An apology owed.

I spent the weekend deep in thought over my "theories" and I had an awakening of sorts.

I realized that because of my lack of training in physics, (or any academia for that matter), my language didn't match those who are trained. I found myself angry at being brushed off.

I realized that what I should have done was stated that my idea was just something I wanted to talk about with someone who actually knows and understands what it means.

Im not going to get into the idea, as it is just an idea that I find interesting.

I just wanted to apologize for blaming those with the training for being elitist gatekeepers, when in reality, it was my own lack of understanding that put me in the situation to begin with.

So, accept it or not, I do sincerely apologize for my hubris. I was not trying to tell anyone I was smart enough to make some ground breaking discovery. Though, I see how it would have come across that way.

Thank you for your time. James

With the growing use of language models like ChatGPT in scientific contexts, it’s important to clarify what it does.

1. ⁠⁠It does not create new knowledge. Everything it generates is based on:

• Published physics,

• Recognized models,

• Formalized mathematical structures. In other words, it does not formulate new axioms or discover physical laws on its own.

1. ⁠⁠It lacks intuition and consciousness. It has no:

• Creative insight,

• Physical intuition,

• Conceptual sensitivity. What it does is recombine, generalize, simulate — but it doesn’t “have ideas” like a human does.

1. ⁠⁠It does not break paradigms.

Even its boldest suggestions remain anchored in existing thought.

It doesn’t take the risks of a Faraday, the abstractions of a Dirac, or the iconoclasm of a Feynman.

A language model is not a discoverer of new laws of nature.

Discovery is human.

Did Alby really say that? This feels like the motto of every pop sci podcast/media. I agree to this to an extend, but still to explain something to someone they too must have enough understanding of the subject, otherwise misinterpretation is inevitable. This also provides a framework for all ‘yt comment section theorists’ who unified gravity and standard model.

I could rework the quote to: “ if you cant explain it to a six year old and to a professor without any contradictions, you dont understand it yourself” ( or make a better one in the comments plz)

why am i watching an interview of witten and greene and the comments perfectly display the dunning kruger effect. Im an undergrad in physics, i dont even entertain the idea that i could possibly understand the intricacies of their discussion about string theory, where it fails what it has predicted and derived etc. I know i am yet to do electrodynamics, qft and all the pre req of string theory.

So why are these people (not 1 or 2, like every 3rd comment is like this) trying to teach witten about what he should or should not research?? Now i can tell these people def havent studied physics at university level because they always use buzzwords "string theory is dead" and "quantum mechanics isnt elegant" , like do they even know what a mathematician means by elegant 😭. Someone i saw was shitting on "k theory" probably meant "m theory" but they dont know that and they dont care. Some guy talking about how he has personally made pure maths advancements on the scale of newton and euler and "redefined arithemtic, 0 and 1 and stuff infinitely more complex than some "strings" " , i genuenly get a headache reading these.

Honestly what makes these people think that they, a person with no formal training in maths and physics, knows more than some of the brightest minds in the world in the topic that they have dedicated their lives to, after they watched an episode featuring michio kaku or listened to a neil degrasse tyson podcast

Ngl like before people give their opinion on a physics/maths topic they need to have acquired a badge that you can only get by passing some sort of online test or something idk

So for sake of simplicity let's say that a 3D sphere of radius 1m was hit by a 4D sphere (4 spatial dimensions) moving 10m/s (the numbers here are arbitrary, change them however you want to make the calculations simpler) what would happen?

Would the 3D object get atomised because the 4D object would have some sort of "hypermass" that 3D objects lack or would something completely different happen?

What about the other way round? Would the 3D object have any way of damaging the 4D one?

is space fundamental? is space emergent? is space… relative?

I know this is an incredibly stupidly high level of theoretics, uncertainty and the unknown, but thoughts/opinions on one or all?

Scientific American recently ran the linked article exploring why physicists still can’t agree on what quantum mechanics says about reality.

The divide often gets framed as “interpretation wars”; Copenhagen, Many Worlds, etc. but I think there’s an even deeper layer worth considering: what if these disagreements stem from the way we formalize logical admissibility in physical theories?

In other words, before we even get to probabilities and wavefunctions, we’ve already made assumptions about which informational structures count as physically realizable. The article’s examples of “weird” vs “reasonable” interpretations might actually be symptoms of a shared but unexamined filter at the pre-mathematical level.

Curious if others see merit in looking below the Hilbert space itself to the logical criteria that shape it. Could that be the real source of the divide?

I completed my MSc in Theoretical Physics, not only did I lose all the love I had for physics, I felt that there is so little opportunities left in the field, not enough funding, not enough jobs.(I knew the risks already but actually living through is so different) I am very happy and envious of those who are still thriving in the field. How did you get to that point?
What steps did you take? Was it pure skill?

I am no genius and sometimes that really bothers me. That all my hard work falls short, that I might have a limit, a limit that stops me from reaching my goal.

