Einstein’s Mistakes, and Just What is Science for, Anyway?

[Kimpatsu]

Originally posted by elder999
No. I don't think it would be better to say that at all. Light has wavelength, frequency, and many other wave qualities-one of which we'll get to in a moment. However convenient the model of light behaving as both a wave and a particle, it's still a model. I'm of the school that if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and flies and swims like a duck, and if you chop its head off, take out it's feathers and cook it up with a nice orange sauce and it tastes good, it must be a duck.
Call it an engineer's aesthetic, or stubborness, if you like; I 'm just not buying that "behaves" model, even if it does make some equations more efficient.

But in other ways, light doesn't behave like a duck; put a candle and a buzzer in a bell jar and pump out the air, you can still see the candle, but can't hear the buzzer. No medium for the wave to travel through.
I think I'll call your stance an "engineer's aesthetic stubborness", just to be diplomatic and cover all bases.
Good luck with your whiteboards and the proof. The problem is that even if you do solve the equations, it'll probably immediately become classified information anyway, so you'll still not win a Nobel prize; no one will know about it.
Best,

[Soulend]

Leave it to Aaron and Tony to remind me how earth-shatteringly stupid I am.

But hey, pump out the air in the bell jar and you won't see the light from the candle either, 'cause it will go out.

[Kimpatsu]

Originally posted by Soulend
Leave it to Aaron and Tony to remind me how earth-shatteringly stupid I am.

But hey, pump out the air in the bell jar and you won't see the light from the candle either, 'cause it will go out.

OK, bad analogy; make it a flashlight. (Or call it a magic candle.)
Your post proves, David, that you sure ain't stupid.
See you in may for many beers, my friend.
Best,

[Shitoryu Dude]

I'd like to have the fusion power plant and the proton beam cannon mounted in a Bolo

When can I expect delivery?

[elder999]

Originally posted by Kimpatsu
But in other ways, light doesn't behave like a duck; put a candle and a buzzer in a bell jar and pump out the air, you can still see the candle, but can't hear the buzzer. No medium for the wave to travel through.
I think I'll call your stance an "engineer's aesthetic stubborness", just to be diplomatic and cover all bases.
Good luck with your whiteboards and the proof. The problem is that even if you do solve the equations, it'll probably immediately become classified information anyway, so you'll still not win a Nobel prize; no one will know about it.
Best,

Although light and sound waves may be described by similar mathematicalequations, their physical origin is quite different. The fact thatsound waves cannot travel trough vacuum but light waves can has nothing to do with light being `waves and particles' at the same time.

Sound waves are density fluctuations in a gas, a liquid or a solid. When a sound wave travels through air, a `snapshot' of the density of air molecules at a certain time shows a modulation which is, in the simlplest case,periodic. Without the presence of a gas or a solid, there are no density fluctuations and thus no sound waves. In other words, sound needs a`carrier' material to propagate. No carrier, no sound.

Light consists of electromagnetic waves, i.e. electric and magnetic
fields arranged in such a fashion as to propagate over large
distances. These fields do not need a `carrier' like sound waves, they`live' in pure vacuum, like radio waves, microwaves, etc. One could say that an electromagnetic field is a certain state of the vacuum (physicists call it an `excited state',and that's where the notion of light being particles begins, but that is another story).


No, I'll never get a Nobel-probably (and this isn't ego talking, only my observation of Nobel Laureates) because I don't want one. My friend and colleague Andy Saunders probably will. He holds the world record for catching ultra-cold neutrons in a bottle.

Really. Remember that name, 'cause I think he's a lock for it sometime after 2010.

OF course, that brings up the question of what good it is...catching neutrons in a bottle, that is.He probably has spent 16 hours of evcery day for the last 4 years at LANSCE-at least. He's delightfully enthusiastic, young, and somehwat monomaniacal.

Not to mention one of the smartest people on the planet.

His work is not going to to save any lives anytime soon, not going to help anyone except Andy live any longer (I have a theory about scientists), not going to save anyone any money. Just going to answer a lot of quesitons most of you don't care about one way or the other. What good is it?

People have won Nobels for classified related work, and it's fairly doubtful that they'd want to classify something as completely benign and unexploitable as a portion of a unified field theory........I'm just too lazy, too stupid and too old to be overly enthusiastic with what amounts to an eccentric hobby; one that is much less productive than my knife making.

[Kimpatsu]

I think you're way too modest, Aaron; and age isn't a factor in winning the Nobel prize. I will look out for your friend's name, though. But you'll be the one hosting the victory BBQ. (Given the weather here at the moment, you certainly wouldn't want to hold a BBQ in Japan.)
You know, I haven't read any of my MSc books or notes in a decade; they're all boxed up in Liverpool, England, awaiting my return to British shores someday. Maybe I should have shipped over so I can revise what I studied back then. The problem with being here and working in what I do is that there's zero reinforcement, and it's so easy to forget.
---
Harvey: We're having trouble with the warp engines, and we may have to wage war on the Cardassians, so please be patient. I guarantee delivery sometime within the next 1,000 years.

