# What happens when no working theoretical physicists have actual accomplishments?



## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Reading Sabine Hossenfelder's book Lost in Math, which details the lack of any progress in theoretical physics since the development of the standard model, and it struck me we are rapidly approaching a time when there will be no working theoretical physicists who have had actual success with experimental confirmation. Does not seem like a healthy situation. How does the field change if this lack of productivity, which is likely due to technological, economic and physical limits of how much we can actually know or test, continues for another 50 years?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I know Hossenfelder and she is one of those physicists like Lee Smolin, who made a career by criticizing string theory. I think that progress will ultimately be made. We might create a theory that is elegant and can explain all the observed phenomena, yet be not confirmed experimentally. One of the more interesting findings of recent times is the aplitudohedron
https://www.wired.com/2013/12/amplituhedron-jewel-quantum-physics/
it is difficult to explain without some knowledge of quantum field theory, but it shows that there is some enigmatic mathematical structure behind quantum field theory, that we do not yet understand. Certainly much more interesting than the surfer dude


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

Jacck said:


> I know Hossenfelder and she is one of those physicists like Lee Smolin, who made a career by criticizing string theory. I think that progress will ultimately be made. We might create a theory that is elegant and can explain all the observed phenomena, yet be not confirmed experimentally. One of the more interesting findings of recent times is the aplitudohedron
> https://www.wired.com/2013/12/amplituhedron-jewel-quantum-physics/
> it is difficult to explain without some knowledge of quantum field theory, but it shows that there is some enigmatic mathematical structure behind quantum field theory, that we do not yet understand. *Certainly much more interesting than the surfer dude*


Don't knock surfer dude! He's parlayed his 15 minutes of fame into his own "science institute" on Maui (backed by some sort of venture capital guy) and a life of surfing, wind surfing, hang gliding, any other activity which involves the ocean, some sort of wing and some sort of buoyant object. All without ever doing a day's honest labor. 

Sabine Hossenfelder's mistake is equating physics with particle physics. There is no field of inquiry more dead than particle physics. Back in the day they studies particles that might be encountered on earth. What hope is there in studying some particle which maybe only existed in nature during the first 10 femtoseconds after the big bang?

There are still areas of theoretical physics where people are figuring things out.


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

I'm not as familiar with this field, and how a career in theoretical physics works. But I wonder how they continue to be funded. I realize that there are major areas that this field contemplates, that will go beyond what we currently can measure - but is there no area that they can actually test hypotheses in? In my own field of microbiology, we are certainly able to theorize about grand organizing ideas, but to get to that point we make smaller, more targeted experiments. Is the lack of experimental confirmation in theoretical physics because there is no possibility to do so, or because too many people feel that smaller incremental work is beneath them, and they will settle for nothing less than Nobel-worthy work that will distinguish them throughout history - either they will be the next Einstein or Hawking or they will do nothing?

In other words, if we start requiring more that they do experimentally testable research to justify their funding, would we get it, or is it just not possible?


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

I think we are running up against fundamental issues of epistemology. What if to test any of these theories we need a particle accelerator beyond conceivable technological or economic limits?









If English departments can thrive with generation after generation of trendy new schools of criticism, I have little doubt that physics departments can do the same with flashy new models.

Just wait, in a few years we will have graduate seminars in Intersectional String Theory


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Perhaps the lack of productivity of our physicists has a simple explanation:

"Drexel University was ordered to pay $189,062 after learning a former professor had spent grant money on strippers and iTunes purchases over the course of a decade, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia said."


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Bwv 1080 said:


> I think we are running up against fundamental issues of epistemology. What if to test any of these theories we need a particle accelerator beyond conceivable technological or economic limits?
> 
> If English departments can thrive with generation after generation of trendy new schools of criticism, I have little doubt that physics departments can do the same with flashy new models.
> 
> Just wait, in a few years we will have graduate seminars in Intersectional String Theory


https://www.thecollegefix.com/femin...onal-quantum-physics-fight-oppression-newton/


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

Bwv 1080 said:


> I think we are running up against fundamental issues of epistemology. What if to test any of these theories we need a particle accelerator beyond conceivable technological or economic limits?
> 
> View attachment 124992
> 
> ...


But have we exhausted all we can learn about what we can actually currently test? That is the real question. I know speculating about those things beyond our current technological capabilities is alluring, and certainly sparks the imagination. But in reality, scientific knowledge, while producing intermittent grand breakthroughs, is primarily built upon incremental increases in knowledge. Are we doing that type of research?


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

Particle physics is a small, shrinking, poorly funded part of theoretical physics.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Baron Scarpia said:


> Particle physics is a small, shrinking, poorly funded part of theoretical physics.


