Yes, but scientific progress is overwhelmingly evolutionary rather than revolutionary. That is, each new step in scientific understanding must explain all the same observations that the previous one did, plus some observations that the previous model failed to explain. So new models tend to be more general versions of which older models turn out to be more specific cases (Newton's laws being a very close approximation of general relativity within a certain range of masses and velocities, for instance.)
So while we can't know exactly what future models will look like (otherwise we'd just adopt them now,) we can say quite a lot about what future models almost certainly won't look like, because it wouldn't fit with the observations they already have to explain.
This is one of those things we can predict with high confidence that future models won't contain.
...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.Appealing to the informal intuitions of a "normal person with a fully operative brain" is exactly what you should not do if you want to investigate these issues. Not because normal people are stupid or any misanthropic nonsense like that, but because intuitive, informal thinking can be very easily led astray; and because if you are not clear about what you are talking about (for example, what "all-powerful" means) you'll end up talking about nothing at all.
For example, all purple otters are otters: and this is true independently on whether there exist purple otters, or on whether there exist otters, or on what otters are, or on whether there is an universe at all. It is not a property of reality, it is a property of language.
edited 24th Mar '13 12:36:21 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Same problem, I think. Because the two unstoppable forces would have equal forces, they can't coexist either, since a (head on) collision would cause them to cancel one another out, wouldn't it? They're not truly unstoppable, because each can be stopped by the other.
They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?
Wouldn't think that matters, though. The existence of an equivalent force, even one that it can't collide with still means that there's something out there that could stop it. Also, often it's phrased with the caveat "And also can't be forced to change direction", which, they would have to do if they even came close to colliding.
Well the question I was answering was about what happens if two unstoppable forces collide, so they'd have to be able to collide for it to come up.
The problem with an unmovable object and an unstoppable force is that their definitions preclude each other. If there's something that, under no circumstances, can be moved or destroyed, everything else has to be able to be forced to stop. If a force exists that cannot be forced to stop or change direction, it has to be capable of moving or destroying everything else. I wouldn't call it truly unstoppable if there's something that would stop it, but they can't collide because they're "out of phase" with each other, but that's just me.
They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?Encyclopedia Dramatica claims Satan is the immovable object God created (he basically liberated man from god's little petting zoo)
"I will strike down all that threaten my clan!"If there are two unstoppable forces, it makes sense to say that they cannot stop each other because they do not come into conflict.
Just because something is infinite doesn't mean it can't have a specific structure. For example, a line stretches forever, but only in two directions. In any other direction, a line's distance is zero.
edited 26th Mar '13 9:46:51 AM by Trivialis
A force isn't actually a thing, anyway. It's always exerted by other stuff, usually as a manner of transferring energy.
Something exerting an infinite force must possess infinite energy/mass, which would result in an infinitely large black hole, which much like the infinitely large black hole that would be required to have an immovable object, can be empirically observed to not exist, unless we are inside it.
We may, admittedly, be inside it.
If this trope ever comes up in a story of mine, I'm going with the 'they're the same object' explanation.
Swordplay and writing blog. Purveyor of weeaboo fightin' magic.

I think that "...as it is currently understood" caveat should just be understood. Or, I dunno, it might be dangerous to assume it's understood. A lot of people, scientists not accepted, have problems with their deeply held beliefs being demonstrated to be invalid. There were scientists who went to their graves insisting that the folks who split the atom were liars and frauds because obviously atoms can't be split.