[vnorilo]

Originally posted by elder999
So, what is science for?
As for Turing, he's wrong for one simple reason:quantum mechanics. While computational hardware and programming sophistication will continue to make models that approach the virtual reality of the universe, we'd be unable to include quantum phenomenon in such a simulation, because as such they're completely dependent upon observers within the universe, not outside of it, which is definitely where we'd be. In order to properly generate quanta in such an environment , we'd have to generate AI physicists to inhabit it aas well, capable of making the observations that make quantum phenomenon possible, and then and only then would such a model approach Pinkers computer chip brain.

And what would that make us?

Aaron,

This is a very interesting thread. However may I humbly suggest you to pick up the topic of quantum phenomena requiring "intelligent" observers with Dr. Gell-mann. From what I've read from him (haven't had the honour to actually meet him like you) it seems like he considers this a misinformed stance. Unless it was humour from your part?

I'm a complete layman in physics myself, but modern theoretical physics is a strange hobby of mine.


--
Vesa Norilo
Shorinji Kempo Helsinki

[Mekugi]

Was that around back then? That theory - or at least the same format that exists today?

Originally posted by elder999
Tesla didn't accept (believe in) "curved space".......
.......and neither do I.

[Kimpatsu]

Could I just be a total pedant and point out that space isn't curved; spacetime is curved. The distinction being that time itself is stretched by gravity.
This has been more madness from me.
Oh, and Aaron's still hosting the BBQ.

[elder999]

Originally posted by Kimpatsu
Could I just be a total pedant and point out that space isn't curved; spacetime is curved. The distinction being that time itself is stretched by gravity.
This has been more madness from me.
Oh, and Aaron's still hosting the BBQ.

Yeah, I do one kick-a$$ barbecue, too.

What I really wanted to get to with this thread, is that-from the perspective of the early twenty-first century-it seems clear to me that while much was gained in the unleashing of science, much has been lost as well. For the freedom science offers through theoretical knowledge and material wealth we have paid a heavy price in the loss of spiritual context for existence and in enslavement to the day-to-day exigencies of technology. We have become commodities, shaped and molded form infancy to meet the requirements of an economy run increasingly on the purest of scientistic, materialist principles. Because science has bequeathed to us the unmitigated power to destroy our habitat, we are doing so, rapidly. Aristotle. I think it is safe to say, would have considered the vast majority of us little better than slaves. Socrates ,too, would have thought s sorry specimens, mired in base material obsessions.

Are we happier in our day-to-day lives than our ancestors were in theirs, or merely more comfortable? Are the lives we lead more worthy of respect, or less? Is our world, taken all in all, a better place than theirs was? To what extent are the advances made over the past four hundred years in social and economic justice attributable to science? In what degree have they been made in spite of science, which teaches the social efficacy of natural selection and survival of the fittest ? It is worth pointing out that neither Stephen Hawking or myself would remain alive under the domination of such a scientific paradigm, as well as the fact that the recent cultural artifact of longevity, and other advances in medical science, are not necessarily within the order of things, scientifically speaking. There is a price to be paid for all technological and scientific advances, and all too often, man has not considered the cost. Case in point: the internal combustion engine, which has increased man’s mobility and productivity, while also creating a need for an infrastructure to support it, pollution, death and mutilation on a truly tragic scale. When you accept a technology, you also accept its ancillaries, and it is usually the ancillaries which cause damage.

Today’s science has come to a point where it insists on three things:

First, that everything that goes on can be accounted for by matter and motion.

Second, that reality consists of mathematics , numbers and formulae.
Which is really a way of saying that reality is made of human invention, yes?

Lastly, and most importantly, science acknowledges a reality beyond mathematical formulae, ever since the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum physics, of 1920, which basically is the gold standard, the orthodox dogma of modern physics, which says that quanta, the subatomic entities that make up the world, are nothing more than thickenings or concentrations in a universal electromagnetic field. Quanta have the peculiar characteristic of occurring in something called “probability waves” until they’re observed by a conscious observer. When that happens, the wave collapses and the quanta either exists or does not.

The observer, however, is also made of quanta, so he must also be observed before any observing can, be done, or he does not exist (to use Tony’s solipsism, but within orthodox doctrine-in other words, scientific law.-also pointing out what Dr. Gell-mann takes issue with .)

But that’s beside the point-the point being that science has a huge, unresolved problem that it sweeps under the rug because the model works fine on a practical, day-to-day instrumental level without having to solve it. Somewhere, there must be an ultimate observer for all this to exist. There’s no way out of it, scientifically speaking. Science says that all things can be known through matter and motion, and yet, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle tells us-in no uncertain terms, that you cannot observe matter and motion (Mass and momentum, speed and position, call it what you will) at the same time.

