Science is (nearly) finished

[Anonymous No.5489740]

In the latest Nature there's an article about how scientific genius is extinct - Einstein was the last genius.

The argument is if you look at the current rate of scientific advance in the natural sciences, it has slowed down dramatically, and it takes larger teams of people and greater resources to make smaller and smaller incremental advances. There are no longer any lone geniuses revolutionizing a field of science in their spare time.

The reason for this, it is argued, is not that Einstein was unique, but rather that we're nearly finished in the field of scientific discovery, there are simply no more scientific "revolutions" to be had. There are many discoveries to be made and much that remains unknown, to be sure, but these are minor details rather than fundamental laws like E=mc^2.

An analogy can be found in sport - we are still breaking records at the Olympics, but by smaller and smaller increments every time. There are no longer Olympic-medal winning "all-round" athletes breaking records in multiple sports like Jim Thorpe or Carl Lewis. Everyone is highly specialized and shitloads of training and preparation involving teams of people goes into every millisecond of a record broken.

What say you, /sci/? Do you agree with the Nature article, or do you believe that you will be the next lone genius like Einstein and bring about a scientific revolution?

[Anonymous No.5489751]

Didn't they also say that physics was "nearly finished" before the advent of quantum mechanics and relativity?

[Anonymous No.5489759]

sounds like Nature is getting pretty mythical "oh the geniuses doth sprout only when a problem there be" fucking nonsense, also we don't even have the principles of string theory down, sounds like an idiot wrote that

[Anonymous No.5489761]

>>5489751
No.

[Anonymous No.5489764]

ITT: OP can't into exp() and log()

[Anonymous No.5489766]

Einstein wasn't some lone genius. There's this fabricated cult of personality surrounding him. Like he just woke up one day, wrote all these equations and became a rockstar and everyone else was drooling idiots.

[Anonymous No.5489769]

>>5489759
>"oh the geniuses doth sprout only when a problem there be" fucking nonsense

that's not at all what they are saying. they're saying the remaining details are too difficult to be solved by lone geniuses. nowadays smaller scientific advances take large teams and massive experiments like the LHC to make incremental advances.

[Anonymous No.5489770]

>>5489761
yes

[Anonymous No.5489781]

the human brain is still technically a mystery, and technology and all of the things we are are capable of doing with it, are still growing. I see it as going from a single genius to a handful of people starting to think of newer and greater ideas.

[Anonymous No.5489790]

>>5489781
In the article they do say that this is limited to the natural sciences; psychology and neuroscience and such still have room for revolution.

And yes, technology is the way forward. Basically, we need more engineers and fewer physicists believing they will be the next Einstein.

[Anonymous No.5489795]

>>5489769

That makes perfect sense and I agree

[Anonymous No.5489797]

I disagree.

I think the difference is that, while before individuals made relatively major contributions, now it's companies, teams of researchers, collaborations, and even computers / AI.

We've passed the point where individuals can contribute on their own given the natural limitations humans have. At the same time, technology will always improve in step with future discoveries so it will counter-balance any effect of it becoming more difficult to make more discoveries.

[Anonymous No.5489811]

eventually, someone will revolutionize science and further the paradigm of human civilization in the process.
the middle ages in Europe say a slowing of scientific innovation and discovery. I bet they wouldn't have imagined the modern world back then.

It may seem difficult to imagine, but by overwhelming historic precedent, we shall come across a new revolution eventually.

[Anonymous No.5489817]

>>5489797
> before individuals made relatively major contributions, now it's companies

companies may make large contributions relative in terms of effort, but it would be hard to argue any company has made an advance as major as E=mc^2

[Anonymous No.5489818]

>>5489811
Do you think scientific revolutions can continue indefinitely?

[Anonymous No.5489820]

>>5489817
it's not been that long since we've discovered and applied theories of relativity.

give the next major step some time.

i think people are too impatient these days.

[Anonymous No.5489831]

>>5489820

>i think people are too impatient these days.

This. We've made some serious fucking advancements in the last 20-30 years and even less than that. You can't expect stuff like massive scientific revelations to be shat out at the same speed your new gay ass iPhone will be.

This shit doesn't happen overnight.

