Why did Richard P. Feynman say, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians"?
Shubee
Shubee wrote:
> > It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
> > and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
> > logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
> > systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
>
> Richard Feynmann would disagree.
Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
physics is flawed mathematically? How else do you explain Feynman's
statement, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians."?
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~iop/Fools-Physics.pdf
> He argues that mathematicians are not scientists at all.
> ("Scientist" is not an honorific term.) His definition of
> "science" is an enterprise in which truth is decided by
> external confirmation.
My objection to Feynman's definition of "science" is that it appears
completely arbitrary. And it overlooks my standing argument that "The
only substantial part of physics is mathematics."
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/1c1215a40b1cf0b3
In support of mathematicians however, I'll agree to use Feynman's
definition.
> The criterion of mathematical truth is utterly
> unrelated to the physical world.
Thus God is a mathematician, not a physicist. Consequently it follows
that mathematicians are superbeings that belong to a god class whereas
physicists, if they are experimentalists, are mere scientists.
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
Y
Absolutlely.
Y
Everything else was awesome.
The conclusion needs work. How about ?
Thus, Physics is like a real world Geppetto. Not however the Geppetto
we've come to know of fantasy and the story of Pinnochio, but because
Geppetto the physicist, well, his model will never be a real boy.
Y
that Mathematics does not serve to define real world events.
Leibniz correctly defined the difference between Space and Number -
Again, Leibiz prescribed to the second view of time.
But, I've always found the smelly science of the Stein's to be rather
UnNatural. Dr Victor Frankenstein, for example or Albert Einstein. . .
What is it with the Steins ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqT9edmTGNU&feature=related
hahahahah !!!!!
Traveler
wrote:
ahahaha... Well, wasn't is Hermann Minkowski, the famous
German-Lithuanian mathematician who invented the concept of spacetime
in which we supposedly exist and move?
The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have
sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies
their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and
time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and
only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent
reality.
Hermann Minkowski, addressing the 80th Assembly of German Natural
Scientists and Physicians in 1908
Guess what? Nothing can move in spacetime. This nasty little truth is
known to a few relativists but is rarely talked about because it
destroys Einstein geometrical solution of gravity. Worse, it makes
famous relativity experts like Kip "Wormhole" Thorne, John Kramer,
Brian Greene and Stephen Hawking (the little con artist in the
wheelchair) look like a bunch of idiots for insisting that GR allows
time travel.
Even Feynman fell for the spacetime crap when he, together with
relativist John Wheeler came up with their Absorber Theory in which
they posited the existence of advanced and retarded waves that can
travel in spacetime. Here is a quote from Feynman's "The Reason for
Antiparticles" in "Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics - The
1986 Dirac Memorial Lectures": "... So the requirements of positive
energies and relativity force us to allow creation and annihilation of
pairs of particles, one of which travels backwards in time." This gem
of pseudoscience comes from one of the most celebrated physicists of
the twentieth century.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2612time.html
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/warps2.html
Well, check this out. ahahaha... Karl Popper (of falsifiability fame)
compared spacetime to...
Parmenides' myth of the unchanging block universe in which nothing
ever happens and which, if we add another dimension, becomes
Einstein's block universe (in which, too, nothing ever happens,
since everything is, four-dimensionally speaking, determined and
laid down from the beginning).
Sir Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations
This is also the reason that Robert Geroch wrote:
There is no dynamics within space-time itself: nothing ever moves
therein; nothing happens; nothing changes. [...] In particular, one
does not think of particles as "moving through" space-time, or as
"following along" their world-lines. Rather, particles are just
"in" space-time, once and for all, and the world-line represents,
all at once the complete life history of the particle.
From "Relativity from A to B" by Dr. Robert Geroch, U. of Chicago
My point is that time is not a variable, as the mathematicians
suppose. It is merely an evolution parameter. Mathematicians have shot
physics in the foot, big time. And not just physics. They've done the
same thing to computer science, so much so that the computer industry
is in a world of hurt right now and there is no solution in sight.
Everything that is wrong with physics today, from time travel to the
quantum computing scam is the result of a bunch of nerd mathematicians
fucking things up.
ahahaha... AHAHAHA... ahahaha...
Louis Savain
Rebel Science News:
http://rebelscience.blogspot.com/
Larry Hammick
or some such thing? I know Einstein got PO'ed over a flap of that sort
involving Brouwer, Hilbert, and other big hitters. The mathematicians had
got into a sort of monastic schism, various sects propounding various
dogmas, each accusing the others of heresy and apostasy, although not quite
in those words. At the root of the dispute were such questions as this one:
"Let x be the smallest integer not definable in fewer than twenty-six
syllables."
But hold the phone! We just defined x in 25 syllables! Contradiction! The
sky is falling! It is the End of Days!
Of such stuff was the Crisis of the Foundations made. It lasted roughly from
1900 to 1930 -- 30 fuckin' years. Is it any wonder that a guy like Einstein
would shake his head?
Virgil
<c4a027db-97f7-4334...@p10g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
Y <yana...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> What is it with the Steins ?
The wonderful family of Stein,
There's Gert and there's EP and there's Ein.
Gert's writing is bunk,
Eps sculpture is junk,
and nobody understands Ein.
Hayek
> From http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/browse_frm/thread/986d28e92c83aa74
>
> Shubee wrote:
>
>>> It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
>>> and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
>>> logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
>>> systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
>> Richard Feynmann would disagree.
>
> Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> physics is flawed mathematically?
It was the other way around.
I remember an anecdote from "Surely, you must be joking, Mr Feynman".
The mathematics department, at Cornell, were at the time raving about a
relatively new field in maths, topology.
Feynman had a discussion with a math student, and it went like this :
Math : "you slice up an orange, and when you reassemble the slices, it
is as big as the sun".
Feynman : "can't be done, an orange is made out of molecules".
Math : "but WE, mathematicians, can keep on slicing ever thinner forever"
That is why Feynman hated mathematicians, and not because of your delusions.
Uwe Hayek.
Traveler
wrote:
Correct. Mathematicians have given the world the totally bankrupt
notion of continuity (infinite divisibility), which is one of the
reasons that we have a nonsense called the spacetime continuum and
that centuries after Newton, we still have no real clue as to why
things fall. A mathematician would not know the meaning of change or
movement if it kicked him/her in the ass.
Y
together. . .Like Carl Sagan, and his apple if he decided to eat his
apple afterwards.
Here you go. Here's me explaining it. Wearing glasses to disguise the
fact that I was reading my script. :) First time on youtube so a
little shy. . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMCnqLXa1ms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhUURzIji_c
On Aug 13, 12:54 pm, Traveler <noasskiss...@nowhere.net> wrote:
> Guess what? Nothing can move in spacetime. This nasty little truth is
> known to a few relativists but is rarely talked about because it
> destroys Einstein geometrical solution of gravity. Worse, it makes
> famous relativity experts like Kip "Wormhole" Thorne, John Kramer,
> Brian Greene and Stephen Hawking (the little con artist in the
> wheelchair) look like a bunch of idiots for insisting that GR allows
> time travel.
Hahaha !!!! Classic. Have you no sympathy for the crippled and their
magnificent time machines you barstard !
Dirk Van de moortel
10cf0a97-3dba-4c08...@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com
> From http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/browse_frm/thread/986d28e92c83aa74
>
> Shubee wrote:
>
>>> It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
>>> and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
>>> logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
>>> systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
>>
>> Richard Feynmann would disagree.
>
> Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> physics is flawed mathematically? How else do you explain Feynman's
> statement, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians."?
> http://www.liv.ac.uk/~iop/Fools-Physics.pdf
He was referring to your kind of (would-be) mathematicians, who think
that physics is just an exercise in mathematics.
>
>> He argues that mathematicians are not scientists at all.
>> ("Scientist" is not an honorific term.) His definition of
>> "science" is an enterprise in which truth is decided by
>> external confirmation.
>
> My objection to Feynman's definition of "science" is that it appears
> completely arbitrary. And it overlooks my standing argument that "The
> only substantial part of physics is mathematics."
Yes, we are familiar with your standing argument. But thanks
for putting it black on white here.
> http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/1c1215a40b1cf0b3
> In support of mathematicians however, I'll agree to use Feynman's
> definition.
You have no choice, have you?
Shubert against the world.
>
>> The criterion of mathematical truth is utterly
>> unrelated to the physical world.
>
> Thus God is a mathematician, not a physicist. Consequently it follows
> that mathematicians are superbeings that belong to a god class whereas
> physicists, if they are experimentalists, are mere scientists.
Well, the god you created after your own image, certainly must
be a disgusting creep. No argument there.
Dirk Vdm
Sam Wormley
>
> Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> physics is flawed mathematically? How else do you explain Feynman's
> statement, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians."?
> http://www.liv.ac.uk/~iop/Fools-Physics.pdf
>
A Different Box of Tools
At the Princeton graduate school, the physics department and the math
department shared a common lounge, and every day at four o'clock we would
have tea. It was a way of relaxing in the afternoon, in addition to
imitating an English college. People would sit around playing Go, or
discussing theorems. In those days topology was the big thing.
I still remember a guy sitting on the couch, thinking very hard, and
another guy standing in front of him, saying, "And therefore such-and-such
is true."
"Why is that?" the guy on the couch asks.
"It's trivial! It's trivial!" the standing guy says, and he rapidly
reels off a series of logical steps: "First you assume thus-and-so, then we
have Kerchoff's this-and-that; then there's Waffenstoffer's Theorem, and we
substitute this and construct that. Now you put the vector which goes around
here and then thus-and-so..." The guy on the couch is struggling to
understand all this stuff, which goes on at high speed for about fifteen
minutes!
Finally the standing guy comes out the other end, and the guy on the
couch says, "Yeah, yeah. It's trivial."
We physicists were laughing, trying to figure them out. We decided that
"trivial" means "proved." So we joked with the mathematicians: "We have a
new theorem -- that mathematicians can prove only trivial theorems, because
every theorem that's proved is trivial."
The mathematicians didn't like that theorem, and I teased them about
it. I said there are never any surprises -- that the mathematicians only
prove things that are obvious. Topology was not at all obvious to the
mathematicians. There were all kinds of weird possibilities that were
"counterintuitive." Then I got an idea. I challenged them: "I bet there
isn't a single theorem that you can tell me -- what the assumptions are and
what the theorem is in terms I can understand -- where I can't tell you
right away whether it's true or false."
It often went like this: They would explain to me, "You've got an
orange, OK? Now you cut the orange into a finite number of pieces, put it
back together, and it's as big as the sun. True or false?"
"No holes?"
"No holes."
"Impossible! There ain't no such a thing."
"Ha! We got him! Everybody gather around! It's So-and-so's theorem of
immeasurable measure!"
Just when they think they've got me, I remind them, "But you said an
orange! You can't cut the orange peel any thinner than the atoms."
"But we have the condition of continuity: We can keep on cutting!"
"No, you said an orange, so I assumed that you meant a real orange."
So I always won. If I guessed it right, great. If I guessed it wrong,
there was always something I could find in their simplification that they
left out.
Actually, there was a certain amount of genuine quality to my guesses.
I had a scheme, which I still use today when somebody is explaining
something that I'm trying to understand: I keep making up examples. For
instance, the mathematicians would come in with a terrific theorem, and
they're all excited. As they're telling me the conditions of the theorem, I
construct something which fits all the conditions. You know, you have a set
(one ball) -- disjoint (two balls). Then the balls turn colors, grow hairs,
or whatever, in my head as they put more conditions on. Finally they state
the theorem, which is some dumb thing about the ball which isn't true for my
hairy green ball thing, so I say, "False!"
If it's true, they get all excited, and I let them go on for a while.
Then I point out my counterexample.
"Oh. We forgot to tell you that it's Class 2 Hausdorff homomorphic."
"Well, then," I say, "It's trivial! It's trivial!" By that time I know
which way it goes, even though I don't know what Hausdorff homomorphic
means.
I guessed right most of the time because although the mathematicians
thought their topology theorems were counterintuitive, they weren't really
as difficult as they looked. You can get used to the funny properties of
this ultra-fine cutting business and do a pretty good job of guessing how it
will come out.
Although I gave the mathematicians a lot of trouble, they were always
very kind to me. They were a happy bunch of boys who were developing things,
and they were terrifically excited about it. They would discuss their
"trivial" theorems, and always try to explain something to you if you asked
a simple question.
Paul Olum and I shared a bathroom. We got to be good friends, and he
tried to teach me mathematics. He got me up to homotopy groups, and at that
point I gave up. But the things below that I understood fairly well.
One thing I never did learn was contour integration. I had learned to
do integrals by various methods shown in a book that my high school physics
teacher Mr. Bader had given me.
One day he told me to stay after class. "Feynman," he said, "you talk
too much and you make too much noise. I know why. You're bored. So I'm going
to give you a book. You go up there in the back, in the corner, and study
this book, and when you know everything that's in this book, you can talk
again."
So every physics class, I paid no attention to what was going on with
Pascal's Law, or whatever they were doing. I was up in the back with this
book: Advanced Calculus, by Woods. Bader knew I had studied Calculus for the
Practical Man a little bit, so he gave me the real works -- it was for a
junior or senior course in college. It had Fourier series, Bessel functions,
determinants, elliptic functions -- all kinds of wonderful stuff that I
didn't know anything about.
That book also showed how to differentiate parameters under the
integral sign -- it's a certain operation. It turns out that's not taught
very much in the universities; they don't emphasize it. But I caught on how
to use that method, and I used that one damn tool again and again. So
because I was self-taught using that book, I had peculiar methods of doing
integrals.
The result was, when guys at MIT or Princeton had trouble doing a
certain integral, it was because they couldn't do it with the standard
methods they had learned in school. If it was contour integration, they
would have found it; if it was a simple series expansion, they would have
found it. Then I come along and try differentiating under the integral sign,
and often it worked. So I got a great reputation for doing integrals, only
because my box of tools was different from everybody else's, and they had
tried all their tools on it before giving the problem to me.
Dirk Van de moortel
9evok.241063$TT4.218335@attbi_s22
Feels good to read this again.
Thanks :-)
Dirk Vdm
Traveler
ahahaha... Dick Van de merde and Samantha Wormley kissing each other's
asses, as usual.
Dave L. Renfro
> Feynman had a discussion with a math student, and it went
> like this : Math : "you slice up an orange, and when you
> reassemble the slices, it is as big as the sun".
> Feynman : "can't be done, an orange is made out of molecules".
> Math : "but WE, mathematicians, can keep on slicing ever
> thinner forever"
Having read quite a bit about (and by) Feynman, I'm almost
certain his complaint wasn't about the mathematical result
itself (the Banach Tarski paradox), but rather how people
often rephrase technical results in oversimplifying ways
(or make use of inadequate analogies) that distort what
is really going on. Once someone tells you that at least
a couple of non-measurable sets are involved, the result
is far less surprising, given all the weird counterexamples
you see that involve non-measurable sets at the beginning
of a first semester graduate course in real analysis.
Dave L. Renfro
PD
> Fromhttp://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/browse_frm/thr...
>
> Shubee wrote:
> > > It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
> > > and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
> > > logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
> > > systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
>
> > Richard Feynmann would disagree.
>
> Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> physics is flawed mathematically? How else do you explain Feynman's
> statement, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians."?http://www.liv.ac.uk/~iop/Fools-Physics.pdf
I suppose you'd have to ask Feynman why he said that, and that would
be difficult presently.
Now, I suppose it is fair to ask people whether they *share* that
sentiment, and if so, why they do.
I personally do not hate mathematicians. The work they produce is very
useful in analyzing the real world, which is the pursuit of physics.
>
> > He argues that mathematicians are not scientists at all.
> > ("Scientist" is not an honorific term.) His definition of
> > "science" is an enterprise in which truth is decided by
> > external confirmation.
>
> My objection to Feynman's definition of "science" is that it appears
> completely arbitrary. And it overlooks my standing argument that "The
> only substantial part of physics is mathematics."http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/1c1215a40b...