Science has declared, for more than 80 years now, that it is incapable of knowing ultimate reality.

Science cannot tell us what is right. We cannot know what right and wrong are from simple observation and data collection, nor from mathematical formulae. Wherever and however we attain this knowledge or belief, it isn’t from science, though science may help to prove how we are hardwired for it-“right and wrong” being universal concepts with gradations that fit within various social frameworks.

[elder999]

Originally posted by vnorilo
Aaron,

This is a very interesting thread. However may I humbly suggest you to pick up the topic of quantum phenomena requiring "intelligent" observers with Dr. Gell-mann. From what I've read from him (haven't had the honour to actually meet him like you) it seems like he considers this a misinformed stance. Unless it was humour from your part?

I'm a complete layman in physics myself, but modern theoretical physics is a strange hobby of mine.


--
Vesa Norilo
Shorinji Kempo Helsinki

Dr. Gell-mann and I often don't agree on a great many things. The implications of the Uncertainty Principle and other aspects of quantum mechanics being among them....(we also don't agree about welfare or eating beef, but those are for some other thread.)

[Kimpatsu]

Originally posted by elder999
Yeah, I do one kick-a$$ barbecue, too.

What I really wanted to get to with this thread, is that-from the perspective of the early twenty-first century-it seems clear to me that while much was gained in the unleashing of science, much has been lost as well. For the freedom science offers through theoretical knowledge and material wealth we have paid a heavy price in the loss of spiritual context for existence and in enslavement to the day-to-day exigencies of technology.

There is no "spiritual context for existence", Aaron. Life is a complex set of biochemical interactions, and relies not one whit on a supposed "Spirit", which has never been demonstrated, and the hypothesis for which defies Occam's Razor.
OK, atheist rant OFF.
As to humans becoming commodities, that is a product of the political and economic system, not the fault of science. Andrew Carnegie quipped that classical studies are a waste of "precious years trying to extract education from an ignorant past." Our modern education system is not designed to teach critical thinking, or rationalism; it's designed to turn out good little automatons who can better perform the mindless tasks that the business millionaires want them to do, and have paid the politicians to stack the education system in this way. (Hence Charles Clarke's infamous assertion that students of medieval history were "a bit dodgy".) Then, when the tasks for which these people were trained are superceded by new ones for which a new generation has been trained, the performers of the outmoded tasks are cast on the scrapheap. Education is viewed as training for a job, rather than for the joy of learning. Educational advisory panels to the government are stacked with business millionaires who are looking for a way to change education into what will best create profits for them, rather than most benefit the students. From this perspective, teaching critical thinking rather than rote memorisation is downright subversive.
You're right, science can't tell us whether something is right, i.e., ethical. It can, however, equip you to better judge the ethics of something. Take the current brouhaha over cloning, and Dubya siding with the religious right over stem cell research. One of the British government's "advisors" on the subject asserted that a clone would lack dignity. Congratualtions: he's just insulted every pair of identical twins in the world. But he doesn't realise that, because he doesn't know that twins are clones of each other. So, how can he possibly make ethical decisions regarding cloning and stem cell research when he doesn't even understand the science involved? Science can't tell you whether a painting is beautiful, but it might be able to tell you why we find it beautiful, in terms of neural reactions to the colours, shading, pastoral content, etc. Unweaving the rainbow doesn't make the rainbow any less beautiful for our knowing what a prism is. And, to answer your question that is the title of this thread: Science is for explaining things. Without science, there would be no cars, no planes, no antibiotics, and no internet. What is science for? Without it, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. We wouldn't even be aware of each others' existence, being on different continents and all. And Shorinji Kempo would never have travelled outside of Japan, so I wouldn't be on this forum, which wouldn't be here, either. And you certainly wouldn't be working at Los Alamos.
Looking forward to the BBQ!

[Gene Williams]

Ho-hum...

[Kimpatsu]

Originally posted by Gene Williams
Ho-hum...

The most intelligent thing Gene Williams has ever said; or, at least, the most lacking in drivel...

[jest]

Originally posted by elder999
He holds the world record for catching ultra-cold neutrons in a bottle.

Really. Remember that name, 'cause I think he's a lock for it sometime after 2010.

OF course, that brings up the question of what good it is...catching neutrons in a bottle, that is.

You'll have to forgive my facetiousness, but the world record of catching ultra-cold neutrons in a bottle sounds like a sweet super-soke-hanshi-shidoshi-grand-master-rainbow-gi claim. You know, the type that's usually preceded with "he's trained U.S. special forces" and "he was inducted into the martial arts hall of fame in..."

Besides that, thanks for a thought-provoking thread. Makes me wish I'd pursued physics further. My ability to grasp theoretical things was strong, my math, weak...