[Anonymous No.5489857]

>>5489818
there's still a lot we don't understand fully.
i think they will continue until we understand everything relatively well.

i don't know what will happen then; I hope we can find something else as interesting to involve ourselves with.
i'd be very unhappy if we believed we're at the end of progress.

[sage No.5489871]

This is a complete and utter crock. It's not there there are no more Einsteins or Plancks or Newtons. It's that scientific academia has grown and evolved into something that has no place for them. The current state of physics badly needs some, but since experimental physics spent so many decades catching up with theoretical physics starting in the 50's and 60's, there was no pressure on academia to accommodate the kind of thinkers that created modern physics in the first place. Suggested reading: The Trouble With Physics by Lee Smolin

[Anonymous No.5489885]

>>5489769
The time of experiments with accelerators solving our problems for us are rapidly coming to an end. What we need now is a theoretical revolution. Get rid of string theory in favor of one of the alternatives, or else make string theory work, or find a new alternative. Find a consistent theory that encompasses the essential aspects of GM and QM.

[Anonymous No.5489890]

>>5489871
>The Trouble With Physics by Lee Smolin

Dude's an idiot. If I remember correctly, he was the one promoting Garret Lisi's An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything, which turned out to be wrong.

I think he just has some sort of prejudice against String Theory.

[Anonymous No.5489891]

>>5489831
>We've made some serious fucking advancements in the last 20-30 years
I think it's safe to say that out of the last 200 years, the last 20-30 years have had the least amount of theoretical advance than any other period of similar length. And it's not for the lack of need for advance.

[Anonymous No.5489899]

>>5489890
Lee Smolin wrote a few papers to try to help develop Garret Lisi's theory. Nothing wrong with that. He's been part of physics for a long time, and he doesn't appreciate the stranglehold that string theory has in academia, which is no longer deserved.

[Anonymous No.5489949]

>>5489740
>The reason for this, it is argued, is not that Einstein was unique, but rather that we're nearly finished in the field of scientific discovery, there are simply no more scientific "revolutions" to be had. There are many discoveries to be made and much that remains unknown, to be sure, but these are minor details rather than fundamental laws like E=mc^2.

Obviously any theory that would succesfully say, merge quantum mechanics with relativity in a satisfying way would be called "revolutionary", so this is blatant nonsense. I think the point to be made here is rather that big discoveries has become harder and harder to be made at the tabletop, and instead we have to move onto more complex, time-consuming group-efforts like the LHC.

[Anonymous No.5489957]

>>5489949
but LHC is an experimental effort, not a theoretical one.

[Anonymous No.5489960]

>>5489740

N'ah OP don't be so pessimistic.

These kids give me hope:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeGaffIJvHM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR36jrx_L44

[Anonymous No.5489964]

>>5489949
>Obviously any theory that would succesfully say, merge quantum mechanics with relativity in a satisfying way would be called "revolutionary"

Really? Because it seems as though we are pretty much there already. It will likely be a variant of string theory. Could a minor tweak to an existing string theory candidate really be called revolutionary?

[Anonymous No.5489967]

>>5489964
"Succesfully" here implies "as confirmed by experiment".

[Anonymous No.5489971]

>>5489740

Can you link the article? I feel like I'm getting some second-hand shit and wondering why Nature would even allow such a bullshit paper to get through.

[Anonymous No.5489983]

>>5489964

Yes, very much so. Joining the very large and very small will itself spark great leaps in our understanding of physics as a whole.

[Anonymous No.5489986]

>>5489964
oh, please

[Anonymous No.5490016]

Look at publications not even 20 years ago and you have 1 author/paper, now 3 is considered few, and depending on the field 5 is normal. Science is no longer the lone darkling making brilliant discoveries in his lair, it is a massive collaboration. And we are making much brilliant progress, but for media it is difficult to focus on so many people and have the same impact. People are not made different now, and if anything there is access to more information and there is more opportunity with better funding. There aren't fewer problems to look at, there are more. And nothing was ever easy, and never will be. It's just that things are getting so massive the individual is getting lost in the crowd.

[Anonymous No.5490037]

>>5489971
It's behind a paywall but here's the link anyway: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v493/n7434/full/493602a.html

>After Einstein: Scientific genius is extinct

>Dean Keith Simonton fears that surprising originality in the natural sciences is a thing of the past, as vast teams finesse knowledge rather than create disciplines

[Anonymous No.5490044]

lol
things are just getting started

[Anonymous No.5490086]

"There will be no more major breakthroughs"

This demonstrates your lack of understanding. See, the beauty of science is in the details. Who cares if we have some vague understanding of how things fall? What's awesome is when we can predict how it falls to any degree of precision and accuracy.

