Re:I think string theories are wrong
by GFK_of_xmaspast on Tuesday July 14, 2015 @09:12PM
(#9889155)
Lasers are terrible examples, they were invented in the 60s and an absolute upper bound on their introduction into the consumer market is 1982.
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by maxerickson on Tuesday July 14, 2015 @09:14PM
(#9889162)
They stand on theory that started to come together ~1900.
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by DougMerritt on Tuesday July 14, 2015 @09:49PM
(#9889253)
To be more specific:
> Albert Einstein first broached the possibility of stimulated emission in a 1917 paper
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by mannykannot on Tuesday July 14, 2015 @11:32PM
(#9889561)
You need more than stimulated emission for a laser. I think that figuring out how to create a population inversion in an excited state is the best candidate for the inception point of the laser as a specific possibility, and I believe the honor for that achievement goes to Townes circa 1950.
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by DougMerritt on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @12:39AM
(#9889745)
Nothing is ever simple. Before Townes' 1951 population inversion, there's also Kastler's 1950 invention of optical pumping, and Dennis Gabor's 1947 invention of holography (yes, 1947, before lasers, which stimulated development of lasers)
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by mannykannot on Wednesday July 15, 2015 @08:23AM
(#9890900)
Interesting. On following up on your links, I see that while optical pumping was invented first, Townes was able to make the first maser by using an electric field to separate out an excited state of ammonia, achieving a population inversion without pumping. http://home.fnal.gov/~kubik/FermilabWebsiteDocs/Masers.ppt
The closer you look, the less the history of innovation looks like a simple sequence.
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by GFK_of_xmaspast on Tuesday July 14, 2015 @09:54PM
(#9889274)
If you're gonna be that way, you could have said that they date back to Newton and the prism.
"Lasers? yeah, the theory dates back to the first micro-organism with a photo-sensitive organelle. Took a little while to put it together tho. '
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by maxerickson on Tuesday July 14, 2015 @10:00PM
(#9889299)
I don't think I'm being "that way", I think that's more or less the meaning of theory used in the quote. There is a pretty straight line between lasers and the photoelectric effect.
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by DougMerritt on Tuesday July 14, 2015 @10:34PM
(#9889391)
> There is a pretty straight line
I strongly disagree, and that gives very little credit to the various brilliant people involved in the various stages of the history. Everything seems obvious in retrospect.
But it doesn't change the timeline very significantly, so it's a side issue.
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by maxerickson on Tuesday July 14, 2015 @10:43PM
(#9889426)
I don't understand it well enough to call any of it obvious.
My meaning was more that it was foundational, not that the stuff that built from it was obvious (fortunately I drew my straight line backwards, not forwards)
> I get the feeling that proposing something bold and wrong in physics results in a 'crackpot' label,
> So if you want a career, stay away from making bold predictions.
Or you could avoid making bold predictions, and instead do science: Run experiments, report results.
Don't you do experiments to test hypotheses? An infinite number of experiments are possible, so you have to pick one. A novel prediction made by a theory is a good place to start.
Re:I think string theories are wrong
by johncolanduoni on Tuesday July 14, 2015 @10:40PM
(#9889419)
And there lies the issue that string theory came up against: it has not produced any novel and feasibly testable predictions. But to be fair, most of the speculative fundamental physical theories suffer from the same issue. The origin form of the following experiment, proposed by an opponent (though not an aggressive one) of string theory, requires an interferometer larger than the solar system, arranged with precision accuracy that would make Rosetta reaching the comet look like a cakewalk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-orbit_experiment_with_las...
"What worries me is that it takes about 70 to 100 years for a theory to evolve into commercially viable consumer products. Laser are good examples. So, if we are tying up our brightest scientific minds with theories that cannot lead to empirical validations, can we be the primary technological superpower a 100 years from now?"
...
I get the feeling that proposing something bold and wrong in physics results in a 'crackpot' label, effectively ending your career. So if you want a career, stay away from making bold predictions. Stay away from testable new ideas!
Perhaps the attraction of string theory is that it never leads to testable specific -- and therefore possibly wrong -- predictions. There are infinitely many permutations of string theory, all of which are mathematically potentially valid. So you can publish forever on string theory and never be wrong.
Reminds me of the old Star Trek TNG episode where they killed the Borg collective by giving it an impossible but mathematically valid shape to contemplate. It contemplated, and contemplated, and contemplated, and... stopped doing anything else. Since the halting problem is unresolvable, it's possible to contemplate within the bounds of any Turing-complete mathematical system forever.