On the subject of light and the Scientific Method...
The differences between a mathematician and a physicist
The following is a debate between Doctor Dave, who teaches what is nominally known as Physics, and myself in July / August of 2009. In general, the subjects we covered are: 1. The Scientific Method and 2. the nature of light. Doctor Dave takes the position more or less accepted by the establishment that:
1. light is not a physical object
2. light cannot be illustrated because science does not have the tools to determine its true architecture
3. speculation as to its true configuration is an issue that concerns Philosophy (specifically, Epistemology) and not Physics.
I take the position that:
1. the establishment does not understand the nature of the Scientific Method, which requires that an entity that is performing an action have shape. Concepts cannot be illustrated and, thus, cannot be placed as actors in movies of Physics.
2. light is a physical object and has shape
3. the establishment does in fact imply that light has a shape (although unknown specifically which) when it postulates that light is comprised of or comes in discrete 'packets.'
4. unfortunately, this description contradicts and is incompatible with the establishment's claim that light is also an extended object (has a wave configuration).
5. therefore, the establishment's proposal is irrational because no one, including the proponent can imagine a 'wave- packet', the alleged entity that we all see when a laser is pointed at a mirror.
Irrespective of which side you take, I believe it is important that those of you who post comments be aware of the issues and the defenses that each side raises. And I am sure that we have not exhausted the subject here. I have only included those entries which involved the two of us so that no one puts words in our mouths. I have numbered the paragraphs to make it easy to reference the specific topic you are commenting on. Although doc and I don't see eye to eye, I thank him for participating in good faith.
001. doc: Um. A force is any interaction that causes an object's momentum to change - delta p over delta t. How is this unscientific?
002. bill: "A force is any interaction"
What's an interaction? How does a gluon CARRY an interaction?
003. doc: Well, it depends how seriously you take the visualization. When we explain the interaction of virtual particles to the layperson we like to say things like "imagine two people on skateboards tossing basketballs back and forth", but that's not the THEORY, that's a way to visualize it.
In reality, to a particle physicist who knows the math, the gluon doesn't "carry" the interaction - it IS the interaction. Rather, a gluon is the quantum of the field that manifests itself as the strong force.
004. doc: First, I would suggest not going to Microsoft commercial encyclopedias for precise scientific definitions.
The attractive force between quarks is described mathematically through the action of a field, not unlike the electromagnetic field. (A "field" is either a mathematical construct or an actual physical entity, depending on your philosophical leanings.) The action of that field is quantized. The smallest quantum of the interaction of the field is called a gluon.
(Actually - that should probably have been "the smallest interaction WITH the field is called a gluon". Once again... it's in the linguistics where things are muddled. The mathematics are perfectly clear.)
005. bill: "The attractive force between quarks is described mathematically through the action of a field"
1. Described; not 'explained.'
2. 'action' of 'a' field: Is a field a physical object? Can 'a' field perform an action?
'A' field is concept. Concepts such as love, justice, beauty, field, energy, mass, force, etc, do not carry out actions in Physics. In Physics, only physical objects (rock, particle, dog, atom) have the ability to perform actions. There is no object such as 'a' field in Science.
Therefore, 'a' field is NOT a physical entity. For the purposes of Science (as opposed to ordinary speech, which is what you are invoking) 'physical' and 'object' mean that the word in question alludes to shape. If it doesn't have shape, it is NOT an object. It is NOT physical. Only the 'shape/form' notion of object can be used consistently (scientifically) in Physics.
"a mathematical construct"
In Physics, there are no 'constructs'. This nonsense was invented by the mathematicians and has no place in Science. In Physics, there are only objects. The mathematician uses the term 'construct' to insinuate that he is talking about an object (shape) when what he has done actually is allude to a concept (no shape).
Thus, a field IS a 'construct' (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that morphs into a surface which in turn has the ability to accelerate another 'construct': a concept known as 'charge'.
The concept that poor old Faraday invented to describe what happens in a region of space around a magnet suddenly becomes a physical object in its own right and begins acting like a baseball bat. Analogy: love morphs into a heart and starts bleeding. That's your famous 'field' in a nutshell.
"The action of that field is quantized."
So now the verb (action) comes in little doses, huh? Not only does 'the' field (a region) have a surface to stand on, but the movement of this monster comes in little bits and pieces. You are saying that each frame in the film has a border: is discrete. You are saying that a jump is comprised of little hops.
Objectively, there are no frames in the Universal Film. What we have before us is a discrete object. The jumping and hopping are only in the mathematician's mind. The Moon does not move. The Moon ONLY has location. It is memory which enables observers to get confused and reach the erroneous conclusion that there are a series of Moons (frames of the film) leading to the present location.
The mathematician calls this series of objects/frames: quantization. So he ends up with the most incongruous conclusion: energy (a dynamic concept) has a surface and is a discrete object (is quantized). Yet he cannot draw this discrete object for you. What is the shape of an energy, doc? If an energy is quantized, you should have no trouble illustrating this thing for me.
006. doc: Perhaps. Again the real-vs-unreal question as applied to fields is a philosophical one (realism/instrumentalism) which has no bearing on the fact that, your inability to draw a cartoon of one aside, the mathematical techniques of quantum field theory has allowed scientists to make predictions that agree with experiment to one part in a trillion. I know that doesn't impress you, but to put it simply... If THIS science is wrong? Then ALL science is wrong. Which is a pretty silly thing to believe.
By which I mean - not the particular CONCLUSIONS of science are wrong... but the PROCESS of science ITSELF is wrong. This is what you seem to be suggesting - that scientific inquiry somehow took a wrong turn with the Principia in 1687.
Again I ask - what physicists embody your ideal characterization of "what science should be"?
No physicist has EVER believed that energy is an object. It is a mathematical tool.
007. bill: Oh, Im well aware that they dont BELIEVE it is an object. They just TREAT this tool as an object. They transfer this hammer in all their dissertations.
Is this just a euphemism, an analogy?
No problem. What is the genuine, super-duper explanation if energy transfer is just a figure of speech?
"Ball A transferred its energy to ball B" we mean "if you calculate"
This is incongruous and goes beyond nonsense. What does TRANSFER like in I transfer the ball have to do with CALCULATION like in I calculate the speed? What metaphor is this? What possible euphemism?
Transfer belongs to Physics. Calculation does not! I need to explain WHY a ball moved. Not a single concept of Math is going to help me in this endeavor.
"It is a descriptive accounting tool"
Then it has nothing to do with Physics. The fact that the mathematicians usurped the title of Physics doesnt make them physicists. They are just mathematicians doing calculations.
In Physics, we need to EXPLAIN (as opposed to merely describe) why Mercury doesnt fly out of the SS or why light is polarized. No magnitude, number, equation, or variable can answer a WHY question.
This explains to a large extent WHY the mathematicians cant answer ANY questions about the invisible micro and macro world rationally after 10,000 years of civilization.
"You have associated a number with this quality that your TV possessesAsking me to "draw the energy" is like busting open your TV to try to find the "value" inside."
1.Associating a value with quality is not a question of Science, so your analogy fails right off the bat. You are again confusing ordinary speech with Science.
2. In Physics, we don't EXPLAIN that a car 'costs more' because we 'transferred value' to it at the assembly line. Again, this is ordinary speech, figure of speech, euphemism, parable, poetry. In Physics, we dont 'transfer' value. We transfer cats, rocks, and tables.
Therefore, if you are equating energy with a concept such as value or justice or beauty, you are confirming that for the purposes of Physics there is no such 'thing' as energy.
