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The role of this "era" may be in reformulating quantum physics and, separately, general relativity in new ways that make the ideas more accessible to more peopl

by j1vms 7y ago

The role of this "era" may be in reformulating quantum physics and, separately, general relativity in new ways that make the ideas more accessible to more people, and earlier in their lives. The goal could be to make of modern physics... the new classical physics. That is, we start to let go the crutches we still teach because it is thought that day-to-day life is more readily explained by Newtonian physics. We are now in era where most advances (e.g. smartphones among them) could not exist in their present form without modern physics. Once more people accept the concepts of modern physics as a way of life (perhaps intuitively?), we will be in fertile territory for any potential new revolution in physics.

gus_massa 7y ago
These theories have a very precise mathematical formulation and very weird unintuitive consequences. If you try to teach them without math, you only keep the weird unintuitive part and it's more unintelligible. For quantum mechanics you have to know eigenvalues and eigenvectors. This is studies in the first years of the university in a technical career. I'm not sure if it can be teach much earlier. For Special Relativity you have to know Minkowsky spaces. It's not so difficult, it can be moved to the first years of the university. For General Relativity you have to know curved spaces. It's not imposible to learn, but you can get a Ph.D. in Math or Physics without studding curved spaces.
- shuspect 7y ago
  We can keep math, but switch to better theories, with plausible explanations. A kind of Pilot Wave can explain quantum weirdness to layman people with ease. We can ditch theory relativity and calculate speeds relatively to CMB, which is much easier to understand. We can ditch Big Bang theory and, instead, accept that light is not immortal, because it ages with time. IMHO, Dipole Repeller and Shapley Attractor are much more attractive and easier to explain than Big Bang.
  - shuspect 7y ago
    It looks like we found answer to question in the original post: Foundations of physics have not progressed in 40 years because all other alternative theories are downvoted to death.
  - krastanov 7y ago
    All three examples you gave have problems or inconsistencies and this is why they are not used. You are being downvoted because you are suggesting teaching formalisms that are known to be insufficient simply because they fulfill your personal criteria of intuitiveness.
    - shpeedy 7y ago
      We have no perfect theory to explain everything, so it's just tradeoff, exchange of one set of inconsistencies for another set of inconsistencies, but with better intuition. I'm doing it here, in my country. The problem with current theories is that I understand them when I reading them. It's like piece of complex code or book with complex but boring text, like phonebook. I can follow it, when I read it, but I cannot reproduce it when book is closed. Can we teach a phonebook to kids? Yep. Is it useful? Nope. Recently, I did "quantum physics in one picture" experiment. Results are very good: lots of reposts, comments, interest in topic.
      - krastanov 7y ago
        But it is not a tradeoff in the cases you picked, rather one set of formalisms has drastically more inconsistencies than the other. E.g. pilot waves: you gain having real numbers (which I personally see little value in) and you gain having a more mechanistic intuitive source of the interference (which is indeed interesting). However describing multiple interacting entangled particles becomes incredibly difficult, describing annihilation and second quantization which is needed for the quantum behavior of fields is not completely done yet, and (what I consider the most substantial problem) you can not work with finite level systems (i.e. anything but a spinless particle in a box is very difficult to describe by pilot wave theory). In short, pilot waves were a worthwhile avenue of research, but we have seen they are incredibly cumbersome or even insufficient in many quantum mechanics problems.
        shpeedy 7y ago
