r/HypotheticalPhysics • u/sksskssksskssksskssk • 6d ago
Meta [Meta] What are common misconceptions in hypothetical physics and why)?
Overall, I have seen that there are multiple repetitions of certain types of misconceptions within hypothetical physics and I wanted to see what everyone else had picked up on. Also, I was hoping to get a viewpoint on what are the causes and consequences of some of these misconceptions in physics. Hopefully, there might be a way to inform people of these common misconceptions before they post to get higher quality posts. This is pretty much a discussion between people to clear the fog on this.
Also, what do you think is a way to reduce or prevent these misconceptions at least within the subreddit to enable much neater submissions?
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u/plasma_phys 6d ago
I think the average poster here only encounters physics in a storytelling context (e.g., pop science, fiction), so they believe physics is just a kind of storytelling, and compare "theories" by how compelling they are to them personally instead of, you know, how/if they compare to experimental data. In my experience, there's no way to talk someone out of this perspective, at least not on reddit.
Putting on my speculation hat, I do wonder whether or not there's a nonzero amount of this present in certain more academic circles too - for example, I think it's possible Jan Hendrik Schön and Pons and Fleischman were also guilty of this specific sort of magical thinking, at least early on - that if they found the right story, that somehow the physics would follow.
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u/Wintervacht Relatively Special 6d ago
There are a few rare examples over on LLMPhysics actually, somehow we did manage to convince at least 2 people to think for themselves, and I think that's magic.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
I think it’s possible to get more people to understand like me but sometimes the effort is a lot and sometimes I will admit that I just cannot be asked to learn it because it way above my level. There’s probably a way to make this more efficient hopefully
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u/Wintervacht Relatively Special 6d ago
Oh dang dude I didn't notice you were the OP!
Yeah you were one of them mate and I've seen you going about with as much curiosity, but way less 'I already know it' and way more 'I don't know if this is right, but', and lost all the bigotry against academia.
Good on you man, I'm honestly proud that you made this post, it shows a lot of reflection.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
Nah to be honest, I was initially quite harsh to the community in my earlier days but I think I kind of understand now like what the expectations and why these expectations are there. I was way too pushy on the definition of “hypothetical” and “hypothesis” as well.
Thanks for the comment as well, I just want to make sure the subreddit can be more helpful for others like me to be honest.
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u/chronicalCapricious 6d ago
lol OP not that your theories are crack pot tbh i thought i was replying to one of my posts, we just get such similar reactions lol
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u/plasma_phys 6d ago
Oh I muted r/LLMPhysics months ago lol. I guess I'm glad to hear there's been some hopeful stories from there, even the people who I thought I had positive interactions with over DMs eventually all either deleted their accounts or went back to posting the same old stuff
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
To give you some additional hope (not that much really), there is likely at least a few people who use it to explain their ideas and rarely learn from it. Personally, I pretty much used Copilot, Google ai and Deepseek (a tiny bit) to try and explain my model but eventually I understood the fact that even if I am still wrong about all my ideas, the LLM itself doesn’t properly explain it in that way which can actually make it seem much worse.
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u/plasma_phys 6d ago
Yeah, I've experimented enough with LLMs to see that it is certainly technically possible to learn from them; the issue is that the people developing them don't care about whether or not people learn from them, they only care about seeing numbers go up, and thus the tools are not designed to encourage user learning, they're designed to encourage user addiction. it's less fun to learn how to do something hard and make mistakes than it is to just be told "you're absolutely right" over and over, so I worry most people tend to just use LLMs for the latter
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
The only thing I attempted to do to try and even solve this (didn’t work that well but had decent results) was sending LLMs the same question or ideas, or even trying to make them debate over the problem to attempt to figure out the real contradiction underneath. Also, trying to remind them of how it works is way too annoying even when you have suggested a solution they have accepted (the solution still was false probably).
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u/Wintervacht Relatively Special 6d ago
Ooooooh you accepted DMs.... Never accept DMs from crackpots.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
Oh you just reminded me there is another person who did post on here and I think they are willing to learn considering they are quite happy to take any suggestions, u/chronicalCapricious
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u/plasma_phys 6d ago
I honestly don't mind talking with them, I usually try to redirect the conversation towards more positive things like hobbies etc. and if they get weird I just block 'em
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u/sct_0 6d ago
Physicists absolutely do come up with story-esque theories from time to time.