I disagree about this. I think that particle physics and high energy physics are the most fundamental and also the most interesting parts of physics. You can do research even without experiments, trying to figure out theoretically, why the known experiments are as they are. Such a research resembles mathematics more than physics. Of course there are other areas of physics such as solid state physics, plasma physics etc, and they can be interesting, but they are not as fundamental.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Jacck said:


> https://www.thecollegefix.com/femin...onal-quantum-physics-fight-oppression-newton/


Oh, good grief. I thought that was a joke.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Jacck said:


> I disagree about this. I think that particle physics and high energy physics are the most fundamental and also the most interesting parts of physics. You can do research even without experiments, trying to figure out theoretically, why the known experiments are as they are. Such a research resembles mathematics more than physics. Of course there are other areas of physics such as solid state physics, plasma physics etc, and they can be interesting, but they are not as fundamental.


But all you do is fit arbitrary mathematical models to known results without generating any useful new predictions, why bother? It may be of mathematical interest, but adds nothing to our understanding of nature


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

Jacck said:


> I disagree about this. I think that particle physics and high energy physics are the most fundamental and also the most interesting parts of physics. You can do research even without experiments, trying to figure out theoretically, why the known experiments are as they are. Such a research resembles mathematics more than physics. Of course there are other areas of physics such as solid state physics, plasma physics etc, and they can be interesting, but they are not as fundamental.


There is nothing fundamental about playing with yourself.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Baron Scarpia said:


> There is nothing fundamental about playing with yourself.


Not so sure about that...


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

The new physics, I think, is under the broad category of emergent phenomena. You have a system which is well described by well established, fundamental laws, quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, mechanics, thermodynamics. A system which is initially uniform, homogeneous, isotropic, boring, spontaneously breaks symmetry and forms structures. This can be a crystal, a condensate, a superfluid state, an organized fluid flow, all the way up to the spontaneous formation of life, or consciousness. Somehow the basic laws, acting on matter, often driven out of equilibrium, spontaneously generate structures which were no way implied by the basic laws. This is where interesting things are happening. 

Fundamental particle physics is dead.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Baron Scarpia said:


> Fundamental particle physics is dead.


We have no idea what dark matter is. Ditto dark energy. We cannot reconcile quantum theory with general relativity. So do we stop where we are?


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2019)

How do we know that quantum theory _can _be reconciled with general relativity? They are mathematical constructs that humans have invented to describe certain phenomena. What reason do we have to believe that they are the underpinning of reality, rather than a description of reality?

How do we know that dark matter or dark energy _*is *_something, other than a term in the equations that seem to describe the cosmos but which we don't have a physically intuitive explanation for?

I don't object to having some theoretical physicists ruminating on this sort of nonsense. Keeps then from doing even more harm.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Baron Scarpia said:


> How do we know that quantum theory _can _be reconciled with general relativity? They are mathematical constructs that humans have invented to describe certain phenomena. What reason do we have to believe that they are the underpinning of reality, rather than a description of reality?


Descriptions don't usually make predictions that can be tested. And since different people see things differently, they are ultimately opinions and are not falsifiable.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

The OP refers to theoretical physicists but much of the discussion seems to relate to particle physicists. I think there is plenty of work in theoretical physics - solid state, atomic, quantum, and nuclear physics. All have many interesting experimental and theoretical issues. Just about any physics department lists a variety of areas of interest.

Particle physics (or high energy physics) has many interesting areas of study as well:

- Neutrino mixing (e.g. electron neutrinos turning into muon neutrinos) and mass.
- Possible lepton CP violation 
- Search for dark matter
- Understanding dark energy and the expansion of the universe
- Investigating the Higgs particle sector 
- enhanced b quark branching ratio decays to tau particles
- exploring gravitational waves, searching for the graviton, estimating the graviton mass

I assume there are more as well. It's true that the easiest way to probe new physics using colliders is to increase the collision energy, and that gets very difficult and expensive rather quickly. Collider physics has moved toward increasing the luminosity (related to the number of collisions per unit time) to increase the sensitivity of experiments. Scientists tend to be rather ingenious in finding ways to test theories and search for new phenomenon. Maybe there's a big desert out there, but we already have found evidence of extremely important new physics (dark matter, dark energy), and there's plenty of other intriguing possibilities to test for some time to come.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Baron Scarpia said:


> How do we know that dark matter or dark energy _*is *_something, other than a term in the equations that seem to describe the cosmos but which we don't have a physically intuitive explanation for?


