[cabinpark]

I think high level theory is wandering aimlessly through a field blindfolded with little guidance or where to look. This is because our current theories are so good, we have no idea where to look. So it begins conjecturing and conjecturing. What it ends up with is nonsensical garbage that does little to advance physics.

But yet, there isn't a crisis in physics at all since these theorists are so far removed from reality, I don't really care what they think. They don't really tell use anything useful or interesting so I tend to ignore them. Instead, I focus on things we do know exist but cannot explain, say astrophysical jets, pulsars, or supernovas. We know they exist and we can see them, yet we understand them very little. We have models that are getting better and better over time, but they all exist within the current understanding of physics. This is where physics really is. Whatever garbage the theorists put up on the arxiv can be ignored with little loss.

Instead, those of us "in the trenches" can continue our work trying to explain observed phenomena with our current theories. There is no need to add in extra dimensions or cohomology. Maybe, when we've done really understanding our current theories can we talk to those theorists again.

Incidentally, since I started my PhD in physics doing numerical relativity, my views on science have changed completely. I used to be interested in stuff like string theory, but actually sitting down and trying to do it left me feeling empty inside. Now that I work in an area that is very closely related to observations, I feel like I am actually learning something about the universe. It's hard to explain philosophically, but I really believe in experiments as the guiding principle of science. In my case, we see pulsars (2500+ of them) and we have yet to provide a full explanation of their nature. To me there is something more real and scientific about this then trying to explain multiverse theory but I don't know the words to describe it.

[danharaj]

Mathematical physics is important even if it doesn't produce theories that have direct relevance to current unexplained phenomena. String theory has been an enormous contribution to what we know of the mathematical structure of quantum field theory itself. These developments while not yet, if ever testable as the correct extension of the standard model contribute new mathematical methods, principles, and ideas that tell us what an extension to the standard model would look like. Furthermore understanding the mathematics of QFT itself lets us develop new computation principles for simulations. There's also theoretical widgets like topological quantum field theories which do show up in nature in condensed matter physics.

At the very least all of these theoretical developments bring us incrementally closer to understanding the structure of Quantum Chromodynamics. We still don't understand the theory enough to tell whether or not there are tetraquarks! All the effort put into theoretical physics and mathematical physics improves our mastery of the standard model.

tl;dr; don't call math garbage :[

[cabinpark]

I have no qualms with mathematical physics at all. I love mathematical physics to the extent my undergraduate degree is in mathematical physics. But the problem is that they are calling it reality. To my mind, string theory is nothing but a mathematical exercise that likely has nothing to do with reality.

I hate when theorists take some abstract crazy idea and then say the universe has 10 or 11 dimensions when they have no basis for saying that.

[andrepd]

I'm happy that your work in experimental physics has given you an appreciation for the vital part experiment plays in science. But dismissing theoreticians for working in the clouds while you work "in the trenches" is not very fair. Not every theoretician works in 87-dimensional string theory.

[cabinpark]

Sorry it was late but I know what you mean. I meant "theoreticians" in the sense that the article is talking about, i.e. those who work on string theory or loop quantum gravity. Many of my colleagues are nuclear physicists who work exclusively in theory.

[purpled_haze]

> But yet, there isn't a crisis in physics at all since these theorists are so far removed from reality, I don't really care what they think. They don't really tell use anything useful or interesting so I tend to ignore them.

Einstein was a theoretical physicist. Without his theories:

* Japan might not have been defeated in WWII.

* There might be more coal power plants, because there would be no nuclear power plants.

* GPS probably would never have worked.

* We'd have fewer successful space missions.

* There would be no superconductive magnets.

* There would be no digital cameras or solar cells.

* There would be no lasers.

I could keep going if you want...

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity

http://www.guidetothecosmos.com/present_wwe.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoretical_physics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission

[fengwick3]

I don't think you seem to understand the argument here. Einstein is a prime example of a theorist whose bold theories predicted verifiable results, such as the Einstein Cross. The problem with modern theorists, as the article and the parent comment articulated, is that string theories and whatnot often predict untestable and unverifiable results. This is not an attack on all physics theorists - rather, it's a criticism on the fashionable line of research into string theories and other unverifiable theories.