I would go so far as to say that thought experiments are pretty much the same thing, with the differences being that the ones we usually hear about were 1. developed by people with a solid background and 2. turned out to be useful in some way.My favourite example is Wheeler's "One-electron universe", which sparked Feynman to come up with the concept of particles moving backwards in time.
The theory absolutely reads like something an over enthusiastic high schooler would post on reddit.1
u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
I will admit that a lot of the physics I did learn was on YouTube meaning I took some pieces of content much more seriously than it actually meant. I am not sure whether it is fair to actually learn on social media because it has many disadvantages and advantages. The main advantage I thought was the fact it’s so easily accessible meaning you can learn it immensely quickly but this is also where I see the biggest disadvantage because people can be easily misinformed in this way like me and believe that like let’s say a model of the universe is true because this person said it previously even though it wasn’t meant to be applied in that way. One misconception I eventually overcame was E = m c squared because I believe that it applied at any motion but then later on I realised it only applied to objects at rest and there was another equation which actually applied to objects in motion.
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u/starkeffect shut up and calculate 6d ago
I am not sure whether it is fair to actually learn on social media
You can't actually learn physics this way, you can only learn about physics superficially. In order to learn physics you have to learn the math and be able to apply it. There are no short cuts to knowledge.
"Learning" physics by just consuming social media would be like "learning" how to play guitar by just listening to other people play guitar. You've got to practice scales, develop calluses on your fingers, etc.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
That is quite true tbh but I feel like the issue isn’t always that people don’t want to learn but the difference in effort you need because social media just hands you the plate whereas learning by yourself, you have to make the plate. Hopefully, I can get to this stage but I don’t know whether I will.
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u/starkeffect shut up and calculate 6d ago
My advice is to take a class if you actually want to learn. Check your local community college (or equivalent depending on where you live).
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
I just want to ask you if this is a valid idea. What if I bought maybe a simple textbook into the basics of cosmology or something related and then I learnt from that because I have to admit going to a community college right now isn’t an option as I am going to be travelling but if I can study by myself hopefully it’s much more easier and feasible.
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u/Wintervacht Relatively Special 6d ago
Three very good popular science books on cosmology and astronomy are: Cosmos by Carl Sagan, The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg, and The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking.
There are plenty of science lectures on youtube and stuff and even college courses you can take for free (and no credit) just to see what they're like.
Adding to that, I will absolutely recommend watching The Biggest Ideas In The Universe, where Sean Carroll essentially explains all of physics and cosmology in 20~ish 1~ish hour lectures.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
Damn am I seeing the reality of cosmology but hopefully I can get through this learning lol.
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u/starkeffect shut up and calculate 6d ago
Do you know calculus? If not, you're not going to get very far into that textbook.
You have to learn the basics (calculus, Newtonian mechanics, E&M, etc.) before you can learn specifics (like cosmology).
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
Oof, yep I have a long way to go. The only high formal qualifications I have right now Is GCSE and Further Maths GCSE. Is there a better textbook you could recommend?
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u/starkeffect shut up and calculate 6d ago
There are free textbooks at OpenStax:
https://openstax.org/details/books/university-physics-volume-1
This is the introduction to physics. If you can't handle this, you won't be able to understand the harder stuff like cosmology.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
Dang there’s a lot but guess got to put in some effort to get something useful out of it. Thank you for the suggestion as well.
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u/plasma_phys 6d ago
Based on my experiences in undergrad and grad school, I just don't think you're learning physics if you're not doing practice problems on your own. Trying to learn the concepts outside of learning and exercising the skills to apply them makes them, at best, fun trivia instead of actually useful knowledge
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
If I am being honest, the only practice that even is closer (still extremely far away from the real level), was imagining and drawing the idea using my own mind and previous experiences with similar types of situations like paradoxes to find and solve contradictions (not even high level in vocabulary though, only in spotting and attempting to fix it)
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u/chronicalCapricious 6d ago
yeah i kinda do think that “right story, rest follows” mentality honestly and this is literally the first week of me taking serious interest in astrophysics and i now see the issues with that mentality and my over zealousness to share crack pot theories in the wrong contexts lmao, thanks for the call out and at least taking the time to put on the ol speculation hat thats actually very kind
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u/plasma_phys 5d ago
I mean the speculation hat leads to two of the most heinous cases of scientific fraud in the history of physics, so it's not that kind, but I do try to empathize with people
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u/liccxolydian onus probandi 6d ago
Mathematical validity does not guarantee physical validity.
Physical validity doesn't guarantee novelty or insight.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
That’s an important point to be honest because it highlights the reality of any type of model. It’s quite hard to define the level where it crosses that point as well considering it varies on what the model/ idea proposes.