I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. Experiments have confirmed stars and galaxy clusters rotating faster than expected. Other experiments have confirmed the accelerating expansion of the universe. Both of these phenomena cannot be explained by our present physics. Something is allowing the increased rotation of galaxies and the something is driving the accelerating expansion of the universe. We do have an intuitive explanation (matter that does not interact electromagnetically and a force that acts like a negative pressure on spacetime).


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2019)

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. Experiments have confirmed stars and galaxy clusters rotating faster than expected. Other experiments have confirmed the accelerating expansion of the universe. Both of these phenomena cannot be explained by our present physics. Something is allowing the increased rotation of galaxies and the something is driving the accelerating expansion of the universe. We do have an intuitive explanation (matter that does not interact electromagnetically and a force that acts like a negative pressure on spacetime).


The cosmological constant is not zero. Why should it be?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Baron Scarpia said:


> The cosmological constant is not zero. Why should it be?


OK, yes, but I don't understand what that has to do with what you wrote or what I wrote in response. We know that the universe is accelerating its expansion. That was new information from experimental physicists. Physicists need to do more experiments to gain data and theorists need to understand the accelerating force. The same is true of dark matter.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Getting back to the original thread subject: Why do we seem stalled out on the standard model when there’s still so much we can’t explain? I checked and the idea of the luminiferous aether ruled the scientific roost for over 200 years before somebody’s bright idea brought about a new understanding, one that explained otherwise inexplicable observations and made predictions that were confirmed by observation (not to mention things that went bang in a very big way).

So maybe we’re just being a bit impatient.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

But I don't think there is much left to explain, the standard model can explain every phenomenon observed in particle physics. If you look here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_beyond_the_Standard_Model it's a fairly small list. There is dark matter and energy, but that is about it.

Ether only came about in the 19th century as the explanation for medium for the propagation of light waves, it did not exist before that.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Bwv 1080 said:


> ...Ether only came about in the 19th century as the explanation for medium for the propagation of light waves, it did not exist before that.


Wiki: "Christiaan Huygens's _Treatise on Light_ (1690) hypothesized that light is a wave propagating through an aether… Newton's Third Book of Opticks (1st ed. 1704, 4th ed. 1730) postulated an 'aethereal medium' transmitting vibrations faster than light, by which light, when overtaken, is put into 'Fits of easy Reflexion and easy Transmission', which caused refraction and diffraction."


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

KenOC said:


> We have no idea what dark matter is. Ditto dark energy. We cannot reconcile quantum theory with general relativity. So do we stop where we are?


We're probably at the end of physics, but not for those reasons. It's now a much more difficult conception which humans drown in, but at least the conception holds up for now.


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2019)

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. Experiments have confirmed stars and galaxy clusters rotating faster than expected. Other experiments have confirmed the accelerating expansion of the universe. Both of these phenomena cannot be explained by our present physics. Something is allowing the increased rotation of galaxies and the something is driving the accelerating expansion of the universe. We do have an intuitive explanation (matter that does not interact electromagnetically and a force that acts like a negative pressure on spacetime).


Dark matter/energy is the stuff that supposedly explains the non-zero value of the cosmological constant. (That's the level at which I understand it.) The people who do QED calculations can't figure out how to calculate the vacuum energy so that it is low enough to match the apparent value of the cosmological constant. If someone figures out a mathematical trick to get the right answer "dark matter" will just be the name they give to the term decided to include in their equation. It's poetry, it seems to me.

As far as I am concerned, there is one big mystery left. Why is there a matter/anti-matter imbalance? I even saw an article somewhere saying that some brainiacs thought they had the answer. I didn't even have the patience to read the first paragraph, the "theory" was just more unverifiable self-abuse...


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Baron Scarpia said:


> Dark matter/energy is the stuff that supposedly explains the non-zero value of the cosmological constant. (That's the level at which I understand it.) The people who do QED calculations can't figure out how to calculate the vacuum energy so that it is low enough to match the apparent value of the cosmological constant. If someone figures out a mathematical trick to get the right answer "dark matter" will just be the name they give to the term decided to include in their equation. It's poetry, it seems to me.
> 
> As far as I am concerned, there is one big mystery left. Why is there a matter/anti-matter imbalance? I even saw an article somewhere saying that some brainiacs thought they had the answer. I didn't even have the patience to read the first paragraph, the "theory" was just more unverifiable self-abuse...