I personally don't overlook your argument. I simply disagree with it.
The *most* substantial part of physics is what is stated in the
*scientific method*, and which is essentially absent in mathematics:
the reference to nature as the ultimate arbiter via experiment and
observation. If you dismiss experiment as lynch pin of physics, or
feel that the scientific method is a luxury that is not central to
physics, then I believe you have a definition of physics that is
wholly different than what physicists understand themselves to be
doing.
In my experience, if you want to know what science is, you ask a
scientist. It is unwise for an accountant to tell a carpenter that
what the carpenter does is not really carpentry, and that carpentry
should be defined according to what the accountant believes it should
be.
> In support of mathematicians however, I'll agree to use Feynman's
> definition.
>
> > The criterion of mathematical truth is utterly
> > unrelated to the physical world.
>
> Thus God is a mathematician, not a physicist. Consequently it follows
> that mathematicians are superbeings that belong to a god class whereas
> physicists, if they are experimentalists, are mere scientists.
Well now. You have railed against people for (in your estimation)
deifying a physicist because that attempts to usurp God's authority
with human authority. Now you display the depth of your hypocrisy by
doing the same for mathematicians. You are guilty of the sin you
condemn, and you do not repent. Do you understand the eternal
implications?
PD
Simple Simon
Wow, I didn't know that the Princeton staff were so .....
A mathematical theorum that starts out "You've got an orange..."? (otherwise
the physicist won't understand it?)
John C. Polasek
Sophomoric discussion. Physics equations must contain relevant
physical units making them doubly accountable and traceable to
physical phenomena.
How much numerology has been wasted by someone stumbling on a pretty
darn good approximation of say, G, but without checking for proper
units?
It is not possible to assign units to an equation like D = E to make
it into physics, or at least to give it some zing, e.g.:
D doodads = E doodads. No help there.
The equation needs some relief.
D = eps0*E.
Fine, now E Volts/m squeezes on eps0 to make coul/m^2. eps0 becomes
farads/meter.
John Polasek
Shubee
>
> Shubee wrote:
> >>> It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
> >>> and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
> >>> logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
> >>> systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
> >> Richard Feynmann would disagree.
>
> > Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> > physics is flawed mathematically?
>
> It was the other way around.
>
> I remember an anecdote from "Surely, you must be joking, Mr Feynman".
> The mathematics department, at Cornell, were at the time raving about a
> relatively new field in maths, topology.
>
> Feynman had a discussion with a math student, and it went like this :
> Math : "you slice up an orange, and when you reassemble the slices, it
> is as big as the sun".
> Feynman : "can't be done, an orange is made out of molecules".
> Math : "but WE, mathematicians, can keep on slicing ever thinner forever"
>
> That is why Feynman hated mathematicians
I've read a few of Feynman's books and have a different recollection
of the incident. Feynman was bragging in a math department that all
conclusions that mathematicians reach are either unsurprising or
intuitively obvious. So he was told about the implications of the Pea
and the Sun Paradox. Evidently an orange was substituted for a pea,
which is mathematically acceptable.
It's too bad that Feynman was so small-minded that he couldn't accept
a simple mathematical result that no respectable mathematician is
troubled by.
See:
Banach–Tarski paradox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox
Tarski's circle-squaring problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_circle-squaring_problem
What is especially important here is the asymmetry: Mathematicians
don't hate physicists because so many physical theories by physicists
are inconsistent. Feynman, for example, clearly taught that
electrodynamics is inconsistent. In his Lectures on Physics, Feynman
wrote:
"...this tremendous edifice (classical electrodynamics), which is such
a beautiful success in explaining so many phenomena, ultimately falls
on its face. ...Classical mechanics is a mathematically consistent
theory; it just doesn't agree with experience. It is interesting,
though, that the classical theory of electromagnetism is an
unsatisfactory theory all by itself. There are difficulties
associated
with the ideas of Maxwell's theory which are not solved by and not
directly associated with quantum mechanics..."
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/91a60e76c60a0c25
Instead of hating mathematicians, Feynman should have been praising
them and soliciting help from them like Einstein did when he got
mathematicians to help him create general relativity.
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
Shubee
wrote:
That's a hilarious observation and a good question also. Thanks.
Shubee
Herman Rubin
>that Mathematics does not serve to define real world events.
>Leibniz correctly defined the difference between Space and Number -
>Again, Leibiz prescribed to the second view of time.
Possibly it was that mathematicians pointed out that his
"definition" of the Feynman path integral made no sense.
Mathematicians and physicists have been working on it for
more than a half century, and have not been able to come
up with something of the desired generality. I took a
small crack at it myself.
He has two types of "integrals" in his definition. One
involves an infinity, which is removable in all cases in
which a reasonable means of calculating the path integral
has been done. The other is not an integral, but a measure.
The measure of the space of paths to be considerered does
not have a density on the space of all paths, which is
too big for consideration anyhow.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Benj
>
> >>> It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
> >>> and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
> >>> logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
> >>> systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
> >> Richard Feynmann would disagree.
Mathematicians are not only NOT "perfectly logical scientists", they
are not even scientists at all!
Their discipline is definitely based upon "orderly, logical,
systematic unfolding" of self-consistent systems, but there is NO
place that these "systems" are required to touch reality. The systems
are all man-invented. And while they are self-consistent they can be
created in any way the creator chooses even to the point of developing
mutually exclusive self-consistent systems.
The bottom line is that mathematics is a dream world and Shubee is
full of shit up to his eyebrows!
> > Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> > physics is flawed mathematically?
> It was the other way around.
Absolutely. Mathematics is totally incapable of showing physics to be
flawed. It can only show the mathematics to be flawed.
> I remember an anecdote from "Surely, you must be joking, Mr Feynman".
> The mathematics department, at Cornell, were at the time raving about a
> relatively new field in maths, topology.
> Feynman had a discussion with a math student, and it went like this :
> Math : "you slice up an orange, and when you reassemble the slices, it
> is as big as the sun".
> Feynman : "can't be done, an orange is made out of molecules".
> Math : "but WE, mathematicians, can keep on slicing ever thinner forever"
>
> That is why Feynman hated mathematicians, and not because of your delusions.
Feynman was one of the few physicists who actually understood what
physics was about. He was probably driven nuts by the other 99.99%
who have accepted that above nonsense expressed by "Shubee" that
somehow a man-made system is MORE REAL than reality itself! Hey,
"Shubee" tell us again how the Earth is actually the center of the
known universe and mankind is the pinnacle of God's work upon that
center! I've got some geometry here that "proves" the Earth is flat!
Mathematical Idiot.
Shubee
> On Aug 12, 8:51 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Shubee wrote:
> > > > It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
> > > > and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
> > > > logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
> > > > systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
>
> > > Richard Feynmann would disagree.
>
> > Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> > physics is flawed mathematically? How else do you explain Feynman's
> > statement, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians."?
> > http://www.liv.ac.uk/~iop/Fools-Physics.pdf
>
> > > ("Scientist" is not an honorific term.) His definition of
> > > "science" is an enterprise in which truth is decided by
> > > external confirmation.
>
> > My objection to Feynman's definition of "science" is that it appears
> > completely arbitrary. And it overlooks my standing argument that
> > "The only substantial part of physics is mathematics."
>
> > In support of mathematicians however, I'll agree to use Feynman's
> > definition.
>
> > > The criterion of mathematical truth is utterly
> > > unrelated to the physical world.
>
> > Thus God is a mathematician, not a physicist. Consequently it follows
> > that mathematicians are superbeings that belong to a god class whereas
> > physicists, if they are experimentalists, are mere scientists.
>
> Well now. You have railed against people for (in your estimation)
> deifying a physicist because that attempts to usurp God's authority
> with human authority. Now you display the depth of your hypocrisy by
> doing the same for mathematicians. You are guilty of the sin you
> condemn, and you do not repent. Do you understand the eternal
> implications?
>
> PD
The only implications I see are whatever might logically follow from
your blind insistence on misunderstanding. What you apparently don't
realize is that I was exposing a bigoted, silly and possibly
disparaging argument from a physicist at sci.physics.foundations who
took issue with me for saying, "Mathematicians are usually perfectly
logical scientists." His objection was that mathematicians aren't
scientists because Feynman defined science in a way to purposely
exclude mathematics. How lame is that? For my rebuttal, I simply
defined a superclass above "scientist" after a characteristic of God
that is true of mathematicians but not physicists.
For the record, the moderators at sci.physics.foundations
misunderstood my mathematical argument just as easily as you did. They
rejected my post saying, "Please keep to physics and philosophy of
physics, not religion."
You really have to pity those physicists for rejecting my post because
I used the word "God" yet they worship Einstein who said, "God does
not play dice with the universe."
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
PD
> On Aug 13, 8:26 am, PD <TheDraperFam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Aug 12, 8:51 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > > Shubee wrote:
> > > > > It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
> > > > > and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
> > > > > logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
> > > > > systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
>
> > > > Richard Feynmann would disagree.
>
> > > Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> > > physics is flawed mathematically? How else do you explain Feynman's
> > > statement, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians."?
> > >http://www.liv.ac.uk/~iop/Fools-Physics.pdf
>
> > > > He argues that mathematicians are not scientists at all.
> > > > ("Scientist" is not an honorific term.) His definition of
> > > > "science" is an enterprise in which truth is decided by
> > > > external confirmation.
>
> > > My objection to Feynman's definition of "science" is that it appears
> > > completely arbitrary. And it overlooks my standing argument that
> > > "The only substantial part of physics is mathematics."
>
> > > In support of mathematicians however, I'll agree to use Feynman's
> > > definition.
>
> > > > The criterion of mathematical truth is utterly
> > > > unrelated to the physical world.
>
> > > Thus God is a mathematician, not a physicist. Consequently it follows
> > > that mathematicians are superbeings that belong to a god class whereas
> > > physicists, if they are experimentalists, are mere scientists.
>
> > Well now. You have railed against people for (in your estimation)
> > deifying a physicist because that attempts to usurp God's authority
> > with human authority. Now you display the depth of your hypocrisy by
> > doing the same for mathematicians. You are guilty of the sin you
> > condemn, and you do not repent. Do you understand the eternal
> > implications?
>
> > PD
>
> The only implications I see are whatever might logically follow from
> your blind insistence on misunderstanding. What you apparently don't
> realize is that I was exposing a bigoted, silly and possibly
> disparaging argument from a physicist at sci.physics.foundations who
> took issue with me for saying, "Mathematicians are usually perfectly
> logical scientists." His objection was that mathematicians aren't
> scientists because Feynman defined science in a way to purposely
> exclude mathematics.
First of all, Feynman didn't *define* anything. Feynman merely
expressed what scientists as a community understand as the
*distinction* between mathematics and science. Distinction doesn't
imply exclusion. Chemistry is distinct from physics; it does not
exclude physics, either. Biology is distinct from chemistry; it does
not exclude chemistry, either.
> How lame is that? For my rebuttal, I simply
> defined a superclass above "scientist" after a characteristic of God
> that is true of mathematicians but not physicists.
Which is elevating humans, something that you allegedly despise.
>
> For the record, the moderators at sci.physics.foundations
> misunderstood my mathematical argument just as easily as you did. They
> rejected my post saying, "Please keep to physics and philosophy of
> physics, not religion."
>
> You really have to pity those physicists for rejecting my post because
> I used the word "God" yet they worship Einstein who said, "God does
> not play dice with the universe."
As opposed to Hilbert, who said:
"A mathematical theory is not to be considered complete until you have
made it so clear that you can explain it to the first man whom you
meet on the street." (Have you done that yet, Shubee?"
"Physics is obviously far too difficult to be left to the physicists
and mathematicians still think they are God's gift to science." (Think
you're God's gift to science, Shubee?)
"Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science
requires martyrdom - that may be necessary in religion, but in time a
scientific result will establish itself." (Enjoying your martyr
complex, Shubee?)
"The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in
nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role
that remains for the infinite...is solely that of an idea..." (Still
think Hilbert is more angelic, Shubee?)
PD
Edward Green
> Possibly it was that mathematicians pointed out that his
> "definition" of the Feynman path integral made no sense.
> Mathematicians and physicists have been working on it for
> more than a half century, and have not been able to come
> up with something of the desired generality. I took a
> small crack at it myself.
>
> He has two types of "integrals" in his definition. One
> involves an infinity, which is removable in all cases in
> which a reasonable means of calculating the path integral
> has been done. The other is not an integral, but a measure.
> The measure of the space of paths to be considerered does
> not have a density on the space of all paths, which is
> too big for consideration anyhow.
I'm interested in your criticism of path integrals, because if the
idea is indeed incoherent, but nevertheless a "reasonable" means of
calculating the integral exists in some cases, the question naturally
arises what is really being "calculated".
My personal inclination is to think that the idea that "particles take
all possible paths" is a less coherent if more colorful version of
Huygen's principle, which itself is a partially coherent idea that
"the wavefront propagates by all possible paths", which seems to be a
reasonable equivalent of "every point on the wavefront is a fresh
source", which I think has been put closer to a coherent footing.
IIRC Huygen's principle has both a tautologically vague version and a
more mathematically precise version, the latter of which enables you
to make precise pronouncements like "Huygen's principe only works in
odd dimensions", or something of that nature.
The spoiler seems to be something like "ringing" or "afterglow", which
refers to cases where a sharp disturbance does not produce a sharp
wavefront. The looser version couldn't give a figo about this, since
waves in any dimension in some sense "spread out and explore their
environment", which could about equally poetically be considered
"taking all possible paths".
I think the correct mathematical formulation of this latter idea might
be Green's functions, but I really don't know what I'm talking about.
When physicists find a "reasonable method" of evaluating a path
integral, perhaps they are simply propagating the wave disturbance
correctly, and claiming they are doing a "path integral".
Shubee
>
> Possibly it was that mathematicians pointed out that his
> "definition" of the Feynman path integral made no sense.
I suspected that. I recall reading of the difficulties long ago.
> Mathematicians and physicists have been working on it for
> more than a half century, and have not been able to come
> up with something of the desired generality. I took a
> small crack at it myself.
>
> He has two types of "integrals" in his definition. One
> involves an infinity, which is removable in all cases in
> which a reasonable means of calculating the path integral
> has been done.
Why do mathematicians believe that this path integral might fail to be
well-defined? Please explain the mathematical prohibition against
defining the calculation of the Feynman path integral using only
"reasonable means" as opposed to all possible paths? What are the
certainties that have been proven about the Feynman path integral?
> The other is not an integral, but a measure.
> The measure of the space of paths to be considerered does
> not have a density on the space of all paths, which is
> too big for consideration anyhow.
However unconventional Feynman's definition may be, do any
mathematical results follow from the Feynman measure on the space of
paths?
> This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
> are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
> Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
> hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
Neilist
<snip>
Why did Feynman supposedly say that quote about mathematicians?
Because Feynman could be a real jerk sometimes, despite his brilliance
in physics.
Timo A. Nieminen
> In my experience, if you want to know what science is, you ask a
> scientist. It is unwise for an accountant to tell a carpenter that
> what the carpenter does is not really carpentry, and that carpentry
> should be defined according to what the accountant believes it should
> be.
Unless you're a fan of Bacon!
Heh, despite Bacon's opinion of it, Gilbert's "The magnet" is still in
print. These days, perhaps more often read than Bacon.
--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
Igor
Maybe the student should have called it a virtual orange and Feynman
would not have pounced all over him. Thus is the difference between
abstract objects and real concrete physical objects that continue to
get many of the trolls in trouble around here.
Edward Green
> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008, PD wrote:
> > In my experience, if you want to know what science is, you ask a
> > scientist. It is unwise for an accountant to tell a carpenter that
> > what the carpenter does is not really carpentry, and that carpentry
> > should be defined according to what the accountant believes it should
> > be.
>
> Unless you're a fan of Bacon!
>
> Heh, despite Bacon's opinion of it, Gilbert's "The magnet" is still in
> print. These days, perhaps more often read than Bacon.
I've read Bacon. I thought it was the greatest stuff ever, in
college.