Precision is what science strives to achieve. The "major breakthroughs" are cool, but by themselves aren't much. It's when people come along and work out all the gritty details.

But to answer your question, not necessarily science but electrical engineering and computer science aren't just booming, they're even PICKING UP. We're constantly doing cooler and cooler shit with electronics. The future is in electronics, for sure.

[a strong ai No.5490229]

It's a logical fallacy. The whole point of someone like Einstein is that they come along and turn everything you thought before upside down. So you can't predict their arrival.

I am one of them. I have the general intelligence algorithm programed into my laptop. It creates generalizations by observing and recognizing patterns of any kind in any kind of data. It can be used as a math foundation for psychology and social sciences.

[Anonymous No.5490232]

>>5490229
When did your parents go "Was he always like this, is it something we did?"

[Anonymous No.5490251]

>>5489740
Any article that cites Einstein as an example of genius over someone like Von Neumann, Feynman or Erdős is not worth listening to.

[Anonymous No.5490253]

>>5489740
>The argument is if you look at the current rate of scientific advance in the natural sciences, it has slowed down dramatically, and it takes larger teams of people and greater resources to make smaller and smaller incremental advances. There are no longer any lone geniuses revolutionizing a field of science in their spare time.

The reason for this is a flaw in the way modern science is funded and modern scientists are trained. It's over-cautious, under-funded and too competitive. In the end you favour mediocre science and breed researchers who are excellent at publishing papers to beef up their CVs but that don't actually advance the field.

You'll never get massive football sized diamonds any more either because the mining techniques favour pebble sized diamonds for easier processing.

[Anonymous No.5490256]

>>5489740
the science behind engineering challenges is not nearly finished. materials

[Anonymous No.5490260]

>>5490251
It's hard to compare physicists to mathematicians, but I feel comfortable saying that Einstein was a greater genius than Feynman. Sorry.

[Anonymous No.5490291]

>>5490260

Why? How exactly have you compared such a thing? Do you have any experience with Feynman's work, or just glancing information?

[Anonymous No.5490299]

>>5489740
the problem is not that there are less clever people, but that there is more people, and more computational resources, so there's no easy way to point out who the really clever ones are.

i'm saying 'really clever' but you should know that this means specialization

[Anonymous No.5490305]

>The argument is if you look at the current rate of scientific advance in the natural sciences, it has slowed down dramatically
It doesn't look like that at all.

[Anonymous No.5490310]

>>5490291
Yes, his biggest contribution was coming up with a new formulation for QED. Definitely an improvement, but hardly as revolutionary off the beaten trail as creating GR.

[Anonymous No.5490313]

>>5490305

To be fair, the author is a Psychologist.

[Anonymous No.5490327]

>>5490310

So a person's genius is defined by how variant their view is from known information?

Does that mean that the person who invented the wheel is more of a genius than Newton and Einstein? What about all the hundreds of years of science and scientists you're forgetting. Could it be that the only reason why you hold Einstein in such abysmally high regard, because he's been highly politicized since the early part of last century?

It's called propaganda. You fucked up when you started weighing the achievements of people who build off each other, against one another.

[Anonymous No.5490329]

>>5489769
>nowadays smaller scientific advances take large teams and massive experiments like the LHC
Experiments take large teams and massive experiments. But the theories behind them still come from individuals and small groups.

LHC is a good example. "The Higgs boson is named after Peter Higgs, one of six physicists who, in 1964, proposed the mechanism that suggested such a particle. Although Higgs' name has become ubiquitous in this theory, the resulting electroweak model (the final outcome) involved several researchers between about 1960 and 1972, who each independently developed different parts."

[Anonymous No.5490335]

>>5489790
>Basically, we need more engineers and fewer physicists believing they will be the next Einstein
I second this motion

[Anonymous No.5490344]

>>5489890
As far as I know Lisi's theory has not been proven wrong, it is just (admittedly) incomplete. His ideas still wowed a lot of serious physicists so he is a good counter-example to op's proposition. A solo guy coming up with a completely new unified field theory is pretty nifty, even if his grand vision has dead-ended for the moment.

