Yes, and when there is, it's something to cheer about. I, too,
would like them to all nest together nicely. But unfortunately,
sometimes the promoters, who put theoretical physics on the top
of the Science Society, kind of have it backwards.
Theoretical physics has the _least_ amount of empirical evidence
for it. It's awesome stuff for the imagination.. and I
personally love it, but it's the religious component of science.
It inspires the faithful.
Hard science is ... well... harder... messier, far more
complicated. It's not just "let's mess with numbers 'til we get
a model that works' - that's playing with mathematics. If
there's no correspondence to *reality*, well, it's just playing
with numbers and the marvel of numbers is that you can prove
anything if you shift the numbers around enough - just as you
can prove anything with language if you shift the words around
enough.
But if there's no correspondence to reality.. well, ,it's just
lines on paper that sound really really good.
