here, jut a massive layer of incomplete work.

    Few points to add.
    "There is only one universe" - sounds like theological clam. And just as unconfirmed ad multiverses.
    "Time is real" - Einstein might disagree. Time is the imaginary part in the complex equations of space-time.
    "Math is selectively real" - Only f the reality is defined by the capabilities of our brains and our technologies,

    1. Re:History repeats itself by sittingnut · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is no crisis of physics here, jut a massive layer of incomplete work.

      that is a crisis.
      furthermore there has been hardly any real progress in resolving this incomplete work/problems, for several decades.

      you seems to have got confused.

      "There is only one universe" - sounds like theological clam. And just as unconfirmed ad multiverses.

      but we can confirm existence of one universe.
      existence of others should only be included in theories if there is confirmation, not because its easier to do maths, by assuming multiverses, when working on some pure theories.

      "Time is real" - Einstein might disagree. Time is the imaginary part in the complex equations of space-time.

      depending on personal authority, however great , is not part of science.
      your last sentence says a lot about what is wrong . theoretical assumptions should not be taken for unquestionable facts.

      "Math is selectively real" - Only f the reality is defined by the capabilities of our brains and our technologies,

      when you abandon empirical validation, which is what your claim implies, you are in the field of pure unfalsifiable theory, and thus theology.
      gods or ghosts(and many other things) are also defended with claims about limits of our brains and technologies.

    2. Re:History repeats itself by mbkennel · · Score: 3, Informative

      | Higgs was ridiculed for good 50 years.This is no different.

      It's completely different. The scalar "Higgs/6 other authors" field was never ridiculed.

      Higgs field was an essential part of an extraordinarily empirically successful theory and was generally accepted as 'probably real' by the 1970's, but was difficult to find experimentally.

    3. Re:History repeats itself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "There is only one universe" - sounds like theological clam. And just as unconfirmed ad multiverses.

      Consider two competing hypothesis: "there is an elephant in the corner of the room but it is undetectable" versus "there is no elephant in the room". Both predict the same outcome, but most would say the latter is the simpler explanation even though on a technical level this choice is arbitrary. Now replace the word elephant with parallel universe. Until we come up with an experiment that makes a testable prediction on the basis of there being multiple universes that does not have a simpler explanation *not* involving multiple universes it seems entirely reasonable to assert that there is only one universe.

      "Time is real" - Einstein might disagree. Time is the imaginary part in the complex equations of space-time.

      In some formulations of relativity time is treated as an imaginary number. In others space is treated as an imaginary number. In most both time and space are treated as real numbers and the signature of the metric tensor is assumed to be either + - - - or - + + +. All of these are isomorphic, and the choice is down to personal aesthetics (or whatever choice the book/paper you are reading decides to use). Nothing in any of this implies that time is "unreal" in either an arbitrary mathematical sense or any other sense.

      "Math is selectively real" - Only f the reality is defined by the capabilities of our brains and our technologies,

      I'm with you on this point. Mathematics is the formal expression of a set of axioms. We are free to choose these axioms. Assuming the universe does not randomly change its axioms periodically (and the choice does not itself obey a set of meta-axioms, for want of a better word) then yes, maths is real (which is of course not the same as saying that our current chosen set of axioms coincides with those of reality).

  6. I think physics has shown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    that the "promised" sci-fi ideas of warp drives and colonizing space just will never happen, ever. This goes against the prevailing Western mindset of eternal progress and growth. Therefore physics and reality must be wrong.

  7. Re:It's cultural. by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    People hate being told stuff they don't understand. And having to invest time and brain power for the slim hope to ever understanding it isn't too popular either.

    It's much easier and more popular to listen to people who have simple and easy to understand explanations for that complicated stuff. Whether it's true doesn't really rank up high on the importance totem pole.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  8. Re:Quantum physics by DogDude · · Score: 2

    It is certainly new. We weren't able to prove germs existed until we had powerful enough microscopes. We'll need to be able to time travel to prove some of the next hypothesis in physics. I think that there's a significant difference between not having powerful enough equipment to measure things, and not having the ability to travel through time/travel to alternate universes. That's the point. Science may have come to the point where further experimental knowledge is, quite literally, impossible.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  9. Re:Does this imply that by DogDude · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No. Climate change and income inequality are easily provable by science. We're talking about grown-up things that are much more difficult, if impossible to prove.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  10. epicycles by TeknoHog · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Extra dimensions are the epicycles of Modern Physics" -- Mark Maughan

