The Positron and Dirac
Matthew Nobes
soon. As I stated right off the bat you have the history totally
wrong. I will be quoting extensivly in this post from the following
essay (denoted [1]):
A. Pais, Paul Dirac: Aspects of his Life and Work
You can find [1] in a nice little book entitled "Paul Dirac: The Man and
His Work" which was edited by Peter Goddard and published by the
Cambridge University Press in 1998.
Note that Abraham Pais is a respected historian of science, who has
written scientific biographies of both Bohr and Enstein (his bio of AE is
the standard reference). He has written a book entitled "Inward Bound"
which is a history of the early days of quantum physics. I'd be willing
to place a small wager that he gets the story regarding the prior
onservation right in that work. I would also (again) refer you to
[2] Crease and Mann, "The Second Creation"
which is where I personally recall hearing about the pre Anderson
observations. Crease and Mann is another standard in the field.
Like I said, if your sole source of history on this is Kane's "The
Particle Garden" than I am more knowledgable about it. Sorry, that's the
way it goes, you know more about astrophysics then me, I've already dealt
with that. I suggest you do the same and stop makeing idiotic statements.
I've snipped this down a lot, it was badly mangled.
On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000912...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
> Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> wrote:
[snip]
> > Yes I read the post, and gave you a more detialed reference to the
> > orginal paper. I am resonably sure that I am more informed on the
> > history of this than you. Positive if your only reference is Kane's
> > pop sci book.
>
> If you'll read my post you'll see that that's what I told you to start
> with. That all texts (and these include histories) claim that positrons
> had not been observed prior to Dirac's paper. So you are no more
> "informed" than I. However, I don't necessarily believe everything I
> read.
Which histories did you read?
[snip]
> > You are being extremely dishonest slipping "of course [Dirac] heard
> > about it" in with the quotes from the reference. Kane makes no such
> > claim. Further your assertion that the prior observations are not
> > taught is to the best of my knowledge false. Also your claim that the
> > earlier obsevations were not published becuase they lacked a
> > theoretical basis. Anderson was also unaware of Dirac's theory, he
> > was simply more bold than the others. Your implied assertion that
> > positron was only discovered when I "conformed" to existing theory is
> > *not* supported by the history that you cite. Paul's post in this
> > thread also contains a relevent quote from Dirac.
[snip]
> > No I got it right. You distored one reference which is hardly
> > authoratative. IIRC "The Second Creation" by Crease and Mann (a more
> > standard historical ref.) has the full story. That is likely where I
> > heard it first.
>
> =================
>
> Well you did find the right quote (page 15). So let's take a look at
> the actual quote from "The Particle Garden" by Gordon Kane, 1995 (which
> you didn't provide for anyone else):
Neither did you.
> "An amazing thing is that the existence of antiparticles was predicted
> purely by a theoretical argument, and then they were found. There
> were really two remarkable aspects. One was that once positrons were
> recognized in experiments it was realized that they had actually been
> seen before but had been ignored because they were not expected to
> exist. Particles with opposite electric charges, such as electrons
> and positrons, curve opposite ways in a magnetic field. Particles
> curving the 'wrong' way had been noticed in the 1920s, but because the
> observation did not make sense it was not taken seriously --
> recognizing that an anomalous effect is actually a new phenomenon
> takes great insight. In 1932 Carl Anderson at California Institute of
> Technology finally took them seriously and reported them. Seeing the
> report, other physicists quickly realized that they were the
> anti-electrons (positrons) predicted by Dirac. The other remarkable
> feature of the antiparticle discovery was that human thinking guided
> by a theory could actually predict the existence of a previously
> unknown part of nature."
> (p 15)
>
> Now let's take a look and see if I "made a couple of big/silly
> errors and put a spin on it that is not reflected in the text."
The big silly errors were Dirac's name and the timing. They were
*silly*. Actually, while we're on the subject the second one was more
than just silly. From [1], Pais describes Dirac's attempts to interpret
the negative energy solutions of his equation, starting with simply
ignoring them, then considering them to be protons, and then (and please
note the dates) (the single quotes are Dirac directly)
"Then, in May 1931, Dirac bit the bullet (or in his words, he made `a
small step forward'): `A hole, if there were one, would be a new kind of
particle, unknown to experimental physics, haveing the same mass and
opposite charge of the electron.' Dirac eventually called the new
particle anti-electron. Just before the year's end Carl Anderson made the
first announcement of expeimental evidence for the anti-electron."
Notice that this demolishs your claim that the physics community had had
seven years to "get used to Dirac's theory".
Also the phrase "unknown to expeirmental physics" supports the assertion
that Dirac had never heard of/seen the anomous results.
> Again, I was working from memory, so the "seven years" was indeed not
> the four years indicated. It doesn't change the point of my comment.
It does if it's less than one year though, right?
> 1) "An amazing thing is that the existence of antiparticles was
> predicted purely by a theoretical argument, and then they were found."
> Now this is the thrust of Kane's line. First theory. Then finding by
> experiment. So you are correct in your observation that my "spin" of
> this paragraph is not reflected in Kane's original.
Kane is exagerating. And he gets the history (dates at least) wrong.
> However, let's continue past the first sentence to the substance of the
> paragraph:
>
> 2) "once positrons were recognized in experiments it was realized that
> they had actually been seen before but had been ignored because they
> were not expected to exist." and "Particles curving the 'wrong' way had
> been noticed in the 1920s, but because the observation did not make
> sense it was not taken seriously"
>
> So here is the admission that positrons had been seen before Dirac's
> theory was developed. But that they had been ignored. IGNORED?
> Because they were not "expected" and/or "did not make sense"
> (theoretically). So by whom, do you think, it "was not taken
> seriously."
>
> Let's back up to the 1920's. There are four known particles. Protons,
> neutrons, electrons and alpha particles. (And the neutrons were iffy as
> separate entities). Cloud chambers were the rage and cutting edge for
> particle observation. Photos taken of the tracks adorn journals and
> classrooms around the world.
>
> Now. Here our intrepid chamber operator sits with camera and ruler,
> measuring the curvature of tracks of charged particles. Alpha particles
> and protons leave fat tracks that curve one way (positive charge).
> Electrons leave skinny tracks that curve the other (negative charge).
> No one with a single functioning eye can mistake one track for the
> other. There is no room for subjectivity here.
>
> Along comes this track that is skinny like the electron -- but curves
> the "wrong" way! It's a positively charged electron! Do you seriously
> think that our camera shutter fails to click? Do you seriously believe
> that the grad student says "Golly, I don't know what that is, I won't
> bother to tell my prof, and I'll destroy this obviously bad piece of
> film." Do you seriously believe that the Professor doesn't take that
> track "seriously?" It's on film in his lab.
>
> That is how Kane can safely say that these particles were observed in
> the 1920's. Because they're still on film. And because the stories of
> these early "gaffes" still circulate among the lab assistants.
>
> So who do you think didn't take these photographs seriously? Journal
> reviewers. Who didn't have a theoretical framework to put them into.
> They were unexpected by the theorists, and so photographic evidence was
> ignored.
This is unsupported nonsense. There is *no* evidence that any of these
tracks were ever submitted to a journal. Further, (again see the
orginal paper in The Experimental Foundations of Particle
Physics) Anderson didn't see that many positron tracks. These events that
Kane refers to were rare.
> So the "non-conforming events" remained hidden from the view of the
> general physics community and the world at large, throughout the 1920's.
> However, those physicists who worked at facilities running the cloud
> chambers could see those photos posted from 1920 to 1928.
Where? Dirac was the lord of theoretical quantum mechanics, not an
expeirmentalist. I doubt he did much hanging with the lab techs.
> One of those physicists was Dirac. Do you think all those photos and
> lunch discussions with other physicists just might have had something
> to do with his theoretical work? He had up to seven years of
> conventions and lunchs (1921 to 1928) to hear about them.
Except of course you neglect/ignore/are ignorant of the published history
on the subject. My quote above makes it clear that Dirac thought that
positron was "unknown to experimental physics" (from [1]).
Also, much as you'd like to belittle the standard story, Dirac's
motivation in constructing his theory is well known. Both from Dirac
himself and other histories, for example from [1] (again single quotes are
Dirac directly (whom Pais knew personally)).
"By the time of the 1927 Solvay conference, a relativistic wave equation
was already known: the scalar wave equation, stated independantly by at
least six authors, Klein and Schrodinger among them. One could not, it
seemed, associate a positive definite probablity density with that
equation, however. That Dirac did not like at all, since the exsitence
of such a density was (and is) central to his transformation theory. `The
transformation theory had become my darling. I was not interested in
considering any theory which would not fit in with my darling ... I just
couldn't face giving up the transformation theory.'"
I think that makes Dirac's motives pretty clear don't you?
> [Take a look at Paul's post. He has a quote from Dirac that he
> "couldn't" publish anything about a new particle at the time because it
> was not in line with the paradigm.]
Right, which makes Anderson's descision all the more bold.
> So now, four years after Pauli has published his theory (not seven, but
> not immediately),
Less than a year. In days before the internet, cheap air travel, etc.
> Anderson "found" the positron in a cloud chamber track. Both you and
> Kane would have us believe that Anderson (a working particle
> physicist) was unaware of an astonishing, four year old theory.
The prediction of the positron was less than a year old. Dirac's theory
was being debated by a small group of people at the time, heavy mathy type
people, like Weyl, Pauli and Heisenberg.
> And neither had anyone in his lab at CIT. Was he really the first in
> 12 years to take these tracks seriously?
There weren't many of these tracks, and yes he was the first.
> Or was he merely the first who had a reviewer who took it seriously.
> Now that they had a theory (that was acceptable) with which to
> classify this observation.
It is standard practice for a reviewer to mention relavent theory. As I
recall Andersons's paper has no mention of Dirac's theory, thus we can
safely conclude that the reviewer had not heard of it either.
I'll check on Friday for a note added in proof. That would be the only
indication.
> We have no record of rejected submissions to journals concerning this
> "wrong-way" electron. And so (according to "history") they never
> existed!
That last sentence is most definately conspiratorial
> The standard story just won't wash. I've read it in dozens of texts and
> histories. As you have.
Nope. Actually I've only read a couple of histories, ne "The Second
creation" was the only one that covered this stuff in depth.
> And Kane himself safely parrots the party interpretation.
No Kane get's it wrong. Further wasn't your claim that the "party
line" was to *not* mention the pre-anderson discoveries?
> But -- as Kuhn notes -- history is written by the victors.
Kuhn is not the be all and end all of science scolarship.
> And the party line since 1920 is that theory leads and experiment
> follows to confirm.
This is totally false as a glance of the following four works will confirm
"The Second Creation"
"Quantum Generations"
"Inward Bound"
"The Rise of the Standard Model"
> It makes a great story. Especially for modern "positivists." It's
> not a conspiracy. It merely pays to ignore embarrasing incidents.
>
> Now it is possible that Kane doesn't know what he's talking about. That
> this book -- paid for and written with the help of the SLAC organization
> for the purpose of getting money from Congress -- contains a glaring
> misrepresentation. That no experiment prior to 1932 ever saw a
> positron.
No, like I said (to Paul as well) nobody disputes that there had been
pre-anderson observations. Some do not mention them, as they could be
regarded as unimportent (given your spin has now been shown to be false).
> It would be rather simple to verify. Simply find the answer to the
> question:
>
> Are or were there any photographs of positrons taken prior to 1932? Or
> prior to 1928?
>
> If there are, the party line/history is a crock.
Again, to the best of my knowledge *nobody* disputes the pre-anderson
discoveries, though they certainly don't put much empahsis on them.
I would also point out that using phrases like "party line" certainly
makes you sound like a paranoid consipracy theorist.
> But the essence of my point remains. Non-conforming data has a hard
> time getting published.
Didn't seem to stop Anderson.
--
"After the suffering of decades of violence |Matthew Nobes
and oppression, the human soul longs for |c/o Physics Dept.
things higher, warmer and purer than those |Simon Fraser University
offered by todays mass living habits, |8888 University Drive
introduced ... by the revolting invasion |Burnaby, B.C.
of commercial advertising ..." |Canada
Alexander Solzhenitsyn |http://hapiland.phys.sfu.ca
Matthew Nobes
pretty much dealt with the claim that Dirac was aware/motivated by any
earlier observations of the positron. It is clear from Dirac's own words
that he regarded (at the time of prediction) the positron as "unknown to
expeirmental physics" and that his motivation in deriving the Dirac
equation was to save his transformation theory. This is amply supported
by Pais' essay that I cited previously.
I dug out two other references, the first is
Cahn and Goldhaber, "The Experimental Foundations of Particle Physics" [2]
and
L. Browns essay in "The History of 20th Century Physics" volume 1 (of
three). [3]
Cahn and Golhaber are physicists, Brrown is a historian, who has edited
the above volumes as well as two volumes on the history of particle
physics
The Birth of Particle Physics
and
The Rise of the Standard Model.
The latter is excellent, I've never seen the former. These books are
collections of talks from various famous people in the field recounting
their personal recollections. According to Brown's essay in [3] Anderson
(and his son) contributed an essay to The Birth of Particle Physics.
Okay, much to my suprise when I looked up Cahn and Golhaber's book I found
that they do not reprint Anderson's orginal paper as claimed. His orginal
paper on the discovery appears to be a brief note
Science, v76, 238 (1932).
The paper that Cahn and Goldhaber reprint is
Phys. Rev. v43, 491 (1933).
As I remembered Anderson makes no mention of Dirac's theory in this
paper. However, what is interesting is that Cahn and Goldhaber *do* claim
that Anderson was aware of Dirac's prediction of the positron. They claim
that he found out via Oppenhiemer, however they offer no citation for this
fact.
In the Brown essay [3] on the other hand it is claimed that Anderson's
discovery was "purely experimental and without theoretical
motivation." Brown cites Andersons essay in The Birth of Particle
Physics. Unfortunately my trail ends there as the SFU library does not
have this book. However I think its safe to conclude that Cahn and
Goldhaber are mistaken, and that Anderson was unaware of Dirac's
prediction. This is born out by the fact that Anderson makes no mention
of it at all in his 1933 paper.
Two further notes,
As to Mr. mingst claims that pictures and stories of anomolus events were
widely ccirculating at the time, I'll just mention that Anderson's (in the
1933 paper) gives the total number of cloud chamber pictures taken as
1300, and he claims that 15 showed positron events. This supports my
assertion that such events were rare.
One other interesting note which goes the other way. According to Cahn
and Goldhaber it was not immediately apparent to the theorists that
Anderson's particle was the same one as was predicted by Dirac. They
quote Pauli
"Dirac has tried to identify holes with anti-electrons ... We do not
believe that this explanation can be seriously considered" (Handbuch der
Physik, v24, 246, (1933))
This should put an end to the idea that there was a "party line" at the
time.
I would again urge Mr. Mingst to back out of this discussion as the
evidence at hand does not support his interpretation of these events. I
would further repeat my request for a retraction of the insulting and
incorrect statements he made regarding the CDF and D0 collaborations
handling of the top quark data.
Charles Francis
spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
>As I remembered Anderson makes no mention of Dirac's theory in this
>paper. However, what is interesting is that Cahn and Goldhaber *do* claim
>that Anderson was aware of Dirac's prediction of the positron. They claim
>that he found out via Oppenhiemer, however they offer no citation for this
>fact.
>
>In the Brown essay [3] on the other hand it is claimed that Anderson's
>discovery was "purely experimental and without theoretical
>motivation." Brown cites Andersons essay in The Birth of Particle
>Physics. Unfortunately my trail ends there as the SFU library does not
>have this book. However I think its safe to conclude that Cahn and
>Goldhaber are mistaken, and that Anderson was unaware of Dirac's
>prediction. This is born out by the fact that Anderson makes no mention
>of it at all in his 1933 paper.
>
was seen as a product of cosmic rays on numerous occasions prior to
Dirac's prediction, but always rejected as duff evidence until Dirac's
prediction became known. Has anyone ever heard any support for that
story?
--
Regards
Charles Francis
cha...@clef.demon.co.uk
greyw...@my-deja.com
My point being discussed was that "non-conforming observations have a
hard time getting published."
First, you have basically agreed that this is the case. You explicitly
stated that any paper dealing with something outside the standard model
is held to a more stringent standard.
Now as to this historical example.
Let me accept all your date corrections and citations of observations as
correct. We still have the following statements that you have provided
documentation or agreement for:
1) Positron events were observed many years prior to the
development of Dirac's theory.
2) Only after the theory was published was a paper identifying the
positrons published.
Whether Anderson, himself was aware of Dirac's results is not the issue.
(By the way, I am impressed that you posted a contrary citation that
Andersen knew about Pauli's work.)
The standard "history" line is that the theory was developed first, and
then positron observations were made. As I (and yourself) have pointed
out. This is not true.
The key here is WHY no reports of the "wrong-way electron" made it into
print, prior to Dirac's theory. The current "party line" is that there
weren't any. If you dig a little deeper, you find that they were
observed. The explanation given is that these observations were not
taken "seriously."
My point is that it is the peer review process that suppresses
observations that counter entrenched views. Kane's point appears to be
that almost all experimenters ignore data that is contrary to theory.
Neither of these situations is good for science. If science is the
advancement of knowledge, instead of just getting more precision in
expected results.
--
greywolf42
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Matthew Nobes
> I think we have a forest and trees problem here.
>
> My point being discussed was that "non-conforming observations have a
> hard time getting published."
The problem is your example doesn't support this.
> First, you have basically agreed that this is the case. You explicitly
> stated that any paper dealing with something outside the standard model
> is held to a more stringent standard.
I would say, given the striking nature of the Anderson pictures there was
probably no barrir to publication.
> Now as to this historical example.
>
> Let me accept all your date corrections and citations of observations as
> correct.
But they destroy your point then? Or at least the positron story, since
there is no indication that Anderson had any trouble getting his results
published. And it appears he and the reivewers were unawre of Dirac's
prediciton at the time.
> We still have the following statements that you have provided
> documentation or agreement for:
>
> 1) Positron events were observed many years prior to the
> development of Dirac's theory.
With the caveat that they were extremly rare. An inference that can be
drawn from Anderson's paper (he has 1300 pictures with only 15 positron
events).
I also presume you know admit that Dirac hadn't heard of these events yet?
> 2) Only after the theory was published was a paper identifying the
> positrons published.
Again this is factually correct, it's your interpretation that I had a
problem with. The timing is not relevent, it's wether Anderson and his
reveiwers knew about it.
> Whether Anderson, himself was aware of Dirac's results is not the issue.
Yes it is! That's the whole point. Was Anderson and the people who
reviewed his paper aware of the theory our not? If not then your case
against "non-corforming data" not getting published is *not* supported by
this example. If they had, it's still skaey given the fact that Dirac's
prediction was regarded as non-conforming aynways, although it's certainly
lees severe in the second case (your point still stands to some degree).
> (By the way, I am impressed that you posted a contrary citation that
> Andersen knew about Pauli's work.)
I'm honest, I'm going to tell you whatever I discover. But I hope you
noted my evidence which demonstrates that Cahn & Goldhaber are almost
certainly wrong.
> The standard "history" line is that the theory was developed first, and
> then positron observations were made. As I (and yourself) have pointed
> out. This is not true.
Fine, but your spin is all wrong. First of all, Anderson was also unaware
of Dirac's prediction. SO too were his reviewer's it would seem. Thus
his observation of the positron evidence would suffer all the hinderences
you detail below.
> The key here is WHY no reports of the "wrong-way electron" made it into
> print, prior to Dirac's theory.
There weren't enough of them would be my guess. After finding a couple
Anderson went hunting for them and got 15 out of 1300 pictures. So
whatever pre Anderson observatiosn there were they were likely few and far
between. PErhaps even spread out over a number of groups.
> The current "party line" is that there weren't any. If you dig a
> little deeper, you find that they were observed. The explanation
> given is that these observations were not taken "seriously."
>
> My point is that it is the peer review process that suppresses
> observations that counter entrenched views. Kane's point appears to be
> that almost all experimenters ignore data that is contrary to theory.
Then Kane is wrong. Anderson did not ignore these results.
> Neither of these situations is good for science. If science is the
> advancement of knowledge, instead of just getting more precision in
> expected results.
Look I'm not saying that there is no theory influcene on
experimentalists. But you make them out to be really stupid. They *want*
to find stuff not predicted by theory. That's a good way to a Nobel
prize.
Nowadays nothing would make a particle experimentalist happier then
finding some new paritcle/effect which completely turned the world upside
down.
BTW I'm still waiting for that retraction regarding CDF and D0.
--
"After the suffering of decades of violence |Matthew Nobes
and oppression, the human soul longs for |c/o Physics Dept.
things higher, warmer and purer than those |Simon Fraser University
offered by todays mass living habits, |8888 University Drive
introduced ... by the revolting invasion |Burnaby, B.C.
of commercial advertising ..." |Canada
Alexander Solzhenitsyn |http://pastureh.phys.sfu.ca
Matthew Nobes
That is what we are discussing. I had heard that story prior to
Mr. Mingst (greywolf) bringing it up. I think it was in the book "The
Second Creation" by Crease and Mann (which I recommend wholehartedly). It
might have been via a lecture.
From the bit of digging I've done however, there appears to be little
support for the contention that Anderson, or the people who reviewed his
inital paper had heard of Dirac's prediction. Thus the Andersons
observations were in the same boat as any other ones.
So why did he get published?
My conjecture is that he had more data. In his 1933 paper he claims to
have taken 1300 pictures since the initial observation. Of those 1300
pictures he finds 15 positron events recorded. What I suspect is that any
prior observatiosn would have invovled at most 1 or 2 pictures of events,
and were likely not taken seriously. Andersons insight appears to have
been to take the first detection seriously and systemiatically search for
more events like this.
--
"After the suffering of decades of violence |Matthew Nobes
and oppression, the human soul longs for |c/o Physics Dept.
things higher, warmer and purer than those |Simon Fraser University
offered by todays mass living habits, |8888 University Drive
introduced ... by the revolting invasion |Burnaby, B.C.
of commercial advertising ..." |Canada
Alexander Solzhenitsyn |http://pastureh.phys.sfu.ca
Charles Francis
specifically being tested for would be unlikely to constitute
publishable research. It actually seems fairly likely that
experimentalists such as Anderson and his reviewers were not familiar
with Dirac's prediction - or if they had heard of it only in the context
of a speculative and highly abstract bit of theoretical research which,
at that time, very few people were taking seriously and which purported
to show the proton as the antiparticle.
greyw...@my-deja.com
Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Sep 2000 greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > I think we have a forest and trees problem here.
> >
> > My point being discussed was that "non-conforming observations have
> > hard time getting published."
>
>
> > First, you have basically agreed that this is the case. You
explicitly
> > stated that any paper dealing with something outside the standard
model
> > is held to a more stringent standard.
>
> I would say, given the striking nature of the Anderson pictures there
was
> probably no barrir to publication.
We were, of course, referring to those OTHER picutures. The ones taken
up to ten years prior to Anderson. But having no "theoretical basis."
>
> > Now as to this historical example.
> >
> > Let me accept all your date corrections and citations of
observations as
> > correct.
>
> But they destroy your point then? Or at least the positron story,
since
> there is no indication that Anderson had any trouble getting his
results
> published.
Whoever was talking about Anderson? I was talking about the dozens or
hundreds of experimenteres who saw positrons before Anderson.
And it appears he and the reivewers were unawre of Dirac's
> prediciton at the time.
>
> > We still have the following statements that you have provided
> > documentation or agreement for:
> >
> > 1) Positron events were observed many years prior to the
> > development of Dirac's theory.
>
> With the caveat that they were extremly rare. An inference that can
be
> drawn from Anderson's paper (he has 1300 pictures with only 15
positron
> events).
>
> I also presume you know admit that Dirac hadn't heard of these events
yet?
>
> > 2) Only after the theory was published was a paper identifying the
> > positrons published.
>
> Again this is factually correct, it's your interpretation that I had a
> problem with. The timing is not relevent, it's wether Anderson and
his
> reveiwers knew about it.
Again. Anderson has NOTHING to do with my point. But that no
observations were allowed to be published until there was a theoretical
explanation.
>
> > Whether Anderson, himself was aware of Dirac's results is not the
issue.
>
> Yes it is! That's the whole point. Was Anderson and the people who
> reviewed his paper aware of the theory our not?
I don't give a durn if Anderson knew about the paper or not. Anderson
is YOUR point. But not the point of my post.
If not then your case
> against "non-corforming data" not getting published is *not* supported
by
> this example. If they had, it's still skaey given the fact that
Dirac's
> prediction was regarded as non-conforming aynways, although it's
certainly
> lees severe in the second case (your point still stands to some
degree).
>
> > (By the way, I am impressed that you posted a contrary citation that
> > Andersen knew about Pauli's work.)
>
> I'm honest, I'm going to tell you whatever I discover. But I hope you
> noted my evidence which demonstrates that Cahn & Goldhaber are almost
> certainly wrong.
There is no way you can show Cahn & Goldhaber were wrong. All you can
do is list contrary views.
>
> > The standard "history" line is that the theory was developed first,
and
> > then positron observations were made. As I (and yourself) have
pointed
> > out. This is not true.
>
> Fine, but your spin is all wrong.
???? Its.... not.....true. Where's the spin?
First of all, Anderson was also
unaware
> of Dirac's prediction.
We're not talking about Anderson.
> SO too were his reviewer's it would seem.
Now where did you get this unsupported statement?
>Thus his observation of the positron evidence would suffer all the
hinderences
> you detail below.
But Anderson wasn't the first. I'd say a 10 year delay in publication
is a pretty severe hindrance. So Anderson as an individual got lucky.
What about the other 100 guys?
>
> > The key here is WHY no reports of the "wrong-way electron" made it
into
> > print, prior to Dirac's theory.
>
> There weren't enough of them would be my guess.
One is enough for "confirming" experiments. (i.e. top quark)
> After finding a
couple
> Anderson went hunting for them and got 15 out of 1300 pictures.
Of the photos HE found. That's 14 too many, anyway. So over 1% of all
cloud chamber photos showed positrons. That's NOT a rare event.
And how many were seen without photos?
> So
> whatever pre Anderson observatiosn there were they were likely few and
far
> between. PErhaps even spread out over a number of groups.
>
> > The current "party line" is that there weren't any. If you dig a
> > little deeper, you find that they were observed. The explanation
> > given is that these observations were not taken "seriously."
> >
> > My point is that it is the peer review process that suppresses
> > observations that counter entrenched views. Kane's point appears to
be
> > that almost all experimenters ignore data that is contrary to
theory.
>
> Then Kane is wrong. Anderson did not ignore these results.
So, you're saying the hundreds before Kane did ignore them.
>
> > Neither of these situations is good for science. If science is the
> > advancement of knowledge, instead of just getting more precision in
> > expected results.
>
> Look I'm not saying that there is no theory influcene on
> experimentalists. But you make them out to be really stupid. They
*want*
> to find stuff not predicted by theory. That's a good way to a Nobel
> prize.
>
Horesapples. Name one person since 1920 who has won a Nobel prize for
publishing an observation that was not "predicted" by theory. (Back in
the early days, Roentgen and Curie found some violations and were
allowed to report.)
> Nowadays nothing would make a particle experimentalist happier then
> finding some new paritcle/effect which completely turned the world
upside
> down.
Except that he'd never get it published. So the world would spin on,
and he wouldn't get tenure if he pushed it.
>
> BTW I'm still waiting for that retraction regarding CDF and D0.
You've lost me. What do you mean by CDF and D0?
Matthew Nobes
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000916...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
> Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> wrote:
> > On Sat, 16 Sep 2000 greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > > I think we have a forest and trees problem here.
> > >
> > > My point being discussed was that "non-conforming observations have
> a
> > > hard time getting published."
> >
> > The problem is your example doesn't support this.
> >
> > > First, you have basically agreed that this is the case. You
> > > explicitly stated that any paper dealing with something outside the
> > > standard model is held to a more stringent standard.
> >
> > I would say, given the striking nature of the Anderson pictures there
> > was probably no barrir to publication.
>
> We were, of course, referring to those OTHER picutures. The ones taken
> up to ten years prior to Anderson. But having no "theoretical basis."
Neither did Anderson's. Dirac's prediction was less than one year old at
the time, and there is convincing evidence that he, nor his reviewer, had
not heard of it. Thus whatever applies to Anderson applies equally well
to the other observations.
> >
> > > Now as to this historical example.
> > >
> > > Let me accept all your date corrections and citations of
> > > observations as correct.
> >
> > But they destroy your point then? Or at least the positron story,
> > since there is no indication that Anderson had any trouble getting his
> > results published.
>
> Whoever was talking about Anderson? I was talking about the dozens or
> hundreds of experimenteres who saw positrons before Anderson.
You mean probably one or two experimenteres, with probably a handfull of
pictures, right? Or did you forget the part about Anderson only observing
15 events in 1300 photos when *actively* searching for them.
> > And it appears he and the reivewers were unawre of Dirac's
> > prediciton at the time.
> >
> > > We still have the following statements that you have provided
> > > documentation or agreement for:
> > >
> > > 1) Positron events were observed many years prior to the
> > > development of Dirac's theory.
> >
> > With the caveat that they were extremly rare. An inference that can
> > be drawn from Anderson's paper (he has 1300 pictures with only 15
> > positron events).
Of course you don't comment on this, since it goes directly against your
"dozens or hundreds of experimenteres" claim.
> > I also presume you know admit that Dirac hadn't heard of these events
> > yet?
Or this?
> > > 2) Only after the theory was published was a paper identifying the
> > > positrons published.
> >
> > Again this is factually correct, it's your interpretation that I had a
> > problem with. The timing is not relevent, it's wether Anderson and
> > his reveiwers knew about it.
>
> Again. Anderson has NOTHING to do with my point. But that no
> observations were allowed to be published until there was a theoretical
> explanation.
One which neither Anderson nor his reviewers were aware of.
> >
> > > Whether Anderson, himself was aware of Dirac's results is not the
> > > issue.
> >
> > Yes it is! That's the whole point. Was Anderson and the people who
> > reviewed his paper aware of the theory our not?
