/lit/ - Literature

Physics is not rigorous nor is it worthy of respect, unlike mathematics.

>>16382677
Both are not worthy of respect, the only hard sciences are Catholic theology and philosophy (unless it's uninspired by the Holy Bible)

>>16382649
if people think you are exgerating this lady backs some of your claims:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWTvNlfkvoI

>>16382696
t. trinitarian polytheist.
only the holy koran has it right

>>16382706
holy based

>>16382649
eh, it works well enough to allow for modern technology, so fuck it.

this is why I dropped my STEM degree. Fitting the model to the curve with empirical parameters left and right.

>>16382729
how the hell are you supposed to find the parameters retard. only way is to measure them

>>16382649
>science has become a shitshow and we live in the age of unprecedented decline
More news at eleven.

Science is just a job

>>16382649
This is why I study Wildlife Science. I got to learn how to trap animals yesterday and look at trees today. The ultimate retard science.

>>16382771
doing what you love doing out in nature is a very based pursuit, happy for you anon

>>16382760
how is science a shitshow?
the problem with science is that all the "easy" things have been discovered. nowadays you can't just have a single guy making a big discovery, you need a team, an expensive lab and 10 years of research

>>16382649
Add to that all the ideological bullshit that has made its way to academia and most "research" is just pure garbage.

>>16382728
>equates technology with science
retard spotted

>>16382789
technology is a result of science.

>>16382755
Just because your parametrization covers a family of curves and so you can use it to do curve fitting, it doesn't mean those parameters actually correspond to the names you gave them. They might just be random numbers. Even if your p-value is 0.00000000001, it still doesn't prove the theory behind the parametrization.
>inb4 muh model space prior
>inb4 muh bayes factor
Completely arbitrary in almost every case

>>16382771
sounds like a field full of joy. regretting entering into comp-sci now.

I remember sitting down and watching some decently midwit math videos and even then I could tell something stank. WELL IF WE JUST DIVIDE THE RESULT WE GOT BY 5... why would we do that? why? why does it feel like we're playing a video game and that nothing is actually, intrinsically, following from anything?

>>16382800
what the hell do you propose. you can't deduce physical constants. c had to be measured, G had to be measured, planks constant and boltzman's constant had to be measured.

>>16382795
yet they aren't the same.

>>16382786
how can you even have ideology in physics. sure there are autistic disagreements but you always had that. boltzmann literally killed himself because people didn't believe his theories

>>16382649
I knew something was wrong when i heard that people from mediocre universities are working at CERN and NASA, clearly science is in the wrong path when midwits are working on the cutting edge fields.

STEM would be good if the people doing it had any true understanding but they are just memorizing formula and being told when to apply them.

>>16382777
Thanks bro it's my dream to run around like Steve Irwin and go to Antarctica
>>16382802
It's actually very depressing at times. Especially when you learn about all the Pleistocene animals that are extinct. But comp sci guys could probably get a related job pretty easily if they learn R, some GIS, and learn a bit about bioinformatics.

>>16382818
Just because G was measured with 99.99999% confidence to lie between 6.67430 and 6.67432 (or whatever), doesn't prove it actually means anything, UNTIL there is some sort of exhaustive evidence of the theory itself. What happens nowadays is some guy makes some crazy theory about a new particle or stars or something, then gets a billion dollar particle accelerator or telescope, gets some data, fits his theory to the data, finds values for the parameters, and declares "the mass/age/size of this particle/planet/star is __" because there was an excellent fit between the theory at that value of the parameter, and the measured data. Only a brainlet would be convinced by this sort of argument.

>>16382871
you just seem to hate particle physics. there are other fields in physics. have you tried condensed matter or something? might be more your thing

>>16382649
Your phone and your computer aren't real.

>>16382926
reality in general isn't real

>>16382778
Science today is either about justifying existing funds or attracting new ones. It has become a massive scam and the illusion of a dignified, ever-improving science persists solely due to the blind faith of the mentally challenged general public which was brainwashed into accepting science as the last arbiter of truth.

This is why you should get the physics degree for undergrad but then specialize in something only tangentially related in grad school or later. I just got offered a military officer commission doing oceanography and meteorology and they look almost exclusively for physics and math guys, and if I went grad school I would've done similar stuff in climate dynamics. All my friends that actually enjoy their work now are in things like semiconductor design or medical physics.
If you think about it we spent four years mostly learning how to pretend the most complex phenomena known to humanity are springs.

>>16382968
science always needed to be financed by someone

>>16382977
>I just got offered a military officer commission doing oceanography and meteorology and they look almost exclusively for physics and math guys,
Based, how old are you though? Can you do something like this at 22 immediately after uni, or do they want you to have some other experience first?