PD brings up an essential tension, though: is X what X'ers are doing,
or is it something we can define ideally, which the X'ers can either
conform to or fall short of. It's like asking whether words mean
what's in the dictionary, or the way they are used in current speech.
We will always have both poles.
Shubee
> On Aug 13, 11:02 am, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 13, 8:26 am, PD <TheDraperFam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Aug 12, 8:51 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
> > > > > > and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
> > > > > > logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
> > > > > > systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
>
> > > > > Richard Feynmann would disagree.
>
> > > > Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> > > > physics is flawed mathematically? How else do you explain Feynman's
> > > > statement, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians."?
> > > > http://www.liv.ac.uk/~iop/Fools-Physics.pdf
>
> > > > > He argues that mathematicians are not scientists at all.
> > > > > ("Scientist" is not an honorific term.) His definition of
> > > > > "science" is an enterprise in which truth is decided by
> > > > > external confirmation.
>
> > > > My objection to Feynman's definition of "science" is that it appears
> > > > completely arbitrary. And it overlooks my standing argument that
> > > > "The only substantial part of physics is mathematics."
>
Feynman did define science. And you're using subterfuge. A community
that frequently prostitutes truth to hype their own religion and calls
themselves scientists have no right to define science as if it was
their sole prerogative.
> > How lame is that? For my rebuttal, I simply defined a
> > superclass above "scientist" after a characteristic of God
> > that is true of mathematicians but not physicists.
>
> Which is elevating humans, something that you allegedly despise.
God is a mathematician. Physicists that grope around in the dark and
say that God is an equation couldn't possibly represent Him. Likewise,
your irrational whining doesn't refute my logic.
> > For the record, the moderators at sci.physics.foundations
> > misunderstood my mathematical argument just as easily as you did. They
> > rejected my post saying, "Please keep to physics and philosophy of
> > physics, not religion."
>
> > You really have to pity those physicists for rejecting my post because
> > I used the word "God" yet they worship Einstein who said, "God does
> > not play dice with the universe."
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
Timo A. Nieminen
> On Aug 13, 5:02 pm, "Timo A. Nieminen" <t...@physics.uq.edu.au> wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008, PD wrote:
>>> In my experience, if you want to know what science is, you ask a
>>> scientist. It is unwise for an accountant to tell a carpenter that
>>> what the carpenter does is not really carpentry, and that carpentry
>>> should be defined according to what the accountant believes it should
>>> be.
>>
>> Unless you're a fan of Bacon!
>>
>> Heh, despite Bacon's opinion of it, Gilbert's "The magnet" is still in
>> print. These days, perhaps more often read than Bacon.
>
> I've read Bacon. I thought it was the greatest stuff ever, in
> college.
Bacon only has half the story. Yes, he points out the value of experiment,
over and over. But he appears to have had no idea about what theory is
for. Experiment (i.e., bees collecting Baconian honey - is this more than
stamp collecting?) without theory is rather undirected and unfruitful.
Half of the scientific method is not the scientific method. Recording
observations of 3x5 index cards isn't complete science any more than
airy theorising is complete science.
But do tell, what impressed you about Bacon? Maybe I've read too many
critical secondary sources or suchlike, but I wasn't impressed. New
Atlantis is somewhat painful, with Salomon's House and all as his
exposition of the scientific method. (And for the Utopian genre in
general, More did better, along with some wry amusement to be had: people
speak of utopian ideals for dealing with, e.g., people with mental or
physical disabilities. What did they do with them in Utopia? Gave them
pensions and laughed at them in public, as state-paid public fools. Very
Utopian!)
That said, writers of 100 years ago were often very fond of Bacon.
> PD brings up an essential tension, though: is X what X'ers are doing,
> or is it something we can define ideally, which the X'ers can either
> conform to or fall short of. It's like asking whether words mean
> what's in the dictionary, or the way they are used in current speech.
> We will always have both poles.
Science isn't what scientists do. Producing scientific results, doing
scientific research is what scientists do. Science is more than that
(although a large part of it is what scientists have done). As such,
science is not the scientific method, but is, in part, one of the outcomes
of the scientific method. The scientific method is not the only way to
produce science, and science is not exculsively the product of the
scientific method.
Given that, how can we usefully define scientific research as different
from what is done by scientists (including amateurs)? Now, if we want to
talk about an ideal method for doing scientific research - THE Scientific
Method, we might say - this isn't necessarily what scientists do. But who
is best placed to make statements about what the best methods are?
Accountants/lawyers, or researchers? A whole bunch of stuff of what is
written and taught about the scientific method is crap. The role of
creativity and imagination is often completely ignored, luck is officially
non-existent, and the complex feedback between theory and experiment is
reduced to the formulaic observation->hypothesis->test->theory. Ah well,
the usual oversimplification. Although I did like Dirac on what theory is
for - I've used his quote in a couple talks.
P.S. The other Bacon, Roger, wrote some good science.
Sam Wormley
>
> God is a mathematician. Physicists that grope around in the dark and
> say that God is an equation couldn't possibly represent Him. Likewise,
> your irrational whining doesn't refute my logic.
>
What god are you referring to?
N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)
"Sam Wormley" <swor...@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:LWNok.297065$yE1.76918@attbi_s21...
I wonder how physicists "can't represent him", when they are made
in his image?
David A. Smith
Shubee
wrote:
> Hi Sam,
>
> "Sam Wormley" <sworml...@mchsi.com> wrote in message
Matthew 13:36-43
His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the
weeds in the field."
He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The
field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the
kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who
sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the
harvesters are angels.
"As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at
the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they
will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do
evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the
sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=47&chapter=13&version=31
PD
And Hilbert, a mathematician's mathematician, said:
"Physics is obviously far too difficult to be left to the physicists
and mathematicians still think they are God's gift to
science." (Think
you're God's gift to science, Shubee?)
"The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in
nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role
that remains for the infinite...is solely that of an idea..." (The
angelic Hilbert does not believe in the reality of an infinite God?)
PD
PD
Really? And when Feynman was a boy of 9, poking at ants in Far
Rockaway, did those that called themselves scientists have no
understanding of what "science" means while they waited for Feynman to
define it?
> A community
> that frequently prostitutes truth to hype their own religion and calls
> themselves scientists have no right to define science as if it was
> their sole prerogative.
Really? And do you think you have the right to define "architecture"
for architects, or "art" for artists, or "medicine" for doctors, or
"economics" for economists? What makes you in a position to *redefine*
what science is, whether scientists agree or not?
>
> > > How lame is that? For my rebuttal, I simply defined a
> > > superclass above "scientist" after a characteristic of God
> > > that is true of mathematicians but not physicists.
>
> > Which is elevating humans, something that you allegedly despise.
>
> God is a mathematician.
And where in the Bible, his complete and sufficient word, does it say
that? And who are you to presume to know him beyond his complete and
sufficient word, you arrogant and doomed sinner?
> Physicists that grope around in the dark and
> say that God is an equation couldn't possibly represent Him. Likewise,
> your irrational whining doesn't refute my logic.
Refutation of logic is not the basis for determining truth in science.
Experiment is. Got any experimental evidence that God is a
mathematician?
PD
Excellent fodder for discussion.
I tend to view science as the activity rather than the product of the
activity. (One could also fret over the same distinction with
architecture, art, medicine, or plumbing.)
But I entirely agree with you that the common presentations of the
scientific method do over-distill a highly complex, variable, and
essentially human process. Hunch and pure insight play an essential
role, as does a rather poorly grasped esthetic sense that is used to
gauge or inspire ideas at the germination point. Also completely under-
represented are the various rules, workflows, and metrics by which
experimental results are collected and judged -- this is perhaps one
of the squishier areas in science. And it is also true that purely
humanistic aspects do influence science, even over longer periods of
time than the "scientific method" promises a cure -- these include
moral imperatives and collegial reputation.
But, and this is a big "but", the distilled "scientific method" as it
is taught to high school students everywhere, represents the
*essential* components that must be there for it to be recognizable as
science. This is what enables distinguishing science from philosophy,
from craftsmanship, from art, from mathematics. If what one does not
*somewhere* invoke all the aspects of the scientific method, then
another can fairly say that it ain't science, bub.
This last point is most irritating to grandstanding cranks, several of
whom have posted to this thread, who alternately whine that they have
the right to define what science is as much as anyone, or that if
that's what science is then they want no part of it and science is
doomed, or that scientists have created the scientific method
specifically to exclude amateurs who don't know how to use the method.
PD
Shubee
> And Hilbert, a mathematician's mathematician, said:
>
> "Physics is obviously far too difficult to be left to the physicists
> and mathematicians still think they are God's gift to
> science."
I don't believe that Hilbert said that.
http://www.cobalt.chem.ucalgary.ca/ziegler/educmat/chm386/rudiment/tourquan/hilbert.htm
> "The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in
> nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role
> that remains for the infinite...is solely that of an idea..." (The
> angelic Hilbert does not believe in the reality of an infinite God?)
Your superficial reasoning is scary considering that you know nothing
about Hilbert's mathematical philosophy.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/rzach/papers/hptn.html
Shubee
PD
> On Aug 14, 7:05 am, PD <TheDraperFam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > And Hilbert, a mathematician's mathematician, said:
>
> > "Physics is obviously far too difficult to be left to the physicists
> > and mathematicians still think they are God's gift to
> > science."
>
Well, as long as you're getting your information from the internet,
try:
http://mooni.fccj.org/~ethall/quantum/quant2.htm
>
> > "The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in
> > nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role
> > that remains for the infinite...is solely that of an idea..." (The
> > angelic Hilbert does not believe in the reality of an infinite God?)
>
> Your superficial reasoning
What reasoning? I'm quoting the guy.
Shubee
Where did I say or imply that the word science had no meaning until
Feynman?
The Online Etymology Dictionary states:
<<science
c.1300, "knowledge (of something) acquired by study," also "a
particular branch of knowledge," from O.Fr. science, from L. scientia
"knowledge," from sciens (gen. scientis), prp. of scire "to know,"
probably originally "to separate one thing from another, to
distinguish," related to scindere "to cut, divide," from PIE base
*skei- (cf. Gk. skhizein "to split, rend, cleave," Goth. skaidan, O.E.
sceadan "to divide, separate;" see shed (v.)). Modern sense of "non-
arts studies" is attested from 1678. The distinction is commonly
understood as between theoretical truth (Gk. episteme) and methods for
effecting practical results (tekhne), but science sometimes is used
for practical applications and art for applications of skill. Main
modern (restricted) sense of "body of regular or methodical
observations or propositions ... concerning any subject or
speculation" is attested from 1725; in 17c.-18c. this concept commonly
was called philosophy. To blind (someone) with science "confuse by the
use of big words or complex explanations" is attested from 1937,
originally noted as a phrase from Australia and New Zealand.>>
It's a sign of moral depravity that the cult of "natural philosophers"
has been trying to control the meaning of a very common word.
Fortunately, the prince of darkness hasn't been greatly successful in
his efforts to usurp the throne of every thinking mind. Dictionary.com
defines science to be
1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or
truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general
laws: the mathematical sciences.
2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained
through observation and experimentation.
3. any of the branches of natural or physical science.
4. systematized knowledge in general.
5. knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by
systematic study.
6. a particular branch of knowledge.
7. skill, esp. reflecting a precise application of facts or
principles; proficiency.
Consequently mathematics is a science, all the whining of physicists
notwithstanding.
> > A community that frequently prostitutes truth to hype their own
> > religion and calls themselves scientists have no right to define
> > science as if it was their sole prerogative.
>
> Really? And do you think you have the right to define "architecture"
> for architects, or "art" for artists, or "medicine" for doctors, or
> "economics" for economists? What makes you in a position to *redefine*
> what science is, whether scientists agree or not?
"The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is
not subject to any man's judgment" (1 Corinthians 2:15).
> > > > How lame is that? For my rebuttal, I simply defined a
> > > > superclass above "scientist" after a characteristic of God
> > > > that is true of mathematicians but not physicists.
>
> > > Which is elevating humans, something that you allegedly despise.
>
> > God is a mathematician.
>
> And where in the Bible, his complete and sufficient word, does it say
> that?
As it is written:
"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
"But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit." 1 Corinthians
2:9-10.
> And who are you to presume to know him beyond his complete
> and sufficient word, you arrogant and doomed sinner?
"He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,
and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the
work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all
come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and
carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in
the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting" (Ephesians 4:11-14).
> > Physicists that grope around in the dark and say that God
> > is an equation couldn't possibly represent Him. Likewise,
> > your irrational whining doesn't refute my logic.
>
> Refutation of logic is not the basis for determining truth in science.
> Experiment is. Got any experimental evidence that God is a
> mathematician?
You are terribly unqualified to talk about experimental evidence. You
can't even conceive of a measurement that would determine the meaning
of the word "science"!
I believe that I'm ready to retract a statement that I've made
earlier. It's obvious that the prince of darkness has been very
successful in controlling you.
Sam Wormley
> On Aug 14, 7:41 am, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Aug 14, 7:05 am, PD <TheDraperFam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> And Hilbert, a mathematician's mathematician, said:
>>> "Physics is obviously far too difficult to be left to the physicists
>>> and mathematicians still think they are God's gift to
>>> science."
>> I don't believe that Hilbert said that.http://www.cobalt.chem.ucalgary.ca/ziegler/educmat/chm386/rudiment/to...
>
> Well, as long as you're getting your information from the internet,
> try:
> http://mooni.fccj.org/~ethall/quantum/quant2.htm
>
Quoting for the record....
David Hilbert (1862-1943) Hilbert (see photo) was one of the
outstanding mathematicians of the modern era. He proposed 21 geometry
axioms--the greatest influence in geometry since Euclid (325 BC).
Hilbert's work on infinite-dimensional space, later called Hilbert
space, proved invaluable for quantum mechanics. Today quantum mechanics
is said to be a theory set in "Hilbert Space." At the International
Congress of Mathematicians in Paris (1900) Hilbert presented the now
famous 23 problems which he challenged 20th century mathematicians to
solve. In 1915 Hilbert discovered the correct field equations for
general relativity before Einstein but never claimed priority.
As professor of mathematics at the University of Göttingen, outstanding
scientists of the 20th century (Born, Heisenberg, Jordon, von Neumann
to name just a few) studied with Hilbert. Hilbert suggested to
Heisenberg that he find the differential equation that would correspond
to his matrix equations. Had he taken Hilbert's advice, Heisenberg may
have discovered the Schrödinger equation before Schrödinger.
When mathematicians proved Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and Schrödinger's
wave mechanics equivalent, Hilbert exclaimed, "Physics is obviously far
PD
[a lot of stuff concluding with the following]
>
> You are terribly unqualified to talk about experimental evidence. You
> can't even conceive of a measurement that would determine the meaning
> of the word "science"!
>
> I believe that I'm ready to retract a statement that I've made
> earlier. It's obvious that the prince of darkness has been very
> successful in controlling you.
Thank you, Shubee. You have gloriously claimed for yourself special
insight and holy stature above those of conventional sinners. I leave
it to God to judge you in your self-assessment and your holy
martyrdom.
PD
Shubee
> On Aug 14, 9:18 am, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [a lot of stuff concluding with the following]
>
> > You are terribly unqualified to talk about experimental evidence. You
> > can't even conceive of a measurement that would determine the meaning
> > of the word "science"!
>
> > I believe that I'm ready to retract a statement that I've made
> > earlier. It's obvious that the prince of darkness has been very
> > successful in controlling you.
A sad conclusion of the evidence but nevertheless true.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math/msg/c043aab55ae61d0e
> Thank you, Shubee. You have gloriously claimed for yourself special
> insight
That's not special insight at all. It's simply better insight than
most physicists are capable of.
> and holy stature above those of conventional sinners.
Scientists that say that God is an equation are not conventional
sinners.
> I leave it to God to judge you in your self-assessment and your holy
> martyrdom.
And what equation would that be?
Shubee
Shubee
>
> Quoting for the record....
