[HN Gopher] Hawking Hawking
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Hawking Hawking
Author : chmaynard
Score : 108 points
Date : 2021-04-09 04:23 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.math.columbia.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.math.columbia.edu)
| modzu wrote:
| "We now live in an environment where the idea that there may be a
| deeper, more unified theory has become completely discredited"
|
| how so? can anybody elaborate on this for a non physicist? how
| can we have multiple incompatible theories?
| zuzun wrote:
| He's probably having the string theory landscape in mind. In
| string theory the properties of most things are explained by
| the shape of the extra dimensions, but there are so many
| possible shapes that string theorists believe all of them exist
| and we find ourselves in one that is compatible with life.
| thejohnconway wrote:
| Sounds like a unifying theory to me. Just not a very testable
| one.
| gowld wrote:
| It's not unified, is the point. It's a bunch of theories
| written down next to each other in one book.
| disgruntled101 wrote:
| It feels good to tear down others in order to boost your personal
| brand, especially if the others are dead. Doesn't it?
| timkam wrote:
| I think the author is tearing down the brand rather than the
| person. And I think it's good. For sure, Hawking's individual
| productivity was limited in later years, as was his control of
| what would be associated with this name. For sure, Cambridge
| tried to profit from Hawking's name in ways that are only
| remotely related to his research. For sure, other, similarly
| talented researchers contributed to many of Hawking's
| achievements.
|
| IMHO, it is important that somebody discusses these issues,
| because we should not glorify the intellect of individuals to
| such an extreme extent. Woit might hold some
| research-/community-related grudges, but I don't think this
| makes his post less relevant.
| ragnese wrote:
| Hawking and his "brand" did immeasurable good for humanity,
| though.
|
| First of all, as the author acknowledges, his work actual
| scientific work brought huge steps (leaps, even) in the field
| of cosmology. To say he doesn't stand up to Einstein is
| probably wrong from both directions: that Einstein was an
| untouchable intellect, himself; but also that Hawking wasn't
| as brilliant, which I think is clearly debatable.
|
| Second, Hawking's "brand" inspired generations of people to
| go into science. I have no doubt in my mind that we'd have
| fewer people in hard science if it weren't for him, his
| inspiring personal story, those books, and even his pop
| culture appearances.
|
| What was the author's point here? That Hawking may have
| written less of those books than we think? That he wasn't the
| top theoretical physicist in the world at the end of his
| life? Sounds like this guy just wants to hawk someone's book.
| gowld wrote:
| Indeed. It's absurd to say that Hawking was overly branded
| by way of a comparison to _Einstein_ who is an absolute
| meme.
| morelisp wrote:
| If you want to say someone is overly branded why would
| you not compare them to someone else also overly branded?
| morelisp wrote:
| > To say he doesn't stand up to Einstein...
|
| Who said this, though?
| ragnese wrote:
| First sentence, second paragraph:
|
| > Hawking was a huge world-wide celebrity, widely
| considered by the public and the press to be the modern-
| day analog of Einstein, dominating the field of
| theoretical physics.
|
| The implied message here and the rest of the article is
| that the public and the press are wrong about him.
| morelisp wrote:
| No, I don't think that's a fair reading. The article (and
| more importantly perhaps, the book the article is
| discussing) say perhaps Hawking _should not_ have
| dominated the field of theoretical physics for so long,
| especially in the popular imagination. That says nothing
| about where his sum contributions stand, only the
| direction his research took later in his career.
|
| If I were to read anything into the comparison, it's that
| - as also suggested in this thread - Einstein is perhaps
| also overblown compared to Einstein.
| koalala wrote:
| i got into physics because of a copy of a brief history of time
| my grandmother gave to me. whoever wrote it, i am grateful.
| basedgod wrote:
| so basically Hawking was a Frederick Hallam who bullied others
| into thinking he was important?
| sgt101 wrote:
| Or a man with children to support and a terrible disease ?
| gowld wrote:
| Or a brilliant scientist who earned the jealousy of some
| lesser scientists.
| bmer wrote:
| There's nothing about bullying in the article.
|
| Hubris, and personality cults? Yes.