>>16382857
I can imagine it would be a very frustrating field, where you probably spend a lot of time bringing up serious problems and getting ignored. But I hope you succeed and enjoy it, anon.

>>16382771
You're the kind of STEM guy I can respect.

>>16382997
I'm only 23, I started the process at 22 and it just took them fucking forever. They actually prefer officers to start as young as possible because they intend to keep you around for a long time. Experience also isn't as necessary as it is for other jobs because they're going to spend close to a year training you to do things exactly the way they want you to.
My only experience was working in the same uni lab I used to do undergrad research in, they just offered to pay me to stick around while I waited.

>>16382649
Not a stemfag but I kind of see how this could happen. You mentioned particle physics and cosmology. Where else do think these kind of things are present?

>>16382649
ah yes, the great filter that happens to a lot of physics students
>perturbation theory bad
is not an argument. it's a valid method and doesn't lead to incorrect answers. you should know this if you took any introductory QM course and followed the perturbation theory methodology.

I can guarantee without knowing anything else about you that you're in a 2nd or 3rd year undergrad program.
>implying mathematics is applied rigorously in undergrad physics
maybe you're not even in physics at all, or have never taken a real math class.
you also have a poor understanding of experimental physics and statistics.

>>16382649
Did STEM fag steal your gf? LOL

>>16383186
lol

>>16382649
>physics not perfect, physics bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>16383783
There's nothing wrong with physics being imperfect, but there is a serious problem with redditor STEMlords thinking it absolutely is perfect 100% of the time and that any conclusion reached by a scientist is above scrutiny

>>16383808
I agree with you they're fucking annoying, but OP's arguing that lack of rigorous treatment and approximations sort of spoil the physics field, and well... idk about that

>>16383836
I mean, alot of physical laws are 1st order approximations and they are sufficient in their areas of interest

>>16382778
>nowadays you can't just have a single guy making a big discovery
t. knows literally nothing about most STEM fields

>>16383893
That is true though. When was there last a proper "lone theorist", like Einstein or Dirac or Newton? You have to go at least 50 years back.

>>16383855
In research-level physics "first order" or "leading order" don't literally mean 1st order like the first nonzero term of a Taylor expansion anymore. It literally is just vague shorthand/metaphor for "hand-waving post-hoc reasoning is coming".

>>16383925
>he thinks Einstein was a "lone theorist"
Hilbert beat him, in fact.

>>16383925
Yeah, it's not like Einstein needed aid from Riemann, Minkowski, Lorentz, etc

>>16383836
If he came into physics the same way I did, it was as a wide-eyed teenager who thought hard science was the ultimate truth of the universe, and then he got here and found out it's all taped-together approximations that often contradict each other. Some guys come out naively convinced we just need a few more years and then it'll all coalesce perfectly, others come out seeing it all more as a toolbox to approach problems. Astro/cosmology and particle physics is full of the former, which is probably contributing to OP's frustration.

>>16383170
Looks like OP hurt this midwit's feelings

>>16383808
so your whole point is reddit misunderstands things they claim to understand? are you just mad at the entire world all of the time then?

>>16383937
what? you clearly don't know what you're talking to
first order has a well-defined meaning depending on context

>>16384018
no, but I'm in a physics phd so I think I can at least try and clear up some obvious misconceptions. especially when they're stated so smugly

>>16382649
>Be OP
>Be physics undergrad/grad student.
>Believe a complete brainlet that believe textbooks written in the 50's and classes are the ultimate source of knowledge, and not the state of the art scientific papers on a given area.
>Be eternally lost in a Platonian mindset where you expect reality to have to correspond to a mathematical model, and not understand mathematical models have absolutely no commitment with reality, they just happen to be a useful language to describe our measurements, and as such all the approximations making you seethe are entirely justified.
>Be so butthurt and stupid that you never actually debate this with anyone, and then claim no one would respond back because of some conspiracy theory.
>Expect science to give you general statements of truth, instead of the most accurately possible model a given measurement can confirm.

What did he mean by this? Is this what happens when /lit/izens try to take a Physics 101 class? Holy hell you're a lost cause.
You just figured out theory by itself is USELESS. Math by itself is USELESS. Philosophy by itself is USELESS. You can say literally whatever you want, but you're not gonna make reality bend itself to fit it. You could however bend your models to fit reality (which is what science is. The eternal model bending in search of better models.). You just figured out why measurements are important, and why they are hard to make. Congratulations. Maybe one day this will make you a better scientist. Welcome to the world of empiricism. The butthurt and seethe you felt will be on the house this time around.

