Is the Era of Enlightened Scientific Discovery Over?

[Archosaur]

I've noticed that we've reached a point in the history of science where theory is leading the charge, and that's upsetting to me, because I've always been drawn to the "unexplainable phenomena, followed by new theory" model of scientific progress. It seems that the days of stumbling upon great mysteries are over. The stories of Young's experiment and Einstein's thought experiments, for example, are what drew me to physics. It's upsetting to me that theory can now reach further down than experiment, because that suggests that we will find only what we set out to look for, at the suggestion of theory. On top of that, we are at a point where new math is required. I suspect the next leap will be achieved by a Euler, and not an Einstein.

I've known I've wanted my PhD in physics for about 7 years now, but thoughts like these have discouraged me. So, my question is, what are your thoughts? Are we so far removed from enlightenment-style scientific discovery?

 

[marcus]

... The stories of Young's experiment and Einstein's thought experiments, for example, are what drew me to physics. It's upsetting to me that theory can now reach further down than experiment, because that suggests that we will find only what we set out to look for, at the suggestion of theory...

One's personal temperament is important. One's passion, excitement, absorption.

I don't think there is anyone correct way to describe the situation---what matters is how you personally relate to it.

Investigation guided by theory does not always find "only what we set out to look for".

Also it's a bit like drilling for oil---one hires a geologist (the theoretician) to suggest where to drill, but one doesn't always find what one set out to.

Important subfields, e.g. experimental particle physics, now definitely operate in a very different STYLE from earlier physics. Huge collaborations involving thousands of researchers with their own sociology and politics. On the other hand there still are subfields where people do "tabletop" experiments. A couple of characters, with their individual personalities, and perhaps a graduate student assistant.

Astrophysics and (observational) cosmology do employ collaborations---but they are normally not as large. A fair amount of the work in those areas is done by individuals or small groups. A lot of things about the universe strike me as conceptually wide open. There is theory, but it's just a kind of necessary groping---it's not quite in charge of the situation.

Shouldn't it depend on how you feel, when you go and visit these places? It has to do with you, your temperament, not with how it is when described at a logical level.

Then there is the special situation in the USA where because of an historical accident there has been a big proliferation of string. A kind of huge overinvestment. That distorts the picture somewhat and it will have to get worked out historically. Things are out of balance on the theory side of many departments. This could be one reason for your evident feeling of alienation from physics.

Presumably if you visited some place that was strong in either Astro/Cosmo or CondMat, and talked with graduate students there---they might be sympathetic to what you are talking about and you might feel differently after that.

These are just my immediate personal reactions. I wonder how much of this conversation belongs here in "Beyond" forum and how much belongs in "Career". Other people may find other stuff to comment on in what you say.

Did you ever think about a university in Canada?

 

[atyy]

How did Maxwell stick an extra term in there?

Even general relativity, I reckon, was not motivated solely by Mercury's perihelion, but also, perhaps mainly by the inconsistency between Newtonian gravitation and special relativity.

In fact, Einstein's contribution to special relativity - the relativistic correction to Newton's second law - was motivated by the inconsistency between Maxwell's equations and Newton's second law. The Lorentz and Poincare invariance of Maxwell's equations were known before Einstein.

 

[bcrowell]

I've known I've wanted my PhD in physics for about 7 years now, but thoughts like these have discouraged me. So, my question is, what are your thoughts? Are we so far removed from enlightenment-style scientific discovery?

The Nobel Prize in physics was just awarded for experimental work on graphene.

 

[inflector]

One of the reasons that you might see theory driving in some areas of physics, at the moment, is that we are still trying to solve some very big open problems and some of them have been around for 80 years or more.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics

There are still plenty of problems sitting there waiting for an answer. I think there are more open questions/problems now than there were 100 years ago. Plenty of good stuff for a new physicist to work on.

 

[Fra]

Here is my input:

I more feel like the next big revolution in how we understand physics, possibly in terms of information processing, is lurking around the corner and QM as it stands is I think far from the last word on this. Perhaps new math is needed, or more probalby new applications of math, but then I may still require a physicists to recognize it. Mathematicians and physicists have cooperated in the past and will continue to do so. Newton and Lebnitz even developed calculus, so there was and still will be overlaps I think.

I think the experimental confirmations on information physics aren't only to be found at expensive constructions such as LHC, I think once we understand this, we will see that confirmations are all around us.

