Theoretical physics - is it all malarkey?

[Libre]

An educated and astute coworker asked me today - "If I bought a scratch-off lottery ticket, and I didn't check the numbers, would I be simultaneously rich and poor?
Would it be Schrodinger’s lottery ticket?"

My glib answer - "Don't worry about it, theoretical physics is all nonsense."
Then I really started thinking about his question.
It occurred to me that Schrodinger’s cat (or lottery ticket) is a more sophisticated phrasing of the old question - if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Could it be that Schrodinger was having a joke on us?
Could it be that theoretical physics - you know, the part of it that deals with string theory, multiverses, what was going on before the Big Bang, the God Particle - could it be that all this is just malarkey?
Could it be that anything after General Relativity (which has really been proven to the satisfaction of most scientists, and in fact is in use in electronics, GPS satellites, and can actually be demonstrated) but anything after that is just a big circle jerk by the lab coated, bespectacled, academic nerds?
I'm tempted to think so. I started googling and it turns out I'm not the only one.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2006/09/the_trouble_with_string_theory.html

So what do you guys think? I know that there are those among us - Galaxion for one, that have - what they say - is an understanding of this claptrap (no offense) but to me, the topic is so far removed from anything relatable to our existence and experience, it is truly an argument about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin, or how high pigs could fly, if they had wings. But physics, it is not.

Thoughts?

 

[Frothingslosh]

Usually these types of questions arise from an incomplete understanding of the physics involved.

Schroedinger's Cat, for example, is commonly used to 'show' that quantum theory treats things as being in mutual contradictory states at the same time, when it really was created as a way to illustrate a major problem with the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics. It's important to note that Schroedinger never actually said that the cat was both dead and alive, but rather that its status was indeterminate until it was checked/measure, and as such, the Copenhagen Interpretation would require that the cat be treated as being in both states at the same time, which is a paradox.

The God Particle has been confirmed to be real - it's the Higgs Boson, which you may recall being all over the news not too long ago when one was created and measured. (On a side note, the nickname 'God Particle' - which Higgs and pretty much every other physicist hates - is reputed to have come about when an editor refused to go with 'God Damned Particle'.)

Basically, theoretical physics is just that branch of physics that deals with pure mathematics. Theoretical physics allowed us to split the atom, discover radio waves and x-rays, discover Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, and all sorts of things like that. The theories obtained via theoretical physics are tested, when possible, by experimental physicists, and when not possible, via meticulous observation and measurement. Hell, gravity was initually purely theoretical. Theoretical physics predicted passage of time changing with acceleration (which was eventually experimentally confirmed), and the idea that large enough masses can bend light, which led to the discovery of gravitational lensing, which is used all the time in astronomy now.

Theoretical physics is still valid and very, very real. It's often in the air, as it often deals as much with hypothesis as theory, but the theory always moves to application eventually. It's just harder to understand (I'm pretty sure only 20 or 30 people in the world truly understand quantum mechanics) because mathematics doesn't translate well to English, because words in scientific and common usage often have different meanings, and because, as with Schroedinger's Cat, the ideas get twisted as they are retold by people who don't know the original connotations.

 

[spikepl]

So following Frothingslosh's clarification, you can tell your astute co-worker that he or she equally well could have asked whether he or she is alive and dead at the same time (without scratching the lottery ticket, that is )

 

[spikepl]

And we note that we all use the fruits of theoretical physics when writing these ramblings.

 

[Libre]

I don't mean ALL theoretical physics - and I know the God Particle is the Higgs Boson - which just earned Higgs and 2 associates the Nobel (but not a third because they only split the Prize 3 ways at most). But I mean everything AFTER relativity.

And we note that we all use the fruits of theoretical physics when writing these ramblings.

So explain to me how we use these fruits when writing.
Do you mean to tell me that we wouldn't have computers or the internet without some theories about the Big Bang and black holes? I don't see the connection. And by the way I'm not anti-science or some Luddite with his head up his behind. There are a lot worse things to spend your time doing than coming up with explanations for physical phenomena. But when you get to multiverses and quarks and such - it just leaves me in the dust. Even the author of the article I linked to - (and I believe he has some kind of a name for himself in theoretical science, by the tone of the article and the associated notes) - says as much.

 

[kevlray]

I know that it all breaks down to particles and waves, but can someone really explain energy (at the sub-atomic level)? Then there is that 'spooky' interaction at a distance, entangled particles.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Theoretical physics used to include such esoteric nonsense as electricity, conductivity, and magnetic fields. Without study in those areas, we would not have electronic computers (or electronic anything, really).