3. The reason you cannot draw energy is that it doesnt have shape and if it doesnt have shape it doesnt belong in Physics as an ACTOR. It is irrational in Physics to say transfer energy. We do not transfer concepts in Physics. This is nothing more than reification. You are converting love into a heart and transferring the heart, meaning that you are transferring love.
008. bill: "predictions that agree with experiment to one part in a trillion. If THIS science is wrong? Then ALL science is wrong"
1. Predictions and experiment are not a part of Science. A consummated experiment an observation serves as evidence to persuade the juror that the theory has support. An observation is a political tool used merely to sway the jury: evidence. The scientific part of Science is explaining a phenomenon: how or why it happened, by what means. This alone shows understanding.
2. We have no Science, doc. What we have is a religion known as Math Phyz. Unlike traditional religion (God, saints, walking on water, parting the seas), where the protagonists can be visualized yet perform supernatural feats, the modern MP religion is irrational. We cannot even visualize or imagine the protagonists because they are all concepts usually dynamic reified into static objects (energy, mass, force, field, time, charge, black hole, 0D particle, 1D string, phonon, chronon, wave).
Such words have anything to do with Science, let alone with Physics. They cannot be used to EXPLAIN a phenomenon of nature any more than the words God or miracle.
"This is what you seem to be suggesting - that scientific inquiry somehow took a wrong turn with the Principia in 1687."
009. doc: This energy-as-object strawman is incredibly frustrating. No physicist has EVER believed that energy is an object. It is a mathematical tool.
A moving ball collides with one at rest. The ball at rest moves off. When we say "Ball A transferred its energy to ball B" we mean "if you calculate 1/2 m v2 for ball A before the collision, and 1/2 m v2 for ball B AFTER the collision, they will be the same." It means NOTHING MORE. It is a descriptive accounting tool, not a third entity in the picture.
To beat the energy horse once more.
Your TV. You paid for it. Thus it has "value". If I ask what is the value of your TV, you might say $300 or $1200. You have associated a number with this quality that your TV possesses.
Asking me to "draw the energy" is like busting open your TV to try to find the "value" inside. WHERE IS IT? THERE IS NO VALUE IN HERE! ONLY WIRES AND CIRCUIT BOARDS! The "value" is not a thing separate from the TV. It is a descriptor of the properties of the TV. Get it?
010. bill: "it's in the linguistics where things are muddled."
Science starts with liguistics. Without linguistics, we have no rational communication. Science is about explaining phenomena.
011. doc: Wrong. With ONLY linguistics all we have is confusion and imprecision. With MATHEMATICS we have precision and prediction. It's like you missed the scientific revolution, and are trying to apply some sort of Cartesian "pure reason" methodology to problems that are 100 times more complicated than all the ones he FAILED to explain 400 years ago.
Let me ask you. Give me three names of people you consider "great scientists". Did any of them live after 1800?
012. doc: So you agree with the Newton statement!! Wow.
So, answer my other question - who was the last scientist that did things RIGHT? Give me some names. (Other than, you know... your own.)
This is not so hard. Energy is a descriptive quantity. It is not an actor. It is not an object. It does not explain. It describes. You are all worked up over a verbal shorthand. When we talk about energy transfer we are doing a counting up of quantities AFTER THE FACT to talk about what happened, because it is useful to do so given certain empirical principles like conservation laws. This CONSTRAINS what events do and do not happen, but does not pretend to EXPLAIN them.
013. bill: "You are all worked up over a verbal shorthand."
Don't give me the shorthand, doc. Give it to me straight. I can take it! What does 'carry a force' mean? What does 'dilating time' mean? What does 'annihilation' really mean?
"does not pretend to EXPLAIN them"
Of course not. You cannot explain a simple phenomenon such as WHY a magnet attracts iron filings. After 10,000 years of Math, not one mathematician can explain WHAT invisible entity is capable of mediating such a feat.
014. doc: "carry a force" means - two particles experience a force because of their mutual interaction with a field. The action of said field is quantized.
"dilating time" means - whatever it is clocks are measuring, observer A's clock measures more than observer B's clock.
"annihilation" means - where there were two mass quanta, now there is one electromagnetic field quantum instead. (And we can use the quantity we call "energy" to compare the before-and-after states in a useful and informative way.)
Nooooo.... we have a perfectly adequate and complete explanation of the invisible entity that mediates that feat... you just refuse to accept it because you can't build a model of it with drinking straws and popsicle sticks. The phenomena that need explaining have changed quite a bit since 1750. We gave up on the cogs-gears-and-pulleys that live inside the atom more than 150 years ago. It does not work. Nobody in 1900 wanted it, but that's the reality we were dealt. There is no way to avoid it.
015. bill: "interaction with a field"
How do you interact with love, doc? Please draw a picture of love and show me how the surface of love comes in contact with your hand.
Then, we'll do the same with this concept you call 'field.' Please draw 'a' field so that we can see where it ends. I want to see what 'a' field looks like, whether it has a surface, size, shape, etc. Only then will we be able to talk about 'it' interacting in Physics.
"dilating time" means - whatever"
It is absolutely stunning that an individual who claims to teach 'physics' has these types of answers.
The first Q a true physicist asks is whether there is such a 'thing' as time. If time is not a physical object, we cannot dilate it like we dilate a balloon. We're done.
Poetry and euphemisms have no place in Science, doc, but you perpetually fall back on ordinary speech to 'explain' even the most common phenomena.
I mean, when I stretch the tape, I can safely tell you that I'm measuring the table. But when I look at my hourglass, the objective 'thing' before me is sand. So what is this 'whatever' that you claim to be measuring? Please draw a picture of 'it' and show how it relates to Physics. This is YOUR presentation. YOU have to tell the audience what 'whatever' is! In Science, there is no such thing as time or whatever.
"observer A's clock measures more than observer B's clock."
More? More what?
For instance, I can easily show you that if bag A has one more grain of rice than bag B, pursuant to the definition of 'more', I can state that bag A has more rice than bag
Please do the same in the context of clocks A and B. More what? More roll of film? More patience? More tick-tocks? Is there such a notion as 'more verbs' (e.g. more jumping)? Or is the word 'more' applicable only to objects in Physics? bgaede (4 days ago)
"annihilation" means - there were two mass quanta, now there is one.. field"
You had nothing to begin with, doc. What is 'a' mass quanta? Please draw a picture of this MQ so that I can see the surface, its size, its shape. Then I can verify independently in my lab that there was a change.
Is 'a' MQ 2D or 3D? By what physical process or mechanism does this concept convert into the concept 'field'? Does love convert into beauty in Math Phyz? Is this what you teach your students?
"we can use the quantity we call "energy" to compare the before-and-after states"
At best, this is a DESCRIPTION without any UNDERSTANDING of the phenomenon before us: "Yes boss, we had 10 lbs of energy and now we have 3 lbs of mass and 7 lbs of energy."
Great! Science is awesome!
The particle 'physicist' takes love and converts it to beauty in his bubble chamber. we had no understanding before we started the experiment and certainly none afterward.
What is this mass 'stuff', doc? By what physical process did you convert it to this energy 'stuff'? Please show pictures of before (mass) and after (energy) so that I can get an idea of WHAT you're talking about.
"We gave up on the cogs-gears-and-pulleys that live inside the atom more than 150 years ago."
Because you continued to 'explain' everything with particles. It is the particle hypothesis which must die. There are no such things as discrete particles in the U! Quantum is simply wrong! All the evidence is against it. Not a single experiment ever performed with light, the atom, or gravity, not a single observation can be explained with particles RATIONALLY.
