Re: What are physicists trying to do?

On Dec 30, 11:52 am, "Martin Hogbin" <goatREMOVETHIS...@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
What are physicists trying to do?

This is a provocative question for some, especially those
who do not like or accept relativity or QM. Here is my
answer, which I believe to be close to the 'official' view.

Why do you think there's an "official" view? What
"officials" determine this? Is it written down?

In physics, like any other profession, the people who
pursue it have individual reasons for why they pursue
it, for what they want to do, and for what aspects of
it they find satisfying.

Physicists are trying to produce a quantitative model of
the world in which we live which, within its realm of
applicability, agrees with experiment. The following
properties are also desirable.

1 Philosophically pleasing.

I'm not sure what that means. It doesn't sound
important. The universe is what it is, even if the
rules displease me or somebody else.

2 Mathematically tractable.

Again, I'm not sure how important that is. If the
exact theory is intractable, that's not a show-stopper.
The search for an alternative, approximate theory
or method of calculation that is tractable is
important to produce predictions. But that doesn't
mean the exact theory should be discarded in favor
of the approximation. They are two separate and
equally important physical theories.

3 Wide realm of applicability.

Completely unimportant. Not even sure what you're
thinking of. The theory of superconductivity
is not required to have applicability to anything
but superconductivity. The theory of stellar
evolution is not required to have applicability
to anything other than stellar evolution. Weather
physics is not required to apply to anything other
than the weather.

4 Intuitive

Completely irrelevant. Not even on the radar.


I have two questions, the first to the (mainstream)
physicists. Is this your general understanding of what
physicists are trying to do?

I'm working in engineering, not in physics. But I
was trained in physics, and most of that seems
completely irrelevant or unimportant to what I
expected out of physics either before or after
my training.

- Randy
.

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