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Comment by jjtheblunt | Hacker News Reader

If it explains everything then why are experiments still ongoing? What is left to explain?

To oversimplify: the Standard Model is pretty great when you've got two particles. As soon as there's three, it's too hard to calculate most things people are interested in. Oh, or gravity. Gravity's a problem too.

Particles are similar to people that way.

in that they don't exist independently of the apparatus that localizes them out of a wavefunction? checks Diamond Sutra sounds about right

the worst are online N-bodies

Those damn 3-body problems

"everything that underpins everyday life" is not everything. A more precise way to put it would be that we understand physics at the energy scales we've been able to probe.

The operation of a D-type flip-flop and NAND gates explains everything in computers upwards of digital logic. What else is there to explain or explore in software?

Mmm, I don't agree with your analogy. Yes, you can model things at a higher level, but surely that is for efficiency, not because the model breaks down, in terms of accuracy.

In contrast, there are phenomenon which we know standard particle physics and quantum mechanics gives the wrong answere (despite getting so much else right).

higher-level models are not just for efficiency (though they are mandatory for that: quantum mechanics is intractable to solve directly for even a carbon atom). They also are important for understanding. These two problems are much bigger in terms of applying the standard model for the purposes of 'explaining everything' than the problem of the edge cases it does not explain accurately even in principle.

'everything that underpins daily life' does not include everything in the universe, for example it excludes dark matter and dark energy, neither of which matter at planetary scales like here on earth.

> neither of which matter at planetary scales like here on earth

...except, isn't it true that the galaxy that contains the earth wouldn't exist were it not for dark matter?

There's nothing preventing the formation of galaxies, stars and planets if you take away dark energy. Dark matter is not as clear cut but it's still likely to be unimportant.

The project of "Science" is essentially one of curiosity about the natural world, as it really is. No other reason needed.

If you do not possess that curiously then so be it, but others are still motivated by it.

Could've said the same about Newtonian mechanics. Theories seem great til they don't. That doesn't mean all they ever were was curve overfitting.

SM can't yet explain neutrino oscillation/mass, dark matter, or quantum gravity.

And then of course as there are complex emergent effects of multiparticle systems that are difficult to calculate accurately.

The standard model doesn’t explain gravity.

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