>>16383783
Soibois will never said this. Soibois are devoted to scientism.

>>16384175
>Philosophy by itself is USELESS
Maybe you should stick to physics

>>16384174
>I'm in a physics phd
my condolences

>>16382649
>OP is mad because he failed his physics A exam
hello mods? this is /lit/ not /sci/

The true redpill is that the further you get into any field, the more retarded it becomes. Physics is extremely based at the bachelor's level and also kind of grad school. Afterwards it kind of goes to shit.

>>16384231
this is /philosophy of science/, which is /lit/

>>16384243
this is because you're are delving into uncharted territory. bachelor-level things are known since 18th century, at some point you have to start making your own discoveries

>>16382649
>>16383170
BTFO, was getting (You)s from sucking the dick of all these science-hating mathematically illiterate continentals worth it OP you gigantic faggot?
>>16382814
proof that the anti-science tards are simply coping for being unable to do math.

Good job OP you're making the STEMfags trip over themselves coping

>>16384231
/sci/ is even worse at maths than /lit/

>>16382649
Order of magnitudes is a philosophical invention, at the risk of being wrong and sounding stupid I want to say it was platos child

>>16384373
Atom is another philosophical discovery from a couple thousand years ago(I only mention it cause you’re interest in particle physics and my interest in philosophy)

>>16384175
Actually based. Don't listen to OP. Only STEM fags that come here are people who overachieve. This guy clearly isn't.

When are you guys going to solve the vacuum catastrophe?

>>16384541
need a better understanding of where the standard model is wrong/incomplete

>>16384541
A more pressing question: where is the CIA hiding all the magnetic monopoles?

particle physics is boring as fuck condensed matter is where it's at

>>16382814
math itself is perfect though you absolute moron.

>>16384305
That's a good thing though. Mathematicians that seethe over physicists and engineers making approximations are either autistic or they don't understand an important premise of science. You don't fit reality to the model, you fit the model to reality. Find a perfect sphere in nature. Find a singularity. Find infinity. Find a point. Find a straight line. Not that easy, huh. Doesn't mean you can use those concepts to approximate behavior measured.

>>16384761
can't* use, sorry. Autofix'd

I think some of modern physics has missed out on the elegance of nature. Elegance meaning simple yet effective.

For instance, QFT, Particle Physics, Quantum Electrodynamics and Chromodynamics.

I think there could be alternative explanations for phenomena and subsequent alternative theories that are much more elegant.

For example, in Quantum electrodynamics, instead of photons why couldn't it be something else? The original line of thought that brought about the idea(Feynmann's) was that how can fields generate fields, it must be the interaction of particles. Well, it could have been fundamental laws of nature generating fields.
So, the thing here is, we can describe the fields in a classical sense but there is also a quantum level of nature to describe which is more probabilistic in essence. Easy fix, try to imagine a classical field with a probability distribution based on the probability of the particles location.

I think the whole consensus argument is highly debatable, and that they all really could be fundamentally wrong, like history has depicted many times over.

>>16384917
oh, great another idiot thinks he can just remake all of physics.

go ahead anon, I believe in you I don't really

>>16384175
>Expect science to give you general statements of truth, instead of the most accurately possible model a given measurement can confirm.
"the most accurately possible model a given measurement can confirm" is really just an euphemism you use to the word and the meaning of "truth".
so in the end you are using language tricks and nothing you say is really sincere nor understand the OP problem or the search of truth behind sciense. in other words, you affirmative believe that science accede to truth, only that you reinvent what is truth ("the most accurately possible model") so you can adapt it to science. pretty dishonest really if you can see it.

Guys I'm gonna be really honest -- publishing papers for the rest of my life sounds awful. I'd rather just practice some nice land ethic instead of grant chasing.

Obviously the shit we don't understand is hard to understand, and the shit we do understand seems obvious.
The point is to understand.
It seems like pseudoscientific nonsense because... it is. You don't think people thought Maxwell's equations were fucking nonsensical, unconfirmed bullshit at the time? They probably looked a lot like bullshit since the differential forms weren't in common use at the time. Now we know better.
Your children will know better too.

>>16384973
a physicist can always go to finance or something like that

>>16383170
OP BTFO

>>16385018
Cope

>>16382778
Most of the things that science produces these days is trash. Irrelevant amounts of papers published each year just to justify funding. Publish or perish. As a STEMfag I've seen this: old guys at universities that suck at teaching and only maintain their jobs publishing any shit that doesn't add anything of value to field and/or wasn't even made by themselves.