| macando wrote:
| _He would have lost that one, too. It was hubris--but it sold,
| and it is part of his legacy. He showed younger colleagues how to
| chase grand theories and best-selling books. Hawking is not the
| only physicist guilty of hawking.
|
| The theory of everything is a false idol. Why should the
| universe, which grows more gloriously complex the more we see, be
| reducible to one set of equations and formulae? The point of
| science is not the holy grail but the quest--the searching and
| the asking. Let us hope there will never be a final theory_.
|
| Can't understand why people hope there won't be a final theory.
| Sounds demotivating and grim.
|
| Solving that puzzle will help with other puzzles.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Without getting philosophical, it would seem to me that if
| there was a single expression/equation/concept that explained
| everything - that it might be unknowable.
|
| ...because truly knowing it would create a new universe in that
| mind.
|
| In that way, maybe we are a "simulation" - ie. inside the mind
| the prior person who understood the principle and created the
| universe again.
|
| ...or it's just impossible to fully know a system from within
| that system.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I don't think this makes sense. A model doesn't become the
| thing it models.
| JoeyBananas wrote:
| In math, there are results that say something to the effect of
| "their is no singular program that can prove all interesting
| theorems." This is not usually seen as demoralizing by
| mathematicians, but rather as a guarentee that math will never
| be "solved." I would think that physicist feel similarly about
| the apparent non-feasibility of a unified physical theory.
| karmakaze wrote:
| The Godel incompleteness theorem basically says any axiomatic
| system can have questions posed within it that can be true
| but impossible to prove. If one could, then it must be
| inconsistent.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompletene
| ss_...
| tgv wrote:
| I take offense at this statement:
|
| > The point of science is not the holy grail but the quest
|
| If the quest is the point, you can do that anywhere, anytime,
| without regard of the outcome. The point is a glimpse of the
| truth. How we get there is largely irrelevant.
| taklamundak wrote:
| Good
| shillforhumanty wrote:
| I find it shallow to science just for the results. There is
| no truth without a process. I am offended that someone could
| actually take offense of said statement.
| accurrent wrote:
| I disagree with you. Personally I think science is very much
| about the process. The best science occurs when we disprove a
| hypothesis using experiments. An excellent example would be
| Michaelson and Morley experiment which disproved the
| existence of ether. The day science becomes about proving
| truth, it is no longer science, it becomes religion.
| timeslip1523 wrote:
| What? Science is about finding the truth, whatever it may
| be.
|
| The map is not the territory, and your ideas about the
| truth are probably wrong, don't get wedded to them. This is
| part of a process that only exists because we're interested
| in finding out the truth.
|
| Process without a goal quickly devolves into ritualistic,
| cargo-cult science. You do p=0.5 tests because That's What
| You Do.
| tgv wrote:
| But do you care about how they disproved it? Or do you care
| about the outcome? The process is interesting, can provide
| useful information, and a good process is the only way
| forward we have, etc., but it's not the point of science.
| What good is the process if the outcome is bad?
|
| This may be a linguistic thing, though. Perhaps we read
| that phrase in a different way. But to me, it very much
| echoes "it's about the journey, not the destination".
| ragnese wrote:
| The process is important, but _why_ is the process
| important? So you can reach an actual conclusion. Your
| point about proving vs. disproving has absolutely nothing
| to do with the statement in question. Both proving and
| disproving things are outcomes of science, not "the
| quest".
| ragnese wrote:
| I also balked at that statement. Of course the point of
| science isn't the "quest". Sure, for an individual scientist,
| the pursuit of knowledge may be enjoyable- and I hope it is.
|
| But the "point" of science is to cure the disease, understand
| how the plants grow, understand how atoms behave, how
| chemicals react, etc, etc.
|
| The author was clearly going for some kind of romantic,
| quotable, end thought, but I think it's clear he's no Hawking
| when it comes to that.
| telesilla wrote:
| Because a theory of everything, that encapsulates change within
| itself, would be a paradox?