[Anonymous No.5490349]

>>5490229
tell more more about this program.

[Anonymous No.5490354]

>>5490335

You think we need less people to speculate and theorize at such a high level of understanding in a certain field, because those people have high aspirations?

Mathematicians are setting groundwork for systems that probably won't be used until centuries from now. HEP is just catching up to a concept that's almost half a century old. With current Physicists pumping out new ideas, consistently. ...and Engineers?... They build shit for a paycheck. All that information needed to even considering building an object came from scientists, but you want to decrease the amount of scientists and bring up the engineers. Why?... so they can build the same shit over and over again, because you through brain draining was somehow a good idea?

[Anonymous No.5490355]

>>5490349
>obvious pun
>autist unable to see it

[Anonymous No.5490372]

Wasn't this same argument made 100 years ago?

[Anonymous No.5490472]

>>5490305
>more publications = more progress

[Anonymous No.5490485]

>>5490354
>You think we need less people to speculate and theorize at such a high level of understanding in a certain field, because those people have high aspirations?

Not because they have high aspirations, but because it's simply not as important any more.

And it's "fewer people" not "less people".

>Mathematicians are setting groundwork for systems that probably won't be used until centuries from now

How useful.

>Physicists pumping out new ideas, consistently

Like what?

>and Engineers?... They build shit for a paycheck.

You mean shit like medical imaging equipment, nuclear reactors, radio telescopes, solar panels, robots, 3d printers and the networking standards that allow you to communicate your uninformed opinions to anyone on the planet?

>you want to decrease the amount of scientists and bring up the engineers. Why?

Because you only need to discover the photoelectric effect once. To make use of it requires engineers.

[Anonymous No.5490488]

>>5489740
I would have to say that the realm of scientific discovery no longer lays in the physical, but rather the spiritual and metaphysical.

[Anonymous No.5490490]

>>5490372
100 years ago... 12 years after Planck laid the groundwork for quantum mechanics?

I don't think so.

[Anonymous No.5490489]

>>5490488
>lies in the physical
idk, I'm tired so I can't tell which is the proper tense.

[Anonymous No.5490504]

We have reached a point where you can give someone a $300 computer and $5000 a year and they can live fairly comfortably. There's really no reason why we can't be a society of scientists, instead of all working at fucking starbucks and shit.

[Anonymous No.5490543]

I think the current revolutions are in plasma cosmology and electric universe theory. I think the reason Physics has stalled is because they have gone way down the wrong path for the past 80 years.

[Anonymous No.5490548]

>>5490543
We're still in scientific infancy. There's so much we don't understand.

[Anonymous No.5490559]

>There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement.
Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)

[Anonymous No.5490561]

>>5490559
he didn't actually ever say that.

[Anonymous No.5490568]

>>5490561
Prove it.

[Anonymous No.5490585]

>>5490568
Sorry, I'm too busy disproving every other rumour anon has circulated.

[Anonymous No.5490601]

>>5489890
>This guy decided to promote a new and interesting theory
>It wasn't as good as expected
>OH GOD WHAT AN IDIOT EVERYTHING HE SAID IS BULLSHIT

[Anonymous No.5490603]

you know what i think?
Ever notice how history seems to bounce back and fourth? especially when it comes to how people view science and religion. Throughout the ages the common view on what's "right" of those two shift every so often.
I think we're about to enter an epoch where religion takes back that place

[Anonymous No.5490630]

75 years ago we didn't even have little handheld calculators.
150 years ago we still used ACTUAL horse power in our vehicles.
>WE KNOW ALL SCIENCE

[Anonymous No.5490632]

>>5489740

genius isnt extinct

the problem is that since einstein, the scientific community has changed.

if einstein released his papers on relativity today, not a single person would notice, because the entire scientific establishment has crawled so far up its own ass that it wouldnt recognise true genius if it kicked them in the face.

back in the 30's, the difference between a "crank" and a real scientist, was the "cranks" were the people who kept pushing ideas that have been disproven.

today, the defenition of "crank" is "anyone who proposes anything that is even slightly different from the norm"

there is also the issue that einstein was a rare combination of mathematical genius and conceptual genius, able to demonstrate and describe his ideas. most people today have either one, or the other. they're either really good at mathematics or they're really good at figuring our phenomenon.

hence why quantum mechanics is considered such a mystery. it isnt. it basically fucking solved. the implications are clear. but nobody can fucking grasp its concepts because they're all too focused on the mathematics.

tl;dr - too many faggot theorists, not enough experimentalists.

