arnyk wrote: > Sorta. Since you contradict yourself as follows: "There are NO > scientific facts[/I][/B]. There are facts..." its hard to form a > coherent summary of what you said above. > > The science I know starts out "All findings of science are provisional, > only valid until better evidence is found and/or a better hypothesis is > proposed." > > In that context words like *fact* are at best troublesome. What most > people call facts are actually either hypothesis or evidence. Neither > are guaranteed to be correct. Here's an idea - let us forget about > talking about *facts* since they may not be what they seem. Experiments > are just fishing expeditions, trying to gather some evidence, hopefully > in a systematic and relevant way. > > People often don't distinguish Mathematics from Science. They are vastly > different. Mathematics differs from Science in that while Science is > about the natural physical world, Mathematics is artificial, and need > not have any relationship at all to the physical world. An important > part of Science are Mathematical models but they are actually just > hypothesis stated in a certain formal way. In Mathematics everything is > defined, and within those definitions a new Scientific hypothesis can be > tested first for conformance with the relevant principles of > Mathematics, but should also be tested for conformance with reality by > means of physical experiments. There are a lot of models that are > consistent enough as mathematical entities, but have been found to be > completely irrelevant to reality. Others like Newton's laws of Motion > are more than accurate enough in most of everyday life and even > exceptional situations like planetary motion in the Solar system and > most space travel as we know it today, but require Relativistic > adjustments to be accurate and useful in an increasing number of > exceptional situations like GPS and cell phone systems. > > I was taught Engineering by first equipping me with enough basic > Mathematics (Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus in that order) > so that I could understand and benefit from some simple, generally > accepted mathematical models of common physical systems. For example, > without those basic elements of Math, the common models related to > non-relativistic motion of real objects, electricity, and basic thermal > processes are very difficult to understand. The study of > Thermodynamics departs from the pattern set by the study of motion and > electricity in that we quickly encounter math models that cannot or > recently could not be derived from first principles, but are accurate > based on observations.
Morning Arny! I think we're on the same page here. I'm always sceptical of physicists who come up with grand hypotheses derived from mathematics alone - it seems to me to be a dodgy "extrapolation" in the absence of present evidence. Stephen Hawkins has been guilty of this to some extent recently. I believe that some relativistic corrections to Newton's Laws are also necessary to correctly predict the orbit of Mercury (which is of course both very small compared to the Sun & uncomfortably close), FWIW. The Second Law of Thermodynamics which gives us the concept of entropy (essentially a measure of disorder, which must stay constant or more usually increase with time) is the only bit of maths in Physics which is not reversible in time, & gives rise to the idea of "The Arrow Of Time" which is sadly consuming us all. Dave :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Golden Earring's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=66646 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106914 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