>>16384949
Not really. I feel that most scientists view Truth as unattainable, and science as the best possible approximation to this Truth. It doesn't seem particularly dishonest. I don't think most scientists believe science to be the final truth about something, only that alternative explanations that don't use science or the scientific method are not as good of a model to explain things.

>>16382649
Yeah physics has a really ad hoc/epistemology problem

>>16382926
>Your phone and your computer aren't real.

I doubt that working technology uses all that autistic models, is more like trial and error

>>16385248
no idiot someone had to design circuits using physical laws and do the calculations behind every logical operation. you cant bang two rocks together until you make a computer.

>>16382677
this. why Ted Kaczynski used to make sneering remarks about physicists.

>>16385353
Mathematicians, not coping physishits

>>16382771
lmao based

>>16385362
wtf do you even want to say with that

>>16382977
>humanity are springs.
What I notice is that even PhD level physics is still only the beginning. The average public has a very skewed idea, and this includes Physics undergrads, about what Physics is and how deep it goes. In your school for instance, did they teach general relativity at the undegrad level? in my university you had to specifically look for this and even then it was nearly impossible to grasp it at the undergrad level.

>>16385236
>I feel that most scientists view Truth as unattainable, and science as the best possible approximation to this Truth.
this really dont make sense at all if you think a little.
if truth is unattainable you cannot know what is the best possible approximation to truth because you cant know what is the method of approximation.
in the end, to scientists their method is the truth. not what the method give.

>>16385560
>you cant know what is the method of approximation.
You can know what gives you the most consistent reproducible answers at a given point in time. That doesn't mean it's the truth. Induction problem and blablabla. But it is the most consistent explanation you can get.

>>16385353
>using physical laws and do the calculations behind every logical operation

These calculations are leveled down to reality until things work.

>>16385565
consistent explanation for what?, to what end?. why you need a consistent explanation?. Truth (as a word, not as a concept) is a taboo to scientists, but is only a cover.
like i said, if truth is unattainable you cant know what the fuck are you doing when you are doing science, you are just playing with random materials and random operations with no end.

>>16385602
you make me sick

>>16385553
It is springs though, with balls attached that are also joined by elastic bands, or this is my understanding of QFT.

>>16382789
I think his point was that with scientific advancements generally comes technological advancements.

>>16382649
Damn I was thinking of doing physics and nanotechnology alongside my English degree at uni but I hear of more and more reports that it's cancerous each day...

>>16385720
why would you do an english degree and a physics degree. pick one and stick with it

>>16385689
The end is obtaining consistent explanations, that's just it. You're just phrasing it so it seems nonsensical, but it isn't nonsensical. You see some phenomenon happening, and you want to find the most consistent explanation for that. That doesn't mean you foudn the truth. That means you found the most consistetn explanation. The fact we can use the predictions of these consistent explanations to build shit around us has been enough motivation to make science what it is now. It doesn't mean science is Truth though.
>>16385694
He is right though. Ask any mathematician whether physicists and engineers actually "use math right".

>>16385861
like i said, to scientists the Truth is a taboo as a word, not as a concept. they can say their explanations are not the truth and at the same time acting as like it is. i repeat "the most consistent explanation" is just an euphemism to truth.
i give you the second definition of truth in a dictionary:
"that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality".

>>16385907
Ok, lets assume you're right. Then what should we call that ultimate untangible thing that science is approximating? The one we can't know. I usually use capital T Truth for that, but you don't like me doing this. What is the word for it?

>>16385935
i dont know... total truth, absolute truth. i dont know. my point is that in a more mundane way, if you want, "most consistent explanation" is treated as truth. just that.

>>16385710
this explanation works in the same way that saying "an electron is a spinning ball" describes spin

>>16384917
>Well, it could have been fundamental laws of nature generating fields.
This is hilarious.

>>16385726
It's a double major so I can do both and still complete it in the same 4 year period like normal. Feel like it gives me the most flexibility to experience a little of both sides and then decide for sure what I want to pursue.

>>16385861
>He is right though. Ask any mathematician whether physicists and engineers actually "use math right".
I'm not interesting in 20-page long proof that determines whether a solution to a differential equation exists. I just want to use the solution

>>16382771
based as hell. good on you frogposter

>>16382771
doing comp eng and while I look forward to the later stuff i hate these shitty online lectures where they half ass everything

>>16382771
Based

>>16385720
I remember being 17 and thinking I'd triple major because of course I'm smarter than all those other dumbasses.
If you go to a school where it's reasonable for a mortal man to do this, the programs are shitty and your degree will only be good enough to get you some office job involving neither.

