Kevin's Watch

Coppernicus, Newton, Einstein, Darwin, these people were game changers - by the time they had done their work the world was a radically different place to before they started, and was never going to be seen in the same way again.

My question is - is there any big enough 'gaps' in our knowledge, or indeed places where it is likely that we have got it sooo wrong - that there is still room for 'game changing' science. If this is the case, do we have any future Einstein's around today that we can single out for special mention. I thought about Stephen Hawking - but what has he actually done? I am not aware that any of his work is paradigm changing stuff. Richard Dawkins idea that we are all just machines for the replication of genes is ground-breaking in a sense, but doesn't really alter the conception of the world in the collective public psyche. Tim Berners-Lee (that unsung hero who developed the world wide web - and then gave it away free) deserves special mention, but this is technology that has changed the world, not an idea that so radically chalenges accepted knolwedge that peoples understanding of existence can never be the same again, and so cannot really count.

Any ideas folks. Will this be done again in the future or are we going to spend forever dotting the i's and crossing the t's in our search for progress.

I think there are. Gravity, dark matter/energy. Why is the universe, against all expectations, accelerating in expansion?
But the thing I expect sooner is at a slightly different level...the practical/applied part. For instance, right now there is a huge gap between what we know about quantum and what we can use it for. The same is true for many things DNA and neurochem/bio/physics.

The thing is that if you're talking only about physics, the territory that needs new science becomes ever more abstract and inaccessible to the layperson. Einstein's work is pushing the limits of popular understanding, and that was 100 years ago. How many ordinary people actually understand what quantum mechanics is?

The everyday stuff, the macro-scale physics that we can appreciate most easily, is already well enough understood that there's nothing big to gain there. Newton and his contemporaries got most of that right, a long while back.

The only way the general public are really going to take on board big new science is in applications, not theory. Technology that uses the science to do things that people thought were impossible.

Murrin wrote:The only way the general public are really going to take on board big new science is in applications, not theory. Technology that uses the science to do things that people thought were impossible.

Agreed.

--A

Alan Lightman writes about the different aspects of science. we still need theoretical scientists to pose the questions and look for answer while the prcticle scientists tackle the concrete stuff.

I'm quite amazed in some ways by your answers guys. I can see situations where our entire understanding of how reality is will be overturned time and time again before it is all over. In the time of Newton and right up to the early 20thC. could anyone have predicted that Einstein would so overturn the explanations of Newtonian mechanics to the point where the actual existence of gravity would be called into question? Surely the same could happen again (and again and again). Do we really know so much.......

The thing is, Einstein's General Relativity work only really has relevance on the scale of planets and galaxies. On the scale of what we encounter every day, Newton's work is so close to reality that Einstein can be entirely ignored. It's only the stuff that has impact on our lives that we notice. Any new tech can be life changing, but new theories are just becoming increasingly obscure.

Take for example Quantum mechanics. It's a great predictive tool (so I understand at least) but some of it's predictions are still (I believe) regarded as so outlandish that is is not highly likely that at some point a replacement theory/hypothesis will be put forward that will overturn it entierly making clear what is currently obscure. To quote John Archibald Wheeler in The annals of the New York Acadamy of Sciences "Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, that when we grasp it - in a week, a decade, a century or a millenium, we will all say to each other 'How could it have been otherwise.'"

peter wrote:Take for example Quantum mechanics. It's a great predictive tool (so I understand at least) but some of it's predictions are still (I believe) regarded as so outlandish that is is not highly likely that at some point a replacement theory/hypothesis will be put forward that will overturn it entierly making clear what is currently obscure. To quote John Archibald Wheeler in The annals of the New York Acadamy of Sciences "Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, that when we grasp it - in a week, a decade, a century or a millenium, we will all say to each other 'How could it have been otherwise.'"

I suspect that it will eventually be revolutionized, though it is so successful at some things it will always remain useful for some, maybe many things. Why? Because I think Wheeler is nuts...there is no reason to believe in a simple underlying idea...the whole history of advancement points to massive complexity and obscurity. Yes, E=mcsquared is simple in statement...but the complications to really understand it are enormous, and the next steps were worse, and the following far more likely to be more so, not less.

Vraith wrote:

peter wrote:Take for example Quantum mechanics. It's a great predictive tool (so I understand at least) but some of it's predictions are still (I believe) regarded as so outlandish that is is not highly likely that at some point a replacement theory/hypothesis will be put forward that will overturn it entierly making clear what is currently obscure. To quote John Archibald Wheeler in The annals of the New York Acadamy of Sciences "Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, that when we grasp it - in a week, a decade, a century or a millenium, we will all say to each other 'How could it have been otherwise.'"

I suspect that it will eventually be revolutionized, though it is so successful at some things it will always remain useful for some, maybe many things. Why? Because I think Wheeler is nuts...there is no reason to believe in a simple underlying idea...the whole history of advancement points to massive complexity and obscurity. Yes, E=mcsquared is simple in statement...but the complications to really understand it are enormous, and the next steps were worse, and the following far more likely to be more so, not less.

