Is foundational physics stuck?

[studiot]

  On 11/10/2024 at 1:24 PM, joigus said:

Evariste Galois is another good example of what I'm saying. I'm well aware of the possibility of a cognitive bias. There are counterexamples, as @studiot pointed out.

Expand  

I don't think either the untimely demise of either Galois or Abel stopped their genius flowering. They had both achieved much before that.

There were plenty of Frenchmen who started well but lost in one of the many french wars.

  On 11/10/2024 at 1:41 PM, swansont said:

The reason that all the named geniuses were white European men, is not some innate superiority of being white, European, or male.

Expand  

I agree with that,

But not this

  On 11/10/2024 at 1:41 PM, swansont said:

and the vast majority of the population of the world was quite poor until fairly recently.

Expand  

Depending upon your POV, rampant poverty is still true today.

[dimreepr]

  On 11/10/2024 at 1:43 PM, studiot said:

I don't think either the untimely demise of either Galois or Abel stopped their genius flowering. They had both achieved much before that.

There were plenty of Frenchmen who started well but lost in one of the many french wars.

I agree with that,

But not this

Depending upon your POV, rampant poverty is still true today.

Expand  

Wow, how did it get to this?

Is foundational physics stuck? Of course not, that's like asking if potty training is necessary...

[joigus]

  On 11/10/2024 at 1:41 PM, swansont said:

I’m also considering that the discussion covers the timeline back to Galileo, and the vast majority of the population of the world was quite poor until fairly recently. The reason that all the named geniuses were white European men, is not some innate superiority of being white, European, or male.

Expand  

Agreed. There's some prevailing wind acting there. Social status is obviously a factor too. I don't expect the next Einstein to emerge from among the homeless either.

What's peculiar is that people working in the IAS, or PIRSA, etc, working under a common umbrella, with all the facilitation that money can buy to fertilise each other's minds (never mind gender or race) seem to have been unable to parallel the high standards of creativity that lone individuals reached in past decades. Noether was one of these geniuses too, she was a woman, and didn't have it easy either.

One would think that putting together an Einstein and a Noether, and throwing in a Fermi, all teleconferencing each other at the touch of a button, would have achieved much more much more quickly. 

It reminds me of the splitting of mayonnaise: If you put too much oil too soon, it fails to emulsify.

[TheVat]

There is also the fruit tree theory for innovative ideas slowing down in a field.  Einstein, Heisenberg, Feynman et al expertly picked the fruit from the lower branches.  Now there's the more difficult process of getting at the higher branches.  Sudden epiphanies don't work as well, and progress is less dramatic.  Hypothesized particles like the Majorana are very difficult to observe, so waiting times get very long.  Axions have been searched for over 40 years, Majorana fermions since 1937.  Of course, someone could come along and shake the tree violently and some massive paradigmatic shift could, say, scrap cold dark matter.

[tylers100]

Five possibilities occurred with searching for a next science genius:

- Be genius.
- Wait for a next genius.
- Work together to be "genius".
- Or genius is overrated, and do what best can do.
- And or all of above.

[DanMP]

  On 11/10/2024 at 5:36 PM, TheVat said:

There is also the fruit tree theory for innovative ideas slowing down in a field.  Einstein, Heisenberg, Feynman et al expertly picked the fruit from the lower branches.  Now there's the more difficult process of getting at the higher branches.

Expand  

Interesting, but, in my opinion, the problem is that most of the physicists are interested in the higher branches (very sophisticated theories), ignoring that the "discovery" of dark matter opened the possibility for new/different "low branch" (simple) theories. This also means that the theories developed before/ignoring DM, like GR, may be misleading and/or a limiting factor, despite the fact that they offered very good results. 

[joigus]

  On 11/12/2024 at 2:23 PM, DanMP said:

Interesting, but, in my opinion, the problem is that most of the physicists are interested in the higher branches (very sophisticated theories), ignoring that the "discovery" of dark matter opened the possibility for new/different "low branch" (simple) theories.

Expand  

More than just interesting. I think the point,

  On 11/10/2024 at 5:36 PM, TheVat said:

Now there's the more difficult process of getting at the higher branches.  Sudden epiphanies don't work as well, and progress is less dramatic.

Expand  

is a fair one.

The learning curve of new theories is generally steeper than the one corresponding to old theories.

In the case of physics, foundational or not, students generally have to master sophisticated calculational tools in order to tackle the simplest problems of the most modern theories. 

