Terry Blanton wrote:
"What is Magnetism" http://discovermagazine.com/2008/may/02-three-words-that-could-overthrow-physics
The author of the piece wants something that will "explain" "why" magnets do what they do.
Physics doesn't "explain". It "models". There's a huge difference. The "model" of reality which is modern physics includes magnetism and the magnetism in the model behaves pretty much like the magnets we see in the real world. The model has proven to have valuable predictive power, which is why it's currently in use and considered "more or less correct".
But the fact that the model seems to behave like the real thing doesn't in any way "explain" why the real thing behaves the way it does. No physical theory ever will. If the author ever gets to converse with God perhaps God will explain /why/ things are the way they are, but until then, all we've got are models, and the best that can be said about any model is that it acts like the real world within its domain of applicability.
Consider this: Nearly all of reality goes unobserved. Of the parts which are observed, nearly everything which is observed is unmeasured. Our judgment as to the accuracy of physical theories is based on the tiny fraction of observed events for which someone takes some measurements. Those few measurements, which represent a tiny fraction of the observed events, which in turn represent a vanishingly small fraction of all that takes place in the Universe, are the only "points of contact" between reality and theory. If a mathematical model agrees reasonably well with that relative handful of measurements, we accept it as "apparently correct"...
Terry