>
> I don't give a durn if Anderson knew about the paper or not. Anderson
> is YOUR point. But not the point of my post.
The point of your post was that "non-conforming" data does not get
published. You claimed that the reason that any pre-Anderson obervations
were not published (never mind the fact that you have presented no
evidence that they were even submitted for publication) is that there was
not theoretical framework for them to fit into. I have presented evidence
which indicates that that lack of theorectical framework also applies to
Anderson. Thus Anderson's data was also "non-conforming" and had the same
supposed barrier to publication.
> > If not then your case
> > against "non-corforming data" not getting published is *not* supported
> > by this example. If they had, it's still skaey given the fact that
> > Dirac's prediction was regarded as non-conforming aynways, although
> > it's certainly lees severe in the second case (your point still stands
> > to some degree).
> >
> > > (By the way, I am impressed that you posted a contrary citation that
> > > Andersen knew about Pauli's work.)
> >
> > I'm honest, I'm going to tell you whatever I discover. But I hope you
> > noted my evidence which demonstrates that Cahn & Goldhaber are almost
> > certainly wrong.
>
> There is no way you can show Cahn & Goldhaber were wrong. All you can
> do is list contrary views.
No offense but that is post-modernist type bullshit. I cited a respected
historian of science who was quoting Anderson directly. This versus Cahn
and Goldhaber who don't cite their position at all.
These are not "contrary views"-- one is the recollections of an actual
participent in the events, the other is an unsupported assertion.
> > > The standard "history" line is that the theory was developed first,
> > > and then positron observations were made. As I (and yourself) have
> > > pointed out. This is not true.
> >
> > Fine, but your spin is all wrong.
>
> ???? Its.... not.....true. Where's the spin?
>
You spun two things off of this
1) non-conforming data has a hard time getting published.
2) Dirac was aware of these early events and this stimulated his thinking
2) is just plain wrong, as I have shown. (1) is incorrect in the sense
that Anderson and his reveiwers were ingnorant of Dirac's prediction.
> > First of all, Anderson was also unaware
> > of Dirac's prediction.
>
> We're not talking about Anderson.
>
> > SO too were his reviewer's it would seem.
>
> Now where did you get this unsupported statement?
It's standard practice for a refree to mention relavent theory that he is
aware of. If Anderson's reviewer had heard of Dirac's prediction he
likely would have noted this. This is not as well supported as the
statement that Anderson had never heard of it, but it is a reasonable
extrapolation from what we know.
> > Thus his observation of the positron evidence would suffer all the
> > hinderences you detail below.
>
> But Anderson wasn't the first. I'd say a 10 year delay in publication
> is a pretty severe hindrance. So Anderson as an individual got lucky.
> What about the other 100 guys?
Likely 2 or 3 not 100, quit spinning things.
> >
> > > The key here is WHY no reports of the "wrong-way electron" made it
> > > into print, prior to Dirac's theory.
> >
> > There weren't enough of them would be my guess.
>
> One is enough for "confirming" experiments. (i.e. top quark)
See below regarding your baseless accusstions on the top quark.
> > After finding a couple Anderson went hunting for them and got 15 out
> > of 1300 pictures.
>
> Of the photos HE found.
Those are photos he took, after the first event was seen. Actually IIRC
from his paper he was doing his standard routine and unearthed two
positron events. Then he went hunting for more.
> That's 14 too many, anyway. So over 1% of all
> cloud chamber photos showed positrons. That's NOT a rare event.
Yes it is, he was specifically looking for them with the most advanced
tech. there was. It is a totally sensible conclusion to infer that these
types of events were few and far between prior to him.
> And how many were seen without photos?
???
> > So whatever pre Anderson observatiosn there were they were likely few
> > and far between. PErhaps even spread out over a number of groups.
> >
> > > The current "party line" is that there weren't any. If you dig a
> > > little deeper, you find that they were observed. The explanation
> > > given is that these observations were not taken "seriously."
> > >
> > > My point is that it is the peer review process that suppresses
> > > observations that counter entrenched views. Kane's point appears to
> > > be that almost all experimenters ignore data that is contrary to
> > > theory.
> >
> > Then Kane is wrong. Anderson did not ignore these results.
>
> So, you're saying the hundreds before Kane did ignore them.
Where in god's name did you get "hundreds" I seriously doubt there were
hundreds of people even working in the field at the time.
> > > Neither of these situations is good for science. If science is the
> > > advancement of knowledge, instead of just getting more precision in
> > > expected results.
> >
> > Look I'm not saying that there is no theory influcene on
> > experimentalists. But you make them out to be really stupid. They
> > *want* to find stuff not predicted by theory. That's a good way to a
> > Nobel prize.
> >
>
> Horesapples. Name one person since 1920 who has won a Nobel prize for
> publishing an observation that was not "predicted" by theory. (Back in
> the early days, Roentgen and Curie found some violations and were
> allowed to report.)
1) do you claim "allowed to report" is not conspiratorial sounding?
2) the muon was not predicted prior to it's observation (that's the first
one I could come up with, there's also strange particles, and a bunch
more)
> > Nowadays nothing would make a particle experimentalist happier then
> > finding some new paritcle/effect which completely turned the world
> > upside down.
>
> Except that he'd never get it published.
Again this is unsupported nonsense. If Fermilab Run II starts up and
finds something totally new they'd get published, theory or not.
--
"After the suffering of decades of violence |Matthew Nobes
and oppression, the human soul longs for |c/o Physics Dept.
things higher, warmer and purer than those |Simon Fraser University
offered by todays mass living habits, |8888 University Drive
introduced ... by the revolting invasion |Burnaby, B.C.
of commercial advertising ..." |Canada
Alexander Solzhenitsyn |http://pastureh.phys.sfu.ca
Matthew Nobes
posted and emailed this part to make sure it gets responded to.
On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
Gee why am I not suprised that you really know nothing regarding the top
quark?
CDF and D0 are the two main experimental collaborations at the Fermilab
TeVatron. In 1995 the published their discoveries of the top quark. They
are the peopl you accused of academic dishonesty (you said that they
"massaged data"). Since that is a serious charge I expected that you
would have more evidence than a scietific american article. So I wandered
over to the library and looked up the relevent papers. Needless to say
your accusation is totaly false. Based on this I think you ought to
retract your slanderous remarks. Here is the relvent post from me, which
apparently you didn't see,
***Begin***
From man...@fraser.sfu.ca Wed Sep 20 10:19:46 2000
Path: news.sfu.ca!fraser!manobes
From: Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity,sci.physics.particle
Subject: Re: Anomaly of the ether & birth of SR
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 15:34:07 -0700
Organization: Simon Fraser University
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In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.21.000912...@fraser.sfu.ca>
Xref: news.sfu.ca sci.physics.relativity:183448 sci.physics.particle:37321
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Matthew Nobes wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Sep 2000 greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000911...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
> > Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> wrote:
> > > > It's amazing what you can "prove" with statistics. I 'bout busted
> > > > a gut reading about the "top quark" discoveries. The paper with
> > > > over a thousand authors. They even had the janitors sign. Talk
> > > > about a political PR piece. I especially liked the part about where
> > > > two independent labs "found" the quark. And got together to party.
> > > > Then found out that the masses of their "discoveries" contradicted
> > > > each other by 35%. So they averaged them!
> > >
> > > Please. You have to be kidding. The first observations of the top
> > > had _huge_ errors. The CDF and D0 mesurments agreed with each other.
> > >
> >
> > After they massaged the data. Let's see if I can dig up that old
> > Scientific American article.
>
> Are you accusing the CDF and D0 collaborations of activly changing
> data? That's a serious accusation.
>
> Again, the values agreed to within errors.
>
[snip]
> 2) I am not interested in what sci. american has to say. Please point out
> the flaws in the orginal articles *not* the popular magazine versions
[snip]
Save your time if you want, I did this for you. I went to the library
today and looked up the orginal papers from both CDF and D0. They're back
to back in Physical Review Letters Vol. 74 (1995) starting on page 2626.
You are wrong on a number of counts.
1) The quoted measurments disprove your claim that the scientists in
any way "massaged" the data. From the papers in question
CDF quotes the mass as 176 +/- 8 +/- 10 GeV/c^{2}
D0 quotes the mass as 199 (+19 -22) +/- 22 GeV/c^{2}
In both cases the first error is statistical and the second is
systematic. As you can see, to within the quoted errors the results
agree.
2) Even dropping the errors, your claim of 35% difference is wrong,
it's more like 13%, given the error on the D0 result this is
totally reasonable.
3) As an addtional piece of information both CDF and D0 estimated the
total production cross section for a t\bar{t} pair
the CDF value is 6.8 (+3.6 -2.4) picobarns
the D0 value is 6.4 +/- 2.2 picobarns
which is not bad at all. This goes to wether they massaged data.
4) Both results agree with the current values, though they have much
larger errors.
I think you should retract your baseless accusation that these groups
"massaged" the data in order to gain agreement. It is clear that each
group separately published numbers. As the numbers agree with each other,
if they were later averaged (with a correct handleing of the errors of
course) than this is legitmate.
I also think you might want to reconsider your assertion that the articles
are "political PR" peices, since clearly you have not read the originals.
***END***
The ball is in your court. Do you have further evidence of dishonesty or
are you willing to retract you accusation? Since you didn't even know the
*names* of the collaborations you were slandering I assume it will be the
latter.
--
"After the suffering of decades of violence |Matthew Nobes
and oppression, the human soul longs for |c/o Physics Dept.
things higher, warmer and purer than those |Simon Fraser University
offered by todays mass living habits, |8888 University Drive
introduced ... by the revolting invasion |Burnaby, B.C.
of commercial advertising ..." |Canada
Alexander Solzhenitsyn |http://pastureh.phys.sfu.ca
Charles Francis
spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
>1) non-conforming data has a hard time getting published.
>
>2) Dirac was aware of these early events and this stimulated his thinking
>
sighting of the positron, or he would not have confused his prediction
with the proton.
It seems highly unlikely that any experimenter who had a slide with a
positron on it took anything more than a passing interest, and probably
did not even notice, while he got on with whatever analysis he was
really engaged in. But if he did want to publish, he should certainly
have done what Anderson did and collate thousands of slides before he
would have had anything publishable.
This idea that non-conforming data has a hard time getting published
gets a lot of currency in certain populist books, but I have never found
a good example. One which was cited, I think in Koestler's The
Sleepwalkers (apologies to Koestler if this is the wrong book) was the
English chemist Adams (I think) who supposedly discovered the periodic
table a few years before Mendeleev, but was laughed out of the Royal
Society when he presented his analysis. When I looked this up I found
that Adams had done no such thing, but had presented a half baked
analysis much of which was wrong and fully deserved to be laughed out of
the room. In contrast Mendeleev had done a huge and accurate analysis.
Certainly it is true that no one paid enormous attention to Kepler until
Newton established his laws, but one cannot say that Kepler was
unpublished or entirely ignored, or that anyone necessarily would have
known what to do with him until Newton.
What does have a harder time historically is non-conforming theory, or
theory which involves paradigm shift, as documented by Kuhn. Certainly I
believe Priestly never accepted oxygen, and it took Lavoisier a few
years to persuade any one, although I believe he was already known as
the most brilliant young chemist in Europe. We can see this even today
with the number of people who cannot drop Newtonian ideas of space time,
even though Newton and his contempories took them with a pinch of salt
and we have known for nearly a hundred years that they are wrong when
pushed too far. Nonetheless we cannot say that Einstein did not get
published, or that he was not understood by leading scientists of his
day.
Perhaps the most important lesson for anyone (such as myself) with a
non-conforming theory is to recognise that, like Lavoisier, it may take
time to be understood, and like Mendeleev, an enormous amount of work
may be necessary to put the theory into a strong enough form that it
even deserves to be taken seriously. The difficult thing for me has been
to understand the work which needs to be done.
Dan Riley
1958 Cerenkov, Cerenkov radiation
1980 Cronin and Fitch, CP violation
1985 von Klitzing, the quantum Hall effect
1987 Bednorz and Muller, high Tc superconductors
1998 Laughlin, Stormer and Tsui, the fractional quantum Hall effect
1987 is particularly compelling--when the prize was awarded there
wasn't anything close to a satisfactory theoretical explanation for
high Tc superconductors.
A somewhat weaker example is
1995 Martin Perl, the tau lepton
While a third generation wasn't expected, there was at least a
framework ready for it.
--
Dan Riley d...@mail.lns.cornell.edu
Wilson Lab, Cornell University <URL:http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~dsr/>
"History teaches us that days like this are best spent in bed"
Gordon D. Pusch
> 1958 Cerenkov, Cerenkov radiation
> 1980 Cronin and Fitch, CP violation
> 1985 von Klitzing, the quantum Hall effect
> 1987 Bednorz and Muller, high Tc superconductors
> 1998 Laughlin, Stormer and Tsui, the fractional quantum Hall effect
>
> 1987 is particularly compelling--when the prize was awarded there
> wasn't anything close to a satisfactory theoretical explanation for
> high Tc superconductors.
Heck --- we *still* don't really have that good a theory for them... :-/
And while the possibility of CP-violation had been *discussed* when
Cronin's group and Fitch's group were doing there experiments, there
was no reason to _expect_ it to occur, and in fact widespread prejudice
that it should =NOT= occur.
(I knew an experimentalist who had done essentially the same experiment
as Cronin, and shortly before him, in the exact same experimental bay ---
but when he published, he said that *if* CP was violated, it was by no more
than such-and-thus an amount --- i.e., he was not willing to do more than
place an upper bound on the _possibility_ that CP *might* be violated.
My understanding is that that was a fairly characteristic attitude at
that time --- people were willing to discuss the possibility that CP
violation *might* occur, but no one really BELIEVED that it would
actually be seen in nature --- until it _was_... :-I)
-- Gordon D. Pusch
perl -e '$_ = "gdpusch\@NO.xnet.SPAM.com\n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'
Hendrik van Hees
> 1958 Cerenkov, Cerenkov radiation
Predicted by Sommerfeld in 1904
The other examples are probably really found before theoretical
prediction.
--
Hendrik van Hees Phone: ++49 6159 71-2751
c/o GSI-Darmstadt SB3 3.183 Fax: ++49 6159 71-2990
Planckstr. 1 mailto:h.va...@gsi.de
D-64291 Darmstadt http://theory.gsi.de/~vanhees/index.html
greyw...@my-deja.com
> > > I would say, given the striking nature of the Anderson pictures
there
> > > was probably no barrir to publication.
> >
> > We were, of course, referring to those OTHER picutures. The ones
taken
> > up to ten years prior to Anderson. But having no "theoretical
basis."
>
> Neither did Anderson's. Dirac's prediction was less than one year old
at
> the time, and there is convincing evidence that he, nor his reviewer,
had
> not heard of it.
Ah, so now you've added the claim that his reviewer also had not heard
of Dirac's theory.
> Thus whatever applies to Anderson applies equally
well
> to the other observations.
No. Because 10 years of "other" observations were before a theory was
available. And several sources admit that observations were ignored
because of the lack of a physical basis. The fact that Anderson had
pictures does not mean that no one else did.
>
> > >
> > > > Now as to this historical example.
> > > >
> > > > Let me accept all your date corrections and citations of
> > > > observations as correct.
> > >
> > > But they destroy your point then? Or at least the positron story,
> > > since there is no indication that Anderson had any trouble getting
his
> > > results published.
> >
> > Whoever was talking about Anderson? I was talking about the dozens
or
> > hundreds of experimenteres who saw positrons before Anderson.
>
> You mean probably one or two experimenteres, with probably a handfull
of
> pictures, right?
Why do you assume that only "one or two" researchers worked for 10 years
prior to Anderson?
> Or did you forget the part about Anderson only
observing
> 15 events in 1300 photos when *actively* searching for them.
Matthew, a 1% rate is not a rare event.
{snip}
> > >
> > > With the caveat that they were extremly rare. An inference that
can
> > > be drawn from Anderson's paper (he has 1300 pictures with only 15
> > > positron events).
>
> Of course you don't comment on this, since it goes directly against
your
> "dozens or hundreds of experimenteres" claim.
>
Since when did you start becoming dishonest, Matthew? The fact that
Anderson found only 1300 photos does not mean that there were only 1300
in the world. I'd assume that after proof was found, he'd stop looking.
Not try for every photo in the world.
{snip}
> > I don't give a durn if Anderson knew about the paper or not.
Anderson
> > is YOUR point. But not the point of my post.
>
> The point of your post was that "non-conforming" data does not get
> published. You claimed that the reason that any pre-Anderson
obervations
> were not published (never mind the fact that you have presented no
> evidence that they were even submitted for publication)
Nor can anyone today. Because if it wasn't published, it wasn't kept.
That doesn't make it untrue.
> is that there
was
> not theoretical framework for them to fit into. I have presented
evidence
> which indicates that that lack of theorectical framework also applies
to
> Anderson.
Which is a crock. As all you have done is post an unsupported claim
that Anderson's reviewer had not heard of Dirac's theory.
{snip}
> > >
> > > I'm honest, I'm going to tell you whatever I discover. But I hope
you
> > > noted my evidence which demonstrates that Cahn & Goldhaber are
almost
> > > certainly wrong.
One contrary opinion does not prove they were wrong. It merely gives
another opinion.
> >
> > There is no way you can show Cahn & Goldhaber were wrong. All you
can
> > do is list contrary views.
>
> No offense but that is post-modernist type bullshit. I cited a
respected
> historian of science who was quoting Anderson directly. This versus
Cahn
> and Goldhaber who don't cite their position at all.
Again, Anderson's knowledge was not the issue.
>
> These are not "contrary views"-- one is the recollections of an actual
> participent in the events, the other is an unsupported assertion.
>
> > > > The standard "history" line is that the theory was developed
first,
> > > > and then positron observations were made. As I (and yourself)
have
> > > > pointed out. This is not true.
> > >
> > > Fine, but your spin is all wrong.
> >
> > ???? Its.... not.....true. Where's the spin?
> >
>
> You spun two things off of this
>
> 1) non-conforming data has a hard time getting published.
Which you have agreed with.
>
> 2) Dirac was aware of these early events and this stimulated his
thinking
>
> 2) is just plain wrong, as I have shown.
Dirac's own quote (given to you by Stowe) clearly shows that you are
wrong.
> (1) is incorrect in the
sense
> that Anderson and his reveiwers were ingnorant of Dirac's prediction.
And that is still an unsupported claim on your part.
{snip}
> >
> > Now where did you get this unsupported statement?
>
> It's standard practice for a refree to mention relavent theory that he
is
> aware of. If Anderson's reviewer had heard of Dirac's prediction he
> likely would have noted this. This is not as well supported as the
> statement that Anderson had never heard of it, but it is a reasonable
> extrapolation from what we know.
OK. Your extrapolation is different than mine.
{snip}
> >
> > Horesapples. Name one person since 1920 who has won a Nobel prize
for
> > publishing an observation that was not "predicted" by theory. (Back
in
> > the early days, Roentgen and Curie found some violations and were
> > allowed to report.)
>
> 1) do you claim "allowed to report" is not conspiratorial sounding?
I don't care how it sounds. Would you prefer "allowed to publish"?
>
> 2) the muon was not predicted prior to it's observation (that's the
first
> one I could come up with, there's also strange particles, and a
bunch
> more)
>
I'll give you the muon. After the positron and prediction of neutrino
broke the barrier so "new" particles were acceptable.
Strange particles are not new. They are an interpretation of the
"wrong" number of observed particles. (Saving the theory).
{snip}
greyw...@my-deja.com
Charles Francis <cha...@clef.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.00092...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
thus
> spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
> >
> >2) Dirac was aware of these early events and this stimulated his
thinking
> >
> sighting of the positron, or he would not have confused his prediction
> with the proton.
>
"butt in."
> It seems highly unlikely that any experimenter who had a slide with a
> positron on it took anything more than a passing interest, and
probably
> did not even notice, while he got on with whatever analysis he was
> really engaged in.
Have you ever worked with a cloud chamber or bubble chamber? This is
not an event that can go "unnoticed." In the 1920's they were
classifying chamber tracks and measuring them. The analysis they were
engaged in WAS those tracks.
> But if he did want to publish, he should certainly
> have done what Anderson did and collate thousands of slides before he
> would have had anything publishable.
Why would anyone think more than one event is required prior to
publication? We only needed one "top quark" event. Or, if you prefer,
one "magnetic monopole" event before publication.
>
> This idea that non-conforming data has a hard time getting published
> gets a lot of currency in certain populist books, but I have never
found
> a good example.
Perhaps the examples have gone "unnoticed" while you went on with your
analysis. Once I found my initial non-conforming events (repeated
discoveries that several of the stories I was fed in my physics texts
were apparently deliberate distortions of fact) I began to parallel
Anderson and started looking to see if I could find more. That others
have done so is supported by the "populist" books that you find
unsatisfying.
> One which was cited, I think in Koestler's The
> Sleepwalkers (apologies to Koestler if this is the wrong book) was the
> English chemist Adams (I think) who supposedly discovered the periodic
> table a few years before Mendeleev, but was laughed out of the Royal
> Society when he presented his analysis. When I looked this up I found
> that Adams had done no such thing, but had presented a half baked
> analysis much of which was wrong and fully deserved to be laughed out
of
> the room. In contrast Mendeleev had done a huge and accurate analysis.
>
> Certainly it is true that no one paid enormous attention to Kepler
until
> Newton established his laws, but one cannot say that Kepler was
> unpublished or entirely ignored, or that anyone necessarily would have
> known what to do with him until Newton.
Interesting, but irrelevant to the issue of the 1900's. Those were the
days prior to refereed journals.
>
> What does have a harder time historically is non-conforming theory, or
> theory which involves paradigm shift, as documented by Kuhn. Certainly
I
> believe Priestly never accepted oxygen, and it took Lavoisier a few
> years to persuade any one, although I believe he was already known as
> the most brilliant young chemist in Europe. We can see this even today
> with the number of people who cannot drop Newtonian ideas of space
time,
> even though Newton and his contempories took them with a pinch of salt
> and we have known for nearly a hundred years that they are wrong when
> pushed too far. Nonetheless we cannot say that Einstein did not get
> published, or that he was not understood by leading scientists of his
> day.
>
> Perhaps the most important lesson for anyone (such as myself) with a
> non-conforming theory is to recognise that, like Lavoisier, it may
take
> time to be understood, and like Mendeleev, an enormous amount of work
> may be necessary to put the theory into a strong enough form that it
> even deserves to be taken seriously. The difficult thing for me has
been
> to understand the work which needs to be done.
>
> --
> Regards
>
> Charles Francis
> cha...@clef.demon.co.uk
>
>
--
greyw...@my-deja.com
> > >
> > > BTW I'm still waiting for that retraction regarding CDF and D0.
> >
> > You've lost me. What do you mean by CDF and D0?
>
> Gee why am I not suprised that you really know nothing regarding the
top
> quark?
>
> CDF and D0 are the two main experimental collaborations at the
Fermilab
> TeVatron. In 1995 the published their discoveries of the top quark.
They
> are the peopl you accused of academic dishonesty (you said that they
> "massaged data"). Since that is a serious charge I expected that you
> would have more evidence than a scietific american article. So I
wandered
> over to the library and looked up the relevent papers. Needless to
say
> your accusation is totaly false.
Think you've stretched enough meaning into my unfamiliarity with the
Acronyms CDF and DO? The article I read (the SA one) was written by
Tipton Liss.
I notice that you didn't bother to read the SA article I mentioned. So
the fact that you didn't find mention of these items in other sources is
not very surprising. And how did you determine that the papers you
looked up were the "relevant" ones. The only one mentioned in the
discussion was the SA article.
> Based on this I think you ought to
> retract your slanderous remarks. Here is the relvent post from me,
which
> apparently you didn't see,
>
You're correct, I had not yet seen it at the time. I don't always read
everything or right away. I do have other things to do.
Now this is an interesting viewpoint. If something is not mentioned in
the "original articles", then it never happened!
I'm sure you are aware that the content of these two forums is a bit
different. You seem to beleive that makes anything published in SA
suspect.
But where a journal article is crafted for a specific and highly limited
purpose, a magazine article in SA allows much more background on the
"human" side of things.
Now I went to the SA website and found the Article in question was:
The Discovery of the Top Quark
Author: Liss, Tipton
Date: September 1997
Abstract: Finding the sixth quark involved the world's most energetic
collisions and a cast of thousands.
I then went to my (disorganized) stack of SAs and couldn't find that
month. But I recall passing it around the office for a good chuckle, so
I may not have gotten it back.
So I'll order me a copy of the article and see if my recollections are
correct. The Abstract does at least confirm my recollection that they
had over a thousand "authors."
I'll be happy to post relevant sections when I get it.
{snip}
>
> I think you should retract your baseless accusation that these groups
> "massaged" the data in order to gain agreement. It is clear that each
> group separately published numbers. As the numbers agree with each
other,
> if they were later averaged (with a correct handleing of the errors of
> course) than this is legitmate.
I don't see anything to retract, yet. I will do so if I find that the
documentation of the "prepublication" discussions between the two groups
(as documented by the participants in the SA article) does not support
my claim. Now to wait for the mail.....
>
> I also think you might want to reconsider your assertion that the
articles
> are "political PR" peices, since clearly you have not read the
originals.
Who cares about the "originals?" If the participants in those original
experiments write (or sign off on) an article about what happened, the
fact that it wasn't mentioned earlier is irrelevant.
>
> ***END***
>
> The ball is in your court. Do you have further evidence of dishonesty
You haven't even bothered to look at the evidence I provided (the
reference to the SA article).
>
or
> are you willing to retract you accusation? Since you didn't even know
the
> *names* of the collaborations
CDF and DO are "names?"
> you were slandering I assume it will be
the
> latter.
>
Only because you wish it to be. Either your logic or your sophistry
needs work.
Matthew Nobes
interest in the truth of the issue. I'll snip right to the parts which
made me give up. Feel free to have the last word.
On Tue, 26 Sep 2000 greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > > With the caveat that they were extremly rare. An inference that
> > > > can be drawn from Anderson's paper (he has 1300 pictures with only
> > > > 15 positron events).
> >
> > Of course you don't comment on this, since it goes directly against
> > your "dozens or hundreds of experimenteres" claim.
> >
>
> Since when did you start becoming dishonest, Matthew? The fact that
> Anderson found only 1300 photos does not mean that there were only 1300
> in the world. I'd assume that after proof was found, he'd stop looking.
> Not try for every photo in the world.
Again this betrays your total ignorance of the situation. Anderson didn't
go looking for other's pictures, he took 1300 *of his own*. This is clear
from reading the orginal paper (which you seem to have an aversion to
doing).
> > > > I'm honest, I'm going to tell you whatever I discover. But I hope
> > > > you noted my evidence which demonstrates that Cahn & Goldhaber are
> > > > almost certainly wrong.
>
> One contrary opinion does not prove they were wrong. It merely gives
> another opinion.
Again the issue was wether Anderson was aware of Dirac's prediciton. I
posted a *quote from Anderson" where he says he *was not*. This is not
"another opinion" it's the man's own words.
> > 2) Dirac was aware of these early events and this stimulated his
> > thinking
> >
> > 2) is just plain wrong, as I have shown.
>
> Dirac's own quote (given to you by Stowe) clearly shows that you are
> wrong.
???
Paul's quote was (something like):
"The whole climate of opinion was against mew particles"
which does not in any way indicate that Dirac had heard of any
observations of a new particle.
Well, you even accepted my quote where Dirac says (in 1931) that the
positron was "unknown to expeirmental physics".
> > (1) is incorrect in the
> > sense that Anderson and his reveiwers were ingnorant of Dirac's
> > prediction.
>
> And that is still an unsupported claim on your part.
I supported it below. The fact that you don't choose to believe it is not
my problem.
> {snip}
>
> > >
> > > Now where did you get this unsupported statement?
> >
> > It's standard practice for a refree to mention relavent theory that he
> > is aware of. If Anderson's reviewer had heard of Dirac's prediction
> > he likely would have noted this. This is not as well supported as the
> > statement that Anderson had never heard of it, but it is a reasonable
> > extrapolation from what we know.
>
> OK. Your extrapolation is different than mine.
>
> {snip}
> > >
> > > Horesapples. Name one person since 1920 who has won a Nobel prize
> > > for publishing an observation that was not "predicted" by
> > > theory. (Back in the early days, Roentgen and Curie found some
> > > violations and were allowed to report.)
> >
> > 1) do you claim "allowed to report" is not conspiratorial sounding?
>
> I don't care how it sounds. Would you prefer "allowed to publish"?
But you claim that there isn't a consipracy right?
> >
> > 2) the muon was not predicted prior to it's observation (that's the
> > first one I could come up with, there's also strange particles, and
> > a bunch more)
> >
>
> I'll give you the muon. After the positron and prediction of neutrino
> broke the barrier so "new" particles were acceptable.
What about all the other ones that were posted here? (Quantum Hall
effect, high T_{c} superconductors etc.)
You know the ones that show that you're full of shit?
> Strange particles are not new. They are an interpretation of the
> "wrong" number of observed particles. (Saving the theory).
No they were not. They were observed way before there was a theory to
explain them. They motivated theoretical development, which again shows
that your claim is nonsense.
Enjoy the last word...
--
"I have no mercy or compassion in me for a |Matthew Nobes
society that will crush people and then |c/o Physics Dept.
penalize them for not being able to stand |Simon Fraser University
up under the weight." |8888 University Drive
Malcolm X |Burnaby, B.C.
|Canada
|http://pastureh.phys.sfu.ca
Matthew Nobes
Like the other thread this will be my last post in this one. You have not
answered my questions, merely dodged around them.
On Tue, 26 Sep 2000 greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
> And how did you determine that the papers you looked up were the
> "relevant" ones. The only one mentioned in the discussion was the SA
> article.
This is untrue. You mention "the one with a thousand authors" which I
presume is a reference to the orginal published paper. I went and looked
it up, discovered that there were two papers, and that your claims were
false.
Again: your sole claim was that averaging the two numbers was "massaging
data" since the two values differed by 35%. This is false.
