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If the universe is infinite why can't i see stars everywhere I look?

Astrodob

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Alien 13

Alien 13

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I agree that there is lots to still discover especialy in chemistry/biology (we cant even agree yet as to whats the best diet)  but physics is limited by our current technology we cant build a collider big enough to go deeper into quantum particlles and space reaserch is very ineficient having to launch with liquid fuel rockets.

Alan

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ronin

ronin

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Well lets just hope that someone(hopefully me ;) ) finds out these mysteries.I laugh when people say and not only people,but sometimes even teachers that there is nothing to discover in physics(the funny thing is that biology,chemistry and other sciences are coming to this point too).I think we still have a lot to discover and nowadays there are a lot less people interested in science therefore,there are a lot less scientists which meens logically discoveryes will not be made so often.Its the people not science and most people aren't even educated science(i am lucky to study them specifically and on there own) much.Yes we still have things to discover,but we need scientists to discover them.

As information you are on an astronomy forum, quite a number here will be qualified physicists BSc, MSc, PhD, and with some years experience in the field.

Look also at it this way, studying physics does not on it's own lead to new discoveries. Who taught Einstein Relativity?

You cannot study something not yet discovered.

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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As information you are on an astronomy forum, quite a number here will be qualified physicists BSc, MSc, PhD, and with some years experience in the field.

Look also at it this way, studying physics does not on it's own lead to new discoveries. Who taught Einstein Relativity?

You cannot study something not yet discovered.

That's a nice point and very well said. We can't strictly say 'nobody did' since EInstein built up his theory on the back of established physics. He wanted to save Maxwell's equations and felt them too elegant to be wrong. But, still, nobody taught him relativity, that's true. Indeed the idea had occurred to at least two other physicists but they lacked the courage to consider it to be anything more than a mathematical game. So another queston might be, 'Who taught Einstein courage?'

Olly

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Scott

Scott

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I am pleased tp find u agree with me.Heh but I must say there are a lot less scoentists then there were.

Is there a lot less scientists?

Think of all the inventions,medical break throughs, bearing in mind that not so many years ago, an electrician would quite probably be concidered a scientist . Discounting all the inventors,doctors,etc. I'd still think there are a hell of a lot of theoretical scientist and then you look at cern. probably more scientists in that one complex than in all the world when Newton was kicking around apple cores.

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Astrodob

Astrodob

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In Newtons time they didn't have to

go to school....

Science is not popular I know from school I am the only one who likes physics and there are only 3 other people eho i know that like chemistry like me there is pnly one guy who i know that likes math(we study a lot of arithmetic our math is a lot more harder than english when I was in england I asked what u study and it was so easy I hardly belived it for example:we learn trigiometry when we are 15\16.so it would be more if we did simpler math,but we don't).Anyway we are at a turning point our civilization is at its highest,destruction follows.

Many will agree on that..

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Astrodob

Astrodob

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Physics,Astronomy and Math are to me the queens of science It's sad to see they are the least popular most people (who like science) like Chemistry then Biology.Chemistry to me is Physics it's absolutely the same even biology could be considered as physics.Physics and Math are everywhere...

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Tiki

Tiki

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Physics,Astronomy and Math are to me the queens of science It's sad to see they are the least popular most people (who like science) like Chemistry then Biology.Chemistry to me is Physics it's absolutely the same even biology could be considered as physics.Physics and Math are everywhere...

I forget who (Eddington perhaps), but someone famous did say: " All science is physics, everything else is just stamp collecting"

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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One famous quotation goes, 'All biology is chemistry, all chemistry is physics and all physics is mathematics.' Not for a moment do I say that I agree with this but it does merit a moment's thought.  :grin:

Good to know that maths is thriving in the US. How about spelling, punctuation and grammar?

Olly

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Paul M

Paul M

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Maybe it's just me with my dunces hat on but I'm not of the belief that mathematics can describe everything in the universe.

Like musical notation might be used to convey music, mathematics can be used to describe the physical world.

Similarly musical notation certainly isn't required to understand music or manipulate a tune. Might it be that maths is the same to physics?

I see maths as being a tool used by great minds to create all possible universes on paper but will maths be the ultimate tool for understanding everything?

Perhaps I'm not putting it across very well. I see maths as a language (which I don't understand!)

Take the simple mechanics of moments and a balance. When I was a boy playing with mecanno I became aware of the relationship of the distance of a mass from the fulcrum on either side of the balance.