>>16386272
not him but at my top-10 US uni almost everyone double majored, triple majoring wasn't absurdly uncommon either. someone in my program got a quad major a few years back and that was a big deal.
some schools just have fewer requirements, and across the country they're lowering these requirements generally.

>>16382795
>>16385714
Engineers doing what they already do but better drives nearly all technological progress. The sort of research op is describing does not.

>>16382649
based

>>16386991
engineers need to know physics retard

>>16386991
alot of medical treatment came out of particle physics research

>>16382755
Empirical laws are retarded, as shown by angular velocity measurements indicating the existing of some sense matter which we call dark matter, or else mistakes in our laws of classical mechanics

>>16383925
Shuji nakamura would like a word. It's clear that you don't follow physics news, so why voice your uninformed opinion?

>>16382649
didnt even CERN btfo every new model by confirming nothing ?
So now they are screeching for even bigger collider like that was the problem not their retarded theories

>>16382728
>>16382789
>>16382795
>>16385714
>>16388651

I think the point is that physics used to yield valuable discoveries up until about 50 years ago, after which technology has advanced by applying the earlier discoveries better but physics itself has basically stagnated, modern state of it being what OP described.

>>16383170
>implying mathematics is applied rigorously in undergrad physics
I have to agree with this. Some of the criticism OP made could be rephrased into valid and relevant criticism of many bad habits of modern scientists, but painting undergrad physics as some oasis of rigor is enough to discredit him. If anything physics are even more handwavy in undergrad, except when dealing with super simple systems no physics researcher actually works on.

>>16382649
OP got filtered by loop integrals

>>16383925
>einstein, dirac, newton worked alone
1) Only Newton really worked alone, and only because he was very likely hard-line autistic as fuck, rejecting female attention and romance to focus on mathematics, and he refused to work with his contemporaries like Leibniz, which is why some other guy actually invented FTC and just game Newton and Leibniz the credit (all despite of the fact that neither Newton nor Leibniz originated their ideas).
2) Terence Tao, you ignorant mook.

>>16389087
techniques like positron therapy came out of particle physics and ccd and cmos cameras came out of astronomy.

condensed matter and nanotechnonogy/biophysics is advancing rapidly

>>16382649
Hey, bud, let me let you in on a little secret - no one ever gave a shit about truth. The Western tradition, since its earliest infancy, has been elites throwing money at poor artists and academics to generate convenient near-truths.
The only people you trust are solo tinkerers and tenured people still doing research. Everyone else is not interested in being right.

ITT: Butthurt humanities kiddies super mad that the only pseud bullshit people take seriously isn't their pseud bullshit, and is instead the pseud bullshit that still gets results and keeps the world moving

>>16389247
>keeps the world moving
I dunno the world seemed to revolved and rotate pretty well even before physics was invented.

>>16389247
>keeps the world moving
technology is making us all slaves anon, we were much better when we were hunter-gatherers

>>16389215
I think you just proved my point by listing new technologies that apply old discoveries in physics. Some advances technology do enable discoveries in science, but mostly in fields like medicine and not physics.

>>16382696
got a chuckle from me. thanks anon.

>physics is the only hard science

>>16383808
>redditor STEMlords thinking it absolutely is perfect 100% of the time
These people need to be reminded of the meaning of words like
>model
>theory
>falsifiability
And that science is not reality, it's merely a tool to make sense of it, just like a photo is not the thing it portrays.

>>16389261
You weren't there so it's not like you can say that on any authority

>>16391919
>You weren't there
Wrong.

>>16382649
>undergraduate
>hard
Anyone who finishes an undergraduate STEM degree and thinks they have some kind of higher insight into the subject failed to appreciate the purpose of the degree. I did a Physics degree (and subsequently an applied Mathematics MSc) and all I learned was that to actually appreciate Physics you need to specialize. You cannot expect an undergraduate to be able to handle the Mathematics involved in advanced fluid dynamics or be able to solve PDE's with varying initial/boundary conditions, it's not what they are there to learn. In the same way you might learn a smattering of programming, engineering, researching, etc. Physics is valuable insomuch that it gives you a bit of everything but a mastery of nothing. Until you're doing a PhD on some very obscure area of the science of course you're not going to have a full knowledge of any area. Mathematicians conversely can do some incredibly complicated stuff without knowing the actual implications of their calculations. Physics is really the science of modelling, things get very complicated when you try to model them accurately so the best you can do is make an educated guess with the tools you have (lol approximate it as a sphere/point). I don't think you're stupid OP if these are the conclusions you've reached after 3-4 years of tuition then I really think you wasted your time.