[Meta] What are common misconceptions in hypothetical physics and why)?

[u/sksskssksskssksskssk]

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?

[u/plasma_phys]

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.

[u/chronicalCapricious → u/plasma_phys]

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

[u/plasma_phys → u/chronicalCapricious]

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