
Physics in 100 Years - jeffreyrogers
http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.07735
======
dheera
My speculation for the next 100 years, that Wilczek does not propose, is that
a notation revolution will happen.

The standard way of representing mathematics today is tedious to write and
extremely non-intuitive in many ways. Unfortunately alternative representation
systems of physical processes (e.g. block diagrams, Feynmann diagrams, etc.)
don't yet provide a way for the user to operate on higher-level objects while
staying on an abstracted level. One has to tear open all the black boxes,
rewrite them as integral/sigma/matrix/bra/ket soup before they can be operated
upon.

Most of the time when I read a physics paper, even in my own field of
research, I spend abount 95% of my time and brain power parsing and 5% of the
time understanding. This should be reversed.

In addition, a startling problem is that it now takes about 25-30 years of
education from birth to the time before any individual can be productive to
society in physics research. They are subsequently only productive for another
30-40 at most. As fundamental science continues to become more advanced, the
increasing number of required education years to catch up with all of human
history, even for a highly narrow, specialized field, is not a sustainable
trend. Either modifying the brain or adopting a new framework of thought will
be necessary to sustain progress; a notation revolution may facilitate the
latter.

~~~
gfodor
I don't know if I'd predict it, but I agree that it's hard to imagine a more
transformative technology than a dramatically improved notation for something
as broad as mathematics. It might mean that "notation" is actually a higher
fidelity, more dynamic medium for communicating mathematical ideas only
possible within computing. (See Bret Vector, etc.) One has to wonder what the
world would be like if physics knowledge (at all levels) were disseminated via
a medium beyond static text.

~~~
agumonkey
Sussman tried to use scheme as a mathematical notation
([http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/s...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/sicm/book.html))
to avoid ambiguities. I don't know how many people saw this, and what the
critics were.

The traditional static symbolic notation of math may be the most efficient
one, It's constrained, but forces abstraction to emerge. If people had Excel
before, we'd never know Gauss sequence sum formula, we'd let the system help
us.

~~~
Chinjut
> The traditional static symbolic notation of math may be the most efficient
> one... If people had Excel before, we'd never know Gauss sequence sum
> formula, we'd let the system help us.

I think some people in this thread must be using "notation" in a different
sense than I am accustomed to. I don't think of the computer's ability to
automate addition as an innovation in "notation", per se.

~~~
stan_rogers
That wasn't Sussman's point. The problem is that the same notational forms --
the same orthographies, if you will -- can mean different things in different
contexts. It doesn't help at all that one must, on occasion, slip from context
to context in the same argument, producing adjacent or near-adjacent
statements that have similar general forms but wildly different meanings. His
solution to the problem was to use a notation that also happens to be valid
statements in a computer language he had a large hand in designing. That part
isn't necessary, but disambiguating mathematical notation by some means is.

------
subnaught
Frank Wilczek is both a highly accomplished physicist and an exceptional
writer, two things that don't often go together. You can find all of his 2014
writings here:

    
    
      http://frankwilczek.com/2014
    

And 2015 in progress:

    
    
      http://frankwilczek.com/2015

------
ianes
I like his suggestion to replace 'Standard Model' with the name 'Core Theory'

"The quantum revolution gave this revelation: we’ve finally learned what
Matter is. The necessary equations are part of the theoretical structure often
called the Standard Model. That yawn-inducing name fails to convey the
grandeur of the achievement, and does not serve fundamental physics well in
its popular perception. I’m going to continue my campaign, begun in The
Lightness of Being, to replace it with something more appropriately awesome:
Standard Model → Core Theory"

~~~
melling
Is this a joke? Sounds like some bureaucratic decision where you'd create a
committee to come up with New Coke. Most people aren't going to care.

~~~
tomelders
I bet the folks who coined the term "global warming" sure wish they'd thought
of "climate change" first.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
You do know the history of those terms and the replacement of one by the
other, right?

~~~
evanb
Science Sparring Society had an interesting (and short) episode on this
recently:

[http://www.acmescience.com/2015/02/sss-14-global-warming-
vs-...](http://www.acmescience.com/2015/02/sss-14-global-warming-vs-climate-
change/)

------
noobermin
I was at first upset that he seemed to focus heavily on fundamental particle
physics. I was delighted however, that he did mention other discoveries we'd
like to see happen in other subfields of physics, like the hope for the
realization of the quantum computer.

One thing that is rather hot now and likely will become a richer field over
the next decade or so (and will likely leave it's imprint in future technology
and life in 100 years) is the merging of physics with biology. Mainly, the use
of physics and quantitative methods in biology is the next area of innovation
for this century, in my opinion. That might fall more under "Biology in 100
years," however.

~~~
cozzyd
He's a particle theorist, so it's not too surprising he focuses on things he
knows more about.

