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So how does theoretical physics "work" exactly? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 week ago by ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net

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To explain, I'm just a big old ignorant layman, but with other scientific fields I at least CONCEPTUALLY understand how they came to their findings.

Like if a Geologist tells me something about rocks I'm like: "Okay, idk how geology works, but I assume you did some kind of experiments involving rocks so you probably know what you're talking about."

Or if a neurologist tells me something about the human brain: "Okay, idk shit about neurology, but I assume you did some kind of brain scan or took some brain samples or did some kind of scientific experiment thingy to know this stuff about brains. I don't know the exact details but I can at least abstractly understand the process by which you learned this thing you're telling me now."

Then I'll see some news report about some finding a theoretical physicists made and it'll be like: "The Universe is made of strings! And also the sun is a black hole! The universe is shaped like a doughnut!"

And my honky ass is just like: "How the fuck do you know that shit? What are you looking at? How did you figure that crap out?"

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[–] DogThatWentGorp@hexbear.net 17 points 1 week ago

So my understanding from people who have been in physics either making YouTube videos or just talking to me:

The headlines are usually over-sensationalized. String theory especially, to this day, hasn't made an experimental prediction irrc. In fact string theory specifically I don't think CAN be tested because of how it's laid out? It's got math to it but not a whole lot you can check. Doesn't make it bad I guess but it just hasn't produced results (yet... maybe).

But theoretical physics works very well and you can have it because physics is just math. So much fucking math. But just math none-the-less.

What makes theoretical physics valuable, then, is that it guides experimental physics.

Good example: Einstein did a lot of math and figured out the universe /should/ bend with gravity. And you could check that by seeing if light bends with gravity. Then they figured out "okay if we look at Venus next to the sun, it should look like it's in the wrong place according to the math we have now, but it should look like the right place according to the math Einstein did" and BAM it did. The sun bent the light coming from Venus.

If Einstein didn't do the theoretical work, not very likely anyone would've thought to potentially damage a telescope by looking at Venus next to the sun when they could just look at it any other time... Or something like that. Mightve been Mercury or a comet or something.

So anyways: if the theoretical physics can explain all existing observations and it can predict new observations, then all that math can be used for new theoretical work to tell scientists to look at things they usually wouldn't bother with because some NERD did a lot more math and saw something kinda funny.

There are definitely theoretical parts of other studies too like that, but physics gets its own very very very definite Theoretical section because it's literally just a bunch of math problems to begin with. You still need to confirm that your math is right through observation, but it's still math ultimately.