What is the limit we have in knowing more about the universe?

[Saiyan300Warrior]

If science is based on the footing of what we can observe and what we can predict then is advancement in science based on the tools we can use to do observation with and what we simply can't do based on laws established?

I rember reading a few months back on physicsforums, a person posted about how he thinks physics is coming to a close end because of the lack of major discovery in physics in the last 50 years and that innovation requires new foundational laws which need to be discovered , which haven't been. 

I was wondering if there will be a limit to how far we can progress in science due to limitations of tools and limits of the universe we live in. In the past they could do giant leaps in picking the low hanging fruit but now people have to specialize in taking little tiny steps like stuff you see on arXiv.

 

Sorry if this is written a little muddled up. I'm asking more than I know about. But still curious so I ask anyway. I have no real specialized knowledge in any science which you can tell by most of my posts.

[swansont]

The alleged “lack of major discovery in physics in the last 50 years” is a false premise. As is the notion that innovation requires new foundational laws. All it takes is a look at the last 50 years.

Perhaps an investigation of this flawed premise is in order. 

11 hours ago, Saiyan300Warrior said:

If science is based on the footing of what we can observe and what we can predict then is advancement in science based on the tools we can use to do observation with and what we simply can't do based on laws established?

...

I was wondering if there will be a limit to how far we can progress in science due to limitations of tools and limits of the universe we live in. In the past they could do giant leaps in picking the low hanging fruit but now people have to specialize in taking little tiny steps like stuff you see on arXiv.

Yes, it depends on the tools, which have been improving over time. 

What are your examples of giant leaps vs tiny steps?

[Saiyan300Warrior]

I explained it stupidly, he explained it well...

...Nevermind I don't know what I'm talking about...

[joigus]

On 12/4/2020 at 8:38 AM, Saiyan300Warrior said:

I rember reading a few months back on physicsforums, a person posted about how he thinks physics is coming to a close end because of the lack of major discovery in physics in the last 50 years and that innovation requires new foundational laws which need to be discovered , which haven't been. 

Quote

• 1970-73 - Standard Model of elementary particles invented
• 1971 - Helium 3 superfluidity
• 1971-75 - Michael Fisher, Kenneth G. Wilson, and Leo Kadanoff: Renormalization group
• 1972 - Black Hole Entropy
• 1974 - Black hole radiation (Hawking radiation) predicted
• 1974 - Charmed quark discovered
• 1975 - Tau lepton found
• 1977 - Bottom quark found
• 1980 - Strangeness as a signature of quark-gluon plasma predicted^[3]
• 1980 - Richard Feynman proposes quantum computing
• 1980 - Quantum Hall effect
• 1981 - Alan Guth Theory of cosmic inflation proposed^{[dubious – discuss]}
• 1981 - Fractional quantum Hall effect discovered
• 1984 - W and Z bosons directly observed
• 1984 - First laboratory implementation of quantum cryptography
• 1993 - Quantum teleportation of unknown states proposed
• 1994 - Shor's algorithm discovered, initiating the serious study of quantum computation
• 1994-97 - Matrix models/M-theory
• 1995 - Wolfgang Ketterle: Bose–Einstein condensate observed
• 1995 - Top quark discovered
• 1998 - Accelerating expansion of the universe discovered by the Supernova Cosmology Project and the High-Z Supernova Search Team
• 1998 - Atmospheric neutrino oscillation established
• 1999 - Lene Vestergaard Hau: Slow light experimentally demonstrated

21st century

• 2000 - Quark-gluon plasma found^[4]
• 2000 - Tau neutrino found
• 2003 - WMAP observations of cosmic microwave background
• 2012 - Higgs boson found by the Compact Muon Solenoid^[5] and ATLAS^[6] experiments at the Large Hadron Collider
• 2015 - Gravitational waves are observed
• 2019 - First image of a Black hole

 

[Saiyan300Warrior]

How much of those discoveries has some practical use? Like advancing in technology? Seems like over time transistors just got made smaller!

