Does physics make things up to make the math work?

[Magical Realist]

I would've thought no, being that science is still an empirical field of research that is based on discovering and explaining what is actually there. But here is a brief opinion by a prestigious astrophysicist who claims it's true--that physics makes things up to make the math work out! What?

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/everything-physics-made-up

"Researching a cosmic mystery like dark matter has its downsides. On the one hand, it’s exciting to be on the road to what might be a profound scientific discovery. On the other hand, it’s hard to convince people it’s worth studying something that’s invisible, untouchable, and apparently made of something entirely unknown.

While the vast majority of physicists find the evidence for dark matter’s existence convincing, some continue to examine alternatives, and the views in the press and the public are significantly more divided. The most common response I get when I talk about dark matter is: “isn’t this just something physicists made up to make the math work out?”

The answer to that might surprise you: yes! In fact, everything in physics is made up to make the math work out."

 

[exchemist]

I would've thought no, being that science is still an empirical field of research that is based on discovering and explaining what is actually there. But here is a brief opinion by a prestigious astrophysicist who claims it's true--that physics makes things up to make the math work out! What?

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/everything-physics-made-up

"Researching a cosmic mystery like dark matter has its downsides. On the one hand, it’s exciting to be on the road to what might be a profound scientific discovery. On the other hand, it’s hard to convince people it’s worth studying something that’s invisible, untouchable, and apparently made of something entirely unknown.

While the vast majority of physicists find the evidence for dark matter’s existence convincing, some continue to examine alternatives, and the views in the press and the public are significantly more divided. The most common response I get when I talk about dark matter is: “isn’t this just something physicists made up to make the math work out?”

The answer to that might surprise you: yes! In fact, everything in physics is made up to make the math work out."

 

[James R]

yes! In fact, everything in physics is made up to make the math work out.

It is important to understand that physics (and science, more generally) is in the business of creating theoretical models that can be used to make predictions about the outcomes of experiments and observations that match what is observed in "real life".

The theoretical entities and constructs in physical theory - the things that we can't directly observe - are indeed 'invented'. When a result of inventing the idea of, say, the electron, or of something called an 'electric field', is that we are able to accurately predict the outcomes of a whole range of real-world experiments and observations, then the 'invention' is considered to be a useful feature of our models and, as a result, it tends to be retained in the literature. On the other hand, a lot of theoretical constructs end up in the garbage bin, precisely because they fail to accurately predict the observed behaviours of real-world systems. For instance, no scientist believes in phlogiston or the luminiferous ether these days. No scientist believes you can chemically transform lead into gold either. Why not? Because lots of people tried it and it doesn't work. Moreover, we have better theories these days that suggest it is impossible, for all kinds of reasons, while also (of course) correctly predicting the outcomes of a host of other processes and effects.

Dark matter was 'invented' because without it we can't explain a number of real-world observations. For example, we can't explain the rotation curves of regular galaxies. The visible matter we see in galaxies doesn't have sufficient gravity to do the job. We therefore hypothesise that there is some other kind of matter that doesn't emit or reflect light, but which still gravitates in the same way known forms of matter do.

The introduction of dark matter certainly "makes the math work" for galaxies. This is not enough, though. Scientists aren't satisfied with a theoretical construct that, so far, appears to be undetectable other than by its gravitational influence. That's why millions of dollars are currently being spent around the world on experiments that are attempting to detect dark matter particles (whatever they may be).

It is possible, of course, that all those expensive experiments will come to nothing. Dark matter isn't the only theoretical construct out there that might explain the galaxy rotation curves and the like. It just seems like the best bet at the moment. If we search for dark matter and can't find it, then we'll need to invent something else to 'make the math work'. In reality, such efforts are going on in parallel with the search for dark matter.

This sort of thing is business as usual for science. The aim of science is to refine our theoretical (and, yes, mathematical) models to obtain the best possible match between theory and observation. When the theory doesn't match the observation, the theory has to be tossed out.

It is a fundamental error to assume that scientists are free to just "make stuff up", at random. Scientific theories have to be useful to become part of the scientific canon. The ultimate test of all theories in science is how well (or poorly) they fare when their predictions are subjected to real-world tests.

