Would you consider theoretical physics to be a pseudo-science?
409964
All (good) science is based on theoretical notions thought up by someone carefully observing the universe around them, proposing an explanation, and then testing to see if it can be used to predict a likely outcome.  If it predicts the likely outcome all the time, it becomes a Law.  In physics, Gravity is already a Law, but String Theory is still a theory.  A theory is not pseudoscience unless most thoughtful people can see holes in it.  Theoretical thought, even "on the margins of science" is essential for progress.\n\nDoubtless there were many sensible folk who thought the Wright brothers were lunatics, but they had the math & mechanical skills to prove their theoretical notion that a machine could make a man able to fly.\n\nNow go to your workshop and think!
595511
Do you believe … ?\n\nBelief in One Theory\n\nAs soon as these words are uttered, a great and unfortunate polarization tends to occur.  So many take the position that “my idea is all correct and your idea is all wrong.”  These ideas can be labeled as theories, doctrines, or whatever; they challenge us to examine our ideas and the views of others.  If we are insecure, we prefer to dismiss the viewpoints of others rather than examine our own.  However, if we are emotionally mature, we tend to be willing to review our own position and seek the merit in the perspective of others.  Such emotional maturity was once defined as “I am what I am, nothing better, nothing worse, and I find it good.”  This non-competitive stance is essential for open-minded pursuit of truth and knowledge.\n\nAny one who knows about blueprints, mechanical drafting, or architecture understands that it takes at least 3 different viewpoints to be able to accurately understand and recreate anything.  The most commonly used are the top, side, and front views.  For example, a table from the top view is a long and wide rectangle.  From the front view it is narrow and long.   From the side view it is narrow and short.  It is fruitless to argue that any one of these perspectives is false.\n\nIn layman’s terms, we might say that the sky is blue.  Someone else that it is orange.  In comprehensive reality, we can admit that it is sometimes blue and sometimes orange; indeed, sometimes it can be both at the same time.\n\nScientists may argue that light consists of waves, not particles.  Other scientists might insist that light is made of particles, not waves.  However, many modern scientists are beginning to embrace the necessity of models that include both these concepts.  Moreover, the characteristics of something do not have to be restricted to only 2 or 3 substantiated theories or viewpoints; a deep understanding of things may involve a panoramic examination of multiple views, like a spinning and swerving car in a television commercial.\n\nWith that foundation, we have been asked by the author and responders to consider which view: the Big Bang Theory, the Big Crunch, or God created our universe.  To this, I am inclined to answer “perhaps all of the above.”  Let me point out the relative merits of each position briefly and how they could possibly harmonize.\n\nThe Big Bang\n\nThe Big Bang Theory remains the dominant scientific theory about the origin of the universe.  The red shift of light from distant nebulas proves that everything is moving away from a starting point, an expanding universe.  The fact that there is a relationship between these celestial objects speed and their distance reinforces their common origin.  If true, there should be cosmic background radiation, and there is.  Physics tends to support the details of the theory including the cooling that may have lead to the sequential creation of matter and antimatter particles, including quarks, protons, neutrons, electrons, neutrinos and photons.  Similarly, the relative properties of the basic elements tend to support their sequential development, including deuterium (heavy hydrogen), tritium and helium.  The ratio of one helium atom for every ten or eleven atoms of hydrogen is a constant in the universe today.\n\nUnresolved problems with this theory are the age of the universe and the basis on a “singularity” (an event which defies current rules of physics).   Also, while the Big Bang Theory defines an event of creation, it does not define what caused it to happen.\n\nThe Big Crunch\n\nIf the total gravitational force of all matter is high enough, it would slow the expansion of the universe, and then reverse it, causing the Big Crunch of everything, the opposite of the big expansion called the Big Bang. All matter and energy would be compressed back into a gravitational singularity.  This theory does not explain what would happen after this event, which may occur in about 42 billion
1093187
No.\n\nThere is no way to include it in scientific theory.\n\nOutside scientific theory it is optional.\n\nIt has big disadvantages - eg it leads to war, bigotry, hatred, terrorism etc.
429802
Scientific theories will generally always remain theory, because there are very few things (if anything) that we completely understand from start to finish.  I personally would worry about anyone coming out and saying something they were proposing was totally right without any doubts.  Keep in mind, though most theories are modified, they are usually correct in essence.
932572
As far as I understand it, most disciplines of "hard science" are built on principles of mathematics, but mathematics in of itself is not considered a "hard science." As more advanced it becomes, the more theoretical it gets, and starts to resemble something like philosophy.
913586
the parallel universe theory, just like string theory, and bubble universe theory, are simply elaborate "what ifs". but none of these are based off of any empirical data, and are completely unfalsifiable, and therefore unscientific. in fact, this theory actually came from scientists who decided to disregard a generally better established explination of the of von Neumann's quantum collapse postulate.\n\njust in the same sense that, if i lock all my doors and windows, and christmas presents get under my tree, it doesnt mean that santa put them there.\n\nthere is too much quantum mechanics for me to explain, but i have a fellow lab student who is doing quantum computing who agrees with me on this point. and this is the general consensus of the scientific community.
