TJ McCaustland Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Lets say someone invents a perpetual motion engine and it defies all laws of physics. How ticked would you be that we have to rewrite EVERY single law and equation? I would be furious...... (Of course this isn't going to happen but its a good topic for conversation because I'm sitting here at home bored out of my mind.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajb Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 It would be an amazing result and would as you say mean that we have to understand why it works. We would have some modifications of the standard laws of physics, which themselves need to be carefully examined as does the reason why we did not notice these modifications before. Such a machine would have to be something very exotic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ McCaustland Posted July 1, 2015 Author Share Posted July 1, 2015 Yeah, no kidding, SO MUCH work though...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajb Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Yeah, no kidding, SO MUCH work though...... It would mean a lot of work.. which is good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ McCaustland Posted July 1, 2015 Author Share Posted July 1, 2015 True..... lots of jobs, and lots of equations..... but jeez..... so much work..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharonY Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 But it isn't much different from the current state of science. Whether you look for something new or to try to refine/revise something old that does not seem to work out, it tends to take quite some effort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ McCaustland Posted July 1, 2015 Author Share Posted July 1, 2015 True but look how long that would take, and all those equations that would be meaningless because of the discovery........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StringJunky Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 The important thing is that the current models will still keep working. True but look how long that would take, and all those equations that would be meaningless because of the discovery........ Einstein supplanted Newton but many still use the latter's work where GR doesn't matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharonY Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 It does not mean that they are meaningless, as they do agree with experimental outcomes. Whatever it is that allows the perpetuum mobile exist may not impact the other models in their respective domains of application. The most important bit about models is that they are useful, not necessarily that they cover every aspect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 But it isn't much different from the current state of science. Whether you look for something new or to try to refine/revise something old that does not seem to work out, it tends to take quite some effort. Indeed. QM and Relativity demanded the rewriting of the laws of physics. True but look how long that would take, and all those equations that would be meaningless because of the discovery........ Rewriting ALL of the laws is not even a reasonable daydream to contemplate, because it can't work like that. Experiments and systems that currently obey the known laws can't stop obeying those laws. If they did then the job is easy, because you have no laws at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ McCaustland Posted July 1, 2015 Author Share Posted July 1, 2015 (edited) Indeed. QM and Relativity demanded the rewriting of the laws of physics. Rewriting ALL of the laws is not even a reasonable daydream to contemplate, because it can't work like that. Experiments and systems that currently obey the known laws can't stop obeying those laws. If they did then the job is easy, because you have no laws at all. True but lets say you had to write EVERY law EVERY equation, and revamp EVERY theory. Thats the point of this thread which I do believe has strayed a little too far off topic. Go from that point and describe your feelings on the subject. Edited July 1, 2015 by TJ McCaustland Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delta1212 Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Why would finding out that there is some area where basically all of physics as we currently understand it fails make anyone angry? That sounds rather exciting to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phi for All Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Go from that point and describe your feelings on the subject. I think you're forgetting that for scientists, a challenge like this isn't viewed as a mountain of work, it's seen as an exciting opportunity to learn more than you knew before. They would need bibs for all the drool. Think kid in a candy store, not clerk with an "In" box piled to the ceiling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 True but lets say you had to write EVERY law EVERY equation, and revamp EVERY theory. Thats the point of this thread which I do believe has strayed a little too far off topic. Go from that point and describe your feelings on the subject. But there's no plausible way that this could come about, unless all of the laws actually changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MigL Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 Very well, ( totally non-sensical 'flight of fancy' follows )... We are currently at 2.7 deg, let's say at 2.5 deg there is a spontaneous symmetry break in our domain of the universe. The electric and magnetic components of the EM field decouple. In the place of the EM field we have two short range fields, no longer propagated by a massless photon, but by two massive bosons, and lots of magnetic monopoles. Atoms break apart, and stars quit shining as there is no more EM radiation. Do we survive to re-write the laws of physics ? If there was a big enough change in the 'laws of physics' to warrant a complete re-write, the cumulative changes would make our existence unlikely. There would be no need for a re-write as there would be no-one here to do it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delta1212 Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 I think you're forgetting that for scientists, a challenge like this isn't viewed as a mountain of work, it's seen as an exciting opportunity to learn more than you knew before. They would need bibs for all the drool. Think kid in a candy store, not clerk with an "In" box piled to the ceiling. Or like a literary scholar stumbling on a cache of rough drafts of every Shakespeare play, all of which differ in some ways from the versions we know. The reaction is not going to be "Aw, now I have to re-read all of these plays?!" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJ McCaustland Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 Ugh..... enough, this has gone from "How ticked would you be if we for some stupid reason had rewrite all the laws of physics" to "kid in a candy store" to quote Phi, you have proven to me why scientists are always busy with stuff they originally never cared about....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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