 

[James R]

I might add, since this is Magical Realist's thread, that it would be useful to compare what the pseudosciences (e.g. UFOlogy) tend to do.

Pseudosciences are heavily into the business of just making things up to make their pre-existing beliefs "work". So, for instance, they invent extravagant ideas of intelligent plasmoid alien beings flying transdimensional spacecraft, landing only every now and then to anally probe some hick farmer or his cow. The difference between the pseudosciences and the science is that the pseudosciences seldom check their 'theories' against reality, even at the most basic level. As a result, the pseudosciences are awash with fantasy piled on mistake piled on poor judgment. There is no mechanism for self-correction, like there is in the sciences, so errors and falsehoods persist in the community for years without correction (or even after correction by outsiders).

 

[Magical Realist]

I might add, since this is Magical Realist's thread, that it would be useful to compare what the pseudosciences (e.g. UFOlogy) tend to do.

Skeptics don't have a monopoly on science. Ufologists use scientific methods and instruments to investigate uaps and learn about their nature. The AARO of the Pentagon does the same thing and determined that metallic spheres flying up to Mach 2 are seen all over the world. They actually examined the video and radar evidence for them and didn't make them up to make their equations work out. Good old fashioned empirical science ya know..

 

[James R]

Skeptics don't have a monopoly on science.

Did you mean that science doesn't have a monopoly on skepticism?

Ufologists use scientific methods and instruments to investigate uaps and learn about their nature.

A few of them do. The nature of things that are not yet identified is hard to pin down, however. It is only after identification that we can really start to discover the nature of something.

Ufologists have had at least 70 years to learn about the nature of UAPs. What have they learned so far? Have they learned that the vast majority are mistaken sightings of everyday objects, for instance?

The AARO of the Pentagon does the same thing and determined that metallic spheres flying up to Mach 2 are seen all over the world.

It has determined no such thing, as you know.

What has been determined is that there is some video footage and a number of anecdotes regarding things that look a bit like metallic spheres and which look like they are flying. Their speeds are mostly unmeasured, although there are some guesses relating to individual cases.

They actually examined the video and radar evidence for them and didn't make them up to make their equations work out. Good old fashioned empirical science ya know..

Yes. And so far they have essentially reported "No signs of anything extraterrestial, so far. Not much to see here, folks." You must be so disappointed.

 

[Magical Realist]

regarding things that look a bit like metallic spheres and which look like they are flying.

Nope.. didn't say they "look abit like metallic spheres" nor that they "look like they are flying" at all. Here's what they actually they said:

"Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the U.S. Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), said the “metallic orbs” are the most common type of UAPs and are reported from “all over the world.”

Kirkpatrick said the spherical objects, which are about one to four metres in diameter, are not an “apparent threat to airborne-asset safety.” They are, however, capable of “very interesting apparent manoeuvres.”

The orbs have been spotted flying at several different velocities. Some do not appear to move at all while others have been observed in active flight. The UAPs do not show evidence of “thermal exhaust,” like heat created by a vehicle’s engine.

Based on footage, the orbs can be white, silver or translucent. They are usually observed at an altitude between 10,000 and 30,000 feet, around the same height as most commercial aircraft."--- https://globalnews.ca/news/9746110/metallic-flying-orbs-nasa-pentagon-panel-ufos-uaps/

Their speeds are mostly unmeasured, although there are some guesses relating to individual cases.

Really? Where did you hear that from? Give me your source.

Here on the "uap reporting trends" slide of the AARO the velocity is given as "stationary to Mach 2". That doesn't sound unmeasured to me. Remember, they're using science.

https://www.aaro.mil/UAP-Cases/UAP-Reporting-Trends/

 

[James R]

Magical Realist,

You're drifting off topic, onto your usual track of repetitive UFO nonsense. Please try to stay on topic. Put the UFO stuff in your UAP thread. Besides, everything you just wrote has been addressed previously, by myself and others here. Your insisting that Sean Kirkpatrick believes in little green men (or whatever woo) doesn't make it so. Nothing he said supports your claim that the reported "metallic spheres" are anything otherworldly.

Really? Where did you hear that from? Give me your source.