Read what you wrote:
> It's amazing what you can "prove" with statistics. I 'bout busted
> a gut reading about the "top quark" discoveries. The paper with
> over a thousand authors. They even had the janitors sign. Talk
> about a political PR piece. I especially liked the part about where
> two independent labs "found" the quark. And got together to party.
> Then found out that the masses of their "discoveries" contradicted
> each other by 35%. So they averaged them!
You are claiming that the "paper with over a thousand authors" included
such an averaging. Such a paper does not in fact exsist. THe best you
could do to interpret that would be as a ref. to the orginal
discovery papers. And those papers don't support your claims.
Like I said I'll leave the discussion now. I hope others in this group
have been reading this thread, as I think it demonstrated the dishonesty
and propensity for arguement typical of many of the ether advocates on
this newsgroup.
Bilge
>
>Why would anyone think more than one event is required prior to
>publication? We only needed one "top quark" event. Or, if you prefer,
>one "magnetic monopole" event before publication.
>
cloud chamber differ from "events" in an experiment looking for
monopoles or quarks. Furthermore, the publication of the single
monopole event contained caveats and there were many candidates
for t-quark events prior to finding one that was a "gold-plated",
bonifide event, so you are comparing apples to oranges.
Moreover, discovering a paricular anomaly does not necessarily mean
you've discovered anything but an anomaly. In the context of this
thread about positrons, what exactly was a positron and what meaning
would such a particle have prior to dirac? Seeing nothing but
a curvature that corresponds to a positive charge means almost
nothing, although in hindsight it may be obvious.
In a cloud or bubble chamber photograph, all you have is the raw data
with no way to filter on other junk after the fact. A high energy
experiment like the one that reported the t-quark, collects so much
information about every event, that each event can be completely
reconstructed in software back to the interaction that produced it
(thousands of parameters which each may be varied to insure that the
event is not some anomaly in the apparatus). It's possible to take a
single event and ask what happens if it's consistent with some other,
well knnown reaction or even just a candidate that isn't "good
enough". I'm sure that there were many such candidates that satisfied
the experimental group, but which were not ironclad. The events which
get published, are events sutible for publication. Cabrera's 1982
monopole article was never intended to be more than report of a
candidate for a monopole. There have been monopoles proposed with
many different properties and in the event that it was correct, would
have helped narrow down the search to confirm it. Do you see ANYONE
claiming that it proves magnetic monopoles exist?
>
>Perhaps the examples have gone "unnoticed" while you went on with your
>analysis. Once I found my initial non-conforming events (repeated
it is non-conforming. That includes things like having everything
else nailed down tight enough to really call the data anomalous.
>Interesting, but irrelevant to the issue of the 1900's. Those were the
>days prior to refereed journals.
>
In those days, you merely needed someone famous to recommend your
work. It was more difficult to publish back then.
--
data: plural of anecdote.
Jim Carr
In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000916...@fraser.sfu.ca>
Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> writes:
>
>From the bit of digging I've done however, there appears to be little
>support for the contention that Anderson, or the people who reviewed his
>inital paper had heard of Dirac's prediction. Thus the Andersons
>observations were in the same boat as any other ones.
>
>So why did he get published?
I thought the point was that no one else had even submitted a
paper on the data they had, choosing to ignore them as noise,
so it was not the case that someone had sent in a paper that
reported a positive electron and had it rejected.
Now I don't know if this is the case, but it *is* the issue
being discussed. Did anyone have a "positron" paper rejected
or did they self-reject their discovery (like Ting essentially
did with the J/psi until he heard about the SLAC result)?
>My conjecture is that he had more data. In his 1933 paper he claims to
>have taken 1300 pictures since the initial observation.
So the real point is that Anderson took his anomaly seriously and
pursued it by improving the quality and significance of his data
to the point where he convinced himself (as a skeptical observer
of his own work) that he had a result and then found it relatively
easy to convince the referee(s) and editor of the journal.
Thus the real "why" question is how did Anderson's approach to
the data differ from the others who saw similar anomalies.
--
James Carr <j...@scri.fsu.edu> http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/
"The half of knowledge is knowing where to find knowledge" - Anon.
Motto over the entrance to Dodd Hall, former library at FSCW.
Jim Carr
... snip off-topic cross-post ...
In article <8q08sa$308$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>
greyw...@my-deja.com writes:
>
>My point being discussed was that "non-conforming observations have a
>hard time getting published."
So let us see what your example says about this.
>Now as to this historical example.
>
>Let me accept all your date corrections and citations of observations as
>correct. We still have the following statements that you have provided
>documentation or agreement for:
>
>1) Positron events were observed many years prior to the
>development of Dirac's theory.
>
>2) Only after the theory was published was a paper identifying the
>positrons published.
But that does not say that non-conforming observations have a hard
time getting published, because it does not include an example of
an attempt to publish such results prior to Anderson's paper -- and
Anderson's paper shows that non-conforming observations can get
published. [As do high-Tc superconductivity, fifth-force speculations,
Cabrera's monopole, the "Ooops Leon" particle, cold fusion at the
beginning, buckyballs, N rays, polywater, the J/psi, etc.]
>Whether Anderson, himself was aware of Dirac's results is not the issue.
It is if you claim that the only reason he submitted it is because
he thought it "conformed". Ditto for the referee(s) and editor(s).
>The key here is WHY no reports of the "wrong-way electron" made it into
>print, prior to Dirac's theory. The current "party line" is that there
>weren't any.
No, the claim is that it is possible that none were submitted.
Editors will not publish papers that are not submitted.
>If you dig a little deeper, you find that they were
>observed. The explanation given is that these observations were not
>taken "seriously."
To prove otherwise you need to document that a paper was
submitted containing those observations.
>My point is that it is the peer review process that suppresses
>observations that counter entrenched views.
So far your point is not supported by your example and there are
plenty of counter examples.
>Kane's point appears to be
>that almost all experimenters ignore data that is contrary to theory.
That is not the fault of the peer reviewers.
Whether his point is even valid is another issue altogether.
Jim Carr
... cold fusion newsgroup added with followups there ...
In article <8q07to$1pd$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>
greyw...@my-deja.com writes:
>
> ... "Cold fusion" is
>basically "excess" energy being released from an electrolytic cell. Now
>this "exess" energy is seen repeatably in certain test configurations.
>No one really knows where it comes from. (Some say from the minds of
>the experimenters.)
Your parenthetical remark contradicts your claim of repeatability
in certain test configurations and your statement that there is
energy released. However, what I want to know is your citation
for the claim of repeatability -- and where you think the water
heater is that we have been waiting for.
>But it was observed prior to the Pons & Fleishman paper.
Citation, please. Are you talking about those *published* papers
from the 1930s? If so, your example does not do what you claim.
>Now the
>question is, how did Pons and Fleishman get published? Quite simple.
>THEIR cell was using deuterium. So they were able to come up with a
>plausible theory: "Cold fusion." Because they had a theory (as yet not
>snubbed), papers could be published.
Actually, the theory they had in the JEC paper was so flawed that
it would never have been published in the form it was if it had
been seen by a referee who knew any nuclear physics rather than
just reviewed by an editor who knew the authors well.
>Prior experimenters faced the
>"violates 2nd law of thermodynamics" theoretical block.
That did not keep the one I am thinking of from getting published.
If you have another case in mind, you need to give some details.
>After followup up experiments failed to detect signs of hydrogen fusion
>(there were some weird isotopes being detected by some MCAs, but they
>weren't related to fusion), the official line became that it was (as you
>stated) -- a crock.
>
>And no more papers were published in referred journals.
Also false. See Dieter's bibliography.
greyw...@my-deja.com
Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> wrote:
> Mr. Mingst,
>
> Like the other thread this will be my last post in this one. You have
not
> answered my questions, merely dodged around them.
>
> On Tue, 26 Sep 2000 greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > "relevant" ones. The only one mentioned in the discussion was the
SA
> > article.
>
> presume is a reference to the orginal published paper. I went and
looked
> it up, discovered that there were two papers, and that your claims
were
> false.
>
> Again: your sole claim was that averaging the two numbers was
"massaging
> data" since the two values differed by 35%. This is false.
>
>
> > It's amazing what you can "prove" with statistics. I 'bout busted
> > a gut reading about the "top quark" discoveries. The paper with
> > over a thousand authors. They even had the janitors sign. Talk
> > about a political PR piece. I especially liked the part about where
> > two independent labs "found" the quark. And got together to party.
> > Then found out that the masses of their "discoveries" contradicted
> > each other by 35%. So they averaged them!
>
included
> such an averaging.
> Such a paper does not in fact exsist. THe best
you
> could do to interpret that would be as a ref. to the orginal
> discovery papers. And those papers don't support your claims.
>
> Like I said I'll leave the discussion now. I hope others in this
group
> have been reading this thread, as I think it demonstrated the
dishonesty
> and propensity for arguement typical of many of the ether advocates on
> this newsgroup.
>
And you have apparently continued to miss the point. The best reference
to what individuals have done is not necessarily the original
"discovery" papers. Those in scientific journals are -- of necessity --
highly constrained in subject and space about what they can discuss.
But you may be interested in my "apology" post to follow momentarily.
It's broad enough that I'll post a new thread. And I'd hate to bury an
apology.
You will note that that first paper did, in fact, have at least 400
authors.
Luc Bourhis
>
> Like I said I'll leave the discussion now. I hope others in this group
> have been reading this thread, as I think it demonstrated the dishonesty
> and propensity for arguement typical of many of the ether advocates on
> this newsgroup.
I am with you Matthew. You did a good job at exposing the ploy of your
interlocutor. Mingst's initial claims about "massaging data" were indeed
absolutely laughable for anyone involved in particle physics.
--
Luc Bourhis
Matthew Nobes
Thank's Luc. He's posted a long "analysis" to which I felt tempted to
respond last night, but I just can't be bothered. Aaron did a good job of
exposing the fundemental flaws (although he did give away *way* too much
about the big science conspiracy, please Aaron keep your mouth *shut*
about that stuff).
Mr. Mingst's central assumption seems to be that everybody invovled in
these experiments are idiots, chained by the forces of politics to simply
be "theory confirmers." As you (and Aaron, and myself and anybody else in
the field) know this is incorect. There is nothing one of these big
collaborations would like better then to find something totally new and
unexpected.
Matthew Nobes
> In <01HW.B5FB0EE10...@news.freeserve.net> Luc Bourhis
> <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk> writes:
> >
> >Matthew Nobes wrote:
> >
> >> Thank's Luc. He's posted a long "analysis" to which I felt tempted
> >> to respond last night, but I just can't be bothered.
I'll add my thanks here to Aaron and Dan Riley for doing this for me. Let
me ask you Paul, what do *you* think of Mr. Mingst's arguement. Is it
scientific in any way? Hell he soen't understand the 1st thing about the
subject (as is clear from his failure to notice that the b quark jets were
observational signals of the top, amongst other things).
> > Well, I have been thinking about that recently. When I first came to
> > this newsgroup I noticed immediately the large amount of sophistry
> > used by anti-relativists. But I thought naively that well constructed
> > post backed up by precise facts can defeat any rethoric.
>
> Precise facts? That IS naive. Fact devoid of framework and some sort
> of descriptive connection is useless. It was, since time immortal, a
> known fact that water flows downhill, anything released from one's hand
> fell, etc, etc, etc. It is ONLY when one attempts to connect these
> isolated facts into a cummulative whole does progress towards
> understanding occur.
But the difference on these boards is that the connective structure used
by the mainstream people here *works*. I.e. you can use it to extract the
facts. I asked this in another thread, but I'll repeat because it's a
good point: if Ken Seto dropped dead tommorrow, could predictions still
be extracted from his theory?
> Some may, but most here do not dispute cold hard facts. The dispute
> comes in interpetation of what the observed 'facts' actually mean. The
> problem with you in particular, and others contributors is, a highly
> developed ingrain myopia. Basically there can be no interpetation of
> the collections of 'facts' EXCEPT the one that 'you believe' is the
> correct one. All others must therefore, by definition, be wrong.
This is not quite true. Again the theoretical structures used byt he
aminstream posters provide *more* explanations then (most) of the ether
theories.
> Thus the mission becomes of 'converting' the heretical view (as in
> counter to, what you believe is the coprrect) and, as you so
> eloquently put it below, "is to think that we prevent the hypothetical
> aformentioned silent readers to be mislead".
That is importent. The average reader (who has no physics degree) is not
in a position to judge the merits of the arguements.
> Mislead about what, facts? Facts can be looked up and verified by any
> who wish to do so. No be honest, its an ingrained fear (rooted in the
> subconcious) that the 'other' interpetations of those facts, upon
> which your entire world view is based, could lead the those 'silent
> readers' to think differently than what you 'believe' is the correct
> interpetation.
No offense Paul but you sound like a creationist. "Let the students have
the facts then make up there own minds" That arguement is wrong because
the students are unequipped to make the descision. With it's higher
mathmatical content this goes even more for physics.
Let me ask you, how is the average reader (agian who lacks any formal
math/physics training) supposed to decide who is correct regarding the
"speed of gravity" Steve Carlip or Tom van Flandern? Without knowning GR
*any* conclusion that a layman would make would be based to some extent on
reputation alone.
> That, sadly, is religous, not scientific. BTW,
> implicit in the very foundation of that perspective is:
>
> 1. The argument is plausible enough to convince and therefore
> dissuade others
> 2. Those others are somehow incapable of making their own decisions
See above, they are.
> The point is, whether one wants to believe it or not, science is
> fundamentally a form of (here comes the modernist's nightmare)
> metaphysical interpetation of facts.
I would agree with the statement tha evey theory has a underlying
metaphysic assumed. But I don't think that that is what is fundemental.
> In other words, we create for ourselves a mental picture of what all
> of the collected facts 'mean'. That, in the end, what almost all of
> the discourse herein is about, and what you are attempting to
> preserve, the accepted paradigm.
>
> > I had in mind the example of Socrates who is known to have beaten
> > the most famous sophists of his time. But I forgot an essential
> > ingredient: the existence of an external opinion. For Socrates they
> > were the well educated citizens of Athens, since his debates were
> > public. On this newsgroup there is no such thing. There may be a
> > majority of silent readers who are convinced by our arguments but
> > that does not help. On the contrary it may be that the readers are
> > mostly the contributors and then we are really losing our time with
> > our trying to correct people who are too biased to ever admit that
> > they can be wrong. The only motivation which might remain is to think
> > that we prevent the hypothetical aformentioned silent readers to be
> > mislead.
>
> Sorry Luc, called others biased is the ulimate of being hypocritical.
> You do not EVER approach a discussion with anything approaching an
> objective, neutral perspective (at least, I've never seen it). Perhaps
> looking for, and understanding subtlety is not a common trait amoung
> professional physicists???
And Mr. Mingst has been an example of impartial judgement regarding the
top quark? Or Dennis and his hard sphere gas, he's *still* argueing the
same things that I argued with him, do you seriously think he approaches
this stuff with an open mind?
The reason we champion the accepted theory is that it *works*. I can
compute things with it. You cannont do that with the ether theories
advocated here (apart from Ilja's, and possibly your's). Whatever you may
think about its relative importence the ablity to compute is an
*essential* part of any theory.
Luc Bourhis
> On Thu, 28 Sep 2000, Luc Bourhis wrote:
>
>> I am with you Matthew. You did a good job at exposing the ploy of your
>> interlocutor. Mingst's initial claims about "massaging data" were indeed
>> absolutely laughable for anyone involved in particle physics.
>
> Thank's Luc. He's posted a long "analysis" to which I felt tempted to
> respond last night, but I just can't be bothered.
Well, I have been thinking about that recently. When I first came to
this newsgroup I noticed immediately the large amount of sophistry used
by anti-relativists. But I thought naively that well constructed post
backed up by precise facts can defeat any rethoric. I had in mind the
example of Socrates who is known to have beaten the most famous
sophists of his time. But I forgot an essential ingredient: the
existence of an external opinion. For Socrates they were the well
educated citizens of Athens, since his debates were public. On this
newsgroup there is no such thing. There may be a majority of silent
readers who are convinced by our arguments but that does not help. On
the contrary it may be that the readers are mostly the contributors and
then we are really losing our time with our trying to correct people
who are too biased to ever admit that they can be wrong. The only
motivation which might remain is to think that we prevent the
hypothetical aformentioned silent readers to be mislead.
--
Luc Bourhis
Paul Stowe
>
>> On Thu, 28 Sep 2000, Luc Bourhis wrote:
>>
>>> I am with you Matthew. You did a good job at exposing the ploy of
your
>>> interlocutor. Mingst's initial claims about "massaging data" were
indeed
>>> absolutely laughable for anyone involved in particle physics.
>>
>> Thank's Luc. He's posted a long "analysis" to which I felt tempted
to
>> respond last night, but I just can't be bothered.
>
> Well, I have been thinking about that recently. When I first came to
> this newsgroup I noticed immediately the large amount of sophistry
> used by anti-relativists. But I thought naively that well constructed
> post backed up by precise facts can defeat any rethoric.
Precise facts? That IS naive. Fact devoid of framework and some sort
of descriptive connection is useless. It was, since time immortal, a
known fact that water flows downhill, anything released from one's hand
fell, etc, etc, etc. It is ONLY when one attempts to connect these
isolated facts into a cummulative whole does progress towards
understanding occur.
Some may, but most here do not dispute cold hard facts. The dispute
comes in interpetation of what the observed 'facts' actually mean. The
problem with you in particular, and others contributors is, a highly
developed ingrain myopia. Basically there can be no interpetation of
the collections of 'facts' EXCEPT the one that 'you believe' is the
correct one. All others must therefore, by definition, be wrong. Thus
the mission becomes of 'converting' the heretical view (as in counter
to, what you believe is the coprrect) and, as you so eloquently put it
below, "is to think that we prevent the hypothetical aformentioned
silent readers to be mislead".
Mislead about what, facts? Facts can be looked up and verified by any
who wish to do so. No be honest, its an ingrained fear (rooted in the
subconcious) that the 'other' interpetations of those facts, upon which
your entire world view is based, could lead the those 'silent readers'
to think differently than what you 'believe' is the correct
interpetation. That, sadly, is religous, not scientific. BTW,
implicit in the very foundation of that perspective is:
1. The argument is plausible enough to convince and therefore
dissuade others
2. Those others are somehow incapable of making their own decisions
The point is, whether one wants to believe it or not, science is
fundamentally a form of (here comes the modernist's nightmare)
metaphysical interpetation of facts. In other words, we create for
ourselves a mental picture of what all of the collected facts 'mean'.
That, in the end, what almost all of the discourse herein is about, and
what you are attempting to preserve, the accepted paradigm.
> I had in mind the example of Socrates who is known to have beaten
> the most famous sophists of his time. But I forgot an essential
> ingredient: the existence of an external opinion. For Socrates they
> were the well educated citizens of Athens, since his debates were
> public. On this newsgroup there is no such thing. There may be a
> majority of silent readers who are convinced by our arguments but
> that does not help. On the contrary it may be that the readers are
> mostly the contributors and then we are really losing our time with
> our trying to correct people who are too biased to ever admit that
> they can be wrong. The only motivation which might remain is to think
> that we prevent the hypothetical aformentioned silent readers to be
> mislead.
Sorry Luc, called others biased is the ulimate of being hypocritical.
You do not EVER approach a discussion with anything approaching an
objective, neutral perspective (at least, I've never seen it). Perhaps
looking for, and understanding subtlety is not a common trait amoung
professional physicists???
Paul Stowe
Aaron Bergman
> Perhaps looking for, and understanding subtlety is not a
> common trait amoung professional physicists???
Of course not. Mindless obeisence to the status quo is the most
essential prerequisite for any grad school application.
Of course, ever since the mind control device was invented in the
late eighties, we've been able to loosen admissions a bit. They
can always be fixed after they get in.
Aaron
--
Aaron Bergman
<http://www.princeton.edu/~abergman/>
RC
Bourhis <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk> writes
If any "silent readers" become mislead by the words of the netkooks then
they are already "lost". As a consequence of this much time is wasted,
and magazines like "The F****** Times" sell thousands of copies each
month to people who want to believe in ghosts, UFO's and The Ether.
Take from this what you will; in my experience this is the situation
that the world is in. Some people, you just can't get through to.
--
Reason
http://www.earthpoetry.demon.co.uk
RC
Charles Francis
>compute things with it. You cannont do that with the ether theories
>advocated here (apart from Ilja's, and possibly your's). Whatever you may
>think about its relative importence the ablity to compute is an
>*essential* part of any theory.
Yes, this is true. But it is not the reason I champion the accepted
theory, even in a modified form. The cranks bring in other essential
ideas, like the necessity for a certain coherence in the ideas which is
lacking in the accepted theory, but which is generally even more lacking
in their own ideas. Nonetheless this coherence is still essential, and
it is important that we have more than computional accuracy, but
actually a physical model.
Luc Bourhis
> Name one person since 1920 who has won a Nobel prize for publishing
> an observation that was not "predicted" by theory. (Back in the
> early days, Roentgen and Curie found some violations and were
> allowed to report.)
Sticking to particle, nuclear and atomic physics, i.e. the domain of
science in which you think there is a conspiracy to prevent the
publication of results going against theories.
1927: Arthur Holly Compton, for his discovery of the effect named after
him;
1935: J. Chadwick, for the discovery of neutron. The dominant theory at
the end of the 20's was an atom was made of N electrons orbiting about
a nuclei made of 2N protons and N electrons closely packed together.
The discovery of a new highly penetrating radiation by Bothe and Becker
in 1930 was hardly explained by that model. Further experimental
investigation by Joliot-Curie and Chadwick showed that it was a new
neutral particle with approximately the mass of the proton. I am giving
all these details because Rutherford suggested the existence of the
neutron in 1920. Nevertheless Chadwick discovery went against the
dominant theory of his time, which is what matter in the context of
this discussion.
1955: W.E. Lamb, for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of
the hydrogen spectrum;
1976: B. Richter and S.C.C. Ting, for the discovery of the J/Psi meson
I must also cite the discoveries of dozen of completely unforeseen
hadrons (strange mesons and resonances) in the 50's and 60's, even if
they were not directly rewarded by a Nobel prize. However the theorist
Gell-Mann got a Nobel prize in 1969 for his classifications of these
new particles.
>> Nowadays nothing would make a particle experimentalist happier then
>> finding some new paritcle/effect which completely turned the world
>> upside down.
>
> Except that he'd never get it published. So the world would spin on,
> and he wouldn't get tenure if he pushed it.
The discovery of the J/Psi was published. The discoveries of strange
mesons and resonances were published. The discovery that neutrinos were
massive contrary to what told the Standard Model was published. In fact
during the last decade several experimental results contradicting the
Standard Model but which were later found to be experimental artifacts
were also published or presented in international conferences (R_c and
R_b ratio at LEP, excess of high Q^2 events at HERA, very recently
excess of multi-jets events at LEP 2).
Finally I would like to explain how experimental papers in particle
physics are written, reviewed and published since Mr. Mingst has
obviously no clue about that process.
The collaborations managing a detector installed at one of our giant
modern particles accelerators (LEP, HERA, SLAC, TEVATRON) are made of
hundreds of physicists. Some of them are involved in the calibration of
the detectors; other analyzes data. Because the work of each of them is
essential, experimental papers are signed by the entire collaboration
even if the analysis presented in an article has been conducted only by
a small team, let's say about 10, which has also written the paper. It
is just that these blokes use programs written by other member of the
collaboration, that they rely on instrumental set up made by others,
etc.
Then any such paper is internally reviewed within the collaboration by
a special comity. Once these referees -- I repeat that they are
experimental physicists working on that experiment -- are happy with
the paper it is usually sent to the other collaborations working on the
same accelerator beam for a more informal opinion. Finally the paper is
submitted to a journal. It is then always accepted for publication,
very often without even asking for corrections because the paper has
already passed such sorrow examinations.
As a conclusion the decision of publishing an experimental paper is not
in the hand of theorists at all. Experimentalists decide themselves
what they want to publish and nobody can prevent them to have published
results which contradicts blatantly the best theories of their time.
--
Luc Bourhis
C. M. Heard
> Sticking to particle, nuclear and atomic physics, i.e. the domain of
> science in which you think there is a conspiracy to prevent the
> publication of results going against theories.
> 1955: W.E. Lamb, for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of
> the hydrogen spectrum;
Small correction to an otherwise excellent post: the paper announcing
the discovery of the Lamb shift was published in 1947.
W. E. Lamb, Jr., and R. C. Retherford, Phys. Rev. 72, 241 (1947)
This experiment showed that corrections from QED had to be applied to
the Dirac equation in order to get the calculated energy levels of the
hydrogen atom to agree with experiment. If I understand the history
correctly, this was not completely unforseen, but QED was largely
ignored by theorists prior to this time owing to lack of experimental
motivation to develop the mathematical techniques (i.e. renormalization)
to deal with the infinities that inevitably arose in the calculations.
Mike
Bruce Scott TOK
Luc Bourhis <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
>Well, I have been thinking about that recently. When I first came to
>this newsgroup I noticed immediately the large amount of sophistry used
>by anti-relativists. But I thought naively that well constructed post
>backed up by precise facts can defeat any rethoric. I had in mind the
>example of Socrates who is known to have beaten the most famous
>sophists of his time. But I forgot an essential ingredient: the
>existence of an external opinion. For Socrates they were the well
>educated citizens of Athens, since his debates were public. On this
>newsgroup there is no such thing. There may be a majority of silent
>readers who are convinced by our arguments but that does not help. On
>the contrary it may be that the readers are mostly the contributors and
>then we are really losing our time with our trying to correct people
>who are too biased to ever admit that they can be wrong. The only
>motivation which might remain is to think that we prevent the
>hypothetical aformentioned silent readers to be mislead.
A good point... what it means is that one can still do useful things in
these debates if one remembers to write for the benefit of onlookers
rather than the debating partner. You will never convince crackpots of
anything, though your efforts to explain things may be appreciated by
the onlookers.
--
cu,
Bruce
drift wave turbulence: http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~bds/
Matthew Nobes
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000929...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
> thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
> >The reason we champion the accepted theory is that it *works*. I can
> >compute things with it. You cannont do that with the ether theories
> >advocated here (apart from Ilja's, and possibly your's). Whatever you may
> >think about its relative importence the ablity to compute is an
> >*essential* part of any theory.
>
> Yes, this is true. But it is not the reason I champion the accepted
> theory, even in a modified form.
Right, you recognize (as does Ilja) that your thoery *must* reproduce the
currently accepted one in it's domain of comfirmation. (even if the
metaphsyical underpinnings are totally different).
The issue I have is that Paul (and others) don't seem to recgnize the
importence of this. Why should I bother to look at some crank's pet
theory if he cannot use it to reproduce some simple quantities. There
have been several cranks whome I have asked honest questions of, rarely
(though not never) have I gotten a serious anwser.
> The cranks bring in other essential ideas, like the necessity for a
> certain coherence in the ideas which is lacking in the accepted
> theory, but which is generally even more lacking in their own ideas.
> Nonetheless this coherence is still essential, and it is important
> that we have more than computional accuracy, but actually a physical
> model.
The statement "lacking in the accepted theories" bothers me. While I
undrstand that *you* have a problem with the underlying assumptions of
current theory I don't think that makes them incoherent. Based on a small
number of assumptions one can go quite a long way, even if the result is
somewhat metaphysically strange (quantum mechanics).
Anyways that's my 2cents on the issue.
BTW how wsa the foundations of physics conference?
Luc Bourhis
> Luc Bourhis wrote:
>> Sticking to particle, nuclear and atomic physics, i.e. the domain of
>> science in which you think there is a conspiracy to prevent the
>> publication of results going against theories.
> <snip>
>> 1955: W.E. Lamb, for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of
>> the hydrogen spectrum;
>
> Small correction to an otherwise excellent post: the paper announcing
> the discovery of the Lamb shift was published in 1947.
Thanks for pointing out this lack of clarity of mine: I have given the
Nobel prize years and not the discovery years.
> W. E. Lamb, Jr., and R. C. Retherford, Phys. Rev. 72, 241 (1947)
>
> This experiment showed that corrections from QED had to be applied to
> the Dirac equation in order to get the calculated energy levels of the
> hydrogen atom to agree with experiment. If I understand the history
> correctly, this was not completely unforseen, but QED was largely
> ignored by theorists prior to this time owing to lack of experimental
> motivation to develop the mathematical techniques (i.e. renormalization)
> to deal with the infinities that inevitably arose in the calculations.
That's exactly what Weinberg related in the first chapter of his book
"The Quantum Theory of Fields".
--
Luc Bourhis
Jon Bell
Luc Bourhis <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
>greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> Name one person since 1920 who has won a Nobel prize for publishing
>> an observation that was not "predicted" by theory. (Back in the
>> early days, Roentgen and Curie found some violations and were
>> allowed to report.)
>
[snip good list]
Here's another one: the discovery of CP-symmetry violation by Fitch and
Cronin in, what was it, 1964? I don't think *that* was expected by the
"establishment", although a few theorists may have speculated about the
possibility.
--
Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA
[ Questions about newsgroups? Visit http://www.geocities.com/nnqweb/ ]
[ or ask in news:news.newusers.questions ]
Paul Stowe
Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> writes:
>
>On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, Charles Francis wrote:
>
>> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000929...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
>> thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
>>
>> > theories advocated here (apart from Ilja's, and possibly your's).
>> > Whatever you may think about its relative importence the ablity
>> > to compute is an *essential* part of any theory.
>>
>> theory, even in a modified form.
>
> the currently accepted one in it's domain of comfirmation. (even if
> the metaphsyical underpinnings are totally different).
>
> the importence of this.
Question (in all seriousness), what gave/gives this impression? Could
be a blind spot in my presentation style but it certainly not the case.
If you could take a moment and think about the process one goes through
in considering if a metaphysical concept is compatible, what are the
stages? I'll state my criteria but would first like to see what others
think. This may in fact be a key to understanding the differences in
thought processes that occur with the so-called alternate proponents.
It may be interesting...?
