Physics Major (WAS:Any Anomalies in Physics at Above-Atomic Level?)

[Petradog]

Does anyone know of scientific anomalies that don't agree with the theories we've used to predict and explain physical phenomenon?

If so, must I try to find a new theory that explains both the anomalies and the other phenomenon, too?

Please give me the articles or personal findings you've found dealing with the certitude of flaw of in theories such as Newtonian Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, Electromagnetic Radiation, Brownian Motion, Ect...

Please don't give flaws in string theory or things that go below quark level sizes, I won't understand cause I only know Calculus at best.

 

[map19]

You could look at the Pioneer anomaly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly

 

[JustinLevy]

Does anyone know of scientific anomalies that don't agree with the theories we've used to predict and explain physical phenomenon?

There are all kinds of unanswered questions in science. Are you asking for examples of things we don't understand yet, or do you mean examples of experiment not matching predictions of some of the theories/frameworks you listed (or worse, the theory self-contradicting)?

 

[Petradog]

physical phenomenon not yet understood, at the macroscopic scale, like the casimir effect. The pioneer anomaly I know about, but that could just be a measurement error or fuel leak.

But I'm also talking about partial contradiction in theories when experiments don't match predictions based on theories and frameworks.

Either physical phenomenon that's unexplained, or variations in the predictions made by the theories assuming accurate measurement is what I'm looking for.

 

[map19]

Casimir effect is fully understood.
All "possible" effects for the Pioneer anomoly have been investigated by NASA and discounted. besides, the chance that several spacecraft would have the same fault, resulting in the same amount of error is ridiculous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080229- spacecraft -anomaly.html

 

[Petradog]

Interesting I thought Pioneer was explained by things that were possible.

But I guess it really is unexplainable.

Anything else you know about that's considered an anomaly by modern science?

 

[nottheone]

Is there a proven explanation yet for the dual nature, particle and wave, of a photon? It's atomic but the effect can be seen without a microscope.

 

[turbo]

Interesting I thought Pioneer was explained by things that were possible.

You've got to dig a bit deeper. Spin-stabilized and even partial spin-stabilized probes seem to exhibit this propensity for anomalous behavior. We might consider a variable speed of EM propagation, a variable gravitational "constant" or some combination of the two. There are also fly-by anomalies in which probes seem to require course-corrections that were inaccurately modeled during their design stages.

 

[map19]

Here's a list of physics conundrums.
http://www.mth.kcl.ac.uk/~streater/lostcauses.html

 

[Petradog]

this is what I was looking for, thanks a lot!

 

[alxm]

Most 'anomalies' are measurement errors. Most 'unexplained' phenomena fall into the category of 'not explained but not believed to be unexplainable in current theory'.

It was either Feynman or Stephen Weinberg, who, in one of their more pop-scientific books also noted, to paraphrase: "It's the normal state of affairs in science to have lots of contradicting information. There's nothing that raises a flag and says 'Hi! I'm an important deviation from theory!'"

But you can't really explain ordinary classical macroscopic phenomena properly using basic math. Classical physics is really just as math-heavy as the others once you get to a more advanced level. It's kind of hard then, to get to a position where you can develop a truly new theory, or prove the old ones wrong.

To be blunt, the world can always use more scientists, but has no great need of another crackpot who thinks he's just proved Einstein wrong using misguided logic and high-school math.

That said, I don't want to discourage you from attempting to tackle big unsolved problems. I'm just saying that you'll probably have to be prepared to study a lot to truly understand the problem. (And once you do, you start to realize why it's unsolved.. it's 'effing hard!)

 

[reasonableman]

Also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_physics

 

[Petradog]

Ok this means I need to understand all of the things of people who came before me and those that exist now.

I need to learn the highest levels of math and physics, and use experimental procedure to find the evidence.

But what's after understanding all of the most complex math? Is there something more complex after that? Or is this the limit that we've reached?

 

[.:Endeavour:.]

Its how you view math. If Algebra seems difficult then higher math will even difficult, but if you understand Algebra, but see Calculus hard then everything above Calculus will be hard. Math is complex depending on person and his or her level in math. There is a lot of complex math that we don't tap on a frequent basis were we might use it one day and that's it.

 

[Petradog]

Yes endeavor,

But what are the group of math courses that are post graduate level and have the lowest human understanding of others?

Some math I heard only 10 people knew in the world, can u tell me of any math branch or specialized field or course that's like this?

I'm looking for the limit of what we've accepted as possibly mathematically true without a doubt. Highest level proofs and that stuff.

 

[Nabeshin]

Yes endeavor,

But what are the group of math courses that are post graduate level and have the lowest human understanding of others?

Some math I heard only 10 people knew in the world, can u tell me of any math branch or specialized field or course that's like this?

