Kepler would be so disappointed

[Metryq]

LANDMARK CALCULATION CLEARS THE WAY TO ANSWERING HOW MATTER IS FORMED

An international collaboration of scientists, including Thomas Blum, associate professor of physics, is reporting in landmark detail the decay process of a subatomic particle called a kaon – information that may help answer fundamental questions about how the universe began.

Math is not data.

[Venusian Broon]

Originally Posted by Metryq

Math is not data.

emmm, I'm not sure exactly where you stand regarding this article with that succint remark...

...but just to generate a thread:

In the weak sense we need mathematics to interpret data. With no mathemetics, data is meaningless.

And in the strong sense, if we can perfectly* describe any interaction with mathematics then Mathematics could be seen as 'data'.

But they do state that it clears the way. i.e needs experimental verification.

* of course its clear with a little thought this statement can never be shown to be true, and anyway we are nowhere near to simulations of reality as we find it now. Hence in this case we'd have to accept this strong case only as a belief.

[Metryq]

I'm just an armchair fan of many sciences, and I do not hold any advanced degrees. However, I understand math as a language for describing and modeling the real world. Math itself is not the domain of truth, as some of the ancients believed. If a mathematical model does not match the physical world, then it is the model that must be fixed, not the physical world.

Kepler was a firm believer in a geometrically perfect universe, yet had the integrity to face the unpleasant challenge he found in Tycho's observational data. He eventually figured out how planets move.

Today, we still don't know how the Solar system formed, yet we have "theoretical physicists" (an oxymoron) who presume to tell us exactly what happened in the nanoseconds after the alleged Big Bang. Also, the "mini Solar system" structure of the atom taught to every student in the classroom is pure conjecture. We're already on very shaky ground by the time we get to Quantum Mechanics, yet the mathematicians already have towering edifices of unsubstantiated fantasy built up beyond that frontier.

(I understand that QM is the basis for the solid state technology so critical to our world, but isn't it amazing how utterly predictable and repeatable electronic circuits are when the theorists keep telling us how uncertain and unpredictable everything is at that scale?)

The article linked above leans heavily on theories that are already in fantasy land. For example, it assumes a "beginning" to the universe and assumes a (no doubt mathematically inspired) symmetry between matter and antimatter. All of this seems a priori to me. I'm not arguing for a static universe, an expanding universe, or a cyclic universe with eleven-teen dimensions. The point is: we just don't know, and some "scientists" are already extrapolating from assumptions layered on top of other assumptions. That would be like a manufacturer mass producing widgets without finding out what the customers need. No actual data collecting is done. Some theorists merely calculated what the customers "should" want. That's an awful lot of work based on nothing.

Instead of studying the physical world, the hottest computers on the planet are being used to spin mathematical fantasies, which will form the basis for massive research grants to build expensive installations to look for black cats hiding in a coal cellar at midnight that aren't even there. And when that search fails, someone will adjust the math to justify even greater expenditures chasing phantoms, rather than making any real measurements and explorations.

This is science by numbers with a pre-ordained result as the goal. Forget pure research. (Serendipity, what's that?)

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Metryq

Instead of studying the physical world, the hottest computers on the planet are being used to spin mathematical fantasies, which will form the basis for massive research grants to build expensive installations to look for black cats hiding in a coal cellar at midnight that aren't even there. And when that search fails, someone will adjust the math to justify even greater expenditures chasing phantoms, rather than making any real measurements and explorations.

Well I didn't read the article, but I assume the computers of which you speak are simply running models backwards based upon measurements of remnants of the events. No one can ever actually be there to see the events because they are historical, and so no empirical data is possible. I don't see how else it can be done really (other than by a time machine.) Maybe the models are wrong, but that surely is the idea; the whole point; to test them and refine them until they do fit the observed measurements. Models like that are used in many fields of science (weather forecasting) without anyone calling foul.

I would agree with you that I don't think God is a Mathematician. I don't think the universe was intelligently designed on a geometrical basis. And fixes such as the universal gravitational constant are just proof that we don't really know everything yet.

[Vertigo]

(I understand that QM is the basis for the solid state technology so critical to our world, but isn't it amazing how utterly predictable and repeatable electronic circuits are when the theorists keep telling us how uncertain and unpredictable everything is at that scale?)

To be fair Metryq, quantum mechanics is all about probablities. Yes, when looking at one individual particle (electron/photon/neutron etc) we cannot predict its state or position with any certainty. But we do have very strong probabilities which, when applied to large numbers of particles, gives a high degree of certainty to the behaviour of that large sample. Since any electronic circuits we build naturally have many millions of such particles we can predict their behaviour with a high level of confidence.

Also in some respects working out what happened at the big bang is really a simpler task than working out how the solar system formed. The solar system is made up of pretty much all the known elements combined together in millions of different ways. Whereas matter at the time of the big bang would have been very simple; not having yet combined into all the complex atoms and molecules we experience today.

[Venusian Broon]

Originally Posted by Metryq

If a mathematical model does not match the physical world, then it is the model that must be fixed, not the physical world.

Agree when there is incontravertable evidence.

Originally Posted by Metryq

Kepler was a firm believer in a geometrically perfect universe, yet had the integrity to face the unpleasant challenge he found in Tycho's observational data. He eventually figured out how planets move.

To nitpick, Kelper didn't figure out how the planets move. But he did discover to his delight three beautiful mathmatical relationships from the data. Later Newton synthesised these and other observations to give an explanation of how the planets moved.

But yes I agree about Kepler's integrity.