>
> David Hilbert (1862-1943) Hilbert (see photo) was one of the
> outstanding mathematicians of the modern era. He proposed 21 geometry
> axioms--the greatest influence in geometry since Euclid (325 BC).
> Hilbert's work on infinite-dimensional space, later called Hilbert
> space, proved invaluable for quantum mechanics. Today quantum mechanics
> is said to be a theory set in "Hilbert Space." At the International
> Congress of Mathematicians in Paris (1900) Hilbert presented the now
> famous 23 problems which he challenged 20th century mathematicians to
> solve. In 1915 Hilbert discovered the correct field equations for
> general relativity before Einstein but never claimed priority.
>
> As professor of mathematics at the University of Göttingen, outstanding
> scientists of the 20th century (Born, Heisenberg, Jordon, von Neumann
> to name just a few) studied with Hilbert. Hilbert suggested to
> Heisenberg that he find the differential equation that would correspond
> to his matrix equations. Had he taken Hilbert's advice, Heisenberg may
> have discovered the Schrödinger equation before Schrödinger.
>
> When mathematicians proved Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and Schrödinger's
> wave mechanics equivalent, Hilbert exclaimed, "Physics is obviously far
> too difficult to be left to the physicists and mathematicians still think
> they are God's gift to science."
You've been exposed to the superficial thinking of physicists for too
long. What authoritative source are you quoting?
Shubee
Sam Wormley
Eugene... see the URL in Paul's posting at 7:55 CDT this morning
earlier in this thread.
Shubee
> Shubee wrote:
>
> > You've been exposed to the superficial thinking of physicists for too
> > long. What authoritative source are you quoting?
>
> > Shubee
>
> Eugene... see the URL in Paul's posting at 7:55 CDT this morning
> earlier in this thread.
I'm saddened to say that you are under the same delusive spirit as PD
for boasting in the scientific method, yet arbitrarily trusting one
internet page while willfully ignoring another reference that
contradicts it.
What is your explanation for your alleged, uncited, Hilbert quote at
http://mooni.fccj.org/~ethall/quantum/quant2.htm
appearing to contradict http://www.cobalt.chem.ucalgary.ca/ziegler/educmat/chm386/rudiment/tourquan/hilbert.htm
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
PD
> On Aug 14, 11:49 am, Sam Wormley <sworml...@mchsi.com> wrote:
>
> > Shubee wrote:
>
> > > You've been exposed to the superficial thinking of physicists for too
> > > long. What authoritative source are you quoting?
>
> > > Shubee
>
> > Eugene... see the URL in Paul's posting at 7:55 CDT this morning
> > earlier in this thread.
>
> I'm saddened to say that you are under the same delusive spirit as PD
> for boasting in the scientific method, yet arbitrarily trusting one
> internet page while willfully ignoring another reference that
> contradicts it.
And vice versa! My point exactly, you delusive spirit you!
>
> What is your explanation for your alleged, uncited, Hilbert quote athttp://mooni.fccj.org/~ethall/quantum/quant2.htm
> appearing to contradicthttp://www.cobalt.chem.ucalgary.ca/ziegler/educmat/chm386/rudiment/to...
>
> Shubeehttp://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
Sam Wormley
"Hilbert was a well-known mathemtician during this time. When Heisenberg
was first trying to solve his matrix problem, Heisenberg suggested he
try and find the differential equation that would correspond to his matrix
equations. If he had taken his advice, Heisenberg may very well have
discovered the Schrödinger equation before Schrödinger. The connection
between these different branches of mathematics was soon obvious to the
mathematicians who were able to show that Heisenberg's Matrix Mechanics
and Schrödinger's Wave Mechanics were absolutely equivalent. This led
Hilbert to exclaim "This will not do. Physics is obviously far too difficult
to be left to the physicists!" (And mathematicians still think they are
God's gift to science!! :-) )"
The second sentence kinda makes on wonder!
>
> Shubee
> http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
>
>
Benj
He is obviously referring to himself! And why not? A mathematician IS
"god"! A mathematician is never limited by what is "real" or what is
"possible" or what exists. A mathematician is only limited by his/her
own imagination! And that is the beauty of mathematics! And it is
also why mathematics isn't science. Mathematics can't be refuted
except by mathematical arguments. The "sun-sized" orange can only be
refuted by finding a topological error! But science easily refutes it
by invoking reality. Oranges are made of molecules and hence cannot
be "infinitely subdivided".
Thus, we find that while Feynman was at times a jerk, he was also
correct. Shubee is also a jerk and may be mathematically correct, but
is totally wrong when he makes any claim of being a "scientist".
Saying that mathematics is science is like saying Michael Moore makes
documentaries! Neither feel limited by physical reality.
Shubee
> On Aug 13, 11:48 pm, Sam Wormley <sworml...@mchsi.com> wrote:
>
> > Shubee wrote:
>
> > > God is a mathematician. Physicists that grope around in the dark and
> > > say that God is an equation couldn't possibly represent Him. Likewise,
> > > your irrational whining doesn't refute my logic.
>
> > What god are you referring to?
>
> He is obviously referring to himself!
No. I'm referring to empiricism and logic:
"Biologists think they are biochemists,
Biochemists think they are Physical Chemists,
Physical Chemists think they are Physicists,
Physicists think they are Gods,
And God thinks he is a Mathematician."
> And why not? A mathematician IS "god"!
Not exactly but your confusion is understandable. Mathematicians
merely rank the highest in terms of the pecking order established by
science. When science is working correctly, "Physicists defer only to
mathematicians, and mathematicians defer only to God."
> A mathematician is never limited by what is "real" or what is
> "possible" or what exists. A mathematician is only limited by his/her
> own imagination! And that is the beauty of mathematics! And it is
> also why mathematics isn't science. Mathematics can't be refuted
> except by mathematical arguments. The "sun-sized" orange can only be
> refuted by finding a topological error!
No. The Banach–Tarski paradox is a result in measure theory, not
topology.
> But science easily refutes it by invoking reality. Oranges are made of
> molecules and hence cannot be "infinitely subdivided".
You are making the mistake of trusting Richard Feynman on issues in
mathematics. And you're not being consistent. Feynman said, "Outside
of their particular area of expertise scientists are just as dumb as
the next person."
> Thus, we find that while Feynman was at times a jerk, he was also
> correct. Shubee is also a jerk and may be mathematically correct, but
> is totally wrong when he makes any claim of being a "scientist".
Of course I'm a scientist but I prefer the highest title in science (a
mathematician) because God is a mathematician.
These are reasonable conclusions:
"It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that
fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical
theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of
mathematics for one to understand it . . One could perhaps describe
the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high
order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the
universe."—*P.A.M. Dirac, "The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of
Nature," in Scientific American, May 1963, p. 53.
"What philosophical conclusions should we draw from the abstract style
of the superstring theory? We might conclude, as Sir James Jeans
concluded long ago, that the Great Architect of the Universe now
begins to appear as a Pure Mathematician, and that if we work hard
enough at mathematics we shall be able to read His mind." —Freeman J.
Dyson, Infinite in All Directions, p. 18.
"From the intrinsic evidence of his creation, the Great Architect of
the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician." —Sir James
Jeans.
"A scientific study of the universe has suggested a conclusion which
may be summed up in the statement that the universe appears to have
been designed by a pure mathematician." —Sir James Jeans, The
Mysterious Universe, p. 140.
"The existence of objects arises from their subsisting in the mind of
some ETERNAL SPIRIT. ... GOD is a mathematician and the universe
begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine." —Sir
James Jeans.
> Saying that mathematics is science is like saying Michael Moore makes
> documentaries! Neither feel limited by physical reality.
Like PD, your difficulties with mathematics and physics seem rooted in
your problems with reading the English language.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/msg/c043aab55ae61d0e
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
Timo A. Nieminen
It depends on which version of the distilled "scientific method". The
version, which is a common one, focussing entirely on hypothesis ->
experimental test -> accept/reject theory is far too narrow. For starters,
this would exclude much observational astronomy, geology, biology from
being science. It would certainly rule out almost all mathematics (but
then, some people are happy to call mathematics a non-science).
It reminds me of psychology (and disciplines that imitate, sometimes
successfully, the research methodology of psychology). The dominant
paradigm is statistical hypothesis testing, the core of the above
distilled method when faced with noisy data. But, e.g., I'd call Piaget's
work science, even if he watched children playing rather than performing
experiments.
> This is what enables distinguishing science from philosophy,
> from craftsmanship, from art, from mathematics. If what one does not
> *somewhere* invoke all the aspects of the scientific method, then
> another can fairly say that it ain't science, bub.
This is part of the reason why I distinguished science from the
production of science.
Cataloging stars and nebulae, describing new species of insects, etc.
is science, and can be very important science. (It's even Baconian!) But
the usual versions of the scientific method only include such activity as
a small part (perhaps the sometimes not-even-mentioned initial
observation) of the process. If it's only a small part, is it science?
But the work contributes to science. Is it science? That would depend on
how you define science.
But consider the activity of scientists, when working to contribute to
science. Much of it is not science, per se (and I'm talking about the work
intended to contribute, often quite directly, to science, not
administrivia). For example, rejecting/accepting a paper as a reviewer is
not science, per se. Requiring that the authors make changes to make the
paper more useful to the scientific community isn't science.
It's hard to both precisely and compactly/simply define something complex
(why are papers describing new species so long?). Just recall the tale of
Plato's Man (and I'm most pleased to have been able to quote it in a
paper): Plato was in full swing, and profoundly defined Man as "a
featherless biped". At which point, Diogenes the Cynic got up and went to
the marketplace. Returning shortly with a plucked chicken, swinging it
around, proclaiming that "Here is Plato's Man!", he forced Plato to amend
his definition: "Man is a featherless biped with broad fingernails."
Now, if they'd had chimpanzees for sale at the marketplace ...
I think if the teacher understands what science is about, they can give
the compact potted summary of the scientific method, and then discuss it.
Why do we call this the scientific method? Is it a good definition? Can we
do science in other ways? What other ways? Alas, a teacher who can only
read the textbook won't manage this :(
> This last point is most irritating to grandstanding cranks, several of
> whom have posted to this thread, who alternately whine that they have
> the right to define what science is as much as anyone, or that if
> that's what science is then they want no part of it and science is
> doomed, or that scientists have created the scientific method
> specifically to exclude amateurs who don't know how to use the method.
They allow amateurs to build their own houses. Said houses need to meet
building codes, pass inspection etc., just like professionally build
houses (I heard a fun story about the trouble a mud-brick house caused).
Houses are usually meant to last for 20-100 years (well, around here
anyway; in parts of Europe and Asia, and elsewhere, they built to last).
Science is meant to last longer than that. Nothing wrong with reasonable
standards (and reasonable can mean high standards).
There's a wide-open field in science for amateurs: risky, long-shot
research. It will almost certainly fail. It's hard to get grants for it,
since grant assessors know it will almost certainly fail [1]. You can't
give it to a student as a project (ethically), since it's probably a bunch
of crap. You probably won't get any publishable results. So professional
scientists won't do it. But amateurs, if keen on the idea, only have their
time (and probably some money) to lose. They aren't employed to produce
useful science, so it doesn't matter if they don't.
But if they want to contribute to science, they had better produce
science. At least some of our long-term cranks on the ng did science. I
might not have agreed with it, or the whole point of what they were doing,
but at least, sometimes, it was valid science, despite being from cranks.
Alas, most cranks around here just display their ignorance of how science
is done, basic calculus, or just their emotional response to relativity or
QM. Surely, an amateur who does it properly can contribute, and they do.
Especially in observational astronomy - looking for new comets etc is
unlikely to pay off, so it isn't so attractive to professionals. For the
amateur who combines science with the fun of looking at the sky through a
telescope, why not?
[1] A case can be made that a small, but not insignificant percentage of
government research funding should be made for this kind of thing.
Stop frauds from sucking at the govt teat, and go for it!
Edward Green
I'm chagrined to admit I don't remember which text I read by Bacon,
and that the only way I can be sure now that it was Francis and not
Rodger Bacon whom I read, is to recall the cover picture of an
Elizabethan gentleman.
[Searching the web to try to refresh my memory on the work, I came
across the tidbit that the old lecher married a girl of 13 while he
was in his late 40's, who, however, later left him because he wasn't
wealthy enough -- which may have been poetic justice, because he seems
to have married her not for legal pederasty, as any normal man would
have, but for _her_ money.]
As to what impressed me, what I recall was the modernity of his
thinking. I thought he completely got the scientific method -- for
whatever that is worth, coming from me. It wasn't like reading some
boring dead Elizabethan guy, writing turgid sonnets. It was more like
"Yes! Right on! You got that right!". Maybe he wrote turgid sonnets
too, I'm not sure.
Someday I may find the book and post more, which you may reply to if
you are in a loquacious mood.
Herman Rubin
Edward Green <spamsp...@netzero.com> wrote:
>On Aug 13, 11:46=A0am, hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>> Possibly it was that mathematicians pointed out that his
>> "definition" of the Feynman path integral made no sense.
>> Mathematicians and physicists have been working on it for
>> more than a half century, and have not been able to come
>> up with something of the desired generality. =A0I took a
>> small crack at it myself.
>> He has two types of "integrals" in his definition. =A0One
>> involves an infinity, which is removable in all cases in
>> which a reasonable means of calculating the path integral
>> has been done. =A0The other is not an integral, but a measure.
>> The measure of the space of paths to be considerered does
>> not have a density on the space of all paths, which is
>> too big for consideration anyhow.
>I'm interested in your criticism of path integrals, because if the
>idea is indeed incoherent, but nevertheless a "reasonable" means of
>calculating the integral exists in some cases, the question naturally
>arises what is really being "calculated".
I would not call the idea incoherent, but rather not
defined. I am not an expert on this by any means, but
few, if any, processes have been evaluated by path
integrals which have not been evaluated by other means.
The first evaluation was by Kac, who recognized that the
space of paths and the integrals with infinity removed
were those of a "Wiener process with purely imaginary
variance" modified by the integral of the potential; this
is only a slightly nasty modification if the potential
is sufficiently well behaved. Alas, we do NOT understand
Wiener proceses with purely imaginary variances, and the
Kac calculation was to use analytic continuation of the
result for Wiener processes with real variances.
Other methods have been to show that the results of the
method of calculation satisfy the Heisenberg equations.
But the methods are still restrictive, and do not apply
to all problems.
If we could really get an understanding, the integral
would be a powerful tool, and hopefully could do problems
which current methods cannot. Alas, this has not happened.
>My personal inclination is to think that the idea that "particles take
>all possible paths" is a less coherent if more colorful version of
>Huygen's principle, which itself is a partially coherent idea that
>"the wavefront propagates by all possible paths", which seems to be a
>reasonable equivalent of "every point on the wavefront is a fresh
>source", which I think has been put closer to a coherent footing.
This is another way of looking at it, but this has also not
been done any better. We do not have the mathematical tools
to handle the problem.
BTW, in my attempt on another approach 50 years ago, I found
that the Heisenberg principle is much stronger than stated.
It should be that simulataneous measurement of position and
momentum is impossible, and that the accuracy bound refers
to the measurement of one and an immediately following
measurement of the other.
>IIRC Huygen's principle has both a tautologically vague version and a
>more mathematically precise version, the latter of which enables you
>to make precise pronouncements like "Huygen's principe only works in
>odd dimensions", or something of that nature.
>The spoiler seems to be something like "ringing" or "afterglow", which
>refers to cases where a sharp disturbance does not produce a sharp
>wavefront. The looser version couldn't give a figo about this, since
>waves in any dimension in some sense "spread out and explore their
>environment", which could about equally poetically be considered
>"taking all possible paths".
>I think the correct mathematical formulation of this latter idea might
>be Green's functions, but I really don't know what I'm talking about.
>When physicists find a "reasonable method" of evaluating a path
>integral, perhaps they are simply propagating the wave disturbance
>correctly, and claiming they are doing a "path integral".