> Why should I bother to look at some crank's pet theory if he cannot
> use it to reproduce some simple quantities. There have been several
> cranks whome I have asked honest questions of, rarely (though not
> never) have I gotten a serious anwser.
Sometimes, ideas and concepts (as in metaphysical) can joggle one's
thinking into areas that one isn't generally inclined to go, normally.
But only if one is not immediately inclined do dismiss anything
different.
Many times I think the proponent of an idea is seeking genuine
assistance in fleshing out their ideas. If all they receive is
derision and redicule, they'll either respond in kind (defensive
hostility) or give up and go away. Alas, the truly rebellious types
will usually fall into the former category.
>> The cranks bring in other essential ideas, like the necessity for a
>> certain coherence in the ideas which is lacking in the accepted
>> theory, but which is generally even more lacking in their own ideas.
>> Nonetheless this coherence is still essential, and it is important
>> that we have more than computional accuracy, but actually a physical
>> model.
>
> The statement "lacking in the accepted theories" bothers me. While I
> undrstand that *you* have a problem with the underlying assumptions
> of current theory I don't think that makes them incoherent. Based on
> a small number of assumptions one can go quite a long way, even if
> the result is somewhat metaphysically strange (quantum mechanics).
It does in some arenas. As in, QM verses GR.
> Anyways that's my 2 cents on the issue.
BTW's I'll respond to other posts as I can get to them. There's been a
lot of traffic in the past day or so and I try not to be superficial
(and substantive posts that time and effort).
Paul Stowe
Matthew Nobes
> In <Pine.GSO.4.21.000930...@fraser.sfu.ca> Matthew
> Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> writes:
> >
> >On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, Charles Francis wrote:
> >
> >> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000929...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
> >> thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
> >>
> >> > The reason we champion the accepted theory is that it *works*.
> >> > I can compute things with it. You cannot do that with the ether
> >> > theories advocated here (apart from Ilja's, and possibly your's).
> >> > Whatever you may think about its relative importence the ablity
> >> > to compute is an *essential* part of any theory.
> >>
> >> Yes, this is true. But it is not the reason I champion the accepted
> >> theory, even in a modified form.
> >
> > Right, you recognize (as does Ilja) that your theory *must* reproduce
> > the currently accepted one in it's domain of comfirmation. (even if
> > the metaphsyical underpinnings are totally different).
> >
> > The issue I have is that Paul (and others) don't seem to recognize
> > the importence of this.
>
> Question (in all seriousness), what gave/gives this impression? Could
> be a blind spot in my presentation style but it certainly not the case.
The point is that what seems to interest you is the underpinnings of the
theory *not* the predictive ability. The *test* of the theory is in the
details *not* in the broad scope of things. That's why I challenged you
to compute the gamma+gamma -> gamma + gamma scattering cross
section. That is a non-trival test of a theory.
> If you could take a moment and think about the process one goes through
> in considering if a metaphysical concept is compatible, what are the
> stages? I'll state my criteria but would first like to see what others
> think. This may in fact be a key to understanding the differences in
> thought processes that occur with the so-called alternate proponents.
> It may be interesting...?
Sure it might be.
To tell you the truth, the way I do it is to master the compuational
aspects of the theory first, then worry about the metaphsysics. I
useually find that the metaphysics I picked up along the way (while
learning the computational aspects) serves me just fine.
But... I honestly don't care what metaphysics you want to tack onto a
theory. The only two ways you can judge a theory are mathmatical
consistentcy and experiments.
> > Why should I bother to look at some crank's pet theory if he cannot
> > use it to reproduce some simple quantities. There have been several
> > cranks whome I have asked honest questions of, rarely (though not
> > never) have I gotten a serious anwser.
>
> Sometimes, ideas and concepts (as in metaphysical) can joggle one's
> thinking into areas that one isn't generally inclined to go, normally.
> But only if one is not immediately inclined do dismiss anything
> different.
That doesn't answer my question. Take (for example) when I asked Dennis
to explain the two slit experiment. First I get a *TWO*MONTH* smeantic
arguement about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Dennis didn't want
to talk about the content of the HUP (since I proved his interpretation of
it was wrong in my first post) he wanted (yes wanted, all he wanted to do
was argue) to argue about what Heisenberg was thinking at the time.
Then after we finally get that out of the way, do I get the explaantion of
the two-slit expeirment? Not unless you count wads of veribiage as an
explanation.
I can, starting with basic QM, explain *exactly* what happens in the two
slit expeirment (see my website) in a page or two of algebra. Yet Dennis
needs a whole post just for some handwavy explanation with *no* acutal
prediction (by prediction I meant the intensity at point X will be Y
(where Y is a number)). This is worthless, it isn't going to jog my
thinking, it's just a demonstration that Dennis just wants to argue.
Another example. There was a crank on sci.physics.particle, who had some
theory, supposedly to replace QCD. I asked a list of simple questions,
things I can compute with QCD in a few pages. I get things like "well
that would take too long to do with my theory." Well if that's the case
then why should I bother? QCD works just fine, and if the price of a
different metaphysics is a loss in predictive power then whats the point?
> Many times I think the proponent of an idea is seeking genuine
> assistance in fleshing out their ideas. If all they receive is
> derision and redicule, they'll either respond in kind (defensive
> hostility) or give up and go away. Alas, the truly rebellious types
> will usually fall into the former category.
The truly rebellious (those who want to change the field) will go out an
get phsycis degrees. Totally *master* the accepted theory, *then* (and
only then) find the flaws.
As for the rest, I try to be respectful at first glance. I have a "stock
list" of questions I ask when a crank posts on sci.physics.particle. Gues
what? None of them have every really considered my questions
importent. This baffles me as they all basically boil down to "can your
theory reproduce the observed properties of elementary particles?"
What do you think I should do? I don't have the time to teach an online
course in QCD (I'd love too, but there's just too much), and I do feel
some obligation to people seeking legitamate knowledge. They deserve to
know that the crank theories are generally devoid of predictive ability
(and hence are not science as tradionally defined).
> >> The cranks bring in other essential ideas, like the necessity for a
> >> certain coherence in the ideas which is lacking in the accepted
> >> theory, but which is generally even more lacking in their own ideas.
> >> Nonetheless this coherence is still essential, and it is important
> >> that we have more than computional accuracy, but actually a physical
> >> model.
> >
> > The statement "lacking in the accepted theories" bothers me. While I
> > undrstand that *you* have a problem with the underlying assumptions
> > of current theory I don't think that makes them incoherent. Based on
> > a small number of assumptions one can go quite a long way, even if
> > the result is somewhat metaphysically strange (quantum mechanics).
>
> It does in some arenas. As in, QM verses GR.
That's a red herring. It's like comparing apples and oranges, GR is a
classical field theory, it is automatically in conflict with QM since it
is deterministic.
It's like saying that classical E&M is inconsitent with QM. Of course it
is! it's classical.
> > Anyways that's my 2 cents on the issue.
>
> BTW's I'll respond to other posts as I can get to them. There's been a
> lot of traffic in the past day or so and I try not to be superficial
> (and substantive posts that time and effort).
Fine, I'll keep my eyes open. I really do want to know what you think of
Mr. Mingst's "arguements" concerning to top quark. It should be
instructive.
Hendrik van Hees
> Here's another one: the discovery of CP-symmetry violation by Fitch and
> Cronin in, what was it, 1964? I don't think *that* was expected by the
> "establishment", although a few theorists may have speculated about the
> possibility.
There is also the urban legend that Pauli heard of Mrs. Wu's experiment
concerning parity non concervation in weak interactions (the famous
experiment with Co showing that the anti-neutrino comes out as right
handed) and said "Oh, I don't have to go there, because it's clear that
parity is not violated". Some said that was good for the experiment
because Pauli was known to produce the so called Pauli effect, meaning
the the appearence of him in the city was enough to give wrong results
in any experiment undertaken at this time ;-)).
Another story is that Stern (the famous experimenter most known by the
Stern-Gerlach apparatus measuring the magnetic moment of the electron
and showing important features of quantum mechanics concerning the spin,
I think this experiment was done around 1927 in Frankfurt ;-)) asked at
a conference where the most prominent theoreticians in quantum theory
were around what their guess for the magnetic moment of the proton is.
Of course most of them answered 1 nuclear magneton (i.e. the famous
gyro-factor of 2 coming from Dirac's equation for spin-1/2-particles).
As is well known Stern found out that this is not true and the first
clear indication that the proton is not an elementary particle but
composed out of pratons (which of course much later became explained by
the parton model and even later as valence quarks).
As you might see physics is always a collaboration between theory and
experiment. Its only the complexity of both theory and experiment that a
single physicist has to decide wether he wants to deal with theory or
experiment. For the physics as such there is no such distinction. There
is only one science called physics and there is no possibility of
physics without experiments or without theory!
--
Hendrik van Hees Phone: ++49 6159 71-2751
c/o GSI-Darmstadt SB3 3.183 Fax: ++49 6159 71-2990
Planckstr. 1 mailto:h.va...@gsi.de
D-64291 Darmstadt http://theory.gsi.de/~vanhees/index.html
Charles Francis
thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
>On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, Charles Francis wrote:
>
>> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.000929...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
>> thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
>> >compute things with it. You cannont do that with the ether theories
>> >advocated here (apart from Ilja's, and possibly your's). Whatever you may
>> >think about its relative importence the ablity to compute is an
>> >*essential* part of any theory.
>>
>> theory, even in a modified form.
>
>currently accepted one in it's domain of comfirmation. (even if the
>metaphsyical underpinnings are totally different).
>
>theory if he cannot use it to reproduce some simple quantities. There
>have been several cranks whome I have asked honest questions of, rarely
>(though not never) have I gotten a serious anwser.
Quite. You shouldn't. Actually the cranks really piss me off like this.
Everytime you waste time looking at a crank theory, you are less likely
to look seriously at something that does work, or try to understand the
reasons why it is necessary.
>
>> The cranks bring in other essential ideas, like the necessity for a
>> certain coherence in the ideas which is lacking in the accepted
>> theory, but which is generally even more lacking in their own ideas.
>> Nonetheless this coherence is still essential, and it is important
>> that we have more than computional accuracy, but actually a physical
>> model.
>
>The statement "lacking in the accepted theories" bothers me. While I
>undrstand that *you* have a problem with the underlying assumptions of
>current theory I don't think that makes them incoherent. Based on a small
>number of assumptions one can go quite a long way, even if the result is
>somewhat metaphysically strange (quantum mechanics).
QM is more than metaphysically strange. You only have to start looking
seriously at interpretation to recognise that it is (in almost all of
its forms) an instance of the incoherance I am talking about. And if one
does take a consistent view that it is only a means of calculation, but
we don't know why it works, then obviously one should ask the question
"why does it work?". And with a question like that hanging over it, in
may not actually be incoherent, but it is not fully coherent either.
Other instances where I find standard ideas seriously lack coherence are
in the apparent incompatibilities between qm, and gr (they are not
really incompatible at all, but people don't think about them clearly
enough) in the relational foundation of special relativity, which is
promptly dropped as soon as you try to do any serious with it, the fact
that so called experts on qft like Glimme & Jaffe start of their book
with a demonstration that they do not even understand basic quantum
mechanics, or its relation to classical mechanics, and then they think
they can talk about constructing field theory!
>BTW how wsa the foundations of physics conference?
>
It was good, thanks.
Charles Francis
>theory. The only two ways you can judge a theory are mathmatical
>consistentcy and experiments.
Then how can you judge for example Bohmian mechanics, or Everett? These
do not differ in mathematical consistency or experimental accuracy.
Mathematical consistency only tells you that the squiggles that you
write on a piece of paper do not contradict themselves, it says nothing
about whether they can mean anything. And we have known at least since
Leibniz that experiment is not enough to define a theory. You must be
able to interpret a theory by means of a meaningful metaphysic with no
gaping holes (for example, the edges of a flat earth, or in Bohmian
mechanics the statement *that* the distributed wave affects the point
particle is not adequate, Bohmians must say *how* it happens
mechanically).
>Another example. There was a crank on sci.physics.particle, who had some
>theory, supposedly to replace QCD. I asked a list of simple questions,
>things I can compute with QCD in a few pages. I get things like "well
>that would take too long to do with my theory." Well if that's the case
>then why should I bother? QCD works just fine, and if the price of a
>different metaphysics is a loss in predictive power then whats the point?
QCD cannot conclusively predict quark confinement, and the explanation
for jets still appears to me ropey as hell. And in the past I've seen
Zweig's rule "explained" with dodgy diagrams. Also it tends to attribute
colour to a physical property, but actually if you do a careful enough
Fock space construction, it just seems to be an artefact from trying to
get maths to model physics.
>> Many times I think the proponent of an idea is seeking genuine
>> assistance in fleshing out their ideas. If all they receive is
>> derision and redicule, they'll either respond in kind (defensive
>> hostility) or give up and go away. Alas, the truly rebellious types
>> will usually fall into the former category.
>The truly rebellious (those who want to change the field) will go out an
>get phsycis degrees. Totally *master* the accepted theory, *then* (and
>only then) find the flaws.
And how shall ye know them? Actually this is far tougher than it ever
has been. You don't just need a degree, or even a PhD, but some years of
study beyond. And if you are truly rebellious, then you have rather more
obstacles to learning it than if you can accept it parrot fashion. Yes,
ideally one would accept it parrot fashion first, then try and rewrite
it. But that leads to other problems, like learning to take for granted
parts of the orthodox theory that genuinely and truly do not make sense,
or the acceptance of a paradigm in which quantisation is accepted, where
only rigorous mathematical argument from postulates should be allowed
(it is quite possible to replace quantisation with such argument in an
axiomatic approach to qm)
>As for the rest, I try to be respectful at first glance. I have a "stock
>list" of questions I ask when a crank posts on sci.physics.particle. Gues
>what? None of them have every really considered my questions
>importent. This baffles me as they all basically boil down to "can your
>theory reproduce the observed properties of elementary particles?"
It is good to have a quick way of separating the wheat from the chaff.
>What do you think I should do? I don't have the time to teach an online
>course in QCD (I'd love too, but there's just too much), and I do feel
>some obligation to people seeking legitamate knowledge. They deserve to
>know that the crank theories are generally devoid of predictive ability
>(and hence are not science as tradionally defined).
Mostly I think people reading NGs do it for the fun of the exchanges. I
don't think many of them take them seriously as a source of knowledge.
There are those, like myself, who use them as a source of knowledge, (as
well as hopefully dissemination). But to do that it is necessary to be
discriminating. For example I have bought a number of books you
recommended, whereas I would not have known which books to buy
otherwise. And what you have told me about the experimental accuracy of
qcd helps to direct my thoughts.
But I also think the discussion should be useful as a means of helping
one to work things out for oneself. This seems difficult with cranks,
who tend to get hung up on one point, and it can also be difficult with
orthodox theorists who often cannot think outside text book lines. But
generally I find that in the discussions there is much prospect of
clarifying ideas, and only when they are clarified should one really try
to advance on them.
>> It does in some arenas. As in, QM verses GR.
>
>That's a red herring. It's like comparing apples and oranges, GR is a
>classical field theory, it is automatically in conflict with QM since it
>is deterministic.
>
>It's like saying that classical E&M is inconsitent with QM. Of course it
>is! it's classical.
That is a false notion of inconsistency in physical theory. I can derive
Maxwell's equations of classical electrodynamics as the expectation of
the operators j and A in qed, just as one can derive Newton's law of
gravity from the equations of gtr. This is not inconsistency, just
specification of applicability.
When we talk of the inconsistency of qm & gr we are not talking of the
fact that we do not know how to find both of them in the same theory. Of
course really qm and gr are not inconsistent, but many people try to
talk of things like "the wave function of the universe", which just
don't work, and as soon as you bring anything into these theories that
has no right to be there, they break down.
--
Luc Bourhis
>> greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>
>>> Name one person since 1920 who has won a Nobel prize for publishing
>>> an observation that was not "predicted" by theory. (Back in the
>>> early days, Roentgen and Curie found some violations and were
>>> allowed to report.)
>>
> Here's another one: the discovery of CP-symmetry violation by Fitch and
> Cronin in, what was it, 1964? I don't think *that* was expected by the
> "establishment", although a few theorists may have speculated about the
> possibility.
Nobel prize in 1980, discovery in 1964 indeed and the result was not
foreseen at all as far as I know. It was already known that parity was
violated but it was believed that CP was conserved so that time
reversal remained a symmetry such as to preserve CPT-invariance, which
is a theorem of Quantum Field Theory.
I forgot also in my list the discovery of the tau, in 1974 at SLAC.
Martin Perl got the Nobel Prize 1995 for that. That makes a total of 6
Nobel Prizes in the domain of particle physics won by experimentalists
for a discovery not predicted by theorists. So much for the stupid
challenge of Mr. Mingst. The problem was not to find such kind of
discoveries but to remember who got a Nobel prize for them actually !!
--
Luc Bourhis
Matthew Nobes
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.001001...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
> thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
> >
> >But... I honestly don't care what metaphysics you want to tack onto a
> >theory. The only two ways you can judge a theory are mathmatical
> >consistentcy and experiments.
>
> Then how can you judge for example Bohmian mechanics, or Everett? These
> do not differ in mathematical consistency or experimental accuracy.
To be honest I don't judge these things. If they are as predictive as he
stndard probabilistic interpretation, and make some segment of the
population feel better then that's just fine. I *do* have a problem with
Bohmian mechanics since it is incompatible with relativity unless you
assume a prefered frame.
> Mathematical consistency only tells you that the squiggles that you
> write on a piece of paper do not contradict themselves, it says nothing
> about whether they can mean anything. And we have known at least since
> Leibniz that experiment is not enough to define a theory. You must be
> able to interpret a theory by means of a meaningful metaphysic with no
> gaping holes (for example, the edges of a flat earth, or in Bohmian
> mechanics the statement *that* the distributed wave affects the point
> particle is not adequate, Bohmians must say *how* it happens
> mechanically).
I disagree with the second piece of this. To be a scietific theory
Bohmian mechanics can make whatever postulates it likes, provided it
agrees with expeirments and is consistent.
> >Another example. There was a crank on sci.physics.particle, who had some
> >theory, supposedly to replace QCD. I asked a list of simple questions,
> >things I can compute with QCD in a few pages. I get things like "well
> >that would take too long to do with my theory." Well if that's the case
> >then why should I bother? QCD works just fine, and if the price of a
> >different metaphysics is a loss in predictive power then whats the point?
>
> QCD cannot conclusively predict quark confinement,
Umm, Charles, you own Montvay and Munster, you should look at section 3.5
before you make any judgements.
> and the explanation for jets still appears to me ropey as hell.
That's fairly well understood but rather complicated. I have this funny
feeling that Luc Bourhis should comment on this point..
> And in the past I've seen Zweig's rule "explained" with dodgy
> diagrams.
??? This I don't undertsnad. Zweig's rule can be understood using the
1/N_{c} expansion.
I think Warren Siegal's textbook (FREE at hep-th/9912205) covers this.
> Also it tends to attribute colour to a physical property, but actually
> if you do a careful enough Fock space construction, it just seems to
> be an artefact from trying to get maths to model physics.
Again this statment confuses me. There is a section in Peskin and
Schroeder (in chapter five IIRC) which discusses the quantity
S(e^{+}e^{-} -> hadrons)
R= --------------------------- S is a total cross section
S(e^{+}e^{-} -> e^{+}e^{-})
There is a very conspicous factor of three in this quantity for
colour. ANd sure enough it agrees with experiment.
> >> Many times I think the proponent of an idea is seeking genuine
> >> assistance in fleshing out their ideas. If all they receive is
> >> derision and redicule, they'll either respond in kind (defensive
> >> hostility) or give up and go away. Alas, the truly rebellious types
> >> will usually fall into the former category.
>
> >The truly rebellious (those who want to change the field) will go out an
> >get phsycis degrees. Totally *master* the accepted theory, *then* (and
> >only then) find the flaws.
>
> And how shall ye know them? Actually this is far tougher than it ever
> has been. You don't just need a degree, or even a PhD, but some years
> of study beyond.
On this we agree.
> And if you are truly rebellious, then you have rather more obstacles
> to learning it than if you can accept it parrot fashion. Yes, ideally
> one would accept it parrot fashion first, then try and rewrite it. But
> that leads to other problems, like learning to take for granted parts
> of the orthodox theory that genuinely and truly do not make sense, or
> the acceptance of a paradigm in which quantisation is accepted, where
> only rigorous mathematical argument from postulates should be allowed
> (it is quite possible to replace quantisation with such argument in an
> axiomatic approach to qm)
Well, I don't know about in general but my first year graduate QM class
was the axiomatic approach to QM (al la Wigner). I think this is fairly
typical.
> >As for the rest, I try to be respectful at first glance. I have a "stock
> >list" of questions I ask when a crank posts on sci.physics.particle. Gues
> >what? None of them have every really considered my questions
> >importent. This baffles me as they all basically boil down to "can your
> >theory reproduce the observed properties of elementary particles?"
>
> It is good to have a quick way of separating the wheat from the chaff.
>
> >What do you think I should do? I don't have the time to teach an online
> >course in QCD (I'd love too, but there's just too much), and I do feel
> >some obligation to people seeking legitamate knowledge. They deserve to
> >know that the crank theories are generally devoid of predictive ability
> >(and hence are not science as tradionally defined).
>
> Mostly I think people reading NGs do it for the fun of the exchanges. I
> don't think many of them take them seriously as a source of knowledge.
This is not nesscessarly true. A high-school student/freshman college
student might legitmatly come here seeking knowledge.
> There are those, like myself, who use them as a source of knowledge, (as
> well as hopefully dissemination). But to do that it is necessary to be
> discriminating. For example I have bought a number of books you
> recommended, whereas I would not have known which books to buy
> otherwise. And what you have told me about the experimental accuracy of
> qcd helps to direct my thoughts.
But you (unlike a crank) recognize that I have specialized knowledge (not
much though :( I'm still learning).
> But I also think the discussion should be useful as a means of helping
> one to work things out for oneself. This seems difficult with cranks,
> who tend to get hung up on one point, and it can also be difficult with
> orthodox theorists who often cannot think outside text book lines. But
> generally I find that in the discussions there is much prospect of
> clarifying ideas, and only when they are clarified should one really try
> to advance on them.
Well, you approach things from a more philosophical perspective. To me
the main issue is "working the theory." Getting predictions, agreeing
with expeiments, that sort of thing.
> >> It does in some arenas. As in, QM verses GR.
> >
> >That's a red herring. It's like comparing apples and oranges, GR is a
> >classical field theory, it is automatically in conflict with QM since it
> >is deterministic.
> >
> >It's like saying that classical E&M is inconsitent with QM. Of course it
> >is! it's classical.
>
> That is a false notion of inconsistency in physical theory. I can derive
> Maxwell's equations of classical electrodynamics as the expectation of
> the operators j and A in qed, just as one can derive Newton's law of
> gravity from the equations of gtr. This is not inconsistency, just
> specification of applicability.
That's not my point.
> When we talk of the inconsistency of qm & gr we are not talking of the
> fact that we do not know how to find both of them in the same theory. Of
> course really qm and gr are not inconsistent, but many people try to
> talk of things like "the wave function of the universe", which just
> don't work, and as soon as you bring anything into these theories that
> has no right to be there, they break down.
That is roughly what I mean. There is no "deeper theory" (presumably
quantum) from which recover GR.
Charles Francis
thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
>On Sun, 1 Oct 2000, Charles Francis wrote:
>
>> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.001001...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
>> thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
>> >
>
>Bohmian mechanics can make whatever postulates it likes, provided it
>agrees with expeirments and is consistent.
I expect we will have to agree to differ, unfortunately. I sincerely
hold that there are more requirements on a complete theory of matter.
The problems for my position is that we simply do not have such a
theory, and no one has succeeded in demonstrating a set of criteria so I
cannot even show basic existence theorems for my position. Nonetheless I
cannot believe in studying the universe if, at the end of the day, all
we are going to get is a stack of formulae which give the right answers
but don't make sense.
>
>> >Another example. There was a crank on sci.physics.particle, who had some
>> >theory, supposedly to replace QCD. I asked a list of simple questions,
>> >things I can compute with QCD in a few pages. I get things like "well
>> >that would take too long to do with my theory." Well if that's the case
>> >then why should I bother? QCD works just fine, and if the price of a
>> >different metaphysics is a loss in predictive power then whats the point?
>>
>> QCD cannot conclusively predict quark confinement,
>
>Umm, Charles, you own Montvay and Munster, you should look at section 3.5
>before you make any judgements.
Fair enough. I was relying on the judgement of Jaffe & Witten, in their
write up for the millenium prize.
>> Also it tends to attribute colour to a physical property, but actually
>> if you do a careful enough Fock space construction, it just seems to
>> be an artefact from trying to get maths to model physics.
>
>Again this statment confuses me. There is a section in Peskin and
>Schroeder (in chapter five IIRC) which discusses the quantity
>
> S(e^{+}e^{-} -> hadrons)
>R= --------------------------- S is a total cross section
> S(e^{+}e^{-} -> e^{+}e^{-})
>
>There is a very conspicous factor of three in this quantity for
>colour. ANd sure enough it agrees with experiment.
Perhaps I was daft, and I will pay attention when I get to this bit, but
last time I came across this factor it appeared to me that it came about
because we write baryons as matrices
(q1)
(q2)
(q3)
and then we have to (anti)symmetrise them
>
(q1) (q2) (q3) (q1) (q3) (q2)
(q2) + (q3) + (q1) - (q3) - (q2) - (q1)
(q3) (q1) (q2) (q2) (q1) (q3)
then when we describe interactions we have to have terms which couple to
each of the three rows, so colour appears to me to be nothing more than
a statement that there are three positions in the matrices, top, middle
and bottom. I get very concerned about this sort of thing, because I
always feel that the text books leave out so much necessary detail that
I can't trust their conclusions, and I know I'm pretty fallible too, so
I can't trust mine either.
>> And if you are truly rebellious, then you have rather more obstacles
>> to learning it than if you can accept it parrot fashion. Yes, ideally
>> one would accept it parrot fashion first, then try and rewrite it. But
>> that leads to other problems, like learning to take for granted parts
>> of the orthodox theory that genuinely and truly do not make sense, or
>> the acceptance of a paradigm in which quantisation is accepted, where
>> only rigorous mathematical argument from postulates should be allowed
>> (it is quite possible to replace quantisation with such argument in an
>> axiomatic approach to qm)
>
>Well, I don't know about in general but my first year graduate QM class
>was the axiomatic approach to QM (al la Wigner). I think this is fairly
>typical.
I don't know what is typical. And I confess I am not familiar with
Wigner's axioms. As a graduate I had to resort to digging up the
Birkhoff-Von Neumann paper, and seeking out books like Jauch and
D'Espagnat.
>>
>> Mostly I think people reading NGs do it for the fun of the exchanges. I
>> don't think many of them take them seriously as a source of knowledge.
>
>This is not nesscessarly true. A high-school student/freshman college
>student might legitmatly come here seeking knowledge.
>
<snip>
If the high school student knows enough to be discriminating, then he
can learn on the newsgroup. If not then he may be destined to become a
crank. The problem is that while you can teach him if he is
discriminating, you probably can't teach him to be discriminating. The
NG's do regularly get splattered with warnings about cranks and disputed
theories. So just do what you feel you have time for, seems to be
constructive, and can enjoy doing. Beyond that, you have to leave it to
the others. So long as a number of knowledgeable people are on the NGs,
there is always the prospect that they are educational.
>> But I also think the discussion should be useful as a means of helping
>> one to work things out for oneself. This seems difficult with cranks,
>> who tend to get hung up on one point, and it can also be difficult with
>> orthodox theorists who often cannot think outside text book lines. But
>> generally I find that in the discussions there is much prospect of
>> clarifying ideas, and only when they are clarified should one really try
>> to advance on them.
>
>Well, you approach things from a more philosophical perspective. To me
>the main issue is "working the theory." Getting predictions, agreeing
>with expeiments, that sort of thing.
Yes. For me the main thing is a conceptual understanding. As an amateur
I almost have the luxury of not needing to calculate - except that I
must know that calculations agree with the facts. What you do is a
necessary part of testing theory, but it is not for me the purpose of
theory. I guess I don't really understand your position, since it
involves a great deal of work to which, from a philosophical
perspective, my response would be "why bother?" So, I guess I should ask
"Why bother?"
Charles Francis
spake Luc Bourhis <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk>
>
>I forgot also in my list the discovery of the tau, in 1974 at SLAC.
>Martin Perl got the Nobel Prize 1995 for that. That makes a total of 6
>Nobel Prizes in the domain of particle physics won by experimentalists
>for a discovery not predicted by theorists. So much for the stupid
>challenge of Mr. Mingst. The problem was not to find such kind of
>discoveries but to remember who got a Nobel prize for them actually !!
And I thought you did pretty well.
Perhaps if Mr. Mingst had asked whether any one ever got a Nobel prize
for experimental work which was entirely in line with the theoretical
predictions of the time, or for theoretical work which was entirely in
agreement with current models he might have realised that he was being a
touch silly.
Charles Francis
Francis <cha...@clef.demon.co.uk>
>>> QCD cannot conclusively predict quark confinement,
>>
>>Umm, Charles, you own Montvay and Munster, you should look at section 3.5
>>before you make any judgements.
>
>Fair enough. I was relying on the judgement of Jaffe & Witten, in their
>write up for the millenium prize.
And also, you raised a point about the analysis showing some sort of
dependency on the lattice, which should not be the case. And if it was
the case I think you said it raises a problem that the same analysis
should work in qed. Which it doesn't. (Anyway, I don't have any of my
own judgement on this, and I'm not claiming to).
>
>>
>>There is a very conspicous factor of three in this quantity for
>>colour. ANd sure enough it agrees with experiment.