    Mathematics is selectively real

    I quite agree with this. Oftentimes, mathematics is rather complex.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  11. Looking at the wrong branch of physics to trash by fadethepolice · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The article mentions hidden dimensions and other universes in the same sentence. This is a pet peeve of mine. In Multi-dimensional quantum mechanics the dimensions are additional directions. They are not other universes and the combination of the two in one sentence is either intentinally muddying the water, or the person writing the article is not familiar with the mathematics involved and should not be taken seriously. The standard Cartesian coordinate system used to describe our universe in it's basic sense contains x.y, and z, directions, a set of values that many of the programmers on Slashdot are familiar with. Multi-dimensional physics just adds more of these in an attempt to explain the very real observable quantum effects that Newtonian physics and relativity cannot explain and never will. We currently know more about the Andromeda galaxy than the Milky Way because it is difficult to describe an object when you are inside it. Getting a third person look at the universe, even if it is just a mathematical trick, is probably the easiest way to describe it. The refusal to do so is probably not going to go very far. What the emergence of time means is also not what they are describing it to be and should not be looked upon as a valid argument. In a holographic quantum view of the universe it could be considered similar to a wave propagating through a substrate, but also be akin to a temporary chemical reaction wave, where the structure of the substrate is momentarily changed while the wave propagates through. This temporary excitation of the substrate generates the universe we live in. The movement of the universe's propagation is in the direction of time. My take on the hidden dimensions is that instead of viewing them as hidden, we should look at them as directions in which the particles we are made of have a zero width. The reason we cannot travel in time is not because the directions don't exist, it's because the particles we are made of have a zero width in that direction. We would have to be made of something else, and when we went backwards in time we would effect leave our current universe. Other particles, such as the elemental particle of gravity have a non-zero width in one of these direction. What we should really be talking about is the fact that relativity CANNOT describe the orbital trajectories of any stars accurately. The lack of a theory to accurately explain a basic observable fact is more problematic than the inability of technology to currently test the most advanced physics problems. Once our ability to manipulate quantum effects (such as the creation of a working quantum super computer - looking at you google) and we can create technology that is based on quantum mechanics then maybe we will be able to test the theories. Second failure of current theory that I don't think is spoken of enough is the failure of the planck observatory to detect the effects of gravitational waves on the cosmic microwave background. There were several stories about the waves being detected but second looks at the data supporting this cast serious doubt. Since we have now confirmed the existence of gravitational waves and their effects have not been observed as inflation predicts, then the current theory of the big bang they reference at the beginning of the article (we can describe the universe up to a bit before it's creation) is in fact not supported by current experiments and should be rethought. Instead of taking a step back from quantum mechanics we need to take a second look at the non quantum component of physics as it is currently not supported by current data.

    1. Re:Looking at the wrong branch of physics to trash by pr100 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Please use paragraphs... a wall of text is very unappealing to read.

  12. Bad ratio of scientists to experimental data by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The time where you could find new physics in your average lab is mostly over. We often need huge, one-in-all-mankind projects like the Large Hadron Collider, the Hubble telescope and various other huge, super-powerful or super-sensitive systems to make experimental progress. They're massively expensive and take forever to create so maybe once a decade there's a new source of data. Meanwhile there's a ton of professors looking to research something, what's cheap to do? Computer models. Computer simulations. Not that I'm saying we know everything, far from it. But there's what we know, what we don't know and just a very thin slice that we're actively experimenting on right now. And we have our best and brightest working at CERN etc. it's the rest that need to justify their existence.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  13. mathematics is not selectively real by superwiz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mathematics is not real at all. And it is entirely real. It studies implications of assumptions. The assumptions do not at all have to be based in reality. Ask your favorite mathematician about axiom of choice if you don't believe me on that one. Math is based on a priori deductions. These deductiosn do not need to be and, in fact, cannot be verified through observations. Sometimes the conclusions which are made from mathematical assumptions match the observed reality. And then scientists try to see if the underlying assumptions on which those conclusions were based also match reality. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. Without empirical validation, science remains unproved and a-priori-based hypothesis. Only observation can make it a posteori conclusive.