Yes, it is a shame that in many articles the reasons and the evidence and the background and history of the theoretical frameworks isn't given to the reader. But you can delve into it.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

But dark matter is the working explanation for the rotation of galaxies, which is too fast to be explained by visible matter


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## Guest (Oct 9, 2019)

Bwv 1080 said:


> But dark matter is the working explanation for the rotation of galaxies, which is too fast to be explained by visible matter


The notion is that there is an equivalence between mass and energy, so that energy also exerts a gravitational pull. Zero point energy fluctuations (due to quantum uncertainty a field can't be identically zero, it is always fluctuating around zero) and so empty space has an energy density, which behaves like a mass density. That's part of it. But your galaxies, maybe they need even more mass, something on top of that. That could be your black holes, or your wimps? Maybe.

The bottom line for me, if they come up with some beautiful theory, does it really matter if it is true or not, as long as it sounds good? If your garden variety physics theory is wrong the gadget you try to build with it won't work. The bomb, reactor, laser, transistor, atomic clock will fail to work. What if the dark matter theory is wrong? The wrong pencil-neck geek gets tenure.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

,


Baron Scarpia said:


> The notion is that there is an equivalence between mass and energy, so that energy also exerts a gravitational pull. Zero point energy fluctuations (due to quantum uncertainty a field can't be identically zero, it is always fluctuating around zero) and so empty space has an energy density, which behaves like a mass density. That's part of it. But your galaxies, maybe they need even more mass, something on top of that. That could be your black holes, or your wimps? Maybe.
> 
> The bottom line for me, if they come up with some beautiful theory, does it really matter if it is true or not, as long as it sounds good? If your garden variety physics theory is wrong the gadget you try to build with it won't work. The bomb, reactor, laser, transistor, atomic clock will fail to work. What if the dark matter theory is wrong? The wrong pencil-neck geek gets tenure.


If the energy density of spacetime is part of the missing matter it would be clumping up around galaxies and causing gravitational lensing which has been predicted, measured and explained by the math. I think superstring theory has a better explanation for cold dark matter, but it requires a leap of understanding into 6 extra dimensions for the vibrational shapes and one more for the unification of gravity as proposed by Witten. It's a compelling description, but many people don't like what the ramifications are for physics.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Bwv 1080 said:


> But all you do is fit arbitrary mathematical models to known results without generating any useful new predictions, why bother? It may be of mathematical interest, but adds nothing to our understanding of nature


this is very untrue. Einstein did not bother waiting for new experimental results to invent new physics. He used that which was known and created new theories that completely revolutionarized physics, and only subsequently allowed for new predictions. That is theoretical physics. I see no reason why that could not work again. There are many unsolved puzzles in current physics and maybe one day some will find a way to create an ingenious theory that will explain it all. I find it absurd when someone claims that we are at the end of physics. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics
it is like when Fukuyama claimed that we are at the end of history

also, there is great elegance and simplicity expressed through various symmetries behind the laws of nature. All those particles and forces reflect some very beautiful symmetriies such as Lie groups and gauge symmetries etc. All this elegance hints at the fact that there is some universal mathematical principle behind all physical laws, the holy grail of physics - Theory of Everything. And the most ambitious theoretical physicists do try to find it. 
https://www.nap.edu/read/6045/chapter/5


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

DrMike said:


> But have we exhausted all we can learn about what we can actually currently test? That is the real question. I know speculating about those things beyond our current technological capabilities is alluring, and certainly sparks the imagination. But in reality, scientific knowledge, while producing intermittent grand breakthroughs, is primarily built upon incremental increases in knowledge. Are we doing that type of research?


The answer is a qualified yes. There are plenty of experiments that look to understand particular aspects of particle physics better or that probe if our present models are correct.

One fascinating area is CP (charge-parity) violation. Some particles decay in a way that violates a particular symmetry such that more matter than antimatter is created. Present results do not show enough CP violation to explain the excess of matter over antimatter, but planned experiments are probing other decays to search for greater CP violation. Neutrino mixing (one neutrino type turning into another) is not part of the Standard Model, but is now known to exist and indicates that neutrinos have mass. Experiments are trying to better understand the details of mixing and the mass. The final undiscovered particle in the Standard Model, the Higgs, was recently discovered at CERN in 2012. We still do not understand the Higgs very well (e.g. are there charged HIggs or just neutral ones?), and experiments are trying to get more data to better understand what's known as the HIggs Sector. There are also many experiments looking for dark matter particles.

Another set of experiments are testing the Standard Model in great detail looking for slight deviations from predictions. These potential deviations could indicate new physics. There are intriguing hints of possible deviations in recent CERN data, but so far there are no clear signals of new physics. Other experiments, for example, look to see if certain constants of nature (e.g. the electromagnetic force at low energies) are truly constant by looking at other regions of the universe and at earlier times (billions of years ago).