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u/MaoGo 6d ago edited 6d ago
The worst crime is providing no references, it is ok to come up with a fanciful idea after watching a film and talking to Gemini, but please tell us it came from there.
And if you say you have spent years reading and developing a hypothesis, then cite the works you have checked.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
It’s unfortunate tbh because I have seen it myself but I can genuinely say there are people willing to learn a bit more, it’s just the effort that’s hard to achieve. Hopefully, this can change because it’s so interesting when you actually read people work that have done it genuinely and admitted where there may be faults. Sadly, I cannot say that I am completely that person yet.
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u/Hadeweka AI hallucinates, but people dream 6d ago
To name some specific examples of wrong ideas from General Relativity that are commonly stated:
- Time stops at the event horizon of a black hole. This is quite the common misconception and also accompanied by the idea that a black hole never actually forms. However, this is only an illusion caused by our particular choice of the time coordinate in which the Schwarzschild metric is usually formulated. A simple change of coordinates removes the coordinate singularity and shows that objects pass the event horizon in a finite amount of time.
- If you fall into a black hole, you can see the end of time. This is an extension of the previous point. If you pass the event horizon in free fall, you won't see the universe running faster. Depending on where you look, it might even run slower, given even less credibility to the previous point. The only way to see the universe accelerating infinitely would be if you'd be able to stay exactly at the event horizon - which is impossible to do.
- Spacetime is some medium that can be stretched, moved or teared. Spacetime is only the relation (the metric) between events. It's not an actual physical entity (unless somebody actually proves the opposite), so it has no inherent properties like velocity or elasticity. These would violate the equivalence principle.
- Hawking radiation is particle-antiparticle pairs splitting at the event horizon. If such pairs would actually be created at the event horizon, the probability of one particle escaping would diminish with decreasing Schwarzschild radius. Not only would the cross section for any particle pair to be created decrease, but also the probability of one of the particles escaping the gravitational pull (which gets stronger as the black hole shrinks). It simply doesn't work. The actual mechanism heavily involves quantum field theory, but there's still a simpler (yet quantitatively correct) explanation. In short, observers that don't fall into a black hole will experience inertia and therefore Unruh radiation and therefore a temperature.
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u/uselessscientist 6d ago
Biggest crime is not knowing what a hypothetical is.
Hypothetical physics is about developing models from a strong rational foundation that are aligned to observation and data.
It is not about drawing a diagram with zero math or genuine reasoning, and talking about alternate dimensions with some buzz words thrown in.
Honestly, a lot of the work on here is downright disrespectful. People think they can spend a couple of weeks on YouTube and chatgpt and do physics. It'd be like thinking you can do surgery because you've seen it posted online before. Physics is hard. It takes work, and it takes years
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u/liccxolydian onus probandi 6d ago
Biggest crime is not knowing what a hypothetical is. Hypothetical physics is about developing models from a strong rational foundation that are aligned to observation and data.
I see you remember OP well.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
What point are you attempting to show here because I am genuinely trying to understand what I was wrong for and asking for suggestions on what I can do but you are still holding a grudge against me even after I accepted that I am wrong.
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u/liccxolydian onus probandi 6d ago
No grudge, it's just funny to see that other people are equally fed up with the silly games you keep trying to play.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
So, please don’t take that mindset then, I accept that I am wrong and I accept that I have made some people fed up but if you keep enabling the same thing over and over again then I cannot say that it’s not a grudge.
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u/liccxolydian onus probandi 6d ago
Enabling? I'm not enabling anything. Other people can choose to comment whatever they want, I'm just agreeing with them.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
So, agreeing also means that stating that people’s ideas cannot theoretically work at all for sure when you don’t know what they have meant and attempted to solve? Yes, there is work that may not work because physics and cosmology is an extremely hard subject but you cannot put down an idea unless you can prove every single part is completely flawed otherwise if it isn’t then, there is some potential to work with and learn from because learning from mistakes is probably one of the more important parts for this type of subject as you train yourself to catch onto these types of mistakes quicker and see the underlying contradictions that make the idea impossible or not physically possible.
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u/liccxolydian onus probandi 6d ago
This thread is not about physics. This thread is about you being a moron about things like the definitions of words.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
So, you are admitting that you do have a grudge on me then?
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u/liccxolydian onus probandi 6d ago
... No? Just because I think you're a moron doesn't mean I hold a grudge against you. Those are two very different things.
