If I make the hypothesis that there is an invisible pink unicorn in the garden, there is virtually no way to definitively falsify such a statement. Just because no one has ever seen an invisible pink unicorn before, there still just _might_ be such a unicorn in the garden this time... You can propose some tests that might be consistent with a unicorn (i.e. if I spread flour on the ground, footprints ought to show up, or if I set out lillies in the lap of a beautiful virgin the unicorn might eat the lillies). But if these tests fail, it is merely strongly suggestive of absence, and does not definitively falsify the theory that an invisible pink unicorn lives in the garden...jsbiff wrote:What I mean is, if I remember correctly, in a Proof-By-Contradiction, you start with two things: 1) one or more things you already know to be true, and 2) by assuming the thing you are trying to prove false is correct (that is, you are trying to prove it's false, so you assume it is true), then show that if it the idea being tested is true, it leads to a result that contradicts the thing(s) you previously already knew to be true, so the second thing must be false.
Can't experiments sometimes do something like that to definitively falsify a theory?
Possible higgs discovery.
In regards to the Higgs Boson, they can give an energy range (mass) for it, and then check experiments in that energy range.jsbiff wrote: Can't experiments sometimes do something like that to definitively falsify a theory?
Up to now, they've only been able to hit the lower end of that range, and have not found it.
If they check the entire range and do not find it in a suitable number of events (generally, 5 sigmas of negative results), then they decide it is not there, and the theory is wrong.
Wandering Kernel of Happiness
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CaptainBeowulf
- Posts: 498
- Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:35 am
But if they fail to detect a Higgs when their model says they should be able to detect a Higgs, wouldn't that mean that at the least the Higgs does not behave in the way the model says it should? And that therefore the model is seriously flawed in that regard? Failure to find the predicted Higgs should have some sort of major consequence in terms of theory, even if they decide that there is still an invisible dragon/pink unicorn vaguely Higgs-like particle hiding around there somewhere.
And then I invoke Goedel.Enginerd wrote:If I make the hypothesis that there is an invisible pink unicorn in the garden, there is virtually no way to definitively falsify such a statement. Just because no one has ever seen an invisible pink unicorn before, there still just _might_ be such a unicorn in the garden this time... You can propose some tests that might be consistent with a unicorn (i.e. if I spread flour on the ground, footprints ought to show up, or if I set out lillies in the lap of a beautiful virgin the unicorn might eat the lillies). But if these tests fail, it is merely strongly suggestive of absence, and does not definitively falsify the theory that an invisible pink unicorn lives in the garden...jsbiff wrote:What I mean is, if I remember correctly, in a Proof-By-Contradiction, you start with two things: 1) one or more things you already know to be true, and 2) by assuming the thing you are trying to prove false is correct (that is, you are trying to prove it's false, so you assume it is true), then show that if it the idea being tested is true, it leads to a result that contradicts the thing(s) you previously already knew to be true, so the second thing must be false.
Can't experiments sometimes do something like that to definitively falsify a theory?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Cute ... I like it. A classic pink lady's hand bag dilema.Your theory is self-falsifying since "invisible" and "pink" invoke an unresolvable intrinsic contradiction.
Even if the energy range is successfully traversed there will always be manufactured other possibilities for elusive Higgs. Here's some starters for ten .... better detectors .... it does not inhabit this part of the universe but only exists where anti-matter is in pre-ponderance? (not in the known universe.) Or in the whacky world of quantum mechanics some fruitloops will have a 'subjective observation' experiment ... if we all just concentrate hard enough and build a collider with a diameter exactly equal to the earths then Higgs will show up .... never, never give up on the Higgs is the push from the quantum physicists ... it's a gravy train ... and as long as it is out there, somewhere, the standard model is not falsified.
Just one more renormalisation from a mathematically and physically shoky theory.
