My understanding is that the holographic thing has been horribly misrepresented in the media. I didn't look into it thoroughly enough, though, so you might know better than me what it's about. Science reporting is just awful, and honestly, physicists don't always help matters too much. As for physics being fantastical, most of it isn't, really. I think the fantastical bits are much more likely to be widely reported, though. I get very frustrated with physicists and astronomers who work to educate the public and popularise physics, because they sensationalise things way too much, and they sometimes end up being terribly misleading. People end up thinking that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle indicates that particles have some sort of magical awareness that we're watching them, when in reality, it's something much more boring. Some of the things that seem strange about physics are very probably true, too. We can be very certain that Einstein's mass energy equivalence is true, for example. General relativity is also very unlikely to turn out to be false. In fact, we have technology that wouldn't work if it were.
Yes, there are physicists who've created hypotheses that, with our current knowledge and technology, aren't yet falsifiable (like string theory). It's frustrating, especially when misinformed people start talking about them like they're fact, but it's also important. Once you have such a hypothesis, you can start speculating as to what would be required to make it falsifiable. Sometimes this is something that isn't too far off. Sometimes it's something that we may never have. But you have to think about these things before you can even start making progress.
Chemistry is applied physics. Chemists probably seem less "fantastical" because they don't have to deal with the scope of very real and very strange implications that our observations have.
I love math for that reason too. Math is safe. Some things are true, and some things are false. At first, the more you learn, the safer it seems, as you become more capable of understanding and proving things. Later, though, it gets less safe.
Physicists may guess at answers, but then they put a great deal of effort into trying to disprove themselves. That's how science works. You make the best guess you can, and then you do everything you can to prove yourself wrong. The more you fail to do so, the more likely your hypothesis is to be true. If you fail enough, your hypothesis becomes a theory.
I'm glad to hear the math makes sense. I'm afraid I've forgotten a great deal, and I really need to relearn some things. I wasn't in a good place in my life when I was taking those classes, and subsequent events muddled my memory, too. The point is, if I mess up something and you notice please correct me.
We're definitely living at a time when there are a lot of new ideas, but I don't see that as being a pocket of bad science. Yes, many ideas will turn out to be false, but that means we're living in a very exciting time for physics.
You've hit the nail on the head by saying it's the reporting of science. It is, yes. That's what is frustrating me. That, and the way physicists represent themselves. I say that despite the UK having some brilliant communicators (Brian Cox always gets a mention but I'm thinking in particular of Jim Al-Khalili who pulled off such a simple trick with a normal distribution to demonstrate the danger of a 1°C climate change that I'm amazing I'd never considered it).
I can understand why people think about the observer effect when they think about the uncertainty principle and why they may think it's the action of opening the box that puts paid to Schrodinger's cat, as opposed to the firing event. The reality of the uncertainty principle is really prosaic and mathematically very simple. As you were saying earlier, although it doesn't "feel" logical, it flows directly from the maths.
Eep! Don't ever tell my chemistry teacher that chemistry is applied physics. I know, technically, it is and they probably knew it too and felt that we may think it (of the six people who did chemistry at my school, five of us also did physics).
I create real alternate realities every thought I make
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My understanding is that the holographic thing has been horribly misrepresented in the media. I didn't look into it thoroughly enough, though, so you might know better than me what it's about. Science reporting is just awful, and honestly, physicists don't always help matters too much. As for physics being fantastical, most of it isn't, really. I think the fantastical bits are much more likely to be widely reported, though. I get very frustrated with physicists and astronomers who work to educate the public and popularise physics, because they sensationalise things way too much, and they sometimes end up being terribly misleading. People end up thinking that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle indicates that particles have some sort of magical awareness that we're watching them, when in reality, it's something much more boring. Some of the things that seem strange about physics are very probably true, too. We can be very certain that Einstein's mass energy equivalence is true, for example. General relativity is also very unlikely to turn out to be false. In fact, we have technology that wouldn't work if it were.
Yes, there are physicists who've created hypotheses that, with our current knowledge and technology, aren't yet falsifiable (like string theory). It's frustrating, especially when misinformed people start talking about them like they're fact, but it's also important. Once you have such a hypothesis, you can start speculating as to what would be required to make it falsifiable. Sometimes this is something that isn't too far off. Sometimes it's something that we may never have. But you have to think about these things before you can even start making progress.
Chemistry is applied physics. Chemists probably seem less "fantastical" because they don't have to deal with the scope of very real and very strange implications that our observations have.
I love math for that reason too. Math is safe. Some things are true, and some things are false. At first, the more you learn, the safer it seems, as you become more capable of understanding and proving things. Later, though, it gets less safe.
Physicists may guess at answers, but then they put a great deal of effort into trying to disprove themselves. That's how science works. You make the best guess you can, and then you do everything you can to prove yourself wrong. The more you fail to do so, the more likely your hypothesis is to be true. If you fail enough, your hypothesis becomes a theory.
I'm glad to hear the math makes sense. I'm afraid I've forgotten a great deal, and I really need to relearn some things. I wasn't in a good place in my life when I was taking those classes, and subsequent events muddled my memory, too. The point is, if I mess up something and you notice please correct me.
We're definitely living at a time when there are a lot of new ideas, but I don't see that as being a pocket of bad science. Yes, many ideas will turn out to be false, but that means we're living in a very exciting time for physics.
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You've hit the nail on the head by saying it's the reporting of science. It is, yes. That's what is frustrating me. That, and the way physicists represent themselves. I say that despite the UK having some brilliant communicators (Brian Cox always gets a mention but I'm thinking in particular of Jim Al-Khalili who pulled off such a simple trick with a normal distribution to demonstrate the danger of a 1°C climate change that I'm amazing I'd never considered it).
I can understand why people think about the observer effect when they think about the uncertainty principle and why they may think it's the action of opening the box that puts paid to Schrodinger's cat, as opposed to the firing event. The reality of the uncertainty principle is really prosaic and mathematically very simple. As you were saying earlier, although it doesn't "feel" logical, it flows directly from the maths.
Eep! Don't ever tell my chemistry teacher that chemistry is applied physics. I know, technically, it is and they probably knew it too and felt that we may think it (of the six people who did chemistry at my school, five of us also did physics).