tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post6016077509567831647..comments2023-09-27T07:44:19.769-04:00Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: Letter from a reader: “Someone has to write such a book” we used to saySabine Hossenfelderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-8660490523323603732019-01-25T08:44:30.516-05:002019-01-25T08:44:30.516-05:00Daniel, Peter,
Fwiw, I think he is referring to t...Daniel, Peter,<br /><br />Fwiw, I think he is referring to <a href="https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/conferences/it-qubit-summer-school" rel="nofollow">this stuff</a> and related ideas. Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-46790111457746799322019-01-24T14:19:02.839-05:002019-01-24T14:19:02.839-05:00Daniel Farias asks whether Wilczek's sentence ...Daniel Farias asks whether Wilczek's sentence “...and beautiful ideas from information theory are illuminating physical algorithms and quantum network design” even means anything. I would assume he means that beautiful ideas are still working to discover new phenomena in quantum information and computation. His previous sentence said that beautiful ideas are still working in condensed matter Peter Shorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13823970640202949073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-21666607816810415492019-01-24T06:53:02.187-05:002019-01-24T06:53:02.187-05:00naivetheorist
Not at all sure of your point, othe...naivetheorist<br /><br />Not at all sure of your point, other than providing an interesting reference.<br /><br />"What Maxwell contrived as an artifact to explain electricity and magnetism would potentially provide a rigorous dynamical theoretical basis for the emerging field of fluid flow in porous media. Yet, as history would have it, his work went largely unnoticed. Something similar to RGThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07140943290963588247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-15303127055581912022019-01-24T02:46:55.548-05:002019-01-24T02:46:55.548-05:00Now that you mention Maxwell's equations, I al...Now that you mention Maxwell's equations, I always thougth that the truly beautiful thing would be to have full-symmetric equations (magnetic monopoles), but this is the viewpoint of a naive experimentalist working on a non-fundamental area of physics (by the way, an area that received roughly 50% of physics Nobel prizes). I guess people working at CERN have a convincing argument against Daniel Fariashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09337642903312139100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-28102324533261274482019-01-24T01:15:03.483-05:002019-01-24T01:15:03.483-05:00@Sabine
I did read your book. In your interview Wi...@Sabine<br />I did read your book. In your interview Wilczek equated beauty<br />with conceptual simplicity. As we all do.<br /><br />@RGT<br />The subsequent iterations just made the <br />beauty of Maxwell's theory more obvious.<br />"always" != "immediately"<br /><br /><br />@Steven<br />I wrote "in the last 30 years". Wilczek made<br />his beautiful Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04675219299594942456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-35673019232101229182019-01-23T03:10:52.717-05:002019-01-23T03:10:52.717-05:00@RT:
you might want to look at:
Studies in Histo...@RT:<br /><br />you might want to look at:<br /><br />Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (2012) 236–257 <br />Maxwell’s contrived analogy: An early version of the methodology of modeling <br /><br />naive theoristnaivetheoristhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00425164894020381981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-41193796669368714742019-01-22T19:04:46.828-05:002019-01-22T19:04:46.828-05:00Unknown,
You said 'always'. Implying fro...Unknown,<br /><br />You said 'always'. Implying from first presentation of the theory. I challenge you to give an example where the initial theory was <b>immediately</b> accepted by all competent physicists of the time.<br /><br />As regards all simple theories are beautiful. Again, what is simple after a period of reflection and learning can often be fiendishly difficult on first RGThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07140943290963588247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-25749182481370508132019-01-22T11:58:17.711-05:002019-01-22T11:58:17.711-05:00Unknown wrote: The problem is that there were 0 be...Unknown wrote: The problem is that there were 0 beautiful predictions in the last 30 years. The community was not clever enough. <br /><br />So if physicists were more clever they would have made beautiful predictions? <br /><br />Unknown wrote: Exactly as Wilczek says.<br /><br />Did Wilczek say physicists were not clever enough? I've met Wilczek and his wife and they both seemed pretty Steven Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05140374687362624448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-57366859481887986962019-01-22T11:39:00.380-05:002019-01-22T11:39:00.380-05:00Unknown wrote: Given sufficient funding you would ...Unknown wrote: Given sufficient funding you would very much like to continue to try until you're 67. Right? Admit it.<br /><br />What kind of a question is that? Sabine doesn't object to physicists getting paid to do productive work. And it's odd for you to suggest that it's all about getting to 67, as if it's only about making it to retirement. <br /><br />Unknown wrote: Steven Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05140374687362624448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-48077412215529638832019-01-22T11:29:53.436-05:002019-01-22T11:29:53.436-05:00Unknown,
As a thought experiment imagine yourself...Unknown,<br /><br />As a thought experiment imagine yourself a 'physicist' in 1865. Along comes an upstart who puts forward a 'theory' linking electricity and magnetism. The theory challenges accepted norms of physics and mathematical beauty - specifically Newton's concept of objects interacting at a distance - with a mysterious universal 'field'. The mathematics toRGThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07140943290963588247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-82675324865089328832019-01-22T11:21:18.515-05:002019-01-22T11:21:18.515-05:00Unknown,
