"If each generation has physicists like those but they're not so known it could mean there's a limit on what science can do." No, it means there's a limit on what physics can do.
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Replying to @johncarlosbaez
Yes, thanks for the clarification. Although I have the feeling that the same could be applied in chemistry or biology (but it's only a feeling). Mathematics, however, could be safe from that.
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Replying to @davidsuculum
For what it's worth, I think quantum mechanics was "easy" because while it required brilliant new ideas, there were huge wads of numbers waiting to be explained: all the spectral lines of all the elements just for starters, but lots more.
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Replying to @johncarlosbaez @davidsuculum
The Standard Model has done a great job of compressing most of our data on particle physics down to a theory with 25 unexplained fundamental constants. Dark matter and dark energy don't fit this theory, but we don't have piles of high-precision measurements about them...
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Replying to @johncarlosbaez @davidsuculum
... so people can make up lots of theories that seem to fit what we know about dark matter and dark energy, but the situation is murky. It may be neutrino experiments that really push us forward: they seem inconsistent at present. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/mystery/ …
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Replying to @johncarlosbaez @davidsuculum
I think it is absolutely crucial to acknowledge that there are indeed limits to what physics can do -- and we should rejoice in this, since those limits are what give physics its rigor. Lacking discrepant experimental data, we must acknowledge that we can only speculate.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @davidsuculum
That's the kind of limit we should rejoice in. What people worry about is that some riddles in physics will never be solved. I think some patience is called for.
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Replying to @johncarlosbaez @davidsuculum
It is certainly possible that some riddles in physics will never be solved, since some concern phenomena almost surely destined forever to remain beyond the reach of human observation. Even if we do correctly guess the answers to these riddles, we'll never know that we're right.
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I agree that some patience is called for. But I think some modesty is called for, as well.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @davidsuculum
I don't favor modest ambitions for the future of intelligent life in the universe. As we shorten the time scale modesty must increase. I'll die in a few decades, so I doubt I'll see most interesting questions in physics settled, and I've learned to live with that.
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I have, too. And I favor devoting much of one's energies to battles that may plausibly end in victory (of some sort or other) over timescales not vastly longer than a single human lifespan. Happily, mathematics abounds, and indeed has always abounded, in such battles.
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