As I said, the past 60 years have not achieved success.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Shubee
> On Aug 14, 12:33 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Aug 14, 11:49 am, Sam Wormley <sworml...@mchsi.com> wrote:
>
> > > Shubee wrote:
> > > > You've been exposed to the superficial thinking of physicists for too
> > > > long. What authoritative source are you quoting?
>
> > > > Shubee
>
> > > Eugene... see the URL in Paul's posting at 7:55 CDT this morning
> > > earlier in this thread.
>
> > I'm saddened to say that you are under the same delusive spirit as PD
> > for boasting in the scientific method, yet arbitrarily trusting one
> > internet page while willfully ignoring another reference that
> > contradicts it.
>
> And vice versa! My point exactly, you delusive spirit you!
I am not delusive. I am also not deluded. I have not blindly ignored
any contradictory evidence. That's the absurdity of you and Wormley.
But I did make a mistake and do regret the error of saying, "It's
obvious that the prince of darkness has been very successful in
controlling you." The error is that I didn't have to interpret what
should be clear to everyone. The facts speak for themselves.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math/msg/c043aab55ae61d0e
Wormley referred to you as Paul. Nice cover. Since I do believe that
demons can appear in human form, do you mind telling me your full name
so I'll know what to expect if we notice each other's nametag at a
scientific conference?
Shubee
Timo A. Nieminen
Well, he could write well enough. But he had a lawyer/accountant's
understanding of science, and how science is done :(
He wrote long enough ago so his stuff is now in the public domain, out of
copyright. You might like to look on www.archive.org for some of his
books (which also has at least one book by Roger Bacon [last I checked,
alas, only volume 2 of Opus Majus, but which, at least, is the volume
relevant to my work]).
But do tell, where and when did you go to college? Exposure to Bacon,
regardless of what I think about his opinion of the scientific method, is
better than modern colleges offer. I'd guess you're >50, but that doesn't
tell me much about when you studied (before/during/after service?).
European education can be a bit different. I shared an office with an
Italian postdoc, and he was very well educated. Knew a lot of maths, much
more than our local physics people, and knew a lot of philosophy, history,
and theology. Apparently at least a summary of Aristotlean and Neoplatonic
Christian/Jewish/Moslem theology was standard - this would be rather odd
to teach here.
I didn't know the child-marriage anecdote - the only fun story I knew was
his contribution to the science of frozen food.
Jonathan Thiessen
I do not wish to start or continue any sort of inter-discipline wars,
however, I feel obliged to share my _opinion_ [feel free to disregard it].
I would argue that mathematics is the foundation of science [or at least
scientific formalism]. One must accept a very narrow view of
experimental tests in order to exclude _any_ mathematics from science. A
scientific experiment is merely conducting a finite number of tests in
order to disprove or not disprove the self-consistency of a particular
set of statements given an initial set of axioms/postulates/assumptions
[based on one's perception of physical reality]. The difference in math
[or any sort of thought experiment] is that in addition to being able to
disprove or not disprove a general hypothesis, one can possibly prove
it, it need not be directly physical, and one may use a non-finite
process to do so [eg mathematical induction].
The claim [not specifically claimed here, but I can't remember where it
was] that science must be externally verifiable would necessarily
exclude everything from science. All fields of science [including
mathematics] depend on several base assumptions. The first of these is
the assumption that we aren't [or at least one's self isn't]
systematically deluded. If we were, it would be impossible to conclude
anything. The very fact that we can't actually know if we are
systematically deluded or not leaves us to believe everything that we
"know", and to know nothing. This is were we make the leap of faith that
maintains our sanity. This is not to say that science is baseless, but
rather that mathematics [and thus science] is the best we have if we
wish to say anything about anything.
The fundamental difference between mathematics and other fields of
science [as I see it] is that mathematics assumes very little [thus
making it completely general and concrete, but lacking the necessity of
direct physical realisations of all things mathematical [all things
physical must still be mathematically sound]]. Other fields of science
greatly extend the base assumptions of mathematics leading to very
specific physical results. It is for this reason that I deem all areas
of science as partially overlapping subsets of mathematics.
Thank you for your time.
Have a good one ;)
Jonathan Thiessen
PD
>
> Wormley referred to you as Paul. Nice cover. Since I do believe that
> demons can appear in human form, do you mind telling me your full name
> so I'll know what to expect if we notice each other's nametag at a
> scientific conference?
Frankly, I'm astonished that you do not even have the wherewithal to
extract that information from this post.
PD
PD
This is of course, right. Science teachers often make the mistake of
saying that observational or experimental evidence is constrained to
contrived experiment with controls and variables and all that. There
is a whole class of science in which there is observation but no
experimentation. In this category, there are at least two
subcategories.
The first is taxonomic, where the objective is to discern order from
categorization. Of course, an echidna does not worry whether it is
classified as a mammal by virtue of its glands or by a different
grouping distinguished from animals that give live birth. Likewise,
Pluto isn't concerned whether it is a planet. It is interesting,
though, how something like The Tree of Life can *shift* according to
whether the categorization is according to genetics or morphology,
both yielding useful information based on a wholly human taxonomy.
Second, there is the application of a physical law in the framework of
"if such-and-such conditions are met, then so-and-so will be
observed," coupled with the expectation that the universe is large
enough that almost any set of conditions are met *somewhere*. This is
the basis of black-hole physics. GR *permits* black holes, and it even
insists that they are the inevitable result of conditions that we know
are present in the universe. However, we do not create black holes in
the lab (not even LHC). We just look in every place we can for where
those conditions are likely to occur.
This is where I think I disagree. This pertains to the part of the
experimental process that is glossed over, having to do with some
vetting of the quality of the *methodology* in the research by peer
review. This I distinguish from endorsing the result or even the
importance of the result. Sadly, teaching this peer review process is
easy to do in class but is rarely done -- except in English classes!
Overall, it's a valuable question to ask WHY the scientific method is
so central (central, not spanning) to science, and I believe the
answer to this is wholly pragmatic: because it is highly optimized and
seems to work well, despite glitches here and there. And all those
practices that are essential to what makes it work well, including
independent experimental verification, peer review of methodology,
conferences, collaboration -- all these are part of the scientific
method.
Shubee
D-raper. I don't get it. It's code, right? Does it stand for Demonic
raper? I don't know. Give me a hint. What does the D stand for?
Shubee
Herman Rubin
Shubee <e.Sh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Aug 13, 10:46 am, hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>> Possibly it was that mathematicians pointed out that his
>> "definition" of the Feynman path integral made no sense.
>I suspected that. I recall reading of the difficulties long ago.
>> Mathematicians and physicists have been working on it for
>> more than a half century, and have not been able to come
>> up with something of the desired generality. I took a
>> small crack at it myself.
>> He has two types of "integrals" in his definition. One
>> involves an infinity, which is removable in all cases in
>> which a reasonable means of calculating the path integral
>> has been done.
>Why do mathematicians believe that this path integral might fail to be
>well-defined? Please explain the mathematical prohibition against
>defining the calculation of the Feynman path integral using only
>"reasonable means" as opposed to all possible paths? What are the
>certainties that have been proven about the Feynman path integral?
The "reasonable means" would give a measure. However,
the removing of the infinity, and even whether the
result would be defined, for the reasonable paths
is by no means trivial, if the potential becomes less
smooth than the ones which have been handled.
>> The other is not an integral, but a measure.
>> The measure of the space of paths to be considerered does
>> not have a density on the space of all paths, which is
>> too big for consideration anyhow.
>However unconventional Feynman's definition may be, do any
>mathematical results follow from the Feynman measure on the space of
>paths?
Feynman never declared a measure; he assumed it would
have a density with respect to the "uniform" measure
on paths, which certainly is not the case.
Nobody is reasonably sure what it is, although modifications
of Wiener measure look reasonable. However, we do not have
any good way of computing the complex integral, as the function
on paths is sufficiently unclear.
PD
> On Aug 14, 7:09 pm, PD <TheDraperFam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 14, 6:10 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Wormley referred to you as Paul. Nice cover. Since I do believe that
> > > demons can appear in human form, do you mind telling me your full name
> > > so I'll know what to expect if we notice each other's nametag at a
> > > scientific conference?
>
> > Frankly, I'm astonished that you do not even have the wherewithal to
> > extract that information from this post.
>
> > PD
>
> D-raper.
Now, that wasn't so hard, was it. Here's another: 2+5=7.
> I don't get it. It's code, right? Does it stand for Demonic
> raper? I don't know. Give me a hint. What does the D stand for?
Oh, congratulations, you've elevated yourself to Henri Wilson's 3rd
grade tactics. He's a hypocritical liar, too, so you have a fair
amount in common. Go ahead and look him up.
PD
Herman Rubin
Shubee <e.Sh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Aug 13, 10:46 am, hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>> Possibly it was that mathematicians pointed out that his
>> "definition" of the Feynman path integral made no sense.
>I suspected that. I recall reading of the difficulties long ago.
>> Mathematicians and physicists have been working on it for
>> more than a half century, and have not been able to come
>> up with something of the desired generality. I took a
>> small crack at it myself.
>> He has two types of "integrals" in his definition. One
>> involves an infinity, which is removable in all cases in
>> which a reasonable means of calculating the path integral
>> has been done.
>Why do mathematicians believe that this path integral might fail to be
>well-defined? Please explain the mathematical prohibition against
>defining the calculation of the Feynman path integral using only
>"reasonable means" as opposed to all possible paths? What are the
>certainties that have been proven about the Feynman path integral?
In mathematics, something is well-defined if there
is a mathematical formulation to construct it. It
is by no means clear that the infinities can always
be removed, as they can in many other models of
quantum theory, or that the measure will always be
Wiener measure or something similar, or that the
final integral exists.
Shubee
> On Aug 14, 7:34 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 14, 7:09 pm, PD <TheDraperFam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Aug 14, 6:10 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Wormley referred to you as Paul. Nice cover. Since I do believe that
> > > > demons can appear in human form, do you mind telling me your full name
> > > > so I'll know what to expect if we notice each other's nametag at a
> > > > scientific conference?
>
> > > Frankly, I'm astonished that you do not even have the wherewithal to
> > > extract that information from this post.
>
> > > PD
>
> > D-raper.
>
> Now, that wasn't so hard, was it. Here's another: 2+5=7.
Isn't that a first grade tactic?
> > I don't get it. It's code, right? Does it stand for Demonic
> > raper? I don't know. Give me a hint. What does the D stand for?
>
> Oh, congratulations, you've elevated yourself to Henri Wilson's 3rd
> grade tactics. He's a hypocritical liar, too, so you have a fair
> amount in common. Go ahead and look him up.
Who would have imagined that a physics professor,
( http://www-hep.uta.edu/hep/draper/Draper.html )
responsible for teaching baby physics, would use his real name online
and openly admit his belief that, "Common sense is a liar and a cheat,
and it clouds students' thinking"?
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/2c3adb14bfbbd8b3
Shubee
PD
> On Aug 14, 7:39 pm, PD <TheDraperFam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Aug 14, 7:34 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Aug 14, 7:09 pm, PD <TheDraperFam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On Aug 14, 6:10 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > Wormley referred to you as Paul. Nice cover. Since I do believe that
> > > > > demons can appear in human form, do you mind telling me your full name
> > > > > so I'll know what to expect if we notice each other's nametag at a
> > > > > scientific conference?
>
> > > > Frankly, I'm astonished that you do not even have the wherewithal to
> > > > extract that information from this post.
>
> > > > PD
>
> > > D-raper.
>
> > Now, that wasn't so hard, was it. Here's another: 2+5=7.
>
> Isn't that a first grade tactic?
>
> > > I don't get it. It's code, right? Does it stand for Demonic
> > > raper? I don't know. Give me a hint. What does the D stand for?
>
> > Oh, congratulations, you've elevated yourself to Henri Wilson's 3rd
> > grade tactics. He's a hypocritical liar, too, so you have a fair
> > amount in common. Go ahead and look him up.
>
> Who would have imagined that a physics professor,
> (http://www-hep.uta.edu/hep/draper/Draper.html)
> responsible for teaching baby physics, would use his real name online
Some of us don't have as much to hide....
> and openly admit his belief that, "Common sense is a liar and a cheat,
> and it clouds students' thinking"?
Yup.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/2c3adb14bfb...
>
> Shubee
Shubee
Thus it seems that you don't have much that is intelligible to offer.
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/directory.htm
N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)
"Shubee" <e.Sh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7556675f-53b2-447f...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 13, 11:29 pm, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)"
<dl...@cox.net>
wrote:
> Hi Sam,
>
> "Sam Wormley" <sworml...@mchsi.com> wrote in message
>
> news:LWNok.297065$yE1.76918@attbi_s21...
>
> > Shubee wrote:
>
>> >> God is a mathematician. Physicists that grope around
>> >> in the dark and say that God is an equation couldn't
>> >> possibly represent Him. Likewise, your irrational
>> >> whining doesn't refute my logic.
>
>> > What god are you referring to?
>
> http://www.venganza.org/
>
>> I wonder how physicists "can't represent him", when they
>> are made in his image?
> Matthew 13:36-43
> His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the
> parable of the weeds in the field."
> He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is
> the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good
> seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds
> are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows
> them is the devil.
All life was removed from the surface of the Earth in the time of
Flood. No evil seed left, remember?
David A. Smith
Shubee
wrote:
> > > Shubee wrote:
>
> >> >> God is a mathematician. Physicists that grope around
> >> >> in the dark and say that God is an equation couldn't
> >> >> possibly represent Him. Likewise, your irrational
> >> >> whining doesn't refute my logic.
>
> >> I wonder how physicists "can't represent him", when they
> >> are made in his image?
>
> > Matthew 13:36-43
> > His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the
> > parable of the weeds in the field."
> > He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is
> > the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good
> > seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds
> > are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows
> > them is the devil.
>
> All life was removed from the surface of the Earth in the time of
> Flood. No evil seed left, remember?
Jesus said, "The weeds are the sons of the evil one." If they don't
represent unbelievers like Stephen Hawking who teaches that god is
just an equation, or Einstein, who was always lying about God and
telling Him what to do, who are they?
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
Shubee
Eric Gisse
Why do you think you have something intelligible to offer to physics?
Traveler
<jow...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Why do you think you have something intelligible to offer to physics?
ahahaha... One is left to wonder if Erica, by contrast, has something
important to offer to physics. ahahaha... Erica, oh Erica, ahahaha...
tell us why nature is probabilistic and not deterministic as the
Einstein dingleberries claim. Ah, never mind. It's just a rhetorical
question. ahahaha...
ahahaha... AHAHAHA... ahahaha...
Louis Savain
Rebel Science News:
http://rebelscience.blogspot.com/
N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)
"Shubee" <e.Sh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:85f82314-7198-4147...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 14, 9:29 pm, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" <dl...@cox.net>
wrote:
...
>> All life was removed from the surface of the Earth
>> in the time of Flood. No evil seed left, remember?
>
> Jesus said, "The weeds are the sons of the evil
> one." If they don't represent unbelievers like
> Stephen Hawking who teaches that god is
> just an equation, or Einstein, who was always
> lying about God and telling Him what to do,
> who are they?
They are perhaps Pharisees, like Paul. Ones who subvert words of
Truth, append the usual appurtenances, to serve the usual ends.
But then without him, Christianity might have died with Jesus...
As to your "evil seed" candidates...
Einstein was Jewish, so what do you care what he thought? Of
course, so was Jesus.
And Hawking is judging the handiwork of God, through the lens of
Science. Science intends to describe free will right out of the
Universe, so that leaves NO room for miracle or anything else on
which religions are founded. I am surprised you had not realized
this yet...
David A. Smith
Eric Gisse
> On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:14:53 -0700 (PDT), Erica Gisse
>
> >Why do you think you have something intelligible to offer to physics?
>
> ahahaha... One is left to wonder if Erica, by contrast, has something
> important to offer to physics. ahahaha... Erica, oh Erica, ahahaha...
> tell us why nature is probabilistic and not deterministic as the
> Einstein dingleberries claim. Ah, never mind. It's just a rhetorical
> question. ahahaha...
