At 12:13 pm 22-10-04 -0800, you wrote:
>I'd like to make some general remarks, though I'm not sure they really go
>anywhere.
>
>Playing with fundamental units can be an error prone experience. For
>example mass and energy are equivalent so
>
>E = m ??
>
>but also:
>
>E = mc^2
>m = mc^2
>1=c^2
>c=1
>3x10^8 m/s = 1
>1 second = 3 x 10^8 meters ??
>
>thus time and distance are also equivalent??
>
>It seems to me that playing with units can not provide new physical
>knowledge. That is because, if it is done validly, the derived new system
>of physical laws, the new expression of physicality, must be fully
>isomorphic with the original system. It is a 1-1 mapping of the old system
>upon the new system preserving all operations. Physical variables are like
>any other numbers, except they carry their unit baggage with them. They
>are equally valid members of sets and subsets as any ordinary numbers. The
>new representation of the physical universe that results from unit mapping
>must, with certainty, be consistent with all existing experimental data to
>be valid, or at least as consistent as the original representation. It
>must necessarily, by the isomorphism, make exactly the same predictions as
>the old system. Thus new physical information is not provided. The gain
>to be obtained then must necessarily be in computational ease, in
>simplified symbology. That is not meant to dismiss such an effort. A new
>way of expressing things can be a powerful conceptual tool. Sometimes a
>new way of thinking can not be accomplished or accepted until the notion is
>expressed in a profoundly simple way. Einstein said after years of
>working on a unified field theory that he felt he lacked the proper
>language to deal with the problem.
>
>Regards,
>
>Horace Heffner
I'll go along with that, Horace. <g>
Something I wrote in a previous post bears repeating.
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A small digression. When I was a young Scientific Officer
I was having a conversation with Dr Randall Wood on the
subject of dimensional analysis. He said, when he was
working at NPL. there was a chap who has the knack of
solving the most amazingly intractable problems in heat
transfer, etc. by using dimensional analysis techniques.
I am confident that the reason he was so successful is
that dimensional analysis implicitly bypasses the jerry
built conceptual variables, like FORCE, etc., of
traditional physics.
As Clayton remarks in a recent e-mail where he comments
on Buchanan's UBIQUITY
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>He observes that "the world is simpler
>than it seems" (p72). As you always
>said, it is just that we look at it in
>the wrong terms.
>Nigel
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Cheers
Grimer