        Yep. Pilot Wave theory is underdeveloped theory, but it helps to develop intuition. Walking droplets are even better for that. IMHO, it's better to use QM to solve QM problems in science, but use walking droplets and Pilot Wave Theory to develop intuition for others. Walking droplets are easy to demonstrate. Double slit experiment can be reproduced in school lab. This way, quantum physics can be taught in school for children of age 12+, so they will be ready to solve much more complex problems when they will be PhD. Entanglement is hard problem for PWT. Photos of entangled photons[0] are intriguing, because they look similar to behavior of walking droplets in some experiments (see dotwave.org feed). I hope, someone will be able to reproduce entanglement in macro. Currently, my top priority is to reproduce Stern–Gerlach experiment in macro (I suspect that interference between external field and particle wave creates channel, which guides particle into spot, but it better to see it once). Second priority is creation of "photons" in macro. Entanglement will be third. IMHO, all of them require microgravity to reproduce in 3D. [0]: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientists-unveil-first-ever-image-quantum.html https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientists-unveil-first-ever-i...
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Linear algebra (with diagonalization not just using gauss-jordan) could be pushed back to highschool for motivated students, and is in some countries. The coordinate system aspect of special relativity (the origin of time dilation and most of its "weird effects") only requires algebra. General relativity requires the full mechanisms of differential geometry but advances in things like differential forms are pushing this back to the undergraduate level. Overall I would say that it could be done but you would have to leave the unmotivated students behind.
  - abecedarius 7y ago
    Turtle Geometry gets as far as motion in curved spacetime using code in Logo. Dunno how many high schoolers have ever learned from it, but it's there. (It includes a nice concrete intro to vector algebra earlier, too.) Re quantum mechanics without many prerequisites, I'm a fan of Feynman's book QED.
phkahler 7y ago
One problem is that physicists are not interested in lowering the bar to understanding advanced theories. Some say it's all fairly simple once you spend a decade learning some very advanced math. The art of teaching is in making the material more accessible, and at that I dont think much progress has been made.
- shuspect 7y ago
  I'm trying to explain quantum physics using single photo[0] (in Ukrainian, but you will get it). It has good adoption among regular people. It based on real physical experiment, just labels are added. BUT scientist are insane when they see it. They argue that quantum physics cannot be explained using picture, because the only true way to explain quantum physics is using mathematics. [0]: https://scontent.fiev21-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/79956387_10217111666842810_2250780184154210304_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ohc=6Qp6FM2bGyAAX9f3Osq&_nc_ht=scontent.fiev21-2.fna&oh=02592c2656b3c981c4471c29872963f4&oe=5E96EBD9 https://scontent.fiev21-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/79956387_10...
- whatshisface 7y ago
  >physicists are not interested in lowering the bar to understanding advanced theories That is not true, geometric algebra is an example of a recent pedagogic improvement that is getting a lot of attention. The problem is that physics will never be easy enough for someone who is not prepared to think deeply, because it is one of the few areas where truly new ideas can be found. Virtually every area of learning involves repackaging concepts we have all known from childhood (people's motivations, stories, colors, that kind of thing) in specific ways. Major exceptions are physical tasks like learning to sew or play an insturment, and "esoteric" subjects like math and physics. In all of those cases you cannot learn by casually reading because the neurons in your brain are simply not prepared for it.
  - Koshkin 7y ago
    > is getting a lot of attention Not really. People look at it, marvel, and move on.
konschubert 7y ago
Also, let’s agree on a consistent interpretation of quantum theory. As long as we keep teaching the reckless hand-waving that is the Kopenhagen interpretation, we will keep confusing clear-thinking students.
- russdill 7y ago
  The historical attitude has been, "it doesn't matter, shut up and calculate". There's been quite a bit of push recently to try and nail down exactly what QM means rather than just what it calculates (See: Sean Carroll, etc)

