Those Damn "Mathematicians" in Physicist's Clothing
Posted on Sunday, July 15, 2007 @ 18:51:21 UTC by vlad
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Dr. Jack Sarfatti [JS] writes: The problem with most mathematicians is that they cannot communicate well with many theoretical physicists. Also there are many mathematicians pretending to be theoretical physicists. The mathematicians make things too complicated in general with a huge infrastructure of overly abstract formalism that does not really add to the physics and retards the progress of real physics that connects to actual experiments.
Look at string theory and loop quantum gravity, a mere dribble of empirical insights like the stream from a man with an enlarged prostate! Never have so many "geniuses" (MacArthur Fellows) accomplished so little in the history of physics ;-)
[Anna] wrote: The problem with most physicists is that they need these damn mathematicians to prove their theories. Without mathematicians, many would be fantasy writers at best, LOL!
Anna
[JS]: Of course we need them. They are a necessary evil. Some of them are fine. Most of them are too enamored of their symbol games, which is fine for other pure mathematicians who get off on it. Physicists want the bottom line for quick application to phenomena. Some mathematicians like Marc Kac (one of my Cornell professors) and Roger Penrose are excellent. John Baez tries - not too bad in that regard.
Dr. Paul J. Werbos [PJW]: The problem with the establishment today is that boundaries between disciplines have become so extreme that they gut the very spirit of the scientific method, and make it uncertain whether the direction of basic science is forwards for now. (Toynbee has certainly shown how backwards periods are about as common as forwards periods in human intellectual history. Maybe more common, if you don't count the elimination of decadent civilizations as forwards intellectual motion.)
[JS]: Yes, I agree 1000%
[PJW]: When real connections between experimental physics and theory become part of "special unusual crossdisciplinary cooperation," we're in trouble. That's what gives us superstring theology, in my view.
The gaps between real mathematics and real physics are equally serious.
Some people say "physics today is more mathematical than it has ever been. Look at all the equations."
And some lawyers may say: "Congress and the law are more logical than they have ever been. Look at all the if-then statements and global propositions that they utter."
But do the if-then propositions and the equations make sense? Where is the discipline of logic? How much trust can we really place in hand-waving gone wild, and perturbation theory about zero elevated to the status of a rigid ritual?
Part of the problem is that mathematics itself has become a thing of many fragments.
But -- mathematics in the spirit of Von Neumann is not a matter of obscurantist formalism. It's a matter of clarity... of understanding what you are doing. And physics really could use more of that. In fact, it needs it more than ever, because an expansion of the understanding of what theories are possible, what make sense, and how to work out their empirical implications is badly needed.
[JS]: Yes, of course von Neumann, Roger Penrose, Kurt Godel and others are exceptions.
[PJW]: And hard to find, in truth.
Best of luck to us all,
Paul
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Andrew Beckwith [AB] re to JS: Recall if you will that Einstein needed the help of several mathematicians, including Hilbert,and Grossman, for computing the Ricci tensor correctly, so he could get results eventually leading to the full development of GR.
Calling mathematicians a necessary evil is flying right into the wall of the known historical record.
Arkadiusz Jadczyk [AJ]: True. "Newton laid the foundation for differential and integral calculus. His work on optics and gravitation make him the greatest scientist the world has known."
For more see e.g.
http://www.math.tamu.edu/~don.allen/history/calc1/calc1.html
[AB]: Just because string theory has high jacked main stream physics is not a refutation of mathematical input . The string theory fiasco is a critique of people who have become enamored to a certain style of presentation, above both the de facto mathematical content and the known physics.
Feynman hated string theory, not because of its mathematical content, but because it had the seeds of a religiously based inquiry, and the subsequent record bears his worst mis givings out to a spade.
I submit that rigourous mathematical inquiry as to string theory would demolish it as a unsubstainable development. And still even with that, there are aspects of string theory which are exceedingly useful. I.e. don't damn it just because of its mis placed content. Some of it will be blended into the next cosmological paradigm.
The matter here is context. Context either affirms or breaks the usefulness of mathematical physics. I saw a lot of that in Kiev, in the conference I went to from June 24 to June 30.
[JS]: Of course. I mean the many hack mathematicians that write on the physics archive with seemingly pointless papers that go nowhere and do not make contact with observations nor predict new effects nor elucidate understanding of known physics.
Also Grossmann who helped Einstein was his friend from the Olympia Academy Cafe group and he was much influenced by Einstein. Grossman is an example of what is missing these days with the exception of people like Roger Penrose and a few other really great minds. I was spoiled at Cornell by Wolfgang Rindler, Marc Kac, Paul Olum who were good at explaining math to physicists.
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[AB]: Needless to say the following. There are pathological examples everywhere of half wacked mathematicians who generate nonsense. I am going to talk about one person who is turning her work to physics after I told her the boo boo she was creating.... I am in correspondence with this mathematican to try to bench mark her methodology w.r.t. KNOWN physical processes...I will not get any thanks from her, but she will turn it to physics, and it will be much better work because of it.
Grossmann would have talked to Einstein in the beginning to avoid her error. That is what is missing today. Two way communication. At least this person is getting it right, but only after I pointed out the boo boo.
Most string theorists in an equivilent position would have told me to go to hell and not listened at all. THAT LACK OF COMMUNICATION is the problem, not mathematics itself
FINIS with this topic, Jack. Don't beat a dead horse. I think everyone gets it. Ranting about this will not solve the hairy problem. The problem needs to be addressed with via specific communication, which is lacking today. Ranting about this will make the string theorists dig in harder, and harder, and lead to no where but bad morale and much unpleasantness for nothing.
[Anna]: I think that the problem with damn mathematicians is that they believe that math holds a key to unlocking the universe. While most physicists dream of TOE, mathematicians dream of dividing god's brain into fractals. The Holy Grail here is MIND ALGORITHM Anna.
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