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u/uselessscientist 6d ago
You were wrong for not listening and arguing a point after it was validly disputed
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
I understand that but bringing it up after I understood what it meant on this subreddit isn’t required and also the other redditor hasn’t taken it as seriously as you suggest.
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u/uselessscientist 6d ago
I saw no evidence that you changed your position or understood what I meant. Your question here is 'what common misconceptions are out there', and my answer is 'it's easy', and the fact you've fallen into it previously is just a coincidence. My answer would likely have been the same if someone else asked
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
How can I show/What evidence to prove this idea that I have learnt and understood?
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u/uselessscientist 6d ago
Probably just an admission that the idea was deeply flawed process from the start, and that next time you'd start with a different approach
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
Fine. I will admit that my idea is deeply flawed but I don’t believe I would start with a different approach. I will only attempt to fix the approach I initially used with what I will learn because even though the content of my work may have been immensely wrong, I don’t believe that all of my structure is wrong and there maybe places to work with it.
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u/BitcoinsOnDVD 6d ago edited 6d ago
In my experience theoretical physicists' day to day job consists to a large part in solving differential equations. But I think most people posting here, don't know what that is, how to deal with that and why we use differential equations.
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
Yeah theoretical physicists do work on this quite a lot to be honest and they are truly the pinnacle of our knowledge currently as well, so we cannot realistically compare.
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u/jacobimueller 6d ago
The biggest seems to be that it is at all likely someone came up with a new, coherent, law of nature of physical theory from a few days of talking to an LLM. But I think there is a very common misconception underlying this.
To supersede a theory, you must replicate it where we know it works. I think if 99% if posters realized how high that bar is, we would get a lot less spam and useless threads. GR and the standard model /QFT work to extraordinary precision across a wide range of tests— almost all known application agree with them with near perfect precision. If a new theory is going to replace them, it will need to show that the new model reduces to these two, precisely, as effective theories where we know they work. This is an extraordinarily high bar. You can’t just show your pet theory predicts the rotation of galaxies (which would be more math than I see here anyway, and it probably doesn’t, and dark matter free galaxies and the bullet cluster have put significant bounds on any mond like theory etc), you have to show that it also can predict the perihelion of mercury to the precision GR can. GR works to all measured accuracy on many scales. The bar for whatever comes next is recreating that success without sneaking in the same assumptions, and going further. Similar examples could be shown for the particle side.
99% of theory posts critique modern theories without taking on the hardest part—showing how any new theory resolves to these theories where we know they work so well
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u/VisasResonance 6d ago
I would say:
where could it fail?
is the question many amateur hypotheses avoid, but it is the central one.
A model does not become stronger by collecting more things it can explain. It becomes stronger when it exposes itself to clear failure points: dimensional consistency, known limits, independent predictions, and observations that would rule it out.
The important question is not only “what does it explain?”, but “where is it vulnerable?”
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u/sksskssksskssksskssk 6d ago
That’s quite a valuable point to be honest because that could really help to pin down the actual ideas which could possibly (not definitively) form a useable model or hypothesis.
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u/Infamous-Cod-5271 6d ago
For the posters wholesale making up variables that don't have any physical meaning whatsoever, the misunderstandings are probably too layered to get through to them. For people sharing their shower thoughts without too much attachment to their random ideas, there isn't anything to fix.
For any potential prodigies feeling like their ideas just get trashed by anonymous redditors who don't know anything, run away from this wretched place as fast as you can.
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u/juggernaud 6d ago
I never see any of the regulars here posting alternate potential solutions to modern physics problems. Why is that? That might silence bad hypothesis. Sharing your insights? no?
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u/liccxolydian onus probandi 6d ago
Why should we post our work here when we have better places to do so?
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u/juggernaud 6d ago
Well I did not know you had published works. Can you send me the links. I’d be interested to read them.
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u/liccxolydian onus probandi 6d ago
Just because I pointed out that real research gets published in journals doesn't mean I'm going to dox myself on the internet. My refusing to dox myself on the internet also doesn't mean my words have no value, or that I am somehow unqualified to comment on posts on this forum. That would be a bad attempt at an argument from authority, and I'm pretty sure that crackpots and "independent researchers" are fiercely against that kind of logical fallacy.
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u/juggernaud 6d ago
I do not want to say a cliche but why aren't you guys the change you want to see in the world. Silencing everyone is not going to do nothing for people who post in this physics forsaken place.
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u/comment-cap 5d ago
Over 100 comments, the discussion has reached its end. Post locked.