016. doc: The stubbornness on the time dilation point is really frustrating.
Surely you must own a clock or two right? Otherwise you must be late to work an awful lot. WHATEVER IT IS YOU BELIEVE YOUR CLOCK TO "DO"... it clearly does SOMETHING, right? It doesn't just sit on your nightstand and taunt you with its semantic impenetrability. Whatever the numbers on your clock mean to you, when I'm going fast, my clock will have counted fewer numbers than yours. This is an experimental FACT
017. bill: "WHATEVER IT IS YOU BELIEVE YOUR CLOCK TO "DO"."
Objectively? Mickey's arms move. I observed carefully and did not see any dilation of time, doc. Perhaps I'm missing a sine qua non ingredient, you know, like a few beers.
"when I'm going fast, my clock will have counted fewer numbers than yours"
I'm starting to suspect that you have a bad watch, doc. Trade it in for an hourglass. You can also try counting knots on a rosary or on a rope. Travel as fast as you want.
018. doc: Nice tactic. Mockery. Unfortunately that doesn't change the facts. Perhaps you and your rope of light would like to explain why the lifetime of a subatomic particle is different when it's going fast than when it's going slow?
(Unacceptable non-answers include - "Define what you mean by subatomic particle", "Define what you mean by going", Define what you mean by lifetime", "Define what you mean by "different"...)
I'm not sure what you think you are measuring with your tape, though... since you don't believe in space either. So don't. It's fine. That's why Einstein only talks about observers and measurements.
Take your hourglass on a spaceship, and zip around at 85% the speed of light. When you come back, 200 grams of sand have flowed through your hourglass and 400g have flowed through mine. We can argue semantics about time in philosophy class, but in the meantime, there is a real measurement before us.
019. bill: "We can argue semantics about time in philosophy class"
I totally agree. The word time has nothing to do with Physics. It belongs exclusively to Philosophy.
"in the meantime, there is a real measurement before us"
Again, I agree. We have more grains of sand (objects) in one jar than in the other. We have 'measured' grains of sand.
Therefore, 'time dilation' does not belong in Physics and we didn't measure something called time anyways. We weighed grains. bgaede (4 days ago) Show Hide Marked as spam Reply | Remove btw - the 200 /400g Einstein thought experiment is now debunked, so I recommend that you avoid teaching it to your students.
020. doc: NO we do NOT explain everything with particles - at least not as you stubbornly conceive them (BBs and billiard balls). Since around 1950, our particles have been field-quanta. No experiment ever performed with light or atoms can be explained with BBs and ropes. That's why we gave them up. You are criticizing, over and over again, straw- man physics that nobody actually believes, and as far as I can tell, you are offering NO alternative other than "light is a rope"
Tell me, how does your "light is a rope" model describe stimulated emission? The skin depth of conductors? Frequency mixing in non-linear media? The optical Kerr effect? The Pockels Effect?
The statement "light is a rope" by itself explains nothing. You have a LOT more to explain than Newton did. It's not 1700 anymore.
And remember, we will only have confidence that your explanation is CORRECT if it is able to quantitatively agree with experiments. You said so yourself a few comments ago.
021. bill: "we will only have confidence that your explanation is CORRECT if it is able to quantitatively agree with experiments. You said so yourself a few comments ago."
Then you misread what I wrote. I made clear that quantity and experiment have nothing to do with Science, let alone Physics. In Science, we explain. That's all we do.
022. doc: What you said was...
"A consummated experiment an observation serves as evidence to persuade the juror that the theory has support."
So, there is no reason for anyone to BELIEVE that your explanation is a correct one, unless you can persuade us that it agrees in some sort of quantifiable way with our observations of the world.
No?
023. bill: "BELIEVE"
Science only explains. What each individual carries with him out of the conference room is his personal business. Mother Nature doesn't care what humans believe in.
"persuade"
The prosecutor invokes evidence (e.g. an observation) to sway the jury that his interpretation is correct. Some jurors accept it and others don't, ususally a result of predispositions. Evidence has a POLITICAL purpose; not a scientific one. Science only cares that the explanation be rational.
"agrees in some sort of quantifiable way with our observations"
Please justify this. Where in an explanation do you need quantity? Mother Nature never went to school. She is 100% qualitative. It is humans who invented numbers and relations. All concepts were invented by Man. Mother Nature only deals with objects.
024. doc: This is one of the most telling statements you have made. You are basically owning up to rejecting all of science that has been done since 1630. Which is fine. But stop telling the rest of us "What Science Is". Because you are wrong. What you are engaged in is some sort of pre-Galilean natural philosophy. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to anything that has been called science since the word was invented. It is preposterous to argue w/ Einstein when you don't accept the premises of Galileo.
025. bill: "you are engaged in is some sort of pre-Galilean natural philosophy. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to anything that has been called science since"
You are stuck on authority, doc. Science doesn't care about what everyone from Newt to Hawk 'constructed' if everything they did was demonstrably wrong. Science ONLY cares whether it is rational. Invoking authority and asking people to vote will not take you nearer to Mother Nature's secrets. You are just confessing that you are another monk.
"our particles have been field-quanta"
What's a 'field-quanta'? What is a the shape of one of these FQ? I mean, is a muon FQ square and a photon FQ round? Are they 2D or 3D? I am not interested in size or weight (i.e. measurement), which only concerns the mathematicians. I am intereted in knowing their shapes, which is what concerns physicists. How does the shape of these FQ relate to their behaviors?
"Mockery."
I wasn't mocking you, doc. I was serious! Objectively, all that happened was that Mickey's arms moved! If YOU see 'measurement of time' then it is because you drank too many beers.
So again, do your SR experiment with an hourglass or a rosary-like rope (count knots). Special relativity fails! Period! Thats the difference between Math (measurement, subjective) and Physics (counting, objective).
026. doc: You keep talking around my point - "Science doesn't care" you say. NO!! YOU do not get to be the personal arbiter of what science is, does, or says. It is the community of science that defines its own rules. Again. If I walk onto the World Cup field, pick up the ball and run for the goal shouting "DAMN YOUR PRIESTHOOD OF SOCCER! REAL SOCCER IS ABOUT RUNNING! AND CARRYING! GOOAL!" I'm pretty sure I won't win any prizes. FIFA decides what it's rules are, not any knucklehead in shorts and cleats.
Since you reject the whole scientific method, I'm not sure why you believe in anything discovered since 1700. Why are there electrons in your videos Bill? JJ Thompson and his silly tubes? Why believe a stupid experimentalist and his doodads? Or Millikan and his perfume bottle full of oil? Atoms? Surely you've never seen one. Why believe in atoms? Because it was in your middle school textbook? Written by the priesthood of science? How do you decide which things to include if all science is junk?
027. bill: "It is the community of science that defines its own rules."
This is where you're wrong, doc. Mother Nature recognizes no clubs. She has authorized no group of humans, irrespective of how many bunch together, to represent her. Perhaps you are confusing science with Congress. A show of hands does NOT determine what Science is. Science is not democratic. No one has authority to speak for MN. We proved this when the entire 'scholarly' world believed that the Earth was flat.
It is rationality which determines what Science is. That's an independent, objective criterion.
And just to preempt your next question, an irrational explanation is what you cannot put on the screen, for instance, one based on a 0D singularity or a wave-packet. In the case of your wave-packet, you tell the audience up front that you have no idea WHAT you're going to talk about:
"Any statement that "light has this shape" is meaningless, since you could never bounce light off that light to SEE what shape it has. And an unmeasurable, unobservable shape is not worth talking about in physics."
