You don't have to be a scientist to get excited about breakthroughs in theoretical physics. Discoveries such as gravitational waves and the Higgs boson can inspire wonder at the complex beauty of the universe no matter how little you really understand them.
But some people will always question why they should care about scientific advances that have no apparent impact on their daily life – and why we spend millions funding them. Sure, it's amazing that we can study black holes thousands of light years away and that Einstein really was as much of a genius as we thought, but that won't change the way most people live or work.
Yet the reality is that purely theoretical studies in physics can sometimes lead to amazing changes in our society. In fact, several key pillars on which our modern society rests, from satellite communication to computers, were made possible by investigations that had no obvious application at the time.
[...]
This motivation may well have begun when humans first looked up at the night-sky in ancient times. They wanted to understand the world they lived and so spent time watching nature and creating theories about it, many of them involving gods or supernatural beings. Today we have made huge progress in our understanding of both stars and galaxies and, at the other end of the scale, of the tiny fundamental particles from which matter is built.
It somehow seems that every new level of understanding we achieve comes in tandem with new, more fundamental questions. It is never enough to know what we now know. We always want to continue looking behind newly arising curtains. In that respect, I consider fundamental physics a basic part of human culture.
Now we can wait curiously to find out what unforeseen spin-offs that discoveries such as the Higgs boson or gravitational waves might lead to in the long-term future. But we can also look forward to the new insights into the building-blocks of nature that they will bring us and the new questions they will raise.
http://theconversation.com/whats-the-point-of-theoretical-physics-54493
[Related]: Five ways particle accelerators have changed the world (without a Higgs boson in sight)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:20PM
of people who write books and tape lectures explaining physics for the masses. I'm not sure how many of the masses ever ask that question, except maybe in connection with a boyfriend or classmate.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:34PM
I saw the question asked plenty of times when the price tag of a huge institute like the LHC or space stations is mentioned. There are always people asking why the money is not spent to help developing countries or saving nature or other worthy causes.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:46PM
And the answer is that theoretical physics is a rich source of ideas for applied physicists to work with.
The main issue with theoretical science is when it gets to the point where the theory is decades ahead of the applications and the testing and is then used for further theory that is based upon untested principles. But, OTOH, the applications people tend to love disproving theoretical work and there's a ton of engineering that goes into testing some of these ideas. Some of which is more broadly useful.
Not to mention that things like computers that were developed using previous research are crucial in solving those other problems.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:23PM
I think the answer was eloquently given in TFA already. I just answered to parent AC on where these questions are raised at all. I didn't raise the question myself :-)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:59PM
And, lest we forget: da Bomb.
Also, nuclear power, and quite a few incremental advances in solar power lately.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Nerdfest on Sunday February 14 2016, @09:12PM
We pronounce the phoneme "th" here young man.
(Score: 4, Informative) by legont on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:19PM
The answer probably is that it is less controversial. A scientific truth is basically an agreement between a limited group of scientists that almost nobody can understand let alone check. If we let them say help developing countries, who knows what they will do. For example the root of the current excesses and bailouts can be traced to LTCM fund headed by two Nobels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management [wikipedia.org]
The scientific "discoveries" are not even funny at times. Another example is a theory that "rain follows the plow" during American Exploration of West. We are going to pay for this one for a very very long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow [wikipedia.org]
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:46PM
Of course the LHC, space labs and other expensive facilities are all experimental physics. Theoretical physics is, in comparison, quite cheap. You need people to think about the questions, and computers to calculate things. For some questions you may need supercomputers, but that's already the upper end of the cost scale.
Of course you need the experimental physics to check whether the ideas of the theoretical physicists are actually correct, and to find new things which theoretical physicists can then think about.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:08PM
Developing countries should not be helped, they should be left to starve and implode. Might as well throw your money into a bottomless pit or buy booze and cocaine with it.
"Worthy cause" indeed.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:58PM
By worthy cause, they sarcastically mean you can buy votes with it. Nothing more.
I think its cruel to help. Most of Africa is going to starve soon enough and the only result of "save the children" in the past is getting to watch 50M starve in the future instead of 10M or whatever exact numbers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by looorg on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:59PM
You don’t have to be a scientist to get excited about breakthroughs in theoretical physics.
