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Chemosynthesis
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I would argue that plenty of physics has advanced since the 80's, as has biology, chemistry, and multidisciplinary fields such as neuroscience (and
the BRAIN initiative) and continue to advance to this day.
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morganbw
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Quote: Originally posted by woelen  | There is one big difference between physics nowadays and physics e.g. 200 years ago. At that time people could do astonishing discoveries with
equipment which one could have at home and there was no need to specialize into the extreme. Nowadays you need multi-tonne or even multi-million
equipment if you want to do bleeding edge research and you have to focus on a very narrow topic in physics.
All low hanging fruits have been picked already in centures past by, nowadays we need to put more and more effort in picking the higher hanging
fruits. Unfortunately this makes significant discoveries by amateurs very unlikely. |
Einstein used mostly thought experiments and then searched for mathematical models to fit.
Personally I think that their still might be some fruit to pluck.
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careysub
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| Quote: Originally posted by gregxy | Here is an interesting article, some really smart people are worried about artificial intelligence leading to the end of mankind (like Terminator)
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/ai-arrived-really-worries-world...
It's also disappointing in a way if all that intelligence turn out to be is fitting a non-linear equation to a bunch of points and then using the
equation to extrapolate....
I also remember reading that scientists were "disappointed" at how well the current set of theories fit the experimental results for the Higgs
particle. Disappointed because there was no new anomaly to investigate, which could lead to new theories. |
I am an applied AI guy from way back, also very interested in real studies of intelligence - natural neural systems - and I can tell you that the
powerful AI of today is not like "real" intelligence at all.
AI systems are increasingly powerful pattern matching systems, that can automate work that used to be done only by natural pattern matching systems,
i.e. humans. Many tasks that have in the past been impossible to automate are now falling to this technology, and will continue to do so, and with it
a lot of jobs - white collar jobs this time.
But these systems aren't capable of reasoning anything like any natural brain, even simple ones. Even the impressive performance of Watson is simply a
data-base driven question answering system tuned by humans.
As an example consider one of the simplest model neural systems used by science, the marine flatworm Caenorhabditis elegans. It has 302 neurons - we
have counted them all, identified all of the neuron-to-neuron interconnections, the interconnection type, and we know how the entire system develops
from the original single germ cell, every cell division that occurs, the whole lineage of descent.
With such complete knowledge of the layout and organization of the neural system, and the ability to dissect at will, we must be able to build a
computer version of the C. elegans nervous system, right?
Hah! We cannot even model one individual neuron accurately.
We are still in the early stages of learning how to study complex systems of all types, and neural systems are the most complex we know of. Studies of
complexity is an essentially unlimited space of scientific inquiry we are just starting to address.
About this business of "no new physics since...":
In every decade so far we have had fundamental breakthroughs in physics, even if it is the cosmologists showing us that there is new physics we do not
understand.
Recently:
Neutrino mass violated the "standard model" in 1998.
Cosmic acceleration and dark energy (also 1998), something we are entirely clueless about to this day. We don't even know what questions to ask.
Even in ordinary prosaic normal matter at STP - we discovered topological insulators in 2006, a new phase of condensed matter.
You want physics from pure thought (similar to Einstein's Gedenken experiments?) We have Shor's algorithm for quantum computing (1994) and in the same
vein more recently quantum error correction. Perhaps even more fundamental is gauge/gravity duality ("Maldacena duality") in 1997.
Evidence for the existence of dark matter has been developing since the 1930s(!) but all we have are a batch of unconfirmed theories at this point.
All attempts to detect the supposed particles have failed so far.
Considering that matter than we "see" and understand only constitutes 4% of the material in the Universe, and we have no clue what the rest of it is,
there is obviously a lot of physics we are ignorant of.
And of course we know that we do not know the relationship between quantum physics and gravity.
Even with 'expected' physics, denying progress when we actually produce theoretical objects in the lab for study, like Bose-Einstein condensates,
seems short sighted.
In the area of complex systems understanding and physics we have Chaos Theory developed since the 1970s. In this area discoveries about chaotic
physical systems continue, and can still be made with materials no more exotic than piles of sand.
[Edited on 1-3-2015 by careysub]
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Fulmen
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That's not entirely accurate. While Einstein wasn't an experimental physicist he did rely on the available observations at the time. Without
experiments like Michelson & Morleys he wouldn't have anything to work with.
We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together.
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blogfast25
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| Quote: Originally posted by Fulmen | | That's not entirely accurate. While Einstein wasn't an experimental physicist he did rely on the available observations at the time. Without
experiments like Michelson & Morleys he wouldn't have anything to work with. |
I'm fairly sure he was unaware of that 'failed' experiment and the Lorentz Transformation.
