Re: What are the two kinds of masses ?? (Part 2)

N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc) wrote:
Dear Sue:

"Sue..." <suzysewnshow@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1147074878.434405.24930@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc) wrote:
Dear Nishu:
...
Thanks for your help. I realized why the two kinds
of masses( inertial and gravitational) should be
different. Now, can someone tell, why are they
same ? (That is perhaps the correct question)

1) what could make them different?
2) Physics doesn't do "why". We only observe
that within our ability to measure, they are the
same. And we keep looking for better and
different measures.

Physics is not a branch of science unless it
does 'WHY".

Physics does NOT do why. Physics guesses why (in some cases),
with a physical model. And such guesses may lead to quantitative
predictions (which is science). Science is about modelling,
prediction, and testing. We can never know why.

In scientific endeavor, predictions have to be
reasonable and logical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Rules forged in philosophy, where "why" belongs...

Inquiring the nature of a mechanism is not philosophy.
Why is there life and love might be philosophy.
"Why does the earth's orbit sweep equal area in equal time?"
....is not philosophy. There is a testable mechanism.


It is not 'reasonable' for a photon to wear a wrist
watch and carry a magnetic monopole and
explore all paths. So in spite of the quantitative
success QED has to be considered a
mathematical formalism, not a scientific theory.

Your opinion. You are entitled. But you make it out to be
something limited by what you can accept. That is mightly
god-like of you, Sue.

One might think there is a string between two foci and a
planet follows it to follow eliptical orbits. To prove the concept
wrong, physics has to ask some questions about
why. It has to explore the mechanism. The argument
about what physics *is* and *is not* only seems to
come up when some absurd mechanism is challenged.

That is a bit like arguing with a judge that speed limit
signs are only suggestions.

God-like characteristics have to be awarded to others. :o)

<< Formalism can be applied to a set of notations and
rules for manipulating them which yield results in agreement
with experiment or other techniques of calculation. These
rules and notations may or may not have a corresponding
mathematical semantics. In the case no mathematical
semantics exists, the calculations are often said to be
purely formal. See for example scientific formalism. >>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism

"The mathematical formalism of general relativity"
http://www.maths.soton.ac.uk/applied/Res-GR-NumRel-MathForm.phtml

I think you'll find plenty of discussion in this ng about the
"mass of a falling photon". Little if any of it leads to the
interpretation of nuclear resonace found by Pound-Snider.
It is surely not because too many were asking why.

A theory might relate the number of children in a house
to the contents of a grocery cart. If it predicts homes
with half children, we have to accept it as a formalism
only... or start cutting children in half. >;-)

It isn't necessary to 'dumb down' physics, to cover for
formalisms that may be wrong in mechanism. Doing
that removes the impetus to improve the model.

Sue...





David A. Smith

.

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