The original theories regarding light (especially refraction and how light works) eventually led to televisions, RADAR, surgery via invisible beams of collated light, precision weapon targeting, the ability to determine stellar composition, the discovery of extrasolar planets, and ultra-fast communication between machines scattered around the world. Without all that theoretical work on gravity, we would never have been able to send probes to the other planets in the solar system. (In fact, we would never have discovered Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto without the study of celestial mechanics and gravitational physics, either.)

Just because you cannot currently see a practical benefit in a certain piece of knowledge, it does not follow that there will never be one.

As to kevlray's question, 'energy' is a fairly vague term. Loosely, it might be defined as a property of a thing that can be transferred to another thing or transmuted into a different form, but never created or destroyed.

Doesn't help much, does it? It gets worse at the quantum level you asked about - there's an entire, rather long wikipedia article just defining the concept and everything involved in it. Afraid I can't help much there- I know a lot about physics, but I'm still an amateur, and the wall of equations there doesn't help me much. I can tell you it's basically what allows 'work' to be done, be it bind three quarks into an electron, allow an electron to move to a higher shell, or get released when a nucleus is cracked in half, and that it can be any of a number of types, including radiant, kinetic, potential, or others I can't think of offhand.

As to quantum entanglement, they're still trying to figure that out.

 

[spikepl]

The quantum entanglement ... I guess that's why it's called the EPR-paradox.

Speaking of which, a nice paradox in business is the Abilene-paradox - you may find that one immensely more recognisable and familiar

As to physics - fx one extremely theoretical thing is a Josephson-junction, which has found plenty of applications. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-josephson-juncti/

 

[Libre]

Theoretical physics used to include such esoteric nonsense as electricity, conductivity, and magnetic fields. Without study in those areas, we would not have electronic computers (or electronic anything, really).

The original theories regarding light (especially refraction and how light works) eventually led to televisions, RADAR, surgery via invisible beams of collated light, precision weapon targeting, the ability to determine stellar composition, the discovery of extrasolar planets, and ultra-fast communication between machines scattered around the world. Without all that theoretical work on gravity, we would never have been able to send probes to the other planets in the solar system. (In fact, we would never have discovered Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto without the study of celestial mechanics and gravitational physics, either.)

Froth, I agree with all of that, which should be abundantly clear from both of my posts. Do you honestly think I'm arguing against what you wrote above?

What I'm asking, is there a point at which the fundamentals are understood and further research only yields results that are so abstract as to be practically meaningless?

Yes, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and Heisenberg were all theoretical physicists whose work yielded great discoveries and inventions. That doesn't guarantee that continued work in the same field will continue to yield great discoveries. Is it like saying: I searched and found a diamond in this mine once, I searched again and found another one, therefore if I continue searching I'm guaranteed to find a third.

BTW an engineer as great as Tesla thought relativity was malarkey - but he did have a lot of other strange notions as well.

I don't pretend to understand a lick of these abstruse theories - but I clearly asked what they have to do with our ability to write stuff on the internet and you went back to RADAR and theories of light again.

It's also clear that 1/10000 of the military budget is spent on the development of new, non military technologies and theories so maybe the yield would be greater with more resources devoted to it.

But still - the cat is either alive or it's dead. Not neither and not both. That's in the real world anyway (and ok so Schrodinger said something else, and Copenhagen said something yet again).

Oh well, I'm licked.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Libre, my apologies. What I was getting from your posts was "What's the point of theoretical physics", so I was listing all sorts of things that did come from it.

you asked about our ability to write stuff on the internet, so I answered it with my first sentence in my second reply - the first one in your quote, in fact. As I said there, without the theoretical research done into light, electricity, and magnetism, we would have no electronic devices.

That cat's state is indeterminate until it is measured or interacts with something - that's the POINT of that thought experiment. It means that it's pointless to worry about the cat's state until it's relevant, either through observation/measurement or because it interacts with something. Schroedinger's entire point was that treating it as both alive and dead at the same time was nuts. But that's beside the point, because it's a metaphor - what they were actually talking about was quantum mechanics, quantum states, and determining of said quantum states.

You ask if there's a point at which research into physics is meaningless, and all I can say is we've never found such a point yet, and nothing indicates that there is one. My examples were all of 'pointless' research that resulted in things that are useful, and in some cases changed the world.

Interesting trivia: around 1900, some physicists said we had learned all there was possible to learn. Look how that turned out.

 

[Libre]

That's ok, Froth. I do thank you for your thoughts and for taking the time to write them. After all, I did ask the question.
It's all very perplexing, though.
I saw the movie The Theory of Everything about Stephen Hawking.
Not that a movie means anything but there is a scene where he says something about black holes having something to with time and the other physicists go wild. They reacted like it was Kanye West saying something about someone other than Beyoncé, it was so incredible. All I could do was stifle a yawn. I don't want to appear like a nincompoop - I have a deep reverence for theory and research, for science and technology. It just seems like at this point physics has ceased being science and has become something closer to religion. I know it's not the case - I just know I'll never understand it.
Thanks again for your reply. I agree with all you wrote.