So there are plenty of experiments trying to push the frontiers of particle physics. I think the main issue that started this thread stems from two sources - the incredible success of the Standard Model and the theoretical incompatibility between quantum physics (in the Standard Model) and General Relativity. Experiments have found almost no violations of the Standard Model so theoretical physicists have essentially no new data to find a new model. There are now some data (dark energy, dark matter, neutrino mixing, etc.), but the data is modest and does not seem to effect the Standard Model - General Relativity problem. In the 1980s a new theory (String Theory) was developed that looked incredibly promising to incorporate both quantum physics and General Relativity. Theorists threw themselves into further developing this theory because the problem was so important. They made significant progress for awhile, but 40 years later we still do not have a theory that can make serious predictions. There are other theories, but the problem is incredibly difficult given the lack of useful data (and perhaps the difficulty of the theories themselves).

Sabine Hossenfelder is bothered by a relatively recent change in how theoretical physics is motivated. The issue is subtle, and many disagree with her conclusions. The bottom line is that theory needs experimental data to guide it. Without new data, theory is a bit stuck.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Bwv 1080 said:


> But all you do is fit arbitrary mathematical models to known results without generating any useful new predictions, why bother? It may be of mathematical interest, but adds nothing to our understanding of nature


There may be a slight misunderstanding here. Physics theories are very different from math. Math does not need to be verified by experiment and constrained by the real world. Physics always does. These constraints are generally extremely tight such that most physics theories turn out to be incompatible with reality and must be discarded.

Good/important physics theories always make significant predictions and add enormously to our understanding of nature. The development of quantum physics starting in the 1920s through electroweak theory and the Standard Model in the 1970s created the most precise model ever and made many predictions such as antimatter, the W and Z particles, and the Higgs.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

mmsbls said:


> Another set of experiments are testing the Standard Model in great detail looking for slight deviations from predictions. These potential deviations could indicate new physics. There are intriguing hints of possible deviations in recent CERN data, but so far there are no clear signals of new physics.


there are some reports of physics beyond the standard model at LHC
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/large-hadron-collider-b-meson
but sometimes new findings are reported, and later retracted. We will have to wait a couple of years for the results to be confirmed etc. But standard model is definitely not the end of the story.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Physicists aren't spinning their wheels. This video details the logic and some math of current cosmology. It's a good reference.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

mmsbls said:


> ed.
> 
> Good/important physics theories always make significant predictions and add enormously to our understanding of nature. The development of quantum physics starting in the 1920s through electroweak theory and the Standard Model in the 1970s created the most precise model ever and made many predictions such as antimatter, the W and Z particles, and the Higgs.


Yes, my point is there has not been any useful new theory since the Standard Model, its been nearly 50 years of stagnation.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Yes, my point is there has not been any useful new theory since the Standard Model, its been nearly 50 years of stagnation.


There has been some work in the particle physics/cosmology area since then. Inflationary theories were developed in the 1980s, but it's true that there has been a bit of a drought for theoretical particle physics/cosmology. Basically, we've amassed some data (dark energy and matter, neutrino mixing), but for the most part there not too much that impacts the Standard Model.

The 40-50 year dry spell is not so different than the time between Maxwell's equations and quantum mechanics (1862 - 1920s). A bit earlier General Relativity was developed, but that's a comparable time frame.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

mmsbls said:


> There has been some work in the particle physics/cosmology area since then. Inflationary theories were developed in the 1980s, but it's true that there has been a bit of a drought for theoretical particle physics/cosmology. Basically, we've amassed some data (dark energy and matter, neutrino mixing), but for the most part there not too much that impacts the Standard Model.
> 
> The 40-50 year dry spell is not so different than the time between Maxwell's equations and quantum mechanics (1862 - 1920s). A bit earlier General Relativity was developed, but that's a comparable time frame.


Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics was developed during the latter half of the 19th century, then 1905 came special relativity and the quanta


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

There is a story, if it isn't apocryphal, that Sir Arthur Eddington gave a summing up talk at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries where he concluded that, basically, physicists knew all there was to know. The only two problems that needed solving were that of Black Body radiation, and the failure of Michaelson/Morley to detect aether -- both of which, he smugly concluded, were within reach. Unfortunately, the first led to photons and quantum mechanics, and the second to relativity -- and all hell broke loose.  I have two crackpot theories to contribute: On the microscale, the more we subdivide matter, the more inconceivable it becomes -- and I'm beginning to feel it may be infinitely subdividable. Relativistically, I'm feeling that with the universe ever expanding and local gravity getting weaker and weaker, time is always speeding up -- so the Egyptians could build the pyramids because they had more time to do it in. 

Tomorrow we'll analyze why, when we roll out pizza dough or pie crust, it always looks like Australia.


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