by j1vms 7y ago

gus_massa 7y ago

These theories have a very precise mathematical formulation and very weird unintuitive consequences. If you try to teach them without math, you only keep the weird unintuitive part and it's more unintelligible. For quantum mechanics you have to know eigenvalues and eigenvectors. This is studies in the first years of the university in a technical career. I'm not sure if it can be teach much earlier. For Special Relativity you have to know Minkowsky spaces. It's not so difficult, it can be moved to the first years of the university. For General Relativity you have to know curved spaces. It's not imposible to learn, but you can get a Ph.D. in Math or Physics without studding curved spaces.

shuspect 7y ago
We can keep math, but switch to better theories, with plausible explanations. A kind of Pilot Wave can explain quantum weirdness to layman people with ease. We can ditch theory relativity and calculate speeds relatively to CMB, which is much easier to understand. We can ditch Big Bang theory and, instead, accept that light is not immortal, because it ages with time. IMHO, Dipole Repeller and Shapley Attractor are much more attractive and easier to explain than Big Bang.
- shuspect 7y ago
  It looks like we found answer to question in the original post: Foundations of physics have not progressed in 40 years because all other alternative theories are downvoted to death.
- krastanov 7y ago
  All three examples you gave have problems or inconsistencies and this is why they are not used. You are being downvoted because you are suggesting teaching formalisms that are known to be insufficient simply because they fulfill your personal criteria of intuitiveness.
  - shpeedy 7y ago
    We have no perfect theory to explain everything, so it's just tradeoff, exchange of one set of inconsistencies for another set of inconsistencies, but with better intuition. I'm doing it here, in my country. The problem with current theories is that I understand them when I reading them. It's like piece of complex code or book with complex but boring text, like phonebook. I can follow it, when I read it, but I cannot reproduce it when book is closed. Can we teach a phonebook to kids? Yep. Is it useful? Nope. Recently, I did "quantum physics in one picture" experiment. Results are very good: lots of reposts, comments, interest in topic.
    - krastanov 7y ago
      But it is not a tradeoff in the cases you picked, rather one set of formalisms has drastically more inconsistencies than the other. E.g. pilot waves: you gain having real numbers (which I personally see little value in) and you gain having a more mechanistic intuitive source of the interference (which is indeed interesting). However describing multiple interacting entangled particles becomes incredibly difficult, describing annihilation and second quantization which is needed for the quantum behavior of fields is not completely done yet, and (what I consider the most substantial problem) you can not work with finite level systems (i.e. anything but a spinless particle in a box is very difficult to describe by pilot wave theory). In short, pilot waves were a worthwhile avenue of research, but we have seen they are incredibly cumbersome or even insufficient in many quantum mechanics problems.
      - shpeedy 7y ago
        Yep. Pilot Wave theory is underdeveloped theory, but it helps to develop intuition. Walking droplets are even better for that. IMHO, it's better to use QM to solve QM problems in science, but use walking droplets and Pilot Wave Theory to develop intuition for others. Walking droplets are easy to demonstrate. Double slit experiment can be reproduced in school lab. This way, quantum physics can be taught in school for children of age 12+, so they will be ready to solve much more complex problems when they will be PhD. Entanglement is hard problem for PWT. Photos of entangled photons[0] are intriguing, because they look similar to behavior of walking droplets in some experiments (see dotwave.org feed). I hope, someone will be able to reproduce entanglement in macro. Currently, my top priority is to reproduce Stern–Gerlach experiment in macro (I suspect that interference between external field and particle wave creates channel, which guides particle into spot, but it better to see it once). Second priority is creation of "photons" in macro. Entanglement will be third. IMHO, all of them require microgravity to reproduce in 3D. [0]: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientists-unveil-first-ever-image-quantum.html https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientists-unveil-first-ever-i...
whatshisface 7y ago
Linear algebra (with diagonalization not just using gauss-jordan) could be pushed back to highschool for motivated students, and is in some countries. The coordinate system aspect of special relativity (the origin of time dilation and most of its "weird effects") only requires algebra. General relativity requires the full mechanisms of differential geometry but advances in things like differential forms are pushing this back to the undergraduate level. Overall I would say that it could be done but you would have to leave the unmotivated students behind.
- abecedarius 7y ago
  Turtle Geometry gets as far as motion in curved spacetime using code in Logo. Dunno how many high schoolers have ever learned from it, but it's there. (It includes a nice concrete intro to vector algebra earlier, too.) Re quantum mechanics without many prerequisites, I'm a fan of Feynman's book QED.

phkahler 7y ago

One problem is that physicists are not interested in lowering the bar to understanding advanced theories. Some say it's all fairly simple once you spend a decade learning some very advanced math. The art of teaching is in making the material more accessible, and at that I dont think much progress has been made.

shuspect 7y ago
I'm trying to explain quantum physics using single photo[0] (in Ukrainian, but you will get it). It has good adoption among regular people. It based on real physical experiment, just labels are added. BUT scientist are insane when they see it. They argue that quantum physics cannot be explained using picture, because the only true way to explain quantum physics is using mathematics. [0]: https://scontent.fiev21-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/79956387_10217111666842810_2250780184154210304_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ohc=6Qp6FM2bGyAAX9f3Osq&_nc_ht=scontent.fiev21-2.fna&oh=02592c2656b3c981c4471c29872963f4&oe=5E96EBD9 https://scontent.fiev21-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/79956387_10...
whatshisface 7y ago
>physicists are not interested in lowering the bar to understanding advanced theories That is not true, geometric algebra is an example of a recent pedagogic improvement that is getting a lot of attention. The problem is that physics will never be easy enough for someone who is not prepared to think deeply, because it is one of the few areas where truly new ideas can be found. Virtually every area of learning involves repackaging concepts we have all known from childhood (people's motivations, stories, colors, that kind of thing) in specific ways. Major exceptions are physical tasks like learning to sew or play an insturment, and "esoteric" subjects like math and physics. In all of those cases you cannot learn by casually reading because the neurons in your brain are simply not prepared for it.
- Koshkin 7y ago
  > is getting a lot of attention Not really. People look at it, marvel, and move on.

konschubert 7y ago

Also, let’s agree on a consistent interpretation of quantum theory. As long as we keep teaching the reckless hand-waving that is the Kopenhagen interpretation, we will keep confusing clear-thinking students.

russdill 7y ago
The historical attitude has been, "it doesn't matter, shut up and calculate". There's been quite a bit of push recently to try and nail down exactly what QM means rather than just what it calculates (See: Sean Carroll, etc)