[Bartholomew Jones]

On 12/4/2020 at 2:38 AM, Saiyan300Warrior said:

If science is based on the footing of what we can observe and what we can predict then is advancement in science based on the tools we can use to do observation with and what we simply can't do based on laws established?

I rember reading a few months back on physicsforums, a person posted about how he thinks physics is coming to a close end because of the lack of major discovery in physics in the last 50 years and that innovation requires new foundational laws which need to be discovered , which haven't been. 

I was wondering if there will be a limit to how far we can progress in science due to limitations of tools and limits of the universe we live in. In the past they could do giant leaps in picking the low hanging fruit but now people have to specialize in taking little tiny steps like stuff you see on arXiv.

 

Sorry if this is written a little muddled up. I'm asking more than I know about. But still curious so I ask anyway. I have no real specialized knowledge in any science which you can tell by most of my posts.

I think the only limitation is those limitations IMPOSED by man; not remembering that nature is dominant.

[Phi for All]

18 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

I think the only limitation is those limitations IMPOSED by man; not remembering that nature is dominant.

What about all those areas where humans (not man) improved on nature? How can you view nature as "dominant" in general when we've overcome so many of its obstacles? 

[Bartholomew Jones]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

What about all those areas where humans (not man) improved on nature? How can you view nature as "dominant" in general when we've overcome so many of its obstacles? 

Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe you're right.  I don't have the answer.  Maybe modern science is an answer.  I don't know.

[Phi for All]

28 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe you're right.  I don't have the answer.  Maybe modern science is an answer.  I don't know.

Maybe you don't understand what modern science is trying to do. For starters, it's not looking for answers. 

A theory is our best current explanation for any phenomena we observe in nature. A theory is capable of improving, and is always being challenged and tested with new experiments based on the latest data. Theories are based on mathematical models that are trustworthy to an astonishing degree. Theory is as strong as it gets in science, mainly because it's not etched in stone the way an "answer" is. Theories require constant updating, whereas "answers" are rarely questioned. People who think they've found an answer stop looking. 

If we're interested in knowing more about the universe, we need an extremely trustworthy way of deciding what we actually know, a way that's resistant to our biases and wishful thinking. Scientific methodology works.

[swansont]

21 hours ago, Saiyan300Warrior said:

How much of those discoveries has some practical use? Like advancing in technology? Seems like over time transistors just got made smaller!

Which allowed for modern computers including hand-held devices (i.e. smartphones)

 

[Bartholomew Jones]

2 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Maybe you don't understand what modern science is trying to do. For starters, it's not looking for answers. 

A theory is our best current explanation for any phenomena we observe in nature. A theory is capable of improving, and is always being challenged and tested with new experiments based on the latest data. Theories are based on mathematical models that are trustworthy to an astonishing degree. Theory is as strong as it gets in science, mainly because it's not etched in stone the way an "answer" is. Theories require constant updating, whereas "answers" are rarely questioned. People who think they've found an answer stop looking. 

If we're interested in knowing more about the universe, we need an extremely trustworthy way of deciding what we actually know, a way that's resistant to our biases and wishful thinking. Scientific methodology works.

I've always thought I've understood the notion of hypotheses, as equivalence functionally with questions; although by definition a hypothesis is an educated guess.  Am I incorrect treating them the same, functionally?

An educated guess is an attempt at something, a theory.  Aiming, yes?  But a question is more voluminous?  Because you're seeking?  Yes?

So science as it stands today is a way of aiming; by extension, not "biting off more than we can chew."  Yes?

I ask, seeking (nonetheless), insight into a certain young man's capacity among the figures of the ancient Hebrew/Aramaic texts to explain certain phenomena, having acquired unheard of capacity to predict certain events through certain studies of science, and certain other exercises, while he himself was under certain Babylonian enforcements.

Or rather, a question predicates, or is a necessary aspect of aiming.  Yes?

So for more discrete theories, predicating the figure, if you will, of scientific law, or generally, natural principle, should we predicate (pardon the overuse) hypotheses and theories with originating questions?