Eventually be revolutionized?

Stating that "the whole history of advancement points to massive complexity and obscurity" is, I believe, incorrect. Even Einstein had stated "Out of clutter, find simplicity." and "From discord, find harmony." as personal rules.
And Thomas Mann pointed out, "Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject".

Quantum physics is undergoing revolution now and has been for over a decade. The emphasis being on string theory. And the person responsible for the biggest revolution is Edward Witten. His work on unifying the 5 proofs of string theory (at the time) by standing all the equations on their head and proving that they were all, essentially, the same - just "viewed" from different angles was an incredible "push" forward.

The difficulty with quantum physics has long been that it does not fit into the mathematics of the general theory of relativity (which is NOT E=mc2 - that is the mass-energy equivalence, which came out of the special theory of relativity). The real problem being gravity. String theory is the closest thing to providing a model that allows the two to mesh. While it comes very slowly, the work is advancing. And once it is figured out, endless possibilities for expansion and development in fields from medicine to energy to space travel open.

Edward Witten would seriously get my nomination. (And, more importantly, he probably has the nomination of a lot of his peers!)

For a very good interview with him, check this out:

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/view-witten.html

Enjoy!

Witten is amazing, no doubt.
But I see what's going on now as the slogging build-up, more evolution...the explosive/revolutionary moment not yet here, and by eventually mean literally at some unpredictable when-point in the future...maybe now...now...now, maybe in 39 years.
The e=mcsquared was just a kind of well-known mid-point in process. As in Newtonian was easier to understand than Quantum, and Quantum will almost certainly be easier to understand than what replaces it. And also as analogy about the hidden facets of simplicity; it is simple to say, short, inclusive, to the point...now tell me all the things it means/implies.

And order/simplification may be first steps to mastery, but they are NOT mastery. By themselves they are only reduction. Ask any musician if knowing all the notes makes them a master.
[though really, btw, I don't think he means anything like things are simple underneath...he means a variation of the old wisdom "If you can't explain it simply to someone, you don't understand it yourself."...though he easily could mean both those things]

I'm clearly out of my depth here guys, and won't pretend otherwise - but if I could just make a couple of obsevations re 'simplicity'. Take the abundence of species we see in all there complexities and inter-relations, yet Darwins Theory is the very model of simplicity from which all further complexity can be derived. Similarly the 'Conservation' laws of matter and energy. Who ever saw and then stated that energy could never be created or destroyed saw with a piercing eye into the very heart of Creation and brought back a simple truth that even numskull like me can easily take on board. Will not simplicity of this sort be at the heart of all complexity when the final i is dotted and t crossed (if that day ever arises ).

Maybe it's just me [that happens once in a while...maybe more often than I suspect...hmmm...can't decide if that'd be cool or just sad], but I find the idea that a simple general statement of concept is the "heart" of things topsy-turvey, and complexity just a matter of point of view, or a lack of superior understanding, problematic.
Let's keep Darwin/evolution for example.
Let's suppose one has a mini-world full of lizards in perfectly controllable lab conditions/environment: How much would one have to understand completely, in total, to 100% guarantee the evolution of an albino peacock? AFAICT the answer is that no amount of knowledge, not even perfect and complete, could do so.
Even if at root only one or two simple rules summarize/contain/describe, generally, everything, I don't think that means complexity is an illusion from our perceptions or lack of knowledge. I think it means complexity is the factual, actual, material truth no matter how simple the rules.
And how "simple" can something actually be if only the supremely committed, focused, talented, intelligent can begin to comprehend it?
I mean practically everyone everywhere understands [or think they do] 1+1=2. People all over the U.S. at least go ballistic every so often about cashiers that can't do simple addition, rage against politicians and teachers. It's simple, right? No...it isn't. It's just memorization of digits and mechanics, a simplicity that makes them comfortable in knowing/understanding. Yet how many people do any of you know that really understand it? That can explain the reasons/functions/concepts, the hows, whats, whys of that most basic equation?
I suppose the claim could be made that perhaps people are, fundamentally, stupid...but without some real evidence that statement just as easily supports that things aren't simple. Cuz if they were simple even stupid us could understand it.

Think I'll have to concede on this one Vraith - it seems the only simple thing in the Universe is ME! Read last night about the "Infinity Hotel" and how to demonstrate there are only one third the number of odd numbers as even ones. Now thats starting to get weird.....!

peter wrote: Think I'll have to concede on this one Vraith - it seems the only simple thing in the Universe is ME! Read last night about the "Infinity Hotel" and how to demonstrate there are only one third the number of odd numbers as even ones. Now thats starting to get weird.....!

NOOOOOOO! You CAN't concede! I never learn anything if I'm not arguing with peeps! And everyone knows, [it's very simple, ] that it's all about me.