Today's physics is in a curious position. On one hand, modern physical theories show an unprecedented predictive power and precision, and are able to deal with processes ranging from subatomic particles to the whole Universe. On the other hand, even the most successful theories are challenged by seemingly very simple systems. This dichotomy seems to be rooted to the history of physics and exacerbated by today's academic and publishing modus operandi. In the present essay, we investigate how scientists approach the study of a physical process. We will first highlight what are the fundamental steps in any scientific investigation. We will then identify three ways of linking these steps which maximize our understanding of the process under investigation. Comparing these three approaches to the actual research process, we will identify the roots of the above dichotomy. We will then conclude by proposing an improved model of how science in general, and physics in particular, could be conducted, striving for a deeper understanding of the Universe.
The triptych of physics
Alice Boldrin
Dear CopperScorpion,
of all the texts I have read on the topic "Criticism of the structure of physics" in this contest, I clearly like your text the best. My congratulations. You proceed very thoughtfully and develop your position comprehensibly and with profit for the reader. And since you provide alternative paths in your model of the physical cognition process at each stage, I assume that you can also allow for ideas that are different from yours.
So one question for me would be, do we have a structural problem in physics at all? Obviously you (and many a post in the contest) are dissatisfied with the results physics is giving today and attribute that to the system of physics. But were the boundary conditions to do physics ever better and more straightforward than today? You mention even Giordano Bruno, who had to flee most of his life through half of Europe to be able to do his science and in the end was burned anyway. Euler and many others were dependent on the whims of their rulers, Julien de la Mettrie or Christian Wolff had to flee the gallows within hours. Einstein financed his living in a boring and insignificant patent office and did his physics on the side. Maybe this much more elementary 'survival of the fittest scientist' led to a better production of important findings than today's competition via h-factor.
Maybe in former times only very convinced and persistent became physicists, while today many fill attracted by science, who are only looking for a quiet academic biotope?
Your proposed solution of forming theoretical physicists into large units is original. But is it not a contradiction, on the one hand to criticize the narrowness of thinking in physics today, and then to want to organize more and more physics into almost planned large-scale research.
Galileo Galilei is credited with the saying, "The authority of thousands counts for nothing in science against the spark of intellect of one." I believe that it is a common behavior of us today to always blame the system (in this case, science) first and to overlook the fact that an excellent physicist can produce excellent results in almost any system if he truly devotes his life to science at all risk.
I was particularly pleased that you also understand mathematics as a language. However, if you take this to its logical conclusion, mathematics itself cannot be objective, as you suggest. A language is only a tool to map reality into cognition. Compared to non-formal languages of everyday life, mathematics is unambiguously defined, has an obvious and comprehensible logic, and can clearly formulate much more complex relationships.
As with classical languages, however, it is ultimately what is formulated that matters: If I formulate a story in English that I traveled to Jupiter by means of stardust, one will be able to prove to me by means of language that this is illogical and not true against the background of reality. If I formulate a story in English, according to which I traveled to London last week, one will not be able to prove me by means of language logic whether this is true or not (at least if my story is good). False can be excluded logically in some cases, on the model level of language including mathematics, but true can only be detected by comparison with reality, i.e. in experiment. One can formulate everything possible mathematically, which is logically correct, but has no equivalent in the (momentarily manageable) reality. As in English, there are also in mathematics the literary genres of poetry, utopia, fiction, but also factual reports, i.e. physics. Probably the current problem of physics is also that the theoretical physicists digress from the factual reports and are interested too much in mathematical poetry?