Please note no actual cats were harmed in the production of this post.

In my experience there is usually more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes.

In more technical words in pretty well every mathematical discipline - science, engineering and so on - there are multiple methods available to analyse and solve most questions.

Whilst it is true that sometimes a given solution equation has more than one solution and it is important to choose the right one in many cases there is actually fundamentally different theory leading to different equations, that have the same ultimate solution.

This is actually a comfort rather than a hindrance since we can confirm the correctness of our calculations "by independent means"

Further on many occasions one method is actually more efficient than another for solving a particular problem.

In the light of all this why is so much effort put into trying to reduce theory to as few a set of equations as possible - Theories of Everything ?

Who is “we”? I don’t think all that many are working on such efforts.

I think there’s a certain satisfaction to identify principles that govern how the universe behaves, and knowing those can allow us to predictive power that might not manifest itself with smaller, unconnected parts. Epicycles worked, but Newton’s gravitation is more powerful. Same thing for showing that electricity and magnetism are connected

4 hours ago, studiot said:

Please note no actual cats were harmed in the production of this post.

In my experience there is usually more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes.

In more technical words in pretty well every mathematical discipline - science, engineering and so on - there are multiple methods available to analyse and solve most questions.

Whilst it is true that sometimes a given solution equation has more than one solution and it is important to choose the right one in many cases there is actually fundamentally different theory leading to different equations, that have the same ultimate solution.

This is actually a comfort rather than a hindrance since we can confirm the correctness of our calculations "by independent means"

Further on many occasions one method is actually more efficient than another for solving a particular problem.

In the light of all this why is so much effort put into trying to reduce theory to as few a set of equations as possible - Theories of Everything ?

I'm not sure any of that reduces the number of equations, though. It seems to me as a humble chemist that that the equations get hairier and hairier the deeper one delves into the fundamentals of matter and its interactions.

Isn't it, rather, a search for philosophical or aesthetic satisfaction by tying together things that seem separate? There seems to be a deep conviction in physics that there should be elegance in nature and that everything should be connected in some way. That principle has served physics very well until now, though it is not clear to me why it should necessarily be a reasonable expectation.

Perhaps what you are articulating is the same sentiment as that very funny quip of Feynman's: "You don't like it? Go somewhere else! To another universe where the rules are simpler, philosophically more pleasing, more psychologically easy. I can't help it, OK?"

Edited yesterday at 03:01 PM1 day by exchemist

55 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I'm not sure any of that reduces the number of equations, though. It seems to me as a humble chemist that that the equations get hairier and hairier the deeper one delves into the fundamentals of matter and its interactions.

Isn't it, rather, a search for philosophical or aesthetic satisfaction by tying together things that seem separate? There seems to be a deep conviction in physics that there should be elegance in nature and that everything should be connected in some way. That principle has served physics very well until now, though it is not clear to me why it should necessarily be a reasonable expectation.

Perhaps what you are articulating is the same sentiment as that very funny quip of Feynman's: "You don't like it? Go somewhere else! To another universe where the rules are simpler, philosophically more pleasing, more psychologically easy. I can't help it, OK?"

Thank you for your response I will try to illustrate what my meaning by examples from chemistry.

Being an organic chemist you can probably think of examples of this better than I but here goes.

I seem to remember there are often several routes to synthesise a particular substance from precursors, often involving multiple steps.Some are more convenient than others but I would not say there would be a more elegant one.

In chemical thermodynamics there is always more than one way to calculate thermodynamic quantities, again why would any one be more elegant than another ?

Consider 1kg of ice in a well insulated container with a stopper.

Would you consider using Free Energy methods to calculate the entropy of the change as the ice melts ?

Or would you prefer more direct methods ?

2 hours ago, studiot said:

Thank you for your response I will try to illustrate what my meaning by examples from chemistry.

Being an organic chemist you can probably think of examples of this better than I but here goes.

I seem to remember there are often several routes to synthesise a particular substance from precursors, often involving multiple steps.Some are more convenient than others but I would not say there would be a more elegant one.

In chemical thermodynamics there is always more than one way to calculate thermodynamic quantities, again why would any one be more elegant than another ?

Consider 1kg of ice in a well insulated container with a stopper.

Would you consider using Free Energy methods to calculate the entropy of the change as the ice melts ?

Or would you prefer more direct methods ?

I am the first to agree that there are alternative ways to model many scenarios in chemistry and that one chooses the model most appropriate to the problem at hand while recognising all the options are only approximations.

But that is effectively the “shut up and calculate” principle, applied in the chemical context. What is also interesting is to explore how the alternative models, ( say valence bond vs molecular orbital models of bonding) often merge together to provide a more complete description, though often in a way that is too complicated to be helpful in practice.

It is probably only in physics that the systems studied are simple enough to allow modelling that is exact in its predictions. So that is where one can imagine, in principle, that the fundamental interactions might be somehow brought together into a single comprehensive description. But it may be a forlorn quest of course. There is no theorem that says it must be possible, just an aesthetic conviction.

47 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I am the first to agree that there are alternative ways to model many scenarios in chemistry and that one chooses the model most appropriate to the problem at hand while recognising all the options are only approximations.

But that is effectively the “shut up and calculate” principle, applied in the chemical context. What is also interesting is to explore how the alternative models, ( say valence bond vs molecular orbital models of bonding) often merge together to provide a more complete description, though often in a way that is too complicated to be helpful in practice.

