• BakerBagel@midwest.social
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    8 months ago

    So it works fine on human scales, but for most of the universe it is inadequate. That means it’s wrong. Quantum physics and relativity are also wrong since he are unable to reconcile the two, despite them both being the best models we have for their respective scales. We have known for the past century that we have only just begun to understand the universe, and that all our models are irreconcilable with each other, meaning that they are ultimately wrong.

    Just because a model is useful doesn’t mean it is right.

    • bloup@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 months ago

      I agree with the essence of your point but personally I’d never use the word “wrong”, only incomplete. Seems weird to call Newton’s laws “wrong” when the only reason that we are willing to accept GR is that it reduces to Newton.

        • bloup@lemmy.sdf.org
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          8 months ago

          I prefer mine:

          literally every model is a metaphor and not a true representation of the actual phenomenon it’s modeling.

      • Hugin@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        It’s not so much that it reduces to Newtonian predictions but that at human scale and energy levels the difference between Newtonian and general relatively is so small it’s almost impossible to tell the difference.

        • bloup@lemmy.sdf.org
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          8 months ago

          What you’re describing is literally what it means for general relativity to reduce to Newtonian mechanics. You can literally derive Newton’s equations by applying calculus to general relativity. In fact, if you ever get a physics degree, you’ll have to learn how to do it.