There have been a number of "who ordered that" discoveries is the recent history of physics - muons, the J/ and massive neutrinos come to mind. There have also been orderly programs of discovery based on theory, like the successful 20 year effort at the major accelerators to find the particles predicted by the standard model.

The sociology of physics, like that of other modern enterprises, has been infected by the custom of trash talk, taken from sports. You shouldn't take it too seriously.

Currenly the string theorists are attempting to change that, if they can ever come up with a verifiable prediction which cannot be made with existing physics they will be the first theorists to lead the experimentalist.

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Originally posted by Integral:
When have theorist ever lead the way? Newton and Kepler relied upon expermental data to fromulate their theores, Maxwell relied upon experimentalist to formulate his theories. This is the way physics has always been done. It is after the science which attempts to understand the universe as a whole, we HAVE to let the properties of the universe guide the way, to determine the properties of the universe we must do experiments. That is fundamental to modern science.

Currenly the string theorists are attempting to change that, if they can ever come up with a verifiable prediction which cannot be made with existing physics they will be the first theorists to lead the experimentalist.

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When have theorist ever lead the way?

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Dirac predicted the antiparticles, which was thought a ridiculous weakness in his theory until Davidson discovered the positroin.

Well, that's an interesting theory I suppose. Do they have emperial evidence or are they merely relying on historical evidence over a relatively short period of time. Sounds like so much sensational nonesense cooked up by someone proving how rediculous the PHD process has become.

All the major advances in physics have been driven by politics, economics, and warfare. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a fool. If Experimentalists had been able to unify Relativity and Quantum Mechanics by themselves we wouldn't be spending absorbatent amounts of money hiring theorists.... now would we! Some ninty percent of the world economy is pure speculation, so there is a great deal of vested interest in physics, more so at times than who will be the next best selling pop music sensation.

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All the major advances in physics have been driven by politics, economics, and warfare.

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Wait, isn't PhysicsForums.com a counterexample?

The greek made lots of theorys, but didn't back them up with experimental data.

Scientists first observered gravity before forulating their theories about it.

Some theoreies give rise to experiment, quarks I think are an example. Or antimatter.

And some experiments give rise to theories. Certain light speed experiments spring to mind.

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Originally posted by ObsessiveMathsFreak:

The greek made lots of theorys, but didn't back them up with experimental data.
Scientists first observered gravity before forulating their theories about it.

"May the maths be with you"

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MathsFreak,

I protest. Have a look at Greek kosmology. Each time they found their theory was no longer confirmed by observation they imaginated another one. Plato's rule was, you should NOT observe and try to explain what you see, you should construct coherent theories, compare with observation and if your theory is not confirmed by observation you should imagine something else. "Save the phenomena" was during centuries a greek scientific rule.

I agree with the subject of this topic. The scientific utility of the theorists in physics of the past century may not only be questionned, the theorists have been deletrious to science. To the references given by laserblue I may point to several articles in "Flight from Science and Reason" published by the New York Academy of Sciences.

Too many scientist try to prove what they are paid for, true or not true. I invite all members of this forum to examine critically the experimental proofs of Relativity and QM given in the litterature, encyclopedies etc.

In the topic "Proof of Maxwell's equations" Tom gave recently a reference with the proof of something that had to be proved. When you read this reference it is clear its author was
cheating intentionally in order to prove what he had to prove and what he knew he could not prove.
Some years ago the English monthly "Wireless World" gave the names of university professors who disagreed with relativity etc. and who had been given the choice, teach Einstein or be fired.

I have no knowledge of lies or cheating from greek scientists. Several greek scientists were banned or even executed because of their teaching but there is no record of lying or cheating by one of them. If modern theorists had been as honnest as the greek physics probably had gone another way.

Morp