934235
The scientific definiton of "theory" is not what your average person on the street would think it is.  It is NOT a hypothesis, it is NOT just a clever idea that sounds right.  It is something that has been supported over and over again, in all aspects of biology.  \nEvolution is a theory, and so it gravity.  Gee, better start arguing against that, too...
635497
enough to admire it\n\nQM is here to stay like it or not (Einstein did not)\n\nIt is not just a theory but the most provable experimentally modern fundamental theory of the subatomic world.\n\nUnlike the Relativity and other classics theories, it is not a deterministic but "statistical" one. We can know this and that with certain degrees of probability -- that's what QM tells us. It works and that's whats counts at the end\n\n"There is nothing more practical than a GOOD theory."
828385
A scientific theory is very, very different from a layman's theory.\n\nA scoentific theory has gone from a hypothesis (which is closer to the layman's term theory) to having been tested repeatedly and having been proven correct. However, the difference between a theory and a law is falsification, which is a crazy word to define.\n\nBasically, a theory cannot be made into a law until it has been proven that the *opposite* of that theory is false.\n\nFirst law of thermodynamics, for example. In any process, the total energy of the universe remains constant. This has been proven. It has also been proven that the opposite is NOT true--the total energy of the universe not remaining constant is false.\n\nTheory of evolution. People and so on evolved from lower organisms. This is provable. However, "people did not evolve from lower organisms" has not yet been proven false.\n\nBoggles the mind, doesn't it?
339435
Theories come in two forms. A theory in the scientific sense doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it is supported by evidence, contradicted by the evidence,or even if the theory is well liked. It only has to do with the way the theory is structured and the way it functions. Just because a theory is a scientific theory does not mean that the scientific community currently accepts it. There are many theories that are scientific, but have been rejected by the scientific community because the evidence is strongly against it. Phenomenological theories are observational generalizations of data. These theories only describe the processes that nature keeps repeating but do not explain their causes or mechanisms. Phenomenological theories are also called scientific laws, physical laws, and natural laws. Newton’s third law is one example of a phenomenological theory. It states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Explanatory theories attempt to explain the observations rather than generalize them. Whereas laws are descriptions of observational regularities, explanatory theories are conceptual constructions to explain why the data exist. For example, the atomic theory explains why we see certain observations. The same could be said with DNA and relativity. Explanatory theories are particularly helpful in such cases where the entities (like atoms, DNA, and so forth) cannot be directly observed.\n\nScientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reported in Dec. 22, 2005 of the journal Nature that Albert Einstein's formula, E=mc2, was correct. \n\nThe researchers used an instrument developed by NIST (Gaithersburg, Md.) called GAMS4 (click link below for image) to again confirm that energy and matter are related: energy (E) equals mass (m) times the square of the speed of light (c2). Full article at  http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=PK0GDDIIC0P4EQSNDBESKHA?articleID=175007386\n\nImage at\nhttp://i.cmpnet.com/eet/news/online/2005/12/image1_122005.jpg
837707
it is partially a question that suggests something that could happen but isn't actually happening at the time it is asked...\n\nWhat if the moon turned purple overnight?....it could potentially happen, isn't happening now and isn't likely to..so it is purely theoretical..\n\nTheoretical can also refer to something that you think is true but you cannot prove..hence the term 'theoretical physics'..although it can be proved mathematically...as it cannot be literally seen..it is termed as theoretical.
998030
i think it is a theory of physics that doesn't exist yet but is the ultimate goal of physicists. the problem is that rules of physics don't apply to all things.. like there is the regular everyday physics like Newton's gravity, cause & effect, etc. then Einstein figured out relativity and added time as a factor to the picture. so physical properties of a thing in the universe depends on the perspective of the observer. if something (thing 'a') is moving it changes the way it acts in relation to thing 'b', which isn't moving, or is moving faster or slower... 'relative' rules. even einstein got upset though, when people were able to look at tiny things, subatomic particles, and found they didn't act according to the rules of the big world. they had their own rules of interaction. rules of science should apply to all things, or they aren't really very good at explaining the world, so einstein and every scientist since has been looking for a theory of physics that 'unifies' the universe; both big and small. a set of rules of physics that you can say, yes that's what will happen if  this happens, either to a person or a subatomic particle. this all gets mushed up in the idea that understanding the universal rules will give us an idea of how the universe began..like the first seconds of the universe which is another obsession for scientists. so that's why it's called the grand unification theory. it would unify all the theories into one that applies all the time to all things. but it doesn't exist yet. look up stuff on stephen hawkings theories and maybe string theory for some neat ideas
55186
what is science if not the discovery (and then proof in terms of repeatable and consistent evidence) and explanation of what previously was not known and proved.\n\nImagine science hundreds of years ago.  Would not they think much of today's world as magic?  Would they believe a machine weighting hundreds of thousands of pounds of metal would fly based upon speed of air over part of the machine?  Would they not think getting part of the disease to prevent the disease as superstition?\n\nMaybe one day, we will know and understand many of the elements of the metaphysical, extrasensory world, paranormal, ghosts, etc. that are a mystery  today.  Then this would be part of science, not ghosts, supernatural or magic.
