Things I learned in physics class

POSTED BY: BadgersHat
UPDATED: Friday, August 12, 2005 15:00
VIEWED: 25158
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SIGMANUNKI

Sunday, July 24, 2005 3:02 AM

First, sorry for the long post. I've been busy and am catching up.

@QBEAM:
On your "thesis."

Yes, science has more questions than answers and I don't really see that changing anytime soon. With every answer there always seems to be more than one question coming up with it. It does seem to be a never ending process.

You state that the direction of science is based on unscientific guesses. This couldn't be more false. The scientific guesses are based on previous science and what direction that they seem to point us in. Of course there is some human factor in there, and people will investigate what they like.

@FOURSKYS:
You wrote:
"""Insert quip/argument for/against string theory here"""

LOL, they sure are good at the politics aren't they.

From the wife:
One of the important emotions involved is ambition. If there are competing theories or just ideas on the market there will always be scientists pursuing them, b/c they might be the ones making a new discovery. That's a pretty good guarenttee that even weird ideas will be explored to some degree before being discarded.

@QBEAM:
You wrote:
""" funding decisions being made on purely unscientific guesswork."""
You cannot say that science is based on unscientific principles based on what funding committees decisions are based on. If you would give an example of actual science that'd be helpful.

@Zoid:
You wrote:
"""
From a standpoint of logical debate, FourSkys counter-example is not particularly applicable. QBeam gave examples of funding decisions being made on purely unscientific guesswork. He never said "all funding decisions...", he said "some". Therefore, counter-examples do not disprove his assertion.
"""

You're right that one cannot make a counter-example to something that is just "some".

I'm going to summerize what I think QBeams and FourSkys positions are:

1) QBeam: that science is based on unscientific principles and that unscientific principle can get funding.
2) FourSkys: that science is based on scientific principles and that most (all) funding goes to scientificly based work.

I must say that QBeam and FourSkys are both right depending on what area they are talking about. If I remember correctly FourSkys is in Physics (Masters, right?) and QBeam has stated undergrade Physics and then goes onto use examples from medical related feilds, which leads me to think that he's in a medically related feild.

So, I would imagine that this is where the confusion lies. In the hard sciences proposals really need to be justified before anything happens. Whereas in the soft sciences and others, less and less.

\begin{wife and I}
We think that it is necessary to make a distinction between the hard sciences and the soft sciences and then the others. Also, a distinction between theory and experimentation must be drawn. And there are big differences between fundamental and applied research.

We would imagine that the further you get away from the hard sciences (and the more applied the research is) the more political and "hand-wavey" things get.
\end{wife and I}

So, let's summerize the conversation to get a better perspective. Hopefully, I won't screw this up.

QBeam wrote "Because there's never enough time or money to test every hypothesis, those scarce resources get allocated according to what the scientists collectively believe will be most fruitful--in other words, based on unscientific guesses."
Which FourSkys replied, " In fact, most people end up doing a good deal of the work before they put in the grant and experiment proposals, just so they can show good cause that it's worth the investor's money." ... "There's so much fighting over funding, you really can only get money to look at something that you're absolutely assured of seeing."
To which QBeam said, "But I have no idea why you think this means that they won't fund research based on unscientific guesses." and gives an example of funding denied b/c of unscientific reasoning.
So FourSkys countered with two examples o

ZOID

Sunday, July 24, 2005 5:38 AM

batmarlowe wrote:

Quote:
...Anne Francis played "Honey West", not "Kitty West"...

Jeez, yer right! The only reason I remember that show at all is because Anne Francis was the first woman I ever loved. I couldn't have been more than 7 or 8 when it originally aired, but I'd sneak behind Dad's lounge chair to watch it.

She made me feel all funny inside...

Respectfully,

zoid

P.S.
Looked it up: "Honey West" was on for one season, 1965, when I was 7. I don't know where I got 'Kitty West' from... I have my suspicions, but they're not fit for family entertainment...
_________________________________________________

"Sure as I know anything, I know this: I aim to misbehave." -Capt. Mal Reynolds, Serenity, a.k.a. 'the BDM'

BATMARLOWE

Sunday, July 24, 2005 7:31 AM

I was only 4 in '65 so I have no recollection of HONEY WEST in it's first run. But I did become aware of the show a few years later. I always liked the idea of a female private eye. And let's just say that Anne Francis is worthy of being your first. For me it was Jeannie and Samantha. And of course Emma Peel. Since I was 5 when BATMAN premiered it wasn't until re-runs when I was a bit older that I began to appreciate Julie Newmar as Catwoman. And did you see her in LI'L ABNER as Stupefyin' Jones? Whew! Good casting.

