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Author Topic:   The mathematization of theoretical physics
cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 9 of 37 (295574)
03-15-2006 1:42 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by NosyNed
03-15-2006 1:22 PM


Re: Relation to Reality
Couldn't have said it better myself Thanks Nosy!

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 14 of 37 (295847)
03-16-2006 7:44 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by RAZD
03-16-2006 7:23 AM


Re: Relation to Reality
Hi RAZD, been a while
the major new ideas (QM and relativity for example) were not mathematical in their initial conception
Relativity was definitely mathematical in its conception. It was Einstein's observation of the mathematical constancy of light in Maxwell's EM equations. Relativity was discovered by applying mathematical consistency to electromagnetism.
You're right, the inital conception of QM was not mathematical; but virtually all of quantum field theory (including QED and QCD) has grown out of mathematical consistency (namely renormalisation theory) and has then been verified by observation.
This message has been edited by cavediver, 03-16-2006 07:45 AM

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 Message 12 by RAZD, posted 03-16-2006 7:23 AM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 15 of 37 (295848)
03-16-2006 7:46 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Son Goku
03-16-2006 7:41 AM


Re: Relation to Reality
Thats true for relativity
Shame on you

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 Message 13 by Son Goku, posted 03-16-2006 7:41 AM Son Goku has replied

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 18 of 37 (295882)
03-16-2006 9:19 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Son Goku
03-16-2006 8:12 AM


Re: Relation to Reality
heh heh
Relativity: Conceptual theory, inspired by a mathematical observation.
QM: Mathematical Theory, inspired by a physical observation.
Can't argue with that...
I think it's the first 1905 SR paper where AE, in his opening paragraph, states that it was EM that sparked him off in the first place. Of coure, this is all on the back of the "failure" of MM, and the work of Lorentz, Poincare, et al.

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 19 of 37 (295884)
03-16-2006 9:29 AM
Reply to: Message 17 by Son Goku
03-16-2006 9:18 AM


Re: Relation to Reality
There is no such things as "concepts" and "maths", as if they are placed in two separate boxes and the latter called in to help former out. In physics they are practically one and the same.
Couldn't agree more.
We've been before. The problem is that anyone outside of real fundemental physics still has this attachment to "things", where concepts and maths are distinguishable. It is hard to convey just how far from reality this view is. And we are still talking about experimentally verified physics: QED and QFT.

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 21 of 37 (295942)
03-16-2006 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by sidelined
03-16-2006 9:57 AM


Re: Relation to Reality
Hey sidelined, don't worry. Even at the postgrad level there are many in the field that don't appreciate quite how deep this goes. This is an area in which only a very few get to specialise.
Consider the following bit of mathematical philosophy: mathematics often starts with axioms prompted by the most simple observations: integer counting, 1 + 0 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2. From this the whole ediface of mathematics is constructed. Mathematician/philosopher friends of mine will often state "I don't believe anything other than integers as that is all we see in the world"
However, usual concepts of integer counting requires concepts of distinguishability (essential in set theory for example). Yet we actually see the universe is constructed from bosons and fermions. These are both intrinsically indistinguishable, and thus the naive concept of integer counting doesn't actually exist except as an emergent property of reality. This suggests why mathematics and reality appear as separate entities at our normal levels of observation and comprehension. This separation blurs to the point of disappearing as we delve deeper.

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 27 of 37 (296988)
03-21-2006 4:34 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by RAZD
03-20-2006 9:28 PM


Re: Relation to Mathematics ...
We can argue about whether string theory really simplifies things later, the point is the focus on the mathematical solution being "elegant" ...
Wow, in the short time you've been absent, you've mastered string theory to be able to argue on this point??? I am suitably impressed Even SG isn't that advanced in the subject... he better watch out.
Sorry to hear that you've been ill... hope you're pulling through.
In both these cases it seems to me that the effort is to find the missing matter and not to question the math.
That's because, like Faith and Randman, you only skirt the very fringes of the subject via popular access to the science. How many thousands of competing theories do you think are imagined, considered, tested, rejected? As with evolution, every scientist dreams of finding some flaw in what has gone before so they may reach publishing nirvana.
Perhaps there is both strong and weak gravity forces that operate in different manners, and the weak gravity is not apparent until you are at vast cosmological distances: no amount of tweaking the strong force mathematics will make it drop out of the math or the data.
RAZ, there is either huge arrogance or huge naivity to think that this hasn't been considered in every way, "possible" or "impossible". We have a Standard Model which we present to the public via popular accounts, but do you think that this is all that is studied? You need to start reading through the journals (Nuc Phys B, Phys Rev D, etc) or flick through the online LANL archives (xxx.lanl.gov)... I think you'll be surprised, even without scouring back over the last 100 years. I know you'll be educated.