Originally Posted by Metryq

Today, we still don't know how the Solar system formed...presume to tell us exactly what happened in the nanoseconds after the alleged Big Bang.

Whenever I hear discussions on such issues, I'm afraid I'd disagree with you. I hear Scientists use the terms 'Our current knowledge suggests...', 'We think...', 'What we believed happened was...' and even the 'We don't know why this happened...'. I can't think of any scientist who would say that they knew something exactly. Oh and there is a model/theory of how the Solar system formed - it may not be completely right - but it's there.

Originally Posted by Metryq

Also, the "mini Solar system" structure of the atom taught to every student in the classroom is pure conjecture.

Bohr suggested the mini solar system structure of the atom in the early days of QM but it was quickly discarded as wrong. Hence I would be shocked to hear that it is being taught unless it was made clear it was a failed model.

Originally Posted by Metryq

We're already on very shaky ground by the time we get to Quantum Mechanics,

Here I have to disagree. QM is the most successful scientific theory ever devised by us hairless apes, and has been experimently proven innumerable times. Conceptionally it may be difficult for us on the micro scale, but it works. I see it more like engineering now.

Originally Posted by Metryq

yet the mathematicians already have towering edifices of unsubstantiated fantasy built up beyond that frontier.

I'd be with you, if you were taking a pop at something like string theory. Another dicussion perhaps

Originally Posted by Metryq

(I understand that QM is the basis for the solid state technology so critical to our world, but isn't it amazing how utterly predictable and repeatable electronic circuits are when the theorists keep telling us how uncertain and unpredictable everything is at that scale?)

You are getting confused here between Micro and Macro. On the micro scale, when scientists started to probe the sub-atomic particles they found they they 1) displayed wave-like properties and 2) both the position and momentum of a particle could not be measured at the same time (Heisenbergs uncertainty principle)

Hence the idea of the wavical - a particle with a wave properties. Nonsense? Well they went ahead and did load more experiments - and lo, electrons, neutrons and protons all exhibit wave-like properties and particle-like properties. Hence they applied the wave equation to this and begat Schrodinger's equation and QM proper.

The prevailing interpretation of this (Copenhagen) is that this wavicle is a probability distribution that when 'observed' collapses to a single point (a particle).

When looking at macro objects (such as an electronic chip) what you have to understand is that this probability wave is described exactly by the wave equation and the boundary conditions on it. So when building many-body systems the mysterious wavefunction collapse is irrelevent, because each individual particle will follow slightly different routes/tragetories in the system but each is bound by the same boundary conditions and hence will be described by the same equation. The net effect is that the solution of the probability equation is what we directly observe (ok, technically it's the amplitude of the wave solution, but let's not go down there.)

Originally Posted by Metryq

The article linked above leans heavily on theories that are already in fantasy land. For example, it assumes a "beginning" to the universe and assumes a (no doubt mathematically inspired) symmetry between matter and antimatter....

I think this is a problem with the journalist that wrote the article rather than the science, as I didn't interpret the information the way you've described it.

The nuts and bolts of the result that is reported is the calculation of a Quantum Chronodynamic (QCD) interaction - essentially just Schroedingers equation modified to explain the interactions of sub-nuclear particles of the Standard model. QCD does not assume that the universe has a beginning and in fact says nothing at all about this subject, neither does it say anything at all about what the levels of matter and anti-matter were.

The big bang theory is completey seperate from this calculation. If the big bang was disproved, this calculation would still stand.

If there was a big bang and if we have reasons to believe that there was an exact symmetry between matter and anti-matter - then this anti-symmetrical decay might explain why we live in a universe that consists of only matter.

No actual data collecting is done

emmm, Terabytes of data are being produced every time they run a little experiment called the large hadron collider (as well as numerous other atom, proton and electron smashers around the world) to prove and test QCD and the standard model.

And as for the 'beginning' of the universe (I agree with you that we cannot blindly assume this), data collecting has been ongoing since the 1930's and numerous clues have been found and now form the evidence for the big bang theory. Data is still being collected as we type.

Instead of studying the physical world, the hottest computers on the planet are being used to spin mathematical fantasies

Ok, I don't want to get to far down here, but this was my PhD so I know a little bit about it (dull condensed matter physics, not particle physics). The problem here is the nature of the mathmatics. Differential equations are notoriously difficult to solve real world problems. No differential equation has ever solved a generalised three-body problem (i.e. you can't solve exactly for the Earth-Sun-Moon system). In QM that means you can exactly solve a hydrogen atom (Nucleus [proton] + electron) but add another electron and replace the proton with an alpha particle to get Helium (Nucleus + electron + electron) and you can't get an exact solution.

So to get answers that we can try and verify experimentally or try to explain, we have to approximate. There are many ways of doing this, but I'll try and give you an analogy you can grasp quickly. The basic physics used are identical but to calculate the many-body interaction term, which we know from real life must be finite, it can be thought to be represented mathmatically as a geometric series with infinite terms. The approximation method then grinds through the terms. As computers and time are finite we must stop at some point. Hence we never get the exact answer.

QCD uses Feynman diagrams to calculate these interaction terms - which unfortunately very quickly get immensely complicated - hence the need for vast amounts of computing data. The hope is that you don't have to grind through too many iterations before the answer stabilses at something. (Or you have an extremely fast powerful computer!)

If the standard model is correct then the resultant theoretical anwer will match the experimental result, or it gives the experimental people something to try and measure and verify. If there is a big discrepency then there needs to be an explanation why this is the case, and perhaps...

... it is the model that must be fixed, not the physical world

Ahh, back to the start - Ouroboros