[Anonymous No.5490638]

>>5490632

cont.

too many faggots asking "WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? TELL US! MIGHTY SCIENCE GOD!"

and not enough asking "HOW CAN WE USE THIS TO MAKE NEW TECHNOLOGIES?"

[Anonymous No.5490641]

Science isn't extinct, you're missing out on the bigger picture.

Nobody has a reason to do anything useful at the moment. There aren't big wars or big money that motivates people to discover something new.

99% of the 'smart' population studies law or medicine and picks the job that pays the most. There is no will to research and advance for the very sake of advancement in the majority of people.

Thus, the rate of advancement (in all fields) has slowed down since times like the 20th Century, because people aren't getting paid and aren't told that they're protecting their country by doing this research.

[Anonymous No.5490645]

>>5490632
>today, the defenition of "crank" is "anyone who proposes anything that is even slightly different from the norm"
No, today, the definition of "crank" is still "someone who posits something that we know to be impossible according to established laws of physics that have been experimentally tested to a high degree ofaccuracy"

[Anonymous No.5490653]

We WILL run out of questions one day.

[Anonymous No.5490655]

>>5490653
nup. We will get infinitely more close to, but will never truly know everything.

Perfection does not exist

[Anonymous No.5490658]

>>5490645

EXACTLY.

THE SHIT THAT EINSTEIN POSED WAS ALL IMPOSSIBLE ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF PHYSICS AS THEY KNEW THEM AT THE TIME.

someone discovers a method of hot fusion that doesnt involve a torus design? CRANK! someone discovers a variation on the double slit experiment which allows them to prove that properties are not persistent, and do not exist until measured? CRANK! because nobody fucking beleives that quantum science is correct, they all think there has to be some unknown mechanism that caused quantum mechanical behaviour. someone discovers a different way of explaining string theory that makes it much easier to understand for people who are science-illiterate? CRANK!

science has become as dogmatic as religion.

[Anonymous No.5490659]

>>5490632

>"anyone who proposes anything that is even slightly different from the norm"

Is THAT why /sci/ gets butthurt when I say it's A?

[Anonymous No.5490660]

>>5490658

Not really. There was no law that forbade Lorenz contractions. It was just a model. Indeed, what he was proposing neatly explained some very troubling observations.

[Anonymous No.5490661]

>>5490660
>There was no law that forbade Lorenz contractions
Only Galilean invariance which was the most fundamental law of classical mechanics

[Anonymous No.5490679]

>>5490661
Stop defending your misguided 'rogue scientist'-worship.

[Anonymous No.5490682]

There was a bigger rush in scientific discoveries in the 18th and 19th centuries than there is now, I'd agree.
However, so far in the 21st century, the rate of scientific accomplishment still far outdoes that of any civilisation other than Renaissance/Industrial Europe (that is to say, our current period is more fruitful in the sciences than all but 1 past era).
Don't be in despair, because we're aren't in some kind of scientific lull. We're still in a boom of scientific accomplishment - it just isn't quite as large as it previously has been. The realms of technology/engineering are still marching on as strong as ever, it's worth noting.

[Anonymous No.5490698]

>>5489740
>What say you, /sci/? Do you agree with the Nature article, or do you believe that you will be the next lone genius like Einstein and bring about a scientific revolution?
People look at these Paradigm Shifts as if they were a great thing. What I see is that they require a flawed worldview to begin with. Seeing through bullshit is an achievement, but not believing the bullshit in the first place is even better.

We could have had Critical Rationalism, Heliocentrism, Germ Theory et cetera 10,000 years ago, but because humans are superstitious idiots even today most academicians don't know shit about how science works.

If we have by now given up most of these false beliefs, that is only a reason to rejoice.

[Anonymous No.5490717]

>>5490698
we'd have been in space by at least 0 AD if the Greek civilisation never collapsed.

At least now, its almost impossible to lose knowledge, because of the internet. Burning down a library doesn't set you back a couple of hundred years anymore.