| sgt101 wrote:
| I don't think so because it would be written in a system that
| would not be the thing. It would necessarily be an
| abstraction of reality because physics is not the universe.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The theory of everything is a false idol. Why should the
| universe, which grows more gloriously complex the more we see,
| be reducible to one set of equations and formulae?
|
| This is a pretty staggering mistake. The only way for the
| universe not to be reducible to one _set_ of formulae would be
| to involve a meddling supernatural and ineffable force. (If it
| 's not ineffable, it's just more formulae.) The goal of a
| unified theory is to have a single formula.
| jjgreen wrote:
| Godel demonstrated that mathematics is limited in scope,
| who's to say that physics is in that scope?
| sgt101 wrote:
| I thought that Godel demonstrated that there are theorems
| in a formal system that cannot be proved in that system.
| Physics is not expressed with the formalism that is
| reality, and there are different choices of formalism that
| can be used to express the concepts of physics. I don't
| think that Godel showed that there were statements that
| can't be proven in any system.
| wedesoft wrote:
| In math you can prove statements given a set of axioms.
| But in physics you can just validate things with
| experiments.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I don't think that Godel showed that there were
| statements that can't be proven in any system.
|
| He definitely didn't, since we know of systems that are
| capable of proving any statement. It's sufficient for the
| system to be internally inconsistent.
|
| Outside of that, we'd need to be a little more clear
| about what we mean by "there are statements that can't be
| proven in any system". I would bet that it is not the
| case that there is a single special statement with a
| fixed meaning which all consistent systems are incapable
| of proving. In the general case, I would expect that a
| statement, taken by itself, would constitute a consistent
| (if uninteresting) system. That system would be easily
| able to prove its only axiom.
|
| In my mind, the incompleteness theorem says that a
| consistent system of "sufficient power" cannot prove its
| own consistency. We could reify that into a statement
| that looks like "This system is consistent"; that's what
| I'm trying to rule out above by referring to "a statement
| with a fixed meaning". "This system" would refer to
| different things within different systems.
|
| Wikipedia says this:
|
| > The first incompleteness theorem states that no
| consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed
| by an effective procedure (i.e., an algorithm) is capable
| of proving all truths about the arithmetic of natural
| numbers.
|
| > For any such consistent formal system, there will
| always be statements about natural numbers that are true,
| but that are unprovable within the system.
|
| > The second incompleteness theorem, an extension of the
| first, shows that the system cannot demonstrate its own
| consistency.
|
| This allows for a single statement (say, a result about
| the natural numbers) that no sufficiently powerful
| consistent system can prove, but it doesn't require it.
| The sets of true-but-unprovable statements might be
| disjoint between two particular systems.
| sgt101 wrote:
| That's a really good framing. I like it.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > I would bet that it is not the case that there is a
| single special statement with a fixed meaning which all
| consistent systems are incapable of proving.
|
| A typical example -- now that I think about it, the
| _only_ example I have seen -- is the statement "this
| statement cannot be proved".
|
| Technically, it is not a single statement, because for
| different axiomatic systems A1, A2... you get different
| statements "this statement cannot be proved in A1", "this
| statement cannot be proved in A2" etc.
|
| For any given axiomatic system A, if the system _can_
| prove "this statement cannot be proved in A", it
| contains a contradiction: it just proved something that
| is _not true_. But if the system _cannot_ prove "this
| statement cannot be proved in A", we have an example of a
| statement that is _true but unprovable_ (in A).
|
| Godel's trick was inventing a way how a statement can
| talk about itself. Like, if you say "it is forbidden for
| a statement to talk about itself", Godel asks "but surely
| it is okay for a statement to talk about _another_
| statement that it can define unambiguously? " and then
| creates a statement that sounds like "the statement you
| get by unpacking the binary string 7461287618276312876873
| is not provable in A", but when you actually unpack
| "7461287618276312876873", you get "the statement you get
| by unpacking the binary string 7461287618276312876873 is
| not provable in A" again. So it talks about itself
| without actually using the words "this statement".
|
| What exactly this all means... I wish I would grok, but I
| don't. But I am pretty sure it means none of the usual
| "human brain has mystical magical quantum powers beyond
| mere computation".