OK. I'm just an engineer, but even I see the horrid state of physics. Why are most physicists complacent with the current state of affairs? Because the calculations come out right? If that is the criteria, except for the inconvenience, we should have stuck with epi-cycles.Just one more renormalisation from a mathematically and physically shoky theory.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Sorry, that might be a really lousy theory, but not a hypothesis. The scientific progression might go:Enginerd wrote: If I make the hypothesis that there is an invisible pink unicorn in the garden, there is virtually no way to definitively falsify such a statement.
Past experimental data:
My blue geraniums are being eaten at night.
I've never seen anything eat them.
Theory:
There is an invisible pink unicorn in the garden. (everyone knows pink unicorns love to eat blue geraniums, right?)
Hypothesis to test theory???
Your hypothesis must be
1. unique to the theory (or as unique as you can develop)
2. falsifiable.
otherwise it is just a silly statement.
So what is your hypothesis? Without a falsifiable hypothesis, you don't have theory, you have religious dogma.
The first qualification for a good theory is the calculations coming out right. After that we have standards of how wide of scope the theory covers correctly, and how complex the theory is. On the last quantum theory is an admitted mess. So far I've yet to see a viable replacement that does better. Come up with such a theory and I'm sure we'll celebrate.MSimon wrote:OK. I'm just an engineer, but even I see the horrid state of physics. Why are most physicists complacent with the current state of affairs? Because the calculations come out right? If that is the criteria, except for the inconvenience, we should have stuck with epi-cycles.Just one more renormalisation from a mathematically and physically shoky theory.
We abandoned epicycles when we got a more concise theory to account for the data.
I was being polemical (I like a memorable turn of phrase). But I see that in the main you agree.
My area of expertise is to take the mess and use it to make useful items. My math is not up to the requirements of a new theory. And I will not quit using the mess until something better comes along.
I don't know why the "shut up and calculate" school has prevailed for so long. Even Feynman seemed a bit embarrassed by that state of affairs. Forty years ago.
My area of expertise is to take the mess and use it to make useful items. My math is not up to the requirements of a new theory. And I will not quit using the mess until something better comes along.
I don't know why the "shut up and calculate" school has prevailed for so long. Even Feynman seemed a bit embarrassed by that state of affairs. Forty years ago.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
That brings up another question. I've never seen a book or summery of what Einstein might have been pursuing late in life as he struggled to make sense out of quantum mechanics. Is there any such beast?MSimon wrote:I was being polemical (I like a memorable turn of phrase). But I see that in the main you agree.
My area of expertise is to take the mess and use it to make useful items. My math is not up to the requirements of a new theory. And I will not quit using the mess until something better comes along.
I don't know why the "shut up and calculate" school has prevailed for so long. Even Feynman seemed a bit embarrassed by that state of affairs. Forty years ago.
Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.
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happyjack27
- Posts: 1439
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really the absence of evidence / evidence of absence thing is a non-sequitor.
you're making a probabilistic assertion, collecting data, and then refining that assertion by using the data acquired. sort of a bayesian update, if you will.
the assertion is that the mean of the poison process "seeing a higgs boson" is x. this is our expectation or "theory"
now if after y trials, we observe it n times, we can use this information and probability theory to say "there is a z% chance that the higgs boson does [not] exist". and that statement would be vetted by the rules of probability and our observations.
oh, and we can say this because if the higgs boson doesn't show up w/in a certain range of the poisson parameter, then it's not really a higgs boson - i.e. our theory is still fundamentally flawed. i suppose that's the extra constraint that makes it falsifiable.
you're making a probabilistic assertion, collecting data, and then refining that assertion by using the data acquired. sort of a bayesian update, if you will.
the assertion is that the mean of the poison process "seeing a higgs boson" is x. this is our expectation or "theory"
now if after y trials, we observe it n times, we can use this information and probability theory to say "there is a z% chance that the higgs boson does [not] exist". and that statement would be vetted by the rules of probability and our observations.
oh, and we can say this because if the higgs boson doesn't show up w/in a certain range of the poisson parameter, then it's not really a higgs boson - i.e. our theory is still fundamentally flawed. i suppose that's the extra constraint that makes it falsifiable.
