Re: johnreed take 1
- From: "Bill Hobba" <bhobba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 23:17:02 GMT
<randamajor@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity
From: "Bill Hobba" <bho...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> - Find messages by this
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Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 21:09:12 GMT
Local: Fri,Apr 8 2005 2:09 pm
Subject: Re: johnreed take 1
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<randama...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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> Today the mathematical descriptions of the universe on the blackboard
> and in the published papers, are abstract and devoid of any
conceptual
> connection to physical reality.
John do you actually know the theories you criticize in this way? For
example can you describe to me what renormalization is all about?
jr writes:
Off the cuff Bill I know that it is a mathematical way of making
unacceptable answers acceptable. Like eliminating results like
singularities and infinities. The one method that comes to memory is
dividing the set of infinite numbers by the set of even infinite
numbers. In no way am I proficient here.
Bill Hobba
Then you really have no basis to make the comments you do. The answer is
some QFT's blow up with infinity. To solve the problem we apply physical
insight - not mathematics - but physical insight. Physically it is
reasonable to assume that we may be including areas of physics we know
nothing about - eg energies way beyond anything we can investigate. It is
quite reasonable to say maybe we should neglect these contributions. So we
impose an energy cutoff and low and behold the infinities disappear. But
the question is what cutoff should we use? Then we again make use of
physical insight and say - if this is a legitimate procedure then formulas
should give values we obtain from experiment. So we write down the formula
and this time instead of expressing the result in terms of a prediction we
plug in the value from experiment - this value is called the renormalized
value. And when we do that we find something marvelous in some theories -
the formula can be written in terms of renormalized value and not contain
the cutoff. Thus we have eliminated the cutoff and replaced it with
something we can measure - the renormalized value. Such theories are called
renormlaisable. The point is it is the physics that drives the math - not
the other way round.
> The American physicist, Steven
> Weinberg, wrote, "... it is always hard to realize that these numbers
> and equations we play with at our desks have something to do with the
> real world." With the phrase, "...something to do with the real
> world", Weinberg reveals that the mathematician has an unformed idea
> as to what his abstractions represent conceptually.
Weinberg believes in objective reality as I, and most physicists, do -
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/weinberg.html
jr writes>
I don't have the time today to get there Bill, but I will examine the
sight asap. I make no judgements of men here. Weinberg is a Nobel
Laureate and a fine mathematician physicist. I am only interested in
the quote.
Bill Hobba
OK.
'When I was an undergraduate at Cornell I heard a lecture by a
professor of
philosophy (probably Max Black) who explained that whenever anyone
asked him
whether something was real, he always gave the same answer. The answer
was
"Yes." The tooth fairy is real,
jr writes>
So much for philosophy.
the laws of physics are real, the rules of
baseball are real, and the rocks in the fields are real. But they are
real
in different ways.
jr writes>
Not the tooth fairy.
What I mean when I say that the laws of physics are real
is that they are real in pretty much the same sense (whatever that is)
as
the rocks in the fields, and not in the same sense (as implied by
Fish19) as
the rules of baseball --
jr writes>
Yes I understand this, I think. One could then say that Ptolemy
described the solar system with the rules of baseball.
we did not create the laws of physics or the rocks
in the field, and we sometimes unhappily find that we have been wrong
about
them, as when we stub our toe on an unnoticed rock, or when we find we
have
made a mistake (as most physicists have) about some physical law. But
the
languages in which we describe rocks or in which we state physical laws
are
certainly created socially, so I am making an implicit assumption
(which in
everyday life we all make about rocks) that our statements about the
laws of
physics are in a one- to-one correspondence with aspects of objective
reality.
jr writes>
Yes, but the one to one relationship need not be correct outside the
mathematical representation. For example: if a function is
differentiable we will obtain its minimum boundary condition when we
differentiate.
Bill Hobba
That is not what we obtain when we differentiate.
We obtain the maximum space it contains when we
integrate. Now, this is an aspect of the mathematics that I cannot
explain. But it clearly lends itself well to least action systems.
Since stable systems must be efficient to the degree they are stable,
the math applies readily to a stable universe.
Bill Hobba
I think you are confused about calculus. May I suggest you study analysis?
Now if the quantity "mass" operates within a least action system where
it can be quantified, can we conclude that it will operate in another
least action system in a proportionally quantified manner, where it
cannot be directly quantified?
Bill Hobba
I have no idea what you are trying to say.
To put it another way, if we ever discover intelligent creatures on
some distant planet and translate their scientific works, we will find
that
we and they have discovered the same laws.
jr writes>
Yes. To the extent of their development and ours. They may be advanced
or primitive compared to us. Easy to imagine a likelihood for either
case.'
> Consider the
> words of the late Hungarian mathematician and physicist, Eugene P.
> Wigner, "...the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural
> sciences is something bordering on the mysterious... there is no
> rational explanation for it." It is in the contemplation of the
> mathematics and the operation of the stable systems in the universe,
> that I found the rational explanation for it. Galileo may have been
> the first to formally assert that, "...the laws of nature are written
> in the language of mathematics." Today we may elaborate. Stability
> in the field requires economy in cyclic motion.
??????????. Stability in physics (and engineering for that matter)
usually
refers how sensitive a systems equations are to a perturbation.
jr writes>
Yes my tools are different. I would say that a naturally occuring
stable physical system retains its stability through perpetuity to the
extent that it does not display inefficient action. Or something
similar.
> The invariant aspects
> of the stable systems within the physical universe, toward which we
> necessarily direct our investigative efforts, derive from least
action
> functions*.
The PLA lies at the base of much of physics - true. And conservation
laws
are really symmetries in the lagrangian - Noethers powerful result.
So?
jr writes>
Our classical system for physics functions from the quantity mass.
Bill Hobba
The basis of classical physics is not mass - it is the PLA, the POR and the
galelain transformations. See Landau - Mechanics.
Bill
We
assign the attraction the earth has on matter to this quantity mass.
However, we can perform no experiment that differentiates (non calculus
use) between the mass of an atom and the atom itself, such that we can
determine the focus of the attraction.
Angular momentum will be conserved in any case. But we may not have the
correct proportional quantities necessary to describe it in all cases.
I have to break this up Bill. Running out of time.
johnreed
.
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