1053241
I'll just cite the theories I know (I'M SURE OF THIS ANSWERS BUT THE NEXT ONES>>> 50/50.. ^^\nWave theory of light\nParticle Theory of light\nElectromagnetic theory \nQuantum theory \nPhotoelectric Theory\n\n\nOr you can check this out at www.wikipedia.org\nbut i'm not really sure if it is.. but i think... ^^ \nOverview\nA physical theory is a model of physical events and cannot be proven from basic axioms. A physical theory is different from a mathematical theorem; physical theories model reality and are a statement of what has been observed, and provide predictions of new observations.\n\nHence, more is involved than the application, or even invention, of mathematics — to wit: concept formation. Archimedes realized that one could determine the volume of an irregularly-shaped object by immersing it in a liquid, and that a ship floats by displacing its weight of water. Pythagoras understood the relation between the length of a vibrating string and the musical tone it produces, and how to calculate the length of a rectangle's diagonal. Other examples include entropy as a measure of the uncertainty regarding the positions and motions of unseen particles and the quantum mechanical idea that (action and) energy are not continuously variable. Sometimes it is the vision of mathematicians which provides the clue; e.g., the notion, due to Riemann and others, that space itself might be curved.\n\nTheoretical advances often consist in setting aside old paradigms\n\nHeat is a fluid called caloric. \nBurning consists of evolving phlogiston. \nAstronomical bodies revolve around the Earth. \noften replacing them with new ones\n\nPhysical objects are made up of molecules and atoms. \nDiseases can be caused by unseen microbes. \nEnergy is exchanged in discrete packets called quanta. \nPhysical theories become accepted if they are able to make correct predictions and avoid incorrect ones. All else being equal, simple theories tend to be accepted over theories which are complex. (But conceptual simplicity may mean mathematical complexity.) They are also more likely to be accepted if they connect a wide range of phenomena. Testing the consequences of a theory is part of the scientific method.\n\nPhysical theories can be grouped into three categories: mainstream theories, proposed theories and fringe theories.\n\n[edit]\nHistory\nFor more details on this topic, see History of physics. \nTheoretical physics began, at least 2,300 years ago under the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, and continued by Plato; and Aristotle, whose views held sway for a millennium. In medieval times, during the rise of the universities, the only acknowledged intellectual disciplines were theology, mathematics, medicine, and law. As the concepts of matter, energy, space, time and causality slowly began to acquire the form we know today, other sciences spun off from the rubric of natural philosophy. During the Renaissance, the modern concept of experimental science, the counterpoint to theory, began with Francis Bacon. The modern era of theory began perhaps with the Copernican paradigm shift in astronomy, soon followed by the actual planetary orbits due to Kepler, based on the meticulous observations of Tycho.\n\nThe great push toward the modern concept of explanation started with Galileo, one of the few physicists who was both a consummate theoretician and a great experimentalist. The analytic geometry and mechanics of Descartes was incorporated into the calculus and mechanics of Isaac Newton, another theoretician/experimentalist of the highest order. Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Leonhard Euler and William Rowan Hamilton would extend the theory of classical mechanics considerably. Each of these individuals picked up the interactive intertwining of mathematics and physics begun two millennia earlier by Pythagoras.\n\nAmong the great conceptual achievements of the 19th and 20th centuries were the consolidation of the idea of energy by the inclusion of h
297039
Metaphysics is not really physics at all in my opinion.  I think it is a branch of philosophy that is touted by those who lack an understanding of science and want to ascribe a greater meaning to the world, to feel like they are more important in "reality" than we are.
60451
Yes, I have visited.\n\nPhysics is an area of knowledge, so in a way it is similar to other areas - learning to write well, learning to help people, learning to be a lawyer, ... (I don't know what else you could compare this too - lots of things).\n\nGuys seem to be a littl emore attracted to physics because, at least from my point of view, it stems from "how stuff works" mentality, taken further and further into details, eventually mathematical, space, particle theories, etc, etc.\n\nSaying that, one of my top college professors is woman who is a well known particle phycisist at a well known national particle laboratory, investigating and using particle accelerators in oncology, the treatment of cancer.\n\nSo, back to your comment - You are likely smart enough to visit and understand the physics site, but you may not enjoy it, or have the motivation to work to understand physics and learn more.\n\nThen again, you might! Try it.
29764
None really - science is a methodology.  The scientists might have faith in all sorts of things -but science itself does not.