>
> ahahaha... AHAHAHA... ahahaha...
>
> Louis Savain
>
> Rebel Science News:http://rebelscience.blogspot.com/
Einstein didn't believe in quantum mechanics, stupid.
Traveler
ahahahaha... Except for the 'stupid' part, my point exactly. Einstein,
the crackpot. ahahaha... But it was only a rhetorical question, Erica.
Benj
> Not exactly but your confusion is understandable. Mathematicians
> merely rank the highest in terms of the pecking order established by
> science. When science is working correctly, "Physicists defer only to
> mathematicians, and mathematicians defer only to God."
Obviously you are a Troll with nothing of value to add except your
Christian message which you cleverly packaged in a mathematical
wrapping. Nice troll, but it only makes you look like a moron.
<plonk>
Eric Gisse
Naturally - you exist to waste the time of others. You are not
terribly interested in actually learning.
RichD
> BTW, in my attempt on another approach 50 years ago, I found
> that the Heisenberg principle is much stronger than stated.
> It should be that simulataneous measurement of position and
> momentum is impossible, and that the accuracy bound refers
> to the measurement of one and an immediately following
> measurement of the other.
I do not see your point, or what you claim
to have discovered. i.e. my understanding
of the uncertainty principle is just as you
assert, which is the usual interpretation.
--
Rich
Shubee
> On Aug 14, 3:28 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math/msg/bd372b0200643d6d
>
> Obviously you are a Troll with nothing of value to add
Be gone you psychopathic idiot. I've refuted your patently ridiculous
errors and you're too stupid to realize it.
RichD
> "Hilbert was a well-known mathemtician during this time.
> When Heisenberg was first trying to solve his matrix problem,
> Heisenberg suggested he try and find the differential equation
> that would correspond to his matrix
> equations. If he had taken his advice, Heisenberg may very well have
> discovered the Schrödinger equation before Schrödinger.
>
> The second sentence kinda makes on wonder!
Heisenberg talked to himself a lot... prolly
he found himself a better conversationalist
than anyone else around...
--
Rich
RichD
> "Hilbert was a well-known mathemtician during this time. When Heisenberg
> was first trying to solve his matrix problem, Heisenberg suggested he
> try and find the differential equation that would correspond to his matrix
> equations. If he had taken his advice, Heisenberg may very well have
> between these different branches of mathematics was soon obvious to the
> mathematicians who were able to show that Heisenberg's Matrix Mechanics
> and Schrödinger's Wave Mechanics were absolutely equivalent.
Quantum spin is normally represented as
a 2x2 matrix, which I don't get - what do
the matrix entries represent?
Was this Heisenberg's original discovery/contribution?
--
Rich
Shubee
wrote:
> Dear Shubee:
>
> "Shubee" <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:85f82314-7198-4147...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
> On Aug 14, 9:29 pm, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" <dl...@cox.net>
> wrote:
> ...
>
> >> All life was removed from the surface of the Earth
> >> in the time of Flood. No evil seed left, remember?
>
> > Jesus said, "The weeds are the sons of the evil
> > one." If they don't represent unbelievers like
> > Stephen Hawking who teaches that god is
> > just an equation, or Einstein, who was always
> > lying about God and telling Him what to do,
> > who are they?
>
> They are perhaps Pharisees, like Paul.
I'm fairly confident that Paul A. Draper is a Sadducee, not a
Pharisee.
> Ones who subvert words of Truth,
And you don't believe that the lying, wife-abandoning plagiarist
Einstein did that?
> And Hawking is judging the handiwork of God
How can an equation produce the universe?
> Science intends to describe free will right out of the
> Universe,
We know this because the scientists that you refer to are so bigoted
they can't hide their own religious beliefs, which they openly
interweave with true science.
> so that leaves NO room for miracle or anything else on
> which religions are founded.
It's clear that miracles are not the basis of religion. I have proven
that myself.
http://www.everythingimportant.org/creationism
Shubee
PD
wrote:
> Dear Shubee:
>
> "Shubee" <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:85f82314-7198-4147...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
> On Aug 14, 9:29 pm, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" <dl...@cox.net>
> wrote:
> ...
>
> >> All life was removed from the surface of the Earth
> >> in the time of Flood. No evil seed left, remember?
>
> > Jesus said, "The weeds are the sons of the evil
> > one." If they don't represent unbelievers like
> > Stephen Hawking who teaches that god is
> > just an equation, or Einstein, who was always
> > lying about God and telling Him what to do,
> > who are they?
>
> They are perhaps Pharisees, like Paul. Ones who subvert words of
> Truth, append the usual appurtenances, to serve the usual ends.
> But then without him, Christianity might have died with Jesus...
>
> As to your "evil seed" candidates...
> Einstein was Jewish, so what do you care what he thought? Of
> course, so was Jesus.
And Hilbert filled his mathematics department with Jews, after they
fled Hitler's onslaught. While I give nodding credit to Hilbert for
this act, I don't know what Shub thinks of it.
Shubee
> And Hilbert filled his mathematics department with Jews, after they
> fled Hitler's onslaught. While I give nodding credit to Hilbert for
> this act, I don't know what Shub thinks of it.
Jews weren't allowed academic positions in Nazi Germany. Are you
implying that Hilbert broke the law?
Shubee
PD
Of course not. You apparently did not read or comprehend what I just
said.
PD
Shubee
> On Aug 15, 7:48 am, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 15, 7:18 am, PD <TheDraperFam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > And Hilbert filled his mathematics department with Jews, after they
> > > fled Hitler's onslaught. While I give nodding credit to Hilbert for
> > > this act, I don't know what Shub thinks of it.
>
> > Jews weren't allowed academic positions in Nazi Germany. Are you
> > implying that Hilbert broke the law?
>
Your sentence, "And Hilbert filled his mathematics department with
Jews, after they fled Hitler's onslaught" makes little sense. Could
you rephrase it?
N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)
"Shubee" <e.Sh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4827717e-b874-4918...@34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> On Aug 14, 11:16 pm, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)"
> <dl...@cox.net>
> wrote:
>> Dear Shubee:
>>
>> "Shubee" <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:85f82314-7198-4147...@e53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
>> On Aug 14, 9:29 pm, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)"
>> <dl...@cox.net>
>> wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> >> All life was removed from the surface of the Earth
>> >> in the time of Flood. No evil seed left, remember?
>>
>> > Jesus said, "The weeds are the sons of the evil
>> > one." If they don't represent unbelievers like
>> > Stephen Hawking who teaches that god is
>> > just an equation, or Einstein, who was always
>> > lying about God and telling Him what to do,
>> > who are they?
>>
>> They are perhaps Pharisees, like Paul.
>
> I'm fairly confident that Paul A. Draper is a
> Sadducee, not a Pharisee.
I was of course referring to the author of the books after John.
>> Ones who subvert words of Truth,
>
> And you don't believe that the lying, wife-
> abandoning plagiarist Einstein did that?
What Truth did he have access to? His actions are not unique in
history. His actions are not at all surprising for his culture.
As to "plagiarist" does the phrase "shoulders of giants" ring a
bell? You live as you do at the behest of our forefathers. Does
this make you a plagiarist?
>> And Hawking is judging the handiwork of God
>
> How can an equation produce the universe?
How can a Word do the same? Well, actually a short sentence.
>> Science intends to describe free will right out of the
>> Universe,
>
> We know this because the scientists that you refer
> to are so bigoted
"lying", "wife-abandoning", "plagiarist"... remove the plank from
your own eye.
> they can't hide their own religious beliefs, which
> they openly interweave with true science.
There is no "true science". Science is a study in approximation,
and challenge. Science has no clue, which is why we depend on
Nature.
>> so that leaves NO room for miracle or anything
>> else on which religions are founded.
>
> It's clear that miracles are not the basis of religion.
> I have proven that myself.
Rising from the dead.
Bringing the dead back to life.
Coming back to life 2000 years later.
Loaves and fishes.
Healing the lame and the blind.
Virgin woman giving birth.
Acceptance of Christ to "achieve" everlasting life.
Walls of cities falling because people march around it.
... plenty more.
It is clear that you are lying, and are... how did you say it...
"subvert words of Truth". This makes you evil, no?
David A. Smith
Spaceman
a point particle (single point) can have no spin, so the con men needed
to give the point particle an imaginary volume to allow it to have spin
without going back and saying it was not actually a "point" particle
and they were wrong about that.
:)
Richard Herring
<281ddb65-dccb-4a90...@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
Edward Green <spamsp...@netzero.com> writes
>On Aug 13, 11:46 am, hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>
>> Possibly it was that mathematicians pointed out that his
>> "definition" of the Feynman path integral made no sense.
>> more than a half century, and have not been able to come
>> up with something of the desired generality. I took a
>> small crack at it myself.
>>
>> He has two types of "integrals" in his definition. One
>> involves an infinity, which is removable in all cases in
>> which a reasonable means of calculating the path integral
>> The measure of the space of paths to be considerered does
>> not have a density on the space of all paths, which is
>> too big for consideration anyhow.
>
>I'm interested in your criticism of path integrals, because if the
>idea is indeed incoherent, but nevertheless a "reasonable" means of
>calculating the integral exists in some cases, the question naturally
>arises what is really being "calculated".
>
>My personal inclination is to think that the idea that "particles take
>all possible paths" is a less coherent if more colorful version of
>Huygen's principle, which itself is a partially coherent idea that
>"the wavefront propagates by all possible paths", which seems to be a
>reasonable equivalent of "every point on the wavefront is a fresh
>source", which I think has been put closer to a coherent footing.
>
>IIRC Huygen's principle has both a tautologically vague version and a
>more mathematically precise version, the latter of which enables you
>to make precise pronouncements like "Huygen's principe only works in
>odd dimensions", or something of that nature.
>
>The spoiler seems to be something like "ringing" or "afterglow", which
>refers to cases where a sharp disturbance does not produce a sharp
>wavefront. The looser version couldn't give a figo about this, since
>waves in any dimension in some sense "spread out and explore their
>environment", which could about equally poetically be considered
>"taking all possible paths".
>
Well, the fornal footing is simply a statement of the uniqueness
theorem, which amounts to saying that if you know the fields (or some
combination of fields and derivatives) on some (suitably-chosen)
surface, that's sufficient to define the fields everywhere in some
bigger region.
My IIRC, like yours, is that this only works in spaces of certain
dimensions.
>I think the correct mathematical formulation of this latter idea might
>be Green's functions, but I really don't know what I'm talking about.
>
They're the answer to the second part of the problem: the uniqueness
theorem just says that given the right conditions a solution exists.
Green's functions tell you how to calculate it: they propagate the
fields from a single point on the boundary to a single point in the
solution volume, and then you merely have to sum them over the boundary.
I guess the not-working-in some-dimensions problem means you can't find
point-to-point propagators for those cases.
>When physicists find a "reasonable method" of evaluating a path
>integral, perhaps they are simply propagating the wave disturbance
>correctly, and claiming they are doing a "path integral".
--
Richard Herring
Herman Rubin
>David A. Smith
With quantum mechanics, science leaves much room for
uncertainty, which is needed for free will. Before
then, it was as you say.
It also leaves room for God to intervene, as long as
He does not act in such a way that we can be reasonably
sure that a miracle has occurred. To do this, God has
to "play dice" (and more; quantum mechanics is more
complicated than probability) with the universe. At
this time, I know of no clear miracles.
Shubee
> With quantum mechanics, science leaves much room for
> uncertainty, which is needed for free will.
Absolutely.
> It also leaves room for God to intervene, as long as
> He does not act in such a way that we can be reasonably
> sure that a miracle has occurred.
It gives God plenty of room for any quantum theory a physicist could
believe in, as God only has to obey the law of large numbers.
> To do this, God has to "play dice"
Correct. And God not only plays dice with the universe, -He cheats.
Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/creationism
dlzc
On Aug 15, 8:34 am, hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
> In article <hq7pk.13544$Bt6.7...@newsfe04.iad>,
> N:dlzcD:aol T:com \(dlzc\) <dl...@cox.net> wrote:
...
> >Science intends to describe free will right
> >out of the Universe, so that leaves NO room
> >for miracle or anything else on which
> >religions are founded. I am surprised you
> >had not realized this yet...
>
> With quantum mechanics, science leaves much
> room for uncertainty, which is needed for
> free will. Before then, it was as you say.
Uncertainty =/= free will. The uncertaiaty essentially disappears at
the macroscopic level. Additionally, quantum mechanics is still a
deterministic model, describing interactions, leaving the uncertainty
to cover mapping the result to macroscopic "meaning".
> It also leaves room for God to intervene,
> as long as He does not act in such a way
> that we can be reasonably sure that a
> miracle has occurred. To do this, God has
> to "play dice" (and more; quantum
> mechanics is more complicated than
> probability) with the universe.
If one assumes essentially two time axes; one the "mechanical" default
evolution parameter, reaching back to adjust "reality" to the Big Bang
as necessary to achieve a given *now*; and one under direct influence
of Intent; then both Miracle and insanity (remembering events
differently than "accepted") fall out easily, and all parties are
satisfied. Science defines the transmission, and Free Will operates
the shifter.
> At this time, I know of no clear miracles.
We are surrounded by miracle, even more than aetherist's aether is
supposed to be all pervading. Start with why the Big Bang ever
bothered not to just turn to cold dark iron in one motion.
David A. Smith
Shubee
> Dear Herman Rubin:
>
> On Aug 15, 8:34 am, hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>
> > With quantum mechanics, science leaves much
> > room for uncertainty, which is needed for
> > free will. Before then, it was as you say.
>
> Uncertainty =/= free will.
That is obvious. And determinism implies the negation of free will,
which necessitates a physics of indeterminism and consciousness in any
universe where free will exists.
> The uncertaiaty essentially disappears at
> the macroscopic level.
Essential disappearance is mathematically meaningless.
> Additionally, quantum mechanics is still a
> deterministic model,
No quantum mechanical theory implies determinism.
http://www.everythingimportant.org/creationism
> > It also leaves room for God to intervene,
> > as long as He does not act in such a way
> > that we can be reasonably sure that a
> > miracle has occurred. To do this, God has
> > to "play dice" (and more; quantum
> > mechanics is more complicated than
> > probability) with the universe.
>
> If one assumes essentially two time axes; one the "mechanical" default
> evolution parameter, reaching back to adjust "reality" to the Big Bang
> as necessary to achieve a given *now*; and one under direct influence
> of Intent; then both Miracle and insanity (remembering events
> differently than "accepted") fall out easily, and all parties are
> satisfied. Science defines the transmission, and Free Will operates
> the shifter.
I perceive that you have been trained in the Paul A. Draper School of
Physics.
Shubee
Timo A. Nieminen
> On Aug 14, 3:28 pm, "Timo A. Nieminen" <t...@physics.uq.edu.au> wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 Aug 2008, PD wrote:
>>
>>> Excellent fodder for discussion.
>>
>>> I tend to view science as the activity rather than the product of the
>>> activity. (One could also fret over the same distinction with
>>> architecture, art, medicine, or plumbing.)
>>
>>> But I entirely agree with you that the common presentations of the
>>> scientific method do over-distill a highly complex, variable, and
>>> essentially human process. Hunch and pure insight play an essential
>>> role, as does a rather poorly grasped esthetic sense that is used to
>>> gauge or inspire ideas at the germination point. Also completely under-
>>> represented are the various rules, workflows, and metrics by which
>>> experimental results are collected and judged -- this is perhaps one
>>> of the squishier areas in science. And it is also true that purely
>>> humanistic aspects do influence science, even over longer periods of
>>> time than the "scientific method" promises a cure -- these include
>>> moral imperatives and collegial reputation.
>>
>>> But, and this is a big "but", the distilled "scientific method" as it
>>> is taught to high school students everywhere, represents the
>>> *essential* components that must be there for it to be recognizable as
>>> science.
>>
>> It depends on which version of the distilled "scientific method". The
>> version, which is a common one, focussing entirely on hypothesis ->
>> experimental test -> accept/reject theory is far too narrow. For starters,
>> this would exclude much observational astronomy, geology, biology from
>> being science. It would certainly rule out almost all mathematics (but
>> then, some people are happy to call mathematics a non-science).