[Anonymous No.5490747]

>you will be the next lone genius like Einstein and bring about a scientific revolution
This

[Anonymous No.5490757]

>>5490717
no.
the greeks had some notable philosophers but for the most part they were very superstitious like all ancient people.

[Anonymous No.5490765]

>>5490757
> forgetting that our modern society is just as stupid and superstitious
> conveniently not mentioning the Greek's huge advancements in mathematics and science; that took the rest of the world ~2000 years to reach after their collapse.

ur 1 cheeky kunt m8 i swer i wrek u

[Anonymous No.5490770]

>>5489740
typical normalcy bias at its best.

Scientific discoveries have not 'ended' in any sense of the word, the best is yet to come. Once we start to produce enhanced sources of intelligence (genetic doping/ intelligent machines) there will be another huge revolution and it will come so fast no-one will be able to predict what comes next. This is merely the beginning.

[Anonymous No.5490778]

If we assume that the idea 'the rate of scientific advancement is declining' a reason would for such would be wholly economic. It's simply become the norm to milk every advancement in any field or for any product as much as possible even if it means delaying another advance.

[Anonymous No.5490799]

>>5490757
>ancient
implying modern people are any better

[Anonymous No.5490965]

>>5489761
Yup. Lord Kelvin said it.
"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement."

[Anonymous No.5490993]

>>5490965

lord kelvin claiming that there is nothing more to discover is like freiza proclaiming that he is the most powerful being in the universe.

5 seasons later and we KNOW that he was nowhere near close.

just like how 100 years after lord kelvin we know he was completely full of shit when he said there was nothing new to be discovered.

[Anonymous No.5491001]

>>5490993
that's exactly the point
the article is full of shit

[Anonymous No.5491012]

>>5489766
This so much. Some people honestly believe Einstein single handedly came up with the ideas for special/general relativity, whereas there were many involved in both.

for example Nordström's theory of gravitiation, he wasn't completely correct, but his work predates einsteins GR paper and looks into curvature of spacetime

[Anonymous No.5491048]

>>5490757
It's a matter of perspective. Compared to a person who understands (!) the scientific method (!), pretty much all the billions of people in past and present look like superstitous savages.

But even then, the Greeks were much more advanced in Epistemology, Architecture, Physics, Mathematics et cetera than many other cultures, back then as well as now.

[None !!BJiYgff8zf2 No.5491050]

>>5490559
>>5490561
>>5490585

Kelvin is the same guy who predicted that only 400 years of oxygen supply remained on the planet, due to the rate of burning combustibles.

[Anonymous No.5491274]

What if we had idealized Aristotle and not Plato?

[Anonymous No.5491281]

>>5491050
And everyone before Newton and Copernicus believed in Aristotle and Ptolemy's models of explaining the universe. They just did the best they could with what they had, which doesn't seem like much now.

[Anonymous No.5491330]

>>5490659
its b

[Anonymous No.5491352]

>>5491048
so were other culture,it is just that westerners avoid others to maintain cultural purity... another major flaw that only validates greek viewpoint... which is stupid... it's like US following only the scientific laws found by britain in 1800s and avoiding others...

[Anonymous No.5491354]

>>5489740
>There are no longer any lone geniuses revolutionizing a field of science in their spare time.
That's because it's illegal or outright too expensive to do so, not because there are no geniuses left.

[Anonymous No.5491370]

>>5490659

no, they get butthurt because you're a master troll

portals arent real, so anyone who gets butthurt over speculation about them is clearly an idiot who deserves to be trolled until their jimmies are rustled.

[Anonymous No.5491374]

>>5491001

and yet it was mentioned on TV news.

god damn i hate stupid people...

[Tim No.5491375]

Take it you're yet to hear of Nassim Haramein or Marko Rodin otherwise you would not have made your statement..

[Anonymous No.5491388]

>>5489740
I agree. Einstein plucked the last of the low-hanging fruit. We've had a century to produce another fundamental law and have failed. A hundred years ago, people were doing nobel prize winning chemistry and physics experiments at home in their basements. Today most universities don't even have enough equipment to try them.

What little we shall yet discover of the natural world is individual crystals of glass buried in a wall of stone. The great mass of what remains is unknowable.

