Agosagror

I mean i agree with most of what you said already, the only disagreement we had was over the definition of proof.

This video doesnt change that particulally

Well I never commented on what it was, although I agree with you on the latter point, string theory doesn’t to the best of my knowledge appear to be testable, so its a bit of a waste of time.

Right you are putting words in my mouth.

I never said that you derive it from axioms first, although I’m sure there exist theories which were derived from previous work especially some classical theories. The point I’m making is that a set of equations has to be self consistent, and sovlable, both of which are provable properties of those equations. That says NOTHING about the physical validity of the equations. However if you can’t prove those properties on some level, you have a pretty nonsense set of equations.

Like I said you aren’t “proving” that the theory is what governs whatever phenomenon, rather that it is consistent with itself.

As for finding the range of validity, again I agree with on that point, although I’m 100% sure there exists cases where you can predict the theory breaks down - just from looking at the equations, or deriving the bounds. But like I said, the equations still have to be non contradictory and solvable. In fact if they aren’t solvable you cannot begin to verify them.

I completely appreciate that you are right about unable to prove a theory like you said. I’m pointing out that most people use proof to refer to showing that the equations aren’t contradictory, again that doesn’t prove the theory, but we know a good theory doesn’t contradict itself, and hopefully it doesn’t contradict other stuff, although relativetivity contradicts quatuam, indicating something else is going on.

What? How do you mean.

I said it was logically consistent, which if it wasn’t no one would be shouting from the hills about it, since it would be the same as saying that 5 = 4.

It might be fictious, I.e. the equations don’t relate to reality, but it is good fiction, in that it doesn’t produce nonsense.

No string theory has unified them, it hasn’t been verified. I’m not familiar with the intricacies of string theory, but presumably it is logically consistent. Or “proven”.

It hasn’t been experimentally verified

I said they could be proved from assumptions. In the same fashion as mathematical proofs, they aren’t actually 100% true, they merely say that given these assumptions, the following is true. In maths the assumptions are so acutely obvious, or essentially definitions that we rarely rewrite our proof as the tautologies that they actually are

I agree with you that the you can’t prove a physical theory, but you can TRY to axiomize it. Which is what Hilbert’s 6th problem was.

In this way you can show that the equations you have are logically consistent - not that they are 100% true.

The crux of this argument is defintional, not factual, you take proof in an experimental way, as such no theory can be proven. I take proof to mean proven logically consistent. As such any good theory should be 100% proven, otherwise 1 might as be 0.

Yes but you can prove that something is true given your set of assumptions about the universe.

A very loose example would be light being constant which could be an assumption, and then you can show that from that relativity is a natural conclusion. Or proof it formally, resulting in the Einstein’s equations.

It being forever 2016 it is a pretty good summary of Britain actually. And with trump back, it may as well be 2016 at the international level