I never measured anything or weighed anything but I could have explained the mechanics of the relationship.

It wasn't until high school I learned the mass x distance equation and thought ah! I already understood that just never quantified it.

I'm certain many of my classmates could have quoted the equation but never understood what they were talking about.

Nah, this maths isn't all it's made out to be.

And now I'm off outside where my telescope is awaiting a night pilot before the baying mob arrive here to lynch me :D

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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With math that easy IT's impossible for someone to not like it...

When I find something easy it's usually because I'm not trying hard enough.

Paul M, I like your post very much and I think you have an ally in a certain Albert Einstein. Relativity was primarily conceptual for him. He had to learn the mathematics afterwards. He thought in physical terms at first, asking himself what you might see if tavelling alongside a propagating light wave. One of the reasons quantum theory is so puzzling is that it is entirely non-conceptual. Perhaps that was one reason for Einsetein disliking it. He was at his best when thinking like a physicist, as one of his biographers put it. The maths of quantum theory is beyond me but I wonder if, one day, there will be a conceptual model? (Bohr's original 'planetary' model of the hydrogen atom, almost instantly dismissed, attempted this. He wondered if quantization arose from the number of wavelengths that would fit into a discrete orbit. It doesn't, but that's what I mean by a conceptual model. A fear expressed my many thinkers is that the quantum world is simply too different from the macro world to be accessible to brains which evolved only in the macro world. We can all hope that this will prove not to be the case but maybe analogy will come to the rescue one day.

Olly

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Cath

Cath

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There are certainly other ways to seeing/understanding it all, numbers are certainly very useful for certain jobs, but as was said, with things like music, or flying a plane, or riding a bike, you can use all the math you like to describe them as accurately as you like but the only real way to feel and really understand is to experience/see them from a completely different view point.

You can paint by numbers, or you can paint !

Would we even have aircraft today if atoms hadn't formed themselves into mind boggling complex forms that taught themsevles to fly (birds and such like) ?

I'm not saying maths isn't an important tool for us (because it certainly is), I'm just saying there are other ways to view things that in my opinion can give you an insight that math just can't attain.

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Alien 13

Alien 13

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There are certainly other ways to seeing/understanding it all, numbers are certainly very useful for certain jobs, but as was said, with things like music, or flying a plane, or riding a bike, you can use all the math you like to describe them as accurately as you like but the only real way to feel and really understand is to experience/see them from a completely different view point.

 

You can paint by numbers, or you can paint !

 

Would we even have aircraft today if atoms hadn't formed themselves into mind boggling complex forms that taught themsevles to fly (birds and such like) ?

 

I'm not saying maths isn't an important tool for us (because it certainly is), I'm just saying there are other ways to view things that in my opinion can give you an insight that math just can't attain.

 

Quite right you could have a photograph of sunflowers hanging on your wall or one of Van Gogh`s paintings i know which i would have and which best describes what a sunflower is.

Alan

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Isn't riding a bike one of those things maths can't describe? I thought that the physics of the gyro was not properly understood and bikes are gyroscopically stabilized.

Olly

Just because something can't be explained just now does not mean that it will remain inexplicable for ever.

I did think that gyroscopes were pretty well understood though. I'm no mathematician (far from it!), but this looks pretty comprehensive?

http://www.real-world-physics-problems.com/gyroscope-physics.html

There are certainly other ways to seeing/understanding it all, numbers are certainly very useful for certain jobs, but as was said, with things like music, or flying a plane, or riding a bike, you can use all the math you like to describe them as accurately as you like but the only real way to feel and really understand is to experience/see them from a completely different view point.

You can paint by numbers, or you can paint !

Would we even have aircraft today if atoms hadn't formed themselves into mind boggling complex forms that taught themsevles to fly (birds and such like) ?

I'm not saying maths isn't an important tool for us (because it certainly is), I'm just saying there are other ways to view things that in my opinion can give you an insight that math just can't attain.

I love hearing the late great Richard Feynman talking about this stuff. Here he is waxing lyrical on this subject.

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Paul M

Paul M

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He has become something of a hero for me.

I first read about him in a book of essays from the great physicists of the last century regarding their position on String Theory.

After finding more of his writings it soon transpires that he was better known for his anecdotes than his academic work. Although many of his anecdotes were of educational if not scientific value.

I have never been a huge reader of big books but Feynman motivated me read many of the biographical works on him.

This telling video makes me smile:

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