It is probably only in physics that the systems studied are simple enough to allow modelling that is exact in its predictions. So that is where one can imagine, in principle, that the fundamental interactions might be somehow brought together into a single comprehensive description. But it may be a forlorn quest of course. There is no theorem that says it must be possible, just an aesthetic conviction.

I am not talking about modelling in chemistry, although obviously as you say modelling techniques are used there like everywhere else.

If you want to use modelling, choosing and solving a set of simultaneous equilibrium equations would fit the bill as there can be different ways to do this.

But neither of my two examples are models.

But please try to see the thrust of my point, which I agree is not very well explained.

9 hours ago, swansont said:

Who is “we”? I don’t think all that many are working on such efforts.

I think there’s a certain satisfaction to identify principles that govern how the universe behaves, and knowing those can allow us to predictive power that might not manifest itself with smaller, unconnected parts. Epicycles worked, but Newton’s gravitation is more powerful. Same thing for showing that electricity and magnetism are connected

I am starting from the premise that the most common thread at SF begins along the lines of "My theory of Everything........."

It is probably easier to make my point in Mechanics than anywhere else.

Edited yesterday at 10:00 PM1 day by studiot

9 hours ago, studiot said:

I am not talking about modelling in chemistry, although obviously as you say modelling techniques are used there like everywhere else.

If you want to use modelling, choosing and solving a set of simultaneous equilibrium equations would fit the bill as there can be different ways to do this.

But neither of my two examples are models.

But please try to see the thrust of my point, which I agree is not very well explained.

I am starting from the premise that the most common thread at SF begins along the lines of "My theory of Everything........."

It is probably easier to make my point in Mechanics than anywhere else.

Perhaps I should clarify that when I speak of models in chemistry I mean all chemical theories and principles. Science consists of models of the physical world. When I use “arrow pushing” in organic reaction mechanisms that is a model. No one think pairs of bonding electrons physically move exactly as shown by the arrows. Physical chemists are pretty dismissive of arrow pushing and theoretical chemists even more so. But the model works, because it (usually) predicts the reaction products and intermediates correctly. And it’s a lot easier than doing QM calculations on multi-atom molecules. But really all science theories are models of reality, not reality itself.

14 hours ago, studiot said:

I am starting from the premise that the most common thread at SF begins along the lines of "My theory of Everything........."

Oh, why do crackpots focus on this?

Ego, perhaps? Dunning-Kruger, to some degree, is fairly common. People who are unfamiliar with the subtleties of a subject tend to overestimate their mastery. I think the “theory of everything” crows we see here are generally neophytes in terms of science. They don’t know what a theory is and most are of the “don’t do math” variety. They’ve just fixated on science instead of, say, politics. I’m sure there are equally clueless folks who “know” exactly what’s wrong with the world and how to fix it.

28 minutes ago, swansont said:

Oh, why do crackpots focus on this?

Ego, perhaps? Dunning-Kruger, to some degree, is fairly common. People who are unfamiliar with the subtleties of a subject tend to overestimate their mastery. I think the “theory of everything” crows we see here are generally neophytes in terms of science. They don’t know what a theory is and most are of the “don’t do math” variety. They’ve just fixated on science instead of, say, politics. I’m sure there are equally clueless folks who “know” exactly what’s wrong with the world and how to fix it.

Yes, Ego >> Capacity => crank. But there is often another factor I think, which is a burning desire to show science is in some way wrong. Exhibit A being @Delburt Phend , for instance.

I've read articles about the contrarian impulse. Apparently there is research showing quite a few of these people don't just go in for a single crank notion, or conspiracy theory, but for a whole lot of them. What they want to be is different: independent-minded people who work everything out for themselves and don't follow the herd. Unfortunately, if one combines that urge with a poor grasp of science, one gets silliness.

However, perhaps this is straying from the thread topic.

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

Yes, Ego >> Capacity => crank. But there is often another factor I think, which is a burning desire to show science is in some way wrong.

To me, that’s ego.

I think the reason it’s ToE rather than other areas of physics is that any specific area, e.g. relativity or QM, requires some amount of detailed knowledge but a crackpot ToE is often more of an overview, lacking detail, which is one of the reasons it fails to gain traction. I don’t recall who started it, but one standard response here is to ask to calculate the parameters of a geostationary orbit, which they can never do.

The ones who dabble in relativity and QM often have somewhat more of a clue about how deep the rabbit hole goes. The ones building perpetual motion devices don’t, though, but I think most of them are tinkerers

If you go outside of physics, to evolution, most of them are driven by ideology and have little familiarity with the details of the theory

1 hour ago, swansont said:

To me, that’s ego.

I think the reason it’s ToE rather than other areas of physics is that any specific area, e.g. relativity or QM, requires some amount of detailed knowledge but a crackpot ToE is often more of an overview, lacking detail, which is one of the reasons it fails to gain traction. I don’t recall who started it, but one standard response here is to ask to calculate the parameters of a geostationary orbit, which they can never do.

The ones who dabble in relativity and QM often have somewhat more of a clue about how deep the rabbit hole goes. The ones building perpetual motion devices don’t, though, but I think most of them are tinkerers

If you go outside of physics, to evolution, most of them are driven by ideology and have little familiarity with the details of the theory

OK yes ego but a very specific manifestation of it, which is suspicion of accepted ideas on principle and a need to assert being individual and different. “Everyone’s got it all wrong, hahaha…. except me.”