You are telling the audience that there is a physical object that 'looks' like a 'wave-packet', but that you cannot even imagine such a monster. Yet you claim to explain theories with your unimaginable hypothesis.
What you're missing is that we are not talking about what light REALLY looks like. We are talking about you giving a presentation and not knowing what light looks like for the purposes of YOUR OWN presentation.
You come across as a Christian telling the crowd that God looks like a cross between Man (the object) and Love (the concept).
Of course, you cannot draw such an unimaginable 'entity', so you ask the audience to gawk: "Please believe in the existence of my God because it's the only way to explain why we are all here."
Let me ask you: How do you 'know' or how did you arrive at your conclusion that light has a wave configuration, doc? Why didn't you arrive at the conclusion that light looks like a cube?
Obviously, after much observation we finally related behavior to architecture. Light is a PHYSICAL OBJECT (has shape). It doesn't look like a rock or a tree. It looks something like what is illustrated in high school textbooks. In fact, it would still have shape if you claim that this 'thing' KNOCKS (comes in contact with) electron particles from an array!
I don't care what light looks like in reality or whether you saw a photon. This is YOUR presentation, doc. What does light look like for the purposes of YOUR dissertation? What are YOU visualizing when you say photon? How does YOUR proposal relate to the behavior of light? Are you proposing that light has the shape of a cube? If not, why not? What does light look like in the alternative? If you don't have an answer, you cannot say that light does not look like a cube.
Instead, you engage in an argument to defend your theory with statements of authority:
Doc: Ladies and Gentlemen. Today, I will explain how light performs polarization AND Comptons Effect. I will assume that light has the physical configuration of a wave-packet.
Reporter: Ummmh, Doc Dave. Uh what is a wave-packet? Could you draw one for us so that we can understand YOUR presentation.
028. doc: I can draw a graphical representation of a wavepacket, but that's not what light "looks like". The wavepacket is not the light, any more than the Dow Jones is the economy. The wavepacket s a mathematical construct that allows me to describe/predict what light will do.
If you say light is a rope, than I say - describe an experiment that would let us see the rope.
And when I say "the wavepacket is not the light" then you will ask, then what IS the light?
This is the thing. The light is LIGHT!! And electrons are electrons and neutrinos are neutrinos. If we believe that there are fundamental entities in the universe, then once we get to those entities, describing them in terms of some OTHER THING is impossible and wrongheaded. Light is not MADE OF anything. It is not THE SAME AS any macroscopic object. Light is Light. It's at the bottom of things.
029. doc: Light does not and CAN NOT look like anything because LIGHT IS WHAT WE USE TO LOOK WITH!!
The question "what does light look like?" is nonsensical. Looking is what we do when we bounce light off things to see where the bouncing happened. Things that don't bounce light (air, windows, light) do not LOOK like anything!
030. bill: "Light does not and CAN NOT look like anything because LIGHT IS WHAT WE USE TO LOOK WITH!!"
This argument is absolute baloney! Do you or don't you ILLUSTRATE light as a sine wave in textbooks? Do you or don't you EXPLAIN that a DISCRETE PACKET of whatever KNOCKS particles from polished metal? This is YOUR presentation, doc! Not mine. That's what YOU put on the board. What is this PACKET with which YOU explained the photoelectric effect? Please draw it BEFORE you explain YOUR theory.
YOU are explaining that there is a tiny physical object (shape), which has a surface, that comes in contact with the surface of another object called an electron. YOU are saying that this photon 'thingy' is a DISCRETE particle. Please draw it. You can't elude my request because YOU are explaining YOUR theory of this phenomenon with this 'entity'. That's why shape and drawing are crucial in Physics. If you cannot put 'it' on the Big Screen, you are not doing Physics.
Doc: Well, uh I dont know. Ive never seen one. I cant even imagine what such a monster might look like. Therefore, your question is unscientific. You should study Math. Then you would understand. What we do in science is use the wave part to explain polarization and the packet part to explain Comptons. Its a piece of cake.
Reporter: I dont mean to be rude or nothin, but isnt that kinda ad hoc, doc?
doc: Are you insinuating that all researchers and Nobel Prize winners were wrong? You have a 17th Century mentality, sir! Grow up! Open a textbook! We abandoned rationality at least 80 years ago. Today, we just move concepts around.
You have convinced yourself (thru authority Heisenberg et al) that light can have BOTH discrete particle configuration (at emission from one atom and reception by another) AND flies as a wave in between. What you have just described is a rope! The 'particle' nature of light at emission and reception is the torque SIGNAL leaving from/arriving to the atom. In between, it 'travels' sinusoidally: the torsion propagating along the mediator: the rope.
The medium that mediates the phenomenon we call light is a PHYSICAL OBJECT. That's why it INTERACTS with objects such as your eyes.
031. bill: "Why believe in atoms?"
In science, we don't believe in atoms, doc. This peculiar habit of believing in objects comes from religion. In Science, the proponent postulates hypotheses: "Let us assume that this chair is made of tiny components called atoms."
In Science, we don't run experiments to 'observe' or 'see' atoms to 'prove' that they exist. In Science, we don't explain or theorize about objects or existence. We postulate and make assumptions in order to explain.
032. doc: You did not respond to the most important part of my comment though, which is the part about fundamental entities. Unless nature is infinitely divisible into smaller and smaller things (As Aristotle and Descartes believed) we will at some point reach the level of "the smallest things that are". Trying to describe those things in terms of macroscopic things like balls and ropes (except as ANALOGIES) is, again, impossible, wrong-headed, and completely misses the point about their fundamentalness!
We illustrate a sine wave that represents a GRAPH OF the strength of the electric field along an imaginary 2D plane. That is not light, and we do not mistake that for light. Just as an economist describes the economy with a flat 2D curve of the Dow Jones and does not (except as a verbal shorthand) mistakenly identify his GRAPH with the actual real world entity called the economy.
033. bill: "a graphical representation of a wavepacket - The wavepacket s a mathematical construct "
No, doc. If the infamous wavepacket were nothing but a math construct you would have called it an equation or a function. You are EXPLAINING that this THING (SHAPE) KNOCKS electrons from polished metal!! You are saying that this math construct of YOURS has the ability to strike a wall. You are saying that this BALL bounces off of mirrors! You can't sweep that under the rug.
034. doc: You are 100% wrong about this. Scientists do not suffer from this confusion that you have where they mistake the entities in the THEORY with ACTUAL OBJECTS in nature. The photoelectric effect occurs in NATURE when LIGHT hits a metal. A description of the photoelectric effect happens on PAPER when a wavepacket interacts with a discrete point charge. Again light is not a ball. Nobody has ever said it was. You are deeply confused about the entire photon concept.
035. bill: "Scientists do not suffer from this confusion that you have where they mistake the entities in the THEORY with ACTUAL OBJECTS in nature."
Oh. I thought the purpose of Science was to explain what happens in nature, in the real world. Now you tell me that you folks, who usurped the title of 'scientists', do not explain the real workings of the U.
036. bill: "If you say light is a rope, than I say - describe an experiment that would let us see the rope."
Your request would just reveal that you are unfamiliar with the Scientific Method. Science ONLY offers rational explanations. I am EXPLAINING a phenomenon caused by light with a proposal. I make an ASSUMPTION:
"I will ASSUME that light has the physical configuration of a rope. With this hypothesis I will explain the Photoelectric Effect, Young's Slit, etc. In other words, I will show how the behavior of light is related to its architecture."
