Formulating Theories?

[kairunotabi]

Honestly, I am amazed to those who can express formulated theories in an understandable language of those who don't have such knowledge in the field of physics. But, I want to know the opposite. How does a person who just got an idea about something to formulate it in the language of mathematics and physics?

Edited March 14, 2014 by kairunotabi

[ajb]

But, I want to know the opposite. How does a person who just got an idea about something to formulate it in the language of mathematics and physics?

To be honest, unless you have some understanding of physics and this includes the basic mathematical constructions employed all the time, then it is unlikely that the idea really has much merit.

 

We see it all the time on these forums someone "pet theory" that contains no mathematics and so makes no real predictions or it just goes against well established physics.

[imatfaal]

You have to know that the underpinning of the physics must be expressed in maths to be properly usable and expressible. I will try to show how things get mathematical almost immediately

 

I juggle, to get my patterns good I juggle with very heavy balls - my heaviest set of juggling balls have a mass that is about 5% of my mass. So at which point will I appear to weigh less - when I am holding the balls or when I am juggling with the balls, or both the same. Even this silly little question requires you to get into the equations - what is the relationship between weight and mass, how do bathroom scales work? what happens when I throw a ball of 1.5kg upwards to a height of 50cm? What is the difference between doing this once, or a continuous action with regular catches, passes and throws? Does the lateral movement make any difference?

 

If you wanted to actually test your ideas you would have to think about statistics, experimental error, who is going to be brave enough to carefully monitor a set of scales when I am juggling with balls heavy enough to kill?

 

It can get frustrating when posters who could not begin to tackle the above toy example try to put together notions to describe how fundamental particles interact, or the nature of quantum mechanics. Or immediately after saying one doesn't know any maths describe a process that cannot be really understood without calculus.

 

Yes, admittedly the greatest scientists could explain things of great complexity in very simple layman's terms; but this is not a two-way street. Just because Richard Feynman could express ideas and communicate the essence of a theory in words a ten year old could grasp does not mean that a command of simple English can translate to a workable theory. Next time someone quotes Einstein about being to explain theory in only simple terms reread Relativity - the Special and General Theories - this is a uncomplex and short book that is far surpassed in difficulty by most physics text books; but you try getting the educated man or woman on the street to read and understand it! People talk about Feynman being able to explain the most complicated notions in a few funny and well-chosen words - yes to a lay television audience perhaps; but his lecture series is three books long! You cannot escape the fact that science is hard, needs maths and rigour, and can only be approximated (sometimes dangerously badly) by written English.