>
>Perhaps I was daft, and I will pay attention when I get to this bit, but
>last time I came across this factor it appeared to me that it came about
>because we write baryons as matrices
>
> (q1)
> (q2)
> (q3)
>
>and then we have to (anti)symmetrise them
>>
> (q1) (q2) (q3) (q1) (q3) (q2)
> (q2) + (q3) + (q1) - (q3) - (q2) - (q1)
> (q3) (q1) (q2) (q2) (q1) (q3)
>
>then when we describe interactions we have to have terms which couple to
>each of the three rows, so colour appears to me to be nothing more than
>a statement that there are three positions in the matrices, top, middle
>and bottom. I get very concerned about this sort of thing, because I
>always feel that the text books leave out so much necessary detail that
>I can't trust their conclusions, and I know I'm pretty fallible too, so
>I can't trust mine either.
>
Sorry, my fallibility is showing. the above analysis depends our right
to symmetrise between the quarks
(q1) (q2) (q3) (q1) (q3) (q2)
(q2) + (q3) + (q1) + (q3) + (q2) + (q1)
(q3) (q1) (q2) (q2) (q1) (q3)
while at the same time using anticommutators for creation and
annihilation operators for baryons. It seems to me that we can use these
parastatistics in a physical model in which creation and annihilation
operators for individual quarks do not exist (and which quark
confinement is therefor automatic).
I must admit the whole thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable. I find
it very difficult to come to terms with the notion that we inevitibly
have to describe hadrons using a mathematical formalism of matrices in
which there are definite positions, and yet I am quite sure that
metaphysically no such matrix structure exists internally to a hadron. I
feel that when there are issues quite so subtle and difficult to think
on as this, really one should stick to an absolutely rigorous logical
analysis and proceed with incredible caution, rather than leap to
answers as though the maths were trivially correct.
Programmer Dude
> But I thought naively that well constructed post backed up by precise
> facts can defeat any rethoric.
Heh. You must be new to the internet. ;-|
> There may be a majority of silent readers who are convinced by our
> arguments but that does not help.
Okay, silent reader speaking up. I haven't before, because while I've
been fascinated by relativity and the quantum world most of my life,
it's no more than a hobby...I'd be *embarrassed* to speak up here! My
knowledge is non-existent compared to the likes of Mr. Nobes, Mr. Carr
and so many others.
But if it helps to know we're here, I can speak up.
> On the contrary it may be that the readers are mostly the contributors
> and then we are really losing our time with our trying to correct people
> who are too biased to ever admit that they can be wrong. The only
> motivation which might remain is to think that we prevent the
> hypothetical aformentioned silent readers to be mislead.
Unfortunately, there is no way to judge the number of lurkers.
I'm here, and I can say that it's not terribly hard to differentiate the
kooks from the legits. The writing style and personal behavior alone
can be enough. There are many "tells" when it comes to kooks.
I think it's important for the record to debunk the bullpucky, but there
isn't much point in belaboring it *unless* you enjoy it or want to sharpen
your debate skills. What's the old saying about wrestling in the mud with
a pig? You'll get all dirty, and the pig likes it.
Anyway, I enjoy "eavesdropping" on the experts in this area, and I suspect
there are many other lurkers who do as well.
p.s.
FWIW, I'm in sci.physics.particle... sci.physics.relativity is a little
too kook-filled for my taste and too busy for my ability to keep up on
the reading.
--
|_ CJSonnack <Ch...@Sonnack.com> _____________| How's my programming? |
|_ http://www.Sonnack.com/ ___________________| Call: 1-800-DEV-NULL |
|_____________________________________________|_______________________|
Opinions expressed herein are my own and may not represent those of my employer.
Jerry Freedman Jr
>
> p.s.
> FWIW, I'm in sci.physics.particle... sci.physics.relativity is a
little
> too kook-filled for my taste and too busy for my ability to keep up on
> the reading.
>
As a fellow lurker, I recommend sci.physics.research - has almost no
cranks and has some high rollers like John Baez who are more than ready
to explain things ( if you haven't read a Baez explanation well...you're
in for a treat). Plus it has some good questioneers who act as stand ins
for us lurkers who ask good questions and keep Baez, Bartels and his
buddies on their toes.
J. Freedman,Jr
--
Creation took 6 days because God didn't
have an installed base
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Aaron Bergman
<cha...@clef.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I must admit the whole thing makes me profoundly
> uncomfortable. I find it very difficult to come to terms with
> the notion that we inevitibly have to describe hadrons using a
> mathematical formalism of matrices in which there are definite
> positions,
Don't think of them as matrices. Think of them as sections of an
associated vector bundle to the principal bundle associated with
the gauge group.
> and yet I am quite sure that metaphysically no such
> matrix structure exists internally to a hadron.
I don't trust metaphysical assumptions much farther than I can
throw them.
Matthew Nobes
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.001001...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
> thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
> >On Sun, 1 Oct 2000, Charles Francis wrote:
> >
> >> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.001001...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
> >> thus spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
> >> >
> >
> >I disagree with the second piece of this. To be a scietific theory
> >Bohmian mechanics can make whatever postulates it likes, provided it
> >agrees with expeirments and is consistent.
>
> I expect we will have to agree to differ, unfortunately.
Probably. It's not that I don't find the metaphsycis interesting or
useful (i.e. I don't personaly find Bohmian mechanics very convincing) I
don't think that it can be used to rule out theories.
> I sincerely hold that there are more requirements on a complete theory
> of matter. The problems for my position is that we simply do not have
> such a theory, and no one has succeeded in demonstrating a set of
> criteria so I cannot even show basic existence theorems for my
> position.
I don't think you ever will, since depending on who you ask you'll get
different answers as to what ought to be the fundemental set of
principles.
> Nonetheless I cannot believe in studying the universe if, at the end
> of the day, all we are going to get is a stack of formulae which give
> the right answers but don't make sense.
I didn't say that. A metaphysical interpretation will alway emerge, I
just have a problem with claims that it "must be".
> >> >Another example. There was a crank on sci.physics.particle, who had some
> >> >theory, supposedly to replace QCD. I asked a list of simple questions,
> >> >things I can compute with QCD in a few pages. I get things like "well
> >> >that would take too long to do with my theory." Well if that's the case
> >> >then why should I bother? QCD works just fine, and if the price of a
> >> >different metaphysics is a loss in predictive power then whats the point?
> >>
> >> QCD cannot conclusively predict quark confinement,
> >
> >Umm, Charles, you own Montvay and Munster, you should look at section 3.5
> >before you make any judgements.
>
> Fair enough. I was relying on the judgement of Jaffe & Witten, in their
> write up for the millenium prize.
Right, I have a radically different conception of conclusively predict
then more mathmatical types. Yes it is true that a rigourous, first
principles, *proof* of confinment is lacking. But all indications from
actual work with the theory (lattice QCD, Schwinger-Dyson
equations) confirms confinement beyond a shadow of a doubt.
In your other post you mentioned the QED thing (that on the lattice QED
predicts confinement as well). Again numerical studies demonstrate that
QED has a phase transition as you take the spaceing to zero which QCD
doesn't have. There is also compelling evidence from a totally
independant method (Schwinger-Dyson equations) that QCD confines and QED
doesn't.
> >> Also it tends to attribute colour to a physical property, but actually
> >> if you do a careful enough Fock space construction, it just seems to
> >> be an artefact from trying to get maths to model physics.
> >
> >Again this statment confuses me. There is a section in Peskin and
> >Schroeder (in chapter five IIRC) which discusses the quantity
> >
> > S(e^{+}e^{-} -> hadrons)
> >R= --------------------------- S is a total cross section
> > S(e^{+}e^{-} -> e^{+}e^{-})
> >
> >There is a very conspicous factor of three in this quantity for
> >colour. ANd sure enough it agrees with experiment.
>
> Perhaps I was daft, and I will pay attention when I get to this bit,
[big snip]
Neither of your explanations make sense to me! It has nothing to do with
Hadrons or matricies or anything, and is really quite simple. That means
I get to explain it right here.
As you (hopefully know or at least could compute) the first order QED
prediction for the total cross section for
e^{+} + e^{-} -> mu^{+} + mu^{-} is, in the limit where we can neglect the
electron and muon masses (high energy)
pi alpha^{2}
S(eemumu)= ------------
3 E^{2}
here alpha is the fine structure constant, and E is the centre of mass
energy. (Note, if you've never done this calculation you should).
Okay how does this change for e^{+} + e^{-} -> hadrons?
Well QCD predicts that we will see two "jets" of hadrons, each jet
stemming from a quark or antiquark created via the reaction
e^{+} + e^{-} -> quark + antiquark
Now asymtotic freedom for QCD tells us that, at high energy, we can totaly
neglect the QCD corrections, and simply assume that
S(e^{+}e^{-}->q\bar{q}) = S(e^{+}e^{-}->hadron jets)
(Note also that it is an extremely useful excercise to compute the first
order QCD corrections to this, something you can do in the Final Project
for section one of Peskin and Schroeder).
Okay so what is S(eeq\b{q})? Well we can guess it from our prvious
formula. It will be exactly the same except one of the factors of alpha
will get changed to
alpha' = Q_{i} alpha
Also this is the *total* production cross section to any type of quark, so
we ought to sum over all availble quark types. This gives us
S(e^{+}e^{-}->->hadrons) = sum_{i} Q_{i}^{2} S(eemumu).
Now let me define the quantity (I'll explain the prime in a second)
S(ee->hadrons)
R'= -------------- = sum_{i} Q_{i}^{2}
S(eemumu)
So what you do is go and fire up your handy electron positron
collider with a COM energy of (say) 30 GeV. Thus we've got enough juice
to produce everything but a top-antitop pair. Thus
R' = sum_{i} Q_{i}^{2} = 11/9 ~ 1.2
Well this quantity has been measured and it ain't 1.2. So where did we go
wrong?
Well remember how we had to sum up all the various quark charges? We
forgot that we could also produce a quark-antiquark pair in any one of
three colours. Since the final q\bar{q} state has no colour *any* one of
them will do. Hence we really ought to sum them up. Doing this gives
(dopping the prime now that we've got it right)
R= 3 * sum_{i} Q_{i}^{2}
which at our 30 GeV collider yields
R = 11/3 ~ 3.7
A quick glance at the data (convientently displayed on page 229 of the
particle data boook (online at pdg.lbl.gov)) demonstrates that we are now
in the ballpark. At 30 GeV the measured value is roughly 3.8-4.
Why does it differ from out computation? There are four reasons I can
think of offhand and I'll leave it as an excercise to the reader to figure
them out.
> >> And if you are truly rebellious, then you have rather more obstacles
> >> to learning it than if you can accept it parrot fashion. Yes, ideally
> >> one would accept it parrot fashion first, then try and rewrite it. But
> >> that leads to other problems, like learning to take for granted parts
> >> of the orthodox theory that genuinely and truly do not make sense, or
> >> the acceptance of a paradigm in which quantisation is accepted, where
> >> only rigorous mathematical argument from postulates should be allowed
> >> (it is quite possible to replace quantisation with such argument in an
> >> axiomatic approach to qm)
> >
> >Well, I don't know about in general but my first year graduate QM class
> >was the axiomatic approach to QM (al la Wigner). I think this is fairly
> >typical.
>
> I don't know what is typical. And I confess I am not familiar with
> Wigner's axioms. As a graduate I had to resort to digging up the
> Birkhoff-Von Neumann paper, and seeking out books like Jauch and
> D'Espagnat.
See the first few chapters of Ballentine's *Quantum Mechanics: A Modern
Development* which is an excellent grad textbook on the subject. Other
grad textbooks probably cover it as well.
[snip]
> >> But I also think the discussion should be useful as a means of helping
> >> one to work things out for oneself. This seems difficult with cranks,
> >> who tend to get hung up on one point, and it can also be difficult with
> >> orthodox theorists who often cannot think outside text book lines. But
> >> generally I find that in the discussions there is much prospect of
> >> clarifying ideas, and only when they are clarified should one really try
> >> to advance on them.
> >
> >Well, you approach things from a more philosophical perspective. To me
> >the main issue is "working the theory." Getting predictions, agreeing
> >with expeiments, that sort of thing.
>
> Yes. For me the main thing is a conceptual understanding. As an amateur
> I almost have the luxury of not needing to calculate - except that I
> must know that calculations agree with the facts. What you do is a
> necessary part of testing theory, but it is not for me the purpose of
> theory. I guess I don't really understand your position, since it
> involves a great deal of work to which, from a philosophical
> perspective, my response would be "why bother?" So, I guess I should ask
> "Why bother?"
The pleasure of finding things out.
Seiously what I want to know is the details, the nitty gritty. I am
constantly overwhelmed by the fact that starting with a relatively small
set of principles one can work out how elementary particle behave. The
metaphysics, whats "really" going on seems secondary to me.
Matthew Nobes
> Okay, silent reader speaking up. I haven't before, because while I've
> been fascinated by relativity and the quantum world most of my life,
> it's no more than a hobby...I'd be *embarrassed* to speak up here! My
> knowledge is non-existent compared to the likes of Mr. Nobes, Mr. Carr
> and so many others.
Urk...
Let me just take this opportunity to encourage you to ask
questions/participate in discussions. I would much rather answer
questions from somebody looking to learn some of the subject (at a
technical and/or nontechnial level) then argue with cranks.
That is why I started posting here in the first place. I though I might
be able to hone my expository skills (which are rather poor) by answer
questions from interested laymen.
Luc Bourhis
> QCD cannot conclusively predict quark confinement,
Right but lattice QCD successfully deal with key parameters of hadrons
like their decay constant, their life time, the first moment of the
structure functions. So QCD can already deal with the confining regime
even if everything is not understood.
> and the explanation for jets still appears to me ropey as hell.
What do you find ropey ?
Matthew has already answered the rest.
--
Luc Bourhis
Matthew Nobes
On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, Matthew Nobes wrote:
[snip]
> Okay so what is S(eeq\b{q})? Well we can guess it from our prvious
> formula. It will be exactly the same except one of the factors of alpha
> will get changed to
>
> alpha' = Q_{i} alpha
Q_{i} is the quark charge in units of e. This factor comes from replacing
the muon vertex with a quark one.
Charles Francis
spake Luc Bourhis <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk>
>Charles Francis wrote:
>
>> QCD cannot conclusively predict quark confinement,
>
>like their decay constant, their life time, the first moment of the
>structure functions. So QCD can already deal with the confining regime
>even if everything is not understood.
>
>
>
though I am trying to get to the point where I can fully understand the
latest ideas. But this is roughly what I thought:
If we kick of with, say a quark anti-quark pair, then there should be
one quark or antiquark left over in each jet, and of course there never
is. And if we kick off with a gluon, then should we not have a coloured
jet? The explanations I have seen were only able to restore quantum
numbers by very hand wavy arguments. Maybe this has improved.
Charles Francis
spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
>On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, Charles Francis wrote:
>
>> I sincerely hold that there are more requirements on a complete theory
>> of matter. The problems for my position is that we simply do not have
>> such a theory, and no one has succeeded in demonstrating a set of
>> criteria so I cannot even show basic existence theorems for my
>> position.
>
>I don't think you ever will, since depending on who you ask you'll get
>different answers as to what ought to be the fundemental set of
>principles.
Nonetheless, I am certainly not about to give up on what I see as having
been the goal of science for millenia.
>
>> Nonetheless I cannot believe in studying the universe if, at the end
>> of the day, all we are going to get is a stack of formulae which give
>> the right answers but don't make sense.
>
>I didn't say that. A metaphysical interpretation will alway emerge, I
>just have a problem with claims that it "must be".
Ah, there could be room for agreement then. There is a difference
between insisting on the existence of a metaphysical interpretation
(which I do) and insisting on a unique metaphysical interpretation. At
the moment we do not have a sensible metaphysical interpretation at all.
What I do is say there must be a metaphysical interpretation and then
see what properties I can prove for it. I don't even look seriously at
uniqueness issues, although the properties that one can find are so
tightly constrained that I do hold out hope that there is some
applicable notion of uniqueness. But often given one solution to a
problem one can find a family of solutions, so I don't think one could
seriously start to study uniqueness until one knows at least one
solution.
>
>Neither of your explanations make sense to me! It has nothing to do with
>Hadrons or matricies or anything, and is really quite simple. That means
>I get to explain it right here.
>
Good.
<snip, the explanation>
Yes, I agree with all of that. The question was whether I should regard
colour as a physical or a mathematical property. In a Fock space using
quark states as basis each hadron is a represented as a 3x1 matrix. If
you antisymmetrise these matrices, then we get wrong answers because you
break the exclusion principle in observed particles. So colour can be
introduced as a way of putting otherwise identical quarks into different
quantum states.
But, if quarks are regarded as parts of particles, as opposed to
particles in their own right (is this a very old fashioned idea, now
completely out of currency? If so, why?) then there is nothing to stop
us from using parastatistics in which we symmetrise the quarks
internally within a baryon, and still use Fermi statistics for baryons.
And then we do not have to introduce colour as a physical property.
Now if you do this, then when you write down the coupling to the hadron,
you have to couple to each of the three quarks individually, in the top,
middle and bottom positions of the matrix, and you get the required
factor of 3. So it seems that the three colours can be identified with
three positions in an 3x1 matrix. It therefore seems to me when I am
looking at the properties of colour that I am actually looking at
something which happens in a mathematical description, rather than a
physical thing. Another way of thinking is that the physical property of
colour corresponds to the three positions in a matrix, but I cannot see
how to justify it. The positions are there as soon as we construct
mathematics, and that gives the colour prediction, but it does not say
to me that colour is physical, just that it appears mathematically.
>> Yes. For me the main thing is a conceptual understanding. As an amateur
>> I almost have the luxury of not needing to calculate - except that I
>> must know that calculations agree with the facts. What you do is a
>> necessary part of testing theory, but it is not for me the purpose of
>> theory. I guess I don't really understand your position, since it
>> involves a great deal of work to which, from a philosophical
>> perspective, my response would be "why bother?" So, I guess I should ask
>> "Why bother?"
>
>The pleasure of finding things out.
>
>Seiously what I want to know is the details, the nitty gritty. I am
>constantly overwhelmed by the fact that starting with a relatively small
>set of principles one can work out how elementary particle behave. The
>metaphysics, whats "really" going on seems secondary to me.
To me, that is all one and the same. It is the fact that such a small
number of principles is involved that makes me feel that we really can
work out the metaphysics.
Programmer Dude
> Let me just take this opportunity to encourage you to ask
> questions/participate in discussions. I would much rather answer
> questions from somebody looking to learn some of the subject (at a
> technical and/or nontechnial level) then argue with cranks.
Phew. I'm not sure I'd even know what questions to ask, but I'll keep
what you say in mind and do what I can. Actually now that I start to
think about it, I bet I can come up with a few things that have remained
completely opaque to me in the reading I've done. I find I can keep up
pretty well....to a point, and then things seem to take a left turn and
while the words are all English words I know, the sentences don't tell
me anything. "Gage theories" for instance...don't get them at all.
Matthew Nobes
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.00100...@fraser.sfu.ca>, thus
> spake Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca>
> >On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, Charles Francis wrote:
> >
> >> I sincerely hold that there are more requirements on a complete theory
> >> of matter. The problems for my position is that we simply do not have
> >> such a theory, and no one has succeeded in demonstrating a set of
> >> criteria so I cannot even show basic existence theorems for my
> >> position.
> >
> >I don't think you ever will, since depending on who you ask you'll get
> >different answers as to what ought to be the fundemental set of
> >principles.
>
> Nonetheless, I am certainly not about to give up on what I see as having
> been the goal of science for millenia.
That's fine, all I'm saying is that unlike the *predictions* of the theory
(which must agree with experiment) you'll never get everybody on the same
page concerning the metaphysics.
> >> Nonetheless I cannot believe in studying the universe if, at the end
> >> of the day, all we are going to get is a stack of formulae which give
> >> the right answers but don't make sense.
> >
> >I didn't say that. A metaphysical interpretation will alway emerge, I
> >just have a problem with claims that it "must be".
>
> Ah, there could be room for agreement then. There is a difference
> between insisting on the existence of a metaphysical interpretation
> (which I do) and insisting on a unique metaphysical interpretation.
I agree with the former, certainly.
> At the moment we do not have a sensible metaphysical interpretation at
> all.
I don't think it's that bad, if one simply accepts that everything is
probablistic it's not too bad. There is the measurement issue, that
causes lot's of grief, but I don't think the standard interpretation is
all that far off the mark.
[snip on to colour and evidence for it]
> >Neither of your explanations make sense to me! It has nothing to do with
> >Hadrons or matricies or anything, and is really quite simple. That means
> >I get to explain it right here.
> >
> Good.
>
> <snip, the explanation>
>
> Yes, I agree with all of that. The question was whether I should regard
> colour as a physical or a mathematical property.
Well if you believe what I wrote its another quantum number like spin,
hence is just as physical.
> In a Fock space using quark states as basis each hadron is a
> represented as a 3x1 matrix. If you antisymmetrise these matrices,
> then we get wrong answers because you break the exclusion principle in
> observed particles. So colour can be introduced as a way of putting
> otherwise identical quarks into different quantum states.
Right, but with QCD it's much more then just an ad hoc fix to get the
statistics right. It's the core of the theory.
> But, if quarks are regarded as parts of particles, as opposed to
> particles in their own right (is this a very old fashioned idea, now
> completely out of currency? If so, why?) then there is nothing to stop
> us from using parastatistics in which we symmetrise the quarks
> internally within a baryon, and still use Fermi statistics for baryons.
> And then we do not have to introduce colour as a physical property.
The names Han and Nambu come floating out of my head in relation to
parastatistics theories. As far as I know these types of theories have
been ruled out experimentally. I'm not so sure as to what is considered
the definative expeirment but I don't think the parastatistics theories
get the factor of three that I got in my analysis. Further I doubt very
seriously that they give the same predictions as QCD.
> Now if you do this, then when you write down the coupling to the hadron,
> you have to couple to each of the three quarks individually, in the top,
> middle and bottom positions of the matrix, and you get the required
> factor of 3.
??? When I say e^{+}+e^{-}->hadrons I mean ten's or hundreds of
hadrons. And remember I am not discriminating. I am computing the
*total* cross section to *any* hadrons. That includes mesons.
> So it seems that the three colours can be identified with
> three positions in an 3x1 matrix. It therefore seems to me when I am
> looking at the properties of colour that I am actually looking at
> something which happens in a mathematical description, rather than a
> physical thing. Another way of thinking is that the physical property of
> colour corresponds to the three positions in a matrix, but I cannot see
> how to justify it. The positions are there as soon as we construct
> mathematics, and that gives the colour prediction, but it does not say
> to me that colour is physical, just that it appears mathematically.
Ok, look, according to QCD colour is as physical a property as electric
charge (they are treated in the same manner). I think you are mixing the
historical motivation for colour (fixing Hadron statistics) with the
modern theory of chromodynamics. In QCD quarks are physical particles,
colour is a physical property.
> >> Yes. For me the main thing is a conceptual understanding. As an amateur
> >> I almost have the luxury of not needing to calculate - except that I
> >> must know that calculations agree with the facts. What you do is a
> >> necessary part of testing theory, but it is not for me the purpose of
> >> theory. I guess I don't really understand your position, since it
> >> involves a great deal of work to which, from a philosophical
> >> perspective, my response would be "why bother?" So, I guess I should ask
> >> "Why bother?"
> >
> >The pleasure of finding things out.
> >
> >Seiously what I want to know is the details, the nitty gritty. I am
> >constantly overwhelmed by the fact that starting with a relatively small
> >set of principles one can work out how elementary particle behave. The
> >metaphysics, whats "really" going on seems secondary to me.
>
> To me, that is all one and the same. It is the fact that such a small
> number of principles is involved that makes me feel that we really can
> work out the metaphysics.
I think I would agree. And I am definatly not saying that what more
philophically oriented individuals is not as importent. However the
sonstraints from experiment must be respected.
Luc Bourhis
> I do bear in mind that my ideas on this are something like 15years old,
> though I am trying to get to the point where I can fully understand the
> latest ideas. But this is roughly what I thought:
>
> If we kick of with, say a quark anti-quark pair, then there should be
> one quark or antiquark left over in each jet, and of course there never
> is. And if we kick off with a gluon, then should we not have a coloured
> jet? The explanations I have seen were only able to restore quantum
> numbers by very hand wavy arguments. Maybe this has improved.
I thought you had in mind some subtle points about how to predict the
structure of jets with QCD but you are just challenging confinement at
a very basic level. Matthew has already answered that question.
--
Luc Bourhis
Charles Francis
>
>
>> At the moment we do not have a sensible metaphysical interpretation at
>> all.
>
>I don't think it's that bad, if one simply accepts that everything is
>probablistic it's not too bad. There is the measurement issue, that
>causes lot's of grief, but I don't think the standard interpretation is
>all that far off the mark.
Nor do I. But I do think it needs improvement. I think that by treating
Hilbert space as an information space (which is very much in line with
Von Neumann) you can get round the measurement problem, or at least you
invert it, by saying that collapse just represents a change in the
infomration available to an observer. But then you must explain the
Schrodinger equation. I think we can do that by formulating relativistic
quantum field theory in the right way.
>
>Right, but with QCD it's much more then just an ad hoc fix to get the
>statistics right. It's the core of the theory.
>
>> But, if quarks are regarded as parts of particles, as opposed to
>> particles in their own right (is this a very old fashioned idea, now
>> completely out of currency? If so, why?) then there is nothing to stop
>> us from using parastatistics in which we symmetrise the quarks
>> internally within a baryon, and still use Fermi statistics for baryons.
>> And then we do not have to introduce colour as a physical property.
>
>The names Han and Nambu come floating out of my head in relation to
>parastatistics theories. As far as I know these types of theories have
>been ruled out experimentally. I'm not so sure as to what is considered
>the definative expeirment but I don't think the parastatistics theories
>get the factor of three that I got in my analysis. Further I doubt very
>seriously that they give the same predictions as QCD.
Maybe. I would like to be sure. But I guess my best bet is slowly work
through the text books, and if necessary look up old papers by Han &
Nambu.
<snip>
>
>Ok, look, according to QCD colour is as physical a property as electric
>charge (they are treated in the same manner). I think you are mixing the
>historical motivation for colour (fixing Hadron statistics) with the
>modern theory of chromodynamics. In QCD quarks are physical particles,
>colour is a physical property.
It is true things have moved on. I'll try not to express too many more
doubts until I've been through some of the text books.
>>
>> To me, that is all one and the same. It is the fact that such a small
>> number of principles is involved that makes me feel that we really can
>> work out the metaphysics.
>
>I think I would agree. And I am definatly not saying that what more
>philophically oriented individuals is not as importent. However the
>sonstraints from experiment must be respected.
Any reasonable philosophy of science must include that in some form. I
just don't accept it as the only criterion. The metaphysic must also
make sense.
Gordon D. Pusch
> FWIW, I'm in sci.physics.particle... sci.physics.relativity is a little
> too kook-filled for my taste and too busy for my ability to keep up on
> the reading.
There's a good reason for that --- if you go back and look at the RFD for
that NG, you'll find that one of the major arguments for its formation was
specifically to serve as ``crank bait'' to draw off some of the crackpots
posting off-topic anti-relativity rants in other NGs... :-/
-- Gordon D. Pusch
perl -e '$_ = "gdpusch\@NO.xnet.SPAM.com\n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'
Matthew Nobes
> Matthew Nobes...
>
> > Let me just take this opportunity to encourage you to ask
> > questions/participate in discussions. I would much rather answer
> > questions from somebody looking to learn some of the subject (at a
> > technical and/or nontechnial level) then argue with cranks.
>
> Phew. I'm not sure I'd even know what questions to ask, but I'll keep
> what you say in mind and do what I can. Actually now that I start to
> think about it, I bet I can come up with a few things that have remained
> completely opaque to me in the reading I've done. I find I can keep up
> pretty well....to a point, and then things seem to take a left turn and
> while the words are all English words I know, the sentences don't tell
> me anything. "Gage theories" for instance...don't get them at all.
Gauge theory is going to take a bit of explaining. Here's the basic idea,
in three parts, let me know what level of mathematics/physics you do
understand and I'll try to work up something better.
Let's consider the proton and the neutron. It was recognized in the early
thirties by Heisenberg that, with respect to the strong nuclear force the
proton and neutron ought to behave very similarly. In fact, to a very
good approximation, identically. Heisenberg invented a concept known as
*Isospin* to describe this. The proton an neutron were merely aspects of a
single particle, the Nucleon. Much like the electron has spin up
(+1/2) and spin down (-1/2) the Nucleon has isospin up (the proton) and
isospin down (the neutron). This simplifies the description of the strong
force, we can talk about the interactions between nucleons without ever
having to bother with wether they are protons or neutrons.
As a side note, nowadays we know that the underlying reason for this
picture is that the up and down quarks have almost identical masses. If
they were identical then this picture would be perfect. As it is it holds
very well, so you'll often hear nuclear physicists talking about the NN
force. By that they mean the nucleon nucleon force, which will be the
same for each type.
Now we're going to develop a tiny bit of machinery to help us. I am going
to arrange the neutron and proton into something called a spinor. To be
more precise I am going to define *the Nucleon spinor* to be
/ p \
N = | | p=proton, n=neutron, N=nucleon
\ n /
Why did I do this? Well it is going to make it somewhat easier to talk
about *global gauge symmetry*. If you think about what I said a few
paragraphs back for a second you'll realize that it was totally arbitrary
what we choose to be the neutron and the proton up above. If they are
identical with respect to the strong force then it shouldn't matter which
one I call which. In fact if this conjecture is correct I should be able
to use a different Nucleon field, perhaps something like this
/ a*p + b*n \
N' =| |
\ c*p + d*n /
where a,b,c,d are complex numbers. (Do you know anything about
matrices? If so you should recognize this as N'=U*N where U is a 2X2
matrix).
Actually a,b,c,d can't quite be anything. There are a bunch of conditions
on them. If we define the a~ to be the complex conjugate of a (and
likewise for b,c,d) these conditions are
a*(~a) + c*(~c)=1
(~a)*b + (~c)*d=0
a*(~b) + c*(~d)=0
b*(~b) + d*(~d)=1
Exercise: if you understand what complex numbers are, find four that
satisfy the above conditions.