[swansont]

  On 11/12/2024 at 2:23 PM, DanMP said:

Interesting, but, in my opinion, the problem is that most of the physicists are interested in the higher branches (very sophisticated theories), ignoring that the "discovery" of dark matter opened the possibility for new/different "low branch" (simple) theories. This also means that the theories developed before/ignoring DM, like GR, may be misleading and/or a limiting factor, despite the fact that they offered very good results. 

Expand  

It’s quite possible that some area of physics is up a blind alley, because there is a more fundamental formulation that looks quite different but reduces to the known case under the conditions we can experience. 

Kinda like how phlogiston worked, until it didn’t. Or the plum pudding model of the atom.

I don’t know how you find the better model without experimental data to push you.

[Genady]

I think that the fruit tree metaphor is wrong. It assumes that physicists are standing now on the same ground level as Einstein, Heisenberg, Feynman et al were standing on, while the branches are farther away. It is not so. The branches reached by Einstein, Heisenberg, Feynman et al are the new ground level, and the "higher" branches are not necessarily farther away.

[DanMP]

  On 11/12/2024 at 3:21 PM, joigus said:

In the case of physics, foundational or not, students generally have to master sophisticated calculational tools in order to tackle the simplest problems of the most modern theories. 

Expand  

In my opinion, physicists should focus more on actual physics and less in math, because nowadays we have computers, able to run simulations.

 

  On 11/12/2024 at 6:24 PM, swansont said:

I don’t know how you find the better model without experimental data to push you.

Expand  

I think that a good way to find the better model is to ask yourself why and how exactly things are happening, including things that are covered by the current theories but never really explained, like the invariance of the speed of light in vacuum. Once you have a viable model, one that is both logical and in agreement with all the observations, you must imagine/find ways to test it experimentally. So, yes, new experimental data is required. 

 

  On 11/12/2024 at 6:25 PM, Genady said:

The branches reached by Einstein, Heisenberg, Feynman et al are the new ground level, and the "higher" branches are not necessarily farther away.

Expand  

Yes, they are not farther away, but what if that tree (path) is not the best one? New information, like the existence of DM, may lead you to a much better tree ... 

 

  On 11/12/2024 at 6:25 PM, Genady said:

I think that the fruit tree metaphor is wrong

Expand  

Well, maybe, but I like it 😀

[swansont]

  On 11/13/2024 at 1:23 PM, DanMP said:

In my opinion, physicists should focus more on actual physics and less in math, because nowadays we have computers, able to run simulations.

Expand  

Where does the math that’s in the code/simulation come from?

[DanMP]

  On 11/13/2024 at 1:57 PM, swansont said:

Where does the math that’s in the code/simulation come from?

Expand  

I said to focus less on math, not to forget about math.

 

Even now it's maybe impossible, in the near future AI should be able to create a simulation based on our description of elements and interactions. Until then, we still have to use some math and/or to ask a computer specialist to translate our thoughts into a computer simulation. 

[swansont]

  On 11/13/2024 at 2:57 PM, DanMP said:

I said to focus less on math, not to forget about math.

Expand  

Coding is the easy part.

  On 11/13/2024 at 2:57 PM, DanMP said:

Even now it's maybe impossible, in the near future AI should be able to create a simulation based on our description of elements and interactions. Until then, we still have to use some math and/or to ask a computer specialist to translate our thoughts into a computer simulation. 

Expand  

That would require AI developing something that’s not based on what we know, which is not something it currently does

[Mordred]

 

  On 11/13/2024 at 2:57 PM, DanMP said:

I said to focus less on math, not to forget about math.

 

Even now it's maybe impossible, in the near future AI should be able to create a simulation based on our description of elements and interactions. Until then, we still have to use some math and/or to ask a computer specialist to translate our thoughts into a computer simulation. 

Expand  

We already run very complex simulations example testing our mathematics involved for Cosmology.

https://www.illustris-project.org/

Mathematica is also a very useful tool commonly used by physicists such a the Feycalc extension

Even for  the Saha equations one requires coded simulations thankfully this one doesn't have huge computing power requirements.

None of these require AI.

Edited November 13, 2024 by Mordred

[DanMP]

  On 11/13/2024 at 4:13 PM, Mordred said:

We already run very complex simulations example testing our mathematics involved for Cosmology.

https://www.illustris-project.org/

Expand  

Wow! Thank you! Very interesting and impressive. Of course, for such simulations math is very important, because simplification is necessary. The scale is too large. 

 

The thing is that we may/should use such simulations to make similar ones. AI may also learn from such simulations. 

 

Anyway, the simulations I have in mind are much much less complex, that's why they may be realized with less math. 

 

  On 11/13/2024 at 4:13 PM, Mordred said:

None of these require AI.

