Approach To Research In Theoretical Physics

Approach To Research In Theoretical Physics

• Start with the foundations. Study how one body of theory was build upon the other.
• Quantum Theory
• Relativity Theory
• Quantum Field Theory
• Elementary Particle Models & Theories
• Study how different theories were proposed that helped us explain experimental observations and filled deficiencies in our understandings.
• Examples 
• Quantum Theory of light proposed to explain 
• blackbody radiation (Max Planck) and 
• photoelectric effect (Albert Einstein). 
• Pauli Exclusion Principle proposed to explain differences in electron behavior.
• Alternative Models? Theories? 
• When theories are build upon one another, deficiency in an earlier theory propagates to later theories and experimental scientists tend to ignore “outliers” and average out the rest. 
• Important points 
• To experimental scientists the speed of light, the strength of electromagnetic field of an electron, etc. are not constants but varying quantities that should be ignored because they are "constants"! Uncertainty Principle helps this cause. 
• A theory is just a mathematical model, nothing more than that. By definition, it doesn't reflect ultimate reality. It's just an approximation. As we have gained more and more knowledge and invented better tools for measurement, we have developed more and more accurate mathematical models to describe the Universe. 
• Newton's Laws of motion served us well (and still does). But the laws were approximations. Einstein's Special Theory Of Relativity proposes more accurate "approximations".
• Imagine, how much of Physics has to be rewritten if one of the fundamental theories prove to be fundamentally deficient.
• Experimentation - Measurements <> Theory