Many people have predicted
the end of fundamental physics. Often
these are at the end of great progress such as the late 19th century
when classical physics was quite well understood, or in the midst of such a
flurry of action when it seems like all the pieces are coming together such as
in the 1920’s and 1930’s in nuclear and quantum physics. Clearly, there are many mysteries and
surprises yet to uncover in fundamental physics but is there a pattern in its
historical progress that might indicate where we are in its completion. This type of analysis (also called logistic
analysis or learning “S” curve patterns) have been often observed in business
and the rate of technology development, e.g., steam engine efficiency. Cesare Marchetti was a prolific researcher in
this field looking at the topics of energy fuels, environmental actions, and
worldview dynamics. About a decade ago, Theodore Modis, hypothesized that the
history of the universe seems to demonstrate a large logistic progression.
This leads us to the question
of how scientific fields progress. Are scientific fields developed faster as
more is known? Or are fields developed slowly at first as definitions are
determined, then at a relatively constant rate of progress once the fundamental
issues have been defined, and then again at a slower pace as the remaining
issues are explored and resolved with the constraints that they must be
consistent with the earlier discoveries?
To gather more evidence to
address these questions, an important field, fundamental physics, was
identified and analyzed. A source for much of the technological advance
has been fundamental physics and its later developments into applied
physics. Fundamental physics history has been quite well documented
through research papers and biographies, and is dependent on a relatively small
set of field colleagues at any one time.
The methodology and analysis
were to categorize an independent list of historical physics discoveries into
traditional subfields and then evaluate each subfields progress via logistic
growth patterns. Then an overall pattern of the set of subfields was also
analyzed. The events in the history of physics as listed on a website were
assigned to the 12 subfields of classical gravity, classical mechanics, optics
and wave physics, thermodynamics, electrodynamics, atomic physics, special
relativity, nuclear physics, general relativity, quantum mechanics, high-energy
particle physics, and string physics.
It is seen that, in general,
as fundamental physics developed, initially there was a speeding up of research
in subfields. Decreases are seen in both
the time to complete a subfield and the time between subfields. However, after
about 1930 the relative rate of new subfields in high energy physics and beyond
has slowed. This change in the might indicate that the logistic nature of
the field’s discovery is being seen; i.e., the subfields with the smallest
transition times might be interpreted as the midpoint (or inflection point) in
the development of the fundamental physics.
Figure 4. Graph of the characteristic time (20% to 80%
completion time) versus the year of median (50%) completion for the 11
subfields. The circles show the groupings of subfields with similar
median completion times into stages. Note that the right-most point
(string physics) is just an estimate.
By assuming that each stage
contributes the same amount towards the overall development of fundamental
physics, the overall completion fraction curve with the 5 completed stages and
one uncompleted stage can be plotted. Since the stage that is centered at
1925 has the smallest characteristic time, this point is chosen as the center
of the overall transition. Symmetry of the curve would have 3 stages
beyond (HEP, string physics, and another yet unidentified stage) the center
stage to match the 3 stages before the center stage. This leaves only the
logistic width parameter, a, to fit. This data and a
logistic fit to the curve are shown in Figure 5, with a logistic a parameter of 1/ (77 years). This corresponds to a characteristic
time of 212 years for the transition to go from 20 to 80% completion.
Within this one field of
science, the nature of logistic development is seen in both the subfields and
the complete field. If the logistic interpretation is correct and is
followed, the data suggest that string physics is likely to be 50% complete in
2030 and 80% complete in 2090. However, if the development curve is
logistic, then the development curve would be symmetric around the midpoint,
identified as the “Golden Age” of physics in 1920s with the simultaneous
developments in general relativity, quantum mechanics and nuclear
physics. This would imply there should be symmetric stages that
correspond to each other; i.e., if 3 stages are identified before the midpoint,
then there should be 3 after the midpoint. String physics is only the
second identified stage, leading to the suggestion that another stage in the
development of fundamental physics might come after string physics. If
symmetry holds, the last stage’s 20%, 50%, and 80% completion times would be 2100,
2180, and 2260.
Cumulative field
completion assuming that each stage has an equal weighting. The
logistical fit is based on the historical stages. The last two points
(Stage 6-string and 7) are positioned assuming symmetry around the midpoint
(Stage 4).
Obviously there are many
limitations with this type of analysis dealing with the selection and
categorization of discrete events, subfields, and stages. Many
assumptions were made along the way, such as that each event and stage had
equal importance, which was similar to the analysis of Modis. There is no
claim of a mechanism generating the possible logistic development, and no
effort was made to sort out potential influences such as funding levels and
public interest.
What do you think?