If it is your claim that there are reliable measurements of the speeds of the reported "spheres", then we can discuss your claim in the UFO thread. Present your data and I'll take a look at it.

I know that some people have reported their subjective guesstimates about the speeds of some of these objects, based on certain assumptions about the video footage and so on, but actual measurements? Are there any?

Here on the "uap reporting trends" slide of the AARO the velocity is given as "stationary to Mach 2". That doesn't sound unmeasured to me. Remember, they're using science.

What is it about "reporting trends" that you don't understand? Reporting something doesn't make it a fact.

 

[Yazata]

Does physics make things up to make the math work?

Yeah, I guess that I'd say sometimes, in a way.

JamesR's point about models is a good one and I'd guess that physics' beloved mathematical formulae start out as models. Each formula is meant to summarize some particular relationship that is observed in whole classes of empirical observations that seem to the physicists to be similar in some way.

But somewhere along that twisty path the summary formulae are hypostasized, and they start to be imagined as if they were distinct substances or realities. They transform from being models that summarize a set of observations, into being the underlying laws of nature to which all physical phenomena must somehow conform.

We saw that illustrated in the 'Something From Nothing' arguments, in which today's physicists' understanding of quantum mechanics somehow become the fundamental principles of reality itself, with deeper ontological reality even than space-time-matter physical reality and somehow able to explain the origin of the latter.

I would've thought no, being that science is still an empirical field of research that is based on discovering and explaining what is actually there.

The trouble might be that they don't know what's actually there. All they know are their observations. Pronouncing what's actually there requires a leap.

We see that illustrated in quantum mechanics, which possesses a great apparatus for predicting observations, albeit probabilistically, but limited ability to tell us what is actually there on the micro-scale, such that the observations come out as they do.

 

[Magical Realist]

You're drifting off topic, onto your usual track of repetitive UFO nonsense.

You were the one who brought up ufology and attacked it as a pseudoscience and then mocked me for believing in it. Don't attack my beliefs and lie about what the AARO said and then expect me not to respond to that.

What is it about "reporting trends" that you don't understand? Reporting something doesn't make it a fact.

Yes..they are reporting real metallic spheres that have been observed all over the world and that reach speeds of Mach 2. You think they are just making that up? No..

 

[Magical Realist]

Yeah, I guess that I'd say sometimes, in a way.

JamesR's point about models is a good one and I'd guess that physics' beloved mathematical formulae start out as models. Each formula is meant to summarize some particular relationship that is observed in whole classes of empirical observations that seem to the physicists to be similar in some way.

But somewhere along that twisty path the summary formulae are hypostasized, and they start to be imagined as if they were distinct substances or realities. They transform from being models that summarize a set of observations, into being the underlying laws of nature to which all physical phenomena must somehow conform.

We saw that illustrated in the 'Something From Nothing' arguments, in which today's physicists' understanding of quantum mechanics somehow become the fundamental principles of reality itself, with deeper ontological reality even than space-time-matter physical reality and somehow able to explain the origin of the latter.



The trouble might be that they don't know what's actually there. All they know are their observations. Pronouncing what's actually there requires a leap.

We see that illustrated in quantum mechanics, which possesses a great apparatus for predicting observations, albeit probabilistically, but limited ability to tell us what is actually there on the micro-scale, such that the observations come out as they do.

I guess I had just always assumed the scientific realist view of scientific theories. I didn't realize there are actually two opposing views on this:

"An important strand in the story of the philosophy of science in the past three decades has been a struggle between realists and anti-realists. The debate turns around the most adequate way of interpreting scientific theories that refer to unobservable entities, processes, and properties. Realists maintain that the entities postulated by scientific theories (electrons, genes, quasars) are real entities in the world, with approximately the properties attributed to them by the best available scientific theories. Instrumentalists, on the other hand, maintain that theories are no more than instruments of calculation, permitting the scientist to infer from one set of observable circumstances to another set of observable circumstances at some later point in time."---- https://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~delittle/Encyclopedia entries/scientific realism.htm

Prediction vs explanation iow. What is the standard we apply to a scientific theory---that it allows accurate predictions to be made about a phenomenon? Or that it is an actual truthful representation of some objective and observer-independent reality? Ideally I guess both would be the best.