I am very clear in my book with explaini...Unknown,<br /><br />I am very clear in my book with explaining what beautiful theories in the past 30 years led to wrong predictions. Since you do not seem to have read the book, maybe let me allow to clarify that I did interview Wilczek and asked him what he thinks makes a theory beautiful. <br /><br />I am not angry and I am happy with my research. Your amateur-psychology is off the mark.Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-49573337031365591032019-01-22T10:37:23.305-05:002019-01-22T10:37:23.305-05:00@RGT
Yes always. Because beauty is simplicity. We ...@RGT<br />Yes always. Because beauty is simplicity. We call<br />a simple theory beautiful if it explains a lot.<br /><br />@Sabine<br />Of course one cannot "trust" beautiful predictions.<br />Sometimes they are confirmed, sometimes<br />they are not. The problem is that there were too few (actually 0)<br />beautiful predictions in the last 30 years. Exactly as Wilczek says.<br />The Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04675219299594942456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-21981618751239296072019-01-22T10:35:44.162-05:002019-01-22T10:35:44.162-05:00These results reported by Anderson in the physics ... These results reported by Anderson in the physics of complex systems have been given mathematical precision by Gregory Chaitin and others in Information-Theoretic Incompleteness, it seems that complexity is a source of incompleteness, or that complex systems will exhibit "strong emergent" properties; but after Godel showing that apparently simple axiomatic systems are intrinsically Jeremy Jr. Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12101880943293972922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-8290556209362858852019-01-22T10:06:44.882-05:002019-01-22T10:06:44.882-05:00There are so many examples of beautiful ideas that...There are so many examples of beautiful ideas that at the end dont match experiment. Just to give an example, I quote here a celebrated CERN scientist, John Bell, talking about the EPR experiment (he uses the word "rational" but means the same thing):<br /><br />"For me, it is so reasonable to assume that the photons in those experiments carry with them programs, which have been Daniel Fariashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09337642903312139100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-6118737169147990852019-01-22T09:00:14.695-05:002019-01-22T09:00:14.695-05:00Unknown,
Of course my sense of beauty is not much...Unknown,<br /><br />Of course my sense of beauty is not much different from those of other people in the field. I have been part of the same community. I read the same books, I heard the same talks. I am not saying that supersymmetry and string theory (etc) are not beautiful. I am saying it doesn't matter. It's not a scientific criterion. Physicists shouldn't use it. I am trying to Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-48496993232081084642019-01-22T08:12:11.378-05:002019-01-22T08:12:11.378-05:00Unknown,
You say "But truly fundamental insi...Unknown,<br /><br />You say "But truly fundamental insights into physics ... <i>always</i> seemed beautiful to competent physicists."<br /> <br /><i>Always</i>? Beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder and subject to fashion. As Roger Penrose has said:-<br /><br />"...when we try deliberately to use the criterion of mathematical beauty in formulating our theories, we are RGThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07140943290963588247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-18375289026213964112019-01-22T07:08:28.923-05:002019-01-22T07:08:28.923-05:00Imagine the idea of SUSY would have been
experimen...Imagine the idea of SUSY would have been<br />experimentally confirmed: particles with O(100) GeV mass<br />that make the SM natural and turn out to explain DM were found at Fermilab<br />in 2003.<br />YOU would have found that beautiful.<br />Right? Admit it.<br /><br />But then your colleagues were not led by some "false sense of beauty".<br />You're bashing them for having to fewAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04675219299594942456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-42991909389076436342019-01-22T06:16:09.353-05:002019-01-22T06:16:09.353-05:00Unknown,
You make the very same mistake I laid ou...Unknown,<br /><br />You make the very same mistake I laid out in my book, you pick examples where a supposedly beautiful idea worked and ignore the cases where beautiful ideas did not work. This isn't a good way to evaluate evidence, it's a documentation of confirmation bias.<br /><br />Those last sentences in my book say that I think we will make further breakthroughs and that we will Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-44282774451230187982019-01-22T04:45:29.034-05:002019-01-22T04:45:29.034-05:00@Daniel
I disagree with your criticism of Wilczek&...@Daniel<br />I disagree with your criticism of Wilczek's<br />review. Firstly he agrees with your disdain<br />of areas of physics that have lost contact<br />with experiment, like e.g. string theory.<br />But truly fundamental insights into physics,<br />that were confirmed by experiment (like e.g.<br />Wilczek's brainschild: QCD) always seemed beautiful to<br />competent physicists.<br Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04675219299594942456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-74715468279293041482019-01-22T02:50:33.648-05:002019-01-22T02:50:33.648-05:00bee:
i just recalled a quite accurate (IMO) descr...bee:<br /><br />i just recalled a quite accurate (IMO) description of the current state of foundational physics by Woody Allen<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bphR-6Xi1_I:<br /><br />naive theoristnaivetheoristhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00425164894020381981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-76474919510894795942019-01-22T02:19:14.445-05:002019-01-22T02:19:14.445-05:00bee:
i just wanted to note for your readers, tha...bee:<br /><br /> i just wanted to note for your readers, that P.W. Anderson is one of the major proponents of 'emergent' physics (i.e. he is an anti-reductionist) and his manifesto "More Is Different") <br /><br />http://robotics.cs.tamu.edu/dshell/cs689/papers/anderson72more_is_different.pdf<br /><br />is well worth reading .<br /><br />IMO string theory, the multiverse and naivetheoristhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00425164894020381981noreply@blogger.com