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 Message 25 by RAZD, posted 03-20-2006 9:28 PM RAZD has replied

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 28 of 37 (296989)
03-21-2006 4:44 AM
Reply to: Message 22 by RAZD
03-19-2006 8:19 PM


Re: Relation to Mathematics ...
Could it be that you guys are so deep in the forest that you can't see a world without trees?
This is probably the whole point. Without trees there is no forest. Forest is an emergent concept.
The universe only begins to make some semblance of sense in the mathematics. Until you get to that level there are too many gaping anomalies, if you know where to look. Such as the concept of object or solid or distance. We live at this length scale so long that we completely take for granted the concept of "thing" and then try to look at relationships between "things". This is science. But what happens when you get so deep you run out of "things"?

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 34 of 37 (297017)
03-21-2006 8:38 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by RAZD
03-21-2006 7:21 AM


Re: Relation to Mathematics ...
It's just that a concept that involves something like 10 or so dimensions as opposed to the current 4 is not necessarily simplifying things eh?
That's like claiming that evolution breaks 2LOT. You have to look at the entire picture to understand what's going on. Only from that vantage point are you going to appreciate any simplification. Unfortunately, gaining that vantage requires immersion in the subject. Reading Greene doesn't cut it.
Which is why I propose a test to measure the actual effect of gravity rather than argue about it.
Have you heard of the gravity probes?
What is arrogant and naive from my perspective is sitting back in chairs and arguing about the various "possible" and "impossible" (mathematical) systems without testing to know how the effect you are modeling really behaves.
You really are confusing practical cosmologists with theoretical physicists. It's possibly my fault becasue I have experience from all these fields and discuss the whole picture. But that is not how research is carried out. Why would a string theorist trying to produce a viable theory that gives rise to the observed particle families, working in a particle phsyics department, care about some possible tiny anomaly that even if it exists may or may not have a gravtational origin?
Until you know what the observed gravitational anomaly actually is
If there is an anomaly, IF and that is far from determined, then it is an observed accelerational anomaly. Whether it is gravitational or not is even less established.
Can you explain why all (cosmological at least) physicists aren't clamoring to find this out? Is there any way this would be counterproductive?
Because it seems to be an error. Nothing else has picked it up. The gravity probes which are far more sensitive haven't picked it up. It doesn't warrant huge spend on it... yet.
It may be a real gravitational effect, in which case there will be huge celebrations and millions of papers will be written, but we will wait to see if real evidence that it exists starts to accumulate.
It is far far far too early. Just becasue you've read about it and a couple of papers have been written doesn't mean that it is real. Far more has been written and published on crop circles yet they don't appear in many of my equations... yet.

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Replies to this message:
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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 36 of 37 (297214)
03-22-2006 5:19 AM
Reply to: Message 35 by RAZD
03-21-2006 9:38 PM


Re: Relation to Mathematics ...
But am I missing something?
Yes
Is there one going into deep space? On the trail of the pioneers?
We've never sent anything into "deep space". But yes, as I understand it, there is a probe being prepared by ESA. SG seems to know more about it. Perhaps he can elucidate.
Here's a quote by Turyshev and Anderson, the guys who discovered the anomaly...
quote:
Dispassionately, the most likely cause of the anomalous acceleration of the Pioneer spacecraft is on-board systematics, but the smoking gun has not yet been found. The only other possibility is the existence of new physics. This dichotomy represents a healthy win-win situation because either one of these two explanations for the Pioneer anomaly would constitute an extremely important discovery.
Most are quite content to sit back and wait. As I said before, when something definitive arrives you will not be able to avoid the rush towards publication... the discovery of lambda demonstrates that quite nicely.

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