So says the author that just happens to be "Deputy director, Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, Durham University". It's far more likely that you kinda do have to be a physicist to give a rats arse about it, cause nobody else will understand it. I'm sure everybody could be happy about say the/a cure for cancer without understanding how it works, but that some nerds managed to smash particles in a lab doesn't even get close to being exciting for the waste majority of the population of earth.
The thing is you just never know when theoretical (or pure) turns into practical. Sure lots of it might just be weird theories we'll never know if they pan out. They might be mathematically sound and make sense that way but you study something we can't observe either by seeing or measuring so we'll just never know, I don't know much about physics but I figure it's about the same as mathematics in that regard. Until that day in the future perhaps when we can and it becomes a fantastic break thru.
Also it's not like if we didn't spend them money on theoretical physicist we would spend them one saving the Pandas (or whatever), we would just spend them on something else equally "worthless".
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:49PM
Well, if they are waste anyway, I guess they don't matter. ;-)
The word you were looking for is "vast".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Monday February 15 2016, @07:47AM
No they don't matter indeed. The waste majority just energy, while some of them field.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @03:07PM
The vast majority are a waste.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:40PM
They might be mathematically sound and make sense that way but you study something we can't observe either by seeing or measuring so we'll just never know
You could have said that about gravity waves or lasers. Coherent light? So what? Turns out that lasers are everywhere now, inside your DVD player, the only true 3D photography needs them, not to mention making great cat toys.
Like you say, you never know. Where will our knowledge of gravity waves lead us? I write SF and am struggling to come up with a story about them. Maybe space surfing?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:20PM
Well, if you write SF about them, you'll better be aware that gravity waves [wikipedia.org] are something different, or you'll have to live with your readers making fun of the idea that you can find gravity waves in space. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday February 16 2016, @05:20AM
Space is everywhere. The Earth is in space. Now, coming up with a good story is the hard part. And yes, the science has to be right afaic.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:53PM
Where will our knowledge of gravity waves lead us? I write SF and am struggling to come up with a story about them. Maybe space surfing?
Well, near future application would be communication through large solid objects like planets or stars. You might even be able to do remote sensing of the interior of the Sun.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:26PM
What’s the Point of Theoretical Physics?
is to me the exact same question as
What’s the Point of Science?
And if you have to ask that question, you can go join the Amish.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:12PM
To the credit of the Amish, their way of life seems to have been stable and peaceful for over a hundred years and throughout the generations, not including the centuries of Germanic tradition their culture continues from the Old World. They seem to live in harmony with the land and nature. I can't say that about modern Western civilization. If one wants an example of community, look to the Amish. That's not to say their culture doesn't have downsides…, and I won't attempt to judge the habit of the communities in northern Indiana to avail themselves of modern medicine.
(Not that there isn't hope yet, in a moribund way—“The walk to the gas station will be for your own good,” as John Titor had concluded in his final post before returning to 2036. Death and rebirth in nuclear fire are major themes of the story Titor wove.)
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:00PM
Science isn't faceless. It means academia, the military industrial-complex, aeronautics and pharmaceutical all have interests in the government spending when it's not always the right decision for the public.
Every appropriations committee should have the right, and the responsibility, to look at a project, and ask, "What's the point?". And lets be clear here: Money not spent on the next big LHC or rocket engines is money that can be spent on superconductors and magnetic confinement for fusion reactors. These are big policy issues with interests in industry and science on all ends. And it all gets approved or rejected in back-room deals without any transparency since people generalize the news coverage around such straw-man as "What's the point of Science?".
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:18PM
"Are the Andes?" - N. Molesworth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:04PM
To ask what reality has to do with one's life is just to admit that one's life has little to do with reality.
(Score: 1) by Craig Cherry on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:14PM
It seems that the OP (and the article they reference) is using confusing terms. I think they intended to talk about the benefits of pure science versus applied science. Any actual measurements of gravitational waves and Higgs bosons were accomplished by experimental physicists, not theoretical physicists. It might seem to be a bit picky, but using the right words can make the discussion more clear.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:43PM
The applied physics can't happen until someone has a testable theory. Not all theories are testable--today. Gravity waves were untested for a century.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:40PM
I think you mean gravitational waves [wikipedia.org]
I used to confuse them with gravity waves [wikipedia.org] too.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:54PM
Three categories, untestable because we can't even gin up a thought experiment, untestable due to those lazy engineers and cheap accountants, and testable.
