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Comment by JadeNB | Hacker News Reader

> https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.1524 (Which was published about half a year after I initially and timestamped communicated the idea to a physics teacher who was willing to explain me the differential maths used in Einstein's field equations.)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, but your parenthesis seems to suggest that you would like to claim some credit for the idea. If not, then you can just ignore what I'm about to say.

If so, then your comment seems to suggest that you came up with the idea, but weren't sure about the mathematics of it. In modern physics of this type, where experimentation is not practical, the math is the physics; that is, I think the problem is not so much coming up with ideas—my impression is that there are hypotheses and to spare—but rather being able to back up those ideas with rigorous calculations.

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No, I'm fine with the credit I got. I'm not going to try to reach the level of understanding of differential geometry to confirm my theory with a simulation. I just hope someone who can might get an idea and do the work. A side note of me bringing the idea to this person would be all I'd hope for.

> In modern physics of this type, where experimentation is not practical, the math is the physics

I think Feynmann would disagree with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obCjODeoLVw

I'm not sure that's the case. He's not saying that the mathematics doesn't represent the physics. He's saying that in order to apply the mathematics we have to have some empirical model to which the axioms of the mathematical system applies. As long as that's the case, the mathematics can provide insight into the physical system. But where the mathematical tools break down are in the areas where we don't have any data.

From a physical perspective the math, in this case, is moot. We have no data about what happens past the event horizon, so I could just as easily say that it encompasses a space filled with tiny pink unicorns which exhale confetti and it would be just as meaningful.

What we know is that something different happens. So there's really no room for either the mathematicians or the physicists to speak with authority on what happens. What we're left with is very well-informed speculation about a really interesting region of space-time.

> I think Feynmann would disagree with you.

I cleverly added so many qualifiers that the comment is unfalsifiable:

> In modern physics of this type, where experimentation is not practical ….

Anyway I am a mathematician and not a physicist, so of course I am biased in my evaluation of the ability of mathematics to model reality.

feynman died 30 years ago. it's plausible the culture of the field has changed (nm that feynman wasn't the arbiter of culture to begin with)

> it's plausible the culture of the field has changed (nm that feynman wasn't the arbiter of culture to begin with)

To be fair to monocasa's objection (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17101892), the rebuttal was not of a claim that the culture of physics was mathematical but literally of my claim that (certain) physics was mathematics.

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