Thomas Samuel Kuhn (the most influential philosopher of
science of the twentieth century, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/
) wrote, “Not all the achievements of the preceding period of normal science
are preserved in a revolution, and indeed a later period of science may find
itself without an explanation for a phenomenon that in an earlier period was
held to be successfully explained.” This
feature of scientific revolutions has become known as ‘Kuhn-loss’.
In the article “New CERN Results On Rare B Decays: A
Tombstone To SUSY? http://www.science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/new_cern_results_rare_b_decays_tombstone_susy-90861
“, it wrote, “..., while the various Minimal Supersymmetric models depicted in
the graph are close to being killed by the experimental constraints. …
But you can certainly take refuge in the belief that only
one is the ‘true’ set of SUSY parameters, and that excluding all other sets
does not make that less probable. It depends on your prior beliefs.”
The LHC data is now ruling out many SUSY (with s-particles)
while many physicists are denying those facts with their “prior” beliefs. But,
this kind of self-denial can never escape from the inevitable “Kuhn-loss”.
Kuhn again said that “The decision to opt for a revision of
a disciplinary matrix [new paradigm] is not one that is rationally compelled;
nor is the particular choice of revision rationally compelled.” Yet, however
the tortuous path that science must take, there is no way of any kind to go
around the truth which sits there silently. Physics must take the Kuhn-loss
eventually and face the truth squarely sooner or later. The article “LHC, the
end of the old physics epistemology, http://prebabel.blogspot.com/2012/04/lhc-end-of-old-physics-epistemology.html
“ is showing a way for us to move on.
No comments:
Post a Comment