I've had a feeling since I started with physics that there is something about this that most physicists just doesn't yet understand. There are hints all over the place, yet no one has to date been able to see the connection and make the next step. It surely includes new ways of tinking and new math, but I think that was the time in the past as well. Sometimes the solution is to just see the problem from a new angle and the solution is there.

I too think there are plenty of opportunities. However the constraints of academia is a different problem. There I see more problems, but that is not a physicsproblem :) that's a problem of society and research politics etc.

/Fredrik

 

[sbrothy]

Check back in 5-10 years when they have the LHC up and running for real. Maybe a bunch of strange results will be straining the theorists minds. I sure hope so.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

To the OP: I think that's a silly attitude. Physics as a whole is still quite driven by experiment. It's just that the stuff you read about in popular books isn't. If you went to any average department colloquium (if mine is any representation), I'm sure you'd walk away with the impression that the bulk of physics research today is spent on graphene and nano-wires. Bio-physics is also becoming huge.

These things are sexy for the technology they could make possible; but from a purely scientific point of view, there are still plenty of mysteries to unravel also. These mysteries are found by experiment; it remains quite a challenge to derive them from first principles. Condensed matter physics is a rich and complex field.

The quest for a consistent quantum theory of gravity is only a small part of the whole thing.

 

[Archosaur]

I don't doubt that we'll see a lot of unexpected things as we probe smaller and smaller distances, but doesn't that limit the capacity to discover to only those with time on a particle accelerator?

Also, let me make clear that if I were convinced of my stance, I wouldn't be here posing it as a question.

 

[petergreat]

Physics as a whole is still quite driven by experiment. It's just that the stuff you read about in popular books isn't.

I've seen condensed matter physicists who consider this whole popular science stuff to be propaganda produced by high energy physicists to steal their funding.

 

[dx]

Some relevant comments by Einstein:

"The theorist's method involves his using as his foundation general postulates or "principles" from which he can deduce conclusions."

"The scientist has to worm these general principles out of nature by perceiving in comprehensive complexes of empirical facts certain general features which permit of precise formulation."

"Once this formulation is successfully accomplished, inference follows on inference, often revealing unforseen relations which extend far beyond the province of the reality from which the principles were drawn."

"As long as no principles are found on which to base the deduction, the individual empirical fact is of no use to the theorist; indeed he cannot even do anything with isolated general laws abstracted from experience. He will remain helpless in the face of separate results of empirical research, until principles which he can make the basis of deductive reasoning have relvealed themselves to him."

"It may well happen that clearly formulated principles lead to conclusions which fall entirely, or almost entirely, outside the sphere of reality at present accessible to our experience. In that case, it may need many years of empirical research to ascertain whether the theoretical principles correspond with reality."

 

[Archosaur]

I've seen condensed matter physicists who consider this whole popular science stuff to be propaganda produced by high energy physicists to steal their funding.

Well they should write more! I'm not long into my undergrad, and my interest has outpaced my formal education, and I have no choice but to resort to books and audit classes on Youtube while I wait for my credit hours to catch up.

In case anyone was curious, my recent line of thought that inspired this thread was partially triggered by reading Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe", and I'd certainly describe him as a high energy physicist.

If anyone could recommend a book, "popular" or not, that would give me a more rounded view of what is currently happening in physics, I would be very grateful!

 

[marcus]

Also, let me make clear that if I were convinced of my stance, I wouldn't be here posing it as a question.

So you want people to argue with you? To convince you your "stance" is wrong? First there's a factual matter. Einstein GR involved bringing some fairly new math into physics.
It wasn't all "thought experiments" (as in the idealized conception you presented earlier).
==quote http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Grossmann.html ==
Einstein certainly did not forget about his friend and when he wrote his thesis in 1905 he wrote on the title page: "Dedicated to my friend Dr Marcel Grossmann". In 1907 Grossmann became professor of descriptive geometry at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich.

