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Blog post: swansont: The Hard is What Makes it Great

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New theories are hard to get right…but that’s OK

 

Theoretical physics is hard.

 

Or more to the point: coming up with workable new theories in physics is difficult. Partly that’s because of the vast successes of science: we are remarkably good with our current theories at describing, predicting, and otherwise characterizing a huge number of physical phenomena. Any new theory has to cover known phenomena adequately
and
do better at characterizing experimental or observational evidence than existing successful models. That’s hard to do, which is why big shifts in the way we do things — relativity, quantum physics, and so forth — are much rarer than smaller advances.

 

This is a recurring theme among scientists who have some exposure to the public — new "theories" arrive unbidden all the time, and these days anyone with an idea can start up their own website. I think Matthew nailed the characteristics pretty well — pretty pictures but no math, intelligent but little formal training, bold general predictions but nothing specific that could be tested, and the complaint that they are being ignored, or worse, censored.

 

The devil's in the details, and these proposals generally lack detail. There's also an observation about pop-sci books not giving you enough to actually do science, which people may not recognize. This reminds me of something that I've seen elsewhere (Physics and Physicists, IIRC): pop sci books don't teach you science, they teach you about science.


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