{"id":33,"date":"2021-02-01T02:51:13","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T02:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/experimentalfrontiers.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=33"},"modified":"2021-02-01T02:51:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T02:51:13","slug":"uncommon-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/experimentalfrontiers\/2021\/02\/01\/uncommon-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncommon Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scientific method is built on two pillars: First, the assumption of a common objective reality that separate observers can agree on. Second, the understanding of complex phenomena by isolating simple subsystems for experimental study.<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a quantum world, (first) it is provably impossible to separate observer from observed. There is no such thing as objective reality. And (second) it is possible to isolate a particle and do experiments, but most of the interesting quantum effects depend on collective properties of many identical particles that we can never probe by studying one-particle-at-a-time.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Since these two pillars of the scientific method fell in the 1920s, scientists continue to think in terms of objective reality, and we continue to analyze pieces to understand the whole. It may be provably wrong, but it\u2019s the science that we know how to do.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In the long run, it is clear that we must expand what we mean by \u201cscience\u201d, or else admit that there are other ways of knowing things outside of science. This column of ScienceBlog will be my contribution to the former approach.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Common and uncommon science<\/b><\/p>\n

Common science seeks answers to the questions that can be formulated within a familiar context of what we already know. Uncommon science seeks to overthrow the familiar context of what we think we know by sharpening the experimental contradictions to established theory until they become undeniable. A fertile pandemonium follows, as a flood of new theoretical paradigms is furiously debated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.\u201d
\n<\/span>\u2014 <\/span>This was the response of Neils Bohr to Wolfgang Pauli, who had been off dreaming collective dreams with Carl Jung<\/a>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My lifetime (1949- ) has seen a flourishing of scientific research beyond anything that my parents\u2019 generation could have dreamed. We forget that, before 1940, science was a realm of one-off mavericks and intellectual fanatics. For the first time, there is a scientific establishment; and a stable, comfortable \u201ccareer\u201d in science is a thing that any talented young student might realistically pursue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a blessing, of course, but a mixed blessing. Common science has flourished but not so uncommon science, and I would argue that by leeching creative talent and by dominating the publication venues, common science has crowded out uncommon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a short list of the conceptual breakthroughs that appeared in the first half of the 20th Century:<\/p>\n