that's not even applied science, that's technologyI mostly agree with this.
People do not get that fundamental physics is over (you would not call seriously "string theory" "scientific" would you?).
I know I am repeating what Lord Kelvin said to his embarrassment just before great discoveries in relativistic physics, quantum physics, etc.
Nevertheless, that's truth: everything ends, everything has limits, humanity has limits and science has limits.
The clear indication that we are close to the limit is absence of ANY fundamental discoveries since a long time ago.
We are gradually shifting towards applied science and mere technology. All of three fields, basic science, applied science and technology are essential for humanity, but the fact is that the first one is almost over or probably over already.
Call them for what they are: Nobel Prizes in Technology
Future historians will look back at the XX century and say that is when the fundamental problems of science got sorted out.
Sure, there are a few things that seem only partially understood, and that a better understanding seems likely or possible. But for many of those things, it is possible that they will never be better understood than they are today.
What do we have to show for this century? Faster lasers. Gravity wave detection. Higgs boson detection. Better telescopes. Etc. But we haven't had any significant advances in fundamental physics in about 40 years.
Sigh, if only it was true. But...
ReplyDeleteGravity...The curved space fiasco for gravity isn't exactly working, except in the fervid fantasies of people who don't want to do anything but write papers.
The math itself is non-linear (you can't add additional masses and have a solution with pseudo-Riemannian twaddle) it can handle only one mass. At least with Newton you could handle two, and with difficulty more masses.
Light...Not being able to discern it's properties without contradiction doesn't help anything, or explain anything, it just ignores the problem with a gooey mess people walk around, avoid, and claim 'we already understand it' to make the problem go away.
Time...No, it isn't the fourth dimension in a ridiculous Minkowski mathematical space. If you think otherwise, might I suggest you move to another universe (composed of bad math) where time operates orthogonally to x y and z. In our universe, it doesn't.
Matter... Sigh. Yeah, electrons are magic, they can do anything (next to 'quantum' anything). Maybe if we actually figure out the structure of atoms without relying on patently false heuristic chemistry pedagogical methods we might make some progress on understanding matter and energy.
Black Holes...are A WASTE OF TIME. Literally. Figuratively. Mathematically. You will not shed light (or lack thereof) on anything with something that relies on blatant hand waving fudge like homostatization to function. At what point did people lose their collective minds and start treating basic abstract geometric elements like lines, points, and planes (all of which have NO physical volume) as capable of carrying density or mass? (Things that have mass always have a non zero VOLUME. No exceptions, else how the hell did you calculate it?). Probably around the same time they started pretending geometric 'curves' were gravity and capable of exerting tensile physical forces by reified math alone. Particles aren't abstract points, particle collisions kind of prove this, they have physical extension and wouldn't be detectable if they didn't.
As soon as these quagmires of place-holding goo get cleaned up, then you can talk about how you have nothing else to discover with physics. Until then, there is a lot of work to do.
Mistaking a dead end for a solution is not a very helpful trait for a scientist.
Totally agree!
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