>
> This is of course, right. Science teachers often make the mistake of
> saying that observational or experimental evidence is constrained to
> contrived experiment with controls and variables and all that. There
> is a whole class of science in which there is observation but no
> experimentation. In this category, there are at least two
> subcategories.
>
> The first is taxonomic, where the objective is to discern order from
> categorization. Of course, an echidna does not worry whether it is
> classified as a mammal by virtue of its glands or by a different
> grouping distinguished from animals that give live birth. Likewise,
> Pluto isn't concerned whether it is a planet. It is interesting,
> though, how something like The Tree of Life can *shift* according to
> whether the categorization is according to genetics or morphology,
> both yielding useful information based on a wholly human taxonomy.
Ah, the joys of taxonomy! To quote myself on the topic: "Theory may well
tell us what we want the categories to be, but the limitations of
observability will tell us what the categories can be. Secondly, the use
of a key does not guarantee that useful conclusions can be drawn from
the quantitative data, or that such conclusions are valid. The binary
key is a tool to simplify the act of classification, with improved
reliability and consistency; the key allows measurement, but it does not
ensure that we measuring something from which we can draw valid
conclusions. The theoretical basis for the categories cannot be forgotten
- the integration and interpretation of data produced by the
classification depends on it."
>> It reminds me of psychology (and disciplines that imitate, sometimes
>> successfully, the research methodology of psychology). The dominant
>> paradigm is statistical hypothesis testing, the core of the above
>> distilled method when faced with noisy data. But, e.g., I'd call Piaget's
>> work science, even if he watched children playing rather than performing
>> experiments.
>>
>>> This is what enables distinguishing science from philosophy,
>>> from craftsmanship, from art, from mathematics. If what one does not
>>> *somewhere* invoke all the aspects of the scientific method, then
>>> another can fairly say that it ain't science, bub.
>>
>> This is part of the reason why I distinguished science from the
>> production of science.
>>
>> Cataloging stars and nebulae, describing new species of insects, etc.
>> is science, and can be very important science. (It's even Baconian!) But
>> the usual versions of the scientific method only include such activity as
>> a small part (perhaps the sometimes not-even-mentioned initial
>> observation) of the process. If it's only a small part, is it science?
>>
>> But the work contributes to science. Is it science? That would depend on
>> how you define science.
>>
>> But consider the activity of scientists, when working to contribute to
>> science. Much of it is not science, per se (and I'm talking about the work
>> intended to contribute, often quite directly, to science, not
>> administrivia). For example, rejecting/accepting a paper as a reviewer is
>> not science, per se. Requiring that the authors make changes to make the
>> paper more useful to the scientific community isn't science.
>
> This is where I think I disagree. This pertains to the part of the
> experimental process that is glossed over, having to do with some
> vetting of the quality of the *methodology* in the research by peer
> review.
But peer review takes place in parts of science essentially devoid of
experimental input - peers express their opinion on purely speculative,
purely theoretical work. Experiment is about asking questions of Nature,
not asking for peer opinion. Yes, peer review is a useful part of checking
experimental work, especially when it comes to replicability.
> This I distinguish from endorsing the result or even the
> importance of the result. Sadly, teaching this peer review process is
> easy to do in class but is rarely done -- except in English classes!
Given the usual rather stereotyped tasks physics students get to do, what
room is there for peer review in physics coursework? I experimented with
self-review (primarily as a means to encourage the students to read and
understand the assessment criteria), which was interesting, but I need to
do more on this. Part of it was to do a trial run before possibly trying
peer assessment of work. Well, their peers already offer their opinions,
and I can't say that I ignore them, but I haven't established any formal
rules that mean I need to accept the peer reviews. That's the tricky part!
> Overall, it's a valuable question to ask WHY the scientific method is
> so central (central, not spanning) to science, and I believe the
> answer to this is wholly pragmatic: because it is highly optimized and
> seems to work well, despite glitches here and there. And all those
> practices that are essential to what makes it work well, including
> independent experimental verification, peer review of methodology,
> conferences, collaboration -- all these are part of the scientific
> method.
It works very well indeed. The glitches, well, I wouldn't call mere errors
glitches, but would rather reserve that for the cases of deception and
fraud, which are few compared to, e.g., the world of business and finance.
But does anybody teach _this_, rather than the textbook version of the
scientific method in school? Sometimes it is taught in the universities,
since the teachers are working scientists. But, alas, many scientists
don't think very much about this stuff. One can ask for big trouble by
getting scientists to teach about the scientific method, the philosophy of
science, and so on. Perhaps the only riskier (sane) choice is asking
philosophers to teach the philosophy of science (seriously, this could be
a scary prospect).
Anyway, I think that, for a discussion that is, if we really stuck to the
topic, about what we should define as "science", "the scientific method",
etc., it's been more interesting that that. Thanks.
--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/people/nieminen/
E-prints: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/view/person/Nieminen,_Timo_A..html
Shrine to Spirits: http://www.users.bigpond.com/timo_nieminen/spirits.html
Timo A. Nieminen
> Timo A. Nieminen wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 Aug 2008, PD wrote:
>>
>>> On Aug 13, 10:13 pm, "Timo A. Nieminen" <t...@physics.uq.edu.au>
>>> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008, Edward Green wrote:
>>>>> On Aug 13, 5:02 pm, "Timo A. Nieminen" <t...@physics.uq.edu.au> wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, 13 Aug 2008, PD wrote:
>>>>>>> In my experience, if you want to know what science is, you ask a
>>>>>>> scientist. It is unwise for an accountant to tell a carpenter that
>>>>>>> what the carpenter does is not really carpentry, and that carpentry
>>>>>>> should be defined according to what the accountant believes it should
>>>>>>> be.
>>>>
>>>>>> Unless you're a fan of Bacon!
>>>>
>>>>>> Heh, despite Bacon's opinion of it, Gilbert's "The magnet" is still in
>>>>>> print. These days, perhaps more often read than Bacon.
>>>>
>>>>> I've read Bacon. I thought it was the greatest stuff ever, in
>>>>> college.
>>>>
>>>> Bacon only has half the story. Yes, he points out the value of
>>>> experiment,
>>>> over and over. But he appears to have had no idea about what theory is
>>>> for. Experiment (i.e., bees collecting Baconian honey - is this more than
>>>> stamp collecting?) without theory is rather undirected and unfruitful.
>>>>
>>>> Half of the scientific method is not the scientific method. Recording
>>>> observations of 3x5 index cards isn't complete science any more than
>>>> airy theorising is complete science.
>>>>
>>>> But do tell, what impressed you about Bacon? Maybe I've read too many
>>>> critical secondary sources or suchlike, but I wasn't impressed. New
>>>> Atlantis is somewhat painful, with Salomon's House and all as his
>>>> exposition of the scientific method. (And for the Utopian genre in
>>>> general, More did better, along with some wry amusement to be had: people
>>>> speak of utopian ideals for dealing with, e.g., people with mental or
>>>> physical disabilities. What did they do with them in Utopia? Gave them
>>>> pensions and laughed at them in public, as state-paid public fools. Very
>>>> Utopian!)
>>>>
>>>> That said, writers of 100 years ago were often very fond of Bacon.
>>>>
>>>>> PD brings up an essential tension, though: is X what X'ers are doing,
>>>>> or is it something we can define ideally, which the X'ers can either
>>>>> conform to or fall short of. It's like asking whether words mean
>>>>> what's in the dictionary, or the way they are used in current speech.
>>>>> We will always have both poles.
>>>>
>>>> Science isn't what scientists do. Producing scientific results, doing
>>>> scientific research is what scientists do. Science is more than that
>>>> (although a large part of it is what scientists have done). As such,
>>>> science is not the scientific method, but is, in part, one of the
>>>> outcomes
>>>> of the scientific method. The scientific method is not the only way to
>>>> produce science, and science is not exculsively the product of the
>>>> scientific method.
>>>>
>>>> Given that, how can we usefully define scientific research as different
>>>> from what is done by scientists (including amateurs)? Now, if we want to
>>>> talk about an ideal method for doing scientific research - THE Scientific
>>>> Method, we might say - this isn't necessarily what scientists do. But who
>>>> is best placed to make statements about what the best methods are?
>>>> Accountants/lawyers, or researchers? A whole bunch of stuff of what is
>>>> written and taught about the scientific method is crap. The role of
>>>> creativity and imagination is often completely ignored, luck is
>>>> officially
>>>> non-existent, and the complex feedback between theory and experiment is
>>>> reduced to the formulaic observation->hypothesis->test->theory. Ah well,
>>>> the usual oversimplification. Although I did like Dirac on what theory is
>>>> for - I've used his quote in a couple talks.
> I do not wish to start or continue any sort of inter-discipline wars,
> however, I feel obliged to share my _opinion_ [feel free to disregard it].
>
> I would argue that mathematics is the foundation of science [or at least
> scientific formalism]. One must accept a very narrow view of experimental
> tests in order to exclude _any_ mathematics from science.
That science uses mathematics as a tool does not make mathematics the
foundation of science. Science uses language as a tool, and this is more
fundamental. Science, as a collective body of knowledge, could not even
exist without language. One of the important contributions of mathematics
is to provide a precise and exact language for many of the technical
details (and it does more than that). But does that make it _the_
foundation of science?
If there is a foundation of science, it must be philosophy and logic.
> A scientific
> experiment is merely conducting a finite number of tests in order to disprove
> or not disprove the self-consistency of a particular set of statements given
> an initial set of axioms/postulates/assumptions [based on one's perception of
> physical reality].
That's a narrow definition of "experiment". But a common "scientific
method" definition of experiment :)
> The difference in math [or any sort of thought experiment]
> is that in addition to being able to disprove or not disprove a general
> hypothesis, one can possibly prove it, it need not be directly physical, and
> one may use a non-finite process to do so [eg mathematical induction].
>
> The claim [not specifically claimed here, but I can't remember where it was]
> that science must be externally verifiable would necessarily exclude
> everything from science. All fields of science [including mathematics] depend
> on several base assumptions. The first of these is the assumption that we
> aren't [or at least one's self isn't] systematically deluded. If we were, it
> would be impossible to conclude anything. The very fact that we can't
> actually know if we are systematically deluded or not leaves us to believe
> everything that we "know", and to know nothing. This is were we make the leap
> of faith that maintains our sanity. This is not to say that science is
> baseless, but rather that mathematics [and thus science] is the best we have
> if we wish to say anything about anything.
>
> The fundamental difference between mathematics and other fields of science
> [as I see it] is that mathematics assumes very little [thus making it
> completely general and concrete, but lacking the necessity of direct physical
> realisations of all things mathematical [all things physical must still be
> mathematically sound]]. Other fields of science greatly extend the base
> assumptions of mathematics leading to very specific physical results. It is
> for this reason that I deem all areas of science as partially overlapping
> subsets of mathematics.
Spoken like a mathematician! But I agree very much with your "leap of
faith" paragraph. But this is needed to do anything useful in science.
Sure, there are schools of talking about science where they claim that
scientific knowledge is a mere social construct, essentially that the
charge on an electron is e because that's what we've decided. Fooey to
them; e is worth measuring because it objectively exists, and it's
interesting, and perhaps useful, to know more about it.
But does this leap of faith, that there is an objective reality that we
can learn things about, apply to mathematics?
Mathematics is clearly useful, even essential, to science. Is it science?
I must confess to being uncertain. (I'll blame the fuzziness of
definitions of science; with some definitions, it is science, and with
others, not.) Well, it's traditional to award BSc degrees in maths, so
it's at least socially acceptable to math "science".
--
Timo
Edward Green
> On Thu, 14 Aug 2008, Edward Green wrote:
> > On Aug 13, 11:13 pm, "Timo A. Nieminen" <t...@physics.uq.edu.au>
> > and that the only way I can be sure now that it was Francis and not
> > Rodger Bacon whom I read, is to recall the cover picture of an
> > Elizabethan gentleman.
>
> > [Searching the web to try to refresh my memory on the work, I came
> > across the tidbit that the old lecher married a girl of 13 while he
> > was in his late 40's, who, however, later left him because he wasn't
> > wealthy enough -- which may have been poetic justice, because he seems
> > to have married her not for legal pederasty, as any normal man would
> > have, but for _her_ money.]
>
> > As to what impressed me, what I recall was the modernity of his
> > thinking. I thought he completely got the scientific method -- for
> > whatever that is worth, coming from me. It wasn't like reading some
> > boring dead Elizabethan guy, writing turgid sonnets. It was more like
> > "Yes! Right on! You got that right!". Maybe he wrote turgid sonnets
> > too, I'm not sure.
>
> > Someday I may find the book and post more, which you may reply to if
> > you are in a loquacious mood.
>
> Well, he could write well enough. But he had a lawyer/accountant's
> understanding of science, and how science is done :(
>
> He wrote long enough ago so his stuff is now in the public domain, out of
> copyright. You might like to look onwww.archive.orgfor some of his
> books (which also has at least one book by Roger Bacon [last I checked,
> alas, only volume 2 of Opus Majus, but which, at least, is the volume
> relevant to my work]).
>
> But do tell, where and when did you go to college? Exposure to Bacon,
> regardless of what I think about his opinion of the scientific method, is
> better than modern colleges offer. I'd guess you're >50, but that doesn't
> tell me much about when you studied (before/during/after service?).
If you must know, I went to Columbia College in NYC, and graduated in
'79, which, oddly enough, just seemed like an ordinary modern year at
the time -- as they all do -- and not a year 30 years in the past.
How on Earth did that happen?
I probably read Bacon as part of a survey course required of all
undergraduates, supposed to give them a grounding in Western
Civilization. I was disappointed in courses like this at the time,
because I expected to discuss the great ideas on the merits, not
merely as some kind of bored ticket punching. C.S. Lewis felt the
same way: he called the habit of discussing the past merely to catalog
who believed what, rather than to evaluate the ideas as if they might
be true or not, "the historical point of view", and put it in the
satirical mouth of a daemon in a postscript to "The Screwtape
Letters": the daemon said it was one of "our great accomplishments".
So I guess you could say Lewis literally considered this attitude to
history the work of the devil. :-)
As to whether Bacon had a "lawyer/accountant's understanding of
science", it did not seem that way to me in my youthful enthusiasm.
I'm not sure I'll revisit him now, though, since I prefer to spend my
limited free time futilely trying to understand the mathematically
incomprehensible basis of modern physics, which apparently requires
one to be absolutely fluent with Lie groups, Lie algebras,
differential geometry, and a bunch 'a other stuff. This should be a
requirement for the BA in English: no Lie algebras, no degree, and
certainly don't call yourself "educated". Read Dickens in your free
time.
I do appreciate your appreciation of the role of amateurs -- to take
on projects with almost no chance of success, since they have no
expectation of funding! But then, how do you explain the section of
the professional community which makes a living off quantum gravity
and string theory?
> European education can be a bit different. I shared an office with an
> Italian postdoc, and he was very well educated. Knew a lot of maths, much
> more than our local physics people, and knew a lot of philosophy, history,
> and theology. Apparently at least a summary of Aristotlean and Neoplatonic
> Christian/Jewish/Moslem theology was standard - this would be rather odd
> to teach here.
I am by no means as educated as your office-mate.
Edward Green
> On Thu, 14 Aug 2008, Jonathan Thiessen wrote:
<...>
> > The claim [not specifically claimed here, but I can't remember where it was]
> > that science must be externally verifiable would necessarily exclude
> > everything from science. All fields of science [including mathematics] depend
> > on several base assumptions. The first of these is the assumption that we
> > aren't [or at least one's self isn't] systematically deluded. If we were, it
> > would be impossible to conclude anything. The very fact that we can't
> > actually know if we are systematically deluded or not leaves us to believe
> > everything that we "know", and to know nothing. This is were we make the leap
> > of faith that maintains our sanity. This is not to say that science is
> > baseless, but rather that mathematics [and thus science] is the best we have
> > if we wish to say anything about anything.
