Fundamental physics sees worlds in grains of sand and infinities in hours

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“Fundamental” physics is just the physics of what we happen to be able to observe with the technology available to us at the moment. Newton was creating the fundamental physics of his time. And a century from now, even if in our generation we succeed in erecting a complete theory that explains everything we have ever seen, physicists will be working on “fundamental physics”. And we still won’t have a good enough handle on turbulence.

I sometimes think about how startling it must have been for our species to realize we orbit the sun, the earth is round, then to find that we live in a galaxy, one amongst so many it boggles the mind to imagine. Given all these revelations, when I think about what may still be revealed, it’s enough for me fall to my knees and cry about what a fool I almost surely am.<p>I dust myself off and carry on as best I can, hoping to learn a little more than I did the day before, knowing there are good folks by my side to share the path we’re on.

Humanity’s most extraordinary achievement is that we are still alive, despite having 8 or 9 countries with nuclear weapons

I&#x27;m truly humbled to be alive at a time when so many of the biggest questions that frustrated our ancestors have more or less accurate answers. We know about the big bang, the atom, black holes, the speed and nature of light--how majestic and beautiful it all is. Thank you to all the physicists that got us here, and godspeed to the physicists of the future!

&quot;If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.&quot; --Richard Feynman

An impressive achievement it is. But a general sentiment today seems to be that the process somehow has stalled or perhaps has slowed down dramatically - despite the fact that there are more scientists involved than ever before. Does this mean that we are at, or close to, the limit of what we can possibly know? Or even &quot;guess,&quot; like in the case of M-theory (or other quantum gravity endeavors)? Some say that fundamental physics is essentially done, and the future progress lies with biology (which, one hopes, will lead to further advances in medicine, in particular).

I find this a bit funny as we just can&#x27;t know what we don&#x27;t know.

Physics allows practical applications of mathematics, whether using sine&#x2F;cosine to explain wave motion or complex calculation of celestial objects, like planetary orbits. Yet it still cannot explain quantum mechanics, i.e. interactions of subatomic particles because there the general laws of physics do not work. So basically it just comes down to how much of physics knowledge that humanity has obtained up to now really explains the universe - and it seems there are still vasts gaps in science that still needs to be filled.

A view of the universe from Flatland.

I don&#x27;t think any of the physics we know is truly fundamental.

FWIW supersymmetry and string theory were never convincing to people who value science, empiricism, epistemology, etc. This sort of pseudo-scientific hype is necessary to keep the money flowing under capitalism. See also &quot;artificial intelligence&quot;, etc.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;0905.2658" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;0905.2658</a>

I think language and especially writing are more extrordinary achievements. Physics is useful for engineering purposes in a civilization. Civilization would not exist without language.

What if the cause of the cosmological redshift is continuous photon decay? Not galactic recession, but photon hubbling, or tired light?<p>www.bigcircusmodel.org

I mean it&#x27;s an achievement, for sure. Understanding what the universe is made of is pretty massive.<p>But is it the most extraordinary one?<p>I think more towards how we have escaped our constraints as animals:<p>- It&#x27;s a problem to eat too much now, contrary to the experience of all creatures other than modern people.<p>- We no longer live in one environment. In fact we create our own, in many places.<p>- We don&#x27;t mind if the sun goes down, we can replace it, temporarily.<p>- We can use energy that was captured a long long time ago.<p>- We don&#x27;t even need to reproduce all that much to survive. It&#x27;s pretty much an expectation that we&#x27;ll live past childhood, it&#x27;s considered a massively unfortunate tragedy if your kid dies these days.<p>- We can interact with people who are far away, as if they are right in front of us.

This is the classier form of the &quot;who would win in a fight between Thanos and Darkseid&quot; internet discussions. But yes, physics is amazing, but it doesn&#x27;t exist alone. Math is particularly important, but also chemistry and engineering all co-exist in a positive feedback loop.<p>(If I had to isolate the single greatest insight in the modern world, it would be Descartes introducing the notion of number as different than &quot;the length of a line segment&quot;. This change in perspective made possible all the math and physics that came after. This perspective is now so common as to be invisible, so for someone to see something so foundational, but so unknown, it is really remarkable.)

That&#x27;s a very euro-centric view to sat that &quot;humanity’s most extraordinary achievement&quot; is something that has been developed&#x2F;found out&#x2F;whatever you want to call it mostly in the parts of the world inhabited by white men.<p>Like someone else mentions in this thread, probably &quot;humanity’s most extraordinary achievement&quot; was standing upright in the Ethiopian plains, or language or even writing (which showed up in several parts of the world) but, again, to label a thing invented by white men (paid to develop deadly weapons, among other bad things) as the &quot;humanity&#x27;s greatest thing ever&quot; should not be ok.