It absolutely isn't. It is very, very unlikely that one can break the laws of physics no matter how much time it takes to research it or how advanced one becomes.
Still - it is important to research it in-case we've missed or gotten something wrong.
> When scientist thought they found particles travellig faster than light speed they checked the results, then the equipment, and then they assumed they had made a mistake and asked other people to check the numbers and the experiment.
And as it turns out, it was a mistake after all. Physics is solid to a satisfying number of digits after the comma.
> what tools do you use to scientifically analyze the scientific process?
Engineering. If you can build something that works based on the rules theorized by scientists, they are on to something. e.g. building a skyscraper proves we know the properties of steel to a pretty good margin of error.
> that's basically science vs engineering in a nutshell
Right, because those are two very different things. Science is about figuring out truths of how reality works. Engineering is about taking those truths and using them to make useful things.
People often talk in a way that conflates the two, but they are completely different activities.
> To nitpick a bit: anyone who answers that question for a living will be practicing engineering, not science. Just as an excellent physician can espouse wildly unscientific beliefs, so too can someone become quite good at the craft of engineering without actually doing much science at all.
Engineering is based on science. They aren't scientists but what they do is based on science.
> Isn't engineering the application of science to solve problems? (math, definitive logic, etc.)
Most definitely not. Engineering more often than not preceeds the science. You don't have to have an analytical and theoretical understanding of something in order to harness it and make practical use of it.
In reality, there's a strong feedback loop, where practical hacks will guide the science, the development of which will can then be used to make better practical applications, which can uncover new unknowns, which can then be incorporated into the science etc. The development of electricity and magnetism and or steam engines and thermodynamics are both great examples of this.
> machine learning, logic design, networking algorithms, cryptography, all deeply depend on work done in academia (and not just “theoretical” work)
All highly theoretical fields long before we found concrete applications. It often took one or more people an entire lifetime to convince others than these were valuable subjects to pursue.
> Academia is not only about finding theoretical
No, but it has to start there. Theoretical science is how we find new things to turn into applied science. It required 45+ years between the time Heinrich Hertz introduced contact mechanics and RADAR was put into use, 33 years from when Einstein published mass–energy equivalence (E=mc2) and Otto Hahn cracked nuclear fission but only a few more years until Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan project turned that into the first atom bomb.
> So at the time, practically all US physicist were interested in building actual stuffs, and not working on theoritical models/math equations?
The problem with that approach is: It inevitably leads to stagnation.
If all I do is build practical stuff from what exists, I will get very big, very efficient, very impressive steam engines.
But I will never arrive at an internal combustion engine.
Because that requires exploring another path that, in the beginning, and probably for quite some time, will be less efficient compared to my best steam engines.
> I understand the separation between physics. But most structural analysis methods are discovered by professors of structural engineering and not physicists(and much of it is empirical).
You're confusing the occupation with the role. Just because your job title is professor of structural engineering it doesn't mean that you are not studying "matter, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force."
> As far as I know, engineers still learn physics.
That's interesting, do they learn about all the properties of newly discovered quarks and derive Newtonian physics from quantum theories? Because if that's what they do, it's new to me.
>From it, we derive some engineering discipline, which uses the theory to, essentially, make predictions about what will happen if we do this to that, with the property that, if the predictions hold true, we'll have something useful.
We actually use logic along with induction to get a lot of theories. The fact that it works is proved by the scientific method, not the other way around.
"First it is necessary to thoroughly understand the properties and limitations of the materials to be used (for turbine blades, for example), and tests are begun in experimental rigs to determine those."
I love this approach to engineering. Feynman always manages to remind me what I like about science and engineering.
The main job of practical engineering, too.
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