this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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askchapo

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So how does theoretical physics "work" exactly? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 days ago by ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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To explain, I'm just a big old ignorant layman, but with other scientific fields I at least CONCEPTUALLY understand how they came to their findings.

Like if a Geologist tells me something about rocks I'm like: "Okay, idk how geology works, but I assume you did some kind of experiments involving rocks so you probably know what you're talking about."

Or if a neurologist tells me something about the human brain: "Okay, idk shit about neurology, but I assume you did some kind of brain scan or took some brain samples or did some kind of scientific experiment thingy to know this stuff about brains. I don't know the exact details but I can at least abstractly understand the process by which you learned this thing you're telling me now."

Then I'll see some news report about some finding a theoretical physicists made and it'll be like: "The Universe is made of strings! And also the sun is a black hole! The universe is shaped like a doughnut!"

And my honky ass is just like: "How the fuck do you know that shit? What are you looking at? How did you figure that crap out?"

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[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago

Respectfully, even most geology falls into the realms of the theoretical. We have theories of how a sandstone gorge is formed, but no one has been doing the measurements for long enough to know for sure. We have simply created a model that fits the observed phenomena available to us and have created theoretical abstractions based on that model.

Otherwise, theoretical physics relies on a creation of predictions that could be mathematically true, based on inferred extrapolation of the current, contradictory, models but ultimately haven't actually been able to square enough circles in the field of experimental physics to be widely taken as whole scientific.

For example, there are aspects of string theory, such as long distance quantum pairing, that have been shown to be true experimentally, however, overall experimental data does not demonstrate to a statistically significant degree that the actual reason for this phenomena is because the universe works through a string theory model, there are too many other things that fit other, contradictory theoretical models.