| syops wrote:
| Assume consistency. Take the collections of all true
| statements about the standard model of the natural
| numbers and make these statements your axioms. Now every
| true statement about the standard model of the natural
| numbers is provable. It's a useless axiomatic system
| since there is no procedure for knowing if a statement is
| an axiom of not (that works for every statement). The
| second order Peano axioms are categorical and assuming
| consistency every true statement is 'provable'.
| syops wrote:
| Godel showed that a consistent, recursively enumerable
| axiomatic system capable of producing the standard model of
| natural numbers will have statements in which that
| statement is true in some models but not in other models.
| raverbashing wrote:
| > The goal of a unified theory is to have a single formula.
|
| No, this is ridiculous. Not even electromagnetism is a single
| formula
|
| Expecting we end up with "a single formula" is a ridiculous
| strawman.
|
| What we need is explain GR with a foundation in QM (or with a
| common base, which might - but probably won't - be String
| Theory)
| ddxxdd wrote:
| >Not even electromagnetism is a single formula
|
| "dF = 0" represents all of Maxwell's (homogeneous)
| equations in terms of "differential forms".
|
| With the right pattern recognition, the right definitions,
| and the right paradigm shift, you can compress multiple
| equations into a single equation.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| With the right assumptions, ignoring not a few
| significant details, to a useful order of precision, as
| long as you don't look too hard.
|
| Maxwell's equations are a nice continuous approximation
| to whatever it is that really happens.
|
| But it's not a good idea to confuse the map with the
| territory.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| A single formula is entirely possible. Simple rules in
| principle can generate the complexity of the universe we
| see. Look into the Wolfram Science Project to see how.
| pierrefermat1 wrote:
| Yes and all of his CA's are at least 3 conditional
| statements, but if you're inclined to count that as one
| formula with split definitions then anything can be
| bashed into "a single formula"
| raverbashing wrote:
| > Look into the Wolfram Science Project
|
| Ah yes that "theory" that ignores the complexity and
| quirks of reality
| plutonorm wrote:
| Would it? As a counter point - consider a universe where all
| possible things exist. We know from algorithmic information
| theory that most things are incompressible. Who is to say we
| don't live in an area within the totality of all possible
| things that happens to be in part entirely incompressible?
| [deleted]
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| If algortihmic infomarion theory applies to the universe:
|
| 1. All possible things won't exist
|
| 2. Entirely incompressible areas wont exist becuse that
| would mean they are completely noise
|
| 3. The univese willl have the simplest possbile "generating
| function", that is, fundamental theory.
| plutonorm wrote:
| 1: why? 2: why? 3: why?
|
| Your answer feels dismissive and yet at the same time
| naive.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| 1. Due to entropy our universe won't contain "all
| possible things"
|
| 2. It's the definition of "incompressible"
|
| 3. It's the fundamental principle of algorithmic
| information theory
| plutonorm wrote:
| Ok I see what you mean. I agree.
|
| But you have also misunderstood what I was saying wrt
| 'universe'
|
| Consider that this universe could be an instance of the
| structure that is formed by the algorithm that you are
| talking about. Consider that all possible alternate
| structures may also exist. Now consider that there exist
| 'Garden states' that are unreachable because they are
| incompressible. So might it not be possible to be
| conscious in a universe that has no generating function?
| The mathematical structure representing this universe
| exist in the abstract, timeless and static. Your life is
| a slice through this giant structure.
|
| Infinitely many of those structures exist, is there one
| out there that contains conscious beings that believe
| they inhabit an orderly universe but they actually
| inhabit one where the starting state of their universe
| was a garden state, containing a vast un-generatable
| structure that has informed the evolution of the universe
| from afar.
|
| But then it would still have a minimal function. Bugger.
| What if that universe there existed a capricious demon
| that used the information in the initial state to... Nope
| that doesn't work either. Ok you win :(
| [deleted]
| ncmncm wrote:
| Just because the levels we have got through are
| comprehensible to (some) humans and accessible to mathematics
| (some) humans can devise is no guarantee that the next level
| down, at higher energy and finer scale, will be, too. The
| bits we understand are accessible at energies we can muster,
| but there is no reason to expect we will evade extinction
| long enough to be able even to test string theory.