To summerize we have talked about the fact that to the strong force the
neutron and proton are almost exactly the same. Therefore we can describe
them as different aspects of the same particle, the Nucleon. However,
because they are the same, what we choose to call them is somewhat
conventional, and we are free to change our convention (up to some general
restrictions).
This freedom is know as *global gauge symmetry*. The name is historical,
due IIRC to Weyl, for reasons that I forget. Why global? Well the gauge
rotation that we performed did not depend on where we were. I.e. we
changed what we labeled as a proton *everywhere*. Next time we'll ponder
the question of what happens when we only change things in a small
(local) region. This will lead us to the concept of *local* gauge
symmetry, and thence to gauge theory proper. After that I'll try to take
a more geometric perspective, which will lead to a better insight into
what is actually going on.
But for now... we'll stop here. Questions are now solicited, as well as
comments on the level of the above, I can turn up the math/technical stuff,
or turn it down (slightly) at your request.
Programmer Dude
>> ...sci.physics.relativity is a little too kook-filled for my taste...
>
> There's a good reason for that --- if you go back and look at the RFD for
> that NG, you'll find that one of the major arguments for its formation was
> specifically to serve as ``crank bait'' to draw off some of the crackpots
> posting off-topic anti-relativity rants in other NGs... :-/
LOL! I'd say they did a good job!
Matthew Nobes
> Actually a,b,c,d can't quite be anything. There are a bunch of conditions
> on them. If we define the a~ to be the complex conjugate of a (and
^^^^^^
this should just read ~a
> likewise for b,c,d) these conditions are
>
> a*(~a) + c*(~c)=1
> (~a)*b + (~c)*d=0
> a*(~b) + c*(~d)=0
> b*(~b) + d*(~d)=1
>
> Exercise: if you understand what complex numbers are, find four that
> satisfy the above conditions.
Urk...
I forgot a condition!
in addition to the four above we also need
a*d-b*c=1
Exercise: repeat the other exercise with this condition as well
Exercise: Compute how many indepedent *real* numbers remain after
imposing these five conditions (remeber each complex number
contains two real numbers).
Dick Chiles
"Matthew Nobes" <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.00100...@fraser.sfu.ca...
> Gauge theory is going to take a bit of explaining. Here's the basic idea,
>
> etc., etc.
>
> "I have no mercy or compassion in me for a |Matthew Nobes
> society that will crush people and then |c/o Physics Dept.
> penalize them for not being able to stand |Simon Fraser University
> up under the weight." |8888 University Drive
> Malcolm X |Burnaby, B.C.
> |Canada
> |http://pastureh.phys.sfu.ca
Matthew, I am another lurker surfacing. Your post is just the sort of thing
I
like to read and save.
I took physics in engineering school and always loved it. That was 40 years
ago. Now I am a retired engineer. I am looking into physics again,
especially
particle physics. I need to refresh my math, too (didn't use calculus much
doing
computer hardware design). I love this stuff. I bought the audio tapes of
the
Feynman lectures on physics. I'm going to have to buy the books that came
from them as well because I can hear him writing on the blackboard but I
can't see what he's writing! Yes, I know these lectures are dated -- early
sixties -- but the idea of learning directly from one of the great teachers
is inspirational. I can catch up after I absorb this much - if I ever do!
I would appreciate any suggestions on what books to get. I am not close to
any university so I will be doing it on my own. One recommendation I got
from this group is "The Second Creation" by Crease and Mann.
Keep up the good work and thanks!
Dick in Oregon chi...@teleport.com
Matthew Nobes
>
> "Matthew Nobes" <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.4.21.00100...@fraser.sfu.ca...
>
> > Gauge theory is going to take a bit of explaining. Here's the basic idea,
[snip]
>
> Matthew, I am another lurker surfacing. Your post is just the sort of thing
> I like to read and save.
I'm glad you liked it! I am solicting comments/questions in order to make
parts two and three (the good stuff!) better.
> I took physics in engineering school and always loved it. That was 40
> years ago. Now I am a retired engineer. I am looking into physics
> again, especially particle physics. I need to refresh my math, too
> (didn't use calculus much doing computer hardware design). I love this
> stuff. I bought the audio tapes of the Feynman lectures on physics.
> I'm going to have to buy the books that came from them as well because
> I can hear him writing on the blackboard but I can't see what he's
> writing! Yes, I know these lectures are dated -- early sixties -- but
> the idea of learning directly from one of the great teachers is
> inspirational. I can catch up after I absorb this much - if I ever do!
The Feynman lectures are not dated, they cover the essentials of much of a
four year physics education (all of the first two years and some of the
last two). I've never read them in any detail, but from what I've seen
they're excellent.
My advice would be get a good set of math textbooks (linear algebra,
calculus, and differentental equations) and work through the Feynman
lectures systematically (IIRC they have problems, if they don't get some
of those problem solver books). Take your time and solve as many physics
problems as you can.
> I would appreciate any suggestions on what books to get. I am not close to
> any university so I will be doing it on my own. One recommendation I got
> from this group is "The Second Creation" by Crease and Mann.
That's a good history of the subject. As for techincal books I am
reluctent to recommend anything if you lack the technical knowledge.
Programmer Dude
First, WOW and THANKS!! This is really cool. I actually understand a
great deal of it. I've saved it for my library.
> Gauge theory is going to take a bit of explaining.
Heh. So I see.
> ...let me know what level of mathematics/physics you do understand...
I loved calculus, but that was long ago, and what you don't use, you lose.
So consider me a math idiot. I do know what complex numbers are, and I
know what a matrix is, but probably need help doing operations on them.
(On the other hand, I catch on quick.)
> It was recognized in the early thirties by Heisenberg that, with respect
> to the strong nuclear force the proton and neutron ought to behave very
> similarly.
I'm curious what led him to that realization. Not knowing anything about
this, it's a fascinating perspective to me, since one has charge, the
other has none. What did we discover in the thirties that led to this?
> As a side note, nowadays we know that the underlying reason for this
> picture is that the up and down quarks have almost identical masses.
Which in turn means the neutron and proton have different masses? (Dumb
question, I can just look that up. Never mind.)
> ...I am going to define *the Nucleon spinor*...
...Okay....this is just a tool to help us understand the reality...right?
> ...if this conjecture is correct I should be able to use a different
> Nucleon field, perhaps something like this
>
> / a*p + b*n \
> N' =| |
> \ c*p + d*n /
>
> where a,b,c,d are complex numbers. (Do you know anything about
> matrices? If so you should recognize this as N'=U*N where U is a 2X2
> matrix).
Okay, I'm (rather to my surprise) keeping up so far!
> If we define the a~ to be the complex conjugate of a...
A complex what? (I'll try to research this this weekend.)
> Exercise: if you understand what complex numbers are, find four that
> satisfy the above conditions.
If I can figure out what a complex conjugate is, I'll do it by Monday.
> However, because [n's and p's] are the same, what we choose to call them
> is somewhat conventional,...
But only in terms of the strong force, yes? If charge is a factor, then
they seem pretty different. And their quark makeup is different, too...
> This freedom is know as *global gauge symmetry*.
Okay. Got it.
> Next time we'll ponder the question of what happens when we only change
> things in a small (local) region.
Looking forward to it. (Although my head is somewhat of a "spinor" now.)
> Questions are now solicited,...
Yes, many question marks in my response! ;-)
One big one: to me "gauge" is a measurement of some (physical) dimension.
Why do you use the term here? And what led to the spinor invention (or
discovery)? And why are complex numbers helpful here...what property do
they have that make them useful (here and apparently in many other places
in the sciences)? Why is a matrix useful in the spinor N'? Is it called
a spinor because in some sense it spins?
> I can turn up the math/technical stuff, or turn it down (slightly) at
> your request.
Well, I seem to be keeping up okay so far. Turning it down (slightly)
might make it easier going, but if you're willing to prop me up as we
go, maybe I can hang in there.
Thanks! This is one of my favorite interest areas, but so much of it
has been inaccessible in the past. Even pop science articles in Sci Am
(my favorite magazine) in this area can leave me behind sometimes. And
the physics journals...yikes!! A great deal of it is vocabulary...all
areas of speciality have their lingo which allows the "inmates" to
communicate precisely, but tends to leave the outsiders, well, outside!
So, it really helps to have someone lay it all out.
greyw...@my-deja.com
dav...@david15.dallas.nationwide.net wrote:
> greyw...@my-deja.com said some stuff about
> >
> >Why would anyone think more than one event is required prior to
> >publication? We only needed one "top quark" event. Or, if you
prefer,
> >one "magnetic monopole" event before publication.
> >
>
> You've vastly misunderstood how "events" in a bubble chamber or
> cloud chamber differ from "events" in an experiment looking for
> monopoles or quarks.
I understand the difference perfectly. An "event" in a bubble chamber
is explicitly observable. "Look! Here's an apparent electron track
curving the wrong way!"
The experiments for monopoles and quarks do NOT provide explicitly
observable events. The existence of these entities must be inferred by
significant amounts of analysis of other data. All they have going for
them is a prior theory.
> Furthermore, the publication of the single
> monopole event contained caveats and there were many candidates
> for t-quark events prior to finding one that was a
"gold-plated",
> bonifide event, so you are comparing apples to oranges.
Yes, they are different, but the comparison is exactly the issue. A
directly observable event is not published because there is no theory to
"explain" it. Tremendous efforts in money, time, talent and
bureaucratic pressure are applied to find "caveated" predictions.
>
> Moreover, discovering a paricular anomaly does not necessarily
mean
> you've discovered anything but an anomaly. In the context of
this
> thread about positrons, what exactly was a positron and what
meaning
> would such a particle have prior to dirac?
You want me to provide you the "meaning" of an unexpected particle? You
can't be serious. What is the "meaning" of you?
> Seeing nothing but
> a curvature that corresponds to a positive charge means almost
> nothing, although in hindsight it may be obvious.
Only to someone who can't see anything unless he thinks he already
understands it. Did you ever see a rainbow before you learned the
physics of refraction?
>
> In a cloud or bubble chamber photograph, all you have is the raw
data
> with no way to filter on other junk after the fact.
You don't need a "filter" for a cloud or bubble chamber. Each track is
a single event. Raw data is the basis of experimental science.
> A high
energy
> experiment like the one that reported the t-quark, collects so
much
> information about every event, that each event can be completely
> reconstructed in software back to the interaction that produced
it
> (thousands of parameters which each may be varied to insure that
the
> event is not some anomaly in the apparatus).
You are incorrect here. Read
http://www.sciam.com/0997issue/0997tipton.html.
> It's possible to
take a
> single event and ask what happens if it's consistent with some
other,
> well knnown reaction or even just a candidate that isn't "good
> enough". I'm sure that there were many such candidates that
satisfied
> the experimental group, but which were not ironclad. The events
which
> get published, are events sutible for publication.
You are incorrect in your assumption. Read:
http://www.sciam.com/0997issue/0997tipton.html
> Cabrera's
1982
> monopole article was never intended to be more than report of a
> candidate for a monopole. There have been monopoles proposed
with
> many different properties and in the event that it was correct,
would
> have helped narrow down the search to confirm it. Do you see
ANYONE
> claiming that it proves magnetic monopoles exist?
Not anymore. It was widely so reported in the '70s. But it got
published right away.
>
> >
> >Perhaps the examples have gone "unnoticed" while you went on with
your
> >analysis. Once I found my initial non-conforming events (repeated
>
> Non-conforming data is useless outside of an explanation of why
> it is non-conforming. That includes things like having
everything
> else nailed down tight enough to really call the data anomalous.
In other words, if you just avoid the effort to nail "everything else"
down, you have no anomalous event. Cute.
>
> >Interesting, but irrelevant to the issue of the 1900's. Those were
the
> >days prior to refereed journals.
> >
>
> In those days, you merely needed someone famous to recommend
your
> work. It was more difficult to publish back then.
On what do you base this bald assertion?
>
> --
> data: plural of anecdote.
>
>
--
greywolf42
Matthew Nobes
> Matthew Nobes wrote:
> > ...let me know what level of mathematics/physics you do understand...
>
> I loved calculus, but that was long ago, and what you don't use, you lose.
> So consider me a math idiot. I do know what complex numbers are, and I
> know what a matrix is, but probably need help doing operations on them.
> (On the other hand, I catch on quick.)
Okay then we'll do this like a physics class, when we need the math I'll
explain the basics on the spot. This is easier than me trying to take all
the math out. I'll try to keep it to a minimum, but it's a lot easier if
I use some.
> > It was recognized in the early thirties by Heisenberg that, with respect
> > to the strong nuclear force the proton and neutron ought to behave very
> > similarly.
>
> I'm curious what led him to that realization. Not knowing anything about
> this, it's a fascinating perspective to me, since one has charge, the
> other has none. What did we discover in the thirties that led to this?
The nucleus is stable. If *nothing* held neutrons and protons together
then the repulsion between the protons would blow the nucleus apart.
Hence we conclude that there is some other force holding them together,
one which acts one some extremely short range. I don't know the history,
but I think the main motivation is that apart from the charge (which
clearly doesn't matter for the strong force) the proton and neutron are
basically the same. Their mass is the same, they have the same spin, etc.
> > As a side note, nowadays we know that the underlying reason for this
> > picture is that the up and down quarks have almost identical masses.
>
> Which in turn means the neutron and proton have different masses? (Dumb
> question, I can just look that up. Never mind.)
Right. What I'm saying here only applies in the case where the two quarks
have equal mass. In this case the neutron and proton would have the same
mass. In reality they have slightly different masses. This is because
the quarks have slightly different masses. But for now let's just pretend
that they're the same.
> > ...I am going to define *the Nucleon spinor*...
>
> ...Okay....this is just a tool to help us understand the reality...right?
Basically. The reality has a certain symmetry (the N'=UN), and this is a
way of codifying it mathematically.
> > ...if this conjecture is correct I should be able to use a different
> > Nucleon field, perhaps something like this
> >
> > / a*p + b*n \
> > N' =| |
> > \ c*p + d*n /
> >
> > where a,b,c,d are complex numbers. (Do you know anything about
> > matrices? If so you should recognize this as N'=U*N where U is a 2X2
> > matrix).
>
> Okay, I'm (rather to my surprise) keeping up so far!
Good stuff.
> > If we define the a~ to be the complex conjugate of a...
>
> A complex what? (I'll try to research this this weekend.)
Take a complex number
z = x + i * y
where i = sqrt(-1)
Then the complex conjugate is defined as
~z = x - i * y
That's it.
*
Normally in textbooks you'll see this written as z but superscripts are
a monumental pain the ass in ASCII so I'm attempting to avoid them as much
as possible.
> > Exercise: if you understand what complex numbers are, find four that
> > satisfy the above conditions.
>
> If I can figure out what a complex conjugate is, I'll do it by Monday.
It's not too tough, don't forget the fifth condition that I added.
> > However, because [n's and p's] are the same, what we choose to call them
> > is somewhat conventional,...
>
> But only in terms of the strong force, yes?
Right.
> If charge is a factor, then they seem pretty different.
Definately, but we don't care about this right now.
> And their quark makeup is different, too...
Okay this is an importent point. In terms of the strong interaction the
*only* thing which differentiates the quark types is their masses. So if
we assume that the up and down quarks have the same mass then according to
the strong force they are identical. It is the weak and electromagnetic
forces which really care about the type of quark and it's charge.
> > This freedom is know as *global gauge symmetry*.
>
> Okay. Got it.
I wanted to make one point here. This is an example of *A* global gauge
symmetry. It's not the only one.
> > Next time we'll ponder the question of what happens when we only change
> > things in a small (local) region.
>
> Looking forward to it. (Although my head is somewhat of a "spinor" now.)
It'll take me a couple of days to type it up. Here in Canada we have
Thanksgiving this weekend so I have a holiday on Monday which I might use
to catch up on a bit of stuff like typing up expositoy posts.
[note added in proof: it's now Tuesday and I'm just finishing this, so it
might take a bit more time, though part two is not far off]
> > Questions are now solicited,...
>
> Yes, many question marks in my response! ;-)
>
> One big one: to me "gauge" is a measurement of some (physical) dimension.
> Why do you use the term here?
It's completely and totally historical. IIRC in the orginal theory
(developed by a guy named Herrman Weyl) it really was a guage
symmetry. I.e. you rescaled all your rulers by some constant factor. The
name has been widely applied to many other systems. It means nothing in
particular, nowadays.
> And what led to the spinor invention (or discovery)?
Well the main point is wrapped up in the conditions that these complex
numbers must obey. The global symmetry is precisely that you can mix up
what you call a proton and a neutron, but only in very proscribed
ways. And it turns out that those ways are the same ones as govern
quantum mechanical spin.
> And why are complex numbers helpful here...what property do they have
> that make them useful (here and apparently in many other places in the
> sciences)? Why is a matrix useful in the spinor N'?
Well I can't answer your broad question about usefulness of complex
numbers in general.
Here they and the matrices are useful as an organizing tool. We *could*
write things as single numbers, but that ends up takeing more space up and
obscuring what the transformation is.
I have included a slightly more technical "track 2" explanation below my
.sig, I think you'll be able to follow it, and it might explain more.
> Is it called a spinor because in some sense it spins?
No. It's called a spinor becuase it is mathmatically identical to a
quantum mechanical particle with spin 1/2. The physical ibnterpretation
is different though. Actually spin 1/2 quantum particles don't really
"spin" in any way that is classically meaninful.
> > I can turn up the math/technical stuff, or turn it down (slightly) at
> > your request.
>
> Well, I seem to be keeping up okay so far. Turning it down (slightly)
> might make it easier going, but if you're willing to prop me up as we
> go, maybe I can hang in there.
Then I'll try to keep the level about where it was at. I am relucetent to
turn it down, as I feel that that would exceed my explanatory
abilities. This level is tough enough, since I find it diffiuclt to keep
from blasting out a stream of jargon.
> Thanks! This is one of my favorite interest areas, but so much of it
> has been inaccessible in the past. Even pop science articles in Sci Am
> (my favorite magazine) in this area can leave me behind sometimes. And
> the physics journals...yikes!! A great deal of it is vocabulary...all
> areas of speciality have their lingo which allows the "inmates" to
> communicate precisely, but tends to leave the outsiders, well, outside!
> So, it really helps to have someone lay it all out.
Well like I said I'm happy to help. I didn't come here to argue with
cranks, I'd much rather write expositions. I've had a number of projects
on the back buner for some time know, at various levels of technical
detial, I'll try to work a few of them up into full blooded posts in the
near future.
--
"I have no mercy or compassion in me for a |Matthew Nobes
society that will crush people and then |c/o Physics Dept.
penalize them for not being able to stand |Simon Fraser University
up under the weight." |8888 University Drive
Malcolm X |Burnaby, B.C.
|Canada
|http://pastureh.phys.sfu.ca
***TECHNICAL BIT***
the basic idea is this, in the mathmatical description we use for this
sort of system (known by the name Action) terms like this come up
(~n)*(stuff)*n + (~p)*(stuff)*p
Here the n and p are our friends the neutron and proton. They are
gernally described by complex functions some thier complex conjugates also
show up. (stuff) is a bunch of other stuff which won't concern us right
now.
Remember that we had the nulceon spinor
/p\
N=| |
\n/
Now I'm going to define something called the adjoint spinor
/ \
!N = | (~p) , (~n) |
\ /
This gives use a fancy way of writing the equation up above (forgetting
about (stuff) for now, it's unimportent for our current purposes)
(~p)*p + (~n)*n = !N * N
You can take this as a defintion of !N * N if you wish.
Now the really interesting thing is this, what happens when we mix up what
we mean by proton and neutron? In our more technical language what
happens when we switch from N to N'?
Well we know that N' = U * N, but what the heck is !N'? Well here's the
answer (up to a point) which you can take as a definition.
!N' = !(U*N) = !N * !U
We know what !N is but so far I've avoided telling you what U and !U
are. So here goes, as a 2X2 matrix
/a b\
U=| |
\c d/
remember the entries in the matrix are complex numbers. Now notice what N
and !N are releated by. The coluum of N got turned into a row in !N with
all the entries complex conjugated. So that's how we'll define !U, here's
the recipe
HOW TO MAKE !U
1) Take all the coluums of U and interchange them with the rows
2) complex conjugate all the entries.
This gives
/(~a) (~c)\
!U=| |
\(~b) (~d)/
Okay that was a bit technical let's get back to the main point! We were
talking about how our physical system is mathmatically described by the
product
!N * N
and we wanted to find out what happens if we scramble up what we mean by a
neutron and a proton. Then our physical system is described by
!N' * N' = !N * !U * U * N
PROBLEM: Wasn't I saying that it doesn't make a difference what we call
proton and neutron? Was I lieing? Obviously !N'*N' is different then
!N*N, just look at the above, there's an extra !U*U there!!!
The answer to this is where those four condition I gave come in (the fifth
is more technical). In order that everything stays invairent we require
!U * U = I
/1 0\
where I is the identity matrix I=| | which as it's name suggests
\0 1/
doesn't change anything (i.e. I*N=N). Thus we have
!N' * N' = !N * N
and so we say that our system is invarient under the *global gauge
transformation*
N' = U * N
where !U * U = I.
So this is where all this stuff comes from, the matricies and conditions,
and spinors are just ways of codifing the fact that the mathmatical
expressions we use don't change under some type of transformation. This
is also konwn as invariance under a group of transformations.
***END TECHNICAL BIT***
Matthew Nobes
> In article <01HW.B5FB0EE10...@news.freeserve.net>,
> Luc Bourhis <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
[snip]
>
> Luc, don't you and Matthew have better things to do with your time
> than waste bandwidth patting each other on the back back and forth
Well Luc's post lead to a lurker coming forward and asking an interesting
question, that would qualify as interesting, no?
While we're at it what have you contributed lately? Apart from idiotic
statments and slander?
> (like addressing a technical issue)?
Here's one: Can you tell me what a "bare" electron is? And can you
observe it? What about a "free" electron?
Here's another one: Is a decay such as t->Wb an obsevable? If so is it a
different one then the top mass? If you observe that decay what does it
tell you about the mass of the top quark?
greyw...@my-deja.com
>
> > On Thu, 28 Sep 2000, Luc Bourhis wrote:
> >
> >> I am with you Matthew. You did a good job at exposing the ploy of
your
> >> interlocutor. Mingst's initial claims about "massaging data" were
indeed
> >> absolutely laughable for anyone involved in particle physics.
> >
> > Thank's Luc. He's posted a long "analysis" to which I felt tempted
to
> > respond last night, but I just can't be bothered.
>
> Well, I have been thinking about that recently. When I first came to
> this newsgroup I noticed immediately the large amount of sophistry
used
> by anti-relativists. But I thought naively that well constructed post
> backed up by precise facts can defeat any rethoric. I had in mind the
> example of Socrates who is known to have beaten the most famous
> sophists of his time. But I forgot an essential ingredient: the
> existence of an external opinion. For Socrates they were the well
> educated citizens of Athens, since his debates were public. On this
> newsgroup there is no such thing. There may be a majority of silent
> readers who are convinced by our arguments but that does not help. On
> the contrary it may be that the readers are mostly the contributors
and
> then we are really losing our time with our trying to correct people
> who are too biased to ever admit that they can be wrong. The only
> motivation which might remain is to think that we prevent the
> hypothetical aformentioned silent readers to be mislead.
> Luc Bourhis
>
Luc, don't you and Matthew have better things to do with your time
than waste bandwidth patting each other on the back back and forth (like
addressing a technical issue)?
Bilge
>
>I understand the difference perfectly. An "event" in a bubble chamber
>is explicitly observable. "Look! Here's an apparent electron track
>curving the wrong way!"
An event in a bubble chamber photograph by itself is of almost zero
value. The "event" includes ALL of the peripheral data that might be
germain at the moment the photagraph is taken. If you do not have that,
you cannot analyze the data. You do not know whether something curves the
wrong way. How many charged particles have exactly the same rigidity?
(B\rho = p/q). Assuming you know anything by \rho alone, and it isn't even
clear you know that much. All you have is a piece of an arc on a piece of
film.
>
>Yes, they are different, but the comparison is exactly the issue. A
>directly observable event is not published because there is no theory to
>"explain" it. Tremendous efforts in money, time, talent and
>bureaucratic pressure are applied to find "caveated" predictions.
That's total crap. Having been both in an academic environment and a
"real world" environment, I can state from personal observation, that
the academic environment wastes far less of those resources. The only
"pressure" comes from the public to do less research inorder to
facillitate the diploma mill even more cheaply. Go look at the aps
figures and see what percentage of the research and teaching gets
done by graduate students at a fairly marginal stipend (most
engineers with a bs pay more in income tax each month than a grad
student is paid). When the cold fusion fiasco was in full swing,
who was funding the bulk of it? Certainly not academia. No one
that I knew was willing to spend their funds or time time on a waste.
(but several had industry beating down their doors while throwing
significant chunks of money, "just in case".
And by the way. For that collosal waste of money, places like
fermilab, provide the code that was written in the process for
anyone to use. Most of it is very general, and can basically
be used by anyone that wants to use it. That goes for the acquisition
side as well. If you were to set up an experiment, you have software
for which millions of dollars in development AND testing costs have
already been done for you and I'll bet anything, that should
you discover a bug, you will get an answer and fix from the
"wasted talent, time and money", than you will ever get from
a commercial vendor. It's sitting on fnal. I have a set of the
Motif plot widgets.
Have you EVER read prl or a physics journal? If you had, I have no
idea how you could possibly make the claims you do about all of it being
"mainstream". Quite honestly, I can't find a consistent pattern to even
designate mainstream and I doubt you would be able to differentiate a
so-called "mainstream" article from one that's totally off the wall,
except by taking a vote and intentionlly choosing the one most people
would have called junk, just to oppose the consensus.
You act as though 5 or 10 articles get published per year and there's
some conbspiracy like the oscars or emmys. Physics just is not that
glamorous. The enthusiasm for submission of crackpot material also usually
wanes considerably as soon as the would be author that has been whining
about being rejected (prior to actuall submitting it, usually), finds out
that unlike People magazine, the authors pay the journal and sign over the
copyright. Do people really think publishing is like being a scientific
steven king? If you have fiction, there's more money in selling it that way.
>You want me to provide you the "meaning" of an unexpected
>particle? You can't be serious. What is the "meaning" of you?
>
Yes, I can. You apparently cannot be objective enough to picture the the
data without the benefit of hindsight, while criticizing all of those that
did not have the luxury of 75 years of people scrutinizing the data for
them. Armchair science is simple. You can't simply have some blob of data
and send it in expecting people to go figure out what it is.
>Only to someone who can't see anything unless he thinks he already
>understands it. Did you ever see a rainbow before you learned the
>physics of refraction?
If you do not understand the details of an experiment, you cannot say what
the data represents. It's the difference between seeing a flying saucer
and seeing a pie plate. Publishable data needs to explain why it cant be a
pie plate or a frisbee, or a hub cap. Things that are not pie plates in
photos do not then default to flying saucers except to the armchair
scientist that comes along 75 years after the aliens land and wants to
give credit to all of the pictures of pie plates.
>
>You don't need a "filter" for a cloud or bubble chamber. Each track is
>a single event. Raw data is the basis of experimental science.
>
positron = \rho = p/qB
proton \rho = p/qB
\mu+ \rho = p/qB
\pi+ \rho = p/qB
It looks like all of these particles have the same curvature in the
same B-field. I can make a normal \beta decay look like pair production
in a cloud chamber. Look at a kurie plot for neutron decay. Give equal
momenta to the proton and e-. Give whatever energy to the neutrino is
needed to balance the energy and get p_e = p_prot. Same curvature,
opposite directions.
You don't think you need to filter against those types of events?
You've specified no B-field, no sources of contamination that could look
the same, but be ordinary events, or really much of anything. All you've
stated is you see a picture with a curvature that you think is going the
wrong way. That just is not acceptable as data. Provide everything you
need to show that there is no question that the momentum, B-field, bend
radius and charge are uniquely that of an electron mass, and why it cannot
be something else, and you will get closer to having a point.
>it
>> (thousands of parameters which each may be varied to insure that
>the
>> event is not some anomaly in the apparatus).
>
>You are incorrect here. Read
>http://www.sciam.com/0997issue/0997tipton.html.
>
Not only am I correct, I'll have to thank you for providing the example to
support what I said. Look at your own reference. Go down the page until
you see the photos of the two sets of histograms one photo above the
other. Look at the upper photo. See the 3 histograms in that photo? How do
you suppose those are obtained? I'll give you a hint. The data which is
accumulated, event-by-event may be "replayed" repeatedly to make different
cuts on the data. Or most likely done all in the same replay code at the
same time, since it's time consuming to have to replay tapes.
>> It's possible to
>take a
>> single event and ask what happens if it's consistent with some
>other,
>> well knnown reaction or even just a candidate that isn't "good
>> enough". I'm sure that there were many such candidates that
>satisfied
>> the experimental group, but which were not ironclad. The events
>which
>> get published, are events sutible for publication.
>
>You are incorrect in your assumption. Read:
>http://www.sciam.com/0997issue/0997tipton.html
>
Do you really think the first place this information is mentioned is
sci-american? Or even the journal articles? However, your url own will
work just fine, so, let's use your own article. Go down the page AGAIN,
and stop right next to the photo of CDF. The sentence to the right
starting with "Out of the trillion or so collisions within CDF, we had
isolated a dozen or so..." Those collisions are all events. The "dozen or
so" are the data that makes all of the cuts. Since I do not know the
particulars of this data analysis, I'll provide in general terms how this
all works. Typically, there is a set of conditions that are used to define
a "trigger" event(s). There are usually bins of CAMAC or some other bus
interface. All of the data is read out. The ADC's, TDC's and whatever else
holds a few bits gets reset for the next event. Those will be the
"trillion" or so on tape - they are already made the "it could be" list.
It isn't practical to examine each event in realtime to the level
required. Those events get doled out later to slave labor known as "the
graduate student". The twelve eventd mentioned in the article you quoted
are those that they believe without a doubt are bonafide events. I would
expect there are a number which they also believe qualified, but couldn't
be rigorously justified. In case you hadn't realized, almost no experiment
will quote anything but statistical quantities - so no matter how sterling
the data, the answer will always include "there is a small chance this is
wrong", usualy implied by the quoted uncertainties. So, the comment in
that sci-am article understates the case.