Most of string theory fits in the first. The second is full of fusion reactors and gravitational waves and whatnot.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday February 16 2016, @05:18AM
Well, they have gravity waves now. I ran across an excellent article about it earlier today, http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0215/Why-that-gravitational-wave-discovery-is-so-heavy [csmonitor.com]
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by Craig Cherry on Monday February 15 2016, @10:26PM
Yep, good point. Sometimes the experimenters are checking an existing theory, and other times the theorists are trying to explain the cause of some unexpected observations.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:03PM
...benefits of pure science versus applied science...
And here I was thinking that the "pure" and "applied" were just two ways of looking at the same thing (IAAS).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 4, Touché) by aristarchus on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:40PM
But some people will always question why they should care about scientific advances that have no apparent impact on their daily life – and why we spend millions funding them. Sure, it's amazing that we can study black holes thousands of light years away and that Einstein really was as much of a genius as we thought, but that won't change the way most people live or work.
Amazing! I ask almost exactly the same question nearly daily! Except my question is why should I care about the stock market, Twitter, Kardashians, Republican party candidates, Bowls of super, etc., because they are not important even if they do affect the way rather superficial people live.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 16 2016, @03:06PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Sunday February 14 2016, @07:52PM
Science works because we should *always* be testing whether it holds true in all possible circumstances.
For example, there is a growing sense the gravity has some holes, as evidences by the invention of "dark" energy/matter.
For those that like maths, check out http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.co.uk [blogspot.co.uk] . His blog is informative, but the papers are nicely consistent (if you like maths).
The controversy is that there is some tentative experimental evidence that an "EM drive" (a massless reaction drive - putatively exploiting zero-point in homogenuity), may work.
In summary, we need solid theory to interpret the enormous diversity in this universe - our survival as a species depends upon it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 16 2016, @03:02AM
So the answer to the question is not 42 but Zooommmmmmm!
And away we go!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @08:24PM
What’s the Point of Theoretical Physics?
Theoretically, the point infinitesimally small.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:27PM
No, that's the point of mathemathics. In physics, it cannot be smaller than the Planck volume.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @11:59AM
The Planck volume is infinitesimally small. In geometry, a point is infinitely small.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday February 15 2016, @03:43PM
No, the Planck volume is very small, but not infinitesimally small. It's 4.2217 × 10−105 m3, to be exact. Or said differently, a Googol Planck volumes is about 42 milliliters. That's already a clearly visible volume (for certain alcoholics, it's actually already large).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @05:22PM
According to one online dictionary, the most common meaning of "infinitesimal" in ordinary English (not mathematics) is "extremely small"; another says "indefinitely or exceedingly small; minute" is the common meaning. Even in math, it isn't just another word for zero. What does it mean to you?
(cited to https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/infinitesimal [oxforddictionaries.com] and
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/infinitesimal) [reference.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 16 2016, @03:11PM
Even in math, it isn't just another word for zero.
Actually, that is incorrect. The classic example is the derivative which can be expressed rhetorically as the ratio of the infinitesimal variation of a function over the corresponding infinitesimal variation of the variable of the function. Meanwhile the ratio of zero over zero is an ill-defined ratio with no mathematically redeeming properties.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday February 14 2016, @08:48PM
"Man does not live by bread alone".
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free".
Nobel Laureate in pure science Abdus Salam said "[t]he Holy Qur'an enjoins us to reflect on the verities of Allah's created laws of nature; however, that our generation has been privileged to glimpse a part of His design is a bounty and a grace for which I render thanks with a humble heart."
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:31PM
That's why you also get water when incarcerated. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by forkazoo on Sunday February 14 2016, @09:16PM
When they were created, imaginary numbers were considered a pure flight of intellectual fancy, with no practical application. Except it turns out that they were useful in solving tons of practical problems in the real world. Likewise, when Hertz proved the existence of electromagnetic waves, he just thought it was interesting to prove Maxwell right. He surmised that the implications of the discovery were, "Nothing, I guess."
