this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
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Nobody tell this guy about the state of modern physics.
Wow wow wow! Modern physics is based on things that have experimental proof.
You are probably thinking of the theoretical physicists that are constantly speculating on things like what exactly Dark Matter is, BUT the presence of "dark matter" and basically all other phenomenon that we do not have great explanations for are actually, literally and demonstrably real.
Something makes dark matter. Something causes the Weak Force to only care about left-handed particles (or was it right-handed? bah my memory!), we just need to know what. Even things like particles having spin and basically anything you would learn from a competent school is demonstrably true all the way back to Newtonian physics. Newton wasn't wrong, it just breaks down at larger scales. Even General Relativity has some issues, and some argue the Standard Model may need significant revisions ... but that is still EXTREMELY grounded in reality.
Paleontology could only DREAM of having the proof modern physics has.
It would be similar to if we had actual recordings of dinosaur calls, and we just had to reverse-engineer what sounds the species made to figure out which one.
Paleontologists can only dream of having similar levels of direct evidence to sort through.
I ain't no physicist, but the last time I've checked, it was a theory galore, with theories upon theories about whether there could even exist a single definite theory of everything, with stuff not being observable by it's nature (quantum particles), other stuff not being observable by it's nature (beyond observable universe), and theories based upon the event of literal creation of the universe itself, which is in turn theorized by linearly extrapolating a single phenomenon all the way down to zero (correct me if I'm wrong on this one, shit's fascinating).
Finding how dinosaurs sounded like, on the other hand, doesn't take much theorizing - just take some well preserved remains, approximate breathing cavities structure and model it with something like a pink trombone. I'm oversimplifying, of course, but, the point is, it's miles closer to us, time and space wise, than whatever physicists are rambling about.
Am physicist. Quantum particles are observable. Often things are observable because you can observe their effects. Can't measure a top quark, but you can measure the electrons and photons when it decays. And their energy and how often it happens lines up with theories developed to describe some different thing.
Theory of everything can't exist, be abuse Gödels incompleteness theorem. But no physicist doubts that all the microscopic stuff gives rise to the macroscopic.
The beginning of the universe you can see in the microwave background or something. So again that's just experimentally motivated theory.
Some of us come up with random theories because it's fun. But most of the time the theory is aimed at explaining some thing that we observe and will coincidentally make predictions about other stuff which we can test.
Finding out how dinosaurs sounded like is dope af from a physicists perspective.