Yes, Everything in Physics is Completely Made Up – That's the Whole Point
hubie writes:
Researching a cosmic mystery like dark matter has its downsides. On the one hand, it's exciting to be on the road to what might be a profound scientific discovery. On the other hand, it's hard to convince people it's worth studying something that's invisible, untouchable, and apparently made of something entirely unknown.
While the vast majority of physicists find the evidence for dark matter's existence convincing, some continue to examine alternatives, and the views in the press and the public are significantly more divided. The most common response I get when I talk about dark matter is: "isn't this just something physicists made up to make the math work out?"
The answer to that might surprise you: yes! In fact, everything in physics is made up to make the math work out.
[...] This level of abstraction is especially apparent in particle physics, because the existence or non-existence of a single particle on a subatomic scale is a rather fuzzy notion. The equations describing the motion of an electron through space don't actually include a particle at all, but rather an abstract mathematical object called a wavefunction that can spread out and interfere with itself.
Is it ever true, then, to say that an electron is 'real' when it's in motion? If we believe that electrons are real things, have we just made up the wavefunction to make the math work out? Absolutely - that was, in fact, the whole point. We couldn't get the equations to work if the electron was a solid, isolated particle, so we made up something that wasn't, and then the numbers started making sense.
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