>
>Not anymore. It was widely so reported in the '70s. But it got
>published right away.
>
So have several previous claims for neutrino masses. Guess why?
Because the researchers had a reputation as careful and not given
to speculation. I went to a talk about cabrera's monopole shortly
after it was mentioned, so I know how seriously it was considered,
which was "not very". And it was in 1982, not the 1970's.
>> Non-conforming data is useless outside of an explanation of why
>> it is non-conforming. That includes things like having
>everything
>> else nailed down tight enough to really call the data anomalous.
>
>In other words, if you just avoid the effort to nail "everything else"
>down, you have no anomalous event. Cute.
>
And cute doesn't get it published. That was the point, since you seem to
be in favor of speculation as science. Pons and Fleishmann had similar
designs when no one that knew better would take their claims seriously.
They went to the press, that publishes anything that sells a newspaper.
>> In those days, you merely needed someone famous to recommend
>your
>> work. It was more difficult to publish back then.
>
>On what do you base this bald assertion?
>
On historical accounts of I've read. Go count the daily arrivals at lanl.
Gp to the aps web site. See how many papers come out in prl every week. Or
pr[ABCD] each month. In short, what you claims are unfounded. In fact,
I can't even see how you could have ascertained that "mainstream" exists
in the way you seem to picture mainstram.
Jim Carr
... snip off-topic newsgroup ...
greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
}
} Name one person since 1920 who has won a Nobel prize for publishing
} an observation that was not "predicted" by theory. (Back in the
} early days, Roentgen and Curie found some violations and were
} allowed to report.)
In article <01HW.B5FBAEFE0...@news.freeserve.net>
Luc Bourhis <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk> writes:
>
<... snip several good examples ...>
>1976: B. Richter and S.C.C. Ting, for the discovery of the J/Psi meson
Interestingly, the J/psi ws predicted but no one believed the
prediction. In fact, if Ting had realized the state was predicted
(it is not clear if he just did not know of it because no one else
took it seriously) he might have published the data from BNL several
months before SLAC and taken the prize all to himself.
The first papers on the discovery make it clear that they had
numerous hypotheses about what they might have seen. A talk I
heard within a week of the discovery even had the Z on the list!
<... snip other good examples ...>
--
James Carr <j...@scri.fsu.edu> http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/
"The half of knowledge is knowing where to find knowledge" - Anon.
Motto over the entrance to Dodd Hall, former library at FSCW.
greyw...@my-deja.com
> > Luc Bourhis <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> > Luc, don't you and Matthew have better things to do with your time
> > than waste bandwidth patting each other on the back back and forth
>
interesting
> question, that would qualify as interesting, no?
The question would. So we should all just pass congratulations around
and hope someone comments? Read Tzu's farmer and the rabbit.
>
> While we're at it what have you contributed lately? Apart from
idiotic
> statments and slander?
Why don't you read one and see?
>
> > (like addressing a technical issue)?
>
> Here's one: Can you tell me what a "bare" electron is?
Nope. A "free" one I can describe. What do you think a "bare" electron
is? And how does it differ from a "free" electron?
> And can you
> observe it? What about a "free" electron?
A free electron is one that is not bound to another particle (an ion).
Yes, you can observe it directly in a cloud chamber or bubble chamber.
>
> Here's another one: Is a decay such as t->Wb an obsevable?
No, it is not. First, a decay is not a particle. We could observe the
top quark if it existed. But standard theory now says that individual
quarks do not exist -- except in states bound with other quarks. So the
t is not directly observable.
The bottom quark is likewise not observable, for the same reason as the
top. Now the W is in theory observable. But it's lifetime is so short
that in practice we cannot observe it (accoring to Liss and Tipton). So
neither of the products are practically observable. So if we can't
observe the top directly and we can't observe the W directly, and we
can't observe the b directly; then the decay is not directly observable.
> If so is
it a
> different one then the top mass? If you observe that decay what does
it
> tell you about the mass of the top quark?
>
If you could observe the tracks of the W and the b directly (which you
can't), then one could identify the total energy and momentum of the two
particles. From this (assuming conservation of energy and no other
unobservable particles, such as neutrinos) one could identify the mass
of the top.
Now in return can you describe for me what a "background" event is in
the top quark experiments?
And could you please explain the difference between a "bare" quark and a
"free" quark?
Matthew Nobes
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.001010...@fraser.sfu.ca>,
> Matthew Nobes <man...@fraser.sfu.ca> wrote:
> > On Wed, 11 Oct 2000 greyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > > In article <01HW.B5FB0EE10...@news.freeserve.net>,
> > > Luc Bourhis <Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
> > [snip]
> > >
> > > Luc, don't you and Matthew have better things to do with your time
> > > than waste bandwidth patting each other on the back back and forth
> >
> > Well Luc's post lead to a lurker coming forward and asking an
> > interesting question, that would qualify as interesting, no?
>
> The question would.
I'm glad you agree to that.
> So we should all just pass congratulations around
> and hope someone comments?
Beats listening to your deliberate lies.
> Read Tzu's farmer and the rabbit.
> >
> > While we're at it what have you contributed lately? Apart from
> > idiotic statments and slander?
>
> Why don't you read one and see?
I have, and I've documented your lies for all to see.
> >
> > > (like addressing a technical issue)?
> >
> > Here's one: Can you tell me what a "bare" electron is?
>
> Nope.
Didn't think so. Let me ask you a question... How is it that you feel
competent to talk about a particle physics expeiment with no knowledge of
the subject? *You* took me to task for doing the same thing in astronomy,
what's the difference here?
> A "free" one I can describe.
I doubt that very highly. But suprise me, what's the electron's magnetic
moment to order \alpha_{QED}^{2}? How does one compute this?
> What do you think a "bare" electron is?
A "bare" particle is the one you start the theory with. It gets
renormalized and becomes a "dressed" particle.
2 examples
1) electron in a conductor. The "bare" electron is your average everyday
511 KeV/c^{2} electron. However, it's interactions with the other
electrons "dress" it. This leads to an effective mass, which differs from
511 KeV/c^{2}. This is very well treated in R. Mattuck's _A Guide to
Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem_, he gives the formula for the
effective mass in chapter 4.
2) In QED you start with a bare mass for the electron, which you don't
know. The interaction of the "bare" electron with it's own
electromagnetic field "dresses" it changing the bare mass to the
"dressed" mass. Since the self interaction can never be turned off the
"dressed" mass in this case is identified with the 511 KeV/c^{2}
"free" electron. Even this is slightly misleading since the dressed mass
varies slightly with energy, so really one takes 511 KeV/c^{2} to be the
electron's mass at zero energy.
> And how does it differ from a "free" electron?
See above.
> > And can you observe it? What about a "free" electron?
>
> A free electron is one that is not bound to another particle (an ion).
> Yes, you can observe it directly in a cloud chamber or bubble chamber.
Okay. Now based upon example two can you ever observe a "bare" electron?
> > Here's another one: Is a decay such as t->Wb an obsevable?
>
> No, it is not.
In your opinon.
> First, a decay is not a particle.
?????
what about \pi^{0} -> \gamma + \gamma
is that not observable?
> We could observe the top quark if it existed. But standard theory now
> says that individual quarks do not exist -- except in states bound
> with other quarks. So the t is not directly observable.
You are either bein dishonest again or badly misunderstand what Luc told
you. The top quark's lifetime is so short that it does behave like a free
particle.
> The bottom quark is likewise not observable, for the same reason as the
> top.
So observing a B meson doesn't count? The pople at the CLEO collaboartion
might like to know this.
> Now the W is in theory observable. But it's lifetime is so short
> that in practice we cannot observe it (accoring to Liss and Tipton).
You are using a definition of observe that *nobody* in the field does. he
W is observable, and has been observed. Fermilab observes millions of
them. LEP observes millions of them.
Your whole "top quark hasn't been observed" arguement rests on the fact
that you have a different (and stupid) defintion of "observed".
> So neither of the products are practically observable. So if we can't
> observe the top directly and we can't observe the W directly, and we
> can't observe the b directly; then the decay is not directly
> observable.
1) the B meson is directly observable. DO you not count that as evidence
for a b quark. (Do you even know what a B meson is?)
2) let's back up a step. Are you claiming that the W wasn't observed in
1983?
> > If so is it a different one then the top mass? If you observe that
> > decay what does it tell you about the mass of the top quark?
> >
>
> If you could observe the tracks of the W and the b directly (which you
> can't), then one could identify the total energy and momentum of the two
> particles.
Like Dan Riley said, last years sensational discovery is todays detection
method. We know tonnes about B physics, tonnes about W physics.
> From this (assuming conservation of energy and no other
> unobservable particles, such as neutrinos) one could identify the mass
> of the top.
So it's your contention that CDF just made it up? That they had no sound
basis for their mass measurment.
> Now in return can you describe for me what a "background" event is in
> the top quark experiments?
Something that produces a W and b, without producing a top. Such events
are extremely rare.
> And could you please explain the difference between a "bare" quark and
> a "free" quark?
See above. In the case of quarks the problem is much more difficult, all
evidence suggests that at low energy, there is no way to "dress" a single
bare quark to get a single "free" quark. At high energy the procedure is
much the same as in electrodynamics.
greyw...@my-deja.com
dav...@david15.dallas.nationwide.net wrote:
> An event in a bubble chamber photograph by itself is of almost
zero
> value. The "event" includes ALL of the peripheral data that might be
> germain at the moment the photagraph is taken. If you do not have
that,
> you cannot analyze the data.
What unnamed "peripheral data" are you referring to, that you claim we
do not have in those "single pictures"?
> You do not know whether something curves the
> wrong way. How many charged particles have exactly the same
rigidity?
> (B\rho = p/q). Assuming you know anything by \rho alone, and it isn't
even
> clear you know that much. All you have is a piece of an arc on a piece
of
> film.
Let's see. What does that arc contain? First we DO know the polarity
and strength of the magnetic field which we imposed upon the bubble
chamber in order to get the arc in the first place.
Next we can measure the thickness of the track (regardless of energy,
until they are about to stop). Electrons leave skinny tracks (because
of their high charge to mass ratio). Protons leave thicker tracks. And
alphas leave thick, ropy tracks. Now there were only three particles
known at the time in question that left tracks. Alpha, beta, and
(sometimes) proton.
Now we have a photo of an object that leaves a skinny track like an
electron, but it is curving right (positive charge) instead of left
(negative charge).
There is nothing at all "extra" needed beyond the one photo, to know
that here is something different.
> >Yes, they are different, but the comparison is exactly the issue. A
> >directly observable event is not published because there is no
theory to
> >"explain" it. Tremendous efforts in money, time, talent and
> >bureaucratic pressure are applied to find "caveated" predictions.
>
> That's total crap. Having been both in an academic environment and a
> "real world" environment, I can state from personal observation, that
> the academic environment wastes far less of those resources.
You are entitled to your unsupported opinion. What's the difference
between wasting more or wasting less? All bureaucracies lie to survive.
The bigger the bureaucracy, the more they lie. And brother, academics
are bureaucrats. I don't think you'd get any argument on that last
sentence from anyone at Berkeley.
> The only
> "pressure" comes from the public to do less research inorder to
> facillitate the diploma mill even more cheaply. Go look at the aps
> figures and see what percentage of the research and teaching gets
> done by graduate students at a fairly marginal stipend (most
> engineers with a bs pay more in income tax each month than a grad
> student is paid).
And you don't think this adds up to pressure on the poor academic
researcher who is facing grant cuts?
> When the cold fusion fiasco was in full swing,
> who was funding the bulk of it? Certainly not academia. No one
> that I knew was willing to spend their funds or time time on a waste.
> (but several had industry beating down their doors while throwing
> significant chunks of money, "just in case".
Thank you for proving my point. The academics wasted their efforts at
preventing any publications that ran counter to their predictions.
> And by the way. For that collosal waste of money, places like
> fermilab, provide the code that was written in the process for
> anyone to use.
Don't act like this is an act of noblilty! The codes are all "public",
since they're developed with public money. But just try to get them if
you are not safely within ivory walls -- and have the "right"
credentials. I've had personal experience with getting access to
"public" codes from other academia (though not with Fermilab). One is
never refused. You merely never receive the code. This is standard
bureaucratic hoarding of information (power).
> Most of it is very general, and can basically
> be used by anyone that wants to use it. That goes for the acquisition
> side as well. If you were to set up an experiment, you have software
> for which millions of dollars in development AND testing costs have
> already been done for you and I'll bet anything, that should
> you discover a bug, you will get an answer and fix from the
> "wasted talent, time and money", than you will ever get from
> a commercial vendor. It's sitting on fnal. I have a set of the
> Motif plot widgets.
Goody for you!
{Snip of a long diatribe of ad hominem attack that didn't address the
comment.}
> >You want me to provide you the "meaning" of an unexpected
> >particle? You can't be serious. What is the "meaning" of you?
>
> Yes, I can. You apparently cannot be objective enough to picture the
the
> data without the benefit of hindsight, while criticizing all of those
that
> did not have the luxury of 75 years of people scrutinizing the data
for
> them. Armchair science is simple. You can't simply have some blob of
data
> and send it in expecting people to go figure out what it is.
Why not? That used to be called science. We didn't have to "know" what
something was before we reported it. (i.e. X-rays. Radioactivity.)
And you didn't answer th question: What is the "meaning" of an
unexpected particle?
> >Only to someone who can't see anything unless he thinks he already
> >understands it. Did you ever see a rainbow before you learned the
> >physics of refraction?
>
> If you do not understand the details of an experiment, you cannot say
what
> the data represents.
But I'm not looking for someone to tell me what the data represents.
YOU are claiming that it is not possible to see the rainbow until
someone has a theory explaining what it is.
We're talking about I see a rainbow and photograph it. Then I'm not
allowed to publish (by you, in your office of referee) because I don't
have a theory for it.
{snip unlikely and irrelevant comment on flying saucers and pie plates}
> >You don't need a "filter" for a cloud or bubble chamber. Each track
is
> >a single event. Raw data is the basis of experimental science.
> >
>
> positron = \rho = p/qB
> proton \rho = p/qB
> \mu+ \rho = p/qB
> \pi+ \rho = p/qB
>
> It looks like all of these particles have the same curvature in
the
> same B-field. I can make a normal \beta decay look like pair
production
> in a cloud chamber.
Only if you look only at the curvature and ignore the thickness of the
track. Personally, I'd look at the track thickness and polarity before
measuring the curvature. At least that's what I did back in the dark
ages.
> Look at a kurie plot for neutron decay. Give equal
> momenta to the proton and e-. Give whatever energy to the neutrino is
> needed to balance the energy and get p_e = p_prot. Same curvature,
> opposite directions.
>
> You don't think you need to filter against those types of
events?
> You've specified no B-field,
A flat untruth. Any experiment would record the B-field. As well as
date, source, time, experimenter, ad nauseum.
> no sources of contamination that could look
> the same, but be ordinary events, or really much of anything. All
you've
> stated is you see a picture with a curvature that you think is going
the
> wrong way. That just is not acceptable as data. Provide everything you
> need to show that there is no question that the momentum, B-field,
bend
> radius and charge are uniquely that of an electron mass, and why it
cannot
> be something else, and you will get closer to having a point.
And you accuse me of anachronistic thinking!
{snip irrelevant rehashing of modern methods}
> >Not anymore. It was widely so reported in the '70s. But it got
> >published right away.
>
> So have several previous claims for neutrino masses. Guess why?
> Because the researchers had a reputation as careful and not given
> to speculation.
But neutrino mass was not discussed or published until AFTER there was
a theory that demanded it.
> I went to a talk about cabrera's monopole shortly
> after it was mentioned, so I know how seriously it was considered,
> which was "not very". And it was in 1982, not the 1970's.
I was a physics student at Berkeley in the mid '70s and monopoles and
detecting them were all the rage. It was "not very serious" in the 80's
because interest was cooling because the theories had changed. My
recollection of the first publication of "proof" was just one event
track.
But of course, that was AFTER there was a theory of monopoles.
Bilge
>Let's see. What does that arc contain? First we DO know the polarity
>and strength of the magnetic field which we imposed upon the bubble
>chamber in order to get the arc in the first place.
>
>Next we can measure the thickness of the track (regardless of energy,
>until they are about to stop). Electrons leave skinny tracks (because
>of their high charge to mass ratio). Protons leave thicker tracks. And
>alphas leave thick, ropy tracks. Now there were only three particles
>known at the time in question that left tracks. Alpha, beta, and
>(sometimes) proton.
>
Speculation changes nothing. It can just as easily be a proton,
except when you know in advance what you think the answer is
based on what repeatable experiments found. As for the
articles that end up in journals, if anything, about half of
what does get published (in prl that's 49% of what gets submitted),
probably should be rejected as well.
>
>There is nothing at all "extra" needed beyond the one photo, to know
>that here is something different.
>
"Something different" is not news. "Something different" followed
by a detailed analysis of why it can't be anything else that can
be explained is getting close. A fluke does not justify claiming
you've discovered something new. Flukes happen all the time. They
don't end up in journals. Right this moment, such a photo would
be totally useless without something to back it up. Since a journal
will not even print the photo without an outlandish charge, about the
only thing you have to present, you haven't bothered to even hint
you could do, which is provide a detailed analysis of the experiment
justifying your claim that it's interesting. A single data point
is not very convincing. I've seen people laugh at their own data
with more datapoints in their favor. "How can you draw a gaussian
around 3 data points? - A straight line gave a bad chi-square".
>
>You are entitled to your unsupported opinion. What's the difference
>between wasting more or wasting less? All bureaucracies lie to survive.
> The bigger the bureaucracy, the more they lie. And brother, academics
>are bureaucrats. I don't think you'd get any argument on that last
>sentence from anyone at Berkeley.
>
Except the physicists don't constitute the bureaucrats. The bureaucracy
constitutes the pain in the ass and uneeded expense to physics. The
safety regulations imposed at national labs despite a safety record
that essentially unblemished by a serious accident, is an expense that
has nothing to do with physics, no physicist wants and requires things
as ridiculous as needing authorized personnel to transport a wash bottle
of alcohol or acetone across the property.
>
>And you don't think this adds up to pressure on the poor academic
>researcher who is facing grant cuts?
>
Sure. And by the public insisting that only mainstream research that
produces immediate results (in terms of $$), the people that the
administrations decide to keep will not be anyone doing anything
without a payoff.
>> When the cold fusion fiasco was in full swing,
>> who was funding the bulk of it? Certainly not academia. No one
>> that I knew was willing to spend their funds or time time on a waste.
>> (but several had industry beating down their doors while throwing
>> significant chunks of money, "just in case".
>
>Thank you for proving my point. The academics wasted their efforts at
>preventing any publications that ran counter to their predictions.
>
Nature isn't mainstream enough? You haven't the slightest idea what a
farce the cold fusion nonsense was. If you believe there was actually
something to it, you didn't see any experiments that were set up
according to pons and fleishmann that did nothing but take up space
and create clutter and never produce anything but a definitive
contradiction to pons and fleishmann. I happened to be in the same
building with someone that ran such an experiment for several years.
>
>Don't act like this is an act of noblilty! The codes are all "public",
>since they're developed with public money. But just try to get them if
>you are not safely within ivory walls -- and have the "right"
>credentials. I've had personal experience with getting access to
Bullshit. I have no affiliation with fnal whatsoever and I can
ftp software. I even made certain the site is still accessible
and is still public doing so. I ftp straight from my home just
as anyone else can do. I also did not find it via any special
inside knowlegde. I simply guessed.
>"public" codes from other academia (though not with Fermilab). One is
>never refused. You merely never receive the code. This is standard
>bureaucratic hoarding of information (power).
>
Such as? The antenna modeling code nec is easy to find. So are
numerous other codes. Researchers are under no obligation to
make their hard disks available to the public and in most cases
those codes are about as un-userfreindly as you can possibly
imagine. In many cases, you can't even figure out how to run
the code without reading through thousands of lines of FORTRAN,
a substantial fraction which may not even do anything at the
moment. If you came across with the attitude that you were entitled
to it, I can see why you have a problem. It just isn't an obligation
to collect all of the pieces of program to a greater degree than
is needed to use it for research. A nice package in a tar file with
a manual is a luxury and I've personally had to figure out binary
file formats produced by code you seem to think gets exchanged
among academic institutions differently than I described above.
I seriously doubt you'd be interested in what you were given
unless you were given someone to help you compile and use
it and write a manual for it, too.
>
>Goody for you!
>
I take advantage of what's available rather than whining about
something that doesn't exist. Basically, that's about the
only thing you can say to a flat out contradiction to your
assertion, that somehow you aren't getting your cut.
>data
>> and send it in expecting people to go figure out what it is.
>
>Why not? That used to be called science. We didn't have to "know" what
>something was before we reported it. (i.e. X-rays. Radioactivity.)
>
It's the researcher's job. The only reason that used to be called science
is it was pretty obvious that X-rays couldn't be confused for something
else, since there was not something else to confuse them with.
>And you didn't answer th question: What is the "meaning" of an
>unexpected particle?
>
one that isn't expected.
>
>But I'm not looking for someone to tell me what the data represents.
>YOU are claiming that it is not possible to see the rainbow until
>someone has a theory explaining what it is.
>
No, I'm not. But it is possible to provide evidence that any
current theory can't explain it and all of the reasons why none
of those theories do.
>We're talking about I see a rainbow and photograph it. Then I'm not
>allowed to publish (by you, in your office of referee) because I don't
>have a theory for it.
>
No, you just aren't going to get it published without a reason that
it isn't an artifact related to the experimental details, and why
you think it is of some significance.
>{snip unlikely and irrelevant comment on flying saucers and pie plates}
The only irrelavent part was that it isn't relavent to helping you
prove your assertion and it is likely, given the number of area 51
nuts that have the same argument you do but with better photos.
>
>Only if you look only at the curvature and ignore the thickness of the
>track. Personally, I'd look at the track thickness and polarity before
>measuring the curvature. At least that's what I did back in the dark
>ages.
>
And exactly how do you plan to discriminate a mass based upon
line thickness in a photograph? Life is simple in hindsight.
>> Look at a kurie plot for neutron decay. Give equal
>> momenta to the proton and e-. Give whatever energy to the neutrino is
>> needed to balance the energy and get p_e = p_prot. Same curvature,
>> opposite directions.
>>
>> You don't think you need to filter against those types of
>events?
>> You've specified no B-field,
>
>A flat untruth. Any experiment would record the B-field. As well as
>date, source, time, experimenter, ad nauseum.
>
It doesn't address the beta decay scenario I mentioned. You've
presented nothing but your opinion that in hindsight one could
comclude your picture shows a positron.
>And you accuse me of anachronistic thinking!
>
No, I accuse you of having no consistent objective criteria beyond
your opinion. On the one hand, you expect science to get the right
answers and on the other you expect no objective method to determine
what that is. Basically, it boils down to the fact that you want the
sole right to impose your opinion on acceptable research so that it
conforms to whatever preconceived idea you have of how it should turn
out. Welcome to the club. Everybody I've ever met thinks they are
doing the right experiments or else they wouldn't do them. The
difference is those same people don't go sulk because the experiments
didn't turn out like they planned. They just accept the fact that
something didn't pan out. Published experiments only represent the
ones that pan out. Not all of the ones leading up to it that didn't get
published. Apparently you consider not equating opinions to objective
criteria an anachronism. Well, things are looking up. With the public's
lack of interest in funding science, you might get your way. Science
lost to popular opinion in kansas.
>
>But neutrino mass was not discussed or published until AFTER there was
>a theory that demanded it.
>
Nonsense. See konepinski, 1964. It's probably out of print, but a
library should have it. It discusses the effects of the neutrino mass
on the beta-decay endpoint spectrum and the data which indicates that
if it has a mass, it's negligible with regard to the beta energy
spectrum. It then discusses majorana neutrinos and devotes a large
section of the book on "Speculations about \beta couplings and the
neutrino". At the time, the \muon neutrino was called the \neutretto
which I had never even used seen previously. There existed no standard
model. In fact, parity violation, which would reall have been the
main reason a neutrino mass mattered much had only been discovered
8 years earlier. Basically, your criticism is the result of a lack
of interest in objectivity on your part.
>
>I was a physics student at Berkeley in the mid '70s and monopoles and
>detecting them were all the rage. It was "not very serious" in the 80's
>because interest was cooling because the theories had changed. My
>recollection of the first publication of "proof" was just one event
>track.
>
The candidate for an event was published in 1982, and it was not
offered as proof of anything. It was offered as a potential starting
point in a search that many people were engaged in.
>But of course, that was AFTER there was a theory of monopoles.
It would be hard to be before unless you are really old. Dirac proposed
model for a monopole in 1931 and jackson states "At the present time
(1975) there us no experimental evidence for the existence of magnetic
charges or monopoles, but chiefly because of an early, brilliant
theoretical argument of dirac, the search for monopoles is renewed
when a new energy region is opened up... If you are comparing the
credibility of your opinion with that of dirac, you should be able to
produce better reasoning for anything you've said than you have. I'm
certain dirac wasn't the first to consider magnetic charges. It's
the most obvious thing to ask when looking at the asymmetry in
maxwell's eqns.
Matthew Nobes
> In article <slrn8u8la...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net>,
> dav...@david15.dallas.nationwide.net wrote:
>
> > And by the way. For that collosal waste of money, places like
> > fermilab, provide the code that was written in the process for
> > anyone to use.
>
> Don't act like this is an act of noblilty! The codes are all "public",
> since they're developed with public money. But just try to get them if
> you are not safely within ivory walls -- and have the "right"
> credentials. I've had personal experience with getting access to
> "public" codes from other academia (though not with Fermilab). One is
> never refused. You merely never receive the code. This is standard
> bureaucratic hoarding of information (power).
http://heplibw3.slac.stanford.edu/FIND/FHMAIN.HTML
So much for "bureaucratic hoarding of information" this site has a
tutorial on how to get the software.
Note also that this is hardly hard to find.
1) start at the main slac page
2) click on "computing"
3) click on FreeHEP (which is under the heading Physics Software)
There's also links to CERN code, and a Physicstools link.
I'd guess Mr. Mingst didn't even spend ten minutes checking the web before
he decided to make a stupid statement.
Oh ya, there's also netlib (www.netlib.org) which has tonnes of free
software. And the Fermilab code's pretty easy to find as well.
greyw...@my-deja.com
dav...@david15.dallas.nationwide.net wrote:
> greyw...@my-deja.com said some stuff about
>
> >Let's see. What does that arc contain? First we DO know the
polarity
> >and strength of the magnetic field which we imposed upon the bubble
> >chamber in order to get the arc in the first place.
> >
> >Next we can measure the thickness of the track (regardless of
energy,
> >until they are about to stop). Electrons leave skinny tracks
(because
> >of their high charge to mass ratio). Protons leave thicker tracks.
And
> >alphas leave thick, ropy tracks. Now there were only three
particles
> >known at the time in question that left tracks. Alpha, beta, and
> >(sometimes) proton.
>
> Speculation changes nothing. It can just as easily be a proton,
> except when you know in advance what you think the answer is
> based on what repeatable experiments found. As for the
> articles that end up in journals, if anything, about half of
> what does get published (in prl that's 49% of what gets submitted),
> probably should be rejected as well.
Speculation about what? An electron/positron cannot "just as easily be
a proton." I guess you just are ignorant, didn't believe the statement
about the thickness of tracks, and therefore ignored it. Let's try a
quote from another source, since you obviously won't believe me.
===============
"It has been 100 y since Madame Curie witnessed the thick particle
tracks of polonium alpha particles streaking through her cloud chamber,
in contrast to the fine contorted beta particle contrails (Rutherford,
et al 1930)."
From "Biological Effects of Cosmic Radiation: Deterministic and
Stochastic", EA Blakely, Health Physics, Vol 79, No 5, November 2000
===============
> >There is nothing at all "extra" needed beyond the one photo, to know
> >that here is something different.
>
>"Something different" is not news.
Only to those who will not look unless a theory exists to explain what
they see.
> "Something different" followed
>by a detailed analysis of why it can't be anything else that can
>be explained is getting close.
They had that. Positive charge, with the mass/charge ratio of the
electron. They didn't need anything else. Doesn't sound like a proton,
neutron or electron to me.
> A fluke does not justify claiming
>you've discovered something new. Flukes happen all the time.
I guess that means that professional physicists throw out a lot of
science, just because they don't have a theory.
> They don't end up in journals. Right this moment, such a photo would
>be totally useless without something to back it up.
The photo IS the backup. In Roentgen and Curie's time, a photo wasn't
needed. Because people still duplicated experiments back then.
{snip repetition of the view}
> >You are entitled to your unsupported opinion. What's the difference
> >between wasting more or wasting less? All bureaucracies lie to
survive.
> > The bigger the bureaucracy, the more they lie. And brother,
academics
> >are bureaucrats. I don't think you'd get any argument on that last
> >sentence from anyone at Berkeley.
> >
>
> Except the physicists don't constitute the bureaucrats.
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!
Wait, I have to pause for breath......
> The bureaucracy
> constitutes the pain in the ass and uneeded expense to physics.
In order to survive in a bureaucracy, one must become a bureaucrat.
Sorry, no brown-nose, no grant money. Physicists need bureaucrats
because "professional" physicists need money.
> The safety regulations imposed at national labs despite a safety
> record that essentially unblemished by a serious accident,
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
Much longer pause for breath......
SL1, Westinghouse Idaho reactor, Rocky Flats plutonium releases, Oak
Ridge tornadoes described as "sudden high wind events" to avoid having
to declare an emergency. Nitric acid leaks. Hexafluoride
burn/suffocations. Blue flashes. I could go on.....
Where DO you get these outlandish claims? Best to try them on someone
who hasn't work with the Feds and the labs for many years.
> is an expense that
> has nothing to do with physics, no physicist wants and requires things
> as ridiculous as needing authorized personnel to transport a wash
bottle
> of alcohol or acetone across the property.