The whole point of pure research, whether mathematical or scientific, is to push beyond the limits of what we know how to use today. We can't say that it will be useful until we know what the results are and have a chance to play with them and learn something new about the universe. Just like we couldn't say that putting food into a fire would be useful until we did some basic research with fire.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @11:03PM
Likewise, when Hertz proved the existence of electromagnetic waves, he just thought it was interesting to prove Maxwell right. He surmised that the implications of the discovery were, "Nothing, I guess."
Meanwhile there is this bit in Wikipedia.
During his early years, Marconi had an interest in science and electricity. One of the scientific developments during this era came from Heinrich Hertz, who, beginning in 1888, demonstrated that one could produce and detect electromagnetic radiation—now generally known as radio waves, at the time more commonly called "Hertzian waves" or "aetheric waves". Hertz's death in 1894 brought published reviews of his earlier discoveries, and a renewed interest on the part of Marconi. He was permitted to briefly study the subject under Augusto Righi, a University of Bologna physicist and neighbour of Marconi who had done research on Hertz's work.
Marconi demonstrated communication with radio waves across the Atlantic at the end of 1902. Just because Hertz couldn't see the use, doesn't mean that others had that problem too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2016, @10:48PM
Yet the reality is that purely theoretical studies in physics can sometimes lead to amazing changes in our society. In fact, several key pillars on which our modern society rests, from satellite communication to computers, were made possible by investigations that had no obvious application at the time.
It is educational to see how erroneous this statement is. For example, electricity research had the immediate application of protecting buildings from lightning strikes. Radio waves were seen as a means to communicate by long distances. Automated computing was seen as a way to do complex computations (where were even at the time of Babbage valuable) without having to drudge through the calculations yourself. Satellites were from the beginning seen as tools of espionage and global communication.
(Score: 3, Informative) by stormwyrm on Monday February 15 2016, @01:06AM
Maxwell's equations, from which the prediction of electromagnetic radiation and radio waves were made, were formulated by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861-1862. It wasn't until 1887, eight years after Maxwell's death, that Heinrich Hertz used those theoretical underpinnings to produce what we today call microwaves and radio waves, and it was only after generation and detection of these waves was experimentally demonstrated, many years after the theory was developed, that anyone thought of using them as a means to communicate long distances.
The theory behind satellites was developed originally by no less than Isaac Newton around 1687 (Newton's cannonball [wikipedia.org], described in the Principia Mathematica), and it was only in 1957 that the theoretical basis developed by Newton centuries before was used by engineers and scientists in the Soviet Union to make the first satellite. None of that would have been possible without the theoretical work done by Newton in the 17th century.
No, it is no myth. The history of science shows time and again that purely theoretical studies in physics sometimes lead to amazing changes in society. It may take decades, or even centuries for such things to bear fruit, but bear fruit they do.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 15 2016, @10:13AM
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday February 15 2016, @01:17AM
Easy, because knowledge is power. Theoretical research is our world's version of magic. Who the fuck doesn't like magic? It's awesome even if most of it is useless most of the time. Say for example you have magic that lets you talk to billiard balls on Thursdays. Pretty useless until you solve the murder mystery at the mountain ski resort in ten seconds (Mr. Blue with the Teapot in the Recreation Room).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday February 15 2016, @02:07AM
As Larry Krauss explains here [nytimes.com].
Thank you Larry.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 15 2016, @10:59PM
Posting AC for obvious reasons, so please respect that,
What’s the Point of Theoretical Physics?
The 'point' is moot. It is the mathematical language that describes the point that carries the meaning, but it is also part of that point that it tries to describe, so it gets tricky and paradoxical quite rapidly. See?
They wanted to understand the world they lived and so spent time watching nature and creating theories about it, many of them involving gods or supernatural beings.
"Understand the world"?
Okay, I cannot guarantee that you will understand all of the world with the following method, but I 'll play ball. Here is what you do:
Switch your phone(s) off, log off the grid, cancel your appointments for the rest of the day.
Ingest five grams of dried Psilocybin mushrooms [wikipedia.org], in silent darkness, by yourself, in a place where you feel comfortable.
Only do that if you really believe that you want to "understand the world", and not just saying that you do- otherwise when the understanding reaches you, it might get awkward.
That's it. Stay safe, but more importantly, have a great day.