 

[Yazata]

I guess I had just always assumed the scientific realist view of scientific theories

I've always leaned towards scientific realism myself. I'm reasonably well convinced that things like electrons really exist in physical reality. (I'm less sure about quarks, if individual 'naked' quarks have never been observed. Do quarks really exist or are they just a conceptual convenience of some kind?)

We really run into difficulties with quantum mechanics. Are we supposed to think that the success of Schroedinger's wave equation means that Schroedinger waves actually exist? But Heisenberg's matrix mechanics produces good predictions too. So if we are going to hypostasize one of them into a purported physical reality, which do we choose? Or do we avoid hypostasizing altogether, and scientific realism along with it, and just treat both of them as useful mathematical instruments for calculating what observations will be?

I didn't realize there are actually two opposing views on this:

"An important strand in the story of the philosophy of science in the past three decades has been a struggle between realists and anti-realists. The debate turns around the most adequate way of interpreting scientific theories that refer to unobservable entities, processes, and properties. Realists maintain that the entities postulated by scientific theories (electrons, genes, quasars) are real entities in the world, with approximately the properties attributed to them by the best available scientific theories. Instrumentalists, on the other hand, maintain that theories are no more than instruments of calculation, permitting the scientist to infer from one set of observable circumstances to another set of observable circumstances at some later point in time."---- https://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~delittle/Encyclopedia entries/scientific realism.htm

Prediction vs explanation iow. What is the standard we apply to a scientific theory---that it allows accurate predictions to be made about a phenomenon? Or that it is an actual truthful representation of some objective and observer-independent reality? Ideally I guess both would be the best.

There's been a lot of talk in the recent philosophy of science about what's called Structural Realism. Put simply, this is the idea that what physics describes with its mathematical heiroglyphs aren't things in any physicalist sense. The things-in-themselves are unknowable Kantian-style noumena. What the mathematics captures instead are the interactions, interrelationships and behavior of these unknowables, with each other and ultimately with our senses and instruments (which is how we know about them).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism_(philosophy_of_science)

"The philosophical concept of (scientific) structuralism is related to that of epistemic structural realism (ESR).[3] ESR, a position originally and independently held by Henri Poincaré (1902),[8][9]Bertrand Russell (1927),[10] and Rudolf Carnap (1928),[11] was resurrected by John Worrall (1989), who proposes that there is retention of structure across theory change. Worrall, for example, argued that Fresnel's equations imply that light has a structure and that Maxwell's equations, which replaced Fresnel's, do also; both characterize light as vibrations. Fresnel postulated that the vibrations were in a mechanical medium called "ether"; Maxwell postulated that the vibrations were of electric and magnetic fields. The structure in both cases is the vibrations and it was retained when Maxwell's theories replaced Fresnel's.[12] Because structure is retained, structural realism both (a) avoids pessimistic meta-induction[β] and (b) does not make the success of science seem miraculous, i.e., it puts forward a no-miracles argument.[13]"

I have to say that I'm not sure what I think about all this. Structural realism is an interesting and somewhat plausible way out of the realism-instrumentalism dilemma you spoke of up above, but I'm not 100% convinced. Not only is my own thinking a work-in-progress, so is the whole philosophy of science, I guess.


nsNS

 

[Pinball1970]

physics makes things up to make the math work out! What?

Yes and no but you have to be careful with the terminology.

“Making stuff up” sounds like a kid inventing a green goblin who plays the harp at the bottom of the garden.


It is not like that.


Historically scientists and philosophers wondered at what things were made of and how it all worked.

They had little to go on as far as experimentation went, where does the sun go at night? Why is fire hot? Why are some things solid and others not?


Today the questions are more along the line of “how come galaxies have flat rotation curves?”

Either GR is wrong and needs an update or there is something else out there that is not detectable in the usually way.


The contenders right now are MOND and DM. No hints as yet at the LHC for any candidate particle for DM.


Euclid, Gaia, JWST among others are performing measurements on distant galaxies and teams are seeing if the data that comes back fits into their favoured model.


Jury is out as some data fits one model and another data set fits with the other, some data fits both depending on how the data is manipulated! I posted on this here.