In August 1912, Einstein arrived back at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich having been appointed to the chair of theoretical physics. He was struggling to extend his special theory of relativity to include gravitation and immediately began collaborating with his old friend Grossmann. It was Grossmann who pointed out to him the relevance to general relativity of the tensor calculus which had been proposed by Elwin Bruno Christoffel in 1864, and developed by Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita around 1901. Einstein, who previously had played down the importance of mathematics, was quickly convinced by Grossmann's expert explanations. Einstein wrote to Arnold Sommerfeld on 29 October 1912:-

I am now working exclusively on the gravitation problem and believe that I can overcome all difficulties with the help of a mathematician friend of mine here [Marcel Grossmann]. But one thing is certain: never before in my life have I toiled any where near as much, and I have gained enormous respect for mathematics, whose more subtle parts I considered until now, in my ignorance, as pure luxury. Compared with this problem, the original theory of relativity is child's play.

The collaboration between Grossmann and Einstein led to the first paper on the general theory of relativity in 1913. It was Entwurf einer verallgemeinerten Relativitätsheorie und einer Theorie der Gravitation published in the Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik. In one sense it is a joint paper but in another sense it consists of two separate papers, the first 22 pages being 'Physikalischer Teil' by Einstein and the next 16 pages being 'Mathematischer Teil' written by Grossmann. Also in 1913 Grossmann published Mathematische Begriffsbildungen zur Gravitationstheorie. He continued to collaborate with Einstein and they published another joint paper in 1914, namely Kovarianzeigenschaften der Feldgleichungen.
==endquote==

Grossmann was a mathematician. Einstein passed his university exams by studying from Grossmann's notes. Differential Geometry was (for physicists) new mathematics and it is the basis of GR. Think about the role of David Hilbert and John von Neumann in the 1925 development of QM. Again there was new mathematics coming into physics, but it was math that already existed (for the mathematicians) just as differential manifolds had already been invented and studied when Grossmann taught Einstein about them.

Has experiment ever "led the charge" all by itself? Perhaps for brief periods. You may be having nostalgia for a simplified idea of history---for a state of mathematical innocence that never existed.

The situation may not have changed all that much.

 

[Fra]

I don't doubt that we'll see a lot of unexpected things as we probe smaller and smaller distances, but doesn't that limit the capacity to discover to only those with time on a particle accelerator?

I personally don't think that the only way to discover new things is to goto extremely high energies (LHC) or extremely low energy (cosmological observations); both requiring either expensive space probes or telescopes or stuff like LHC. Those extremes are not what made me interested in physics.

But the other thing, not so popular maybe is to note that energy scales are relative; and instead of focusing a lot of energy in a small volume until you eventually see a black hole and ask how the laws of physics "scale", we can instead try to scale the observer and study how the "observers processing of information" SCALES as the complexity of the observer scales, and maybe to study how intermediate complexity systems interact and how to understand their interactions.

What could then be an alternative way to probing extreme energies, is to study how a limited observer say and atom; "probes" it's own environment. Then we get a natural energy cuttoff from the observer side. Then maybe we can also understand the extreme cases if we see that the human perspective is not unique. Human science and it's extreme scales are relative to the earthbased frame. And unless we think this is somehow unique, we could try to study how less complex system, interact with their environment, and thereby generalise the understanding of physical law.

I personally think "experiments" in this "direction" in the future will partly be carried out by studying self-organisation in chemistry or simple molecular biology, and also maybe in terms of computer science simulations where one can simulate the interactions of two learning systems; modeled by a larger computer.

The ideas I have, and if I get to dream a little bit, I imagine will be able to be tested by computer simulations, and maybe next up in quantum chemistry where you could still have notions analogous to "horizons" it's just that its' no black holes, it's just the horizon defined be the limited information processing and encoding capacty of say and atom or a molecule.

All this is IMO physics, but it's getting more into physics of COMPLEX systems, and information processing.

There are domains that are more easilty accesible. We don't need LHC, we don't need telescopes, but we may well need good computers :) But for limited trials probably anyone with a normal PC and programming skills can do a lot of exploring.

I think programming skills, understanding how to implement algorithm and actually perfom real calculations (not just symbolic math) is important in future physics. I've already now "tested" some simple ideas of mine by simple computer simulations.

Maybe the next discovery is a superclever algorithm? why not? If you think this isn't physics, then it is. The idea is to not just "computer" and simulate, or solve equations, like ODEs or PDES by numerival methods. The idea is that tha laws of physics may be seen as a form of computing carried out by matter systems; and here of course we run into the PHYSICAL limits of computation and encoding! So it's the PHYSICS of computing or information processing (or inference as I live to calle it). And it goes deeper than just the limit of semiconductors and heat problems... it's really interesting stuff that I'm convinced is where at least part of future discoveries will come.