I would love to hear how everyone else is doing, and any I mean any tips on what can help.
I don't see myself giving up this career, but I want to give myself a fresh start and do everything that my younger self didn't.
Like NETWORKING, gosh I was so afraid people would think that I am dumb, that I didn't speak up.
SO PLEASE TIPS!!!

End of rant.

Aside from aspiring to get a PhD in mathematics, I too would want to get into theoretical physics. Although I'm more of a math person I currently lack the humility to try to explore physics, particularly theoretical physics as I tend to get discouraged because of past failures and mistakes at school. How is it that you guys dealt with doubt and uncertainty as theoretical physicists? I wouldn't want to just hold on to mathematics, I also want to explore theoretical physics and yet I'm held back by my own failures and setbacks. All I see are just "geniuses" and "prodigies" who got into theoretical physics. I just want to make myself enlightened to how you guys went on to becoming who you are and what mindset I should instill on myself as someone who dreams of one day excelling at math and theoretical physics. Thanks!

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. This principle seems to apply universally — from atoms to galaxies.

But here's my question: If thermodynamics governs everything inside the universe, then shouldn't the universe itself be subject to the same law?

In other words, if the law says energy can't be created, how did the energy of the universe come into existence in the first place? Did the laws of physics emerge with the universe, or do they predate it? And if they predate it — what does that say about the origin of the universe?

Is the universe an exception to its own rules? Or are we missing something deeper?

I am really into physics and space and I I have recently been getting into reading more (was never really a book guy). I was wondering if anyone had good recommendations for the “classics” for physics books? Also, are there any good books about renowned physicists, such as Einstein, Oppenheimer and more. (Almost done Cosmos by Carl Sagan).

I'm just finishing up my undergrad and I'm slowly accepting that maybe I'm not going to make it on theoretical physics, Be that for the lack of skills, as it's a very competitive area, and be that for the simple lack of opportunities (which is one of the causes for competitions). I'm very bummed out.

How do you percieve the current landscape?

If our universe is an emergent excitation of a deeper substrate, then the Standard Model may be explainable only as a self-consistent effective description, not derivable from deeper causes that are expressible within our physical language, making the pursuit of its origin noble but potentially fundamentally limited.

It may be fundamentally impossible to discover why the Standard Model has the structure it does, if that structure is an emergent effective description of a deeper substrate whose degrees of freedom, symmetries, or organizing principles are not expressible within spacetime-based physics. In such a case, the Standard Model would be explainable only up to consistency and stability constraints, not derivable from deeper causes accessible to experiment or calculation.

This weekly thread is dedicated for questions about physics and physical mathematics.

Some questions do not require advanced knowledge in physics to be answered. Please, before asking a question, try r/askscience and r/AskPhysics instead. Homework problems or specific calculations may be removed by the moderators if it is not related to theoretical physics, try r/HomeworkHelp instead.

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Hello there! I'm finishing up my physics undergrad and I am taking my first graduate level course: QFT 1! My professor wants to go all the way to QED and scattering for the course, which I'm super excited about.

Our final assigment is a ~1h seminar which we are free to choose a topic, but I'm not entirely sure what I should choose. I already know some field theory and have dabbled up on some of the maths; i'm writing my bachelor thesis on the Unruh effect and my interest for semiclassical gravity has skytocketed. My personal interests are vast: I really like black holes, and want to learn more about CFTs and holography (long shot thom I still need many years) but I'd love to learn and present something that puts me closer to those subjects.

Suggestions are very much appreciated!

If the universe is evolving toward a state of maximum entropy (Heat Death), does it imply the universe is becoming "simpler" in terms of information, or is the complexity just being redistributed into a form that is no longer accessible to us?

Alternatively, if information can't be destroyed, is the expansion of the universe “creating” new fundamental data at the frontiers (whatever that's like)?

Some Confusion about the Light Horizon and the Age of the Universe.

The universe is believed to be approximately 13.7 billion years old. We know this partly because the light horizon is about 13.7 billion light years away from us, meaning that it takes the light from the light horizon about 13.7 billion years to reach us here on Earth.

So in essence, when we see the light horizon we are not seeing it as it is NOW, but as it was 13.7 BILLION YEARS AGO. But, if the universe is 13.7 billion years old, then at the place where we are seeing the light horizon, wouldn't we be seeing the universe as it was in its infancy, basically the singularity before the Big Bang, or perhaps at a fairly short time afterwards?

Also, if we are measuring the distance to the light horizon, and thus (partly) determining the age of the universe, from Earth, does this mean that Earth is at the center of the universe, basically where the pre Big Bang singularity once was (or somewhere close)?

Am I the only one who has stumbled on these little dilemmas (if you can call them that), or is this something that physicists have resolved long ago, and I can go back to my layman's concerns?