Rather, so the individual aspect is framing a question.  The scientific aspect disregards the question, preferring to aim at a theory; separating the individual aspect from the scientific aspect.  Yes?

Edited December 7, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones
Added "is" a necessary; then to add finer def; grammar

[swansont]

50 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

I've always thought I've understood the notion of hypotheses, as equivalence functionally with questions; although by definition a hypothesis is an educated guess.  Am I incorrect treating them the same, functionally?

An educated guess is an attempt at something, a theory.  Aiming, yes?  But a question is more voluminous?  Because you're seeking?  Yes?

Science defines some terminology in its own way, and not what you find in a standard dictionary.

 

 

[Bartholomew Jones]

I hardly lean too much on dictionaries, as I suppose I might/ought, for science; I tend to lean on those few things, principles, learned over the primary through post-secondary years (long ago).  I tend to favor the old, in every case, science or otherwise; perhaps prejudicially.

52 minutes ago, swansont said:

Science defines some terminology in its own way, and not what you find in a standard dictionary.

 

 

That preceding intended as reply, above.

Anyway, carry on.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones
err

[swansont]

9 hours ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

I hardly lean too much on dictionaries, as I suppose I might/ought, for science; I tend to lean on those few things, principles, learned over the primary through post-secondary years (long ago).  I tend to favor the old, in every case, science or otherwise; perhaps prejudicially.

That preceding intended as reply, above.

Anyway, carry on.

Well, then, you should know that a theory and a hypothesis are not the same thing, and in science a hypothesis is more than an educated guess, as it needs to conform to the requirements of science: there needs to be a way to test the hypothesis, and it must be falsifiable. 

A theory incorporates a model and the evidence one has gathered in support of that model. So it's much more than a hypothesis.

[Bartholomew Jones]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Well, then, you should know that a theory and a hypothesis are not the same thing, and in science a hypothesis is more than an educated guess, as it needs to conform to the requirements of science: there needs to be a way to test the hypothesis, and it must be falsifiable. 

A theory incorporates a model and the evidence one has gathered in support of that model. So it's much more than a hypothesis.

Can you exemplify?  My understanding is that a hypothesis might lead to a theory.  And the next logical progression might be scientific law.  That's how I was taught.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Bartholomew Jones

[swansont]

3 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Can you exemplify?  My understanding is that a hypothesis might lead to a theory. 

It might, if you gather enough evidence that shows your model is correct. But you were saying they were functionally the same, and also that it's just an eductaed guess.

 

3 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

And the next logical progression might be scientific law.  That's how I was taught.

No. Theories do not become laws. A law in science is a relationship that can be expressed mathematically. Newton's law of gravitation, F = GmM/r^2, or Newton's second law, F= ma, for example. Or Moore's law, that computer power doubles every ~18 months. That's not from the progression of a theory. 

 

 

[Bartholomew Jones]

Now, Newton's law of gravity, as ascertained in college went precisely like this.  It wasn't quite mathematical: "Every object in the universe is attracted to every other object in proportion to the quantity of mass of the two objects, and in inverse proportion to the distance between."

That's what was in the text book.  Mind you science didn't catch my attention until college (university).

[swansont]

20 minutes ago, Bartholomew Jones said:

Now, Newton's law of gravity, as ascertained in college went precisely like this.  It wasn't quite mathematical: "Every object in the universe is attracted to every other object in proportion to the quantity of mass of the two objects, and in inverse proportion to the distance between."

That's what was in the text book.  Mind you science didn't catch my attention until college (university).

It's mathematical. That statement is equivalent to "F is proportional to Mm/r^2" 

When you include a constant of proportionality (G) you can write it as an equality.

 

[Bartholomew Jones]

8 minutes ago, swansont said:

It's mathematical. That statement is equivalent to "F is proportional to Mm/r^2" 

When you include a constant of proportionality (G) you can write it as an equality.

 

Fascinating but way over my head.  Well at the least, I'm learning to be fairer in my estimation of "you science people," damnit.