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
    1. Re:mathematics is not selectively real by superwiz · · Score: 2

      It seems reasonable to assume that the universe follows some underlying set of axioms,

      Why? The device which you use to make your conclusions (your brain) is good at estimating probabilities. But it's fairly terrible at distinguishing what you observe with your senses from what you observe as a result of its culling of information and whatever other information you imagine as a result of its inner workings. What makes it worse, the sum total of observations which we can make will always be a compact set. So we literally cannot observe the universe if it is an open set of information.

      So on that level it seems entirely reasonable to assert that yes, mathematics is real.

      No, it's not. Because of Goedel's proof, you can never prove completeness of any axiomatic system. So even if you stumbled on a set of axioms which describe the natural world, you'd always have statements about it whose truth-value cannot be determined. So you'd never know if the system of axioms you concocted fully describes the world or not.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  14. String theory... by mschaffer · · Score: 3, Funny

    I guess that String Theory is knot for everyone---especially empiricists.

  15. Yes exactly, maths results by mx+b · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But string theory is different. Although it has not been a success phenomenologically, it has led to many beautiful results in mathematics and field theory, such as Mirror Symmetry and AdS/CFT. Further research in string theory is definitely worthwhile, and Lee Smolin is unreasonably biased against it.

    Yes, string theory is a bit different in that it hasn't been able to make any testable predictions, which makes it non-science. Science is based on the idea of experimental evidence, and falsifiability. It isn't science, it isn't physics.

    Now it very well may have some beautiful results in mathematics. Maybe it will have applications and effects on topology, cryptography, who knows. But those things are mathematics, not science.

    I tend to agree with Smolin that string theory, as currently presented (and I understand it), is not a scientific theory, even though it is interested and deserves its own mathematical research. The problem is, string theory gets the ratings, so we have more cosmologists and string theorists as professors physics, taking the few positions (and associated funding!) away from people that want to be true experimental physicists. That's where the semi-outrage is.

  16. Obligatory XKCD by InfiniteZero · · Score: 5, Funny

    https://xkcd.com/397/

  17. Something is wrong but what? by thogard · · Score: 3

    Richard Feynman wrote in the introduction of one his books that one easy way to find out of a theory is bad is to look at its complexity If it isn't simple, it is most likely wrong. He went on to talk about how strange the orbital mechanisms and mathematics were before Kepler found the correct and simple solution to the problem that disproved nearly everyone in the field. With that he ends the introduction and delves into quantum mechanics.

  18. If it isn't falsifiable, it's not Science by rodia · · Score: 2

    at least not natural science. Since physics is supposed to be part of natural science, it also isn't physics. String theorists can do their natural philosophy all they want, it certainly is not a "crisis of physics". Just like people who make highly unscientific claims like "there is only one universe".

  19. Re:Quantum physics by Brett+Buck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We weren't able to see germs until we had a powerful enough micrcoscope - but germ theory predicted that they existed, and that you should look for them and if you looked carefully enough, you would see them Just like the Higgs Boson - it was predicted for many decades before any instrument could detect it, and no one was really sure that it existed until it was detected at the mass predicted.

          Much of string theory, as an example, is theoretically unobservable, in that no matter what you do you can never see them at all, That's about like saying germs are not just too small to see with current equipment, they are invisible by their nature.

  20. Absence of evidence by Kim0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And what IS the evidence then for there being only one universe?
    Same goes for time being real.
    The article does not provide evidence for this, thus contradicting its own demand for evidence.

    It is just bla bla blah.

  21. Cannot measure it = not science by sjbe · · Score: 2

    We may not be able to determine the nature of the universe as it relates to quantum particles, experimentally.

    We experimentally test all sorts of things in relationship to quantum particles all the time. Having trouble parsing the point you are trying to make here.

    Are the ideas any less valid, if we can't prove them experimentally (by, say, going back in time, or visiting alternate realities)?

    If we cannot prove something experimentally (even in principle since we something lack the technology) then it is not science.

  22. pish posh by Thud457 · · Score: 3, Funny

    DC fixed this back in 1986.

    And in 1994.
    And in 2005.
    And in 2008.
    And they're fixing it now.

    I tell you what, from what I've seen, the script writer on this version of reality is a hack of the lowest caliber. And lately he stumbles from one ridiculous crisis to another without resolving anything.
    I mean, have you seen that storyline about the tech billionaire that is single-handedly remaking both space travel and the auto industries? Preposterous!

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff