>>11337225Comparing results from two different methods that should give you ostensibly the same or similar answers is an old, basic technique that has yielded a lot of information. That being said, such an argument comes off like it reads like the worst of proof by contradiction - I’m not a physicist, but I think students’ objection to this way of thinking is that it feels
1) dubious, since it asks you to nonconstructively assert the existence of a physical thing
2) like a cop out, since you also have to assert that such a thing is conventionally unobservable, which probably sours the mouth of anyone who studies an empirical science
2) skeptical, because it seems like this answer is a convenient construction in order to fit our current understanding instead an argument asserting existence directly, which goes back to 1). The undergrad would ask, “well, why would the answer be so convenient? What if we have more information?”
Again I’m no authority so take my words with salt, but I’m pretty sure the issue with this sort of “compare and fit” argument is a problem for physics since it asserts unobservable existence nonconstructively whereas even in the most nonconstructive proofs, we get the sense that we aren’t just making everything up and are actually exploring a sequence of cascading dominoes that leads to necessary contradiction...well, there are still exceptions, but those are my two cents.