What you don't realize is that you do exactly the same, except that you use TWO different models. You say:
"I will ASSUME that light consists of discrete particles. With this hypothesis I will explain the Photoelectric Effect. Now, to explain Young's Slit, I will ASSUME that light has the configuration of an extended wave."
037. doc: You are missing the big part about falsifiability. You are proposing an feature of your theory with no way EVEN IN PRINCIPLE that the feature can be observed or detected. That's a big science no-no.
038. doc: Yes, but given that you do not accept experiment or observation as arbiters of correctness - what criteria do you use to determine an explanation's "rightness". Just how much it makes sense to you? Because Aristotle makes LOADS of sense, as long as you don't muddy up his perfect reasoning by doing something as outrageous and unscientific as... oh, say... ACTUALLY DROPPING SOMETHING and seeing what happens.
039. bill: "what criteria do you use to determine an explanation's "rightness"."
Rightness or wrongness is an opinion. Mother Nature could care less what you believe in, doc. You can believe in leprechauns if you wish.
For you, God exists and is the Mediator of everything that happens. That's the theory you believe in and nothing will change your mind. You will be convinced that every experiment confirms that God was behind the phenomenon.
Now replace God with 'particle' and you end up with QM.
040. bill: So? What do you explain, doc? Alice's Wonderland? God's Eden? Dorothy's Oz?
What purpose does the efforts of every mathematician in the world serve if their "description of the photoelectric effect happens on PAPER"? This paper is not worth bathroom tissue.
041. It's not that our descriptions do not pertain to the real world, it's that we do not mistake them for the real world. The only possible contact between our explanations and the real world is via observation and experimentation, which you deride as unscientific! Thus it is YOUR explanations that live in the Wonderland of your own imagination, because you aren't concerned with actually comparing them rigorously (i.e. quantitatively) with reality to see if they actually work.
042. bill: "we do not mistake [our descriptions] for the real world. The only possible contact between our explanations and the real world is via observation and experimentation"
Descriptions or explanations? I guess that it's all the same to someone unfamiliar with the Scientific Method.
But how are you going to certify via observation and experimentation if your descriptions or explanations ADMITTEDLY cannot be confused for the real world?
What are you going to OBSERVE in the lab if you cannot imagine YOUR OWN hypothesis? What do you do experiments in the lab with, doc? Equations? Functions? Is this what you handle with tweezers and put into test tubes? What is it that bounces off of mirrors during reflection? A variable? The number 5? I thought that observe you observe objects and experiment, you experiment with objects. You must run a pretty cheap lab, I mean, with all those concepts that you order every month.
043. doc: Yes, we do observe objects. But we describe and predict with equations. A ball is an object, but a sphere is an geometrical construct. Light is an object, but an electromagnetic wave is an equation. A planet moves around the Sun, but its orbit is a mathematical description.
Your insistence that light must "look like" the little wavy drawing in your HS science textbook is as silly as looking at the sky in a telescope and hoping to see the little line that Jupiter follows around the Sun.
044. bill: "Yes, we do observe objects. But we describe and predict with equations. A ball is an object, but a sphere is an geometrical construct. Light is an object, but an electromagnetic wave is an equation:
Doc, doc, doc. Just answer one Q:
WHAT bounces off of a mirror? An equation? A variable? The number 6?
"Unless nature is infinitely divisible"
What do you mean 'unless'? QM absolutely demands and 'predicts' an elementary particle. There are no ifs about it. You cannot divide or blast the last particle and get nothing.
For instance, according to the religion of QM, an electron particle orbits the proton particle. (Yes, despite perennial denials, the model in use is stil Bohr's planetary model.)
We can divide the electron to smitherines and never get nothing. We alsways get something. The same with the proton. We can't have nothing orbiting nothing.
Now, do we know the size of this indivisible?
This is not an issue of measurement or Math or experiment. This is a conceptual issue. We cannot avoid an indivisible particle in QM.
Nevertheless, an elementary particle is DEFINED as an indivisible. The ASSUMPTION is that this is THE particle, the one that makes up everything else. In Science, an assumption is used as the basis to formulate a theory.
045. doc: >>Rightness or wrongness is an opinion.
But surely, since you devote a huge amount of time to plastering YouTube with your so-called theory... you must think there are SOME criteria for determining which explanations are good ones and bad ones? Why should anyone pay attention to your idea? Because your pictures are pretty? Because your silly voices are funny? Or does everyone get to have their own pet theory of the universe based on their personal whims?
046. bill: "SOME criteria for determining which explanations are good ones and bad ones?"
I did establish criteria, doc. I thought that was clear:
047. bill: "you are describing a way of thinking about the world that is almost exactly the OPPOSITE of what the word "science" has connotated since it was applied to the investigation of nature"
Which is...?
048. doc: No, you and Bill don't understand what assumptions/hypotheses are. Read the Newton quote again. The process is:
*Observe phenomena *Use induction to derive laws *Observe MORE phenomena to see if the laws still work *Refine or extend your inductive laws *Repeat
There are no hypotheses or assumptions in there. In fact, Newton comes right out and SAYS - never put your "hypotheses" before your observations. Again, exactly the OPPOSITE of what Bill wants to decree that "science is".
So Bill's tactic is to decree that everything every scientist since 1700 has done is not ACTUALLY "science" - that only what he does (since he refuses to give me any other names of "scientists" he regards as role models) counts as science. Making HIM the only real scientist who has lived in the past 300 years. And then he accuses PHYSICISTS of being an arrogant cult of personality!!
049. bill: "everything every scientist since 1700 has done is not ACTUALLY "science"
Agreed.
"Making HIM the only real scientist... And then he accuses PHYSICISTS of being an arrogant cult of personality!!"
It's not about personality, doc. It's about rationality. I provided OBJECTIVE criteria, something you or anyone else hasn't.
So you are barking up a tree. If you disagree with my criteria, attack the criteria; not me.
050. doc: The only criteria I see on that page are - explanations have to be rational and not supernatural. There is nothing about deciding which rational explanation is the best one.
051. bill: "explanations have to be rational... There is nothing about deciding which rational explanation is the best one"
But we don't have to worry about that possibility In today's world, now do we? I mean, the criteria spelled out on that page (rational) summarily eliminates ALL of Mathematical Physics: energy, mass, charge, black hole, warped space, point particle, etc.
052. bill: "There are no hypotheses or assumptions in there."
If I remember correctly, Newt was that fella who said, "I feign no H." So maybe I should restate the quote you attribute to Newt, doc. "Never put your hypotheses."
Maybe now you understand why: "everything every scientist since 1700 has done is not ACTUALLY "science"
053. doc: GAH! No!!!!!
That reasoning is SO WRONG I can't even come up with an analogy to compare it to. How can "Science" POSSIBLY mean anything other than "the thing all the scientists have been doing for the past 400 years?"
It makes as much sense as the argument - "A football is not round. Therefore it is not a ball. So the thing that the NFL does is not football. They also don't use their feet much. What I am doing (hackeysack) is actually football. Now please, hand over my Super Bowl ring!"
Meaning (to explain the analogy, since you have so much trouble with them) that you do not get to proclaim yourself a success in a field (physical or intellectual) by taking the name of the field, applying it to the thing you do (which looks nothing like what anyone else is doing under that name) then declaring yourself as the winner, since you are the only one doing it.
(if you respond with "football is really soccer" then it will reveal that you are missing the point)
054. bill: " "Science": the thing all the scientists have been doing for the past 400 years?"
I thought that was called traditional religion.
Science is NOT what a majority determines (authority). It is also NOT what ignorant people have been doing for 500 years (tradition). Science has to do with explaining a theory rationally. Unlike what you propose, these are OBJECTIVE criteria.
055. doc: >>WHAT bounces off of a mirror?
For the 4th or 5th time - LIGHT bounces off the mirror. And any other description of the thing that bounces, be it ball, rope, or field is NOT THE THING ITSELF. It is a model, an analogy, a description.
Once again the argument comes full circle. It is not the conclusions of "science" you disagree with. It is the question of how closely the explanations of science resemble the objects of nature. This is question for philosophers - a different field of inquiry.
056. bill: "LIGHT bounces off the mirror"
If light can BOUNCE, it has shape. BOUNCE means surface against surface. BOUNCE is a verb of Physics, and this is a question of Physics; NOT of Philosophy.
057. doc: And if you disagree with every precept of Science as it has been used since 1800, quit trying to appropriate the NAME for your purely qualitative Aristotelian rationality.
But the requirement of "rationality" by itself doesn't eliminate...
* Earth, Water, Fire, Air * Phlogiston * Lamarkian Evolution * Cartesian vortex theory * Caloric * Ptolemaic epicycles
All of these ideas were perfectly logical and reasonable and rational. So rational that some were popular for 1000 years. Why don't we believe they are correct anymore? Surely the definition of "rational" can't change? Can it?
058. bill: "Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Phlogiston, Lamarkian Evolution, etc. were perfectly logical and reasonable and rational. Why don't we believe they are correct anymore? Surely the definition of "rational" can't change? Can it?"
You just keep flaunting what little you know about science, doc. Are you talking about theories or hypotheses? Do you know the difference? Here you pitted apples against beauty.
Is there no difference between a HYPOTHESIS such as water and a THEORY such as that of epicylces? How can someone who claims to be a teacher make such a fundamental mistake?
1. What is irrational about Earth, water, fire, or air? Except for fire, they are objects. (Of course, you have no clue why fire is an exception because you are not a physicst.)
2. Phlogiston was postulated as a substance (i.e. a valid hypothesis if the proponent can illustrate it. In contrast, a 0D singularity is an irrational hypothesis because you cannot illustrate WHAT object will serve as mediator in your theory).
3. A vortex, like your energy, charge, and mass, is an irrational hypothesis. It is a reified concept.
4. A caloric is a rational object if the proponent can illustrate WHAT it is that hes talking about. What is irrational is the theory that the concept heat is made of the object caloric. In Science, concepts are not made of objects. The fact that to this day people have not realized that this alone would have discredited the theory shows how little people like you understand the Scientific Method.
For instance, the mathematicians routinely say that mass is made of matter. Others are even dumber and say that light is made of energy. Some even believe that charge is a discrete particle, another of those 'packets' that no one can imagine, but which they attempt to observe in the lab. How can anyone 'observe' what they cannot even imagine? More than amusing, it is hilarious!a
059. bill: "There are no hypotheses or assumptions in there."
If I remember correctly, Newt was that fella who said, "I feign no H." So maybe I should restate the quote you attribute to Newt, doc: "Never put your hypotheses."
Maybe now you understand why: "everything every scientist since 1700 has done is not ACTUALLY "science"
*Observe phenomena *Use induction to derive laws*Observe MORE phenomena to see if the laws still work*Refine or extend your inductive laws*Repeat
And following this process they arrived at warped space, black holes, and virtual particles? I guess that says a lot of your method, doc.
060. doc: Well what are the alternate methods? I know of two. Pure reason (philosophy) and divine revelation (religion). Are there others?
By my scorecard, nobody has ever reasoned the existence of cathode rays or prayed a transistor into being. I think science is winning.
(Your frequent claim that technology is a sort of blind tinkering that is uninformed by scientific theories shows a complete lack of familiarity with the most basic history of science and technology.)
061. doc: Not in this case. Bounce means light against mirror. Since you can't SEE the light's surface (you see WITH) light you have no basis other than an extrapolation from your experience-with-balls to make the equation light=ball. History has shown many times that extrapolating from our meter-sized experience either up or down beyond the range of our senses gets us into trouble. ie. Rocks fall. The Moon does not fall. Therefore the Moon is not a rock. Perfect reasoning! Yet, wrong. Aristotelian FAIL!
062. bill: "Bounce means light against mirror."
Yes, I know what bounce means. The question is whether you know.
bounce: to strike OTHER surface
Bounce invokes TWO surfaces.
But you have an even more fundamental problem. This is YOUR explanation, doc. YOU are invoking the word BOUNCE to explain reflection to the crowd. What are you going to illustrate on the board?
We see a mirror. No problem there. Suddenly, 'something' STRIKES the mirror and rebounds. Please draw this 'something' that was kicked back by the glass.
YOU are invoking the word BOUNCE to explain what happened. YOU are describing that 'something' ricocheted. YOU are supposed to tell the jurors WHAT it was that BOUNCED. Or do you expect the crowd to tell YOU what bounced in YOUR theory?
So what will you tell them? That an equation ('wavepacket') bounced? Or was it a variable?
In other words, the question before you is: Is light a physical object? Yes or No? If not, what is it in the alternative?
063. doc: I'm talking about theories.
1) The theory that everything is made of 4 primary substances. 2) The theory that burning releases a substance called phlogiston. 3) The theory that evolution happens through the passing down of acquired traits. 4) The theory that heat is a substance. 5) The theory that planets move on circles-on-circles.
Each is a theory. Each is rational. Each, in its time "explained" a wide variety of phenomena. Each is thought to be true TODAY by almost nobody. Why?
064. You intentionally define the word "Object" so that it can't agree with any description I might invent.
I make an observation - I turn on a flashlight here - put a mirror there - see a bright spot on the wall there. The fact that it's similar to what happens when I bounce a billiard ball off a rail does not mean that light is a stream of billiard balls. Nor does fact that it's similar to what a water wave does when it hits a pier mean that the light is wet. Light is light.
My wavepacket does not bounce. But it will tell you, on paper, what will happen if you rotate the mirror by 10º, how much the spot on the wall will move. And you will say - "Well you have not explained what the light IS, only described what the light DOES". And I will answer yes - but if my wavepacket equation was not capturing SOMETHING about the nature of the light itself, why did the light do what my paper said it would do?
A "realist" would say that the prediction is evidence that the wavepacket is "onto something" and is in some sense a real thing. An instrumentalist would say that we have no access to "real things" other than by observations, so at best the wavepacket is a convenient tool to tell you where the spot is. Both of these people are PHILOSOPHERS asking questions about the relationship between the paper entities of science & the "real" entities of science. Whomever is right, it doesn't change science.
(sorry - that should have been...)
PHILOSOPHERS asking questions about the relationship between the paper entities of science & the "real" entities of NATURE.
065. bill: "Well you have not explained what the light IS"
Doc, doc, doc. What am I going to do with you? In Science, we don't explain objects. In Science, we don't explain WHAT a rock IS. In Science, we point to an object and name it: rock. Now the ET associates the word you uttered with the object you pointed to.
"My wavepacket does not bounce. But it will tell you, on paper, what will happen if you rotate the mirror by 10º"
Who cares? This is NOT the question. We are not yet concerned about behavior. We are still trying to figure out WHAT light IS or CONSISTS OF. We are trying to determine for the purposes of the theory that YOU are going to explain later to the jury what architecture light has. You are later going to relate this configuration to the behavior.
066. doc: >WHAT light IS or CONSISTS OF
Which comes right back to my statement that, being a fundamental, non-composite, irreducible entity means that IT DOES NOT "CONSIST" of ANYTHING. The word "architecture" does not apply to it, for it has no parts.
We have, as far as we know, reached a level of things that we can't break apart into smaller things - electrons, photons, quarks, etc. The FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUENTS of nature - WHATEVER THEY ARE can not be MADE OF anything!
067. bill: YOU are going to explain reflection. YOU are going to describe how light rebounds. You direct your laser pointer at a mirror and the crowd sees 'something' emanating from the laser pointer, STRIKING the mirror, and bouncing back. Is this 'something'? Yes or No? What do you mean by 'something'? Is this luminous 'thing' that we are all staring at an abstract concept?
068. doc: No, the luminous thing we are staring at is LIGHT. And being a fundamental entity of nature (at least as regarded now in the post-aether age) we stop trying to take it apart into its composite balls and strings. Because, as best we can tell given our last 100 years of playing with it - it HAS no composite parts. There is no light-dust or lighticule or lightrons that light breaks up into when we smash it against stuff. The only thing left to do is to describe its behavior as completely as we can.
Your belief that everything has to have a shape and a texture and a color and a surface is based on years of experience in a world full of composite entities. Everything you have ever seen or touched is made of something. But once you accept that some version of "Atomism" is true - that there are somewhere at the bottom of nature, entities of some sort that are NOT composite - you must also accept that they are not MADE OF anything. They are whatever they are.
To say that "light is a rope" is to describe it in terms of an everyday composite object that has properties (a color, a material, an inside and an outside) that a non-composite entity can not have. It is backwards-thinking and misguided and has no explanatory power in that it does not tell us anything NEW about light - it only ascribes to it properties that are unobservable, and thus, meaningless.
And to preempt a point that I think you may make - my statement that there are no pieces of light - no "lightrons" may cause you to say "But I thought a photon WAS a piece of light". It is not. Not in the sense that you break up light into smaller things photons. A photon is only a concept we use when talking about light interacting with matter. It is transactional, not substantial. In other words light:photon as money:cent NOT as money:penny. (Not a perfect analogy, but clear enough, I hope.) .
069. bill: "the luminous thing we are staring at is LIGHT it HAS no composite parts"
It seems that you are painting yourself into a corner in order to win an argument, doc. First no one on Earth agrees with you. Everyone and their mother says that light is comprised of discrete packets they correctly call particles, but which you now deny or try to wish away by reinterpreting them as 'constructs' or 'equations' or whatever.
What is perplexing is that you backtrack after conceding earlier that light consists of discrete wavepackets, which are commonly known as particles and which the Std Mod calls 'particle'.
Now you try to convince the jury that the beam is made of a single piece. You seem to be improvising, pulling at straws to escape punishment.
Let's recap from what you just wrote to do a sanity check and so that I don't misrepresent your newest version. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that
1. Everyone in the room SEES a SHAPE. 2. Everyone in the room describes this SHAPE as "an extremely thin, luminous 'thing' that extends or travels from the laser pointer to the mirror."
3. You call this 'thing': LIGHT. 4. According to your version, this 'thing' is made of a single piece. (and I quote you again: "the luminous thing we are staring at is LIGHT it HAS no composite parts." (Was that just a poorly phrased reply?)
070. doc: When everyone and their mother "says" that, they are using a verbal shorthand for a mathematical description that you refuse to accept as relevant.
Light is not "made of" photons in the sense that a house is made of bricks (big object/composite objects). Light is "made of " photons in the sense that money is made of "cents" (not pennies!). A photon is the smallest "interaction" we can have with light, much the way a "cent" is the smallest interaction we can have with money.
I'm not painting myself in a corner to win an argument, but you do make it nearly impossible to even ENGAGE in an argument, since your tactic is to take words that "everyone and their mother" uses and use them to mean something else.
Photons are not pieces of light in the sense that you could chop up a laser beam into a handful of photons. But, saying it has no parts does NOT mean it stretches "like a clothesline" between the flashlight and the wall. That is a bankrupt macroscopic analogy.
The light travels from the flashlight to the mirror. It does so at a certain speed. (Meaning that if we had a very fast stop watch, there would be a delay between the time we flipped the switch and saw the light hit the wall.) But we can't SEE the thing traveling from the light to the wall. All we see are the things the light HITS along the way. (dust grains, walls). The fact that we can't SEE light, it is what we see WITH, means we must be careful in talking about it's "shape".
So in our experiment, what is there that begs description. What observations have we made that tell us something about light. Well, it moves at a finite speed, it bounces off some things and goes through others. If we put a slit or a hair in front of the light, we might notice that it diffracts around obstacles. And if we put a piece of metal in the beam we might notice some curious effects regarding the way electrons are emitted from that metal.
071. bill: 5. Therefore, if I understand you correctly, there is nothing really TRAVELING from the laser pointer to the mirror. The luminous 'thing' EXTENDS from the laser pointer to the mirror like a clothes-line EXTENDS from here to there.
Yes or No?
What will you backtrack on now, doc? What was this latest baloney about no composite parts? Do I sense a new mathematical duality unknown to the patients at the Mathematics Asylum? Could you be the next Einstein? Am I talking to the next Nobel?
Does the 'beam' or 'ray' of LIGHT that we are all seeing with our eyes consist of a single piece that EXTENDS from the laser pointer to the mirror, as you just described above, or does it consist of discrete 'whatevers' that TRAVEL from the laser pointer to the mirror? Which is true? Are we staring at a luminous object made of a single piece or are we watching discrete 'whatevers' go from the laser pointer to the mirror? It cant be both. I mean in Science. Please clarify.
072. doc: We also notice that as the batteries in our flashlight die, the light not only gets dimmer, but YELLOWER. So we have learned some important things about the relationship between the temperature of material objects and the light they emit.
These are the things about light that require explaining. They pertain to 2 things: 1) the propagation of the light form one place to another and 2) the interaction of light with matter. Nothing about the STRUCTURE of light. Hmm. Why?
Because none of the experiments we have done - none of the observations we have made with our instruments probes the structure of the light in any way. We can't SEE light. We detect light with photocells and retinas, but that doesn't give us a picture of the light! It only gives us a map of where the light came from. Certainly nothing we have done suggests that we can break light up into smaller things that are NOT light. (Like we break water in to H and O) So what are we to do?
Well, we regard light as a fundamental entity, and start trying to create a model that behaves on paper the way light does in nature. We find the curious fact that the propagation is best describes using waves, but the emission and absorption is not continuous - it is discrete. It happens in "chunks". Not chunks as in little OBJECTS. Chunks as in little AMOUNTS. (Cents, not pennies). This is troublesome for about 30 years, since nothing macroscopic acts this way, our toolbox isn't up to the task
So we work really hard and finally come up with a mathematical model (Quantum Electro-Dynamics) which describes on paper EVERYTHING we have seen light do in nature. Sometimes when we compare the answers we get on paper, then do an experiment, the two agree to within 1 part in a trillion - better than any mathematical model of nature that has ever been derived! But wait you say - what have we really done? Is this quantized EM field really what light IS? I can't really picture it in my head.
That is a fair question. But who is it a question for? Because it could be asked of lots of things in science that you can't see. Genes. Atoms. Bonds. Electrons. How are we to regard the correspondence between our entities on paper and those objects in nature?
The people charged with answering these questions are known as "philosophers of science". They don't work in labs. They don't use math. They sit in their offices and think and write about science.