The job of these researchers is to separate the wheat from the chaff and settle on the model that best explains the data, perhaps there is a model that perfectly fits this and models all the other unanswered questions in science.


If those models are not yet on paper, then someone is going to have to “make them up!”

 

[exchemist]

Yes and no but you have to be careful with the terminology.

“Making stuff up” sounds like a kid inventing a green goblin who plays the harp at the bottom of the garden.


It is not like that.


Historically scientists and philosophers wondered at what things were made of and how it all worked.

They had little to go on as far as experimentation went, where does the sun go at night? Why is fire hot? Why are some things solid and others not?


Today the questions are more along the line of “how come galaxies have flat rotation curves?”

Either GR is wrong and needs an update or there is something else out there that is not detectable in the usually way.


The contenders right now are MOND and DM. No hints as yet at the LHC for any candidate particle for DM.


Euclid, Gaia, JWST among others are performing measurements on distant galaxies and teams are seeing if the data that comes back fits into their favoured model.


Jury is out as some data fits one model and another data set fits with the other, some data fits both depending on how the data is manipulated! I posted on this here.


The job of these researchers is to separate the wheat from the chaff and settle on the model that best explains the data, perhaps there is a model that perfectly fits this and models all the other unanswered questions in science.


If those models are not yet on paper, then someone is going to have to “make them up!”

Yes. What MR is trollishly objecting to is that the maths of physics, i.e. the model, makes predictions. That is precisely the job of models in science.

 

[Magical Realist]

I suppose the question becomes, if the role of science is just to provide us predictive models of reality, does it really provide us with any knowledge of that reality? This is a debate currently going on now:

 

[exchemist]

I suppose the question becomes, if the role of science is just to provide us predictive models of reality, does it really provide us with any knowledge of that reality? This is a debate currently going on now:

That is certainly a far better question than the rather foolish assertion that "everything in physics is made up to make the math [sic] work out".

It seems obvious that the models of science do provide knowledge of physical reality, because they work, that is to say, they accord reliably with experience. But that is not the same thing as saying these models are reality, since we know from history and philosophy that they can never be assumed to be.

As a student of chemistry, I have always been aware of this, since in chemistry we often have more than one model for the same thing, and choose the best one for the issue at hand. We do so in the knowledge that these models are idealised or simplified approximations, for something too complex to portray with analytical exactness. (Chemistry is messy, compared to physics.) My chemistry teacher at school, Derek Stebbens, often used to say "this is one model", rather than "you are right", when people gave good answers in class. I have never forgotten that.

rpenner, if you remember him, used often to say, "the map is not the territory". The map imparts knowledge of the territory, but is obviously not itself the territory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map–territory_relation

 

[Write4U]

Yes. What MR is trollishly objecting to is that the maths of physics, i.e. the model, makes predictions. That is precisely the job of models in science.

When a "prediction" comes true, is that not called "proof"?

When Einstein predicted that light bends in a gravitational field, it was later proved by observation.
Is that not the definition of proof, prediction and verification?

And if the maths provide the proof, does that not mean the maths are correct?

 

[Magical Realist]

When a particular prediction that a theory makes is proven true, it does not prove the theory. Why not?

"Suppose a theory proposes that all swans are white. The obvious way to prove the theory is to check that every swan really is white – but there’s a problem. No matter how many white swans you find, you can never be sure there isn’t a black swan lurking somewhere. So you can never prove the theory is true. In contrast, finding one solitary black swan guarantees that the theory is false. This is the unique power of falsification: the ability to disprove a universal statement with just a single example – an ability, Popper pointed out, that flows directly from the theorems of deductive logic."--- https://www.newscientist.com/people/karl-popper/

 

[Write4U]

"Suppose a theory proposes that all swans are white.

But that is not a proper scientific prediction and certainly not based on a mathematical equation. It is mere speculation from ignorance.

 

[Magical Realist]

But that is not a proper scientific prediction and certainly not based on a mathematical equation. It is mere speculation from ignorance.

It's a theory based on evidence. And it is falsifiable. All scientific theories are falsifiable and therefore never proven. Proof only exists in math.