Comment by laughinghan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by laughinghan | Hacker News Reader

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I strongly disagree. You make a great argument for why stagnation in physics is to be expected, but advances in physics were a minority factor in the technological advances of the 20th century. Advances in chemistry were by far the primary driver, followed by biology, and then by physics. (I love physics, I minored in it in undergrad, and didn't minor or major in chemistry, lest you think I'm biased.)

Chemistry brought us:

- the Haber-Bosch process, artificial nitrogen fixation that revolutionized food production

- the Bessemer process, modern steel production, necessary not just for modern buildings but also engines, modern guns, cars/boats/planes, modern supply chain via shipping and trucks, industrial factory and farm equipment, etc

- modern plastics. Seriously, look around your room, wherever you are. How many things don't have some amount of plastic in them? Less than half, probably?

- petroleum extraction and processing, which powers those steel engines, powers most of our electricity, and is the raw materials for plastic

- modern explosives, especially smokeless gunpowder (did you know that people totally built Gatling-style rotary machine guns in the Victorian Era? The were useless because black powder creates too much smoke for you to be able to aim a black powder-powered machine gun)

Biology brought us germ theory and modern medicine, and of course these fields are all interrelated because engines required thermodynamics and electricity is mostly physics, but none of that required relativity or quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics is the foundation for the physical chemistry subfield of chemistry, is crucial to modern silicon integrated circuit manufacturing, and of course—the atomic age. But none of those have had the impact on society as oil alone, for example.

As mentioned, I love physics, but the fact is, details about the fundamental laws of nature just did not have the impact on society that higher-level, less fundamental scientific advancements have had. The Wright brothers created aviation without any quantitative understanding of aerodynamics; and 100% of the societally impactful advancements in aerodynamics since then has had no relation to relativity or quantum mechanics.

Hmm, I agree, the answer to the question posed varies a lot between different fields. That's another aspect of these articles that I don't like: they talk about "problems with science" as a whole as if it were a monolith.

Yeah, I totally agree. Within fundamental physics, I think you're totally right that people were, in a sense, "spoiled" by the great revolutions of quantum mechanics and relativity, and seem to think the next revolution is right around the corner if they can just gedankenexperiment hard enough in their heads. But it probably isn't. It's probably going to be a long slog of hard work and incremental advances that will be necessary to set us up for the next breakthrough.

> Advances in chemistry were by far the primary driver

Seems like a pretty biased view of recent progress, to be honest. One could come up with similar lists from any number of other areas (Physics - Nuclear Energy, Biology - DNA & biotech, Computer Science - The Internet, etc.)

I'm not sure what your point is. As I explained, I am biased towards physics, if anything. And I acknowledged that each field has had societally impactful advances, I never claimed chemistry was the sole driver. Surely you're not arguing that physics, chemistry, and biology have all had exactly equally-sized impacts on society over the 20th century? What a surprising coincidence that would be!

If you think one could come up with similar lists, by all means, please do. I actually did mention the impact of nuclear energy (I called it "the atomic age" to include nuclear weapons as well), but surely you wouldn't claim that has had as large an impact on society as petroleum alone, which powers most of our electricity, internal combustion engines that made modern trade and supply chains possible, and is the raw material for the hundreds of pieces of plastic in the very room you're sitting in?

> As I explained, I am biased towards physics, if anything.

It's one thing what you say you're biased towards, it's another thing what you're actually biased towards :)

> I'm not sure what your point is.

You're claiming that chemistry had by far the biggest impact, and at the very least your post does not substantiate that claim (and listing a few key results from field A does not logically prove that those results dominate over other fields B, C, D in terms of impact).

I did substantiate my claim, I just had no need to do so with a logical proof. Logical proof is an unnecessarily (in fact, illogically) high bar to demand from a Hacker News comment.

All I needed to substantiate my claim was convincing examples of results from field A whose impact, added together, most people would agree is more than the combined impact of field B in the 20th century. The fact that the person I was replying to then agreed with me is strong evidence I succeeded. So is the fact that, of the people who read my comment, 19 more of them upvoted it than downvoted it.

Good luck trying to convince people that someone is wrong not by providing convincing examples or reasoning against their conclusion, but merely by pointing out that their reasoning, though convincing, didn't amount to a logical proof.

Good luck believing, and acting on, solely information for which you have found a logical proof.

(Ironically, I mentioned my minor in undergrad was physics, but my major was pure math, so I used to live and breathe logical proofs, and I still love them. But acting like they're the only kind of argument worth making is pure foolishness.)

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