What do they think and write about? Things like Epistemology (how we know things) ontology (what things "really exist) and theory-justification (what is the PROCESS that scientists undertake to decide which theories are "right")
During the past hundred years or so of thinking about this topic, the philosophers have defined some categories of thought - realism, empiricism, instrumentalism - that summarize the various opinions one can have on how "real" the theoretical constructs of science are.
You are free to hold whatever of these stances you wish. Most scientists are either realists or empiricists, implicitly anyway. In fact if you ask them, 99% of them will have no idea what you are talking about, having never taken a philosophy of science course. If you would like to take scientists to task over the fact that none of them have thought too hard about the philosophical underpinnings of their discipline, I would support that - it's why I teach a Phil of Sci course in my science dept.
But this is the thing - no matter if the scientists is a realist or an instrumentalist - it does not effect IN ANY WAY what they do in the lab or in their equations. It might have some impact on how carefully they parse their words when they talk about their theories, but it has no effect on the process I described of observation, model building, and theory testing.
So, I have said this before, you are having the wrong argument with the wrong people over the wrong things.
In all of your rants over what "science is" "science does" "science should" - you are not talking about science. You are talking about the philosophy of science. In all your objections over whether this or that "object" or "entity" really exists - you are talking about ontology, not science. It's a different subject. The professors live in a different building. They don't give a Nobel Prize in it.
You are targeting Einstein and Newton, when you should be targeting Kant and Hume and Hempel.
Anyway - BIll, I don't have any hope of convincing you of ANYTHING. So I'll stop here. My goal is to make sure there is some intelligent dissent in these comment threads so that hapless people who come along that have an interest in science, but not enough knowledge to separate the good from the bad, will get at least some sense of what mainstream scientists have to say about this sort of material.
I commend you for having your comment threads open to this sort of discussion.
073. bill: “These are the things about light that require explaining. 1) the propagation of the light 2) the interaction of light… Nothing about the STRUCTURE of light… none of the experiments we have done - none of the observations we have made with our instruments probes the structure of the light in any way. We can't SEE light.”
You should read a little bit of history, doc. EVERY experiment ever performed with light was carried out to determine its physical nature. I know this is news to you, but Newt and Huygens discussed particle vs wave configurations already in the 17th Century. The debate continued all the way to Solvay, when Chairman Bohr finally decreed that the matter was over with. Light was both a particle AND a wave. That stopped the endless bickering.
A blind man could tell you what light looks like, doc, if he just knew the correct configuration. The myth that you help spread that light has an unimaginable architecture is a holdover from traditional religion. When the priest could not explain the apparent miracle, he told his flock: “God works in mysterious ways.” No question went beyond that. The mathematicians just picked up the ball where it fell.
The issue you raise is not about seeing, but about conceptualizing (hypothesis). An assumption is a mandatory step of the Scientific Method. If you cannot conceptualize your own proposal (illustrate it on the board) you certainly cannot make a movie of your physical interpretation (a theory). That’s an objective criterion.
Of course, you don’t like this objective criterion. You rebel against it because you cannot imagine the wavepacket with which you intend to explain your theory. You were taught by rote to say that such matters are issues best addressed in Philosophy. It turns out that everyone from Alhazen to Solvay attempted to do just that: determine the architecture of the invisible entity that mediated light. A couple of mathematicians finally threw in the towel and decreed that the issue doesn’ t belong in Science.
Before a theorist can explain PROPAGATION and INTERACTION, he must tell the audience WHAT entity is going to serve as the main character in his film. What surface, what shape are we watching on the screen doing the propagating and interacting? If YOU claim that light PROPAGATES, you have ALREADY decided – conceptually – that light consists of discrete little balls, cubes or cylinders.
For instance, a clothes line does not ‘propagate’, doc. It is already there. Therefore, if light is like a clothes line, you would not be able to talk about propagating (except maybe the clothes pins along the line). When you claim that light PROPAGATES you have already chosen between the clothes line and the pebble. You are ALREADY doing ‘Philosophy.” You are telling me that YOUR Philosophy is okay, but that I have to get approval for mine from YOUR PEERS on the other side of campus.
Therefore, you cannot later allege that you don’t know the physical nature (i.e. architecture) of light because you don’t have tools to determine its nature. You cannot tell the juror to go to the other side of campus to get an answer to YOUR theory. YOU have ALREADY told us its nature. You have already DECREED that light consists of packets for the purposes of YOUR presentation.
We have a ray of light in front of us and we must give a PHYSICAL interpretation to the phenomenon that we are staring at. Is this what you call Philosophy? Then, you don’t know the first thing about Physics, doc. I don’t care how many people you have behind you.
So here is the famous doc who claims to teach ‘physics’ and this is what he tells his students about the beam in front of us:
doc: “Students, today I will explain how light does its magic. The wavepackets flow out of the flashlight and strike the wall where they bounce back and hit the floor. Light is booted out as a 3D packet, travels as a plane (2D) transverse wave, and converts back into a 3D packet when it hits something.”
johnny: “Ahh, Doc Dave? Does light really consist of wavepackets?”
doc: “Well, ‘wavepacket’ is really a euphemism us scholars use to insinuate that we’re talking about Physics when we’re really describing mathematically ‘on paper’. We don’t purport to describe or explain the real world. We delegate those petty matters to the people who deal with the real world: the philosophers. In Physics, we only deal with imaginary and abstract situations and scenarios.
johnny: “But this is YOUR presentation, doc. YOU are telling us YOUR theory about that beam right there in front of us. YOU are proposing that light consists of pebbles in order to EXPLAIN that these pebbles STRIKE the wall and HIT the floor. How can you talk about TRAVELING, STRIKING, and HITTING unless you have ALREADY made up your mind that light consists of pebbles?
doc: “Well, they’re not really pebbles, johnny. They’re more like, you know, … equations. We DESCRIBE the BEHAVIOR of light mathematically, and this explains why these packets have no shape or surface. Try drawing a function! Tsskk!
johnny: “So is this beam that we’re staring at made of parts OR of a single piece, doc?”
doc: “BOTH! That’s the beauty of science.”
johnny: “How can a packet come in discrete little ‘quantities’ and ALSO be an extended object that stretches from the Sun to the Earth for the purposes of YOUR theory, the one YOU are giving to us, doc? Please draw what you have on YOUR mind, doc, so that we can follow YOUR dissertation.
doc: “I already told you. I cannot draw an equation.”
johnny: “but… but…you just said that…”
doc: “please remove this insolent student from my presence. We will burn him at the stake tonight.”
You have no right to teach, doc! You don’t know WHAT you are going to talk about, let alone EXPLAIN a phenomenon of nature with ‘it’. YOUR famous experiments where you INFERRED / ASSUMED (as opposed to ‘prove’) that light consists of discrete wave packets was the WRONG PHYSICAL INTERPRETATION. Duality is ALWAYS an irrational hypothesis because it is ad hoc. You use the wave to explain this phenomenon and the particle to explain that one. I don’t need to see the philosophers to understand so much. In Physics, if you can’t draw it, if you cannot imagine it, you don’t have a valid hypothesis. You cannot use it as an actor in Physics. It’s just that simple. This is an objective standard.
But go ahead. Keep teaching your 'particle' truth to the new generation. They’ll learn by rote, like you did, on the basis of authority, simply because Bohr and Heisenberg told you that they couldn’t make sense of the workings of the U. And just to preempt the reporters, they instituted the habit of belittling anyone who attempted to question their findings.