Talk:Physics

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Science Top‑importance

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Mathematics Top‑priority

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Physics was one of the good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 14, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
August 15, 2006	Good article reassessment	Delisted
October 28, 2006	Articles for deletion	Speedily kept
May 22, 2009	WikiProject peer review	Reviewed
July 24, 2010	Peer review	Reviewed
April 1, 2012	Articles for deletion	Speedily kept
Current status: Delisted good article

Philosophy section -- Mathematics as analytical

The philosophy section advocates an understanding of physics as synthetic and mathematics as analytical. The status of mathematics as analytical vs. synthetic is a core point of divergence in various philosophies of mathematics. Mathematics as synthetic is argued by numerous proponents, the most prolific being Immanuel Kant, as articulated in the introduction of the Critique of Pure Reason.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason#Synthetic_a_priori_judgments — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.21.100.152 (talk) 16:55, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction

I would replace the verb "understand" in "understand how the universe behaves..." with, for example, "describe and predict".

the word "understand" is often understood -- if you will pardon the pun -- as comprehend and presumes some underlying actuality for the physicist to grasp. like all other "human" sciences, even the natural ones, physics is a construct. it is, this is true, inspired by our experience of nature and built upon possibly the only truth accessible to us, the mathematical one, but cannot make inferences about any actuality that may underlie that experience. 178.74.7.149 (talk) 17:56, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

philosophy section

the philosophy section being placed up at the front with it's own section is just really weird. i came here to read about physics, and instead got a weird reading article about how physics is actually philosophy with literally no explanation or examples or anything besides a couple references.

physics is not philosophy, and to call the history of physics philosophy is abdurd. there is philosophy of physics. many old physicists have been philosphers. the two fields are deeply connected. but the way the philosophy section reads is that physics is just a branch of philosophy? what?

this sounds absurd, comes off absurd, and doesn't do anything to help me put physics into a wikipediacally sound perspective

i recommend the philosophy section be merged into the "relationship to other fields" section, moved to the end of the article, thoroughly rewritten, or deleted entirely.it's placement and writing is misleading and confusing 2600:6C47:A03F:C443:9D6A:D4C0:8251:D89D (talk) 14:02, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ALSO ADDING that the "philosophy" section directly contradicts the "history" section by going "well physics is REALLY just an extension of greek philosophy" after literally talking about and discussing the history of physics for a whole thorough section? 2600:6C47:A03F:C443:9D6A:D4C0:8251:D89D (talk) 14:04, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is time to fix this significant problem with this page. I will be making some changes... Qwerty123uiop (talk) 19:49, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Linking first occurrence of “scientific” to its article

This may seem minor to others, but physics is first and foremost a field of *science*; therefore the first occurrence of the word “scientific” should be linked to the page “science”. The second occurrence IS linked. Apparently my username or password expired as it has been many years since logging in. Thanks for considering and have a great day. - Arthur. 2600:1004:B0B1:50BC:D111:6A80:124F:EA38 (talk) 23:49, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively the first sentence could follow the pattern of, for example, the biology page - immediately identifying it as a natural science. 2600:1004:B0B1:50BC:D111:6A80:124F:EA38 (talk) 23:52, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, why not do it yourself? Actually, I will make some changes... Qwerty123uiop (talk) 19:50, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

entertaining objections/critique concerning addition

I propose to add this sentence:

Though many people anticipate a theory of everything,^[1] open fields like non-equilibrium thermodynamics,^[2] complex systems,^[3] and neuroscience^[4] challenge the hypothesis that the laws of 3D (material) systems^[5] are sufficient to explain the creative capacities of life.^[6]

Presumably in the same location as my prior offering, at the end of the second (final) paragraph of the “core theories” section, but I am open to discussion. (Multiple locations? :) )

objections?

“But the principles must be principles about something. The principles that I just spoke of, the conservation of energy- is the energy of something; and quantum mechanical laws are quantum mechanical principles about something. And all these principles added together still doesn’t tell us what the content is of the nature, that is, what we’re talking about. So I will tell you a little bit about the stuff, on which all these principles are supposed to have been working.”

critiques?

“Now, how to guess at what to keep and what to throw away. You see, we have all these nice principles and known facts and so on. But we’re in some kind of trouble– that we get the inifinities or we don’t get enough of a description, we’re missing some parts. And sometimes that means that we have, probably, to throw away some idea. At least in the past it’s always turned out that some deeply held idea has to be thrown away.”