[lmm]

"Then I would feel sorry for the good Lord; the theory is correct". Einstein's theories were ultimately verified, but only long after they were completed. Research into string theory is driven by its theoretical elegance in exactly the same way as Einstein's original SR work.

[tmptmp]

>> untestable and unverifiable ...

As someone has pointed out above, these theroies are surely "untestable and unverifiable" for now but that doesn't make them unfalsifiable so we must not critisize the theorists just because we cannot test and verify them.

[poelzi]

Einstein was special because he never got lost with reality:

"We can invent as many theories we like, and any one of them can be made to fit the facts. But that theory is always preferred which makes the fewest number of assumptions."

And yet, physics ignores his LAST and FINAL conclusion about HIS theory:

"We may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an aether. According to the general theory of relativity space without aether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this aether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it."

[xrange]

>* There would be no superconductive magnets.

Can you expand upon this? I'm unclear as to which of Einstein's theories you are referencing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_superconductivity

[dstyrb]

Japan's surrender had absolutely nothing to do with the bomb.

And why does everyone think that without Einstein we would somehow enter a 100 year long dark age?

[wtallis]

> "And why does everyone think that without Einstein we would somehow enter a 100 year long dark age?"

He said "without Einstein's theories". Physics would probably have progressed about the same, albeit set back by a bit without the man himself, but all those technologies would still have been dependent on someone doing what Einstein did.

[jjaredsimpson]

Like Hilbert.

[magicalist]

> It's hard to explain philosophically

Not really; you're just confusing your opinion with some deeper truth :)

We can posit that people exist with the opposite opinion (they do) and it reveals that all we've learned is how your views on what's interesting in science have changed.

[poelzi]

I studied philosophy and physics and was really shocked how little the "philosophy of science" most scientists know.

The question of: "what is true" is NOT so easy as most people think. It is in fact a damn hard question and depends on the basic axioms you accept. First you need a logic, and there are many logics out there, classical logic and mathematical logic as one of the most accepted ones. Classical logic as humanly understandable is for example much more accepted in philosophy then the mathematical one, because it is much more stricter.

This question was also part of physics in the till 1920s but basically got forgotten there and the blind accepted of mathematical logic due QM became standard. Blind, because this is not a questions young physicists get confronted with.

Every good physicist was also a philosopher, simply, you can't separate those. You can't build a physical model without basic assumptions. You have to at least assume there is "stuff" of some sort, you have to assume there are dimensions of some sort.

Roughly a year ago, I stumbled about the BSM-SG model from Dr. Stoyan Sarg. http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Structures-Matter-Supergravitati...

I got intrigued, it only needs 2 fundamental particles, 3 Euclidean dimensions and one law of attraction. As a philosopher I heart was instantly: WOW, I have to give it a try. Never could accept more the 3 dimensions due thought experiments into lower ones.

I really spend month thinking about this theory, pah, once I had to take holidays from work because I could not think about anything else ;) And then I clicked and everything started to make sense, really everything. Each quantum effect, general relativity, atoms, spectral lines, like everything. In fact, once you understand the crystallization process of a galaxy, how such complex structures like protons, neutrons and electrons come to be.

It is funny to have an answer to this super old philosophical question: why, why this complex world. Because it is bound to be. Enough fundamental particles, and those bulks are bound to be, they crystallize in a quite complex but simple process into protoneutrons (protons/neutrons) & electrons that are bound to build a stable galaxy. The laws inside a galaxy are always stable and behave the same with matter made from the same galaxy.

(There is a corner case but i highly irregular one).

Anyway, I started to promote this model because nobody else seems to. Started a non profit for it etc. I knew that promoting alternative physical models gets strong opposition compared to all other sciences, but knowing what bad assumptions are in the Standard Model I just laugh silently about their ignorance.

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/24/7426.full.pdf

This hole understanding made me personally much more critical. I tend to distrust everything that requires mathematical logic - when I have a physical model that requires only classical one, why should anything else in nature be true when not. I look much more openly at fringe sciences, the explanaitions make usually no sense for me now, I understand the process is quite fast tho.

Btw, pulsars are not so hard to understand: Chapter 12.B.6.4 but you need to understand chapter 1,2,3,6 at least, otherwise it will not make any sense.