|
| We have been lucky thus far, but the fundamental nature of
| luck is that _it runs out_.
|
| Physics departments are already beginning to turn toward
| theology. In another two generations will there still be
| experiments in fundamental physics? What we can be certain of
| is that they won't close up shop and go home. They will still
| publish as many papers as required, and graduate post-docs.
| Ultimately, academic forms do not require factual correction.
| vidarh wrote:
| There are two separate things here:
|
| 1. whether we _will_ find a unified theory.
|
| 2. whether it is in theory _possible_ to find a unified
| theory.
|
| The comment you replied to addresses #2. They're saying
| basically that if the universe is constrained to some set
| of knowable rules, then it can be reduced to a set of
| formulae, which is pretty much the same as saying if the
| rules are knowable, they're expressible as a set of
| formulae.
|
| Whether this set of rules is simple enough that we are
| _able to_ is a separate issue.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Ultimately, the two are indistinguishable without a
| unified theory in hand.
|
| There is no guarantee that if a unified theory is
| possible, it is expressible in mathematics; or even
| necessarily in any form smaller than the universe itself.
| We have been lucky for a long time.
| vidarh wrote:
| You're right in one sense, in that if #2 is true, then #1
| is true in at least some sense.
|
| That is, if the universe is not ineffable - that is,
| unless there are unknowable components to the universe -
| then a "worst case" unified theory can be defined as
| itself. That is, the universe itself is an expression of
| itself.
|
| That we can express it in mathematics is a given in that
| case because mathematics is malleable; all you need to do
| - though it wouldn't be very useful - is to invent a
| symbol that represents the universe-as-is that by
| definition acts how the universe would act in a given
| context.
|
| Obviously that is not very interesting, but the point it
| makes is that if the universe is not ineffable, then the
| question is not _if_ a unified theory is possible,
| because in that case the universe itself is proof that it
| is, but _how much we can compress_ such a theory, and
| whether we can reduce it to something simple.
|
| As such whether or not _a_ theory is possible may seem
| like it doesn 't matter, but it's an important point to
| make, because it means that anyone making the argument
| that a unified theory is not _possible_ rather than
| arguing that a _simple_ unified theory is not possible is
| in effect arguing the universe is ineffable.
| ncmncm wrote:
| This is exactly what I mean when I say physics
| departments are turning toward theology.
| vidarh wrote:
| Well, it's exactly the opposite - it is pointing out that
| rejecting the possibility of a unified theory borders on
| the religious because it requires the universe to have
| supernatural qualities.
| ncmncm wrote:
| _Nobody_ asserts that a unified theory _is_ impossible.
| Obviously, no one can have any way to know such a thing.
|
| But anyone (e.g., I) can fail to discover one, even if
| given infinite time trying. It _is_ obviously impossible
| to distinguish (1) the condition of a conveniently-finite
| unified theory not being possible from (2) simply
| failing, collectively, to discover one. It is also
| impossible, in practice, to distinguish (3) a possible
| universe-sized theory from, e.g., (4) a necessarily
| infinite-sized one, having neither. We know that the
| universe itself has always succeeded at discovering a
| next state, but do not know whether it might at some
| time, e.g., find the next state incomputable, and stop
| evolving.
|
| Insisting that a unified theory conveniently smaller than
| the universe must be possible, having failed to discover
| one, is religion. Insisting you have actually got that
| theory, despite being utterly unable to check its
| correctness, is religion. That is the religion physics
| departments are flirting with already.
| morelisp wrote:
| When non-specialists use "set" they usually mean "finite set"
| or "finitely schematized set" or maybe at most "recursively
| enumerable set."
|
| There's no guarantee the universe is reducible to any of
| these (although in the likely case the universe is finite in
| space and time there will be some degenerate case of formulas
| for everything which "happened" - imo less satisfying than
| even an approximation via some small set of axiom schemata).
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Look at computer science. We design the computer, we make all
| the rules. Yet there is plenty of room for science.
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(page generated 2021-04-09 23:03 UTC)