~~matter~~

“I give another example, even more interesting and important. Probably the most powerful assumption in all of biology, the single assumption that makes the progress of biology the greatest is the assumption that everything the animals do, the atoms can do. That the things that are seen in the biological world are the results of the behavior of physical and chemical phenomena, with no extra something.”

[=](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAuY9TWichM&t=to+cool+to+dance+eden+xo)[x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhDGdT33K0k&t=book+of+love+nataly+dawn+cover+magnetic+fields)[=](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFWX0hWCbng&t=kesha+blow)

“So I wanted to discuss the art of guessing nature’s laws. It’s an art. How is it done?”

NedBoomerson (talk) 20:48, 7 October 2024 (UTC), by the holy reciprocity inhering among apriori complex and apriori plural imago dei NedBoomerson (talk) 20:48, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The citations you have attached do not directly support the sentence, so this does not meet Wikipedia's policy at WP:NOR. MrOllie (talk) 20:56, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No. Please read about synthesis: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." Johnjbarton (talk) 00:29, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are expressing a lot of personal opinions and pointing to speculative articles in your statements. This page is part of an encylopedia. It is not a chat forum for (currently) marginal ideas. Maybe consider looking over the Philospohy of Physics page to see whether these statements are appropriate there. In any case, this is not the place for speculations. Qwerty123uiop (talk) 00:56, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ “But the age we live in is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature. And that day will never come again. I don’t mean we’re finished. I mean, we’re right in the process of making such discoveries. It’s very exciting and marvelous, but this excitement will have to go.” Richard Feynman, “The Character of Physical law,” 7, “seeking new laws”
^ Albert C Pan et. al., J Phys Chem B . 2006 Mar 2;110(8):3692-6. doi: 10.1021/jp055239m. Neutron scattering and monte carlo determination of the variation of the critical nucleus size with quench depth https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16494425/
^ “And as usual, nature’s imagination far surpasses our own. As we’ve seen from the other theories, they are really quite subtle and deep. And to get to such a subtle and deep guess is not so easy. One must be really clever to guess. And it’s not possible to do it blindly, by machine.” Richard Feynman, playing the unwitting idealist for us in, “The Character of Physical law,” 7, “seeking new laws”
^ “In other words, a new idea that is extremely difficult, takes a fantastic imagination.” Richard Feynman, playing the unwitting idealist for us in, “The Character of Physical law,” 7, “seeking new laws”
^ “The energy and entropy of the world have no meaning, because such quantities admit of no accurate definition.” Planck, Max (1903). Treatise on Thermodynamics. Translated by Ogg, Alexander. London: Longmans, Green. p. 101. https://archive.org/stream/treatiseonthermo00planrich#page/100/mode/2up
^ “Only inspired insight guided by faith in the simplicity of nature somehow revealed the interplay of the concepts of energy and entropy” Herbert Callen, Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics,” second edition, at p.461

[1] “But the age we live in is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature. And that day will never come again. I don’t mean we’re finished. I mean, we’re right in the process of making such discoveries. It’s very exciting and marvelous, but this excitement will have to go.” Richard Feynman, “The Character of Physical law,” 7, “seeking new laws”

[2] Albert C Pan et. al., J Phys Chem B . 2006 Mar 2;110(8):3692-6. doi: 10.1021/jp055239m. Neutron scattering and monte carlo determination of the variation of the critical nucleus size with quench depth https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16494425/

[3] “And as usual, nature’s imagination far surpasses our own. As we’ve seen from the other theories, they are really quite subtle and deep. And to get to such a subtle and deep guess is not so easy. One must be really clever to guess. And it’s not possible to do it blindly, by machine.” Richard Feynman, playing the unwitting idealist for us in, “The Character of Physical law,” 7, “seeking new laws”

[4] “In other words, a new idea that is extremely difficult, takes a fantastic imagination.” Richard Feynman, playing the unwitting idealist for us in, “The Character of Physical law,” 7, “seeking new laws”

[5] “The energy and entropy of the world have no meaning, because such quantities admit of no accurate definition.” Planck, Max (1903). Treatise on Thermodynamics. Translated by Ogg, Alexander. London: Longmans, Green. p. 101. https://archive.org/stream/treatiseonthermo00planrich#page/100/mode/2up

[6] “Only inspired insight guided by faith in the simplicity of nature somehow revealed the interplay of the concepts of energy and entropy” Herbert Callen, Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics,” second edition, at p.461

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