[Anonymous No.5491422]

>>5491354
this

[Anonymous No.5491462]

[e=mc^2] = imagination

[Anonymous No.5491527]

compare this to the death of universalists after poincare. We have become cleverer, and have discovered all of the 'low hanging fruit', now it is harder to discover anything. Nature dropped the ball here. a relative of mine works for them, i will kick his balls for letting this happen

[Anonymous No.5491533]

We still have to map out the equations of time travel and space manipulation. El Psy Congroo

[Anonymous No.5491550]

>>5490299
>i'm saying 'really clever' but you should know that this means specialization

This makes no sense whatsoever. Your communication skills are abysmal.

[Anonymous No.5491556]

>>5490354
>Physicists pumping out new ideas, consistently
You are delusional if you think this is true. The people pumping out new ideas and discoveries are those in the tech, biotech, neuroscience, and computer science fields. Those have been the true innovators for the last 40-50 years and will continue to be so for may, many years to come.

Physicists are becoming much more irrelevant as time progresses.

[Anonymous No.5491582]

ITT: making excuses as to why human progression has slowed.

humanity is distracted by financial security and morality rather than scientific progression - corporations trying to get power over other companies by keeping secrets and stockpiling wealth.

[Anonymous No.5491588]

>>5491582
>making excuses as to why human progression has slowed.

or denying it completely

[Anonymous No.5491613]

>>5491568
> minor details
what is dark matter? what is dark energy? what is gravity?

You can never know how deep the impact of answering this questions would be. Electrostatics and magnetism were also seen as interesting yet ultimately unimportant unexplained phenomena before we dwelved deeper into them.

>There are no longer any lone geniuses revolutionizing a field of science in their spare time.

This is because physics has gotten so complex you have to be a genius just to have anything resembling a true understanding of the field nowadays.

There have been very few "lone" geniuses throughout history, except Newton mainly. Special relativity, for example, uses Lorentz's length transformations which were in fact created to justify aether's existence. Einstein was bright enough to see they also explained a space without aether, but that's a realization I'm pretty sure someone else would have had eventually. can't say the same about general relativity though....

Also, physics is the only field. Fields like applied physics, biology and chemistry advance quantitatively and qualitatively every day without need of groundbreaking revelations

Also, Nature sucks

[Anonymous No.5491627]

To be honest, I would've agreed with this article a few years ago, but remember: the Higgs motherfucking Boson. I grew up as a kid hearing of things like that and how, ooooooh, we're never going to find it because it doesn't actually exist and theoretical physics is at a standstill and can't progress. And then we found it. There is so much that we haven't done yet, not only in physics but in every single other goddamn field. Professors don't just keep their jobs because they have tenure. It's a pretty bright future ahead of mankind, to be honest.

[Anonymous No.5491631]

because they are the majority, and the majority needs it

[Anonymous No.5491662]

The more you learn about physics, the more you realise we really don't know shit.

Just look at this response by professional physicists at a conference.

Quantum Mechanics is still a baby. Some of the older professors in your department, the ones that retired in the last few years, they worked with the generation that invented QM.

I was at a guest lecture by a lecturer of mine that retired recently, he attended a lecture by Paul Dirac given in his prime. This is all recent stuff. It would be naive to say we're finished.

To the people saying scientific advance can't go on forever. That implies that one day we'll end up with a theory(-ies) and say "Ok, we're happy with this. We explain and understand everything in the entire universe. Job done, everyone go home"

[Anonymous No.5491683]

>>5490305
Can I have a source on that? I don't believe that biology is that small due to the massive amounts of hospitals, drug companies and genetics boom.

[Anonymous No.5491748]

>>5491683
Judging by the abbreviations, that's a graph of activity specifically on arxiv, which is way more popular with physicists and math people than it is with biologists. (You could probably make a similar graph with PLoS, though, which has way more biology.)

[Anonymous No.5491781]

>>5490603

I don't think so. I am pretty sure we will find new questions any way. Answering questions fundamentally changes the status quo, which leaves us with more unanswered questions.

[Anonymous No.5491798]

didn't people try to say this was the case in the early 1800s?

[Anonymous No.5491884]

>>5491798

People are naturally pessimistic and backwards looking.

