First collisions at the LHC with unprecedented Energy! (Ask a particle physisicist)

[pocaracas]

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What I say above is just my standard opinion which I have voiced many times IRL





Generally, I think that good philosophy of physics is important, because we do want more from our science than a black box of equations which reproduces certain experiments - because as David Deutsch rightly asks in "fabric of reality" (*), what would we have gained in understanding over someone who merely executes the experiment, if we did limit ourselves to such a concept of science as a predictive black box.

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We want more from our science - we want it to provide intuitions, explanations, we have a natural urge to see truth in our theories.

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To what extent we can have this and what it means, those are, in my opinion, questions of philosophy, not science, and questions one would not want to do without.

(*) I may be paraphrasing...

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In my opinion it is impossible to keep people from indulging in and expounding on their own intuitions and explanations, often when they have the confidence but lack the background to do so with authority.  In these circumstances it is all the more important for those with the appropriate credentials as experimentalists or theorists to establish a voice and act positively to restrain the less disciplined.

LOL.... they can't. they're nerds.

And that's why the Higgs became known as the god particle, Cosmic expansion became the Big Bang and... luckily, most everything else is incomprehensible to journalists....