 

[Galaxiom]

The fact that QM defies the understanding of those who seek to apply the norms of Classical Mechanics does not mean that it is any less a fact. QM is extremely well established.

The concept that QM is really due to some as yet undetected underlying Classical process (as believed by Einstein among others) has been demolished by experimental results. QM is indeed a result of true randomness of the Universe at very small scales.

There are Quantum devices that many of us are using every day. Lasers and LEDs for example.

Probably the most dramatic example of a Quantum device is the Scanning Tunnelling Microscope. It uses the probability of an electron tunnelling to the other side of a Classically insurmountable barrier if the distance across the barrier is small enough.

Superposition of Quantum States is already being used in Quantum Computing. This technology is in its infancy but is very real.

 

[Galaxiom]

Interesting trivia: around 1900, some physicists said we had learned all there was possible to learn.

In fact they said that all that remained to be explained was the oddity about the speed of light and the photoelectric effect.

The oddity about the speed of light was the first observation that led to Relativity and the photoelectric was the first for Quantum Mechanics.

Of course these opened doors to a who new ballgame.

 

[spikepl]

Libre

If you have such interests and curiosity then I can highly recommend one of the most amazing books I've ever read: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Libre

If you have such interests and curiosity then I can highly recommend one of the most amazing books I've ever read: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

Busted link. A working one to the Kindle edition is HERE.

Also, I am rather amused by the similarity of the title to Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which I would also recommend to Libre if he's not read it.

 

[kevlray]

I know that they found a lot of very small particles (i.e,. quarks) and and define all kinds of characteristics for them (mass, spin, etc.), but I have seen anybody explain how they exist at all (little balls of energy?!?).

 

[Libre]

Galaxion, Frothingslosh
- Heisenberg published his paper on QM in 1925, and received the Nobel for physics in 1932.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg
I'm aware that QM has been generally accepted by the scientific community, and that it's been demonstrated convincingly. But I'm questioning the relevance of the work that's going on now - or for the past 20 years or so. The multiverse. String theory. And so on. The prof that wrote the article I linked to in my op said there is not a shred of evidence for these things. I understand that a huge amount of hypothesis testing has to be done before evidence can be gathered and a huge amount of work after that for anything to actually come of it. But infinite dimensions and infinite universes? Cats alive and dead simultaneously? Really. Are they totally whacko? As in, loonytoones? DO you accept such theories? How far are they, from positing the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, Creator? Or the tooth fairy for that matter?

 

[Libre]

I know that it all breaks down to particles and waves, but can someone really explain energy (at the sub-atomic level)? Then there is that 'spooky' interaction at a distance, entangled particles.

If they could I doubt we would understand the explanation.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Libre, you keep bringing up Schroedinger's Cat as if it's to explain quantum mechanics (your 'cats both alive and dead' comment), but I keep telling you - the thought experiment was conceived specifically to show that the 'treat it as both at the same time' approach was paradoxical and nuts. He never once said that the cat was both alive and dead.

That's like me telling you some doohickey does something, and you going on about how it should do that very thing instead. Yes, the cat being both alive and dead at the same time is nonsensical - THAT WAS HIS POINT.

Most of these theories come from mathematical proofs which you could certainly understand if you had a masters degree in mathematics. They are then proven, disproven, or (most commonly) forced to adapt based on the results of research, observation, measurement, and experimentation. Calling them all wacko without understanding the science behind them is like a layman visiter here deciding we're all insane because so much of what we post in the other forums looks like some bizarre cross between Lewis Carroll and the ruminations of a two year old with a typewriter.

 

[Libre]

Frothingslosh - it's not as if I'm the only one to "keep bringing up" Schrodinger's thought experiment - it seems to me that the general interpretation of it is that the cat is both alive and dead until you open the box to find out. So okay, Schrodinger was being ironic and actually meant that such a scenario is actually ridiculous.
Ha Ha! Good one, there, Schrodie! You really had me going!
So to hell with the dead/alive cat and let's get to the multiverse, which, if we can assume for a moment that I understand the concept (granted that's asking a lot) is stating that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, where that cat is INDEED alive in one, dead in another, in a third the cat has two heads, in a fourth the cat is blue with green stripes, and in the nth dimension, the cat has evolved to be as large as a T-rex. There is some universe out there that has everything you can - and can't imagine. Beethoven wrote 10 symphonies in one, he wrote 11 in another, and in yet another, he wrote no symphonies at all, but was president of the Justin Beiber fan club. And there's a mathematical proof for this?
(I knew I would get you guys going with this question).