[Anonymous No.5492046]

>>5490603
science has been seen with increasingly good eyes after the renaissance, can't say the same about religion

[Anonymous No.5492059]

>>5491370
>master troll

You don't know how much this means to me. I've waited months for this day. Farewell /sci/, I'm off to /k/ or /x/ now.

[Anonymous No.5492064]

>>5492059

Also, it's A assuming gravity. In situation B the block comes out at exactly a perpendicular angle. This would not be expected since it implies the block is moving at the speed of light. Therefore we must conclude A occurs due to the block being heavier than it looks and the platform moving slower than it appears. Goodday sir.

[Anonymous No.5492076]

>>5490765
>
> conveniently not mentioning the Greek's huge advancements in mathematics and science; that took the rest of the world ~2000 years to reach after their collapse.

source?

>>5490799
of course, at least a little more accustomed to modernity.

[Anonymous No.5492093]

Why is no one stating the obvious? There has been a distinct change in demographics among who is a scientist. It isn't all Germanic or Semitic men any more.

[Anonymous No.5492094]

there's always the unifying theory of fluid dynamics.

[Anonymous No.5492100]

>>5492059
>mfw
>All the shit of /sci/ can be allocated to this guy
>Starting from tomorrow /sci/ is only quality science and math threads
>mfw
You can only believe

[Anonymous No.5492110]

>>5489740
Even if the article's premise that we are reaching the limits of natural human intellectual capabilites is correct, there's nothing stopping us from resorting to un-natural capabilities. For example, using genetics to create "better" brains, by whichever criteria one choose to define "better," or supplementing our innate capabilities with wholly artificial ones (AI).

[Anonymous No.5492126]

>>5490659
isn't this like asking what the best way to kill a vampire is

[Anonymous No.5492139]

>>5492126
Pretty much, because the properties of the portals are not so specifically defined as to allow a conclusive answer.

[Anonymous No.5492136]

>>5492110
> science is too complicated to be done without using a calculator any more
> welp, I guess that's the end of science

[Anonymous No.5492141]

>>5492059
Noice, are you talking screenshots as proof?

[Anonymous No.5492142]

>>5492136
Do you really think I'm arguing that?

[Anonymous No.5492214]

I think resolution of the quantum measurement problem will provide a very profound insight into the nature of the Universe. So, we've got that, at least.

[Anonymous No.5492397]

>>5492059

if you complete that chart you'll be an internet superhero, but...

have fun with /cm/, /hm/, and /y/

[Anonymous No.5492404]

whoever proves the timecube theory to be correct will undoubtedly be considered a genius

[Anonymous No.5493526]

there are a ton of different things still to be explained in the quantum world which is an infinite regress and there will always be something to discover.

[Anonymous No.5493533]

>>5489817
> citing the very least of Einstein's accomplishments

[Anonymous No.5493571]

>>5489740
>The reason for this, it is argued, is not that Einstein was unique, but rather that we're nearly finished in the field of scientific discovery, there are simply no more scientific "revolutions" to be had. There are many discoveries to be made and much that remains unknown, to be sure, but these are minor details rather than fundamental laws like E=mc^2.
>but rather that we're nearly finished in the field of scientific discovery, there are simply no more scientific "revolutions" to be had.
Stoped rreading there. You should go fuck yourself OP.

[Anonymous No.5493581]

>>5493571
That's not what OP says, it's what the author of the article argues. And the author apparently studied this subject his whole carrier.

Just read the article before commenting: http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/493602a

[Anonymous No.5493593]

>journalism

[Anonymous No.5493653]

>>5489740
Science isn't finished, these things were big because they explained simple things that most people didn't bother questioning.
Why does an apple drop?
Why does being hit hurt, but when I lightly touch that object, it doesn't hurt me?

[Anonymous No.5493654]

>>5490659
B. implies the portal has mass, if it did, the cube would hit the portal, not passing through.
>>5491370
Has it right as well.

[Anonymous No.5493669]

>>5493581
Yes, because studying one subject your whole life means it is correct. *cough priest cough*

[Anonymous No.5494163]

>scientific genius, the highest level of scientific creativity

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." -- St. Albert

[Anonymous No.5495630]

I think insightful minds could become more rare. I remember reading Einstein started thinking about time and other stuff at early age. Maybe the contemporary lifestyle is less prone to that kind of thought. Maybe not, lel xD