>
> > The fundamental difference between mathematics and other fields of science
> > [as I see it] is that mathematics assumes very little [thus making it
> > completely general and concrete, but lacking the necessity of direct physical
> > realisations of all things mathematical [all things physical must still be
> > mathematically sound]]. Other fields of science greatly extend the base
> > assumptions of mathematics leading to very specific physical results. It is
> > for this reason that I deem all areas of science as partially overlapping
> > subsets of mathematics.
<...>
> But does this leap of faith, that there is an objective reality that we
> can learn things about, apply to mathematics?
I think you've leaped too far.
I've independently arrived at ideas quite like Jonathan Thiessen's: as
thinking beings, we are confronted with perceptions which, as
Descartes might agree, are all we can be immediately sure of. To make
any progress we must make a nested set of assumptions -- though
"assumption" is too strong, even if what we do often amounts to that
-- i.e., a nested set of Bayesian prior judgments (which differ from
assumptions in that they need not be set to 100%).
At the lowest level is what I call "the assumption of sanity", or as
Jonathan Thiessen eloquently expresses it: "the assumption that we
aren't systematically deluded". We simply can't know that we aren't
insane: after all, looking at the world around us, we _do_ see people
who are insane, but of course seldom think of themselves that way --
though this observational evidence is getting ahead of ourselves,
since it depends on a number of intermediate assumptions, whereas the
basic apprehension that we can't logically prove to ourselves that
logic and reason aren't themselves an illusion does not.
Assuming there is an "objective reality" comes after the first
assumption, of sanity. But I would prefer to put it diferently: we
may assume that underlying our perceptions is an invisible and
consistent logical engine. "Invisible" simply means we don't directly
apprehend it, we only infer it. (I was tempted to add "external", but
this is unnecessary: there is no necessity to assume the logical
engine behind our perceptions is internal or external to us -- we can
remain solipsists at this point).
I would be willing to label this assumed invisible engine "objective
reality" -- for inferring its principles, having made the first and
second assumptions, is as close to apprehending "reality" as we are
likely to come -- but I'd like to keep the abstract version in view,
because "objective reality" may carry baggage and assumptions we
haven't explicitly made yet.
After the two basal assumptions the tower quickly grows, at some point
passing through the quotidian world we all seem to inhabit with
similar fellow beings, and up to where the Bayesian nature of the
enterprise becomes more obvious. Occasionally strong priors, which,
through force of habit, we have forgotten to regard as priors or even
assumptions, but simply accepted as "obvious", have their legs knocked
out by some new scientific development, like relativity or quantum
mechanics. The there is much running around and philosophizing and
popular books about the "philosophy" of whatever -- but if we were
real philosophers, we would never be too surprised, but simply take
down a few stages of the tower, and build it up again -- all the while
trying to account for what new posteriors our new experience has
required.
This is a difficult way to think, and even educated and intelligent
people are often very poor at it. Since it is hard to maintain
uncertainty in the mind, often some new "certainties" (100% priors or
assumptions) are simply substituted for the old, virulently defended,
and waiting to be knocked down by some new bowling ball.
> Mathematics is clearly useful, even essential, to science. Is it science?
> I must confess to being uncertain. (I'll blame the fuzziness of
> definitions of science; with some definitions, it is science, and with
> others, not.) Well, it's traditional to award BSc degrees in maths, so
> it's at least socially acceptable to math "science".
Math seems only to rely upon the lowest level assumption: sanity.
Given sanity, we can begin to construct logical inference, and do
math. You could call math the scientific investigation of the
abstract world of logic -- and it does share some features with
investigation of the physical world! I just obtained G. Polya's book
"How to Solve It", and he emphasizes what should be obvious to anybody
who has tried to do any mathematics, that it proceeds by example,
attempted generalization, and attempts to test or prove the
generalization. A lot like the investigation of the world which
follows assumption II, although in this case the standard of proof is
different: at best we can "prove" that it is fantastically _unlikely_
that we have not discovered at least a special case of the general
hidden logical engine.
zzbu...@netscape.net
> Fromhttp://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/browse_frm/thr...
>
> Shubee wrote:
> > > It's very easy to compare mathematicians and physicists. Aesthetics
> > > and beauty guide mathematicians. Mathematicians are usually perfectly
> > > logical scientists. Their discipline is based on the orderly, logical,
> > > systematic unfolding of mathematical knowledge.
>
> > Richard Feynmann would disagree.
Why is simple, Since nature has nothing to do with science,or
logic, machines, engineering,
art, music, history, thinking, or education.
Which is why it's always been left, since the beginning of non-
existent space to idiots like
Zeno, black holes, and wanks like Feynmann.
> Is that because mathematicians have pointed out to Feynman that his
> physics is flawed mathematically? How else do you explain Feynman's
> statement, "I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians."?http://www.liv.ac.uk/~iop/Fools-Physics.pdf
>
> > He argues that mathematicians are not scientists at all.
> > ("Scientist" is not an honorific term.) His definition of
> > "science" is an enterprise in which truth is decided by
> > external confirmation.
>
> My objection to Feynman's definition of "science" is that it appears
> completely arbitrary. And it overlooks my standing argument that "The
> only substantial part of physics is mathematics."http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.foundations/msg/1c1215a40b...
> In support of mathematicians however, I'll agree to use Feynman's
> definition.
>
> > The criterion of mathematical truth is utterly
> > unrelated to the physical world.
>
> Thus God is a mathematician, not a physicist. Consequently it follows
> that mathematicians are superbeings that belong to a god class whereas
> physicists, if they are experimentalists, are mere scientists.
>
> Shubeehttp://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
PD
> On Thu, 14 Aug 2008, PD wrote:
>
>
> >> But consider the activity of scientists, when working to contribute to
> >> science. Much of it is not science, per se (and I'm talking about the work
> >> intended to contribute, often quite directly, to science, not
> >> administrivia). For example, rejecting/accepting a paper as a reviewer is
> >> not science, per se. Requiring that the authors make changes to make the
> >> paper more useful to the scientific community isn't science.
>
> > This is where I think I disagree. This pertains to the part of the
> > experimental process that is glossed over, having to do with some
> > vetting of the quality of the *methodology* in the research by peer
> > review.
>
> But peer review takes place in parts of science essentially devoid of
> experimental input - peers express their opinion on purely speculative,
> purely theoretical work.
I confess I understand the role of peer review in theory papers a
little less. I suspect the primary role of peer review in theoretical
work is the assessment of the importance of the work.
> Experiment is about asking questions of Nature,
> not asking for peer opinion.
That's true. And here, peer review is checking whether the
experimenters have carefully listened to her.
> Yes, peer review is a useful part of checking
> experimental work, especially when it comes to replicability.
>
> > This I distinguish from endorsing the result or even the
> > importance of the result. Sadly, teaching this peer review process is
> > easy to do in class but is rarely done -- except in English classes!
>
> Given the usual rather stereotyped tasks physics students get to do, what
> room is there for peer review in physics coursework? I experimented with
> self-review (primarily as a means to encourage the students to read and
> understand the assessment criteria), which was interesting, but I need to
> do more on this. Part of it was to do a trial run before possibly trying
> peer assessment of work. Well, their peers already offer their opinions,
> and I can't say that I ignore them, but I haven't established any formal
> rules that mean I need to accept the peer reviews. That's the tricky part!
Well, it's disruptive to the normal flow of a classroom, in the sense
that there is much less presentation and much more instructive ...
provocation. And students don't like it much at first, because it
clashes with their expectations of what they are to do in the class.
It throws them off balance. It makes the class have at least one
component that is more seminar-like.
The other reasons students don't like it is that it is anti-leveling.
The students who are really promising stand out immediately, and all
the other students can usually see it right away. It is both a little
humbling and a little inspiring.
>
> > Overall, it's a valuable question to ask WHY the scientific method is
> > so central (central, not spanning) to science, and I believe the
> > answer to this is wholly pragmatic: because it is highly optimized and
> > seems to work well, despite glitches here and there. And all those
> > practices that are essential to what makes it work well, including
> > independent experimental verification, peer review of methodology,
> > conferences, collaboration -- all these are part of the scientific
> > method.
>
> It works very well indeed. The glitches, well, I wouldn't call mere errors
> glitches, but would rather reserve that for the cases of deception and
> fraud, which are few compared to, e.g., the world of business and finance.
>
> But does anybody teach _this_, rather than the textbook version of the
> scientific method in school? Sometimes it is taught in the universities,
> since the teachers are working scientists. But, alas, many scientists
> don't think very much about this stuff. One can ask for big trouble by
> getting scientists to teach about the scientific method, the philosophy of
> science, and so on. Perhaps the only riskier (sane) choice is asking
> philosophers to teach the philosophy of science (seriously, this could be
> a scary prospect).
Well, you are right. I know someone who teaches a pseudo-seminar
course for freshman on Fraud in Science. I personally believe that
high schools *should* include a look at "intelligent design" in
biology classes, having faith that teachers will leap on the
opportunity to distinguish what that is from what science is.
>
> Anyway, I think that, for a discussion that is, if we really stuck to the
> topic, about what we should define as "science", "the scientific method",
> etc., it's been more interesting that that. Thanks.
>
Mutual.
PD
Herman Rubin
>On Aug 15, 8:34=A0am, hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
>> In article <hq7pk.13544$Bt6.7...@newsfe04.iad>,
>> N:dlzcD:aol T:com \(dlzc\) <dl...@cox.net> wrote:
>=2E..
>> >Science intends to describe free will right
>> >out of the Universe, so that leaves NO room
>> >for miracle or anything else on which
>> >religions are founded. =A0I am surprised you
>> >had not realized this yet...
>> With quantum mechanics, science leaves much
>> room for uncertainty, which is needed for
>> free will. =A0Before then, it was as you say.
>Uncertainty =3D/=3D free will. The uncertaiaty essentially disappears at
>the macroscopic level. Additionally, quantum mechanics is still a
>deterministic model, describing interactions, leaving the uncertainty
>to cover mapping the result to macroscopic "meaning".
It does and it does not; consider the "Heisenberg's
cat" thought experiment. Another possibility would
be two photoelectric cells triggering different
macroscopic results by whichever is activated first.
While it is deterministic at the wave function level,
it definitely fails to be so at the observation level,
where we have a probability distribution.
>> It also leaves room for God to intervene,
>> as long as He does not act in such a way
>> that we can be reasonably sure that a
>> miracle has occurred. =A0To do this, God has
>> to "play dice" (and more; quantum
>> mechanics is more complicated than
>> probability) with the universe.
>If one assumes essentially two time axes; one the "mechanical" default
>evolution parameter, reaching back to adjust "reality" to the Big Bang
>as necessary to achieve a given *now*; and one under direct influence
>of Intent; then both Miracle and insanity (remembering events
>differently than "accepted") fall out easily, and all parties are
>satisfied. Science defines the transmission, and Free Will operates
>the shifter.
>>=A0At this time, I know of no clear miracles.
>We are surrounded by miracle, even more than aetherist's aether is
>supposed to be all pervading. Start with why the Big Bang ever
>bothered not to just turn to cold dark iron in one motion.
>David A. Smith
Edward Green
I do not agree.
Since the uncertainty principle involves a bound on the product of two
standard deviations as drawn from an initially identically prepared
sample population, it doesn't seem to have anything immediately to say
about simultaneous or even sequential measurement. The most neutral
statement is that if we draw a first sample from the original
population and measure, say, the momentum, and draw a second
(pristine) sample from the original population and measure the
position, that the sample standard deviations will converge to numbers
obeying the Heisenberg uncertainty relation.
If we want to make a statement about the "uncertainty" in the position
and momentum of a single particle, as represented by its wave
function, then the most neutral version would be in this form: that if
we multiplied the particle to an identically prepared ensemble,
measuring the position in one part of the ensemble and the momentum in
the other, that the results would obey an inequality of this form.
If we want to devise an experiment wherein we attempt to
simultaneously place bounds on the position and momentum of the
(single) particle, the formalism doesn't automatically suggest or
permit this, and we would have to analyze a specific experiment,
specifying what we meant by the experimental uncertainty in each
trial. It seems probable we could find a way to do this such that the
product of the "experimental uncertainties" in each trial was bounded
by the Heisenberg relation, but this is conjectural, and anyway
outside the scope of the initial interpretation.
Neither of you seem to favor this last interpretation. However, if we
attempt to analyze the results of immediate sequential measurements on
single systems, we are moving almost as far from the neutral formalism
about ensembles: We again have to define a specific experiment which
shows what we mean by the "experimental uncertainty" in measuring the
first variable, and then what the accompanying "experimental
uncertainty" is in immediately thereafter measuring the second
variable: possibly we will find for some plausible conventions that
the product of "experimental uncertainties" for a single particle
measured in this way again satisfies the Heisenberg relations for a
single pair of sequential measurements. But this is again conjectural
and outside the scope of the most neutral statement.
A typical additional assumption to add is that if we measure a given
eigenvalue, and immediately thereafter repeat the same measurement,
that we will get back the same eigenvalue, which implies that the
original wave function has "collapsed" to the corresponding
eigenfunction. Notice that in the position/momentum case the
eigenfunctions are delta functions, so that if we assume we have made
an "exact" determination of position, so that the uncertainty in the
momentum is now infinite!
Actually, thinking about this a second more, I realize that the
"sequential" interpretation of the Heisenberg relation is _guaranteed_
to be wrong, if taken to describe experimental uncertainties for a
particular particle. For though we obtain complete (ensemble)
uncertainty in the momentum following an exact measurement of the
position, this does not mean we cannot make a sequential _exact_
measurement of the momentum! So the lower bound on the product of
experimental uncertainties in sequential measurement of two
incompatible observable on a single particle is in fact zero.
OTOH if we want to combine the sequential measurement idea with the
ensemble approach, now calculating the product of standard deviations
not on two freshly drawn samples, but on one sample first measured one
way, and then the other, the Heisenberg relation will be satisfied
trivially -- at least in the position/momentum case: since the first
standard deviation will be that appropriate to the initial,
undisturbed, wave function, whereas the second will be infinite, since
our first experiment has blown the conjugate variable all over the
board!
All of these convolutions are avoided, however, by simply realizing
that the most neutral statement involves two samples drawn from an
identically prepared ensemble, only one experiment to an element of
the sample, and neither simultaneous nor sequential measurements on
any given member of the ensemble. Anything further involves us in
convolutions, contortions, and additional work.
N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc)
"Herman Rubin" <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote in message
news:g86qh7$7i...@odds.stat.purdue.edu...
> In article
> <d8f8e785-1d00-43ab...@a8g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
> dlzc <dl...@cox.net> wrote:
>>Dear Herman Rubin:
>
>>On Aug 15, 8:34=A0am, hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu (Herman
>>Rubin) wrote:
>>> In article <hq7pk.13544$Bt6.7...@newsfe04.iad>,
>>> N:dlzcD:aol T:com \(dlzc\) <dl...@cox.net> wrote:
>>...
>>> >Science intends to describe free will right
>>> >out of the Universe, so that leaves NO room
>>> >for miracle or anything else on which
>>> >religions are founded. =A0I am surprised you
>>> >had not realized this yet...
>
>>> With quantum mechanics, science leaves much
>>> room for uncertainty, which is needed for
>>> free will. Before then, it was as you say.
>
>>Uncertainty =/= free will. The uncertaiaty
>>essentially disappears at the macroscopic
>>level. Additionally, quantum mechanics is
>>still a deterministic model, describing
>>interactions, leaving the uncertainty to cover
>> mapping the result to macroscopic "meaning".
>
> It does and it does not; consider the
> "Heisenberg's cat" thought experiment.
"Schroedinger"...
> Another possibility would be two photoelectric
> cells triggering different macroscopic results
> by whichever is activated first.
>
> While it is deterministic at the wave function level,
Correct.
> it definitely fails to be so at the observation level,
> where we have a probability distribution.
Which is mapping to a macroscopic observation. We are not
disagreeing.
David A. Smith