Is physics progressing?

[Eros]

In recent years biology and chemistry have progressed tremendously through genetics and neuroscience. It seems to me that physics is at a stand still and has been for a long time.

 

Is this because biology and chemistry occur at a level of reality or scale of reality that is always within our perception, but physics has already reached the outer edge of what we can experience or perceive?

 

If our instruments and our minds are always limited in relation to the reality that they grew from, then our understanding of physics will always be limited as well.

 

It seems to me that the questions we will never be able to answer include:

 

What is the smallest constituent of matter?

How large is the universe?

How did the universe begin and why?

 

Is physics stuck already? Or will the next big breakthrough happen at any moment?

[insane_alien]

physics is speeding along quite nicely. and with the LHC up and running its expected to accelerate even more.

 

just because it is not as publicised as some developments in other fields doesn't mean they're all standing around scratching their bums(okay, well they do all do that, but only when they're waiting for the experiment to run).

 

as to the questions posted,

 

1/size is iffy when you get down to the subatomic level, other than that though, neutrino.

 

2/ the visible universes size is well documented, the full size(if it is different) depends a lot on the geometery of space time on a large scale which is very difficult to measure.

 

3/physics doesn't ask why, but there are theories on how it occured from quantum gravity but more evidence needs to be gathered first.

[Greippi]

The field of biophysics is positively booming.

In fact, these days there's not that much distinction between the disciplines. I do molecular biology, and it's all basically physics and chemistry but applied to life.

There's still much to discover. Fully understanding the energetics and weak forces - particularly involved in proteins - is a big challenge for science in the future.

[khaled]

physics is progressive, impassive, dynamic ...

 

------------------------------

 

I'm still writing a Science-Fiction novel called "Dark Nano", although it's fictional

but i get ideas from scientific facts,

 

here is a part of it,

 

" the impact was high, as the wonder impression on the solider's face asking "how possible ?!!" as the answer came from dark-euclid saying " beyond the element resistance, we have the nano-level arrangement that can give us more defense .. we call it NANO SENTINEL !!" "

 

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[swansont]

In recent years biology and chemistry have progressed tremendously through genetics and neuroscience. It seems to me that physics is at a stand still and has been for a long time.

 

Is this because biology and chemistry occur at a level of reality or scale of reality that is always within our perception, but physics has already reached the outer edge of what we can experience or perceive?

 

If our instruments and our minds are always limited in relation to the reality that they grew from, then our understanding of physics will always be limited as well.

 

It seems to me that the questions we will never be able to answer include:

 

What is the smallest constituent of matter?

How large is the universe?

How did the universe begin and why?

 

Is physics stuck already? Or will the next big breakthrough happen at any moment?

 

Try keeping up with the physics journals and pose the question of physics being stuck or at a standstill again.

[Mr Skeptic]

In recent years biology and chemistry have progressed tremendously through genetics and neuroscience. It seems to me that physics is at a stand still and has been for a long time.

 

There's more chemicals (and biological chemicals) than there are atoms in the known universe. There's ~100 million species (estimated), mostly undiscovered and even less studied. These folks are always going to have something to talk about, even if there were no advances in theoretical knowledge.

 

Meanwhile, much of new physics involves nasty mathematics and no newspaper is going to bother explaining it if it is not groundbreaking.

[ajb]

Physics can seem to be stagnant as there are a few well-known open problems that remain difficult to attack. It is these problems that get well publicised. Less well-known to "outsiders" is all the good work done on other problems.

 

I also think this applies to pure mathematics.

[khaled]

it also helps to think "out of the box",

[Eros]

There's more chemicals (and biological chemicals) than there are atoms in the known universe. There's ~100 million species (estimated), mostly undiscovered and even less studied. These folks are always going to have something to talk about, even if there were no advances in theoretical knowledge.

 

Meanwhile, much of new physics involves nasty mathematics and no newspaper is going to bother explaining it if it is not groundbreaking.

 

How can there be more chemicals than there are atoms in the universe if the chemicals are made out of atoms?

[Greippi]

How can there be more chemicals than there are atoms in the universe if the chemicals are made out of atoms?

 

Because chemicals are combinations of atoms. I think what Mr Skeptic was saying is that there are more possible chemicals than atoms in the universe.

[Sisyphus]

How can there be more chemicals than there are atoms in the universe if the chemicals are made out of atoms?

 

There are more possible chemicals. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of these actually exist anywhere, but they could be synthesized.

[khaled]

How can there be more chemicals than there are atoms in the universe if the chemicals are made out of atoms?

 

it's a simple mathematical induction,

 

if we say ,for example, that all atoms in the universe are K

 

then how many combination are possible ? answer = K!

 

K! > K

[ajb]

it also helps to think "out of the box",

 

You mean the infinite square well!

[khaled]

You mean the infinite square well!

 

that's the mathematical definition of "think out of the box" !

[Tnad]

What?!

more chemicals than atom!

in that case there will be a bigger number of sets than elts inside.unless some sets are empty! any way are there chemicals without atoms?

[insane_alien]

think of it this way, you have 2 dice. that means there's 6^2, 36 possible combinations. but you only have 2 dice.

 

like has already been said, there will be many chemicals that do't exist anywhere in the universe right now, but they are possible to synthesize. heck, we've probably made a few already.

[Tnad]

@insane_alien

Thanx,i got it.Actually I was doing some probability problems (b4 i join this forum) which I still find not easy to figure out quickly.But now, dat's clear!