“Consider a Mayan astronomer, he suggested… the Maya had a theory of astronomy that enabled them to explain their observations and to make predictions long into the future. It was a theory in the utilitarian modern spirit: a set of rules, quite mechanical, which when followed produced accurate results. Yet it seemed to lack a kind of understanding. “They counted a certain number and subtracted some numbers, and so on,” he said. “There was no discussion of what the moon was. There was no discussion even of the idea that it went around.”
“Now a “young man” approaches the astronomer with a new idea. What if there are balls of rock out there, far away, moving under the influence of forces just like the forces that pull rocks to the ground? Perhaps it would make possible a different way of calculating the motions of the heavenly bodies. “Yes,” says the astronomer, “and how accurately can you predict eclipses?” He says, I haven’t developed the thing very far yet.” Then says the astronomer, “Well, we can calculate eclipses more accurately than you can with your model, so you must not pay any attention to your idea because obviously the mathematical scheme is better.”
Most people would rather read about the wild theory with balls of rock than the refinement of 1 decimal place in the calculation of the location of Venus.
Feynman was also a very strong critic of purely theoretical physics. See, e.g., his criticism of string theory:
"I don't like that they're not calculating anything. I don't like that they don't check their ideas. I don't like that for anything that disagrees with an experiment, they cook up an explanation—a fix-up to say, 'Well, it still might be true.'"
Feynman himself was a theorist, but the domain he worked on, mostly quantum electrodynamics, made very specific numerical predictions which were possible to test.
The problem (or maybe feature) of theory is that it can be accurate to the model but also wrong. It is the constant unwinding of accepted physics that helps us progress.
Well maybe if the guy's idea was explored and iterated as long as the other, entrenched one, it would yield far better results. After all, the proof-of-concept often performa worse in the beginning, but so many awesome technologies started off that way.
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Feynman discussed this:
“Consider a Mayan astronomer, he suggested… the Maya had a theory of astronomy that enabled them to explain their observations and to make predictions long into the future. It was a theory in the utilitarian modern spirit: a set of rules, quite mechanical, which when followed produced accurate results. Yet it seemed to lack a kind of understanding. “They counted a certain number and subtracted some numbers, and so on,” he said. “There was no discussion of what the moon was. There was no discussion even of the idea that it went around.”
“Now a “young man” approaches the astronomer with a new idea. What if there are balls of rock out there, far away, moving under the influence of forces just like the forces that pull rocks to the ground? Perhaps it would make possible a different way of calculating the motions of the heavenly bodies. “Yes,” says the astronomer, “and how accurately can you predict eclipses?” He says, I haven’t developed the thing very far yet.” Then says the astronomer, “Well, we can calculate eclipses more accurately than you can with your model, so you must not pay any attention to your idea because obviously the mathematical scheme is better.”
Most people would rather read about the wild theory with balls of rock than the refinement of 1 decimal place in the calculation of the location of Venus.
Feynman was also a very strong critic of purely theoretical physics. See, e.g., his criticism of string theory:
"I don't like that they're not calculating anything. I don't like that they don't check their ideas. I don't like that for anything that disagrees with an experiment, they cook up an explanation—a fix-up to say, 'Well, it still might be true.'"
Feynman himself was a theorist, but the domain he worked on, mostly quantum electrodynamics, made very specific numerical predictions which were possible to test.
The problem (or maybe feature) of theory is that it can be accurate to the model but also wrong. It is the constant unwinding of accepted physics that helps us progress.
Well maybe if the guy's idea was explored and iterated as long as the other, entrenched one, it would yield far better results. After all, the proof-of-concept often performa worse in the beginning, but so many awesome technologies started off that way.