I'm looking for the limit of what we've accepted as possibly mathematically true without a doubt. Highest level proofs and that stuff.

Post-graduate implies that you're no longer taking classes. What you'd be doing is mathematical research into new areas. If only two people want to study a given mathematical subject, then only two people in the world know something about it. Simple as that. I don't have any examples, but this is not the way things tend to happen (because of the system of fellowships at universities and such, research is often clumped into already populated areas).

 

[ZapperZ]

This thread has morphed into an academic guidance issue. So I am moving it into that forum.

Zz.

 

[alxm]

Ok this means I need to understand all of the things of people who came before me and those that exist now.

I'll refer to Pólya's classic book "How to solve it". Step one: Understand the problem.

The first thing any research does when they decide to work on a new problem, is to spend quite
a lot of time researching all the previous work that's been done. Experimental data, previous theories, and why those previous theories didn't work.

If you don't do that in any field of Science, Maths even Philosophy, it's not only possible but likely that your great idea was already thought of. (or worse, that it's wrong on some very basic level). E.g. if you read some philosophy, you'll probably start recognizing that most ideas coming from café-table philosophers were already thought of, and expressed better, by some Greek two-thousand years ago.

 

[Petradog]

Ok, so I need to become two things and nothing else to solve these math problems.

1. Scientist (also Comp)
2. Mathematician

What's the fastest way of understanding and learning all of the information in both fields?

 

[reasonableman]

I don't think it's hyperbole to say that learning and understanding all the information in science and maths is beyond any human! (Even if by science you just mean physics)

To solve any particular problem you will need a set of tools and knowledge of the problem. For a theoretical physicist mathematical techniques are the tools. However most modern physics problems require that you understand a lot the previous physics...

You also asked about the limits of mathematics. I think formally the limits are pretty low! See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems

 

[Brian_C]

Most of the big "anomalies" are at the subatomic level. Quantum chromodynamics is one theory which makes seriously inaccurate predictions in certain cases. Also, the entire notion of "dark matter" is suspect. I read about a physicist in Israel who thinks that Newton's Law of Gravitation needs to be modified for small accelerations, which would eliminate the need for dark matter.

Phenomena such as high-Tc superconductivity and turbulence are still unexplained, but they don't represent any fundamental anomaly in physics. They're probably just too complex to model from first principles.

 

[Petradog]

reasonableman,

I know I can't understand everything the mathematicians know or think, but you can't tell me I'm wrong that I can get pretty damn close, and if you do say it, you are truthfully wrong.

Brian_C,

Einstein was a mathematician too, his equations were what modeled what we see as "general relativity", a true breakthrough in science.

I think to provide a similar breakthrough, each different type of math that could possibly exist and their syntactical definitions that underly the principles of the higher order definitions need to be altered and simulated using computation with computers or whatever else. I think by taking a sort of recursion, the closest thing to the truth will be found, certainly.

I feel that if I'm to see what everyone's seeing in the math and the definitions that make it up, I can find the smallest error that they've made in the math using computation and my brain. I hope that I'm a genius, because I'll need to be if I want higher odds of that happening.

First principles need to be found, anything can be modeled, but what we have to accept is that we can't prove that the model is certainly right, because it might have flaw in it. You find the flaw, you remove the problem and now you have a better model. This is what we call "progress" I think. I want to make progress.

If we can't explain turbulence, then we need to see what could come together mathematically or whatever to make us see why turbulence is acting the way it does through both experiment and math, data and equations, the real and the theoretical.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I know I can't understand everything the mathematicians know or think, but you can't tell me I'm wrong that I can get pretty damn close, and if you do say it, you are truthfully wrong.

That's foolish.

No single professional mathematician understands anything close to everything that the body of mathematicians knows. What makes you think you will do better at mathematics than professional mathematicians?

There's a huge body of knowledge out there. To take every math class at a major university still wouldn't have you knowing anything like "damn close to...everything the mathematicians know or think", but would still take about 15 years of full time study.

 

[Petradog]

I will become a professional mathematician first obviously.

Do you think Einstein invented his equations just because he was a physicist?

I will try to understand every advanced detail of mathematics, because human error is possible.

If you think human error or machine error is impossible in a syntactical construct like math, then I don't think you have much hope for becoming something greater than the mathematicians before you.

Why do you think human error is impossible? How are so certain that these people haven't made the smallest of flaws that would lead to another truth?

We can also use multiple mathematicians like me to double check the work that other people have done, and using more computation should help, too.

What makes you so convinced? Oh, and if I save enough money for college and I increase my brain power, I can devote 15 years of full time study. I follow my dreams, tell me if this one is impossible, prove it to me.