jem wrote:
John Kennaugh wrote:
jem wrote:
John Kennaugh wrote:
jem wrote:
John Kennaugh wrote:
PD wrote:
On Apr 22, 9:00 am, John Kennaugh
J...@notworking.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
One cannot prove it is a wave only show evidence that it
might be. Similarly you cannot prove it is particles.
What is critical is evidence that it isn't a wave or
evidence that it isn't a particle. It cannot be both.
Why not?
One has to either explain how a wave can give an impeccable
impression of being a particle, or explain how
particles can give rise to very convincing wavelike
properties. To me the former is impossible the latter
exceedingly difficult. You may see it differently.
A US quarter exhibits the properties of a US president. It
also exhibits the properties of a carnivorous bird.
A US quarter is incapable of starting an unnecessary war
without having even the vaguest plan as to what to do after
it had been 'won' neither is it capable of eating flesh so a
US quarter exhibits neither the properties of a president
nor of a carnivorous bird.
PD overestimated your ability to extract the point from his
example. Try this. A US quarter "gives an impeccable
impression" of being a picture of a president,
so using Kennaugh "logic" it's impossible, or at least
exceedingly difficult, for it to "give an impeccable
impression" of being a picture of an eagle too.
It has a picture of a president on one side and a picture of an
eagle on the other. If it was cubic it could have six pictures
one on each side. A 'picture' is not fundamentally different to
another 'picture' physically they are built up using the same
technique of raised bits of metal. They differ only in which
bits of metal are raised and by how much and what is done on one
side in no way puts constraints on what is done on the other and
you cannot distort "Kennaugh's logic" to imply that it says it
does.
In order to learn from an analogy, Kennaugh, you need to look to
the similarities, not the dissimilarities.
The statement "light is a wave and particles" is a paradox.
Definition "Paradox" -A statement which is seemingly absurd but may
nevertheless be true.
Any useful analogy must include a paradox. There is nothing even
vaguely paradoxical about two sides of a coin having different images
on them. There are no similarities to look for in the so called an
analogy.
Paradoxes are in the eye of the beholder. The light case is just as
trivially non-contradictory as the coin case
Don't be silly.
- just not to you.
(Incidentally, don't presume that logically impossible occurrences can't
happen. Our logic is just another model that's based on past
observations of Nature - it's as subject to falsification as any other
model.)
A wave on the other hand is a function of continuous fields and a
photon is definitely not continuous. Now if you watch a film it
looks to be a continuously moving picture but you know that it
is made up of a series of fixed images. It doesn't mean we have
to accept that it IS a continuously moving picture and IS also a
series of fixed images. It IS a series of fixed images which give
an impeccable impression of being a moving picture. Light is not
both waves AND photons - although it might be neither. The most
promising approach is that light IS made up of photons which
together give an impeccable impression of being waves. Just as we
understand how a series of fixed images can give rise to an
impression of continuously moving pictures it might be possible
to understand how photons can give the impression that they are
waves.
Light IS something* that exhibits *both* wave-like AND
particle-like behavior, but if it makes you happier to think that
light IS a particle which also "gives an impeccable impression" of
being a wave,
I do.
or IS a wave which also "gives an impeccable impression" of being a
particle,
I cannot see how that would work.
go right ahead, because such distinctions are entirely irrelevant
to Science.
* Having discussed related issues with you before, I know it's
necessary to point out that light isn't something that exists in
Nature with properties that Science attempts to discover
I'm afraid it is. The fact that physics has redefined itself to the
point where is can no longer be considered "science" is not my
problem.
The construction of predictive logical systems to compare against
observation is what *defines* Science.
No it doesn't. Other sciences do not restrict themselves to such a
narrow remit. Every other science tries to understand nature which puts
Physics on its own. Based on consensus of other science, physics is not
a science.
Your inability to understand
that, is your problem.
- it's something that exists in models of Nature where *what* it
is, is *exactly* what it's *defined* to be.
R.A.Waldron has suggested [1] a structural model of a photon with
which explains the wavelike properties of light but physics
doctrine has declared that a photon has no internal structure
which is rather limiting. Like trying to explain how one gets the
impression of detailed moving pictures from a series of blank
frames rather than assuming that something in the nature of the
frames gives rise to the impression of detailed moving pictures.
Your goal for physical models, Kennaugh, is to get them to conform
to your common-sense notions, but the modern view of Science is
that the proper goal for physical models is the accurate prediction
of experimental outcomes
So provided you can mathematically generate accurate tide tables
there is no need to enquire and try to understand the real physical
processes in nature which makes the tides go in and out. What a
truly degenerate view of science.
It's not that there's "no need to" - there's /no way to/ - there's
simply nothing about Nature that can be verified other than the outcomes
of repeatable experiments (i.e. measurements). The ontological
descriptions (i.e. models) which facilitate thinking about and talking
about the logical systems (i.e. the math) that Science creates to mirror
natural phenomena, simply *can't* be tested by observing Nature.
Case in point: LET and SRT are two distinct ontological models that are
based on the same mathematics (i.e. both models predict exactly the same
phenomenological behavior). However, since Nature provides no
information except phenomenological behavior, it's clear that Nature
*can't* tell us which is the better model.
They are the same model. Einstein objected to the asymmetry in the
theoretical structure of LET and avoided it by producing a 'theory'
without a theoretical structure. LET is maths + theoretical structure.
SR is the same maths without a theoretical structure. Until someone
comes up with an alternative explanation as to what the maths is
describing, Lorentz's is the only one on the table.
Both Lorentz and Einstein considered Maxwell electrodynamics to be
impeccable. They were both trying to explain why the MMX showed that
every observer is stationary w.r.t the aether. Lorentz said it was an
illusion brought about by distortion of measurement due to our speed
w.r.t the aether. Einstein's approach was to simply accept that
experimentally every observer IS stationary w.r.t the aether and so
Any ray of light moves in the observer's system of co-ordinates [in the
aether the observer is stationary w.r.t] with the determined velocity c,
whether the ray be emitted by a stationary or by a moving body.
He assumed that nature must somehow provide a suitable aether - an
aether without the immobility of Lorentz's (1920 lecture) - which every
observer would find himself naturally stationary w.r.t. No one accepted
that idea so Lorentz's explanation is still the only one on the table.
Getting rid of the aether had nothing to do with Einstein it was simply
an arbitrary decision taken out of expediency that physics no longer
needed a physical interpretation to compliment the maths. It no longer
needed to worry about what the Lorentz/Einstein maths was describing
from a physical standpoint. That is why they are now one and the same
theory which is why it is not possible to distinguish one from another.
Understand? The math is testable - the "ontologics" aren't. Your quest
to understand Nature by discovering its driving mechanisms, is
pie-in-the-sky.
So it is wrong (pie-in-the-sky) to conclude that the fact that the tides
go in and out has something to do with the fact that a moon orbits the
earth?
I believe that causality is an essential part of physics.
--
John Kennaugh
"The nature of the physicists' default was their failure to insist sufficiently
strongly on the physical reality of the physical world." Dr Scott Murray
