I'm not a theorist, and especially not a theorist working towards a grand unifying theory. I've only read about 1/3 of the article, but I hated every moment. There seems to be an infinite supply of folks working on unifying theories. It reminds me of children playing a game of "imagination", sitting in a circle, scratching their chins, beginning every sentence with "what if..." and then failing to even finish the thought before something else distracts them. Reading this has induced a small existential crisis. I hate shit like this. Shit so obviously a shot in the dark you have to wonder who is funding it. So I took a step back and looked at the possible implications of my research and decided that it offers only a tangential benefit to society. Indeed, we are overwhelmingly past the point where an individual can make noteworthy contributions to the knowledge base of physics. Case in point: the long list of co-authors for any significant paper coming out of CERN. Now I feel like going to give out canned food to the homeless people I share the sidewalks with on my way to campus. I think I need more coffee, and maybe a session at the gym.
I'm finding that the best cure for badfeels is action. Action like you described. You'll always feel good about having worked out. You'll always regret not doing it.Now I feel like going to give out canned food to the homeless people I share the sidewalks with on my way to campus. I think I need more coffee, and maybe a session at the gym.
Damn. Sorry for crisis-inducing thread, not what I intended in the slightest. Talking about contributions to society: you can only judge it within current knowledge-base and paradigm. For infinite amounts of time, you might fall short to one of the lucky shot-in-the-dark theories, but you have something to show. Tangential benefit now is better than vague promise for a time when we will be able to make some pure-string superconductors or whatever hypothetical matter is now making CM physicists all giddy ;). To be frank, I don't know how to feel about that myself. To me it, theoretical physics, was always closer to people like my father; theorist who spent a lot of his life trying to go out of his way to design an experiment to confirm his reasoning. Turning into something as you described it, kids playing imagination and getting distracted, is a path that I can only with a word 'reviling'. I was actually asking some of my professors about that after we had a short explanation of various contribution factors regarding articles (a side-note during a final lecture break). It's not uncommon for some groups to have these people added there for stuff like LaTeX formatting or minor subset of experimental data (especially student contributions). While large teams are pretty much a thing, you can shave quite a few people from co-authors list. That's a case of having some students on 'roadie' duty while giving them a publication contribution. That's nepotism rather than physics being impenetrable for a single person.the long list of co-authors for any significant paper coming out of CERN.
Oh, you're good, no problem. I just needed some breakfast. :) I agree with everything you've said. There is definitely an element of frustration at not being able to formulate a decent refutation to the content in the paper without it costing me the next year of my life. But yes, this type of legwork is necessary to unlock the next tier of secrets of the universe. It's just likely that only one direction will prove fruitful, when we've already embarked on so many different paths. That need not diminish from the endeavor though. The closest thing I've encountered to this is group renormalization theory. It takes a semi-classical approach, and it's still a nightmare that I never want to revisit. Tying in relativity? Aw, hell no! Still can't believe you're only 17, dude.Here is my problem: if adding more and more particles that will produce a higher number of degrees of freedom should make it more and more localized, how would that work for something like contained electron gas, plasma etc. Where does 'boundary' of one particle set/macroscopic object ends and a new one starts, for the purpose of judging what constitutes as this localized system?
Namaste, or however you are supposed to tell people to have a good meal ;). Thanks! Especially for group renormalization theory link, I had no idea about it. But after reading up on the topic, it does present more questions regarding the article, aside of showing me how much I'll enjoy both "Complex Analysis and Special Functions I" and "Differential Geometry I" next semester :D. Main question that bothers me now is "what was a trade-off for authors model reasoning if emergence of macroscopic objects in both space, time and space-time is the result of increasing the number of degrees of freedom?". It seems like a fairly expected thing to mention when talking about renormalization.