Funny. In grad school (Berkeley) I worked for a post-doc who still kept
trying to add water to hydrofluoric acid. I had to hold his hand to
keep him from killing himself (and me). The guy in the next office
(another PhD) couldn't figure out how to attach the cover on the X-ray
crystallography machine. So he left it off and manually defeated the
safety interlock. This one could have been tragic, but I wandered by
and shut it down. He ranted that I had "ruined" his experiment.
Apparently all he succeeded in doing was exposing everyone's TLD's for
the month (they were in the same room.)
If you consider safety regulations bureaucracy, I can see why there are
so many accidents at Federal facilities compared to commercial ones.
Although I do agree some "safety" rules only protect the jobs of the
regulators.
> >And you don't think this adds up to pressure on the poor academic
> >researcher who is facing grant cuts?
> >
>
> Sure. And by the public insisting that only mainstream research
that
> produces immediate results (in terms of $$), the people that the
> administrations decide to keep will not be anyone doing anything
> without a payoff.
Thank you for supporting my point. No payoff, no money. So no negative
results are reported.
> >> When the cold fusion fiasco was in full swing,
> >> who was funding the bulk of it? Certainly not academia. No one
> >> that I knew was willing to spend their funds or time time on a
waste.
> >> (but several had industry beating down their doors while throwing
> >> significant chunks of money, "just in case".
> >
> >Thank you for proving my point. The academics wasted their efforts
at
> >preventing any publications that ran counter to their predictions.
> >
>
> Nature isn't mainstream enough? You haven't the slightest idea
what a
> farce the cold fusion nonsense was. If you believe there was
actually
> something to it, you didn't see any experiments that were set up
> according to pons and fleishmann that did nothing but take up
space
> and create clutter and never produce anything but a definitive
> contradiction to pons and fleishmann. I happened to be in the
same
> building with someone that ran such an experiment for several
years.
And not all experimenters could repeat. This isn't too unusual when you
don't know what you're dealing with (you have no theory). I don't know
who your friend worked with. I was doing some work for the EPRI
researchers.
Well, goody! You found one antenna modelling code (that cannot threaten
anyone's pet theory by any stretch of the imagination).
How easily you assume I'm a tyro at codes. Only 30 years experience.
And I have rewritten and debugged old FORTRAN codes for LBL (before it
was LBNL) and Oak Ridge.
The code I was referring to was the "standard" solar model. One of
those theoretical basis things. If you know where it is on the web, let
me know.
> >Goody for you!
>
> I take advantage of what's available rather than whining about
> something that doesn't exist. Basically, that's about the
> only thing you can say to a flat out contradiction to your
> assertion, that somehow you aren't getting your cut.
A contradiction? You -- a member of the anointed -- have found one
minor non-theoretical code on the internet. This is a flat
contradiction that "the unwashed" are not provided access to theoretical
modelling codes?
My cut??? I was asking for access to a public domain code. Researchers
ARE obligated to make floppy disks or other copies available. Who said
anything about hard disks?
> >We're talking about I see a rainbow and photograph it. Then I'm not
> >allowed to publish (by you, in your office of referee) because I
don't
> >have a theory for it.
>
> No, you just aren't going to get it published without a reason
that
> it isn't an artifact related to the experimental details, and
why
> you think it is of some significance.
What is the "significance" of a rainbow?
You have again proved my point, that if it isn't significant to the
bureaucrats, then it doesn't exist.
> >But neutrino mass was not discussed or published until AFTER there
was
> >a theory that demanded it.
>
> Nonsense. See konepinski, 1964. It's probably out of print, but
a
> library should have it. It discusses the effects of the neutrino
mass
> on the beta-decay endpoint spectrum and the data which indicates
that
> if it has a mass,
So we have a theory that is now in need of a neutrino with mass. That's
what I said. No publication of experimental data until theory says you
need it.
Bilge
>
>I guess that means that professional physicists throw out a lot of
>science, just because they don't have a theory.
>
I personally recall discarding data which was unquestionably
correct for the sole reason that the data in one set of counters,
which were not even part or the analysis, but were only used as
a redundant sanity check, didn't make sense. On top of that, no
one even considered the values of the data from those counters to
be particularly reliable, which is why they weren't used to determine
real events.
>ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!
>
>Wait, I have to pause for breath......
>
please don't. Air is wasted on you.
>
>> The bureaucracy
>> constitutes the pain in the ass and uneeded expense to physics.
>
>In order to survive in a bureaucracy, one must become a bureaucrat.
>Sorry, no brown-nose, no grant money. Physicists need bureaucrats
>because "professional" physicists need money.
>
So, in other words, you consider being forced into catering to
a bureacracy the equivalent of a bureaucrat that institutes the
process. OK. Be as dense as you wish. You've earned the right to
be pretty dense.
>
>> The safety regulations imposed at national labs despite a safety
>> record that essentially unblemished by a serious accident,
>
>ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
>
>Much longer pause for breath......
>
>SL1, Westinghouse Idaho reactor, Rocky Flats plutonium releases, Oak
Excuse me "westinghouse" is not a national lab.
>Ridge tornadoes described as "sudden high wind events" to avoid having
>to declare an emergency. Nitric acid leaks. Hexafluoride
>burn/suffocations. Blue flashes. I could go on.....
In other words, you have no safety problems at national labs, only
labs that are geared for military use, not scientific research.
>Funny. In grad school (Berkeley) I worked for a post-doc who still kept
>trying to add water to hydrofluoric acid. I had to hold his hand to
>keep him from killing himself (and me). The guy in the next office
>(another PhD) couldn't figure out how to attach the cover on the X-ray
>crystallography machine. So he left it off and manually defeated the
>safety interlock. This one could have been tragic, but I wandered by
>and shut it down. He ranted that I had "ruined" his experiment.
>Apparently all he succeeded in doing was exposing everyone's TLD's for
>the month (they were in the same room.)
>
Given your lack of logic, I can't believe this to be more than wishful
thinking.
>If you consider safety regulations bureaucracy, I can see why there are
>so many accidents at Federal facilities compared to commercial ones.
>
Name all of the accidents that have ever injured someone at:
LAMPF, FNAL, BNL, IUCF, NSCL, or any other lab that doesn't have
people such as yourself that don't know anything about the reseaerch
deciding how the scientists have to conduct it.
>
>Thank you for supporting my point. No payoff, no money. So no negative
>results are reported.
Cold fusion is but one example. Mercury into lead is another.
Despite the objections of the scientific community.
>
>And not all experimenters could repeat. This isn't too unusual when you
>don't know what you're dealing with (you have no theory). I don't know
>who your friend worked with. I was doing some work for the EPRI
>researchers.
Himself. And there is a theory. The theory shows it won't work.
No matter how many wishes you get. Quite frankly, the cold fusion
bit was somewhat of an embarassment, since people that didn't know
any better thought nuclear physicists had something to do with it,
other than proclaim it for the crock it is.
>
>Well, goody! You found one antenna modelling code (that cannot threaten
>anyone's pet theory by any stretch of the imagination).
>
>How easily you assume I'm a tyro at codes. Only 30 years experience.
>And I have rewritten and debugged old FORTRAN codes for LBL (before it
>was LBNL) and Oak Ridge.
>
I don't have to assume. If you've ever been associated with anything
scientific, it certainly doesn't show.
>The code I was referring to was the "standard" solar model. One of
>those theoretical basis things. If you know where it is on the web, let
>me know.
>
I doubt it would help, since you would also want me to combine
all of them to get just the right input data you think it needs in
some format that doesn't piss you off as shortsighted on the part
of the authors and which yields nice pretty pictures rather than
tables of numbers. If you had been satisfied with the same codes
lots of other people use, and actually recognized that there is
no single code that starts with a bunch of hydrogen atoms and builds
a star from first principles, you could choose from several, once
you figured out how to enter "stellar" "model" "fortran" (or not if
you prefer c), "solar" "program" or the like. Sorry if it doesn't
come precompiled. Oh. Also, thanks, I managed to find a fortran
callable package to generate postscript output in the < 10 secs
it took me to determine you never bother to check anything before
complaining about it.
>
>A contradiction? You -- a member of the anointed -- have found one
>minor non-theoretical code on the internet. This is a flat
How exactly do I qualify as annointed?
>contradiction that "the unwashed" are not provided access to theoretical
>modelling codes?
I have no more access than you do.
>
>My cut??? I was asking for access to a public domain code. Researchers
>ARE obligated to make floppy disks or other copies available. Who said
>anything about hard disks?
Bullshit. I have almost never seen any code written for
use in a lab that doesn't qualify as user abusive and next
to impossible for someone unfamiliar with it to use at all.
Basically, most of it useful if you feel like wading through
thousands of lines of fortran, with little or no thought
given to the the idea that someone else might actually read
it and want to know what it does, as well as expecting you to
find the portion(s) of the code that tell you how to line up
numbers in the collums so that the program reads it correctly.
You'd be pissed off if it didn't clean up its own tmp files,
let alone not indicate what they are.
>
>What is the "significance" of a rainbow?
>
That's up to the person that wants to publish a paper on one.
Enumerating the ordering of the colors top-to-bottom for n-fold
stacked rainbows doesn't do it. So far all you expect is to write
a blurb about rainbows and have people throw gratitude at you for
wasting a tree.
>
>So we have a theory that is now in need of a neutrino with mass. That's
>what I said. No publication of experimental data until theory says you
>need it.
>
Obvioulsly, as soon as anyone shows you you are wrong, you simply
find something else to be wrong about. You know nothing about
neutrinos, nor from what I can tell, physics except perhaps how
to use it in a sentence to form a complaint. Why bother answering
your rhetorical complaints? You're a bottomless pit of illogical
misunderstanding of science. You have exactly one complaint with
a winding number of infinity. You don't like physics and don't intend
to let logical refutation of your incorrect assertaions stand in your
way.
greyw...@my-deja.com
dav...@david15.dallas.nationwide.net wrote:
> >I guess that means that professional physicists throw out a lot of
> >science, just because they don't have a theory.
>
> I personally recall discarding data which was unquestionably
> correct for the sole reason that the data in one set of counters,
> which were not even part or the analysis, but were only used as
> a redundant sanity check, didn't make sense. On top of that, no
> one even considered the values of the data from those counters to
> be particularly reliable, which is why they weren't used to determine
> real events.
Throwing out data because you don't have a theory is not the same as
throwing it out because one counter (out of many) is not particularly
reliable. I've never heard it said that photographic plates are
unreliable.
> >
> >> The safety regulations imposed at national labs despite a safety
> >> record that essentially unblemished by a serious accident,
> >
> >ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
> >
> >Much longer pause for breath......
> >
> >SL1, Westinghouse Idaho reactor, Rocky Flats plutonium releases, Oak
>
> Excuse me "westinghouse" is not a national lab.
What's your point? These were all either explosions, fires or other
serious problems that occured at National Labs.
>
> >Ridge tornadoes described as "sudden high wind events" to avoid
having
> >to declare an emergency. Nitric acid leaks. Hexafluoride
> >burn/suffocations. Blue flashes. I could go on.....
>
> In other words, you have no safety problems at national labs,
only
> labs that are geared for military use, not scientific research.
ALL of the national labs do military research. That is (or was) their
primary mission.
> >Funny. In grad school (Berkeley) I worked for a post-doc who still
kept
> >trying to add water to hydrofluoric acid. I had to hold his hand to
> >keep him from killing himself (and me). The guy in the next office
> >(another PhD) couldn't figure out how to attach the cover on the
X-ray
> >crystallography machine. So he left it off and manually defeated
the
> >safety interlock. This one could have been tragic, but I wandered
by
> >and shut it down. He ranted that I had "ruined" his experiment.
> >Apparently all he succeeded in doing was exposing everyone's TLD's
for
> >the month (they were in the same room.)
> >
>
> Given your lack of logic, I can't believe this to be more than
wishful
> thinking.
Wishful thinking????? Lack of logic???
I mereley am using specific examples from personal experience and
general knowledge to show that your claim that National Labs have no
need for safety reviews is a farce.
>
> >If you consider safety regulations bureaucracy, I can see why there
are
> >so many accidents at Federal facilities compared to commercial ones.
> >
>
> Name all of the accidents that have ever injured someone at:
>
> LAMPF, FNAL, BNL, IUCF, NSCL, or any other lab that doesn't have
> people such as yourself that don't know anything about the reseaerch
> deciding how the scientists have to conduct it.
Huh?
> >And not all experimenters could repeat. This isn't too unusual when
you
> >don't know what you're dealing with (you have no theory). I don't
know
> >who your friend worked with. I was doing some work for the EPRI
> >researchers.
>
> Himself. And there is a theory. The theory shows it won't work.
> No matter how many wishes you get. Quite frankly, the cold
fusion
> bit was somewhat of an embarassment, since people that didn't
know
> any better thought nuclear physicists had something to do with
it,
> other than proclaim it for the crock it is.
Non sequiteur.
> >Well, goody! You found one antenna modelling code (that cannot
threaten
> >anyone's pet theory by any stretch of the imagination).
> >
> >How easily you assume I'm a tyro at codes. Only 30 years
experience.
> >And I have rewritten and debugged old FORTRAN codes for LBL (before
it
> >was LBNL) and Oak Ridge.
> >
>
> I don't have to assume. If you've ever been associated with
anything
> scientific, it certainly doesn't show.
If you don't have to assume, why do you keep assuming. Simply because I
come up with different conclusions than you. And that I don't worship
standard physics.
> >The code I was referring to was the "standard" solar model. One of
> >those theoretical basis things. If you know where it is on the web,
let
> >me know.
> >
>
> I doubt it would help, since you would also want me to combine
> all of them to get just the right input data you think it needs in
> some format that doesn't piss you off as shortsighted on the part
> of the authors and which yields nice pretty pictures rather than
> tables of numbers. If you had been satisfied with the same codes
> lots of other people use, and actually recognized that there is
> no single code that starts with a bunch of hydrogen atoms and builds
> a star from first principles, you could choose from several, once
> you figured out how to enter "stellar" "model" "fortran" (or not if
> you prefer c), "solar" "program" or the like. Sorry if it doesn't
> come precompiled. Oh. Also, thanks, I managed to find a fortran
> callable package to generate postscript output in the < 10 secs
> it took me to determine you never bother to check anything before
> complaining about it.
In other words, you don't know.
> >
> >My cut??? I was asking for access to a public domain code.
Researchers
> >ARE obligated to make floppy disks or other copies available. Who
said
> >anything about hard disks?
>
> Bullshit. I have almost never seen any code written for
> use in a lab that doesn't qualify as user abusive and next
> to impossible for someone unfamiliar with it to use at all.
That wouldn't bother me.
> Basically, most of it useful if you feel like wading through
> thousands of lines of fortran, with little or no thought
> given to the the idea that someone else might actually read
> it and want to know what it does, as well as expecting you to
> find the portion(s) of the code that tell you how to line up
> numbers in the collums so that the program reads it correctly.
> You'd be pissed off if it didn't clean up its own tmp files,
> let alone not indicate what they are.
Of course that doesn't address the issue. The issue was that those
would not be given in the first place.
Dan Riley
> ALL of the national labs do military research. That is (or was) their
> primary mission.
SLAC is a DOE national lab. I am not aware of any military research
at SLAC, and it certainly never has been its primary mission. Same
for Brookhaven and FermiLab. I'm not aware of military research at
PPPL, NETL, or NREL. And while LBL has engaged in military research,
that wasn't its original mission, and isn't now.
--
Dan Riley d...@mail.lns.cornell.edu
Wilson Lab, Cornell University <URL:http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~dsr/>
"History teaches us that days like this are best spent in bed"
Luc J. Bourhis
> An electron/positron cannot "just as easily be
> a proton." I guess you just are ignorant, didn't believe the statement
> about the thickness of tracks, and therefore ignored it.
Have you read Anderson's original papers ? Or books or articles
discussing the decisive evidences which made Anderson conclude he saw
positive electrons ? The arguments you used in that thread makes me
think you have not. Actually I have not read the decisive observation
anywhere in this thread. If somebody has given it, my anticipated
apologies. Anyhow here is a short summary of Anderson 1933 paper [1] in
which he announced the discovery of a postive electron. I should have
come with that a long time ago but better late than never.
First Anderson noted quickly that the tracks could not be possibly
protons. Indeed their curvatures would imply protons with an energy of
300 keV. He reminded then that it was well known that such protons have
a range of just a few mm in air whereas the observed tracks were about 5
cm long.
The real challenge was to find in which direction these particles moved.
Indeed a given arc of circle can be both the trajectory of a positron
and of an electron moving in the opposite direction. I remind the reader
that Anderson was observing the tracks of the particles produced by the
collision of cosmic rays against nuclei. Since photographies of a bubble
chamber reveal only the trajectory and not the direction of motion,
unless he were able to locate the point where the collision took place,
which is called the primary vertex in particle physics, he had no clue
about that direction. Most of his pictures showed tracks going from one
side to another or from one wall of the chamber to another, making it
impossible to deduce if they were positive or negative.
The decisive experimental trick was to put a 6 mm horizontal lead plate
in the middle of the chamber. Indeed a particle going through it is
slowed down. Thus the two tracks on both sides of the plate have
different curvatures, the most curved one having been made after the
less curved one. This gives the direction of motion. Alternatives are
untenable:
- An electron accelerated during his going through the plate. But then
20 MeV electrons entering the plate on one side would have come out on
the other side with 60 MeV. No way.
- Two independent electrons produced two tracks so placed as to mimic a
single particle passing through the plate. Very improbable.
Actually there was a fourth possibility as noted by Anderson. A photon
could have shot the plate from the side producing two particles, one of
which heading upward and the other downward. But then one of these
particles must have been a positive electron.
As a conclusion the decisive experimental idea was the design by
Anderson and Millikan in the summer of 1930 of a bubble chamber with a
lead plate embedded in it.
Let me finish with a side note about the theoretical implications
discussed by Anderson. He focused entirely on the dominant model of the
nucleus at his time, in which the neutron was supposed to be the
combination of a proton and an electron. He noted that this hypothesis
was seriously shaken by the discovery of a positive particle produced by
the collision of cosmic rays against nuclei. Moreover as it has already
been pointed out by Matthew Nobes there is no mention of Dirac
theoretical proposal of positive electrons whatsoever, which means that
Anderson was not aware of Dirac's idea. The referee was not either.
[1] C.D. Anderson, "The Positive Electron", Phys. Rev. 43 (1933) 491
--
Luc J. Bourhis
greyw...@my-deja.com
Dan Riley <d...@mail.lns.cornell.edu> wrote:
> greyw...@my-deja.com writes:
> > ALL of the national labs do military research. That is (or was)
their
> > primary mission.
>
> at SLAC, and it certainly never has been its primary mission.
Apparently, I'm behind the times. SLAC used to be run by Stanford, not
the Feds.
And depending on who is counting, between 50% to 90% of all DOE research
money is provided for DOD research. DOE was originally developed as a
way of counting "guns" as "butter."
> Same for Brookhaven and FermiLab.
Here, you are merely ignorant. But then most Brookhaven military stuff
was classified. Though there was a lot of military isotopic work (bomb
dynamics).
> I'm not aware of military research at PPPL, NETL, or NREL.
I'm not aware of the meanings of these particular acronyms. Apparently
the Feds have been "buying up" labs.
> And while LBL has engaged in military research,
> that wasn't its original mission, and isn't now.
Although it wasn't LBL's original mission, LBL wasn't originally a
national lab. It was run by the University of California (not just
managed by them). Military was it's prime function when it was taken
over. And military work goes on there today. (Regardless of the
"mission.")
greyw...@my-deja.com
Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk (Luc J. Bourhis) wrote:
> <greyw...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > An electron/positron cannot "just as easily be
> > a proton." I guess you just are ignorant, didn't believe the
statement
> > about the thickness of tracks, and therefore ignored it.
>
> discussing the decisive evidences which made Anderson conclude he saw
> positive electrons ? The arguments you used in that thread makes me
> think you have not. Actually I have not read the decisive observation
> anywhere in this thread. If somebody has given it, my anticipated
> apologies. Anyhow here is a short summary of Anderson 1933 paper [1]
in
> which he announced the discovery of a postive electron. I should have
> come with that a long time ago but better late than never.
{snip the rest of the irrelevant post...}
Did you bother to read the paragraph above or the quote you snipped? I
don't care if Anderson was blind or ignorant.
One classifies the tracks by thickness FIRST. Then you have a good
estimate of the charge to mass ratio.
Do you claim that there is no difference in track thickness between a
proton and an electron?
>Since photographies of a bubble
> chamber reveal only the trajectory and not the direction of motion,
> unless he were able to locate the point where the collision took
place,
> which is called the primary vertex in particle physics, he had no clue
> about that direction. Most of his pictures showed tracks going from
one
> side to another or from one wall of the chamber to another, making it
> impossible to deduce if they were positive or negative.
Only if one is too dense to put a collimator on the device. Like a lead
shield aroung 5 sides of a cube.
>
> The decisive experimental trick was to put a 6 mm horizontal lead
plate
> in the middle of the chamber. Indeed a particle going through it is
> slowed down. Thus the two tracks on both sides of the plate have
> different curvatures, the most curved one having been made after the
> less curved one. This gives the direction of motion. Alternatives are
> untenable:
The collimator I mentioned above is not untenable, and far easier to
use. The lead insert does provide an improvement in calculating
dynamics.
Luc J. Bourhis
> Did you bother to read the paragraph above or the quote you snipped? I
> don't care if Anderson was blind or ignorant.
> One classifies the tracks by thickness FIRST. Then you have a good
> estimate of the charge to mass ratio.
That's so easy to do that Anderson was only able to deduce that the
charge of the positron "cannot differ in magnitude from that of an
electron by an amount as great as a factor of two" !! But you do surely
know better than him ! After all he had only been working for at least
two years with bubble chambers when he wrote the article I have cited.
You have evidently a much longer experience than him !
> Do you claim that there is no difference in track thickness between a
> proton and an electron?
Sure there is one but Anderson thought there was a better criteria to
distinguish electrons from protons. But you do obviously know better
than him !
> >[...] Most of [Anderson's] pictures showed tracks going from
> one
> > side to another or from one wall of the chamber to another, making it
> > impossible to deduce if they were positive or negative.
>
> Only if one is too dense to put a collimator on the device. Like a lead
> shield aroung 5 sides of a cube.
So let's see. Anderson was blind, ignorant, thick. Nobel prices are
really given to just anybody ! In any case your proposal is pretty
vague. Where will you seek the primary vertices for example ?
> > The decisive experimental trick was to put a 6 mm horizontal lead
> plate
> > in the middle of the chamber. Indeed a particle going through it is
> > slowed down. Thus the two tracks on both sides of the plate have
> > different curvatures, the most curved one having been made after the
> > less curved one. This gives the direction of motion. Alternatives are
> > untenable:
>
> The collimator I mentioned above is not untenable, and far easier to
> use.
So you say. The real problem is to identify for sure the initial vertex
with your proposal. But consider an event where only one particle
produced by the collision of a cosmic ray against one of the 5 walls
receides into the bubble chamber. If it is a lepton it will reach
another point of the shield and there is no way to know which of these
two points is the primary vertex ...
> The lead insert does provide an improvement in calculating
> dynamics.
... That's why the lead insert is a much better idea. It gives a
completely unambiguous way to know the direction of motion if one trusts
the conservation of energy, a way which requires one and only one track
to be identified. Much simpler. And apparently decisive.
--
Luc J. Bourhis
ca...@my-deja.com
> >> The safety regulations imposed at national labs despite a safety
> >> record that essentially unblemished by a serious accident,
> >
> >ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
> >
> >Much longer pause for breath......
> >
> >SL1, Westinghouse Idaho reactor, Rocky Flats plutonium releases, Oak
>
> Excuse me "westinghouse" is not a national lab.
I'm sure he's referring to the INEL (now INEEL) reactors that were run
by Westinghouse. That's INEL as in Idaho NATIONAL Engineering
(& Environmental) LABoratory.
IIRC, the accident there was caused by not following the proper safety
protocols. Two guys died, but there was no leak.
> >Ridge tornadoes described as "sudden high wind events" to avoid
having
> >to declare an emergency. Nitric acid leaks. Hexafluoride
> >burn/suffocations. Blue flashes. I could go on.....
Cary
Bilge
Re: The Positron and Dirac to usenet:
>In article <slrn91280...@radioactivex.lebesque-al.net>,
> dav...@david15.dallas.nationwide.net wrote:
>> >> record that essentially unblemished by a serious accident,
>> >
>> >ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
>> >
>> >Much longer pause for breath......
>> >
>> >SL1, Westinghouse Idaho reactor, Rocky Flats plutonium releases, Oak
>>
>> Excuse me "westinghouse" is not a national lab.
>
>by Westinghouse. That's INEL as in Idaho NATIONAL Engineering
>(& Environmental) LABoratory.
>
>IIRC, the accident there was caused by not following the proper safety
>protocols. Two guys died, but there was no leak.
>
better, regardless of whether it was military or westinghouse. The military
does weapons research, that might or might not require physicists and
has essentially zero budgetary constraints while also typically being
immune from the regulations with which the rest of the us is required
to comply, regardless of how idiotic. I'm acquainted with the accident,
since it happened a long time ago and is relatively well known. Had I
realized bonehead considered that his que for another rotfl-whatever,
I would have given him fewer opportunities to screw it up. I thought
"accelerator facilities" didn't scope the argument very well, but I
didn't think I would need to write an exegesis with an exhaustive
analysis of individually listed facilities for him to get the idea.
Jim Carr
... snip off-topic cross-post ...
In article <1ek5fe7.sjgh29acltpmN%Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk>
Luc.B...@durham.ac.uk (Luc J. Bourhis) writes:
>
>Have you read Anderson's original papers ? ...
.....
>[1] C.D. Anderson, "The Positive Electron", Phys. Rev. 43 (1933) 491
FYI, this is (as one would expect) among the papers reprinted
in the Physical Review centennial collection (on page 610).
Jim Carr
In article <shwve59...@lns130.lns.cornell.edu>,
Dan Riley <d...@mail.lns.cornell.edu> wrote:
}
} greyw...@my-deja.com writes:
} > ALL of the national labs do military research. That is (or was)
} >their primary mission.
}
} SLAC is a DOE national lab. I am not aware of any military research
} at SLAC, and it certainly never has been its primary mission.
In article <8v2ika$rdt$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>
greyw...@my-deja.com writes:
>
>Apparently, I'm behind the times. SLAC used to be run by Stanford, not
>the Feds.
None of the "national labs" are run by the Feds. They are all run
by private contractors, either for-profit companies or non-profit
universities or consortiums of universities and have been from the
start. I recall being told that this was done so that the people
building nuclear weapons would not be selected by Civil Service
exams and because it made security controls easier.
For example, LANL (in Los Alamos, NM) and LLNL (in Livermore, CA)
are both run by the University of California. The companies running
some of the others have changed too much lately for me to give a
reliable answer for ORNL (I think UT is taking it over), etc.
I'm not sure if either FNAL or SLAC are "national labs" in the sense
this term is used by the DOE (but BNL where RHIC is located is one).
>And depending on who is counting, between 50% to 90% of all DOE research
>money is provided for DOD research. DOE was originally developed as a
>way of counting "guns" as "butter."
Not so. Nuclear weapons R&D is not considered DOD research and is
not funded by the DOD. That research -- and, for a long time, even
the weapons themselves -- was managed by the AEC so it would be under
total civilian control at all times.
Since the "weapons labs" were under 50% weapons research last time
I saw the budget numbers, I think your esitmate of $$$ is way off.
What swamps DOE research dollars is not weapons research but the
cost of storing and maintaining the weapons (that remains the job
of DOE, as the AEC became ERDA and then the DOE) and the ever-growing
cost of cleanup of production facilities.
} Same for Brookhaven and FermiLab.
>Here, you are merely ignorant. But then most Brookhaven military stuff
>was classified. Though there was a lot of military isotopic work (bomb
>dynamics).
Mostly past tense at this time, I think. Whereas FNAL has never
done anything put particle physics. Ditto for SLAC and Cornell,
AFAIK.
} I'm not aware of military research at PPPL, NETL, or NREL.
>I'm not aware of the meanings of these particular acronyms. Apparently
>the Feds have been "buying up" labs.
No, just funding them.
} And while LBL has engaged in military research,
} that wasn't its original mission, and isn't now.
>Although it wasn't LBL's original mission, LBL wasn't originally a
>national lab. It was run by the University of California (not just
>managed by them). Military was it's prime function when it was taken
>over. And military work goes on there today. (Regardless of the
>"mission.")
I think you are confusing LBL (which did do military research
during WW II until those parts of the Manhattan Project were
moved to Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, as appropriate) with LLNL
which is also run by the University of California and which
is not a spin-off of LBL but rather was created de novo in
the valley by "refugees" from LANL (also run by the UC).
Dan Riley
> None of the "national labs" are run by the Feds.
I was bit surprised to discover that some of the lesser (and newer)
national labs are run directly by DOE--the National Energy Technology
Laboratory, for example. But all the major labs are indeed contracted
out.
> I'm not sure if either FNAL or SLAC are "national labs" in the sense
> this term is used by the DOE (but BNL where RHIC is located is one).
SLAC's home page identifies it as a "A national laboratory operated by
Stanford University for the Department of Energy", and FNAL's says
"Fermilab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory", so my
guess was they are, in the DOE sense.
> >Here, you are merely ignorant. But then most Brookhaven military stuff
> >was classified. Though there was a lot of military isotopic work (bomb
> >dynamics).
>
> Mostly past tense at this time, I think. Whereas FNAL has never
> done anything put particle physics. Ditto for SLAC and Cornell,
> AFAIK.
[of course, we're not a national lab, and are currently mostly NSF
funded]
> } I'm not aware of military research at PPPL, NETL, or NREL.
>
> >I'm not aware of the meanings of these particular acronyms. Apparently
> >the Feds have been "buying up" labs.
>
> No, just funding them.
And converting some long-established facilities into national labs.
For those following along at home, NETL was decoded above, NREL is the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and PPPL is the Princeton Plasma
Physics Laboratory.