alt Hacker NewsThe volume of journal papers published isn't well-correlated with progress, sadly.
I have a physics degree and I regularly read the latest published research. Please don't make ad hominem attacks.
> How long has scientific inquiry about physics been going on? In that frame, is 50 years a long time or a short time?
Unlike all other sciences, on a long horizon, eventually Physics will be "completely solved", with no more fundamentals to discover, only applications, which are generally considered other sciences or engineering. We far from achieving this end-state.
The point is that we made giant strides every few years for decades, and then... nothing. The field has hardly advanced since the 1970s!
> I have a physics degree and I regularly read the latest published research. Please don't make ad hominem attacks.
It was not an attack, I just don't know the authority from which your comments derive (and there wasn't really evidence provided outside your opinion which I think others disagree with).
> The point is that we made giant strides every few years for decades, and then... nothing. The field has hardly advanced since the 1970s!
I think my subtle argument is that we've been writing for about 4,000 years, so something discovered in the last 50 years is relatively new.
Even limiting yourself to the current era of post-Enlightenment inquiry, 50 years is still relatively new.
Separately, if you truly accept that physics is completely knowable, then it would stand to reason that as we asymptotically approach knowing 'everything', the marginal rate of acquiring new knowledge would slow.
So I guess I don't see which way you are leaning - are we not learning things because we know everything, or are we being impatient and not recognizing how fast our progress has been?