------
mr_overalls
Brett Victor also has some interesting ideas about the symbology of math:
[http://worrydream.com/KillMath/](http://worrydream.com/KillMath/)

------
sgt101
I know that English is the wrong way of expressing the ideas, but the text on
page 6 about bleaching and colours and the tasteful application of rules
producing a scheme is straight out of 16th Century alchemy.

------
chaosfactor
This is an exercise in paradigm paralysis. How about: I predict that if I were
teleported 100 years into the future, I would have no fucking clue what was
going on, you wouldn't be able to explain it to me and I would probably die
from the culture shock. You have evolve and develop and turn into the future.
You can't just go there willy-nilly, nor, at this point, can you confidently
make predictions about it. That too is a prediction, though. For all I know
Rudy Rucker is right and we will be a black hole in 100 years. But even if
that prediction is right, our guesstimate of the phenomenology is all wrong.

~~~
Chinjut
It doesn't seem to me that if someone from 1915 was transported to the present
day, it would be impossible to explain to them what was going on and they
would die from the culture shock.

What's so hard to explain? Airplanes and cars? You had them then, they're just
more common now. TV? Yeah, it's like radio and movies combined. Cellphones?
Ok, phones are portable now. Computers? Alright, just tell them what a
computer is.

They can handle it. They were human then too, not some alien species of
comparative primitive idiots.

(If the argument were instead that it's unreasonable to expect someone to
accurately predict the world of 100 years hence, I would agree; long-term
prediction has not historically been something anyone has been all that good
at. But the difficulty of predicting the future doesn't mean one couldn't
handle exposure to it.)

~~~
JadeNB
> Computers? Alright, just tell them what a computer is.

Do you really believe that it would be so simple? I think that it's hard to
appreciate how much computers have changed the shape of our lives in large and
small ways. For example, imagine bringing Turing to the present day. Would he
have any trouble understanding what a computer _is_ , as a mechanical or
mathematical device? Probably not. Would he be baffled by, and initially
uncomprehending of, the way that computers have changed our lives? I'd say
almost certainly. (I often am, just thinking back on the way things were as
recently as 20 years ago, and I lived through the change.)

~~~
Chinjut
Yes, I really believe it. That's why I said it.

Computers have changed our lives in many large and small ways. Great. Tell
that to the traveler from 1915. Show them. They'll understand; they've
witnessed the same phenomenon with the technological developments of their own
time. They won't be used to our modern world, but their mind won't violently
reject exposure to the concept.

~~~
NhanH
I was about to disagree with you (citing that the change of 1815-1915 is much
less than the change of 1915-2015). But then I realized that for certain
places on Earth, the norm of technology might not be that much more advance
than 1915 (this is a bit of a stretch, but you get the point) -- and I 'm not
sure those people won't be able to adapt if they got move to the US.

~~~
Chinjut
The technological change of 1815 to 1915 is pretty drastic: railways, the
automobile, the airplane, the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph,
photography, moving pictures, radio transmission, refrigeration, plastics,
lightbulbs, x-rays, anesthetic surgery, the work of
Semmelweis/Snow/Pasteur/Lister on medical hygiene/sanitation(/the germ theory
of disease!), the spread of indoor plumbing and the flush toilet, ...

And culturally? Well, for one (U.S.-focused) example, there's that whole Civil
War/end-of-slavery thing smack dab in the middle of it.

It's by no means clear to me that the changes of 1915 - 2015 somehow
completely outstrip the changes of 1815 - 1915.

(I see that you agree with my general point, and with good illustration, too.
I just wanted to point this out as well.)

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Problem: a lot of those items/techniques were exclusively available to the
very rich in 1915.

The UK still had slums with limited indoor plumbing during the 1950s. It
wasn't until the slum clearances of the 1960s that the standard became an
indoor bathroom in a house with central heating.

The big change between 1915 and 2015 is that the technological GINI
coefficient has shrunk so much.

Being rich gets you few technological perks. You can buy a supercar or a
private jet, but that's a difference of degree, not a difference in absolute
access.

Most people have cars, and almost everyone can afford to fly. And all but the
very poorest have Internet and electronic media access.

Likewise for cultural differences. Sexual morality - at least as publicly
presented - is completely different now.

Work culture is somewhat different. Politics and finance have probably changed
least of all.

The point being that someone from 1915 may just about be able to understand
the Internet and computing. But they're going to have a really tough time
learning how to parse Buzzfeed or TechCrunch or Reddit. Never mind what
happens when they find PornHub or Tinder.

There are three things to learn, not one. The first is what the technology
does. The second is the vocabulary of new names and the new concepts used to
describe. The last is the social scripting that defines appropriate and
inappropriate behaviour.

Those last two will take longest and be hardest.

I'd expect similar challenges in 2115, with the difference that there's likely
to be much more social and political change, and not less.

It would surprise me if the definition of "human" hadn't changed fundamentally
by then, together with almost everything we think we know today about culture,
politics, and economics.