The second search result here, a *.pdf, argues kind of both ways:
https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=einstein+michelson+mo...
[Edited on 1-3-2015 by blogfast25]
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Fulmen
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I know there is some controversy around this, but let's be honest. The experiment was done 20 years before his publication and even if he wasn't
directly aware of it it's still likely that the results shaped the debate at the time.
We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together.
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careysub
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I understand the problem of getting publications out, and the need to make them significant, but this guy is trying too hard to create some problem
to be solved.
The actual direct evidence he cites is that Einstein wrote in a letter as a student that he read a review article, which we known contains a summary
of 12 experiments including M&M. If we assume that he really read it, then he did run across a description of it, as one might expect a physics
student to do. Even if we didn't have this mention, it would a likely hypothesis that he did.
But the fact that he nevers mentions the experiment must account against the idea that it was playing a significant role in his thoughts at the time.
The attempt to make this is some sort of refutation of his later statements that it did not play a major role in the formation of his ideas seems
overdoing it.
But - yeah, he was studying the experimental literature and thus the prior experimental work was forming his thoughts in a general way.
[Edited on 1-3-2015 by careysub]
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Fulmen
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| Quote: Originally posted by careysub |
But - yeah, he was studying the experimental literature and thus the prior experimental work was forming his thoughts in a general way.
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Exactly. You don't get anywhere with spinning theories not supported by evidence. That's why there were so many silly ideas in ancient Greece.
Everything we know is derived from the observed. Now Einstein didn't do any experiments, what he did was by reason alone. That was an
incredible achievement, but it was based on observations and experiments.
Science IS observation. It's just a point well worth repeating now and again.
We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together.
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aga
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All things are Born, Live then Die : a Self-Evident Truth, however i don't think we're there yet.
OK. So Science isn't discovering stuff as fast as you'd like.
No new shiny sparkly stuff for a while.
The Sheer effort required to research stuff, work out a new hypothesis, do endless experiments to prove/disprove the hypotheses etc causes a delay in
Proven Knowledge to accumulate.
Back when 'The Melting Points of Metals' was being Scientifically researched, there were dozens of Discoveries each month.
What is now being researched is somewhat more complicated, and takes more Time.
Eventually there will be Step Change, after which the young scientists of that day will say much the same as now, just the Language will change:
'Scientific Discovery has ended : we can never get faster than 149.37 kilolights with a Plate Class Cruiser'
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blogfast25
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| Quote: Originally posted by careysub | I understand the problem of getting publications out, and the need to make them significant, but this guy is trying too hard to create some problem
to be solved.
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That's quite a bit of ad hom blahdiblah you've got there.
That's so reductionist I wouldn't even know where to begin to refute it.
| Quote: Originally posted by Fulmen | Exactly. You don't get anywhere with spinning theories not supported by evidence. That's why there were so many silly ideas in ancient Greece.
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Dear G-d. So many of their ideas survive to this day. Many the result of Pure Reason.
[Edited on 2-3-2015 by blogfast25]
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Fulmen
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Of course science is more than just observation, but you cannot have science without it.
As for the old Greeks I don't deny that they got some (a lot) right as well. But we also tend to ignore what they got wrong.
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blogfast25
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No one serious does that. What HAS happened is that modern science (17th, 18th century) has 'borrowed' from what went before, w/o providing much by
way of references.
"The Story of 1"
http://youtu.be/RSpadYjnYl8
13th century Chinese mathematicians mastered Horner's method (polynomial division, simply put) and much more. Had their society not stagnated and gone
into decline, they might have developed Limit theory, calculus and guided missiles and we might all have Mandarin as a second language. 
=====================
Trying to separate Empiricism, Rationalism (and Historicism) from each other in science is like trying to unscramble a scrambled egg.
See e.g. Schrödinger's heuristic derivation of his famous equation.
[Edited on 2-3-2015 by blogfast25]
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Fulmen
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I agree my statement is simplified, and maybe I'm riding empiricism too hard, but this wasn't intended as a complete thesis
But even within math and logic observations of some sort are used either as a starting point or as a test of it's validity. While the deduction of
Homer's method might be considered a purely intellectual exercise, what use would it have if it couldn't solve real world problems? How would you even
know if it works if you can't check it against anything?
Of course you don't necessarily need new observations, what Newton did was basically combining Galileo's model of gravity with Kepler's rules
for planetary motion and realizing that they were one and the same. Same with Einstein, his work was based on existing observations.
Take the case of the luminiferous aether. It was basically a postulated substance based on the fact that light was a wave, and we only knew waves as a
propagation process within a medium. Yet as experiment after experiment failed to prove it's existence it wasn't until Einstein came along that we
realized we could do without it. There was never any proof of it, yet people could not rid themselves of the notion. I often wonder how physics would
have evolved if the concept had been dismissed at an earlier time.