/Fredrik

 

[Archosaur]

So you want people to argue with you? To convince you your "stance" is wrong?

I don't mean to be interpreted like that. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "stance". Maybe "feeling" would have been a better word.

I am not here to argue. I am here because I recognize my own ignorance and the great wealth of knowledge available on this forum. I am looking for guidance.

I am admittedly uneducated. The "feeling" I describe in this thread was inspired by my interpretation of the few resources that I have managed to find on my own, which tend to be in the non-fiction section of Borders. I understand the shortcomings of popular science books, or at least, I understand that there could be shortcomings, and I've heard that there are. However, unlike you all, I don't know what I am missing! I am looking for a better grasp on the future of physics, and I don't know where to begin. All I know is that Michio Kaku won't give me the full story!

 

[dx]

It's just my opinion, but I think most popular books are worthless for any kind of real understanding of physics. The best they can do is make one wonder, and get one interested.

If your mathematical preparation is not sufficient for 'real' physics books, and only popular books are accessible to you, then the best bet is to stick to ones written by real masters, like Feynman's "QED", Einstein's "Relativity" etc.

 

[marcus]

Well they [condensed matter physicists] should write more! I'm not long into my undergrad, and my interest has outpaced my formal education, and I have no choice but to resort to books and audit classes on Youtube while I wait for my credit hours to catch up.

In case anyone was curious, my recent line of thought that inspired this thread was partially triggered by reading Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe", and I'd certainly describe him as a high energy physicist.

If anyone could recommend a book, "popular" or not, that would give me a more rounded view of what is currently happening in physics, I would be very grateful!

I don't doubt that we'll see a lot of unexpected things as we probe smaller and smaller distances, but doesn't that limit the capacity to discover to only those with time on a particle accelerator?...

I think to some extent the conventional accelerator-based HEP pattern has gotten old---the frontiers are shifting. Physics is confronted by puzzles like Dark Matter (20% of the universe) and Lambda (75% if you choose think of it as "dark energy"). And of course the "Bang" puzzle---what was actually happening and how is it reflected in the traces it left on the cosmic microwave background?

Which is to say that part of what is "currently happening in physics" is motivated by observation rather than by accelerator experiments. The HEP era, when the accelerator/collider seemed to be the dominant doorway, may in fact be a finite period in the history of physics.

Think about the neutrino observatories, like the one in the Antarctic. The cosmic ray observatories. Gamma ray astronomy (which uses both Fermi-LAT orbital and on-ground parabolic mirror imaging of Cherenkov tracks). There are all these new observational instruments being developed and deployed---both orbital and on the ground.

You say you are still undergrad. You have time to adapt. It is possible that the Brian Greene book you say you read (The Elegant U.) gives a misleading or out-dated perspective---I wouldn't know---but you have plenty of time to make some in-course corrections.

There are lots of people here who can give you more concrete suggestions. I will just say "keep an open mind about physics". It isn't going to be how you expect, but it is going to be very exciting during the next 20-30 years. I have no doubt of that. And one reason it is so exciting is that nobody can say in advance what the new frontiers will be.

New types of astronomy instruments are flooding physics with rivers of new data, condensed matter and biophysics keep spawning new technical capability, and so on...

 

[Archosaur]

...I think most popular books are worthless for any kind of real understanding of physics.

I don't doubt it. I knew something was amiss when I noticed how frequently they resort to analogies (in which I notice a fallacy, more often than not)

I've taken up to calculus 3, and I got an A in it, for what that's worth, though, I suspect I couldn't approach a "real" physics book. In the meantime, I have no problem sticking to Feynman! I have not read "QED" and I think I'll pick that up.Also, thank you, Fra, Marcus, and everyone for the content you've been offering. I realize I've had to spend so much time explaining myself that I haven't been acknowledging your contributions. I have been reading them, and I greatly appreciate them!

 

[petergreat]

I've taken up to calculus 3, and I got an A in it, for what that's worth, though, I suspect I couldn't approach a "real" physics book.

No need to be afraid. Once you're good at calculus (including vector calculus, differential equations), basic linear algebra and possibly some complex analysis, the vast majority of undergrad level physics textbooks will become accessible for you to explore.
(Of course, I'm talking about math prerequisites only. There are physics prerequisites too.)