Expand  

Ok, maybe now AI is not used, but I'm pretty sure that in the near future it will be used.

 

  On 11/13/2024 at 4:00 PM, swansont said:

That would require AI developing something that’s not based on what we know, which is not something it currently does

Expand  

AI is crushing humans in Go (the game). We gave/teach it the setup and the rules and it quickly learned to outperform us. Something similar I had in mind when I said 

  On 11/13/2024 at 2:57 PM, DanMP said:

in the near future AI should be able to create a simulation based on our description of elements and interactions

Expand  

 

[swansont]

  On 11/13/2024 at 5:22 PM, DanMP said:

AI is crushing humans in Go (the game). We gave/teach it the setup and the rules and it quickly learned to outperform us. Something similar I had in mind when I said 

Expand  

I’m not seeing how this applies, unless it learned the rules without being told, or observing the game being played. New physics = not knowing the rules.

[DanMP]

The rules were told and this is also what I said/implied. 

  On 11/13/2024 at 5:34 PM, swansont said:

New physics = not knowing the rules.

Expand  

One may define/set the rules & model and check them using simulations.

Edited November 13, 2024 by DanMP

[studiot]

Hasn't this thread wandered way off topic.

 

What does it matter to the headline question how the next breakthrough arrives ?

Surely the question is about when it will happen.

[DanMP]

  On 11/5/2024 at 8:32 AM, Markus Hanke said:

much of current work feels a lot like people randomly and blindly groping in the dark by inventing maths that don’t seem to be motivated by any real-world data points, hoping to just stumble across that next breakthrough. This isn’t really how science should work.

Comments, anyone?

Expand  

My input was related to that, so I wasn't off topic. We need to focus more on physics and less on math. 

[swansont]

  On 11/13/2024 at 5:40 PM, DanMP said:

The rules were told and this is also what I said/implied. 

Expand  

Yes, meaning it’s irrelevant to discovering new foundations in physics 

  On 11/13/2024 at 5:40 PM, DanMP said:

One may define/set the rules & model and check them using simulations.

Expand  

Check them against what?

  On 11/13/2024 at 6:21 PM, DanMP said:

My input was related to that, so I wasn't off topic. We need to focus more on physics and less on math. 

Expand  

I don’t know what this even means. You have theory (which is math) and experiment. If there’s no experiment, there is only math.

[studiot]

  On 11/13/2024 at 6:21 PM, DanMP said:

My input was related to that, so I wasn't off topic. We need to focus more on physics and less on math. 

Expand  

What make you so sure there is more fundamental physics to discover ?

[DanMP]

  On 11/13/2024 at 6:31 PM, swansont said:

Check them against what?

Expand  

Against reality (experimental data), of course.

  On 11/13/2024 at 6:31 PM, swansont said:

meaning it’s irrelevant to discovering new foundations in physics

Expand  

Why? 

 

  On 11/13/2024 at 6:35 PM, studiot said:

What make you so sure there is more fundamental physics to discover ?

Expand  

The fact that current theories are not actually explaining the reality. Can you explain what a field is and how exactly a force is transmitted at a distance? Can you explain the invariance of c? Can you explain how a mass is warping spacetime? And no, I'm not asking how the model works, I'm asking what and how is really happening. 

 

Also, in the string theory, why the strings are vibrating?

 

Anyway, it seems that I'm not the only one to expect more, better, models. 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2024 by DanMP

[DanMP]

  On 11/13/2024 at 6:31 PM, swansont said:

I don’t know what this even means. You have theory (which is math) and experiment. If there’s no experiment, there is only math.

Expand  

You got it all wrong. The theory is (should be) a physical model. Yes, it usually includes math, but it isn't just math. And who said that "there’s no experiment" ?! I said:

  On 11/13/2024 at 1:23 PM, DanMP said:

Once you have a viable model, one that is both logical and in agreement with all the observations, you must imagine/find ways to test it experimentally. So, yes, new experimental data is required

Expand  

 

[swansont]

  On 11/13/2024 at 6:38 PM, DanMP said:

Against reality (experimental data), of course.

Expand  

What experimental data? Did you miss all the discussion about the lack of it?

  On 11/13/2024 at 7:41 PM, DanMP said:

You got it all wrong. The theory is (should be) a physical model. Yes, it usually includes math, but it isn't just math.

Expand  

Can you give some examples of modern physics models that are “physical”?

[DanMP]

  On 11/13/2024 at 7:46 PM, swansont said:

What experimental data? Did you miss all the discussion about the lack of it?

Expand  

There is no experimental data?!? So there is no experimental data to back GR? 😀 What in the world are you talking about?