Yet now we see the concept reemerging as the Dark Fluid-model to explain the mystery of dark mass and energy.
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blogfast25
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| Quote: Originally posted by Fulmen | I agree my statement is simplified, and maybe I'm riding empiricism too hard, but this wasn't intended as a complete thesis
But even within math and logic observations of some sort are used either as a starting point or as a test of it's validity. While the deduction of
Homer's method might be considered a purely intellectual exercise, what use would it have if it couldn't solve real world problems? How would you even
know if it works if you can't check it against anything?
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Don't over estimate the importance of "checking it against anything". Quantum chemistry clearly 'works', yet discussions about what it means have
never gone away and are again in the ascent. See 'many worlds interpretation', for instance.
Glimpsing the Real is seriously hard.
==========
Going back to Einstein's Special Relativity, assume for argument's sake that he knew and USED the Michelson - Morley data, as well as the Lorentz
Transformation. The Rationalist 'added value' would remain nonetheless tremendous.
[Edited on 2-3-2015 by blogfast25]
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Fulmen
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Aren't we saying the same thing here? It's the fact that quantum chemistry works is what guides the work on the theory.
As for the notion of "real" I think it's a dangerous line of thinking. What is "real"? All we really know is what we can sense, so we naturally try to
view everything in terms that resemble the world that we experience. We can describe a photon as both a particle and a wave, but it's not a "real"
particle like a marble. You can't hold a photon in your hand and study it's surface. Nor can we see it move like an ocean wave. So what does a photon
really look like? The question doesn't make much sense.
As for Einsteins work I agree. Knowing of M&M's work does not in any way reduce the importance or value of his work. A lot of very
intelligent people knew of this experiment and still got it wrong.
[Edited on 2-3-15 by Fulmen]
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blogfast25
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Whoopy, an entire school of philosophical thinking (from ancient to contemporary) dismissed as 'dangerous'! Never mind, I like 'dangerous' thinking!
You might want to read a decent book on science and philosophy. And notice how the question of the Real touches on both of them.
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Fulmen
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I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it can be "dangerous" and misleading. It's very easy to try to translate everything into something that
resembles the macroscopic world we experience with our primary senses, as if this is more "real" in some way. Just as when people grapple with the
concept of the particle/wave-duality by imagining it as a marble moving up and down...
I must admit that long texts on philosophy tend to either piss me off or give me a headache. But I do respect it as a field even if I happen to
disagree with many philosophies. Personally I find positivism most useful.
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blogfast25
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| Quote: Originally posted by Fulmen | | It's very easy to try to translate everything into something that resembles the macroscopic world we experience with our primary senses, as if this is
more "real" in some way. |
Funny that, to me that's what positivism does!
As regards 'dangerous ideas', that's precisely what the establishment thought of Darwin and why he kept putting off publishing 'Origins'.
[Edited on 2-3-2015 by blogfast25]
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careysub
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Au contraire - no "ad hominem" at all (if that is what "ad hom blahdiblah" means).
"Ad hominem" refers to 'attacking a person's character, rather than the content of their arguments'.
I was critiquing the actual content of his arguments but offering a sympathetic comment about why some one would go to print with a weak
argument like that.
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Fulmen
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Then we have a difference on what positivism means. That's fine by me.
The way I understand it positivism focuses on falsifiability rather than verifiability. Also it supports the idea of absolute truth, although it can
never be known with absolute certainty.
As for dangerous ideas, I'm not talking about politically dangerous but rather misleading.
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blogfast25
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In that first line you played the man, not the ball. It's always done to try and mollify the opponent's argument but invariably ends up weakening the
attacker's argument.
| Quote: | | I understand the problem of getting publications out, [...] |
for instance is purely subjective as you don't
know how hard it was for the author to get this (or any of his other) publications out.
[Edited on 3-3-2015 by blogfast25]
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blogfast25
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It's naïve to try and make that distinction. Repressors of ideas (scientific or other) for political reasons often claim that these ideas are
'misleading'. In fact, they nearly always do!
The reason why I reject your kind of positivism is that when all is done and dusted I believe there's a kernel of reality that resists being modelled,
symbolised etc.
Positivism is itself 'misleading' in that it can create the illusion that we know all there is to know about, say 'copper'.
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Fulmen
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I think you're reading more into this than what I've said. Of course an idea can be politically dangerous, I'm talking only in the sense that it can
be dangerous or misleading when it comes to understanding it. As for "knowing everything", positivism is based on falsification which never assumes
anything to be the absolute truth. That only leaves us with the theories (I prefer the term model) to the extent that we have found them valid.
Edit: This is perhaps postpositivism, I'm not a philosophy-buff so I might get the names wrong sometimes.
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