

A Crisis at the Edge of Physics - henriquemaia
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/a-crisis-at-the-edge-of-physics.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

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kijin
Yesterday's discussion thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9669945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9669945)

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hacknat
>>How are we to determine whether a theory is true if it cannot be validated
experimentally?

A theory without experimental falsifiability is not a theory, but a
hypothesis. I understand that Physicists might be frustrated by the lack of
ability to validate all the math they've been doing, but if that's the way it
is then they are not special and certainly not in a unique position in human
history.

I'm sure a lot of great thinkers in the past felt the same way about the atom,
etc. You don't get to opt out of science/knowledge just because you don't like
that current human technology can't validate any of your ideas.

Edit: Martin Rees has addressed this very topic. It might be that humanity
never gets to discover everything about the Universe:
[http://edge.org/response-detail/25519](http://edge.org/response-detail/25519)

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nerd_herder
In science a theory is a framework that connects facts, it can't be demoted to
a hypothesis nor can it become a law. Sometimes people say theory to mean
hypothesis but that's not how it's being used in this article.

