🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1370047@hpnmdla.sr.hp.com> alexa@hpnmdla.sr.hp.com (Alexander Anger) writes:

>Now, you can tell that I am not a particle physicist.  Some would argue
>that it is because my mathematical skills floundered somewhere between
>complex analysis (the branch cuts were the last straw) and group theory.
>I simply lost interest in a field where the role of "physics" and
>"mathematics" seemed to have somehow gotten transposed.  I once thought
>physics was to be a search for truth based on experimental observation,
>and not a mental excercise in symbol manipulation.  But some theoreticians
>forgot.  My vote is against the SSC, and for materials science, and for
>plasma research, and for high-Tc superconductivity research, and for
>chaos theory (because at least that's - IMHO - fun), and for quantum
>device research, and for the hundred or so other fundamental research
>projects which would ordinarily have to make way for this $8 billion
>(and you know it'll really cost twice that much) research behemoth.  And
>if enough others start thinking along my lines, then indeed, the search
>for these elusive quarks will have finally found their rest in the 
>human spirit where they belong (along with tachyons and whatever those
>weird gauge-particles are supposed to be).  

I find your otherwise laudable response to be marred by grumpy remarks
about the use of math in theoretical physics.  Of course I would,
wouldn't I, since I'm a mathematical physicist.  But you simply weaken
your case by introducing the suggestion that you dislike particle
physicist because of traumatic experiences with branch cuts at an early
age.  As Galileo said (roughly), the laws of physics are written in the
language of mathematics.  Many of the best theoretical physicists (let
me list Archimedes, Newton, Laplace, Gibbs for a start) were
forced to develop new branches of mathematics to describe the laws of
nature, and this mathematics has ALWAYS seemed complicated and difficult
at the time.  It is more sensible to argue that particle physics is a
problematic use of government money, not because it uses yucky math, but
because it costs a lot of money and seems unlikely to produce
significant practical technological breakthroughs in the near future --
as you pointed out. 

Indeed, if you check, plasma research, solid state physics, and
"chaos theory" (better to say "nonlinear dynamical systems theory") are
all avid consumers and producers of fairly fancy mathematics.    

Particle physics is beautiful and fascinating, and there's no point to
speaking of "tachyons" (which do not exist) and "weird gauge particles" (e.g.,
photons!) as if they were a pack of pesty little cockaroaches.  It only
undermines your otherwise valid points.