"It's getting harder to probe the fundamentals of physics without multi-billion dollar instruments... a new particle collider is a dead end." Of course it's getting harder - that's a sign of progress. How can you be so sure a new collider won't probe new physics ? Got any better experiments we could do instead ? If not, then either a) humbly accept that you can recognise a problem but don't yet have any solutions or b) shut up about it. There's no point yelling, "YER DOING IT WRONG BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW OR WHY WHAT YOU'RE DOING IS WRONG BUT YOU ARE AND I DON'T LIKE IT !". That's just pointless.
"We need to be better at choosing which kinds of experiments to do." Really ? Mind telling us how ? That'd sure be helpful.
"We need better ways of proposing hypotheses instead of mindless speculation." Well, ditto. Where do you suppose new ideas are ever supposed to come from if not from free-ranging, playful speculation ? You want "different ideas, but no, not those ideas, the other ones...". The hell ?
"Physicists don't think about the kind of experiments they're doing because they haven't been taught how." Did you accidentally talk to a chatbot by mistake ?
"Don't tell me I don't have any better ideas... we need to focus on resolving inconsistencies." MY GOD ! SUCH WISDOM ! WHOEVER COULD HAVE THOUGHT OF SUCH A REVOLUTION ! I can only assume that this level of banality is a deliberate attempt to provoke outrage.
Better to quote the comments than the article :
This is written like someone who has absolutely no knowledge of how experimental physics works nowadays. I'm assuming that the author isn't as ignorant on the subject matter as that, and this is just a very manipulative way to spread (while not exactly outright lies) misinformation about *how everyone else is wrong*. I'm sorry, but until I see some due diligence, I'll give the argument here no weight. Or more accurately, I'll give it the weight it deserves: mediocre troll, kinda boring. I'm sad my view gave you money for this trash meant to elicit reactionary, knee-jerk reactions....
I am not sure if Dr. Hossenfelder is suggesting anything different other than to urge increased caution with experimental choice. This, however, does not imply fundamental problems with the philosophy of science. There may be sociological problems, political problems in particular, but not problems of basic epistemology. Of course, this begs the question as to what Dr. Hossenfelder means by "philosophy". Does she mean, as I have speculated, epistemology, or perhaps ethics, morality, metaphysics, logic, or aesthetics? Perhaps this is where I find myself confused. I should be confused, because Dr. Hossenfelder has not defined "philosphy" enough for this article to make sense enough to interpret it properly....
OK, maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't saying "I am the only physicist who has at least come up with an idea for what to do" kind of beg the question of exactly what that idea may be? If you're not going to explain it here, shouldn't you at least point us to where you DO explain it? As it stands, this rant seems to be a content-free waste of time. If you don't want to be accused of having no suggestions, you need to say what your suggestions are. I sure hope you don't think "resolving inconsistencies" counts, because that is a pointless prescription unless you can say how to do it.
Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years
In the foundations of physics, we have not seen progress since the mid 1970s when the standard model of particle physics was completed. Ever since then, the theories we use to describe observations have remained unchanged. Sure, some aspects of these theories have only been experimentally confirmed later.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Due to a small but consistent influx of spam, comments will now be checked before publishing. Only egregious spam/illegal/racist crap will be disapproved, everything else will be published.