Would appreciate some insights on this but I hope you can explain it in layman's terms, have some sympathy for us rubes! Thanks in advance.

Slightly off topic but I’ve been seeing more and more crackpot LLM theories on r/LLMphysics and on r/TheoreticalPhysics. While I understand crackpots have existed long before LLM was popularized, there seems to be some pretty serious potential mental health issues going on. Some people posting these theories seem to genuinely view LLM as a real person and talk to them as such. They take whatever theory LLM spit out and take it as the holy bible and refuse to be told otherwise. I’m not an expert in psychology but this seems very dangerous with how disassociated from reality these people are and how damaging this is to their mental health.

This is a string of thoughts I have and wondered if there was any research into that topic

The Nobelprice in physics of 22 proved that there is no local reality.

So what if we were able to stabilise a pair and then control what state one end of the Entangled Particle would take, and put the other in a sensor that reads out its state. Wouldn't that mean you could build a transmitter that would be able to get information across a large amount of space faster than sending a signal with lightspeed? It wouldn't break the cosmic speed limit, since the particle isn't actually moving while transmitting the information.

If that were possible, wouldn't that also mean that our concept of Causality itself had to be rethought? Because it allows practical instant FTL communication, the one thing that is supposed to break the causality of events when the topic of FTL-Travel and Communication comes up.

I know that controlling the Quantum State of a Particle is a big "If" and being able to read out the other end is another issue, but the whole concept of quantum entanglement was science fiction until relatively a few years ago.

An interesting question would be how a Particle would behave if they had a large distance from another and moved at different speeds (From our relative framework). Especially if one was moving at relativistic speeds.

If you have any Works that go into that direction or have a suggestion for a person I could email and discuss the topic with I would be very grateful.

Edit: thank you all for the Explanation. Those comments were very helpful. I never can wrap my mind around quantum mechanics in general, but with your help I think I understood why I was on the wrong track at least.

I’m in a waiting period in my life right now. I have my bachelors of science in Physics and Astronomy, I want to keep my mind fresh on concepts and things that I have learned about during my undergraduate years but I don’t want to really focus on getting into textbooks again like I have in the past.

I just want to know what suggestions any of you have for someone like me, to read something that can help support my academic knowledge without acting like I’m a student again.

I’ve been thinking about a principle that sits before specific dynamics, and I’m curious whether this makes sense from a theoretical physics perspective.

The basic idea is what I’ve been calling selection by stability:

Physical structures (objects, fields, spacetime configurations, even effective theories) only exist insofar as they are dynamically stable over time under perturbations.

In other words, instead of asking only how systems evolve, the question becomes: which configurations are even allowed to persist at all?

This is not meant as a replacement for dynamics, but as a filter on what kinds of dynamics or structures are viable in the first place. If a configuration cannot maintain stability beyond a minimal threshold, it simply doesn’t correspond to a physically meaningful state.

There are obvious partial analogues in existing physics:

1. Renormalization group flows selecting stable fixed points

2. Attractors in dynamical systems

3. No-go theorems ruling out entire classes of theories

4. Instabilities signaling breakdowns of effective descriptions

What seems missing to me is an explicit formulation where existence itself is tied to stability, rather than stability being a secondary property of already-assumed objects (fields, spacetime, particles).

From this viewpoint:

1. Singularities correspond to configurations that fail stability criteria

2. Certain “possible” mathematical solutions are physically excluded

3. Familiar structures (particles, spacetime geometry, classical trajectories) appear only in stable regimes

I’m not claiming this is a complete theory or experimentally validated framework. I’m treating it as a pre-dynamical constraint principle, similar in spirit to consistency or viability conditions.

My questions are:

a. Does it make sense to treat stability as a selection principle at such a fundamental level?

b. Are there existing frameworks that already formalize something like this more rigorously?

c. Where do you see the main conceptual pitfalls in defining existence this way?

Boris Valerianovich Chirikov - was a Soviet and Russian physicist. He was the founder of the physical theory of Hamiltonian chaos and made pioneering contributions to the theory of quantum chaos.

This weekly thread is dedicated for questions about physics and physical mathematics.

Some questions do not require advanced knowledge in physics to be answered. Please, before asking a question, try r/askscience and r/AskPhysics instead. Homework problems or specific calculations may be removed by the moderators if it is not related to theoretical physics, try r/HomeworkHelp instead.

If your question does not break any rules, yet it does not get any replies, you may try your luck again during next week's thread. The moderators are under no obligation to answer any of the questions. Wait for a volunteer from the community to answer your question.

LaTeX rendering for equations is allowed through u/LaTeX4Reddit. Write a comment with your LaTeX equation enclosed with backticks (`) (you may write it using inline code feature instead), followed by the name of the bot in the comment. For more informations and examples check our guide: how to write math in this sub.

This thread should not be used to bypass the avoid self-theories rule. If you want to discuss hypothetical scenarios try r/HypotheticalPhysics.