But lest I completely hijack this thread I must quickly add that Jeannie and Samantha were Quantum Physicists, while Catwoman...pretty much an Einsteinian Relativist.

I'll be quiet now.

ZOID

Sunday, July 24, 2005 9:19 AM

It's 4:03 AM in my locality, so:

"High Hopes", by Pink Floyd

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
In a world of magnets and miracles
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begun

Along the Long Road and on down the Causeway
Do they still meet there by the Cut

There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps
Running before time took our dreams away
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The night of wonder

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide

At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world

Encumbered forever by desire and ambition
There's a hunger still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still strain to the horizon
Though down this road we've been so many times

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder
With friends surrounded
The dawn mist glowing
The water flowing
The endless river

Forever and ever
________________________

This song is one of my favorites (especially the live version). It always fills me with a bittersweet melancholy, thinking of the price we pay for our technological society...

Sleepily,

zoid (ragged bandmember)
_________________________________________________

"When I'm a good dog, they sometimes throw me a bone in." -"Nobody Home", The Wall, Pink Floyd

BATMARLOWE

Sunday, July 24, 2005 5:45 PM

Oops there goes another rubber tree plant--

"High Hopes" written by Cahn and Van Heusen, sung by Frank Sinatra.

Quoted with irony,

Batmarlowe

We now return you to our regularly scheduled discussion on physics.

FOURSKYS

Monday, July 25, 2005 2:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:

\begin{wife and I}
....
\end{wife and I}

LOL! Have some experience with LaTeX, have we?
(The typesetting language, not the polymer)

Also, I think that was a very good summary, thanks SigmaNunki. I can't say that I have that much to add though, so I'll leave it at this for now... :-)

QBEAM

Monday, July 25, 2005 3:27 PM

Quote:
QBeam's school must've been one of those in which they gather the cream of the scholastic crop and accelerate their learning. Kinda like The Academy, in Firefly.

Well, it wasn't officially. But it was an elementary school on a college campus, for the children of the professors and grad students. So there was probably a pretty powerful selection effect. So I guess I can't be too surprised if my experience wasn't completely typical.

ThatWeirdGirl is right, though, that the basic principles aren't too much for 4th graders, at least in my experience. I wouldn't try to teach them how to solve for eigenvectors, obviously, but the general principles are doable. Much like we learned the basic principles of electrical circuits, but didn't solve RIC circuit problems. (I think we did R circuits...)

QBEAM

Monday, July 25, 2005 3:39 PM

Quote:
I'm still astounded that anyone would be taught this sort of stuff at age nine. In primary school (7 years of school before high school - I guess this would equate to junior high?) we did almost no physics that I can recall. I don't see how you can even touch on wpd without already having a solid basis in the subject.

Yeah, 4th grade was the first year that experimental physics was one of my subjects in school. The subjects and experiments were pretty simple, obviously. With nothing but basic algebra, the number of problems you can solve is pretty limited. But you can do things like computing mass with an oscillating platform, and observing the difference between mixing and disolving by measuring changes in volumes. We built flashlights from scratch, too--including making the carbon battery. (Actually, I think making the battery was the official project--a bunch of us just went on to make them into flashlights on our own, to show that they worked right.)

We didn't do any experiments in WPD, other than making a diffraction grating. But we did read about the electron scattering experiments that were some of the first proof of the atomic nature of matter, and the Michelson-Morley experiment. Like I said, the ideas don't seem very tough, even for a 9-year-old. I just think the average school system has standards that are way to low.

QBEAM

Monday, July 25, 2005 3:46 PM

Quote:
You state that the direction of science is based on unscientific guesses. This couldn't be more false. The scientific guesses are based on previous science and what direction that they seem to point us in. Of course there is some human factor in there, and people will investigate what they like.

You cannot say that science is based on unscientific principles based on what funding committees decisions are based on. If you would give an example of actual science that'd be helpful.

We must be talking past each other, because I think this is more than adequate proof of my thesis.

All I'm saying is that, by definition, before we know something via the scientific method, we have to form opinions about it using our other faculties. A fortiori, the decisions we make about which hypotheses to test scientifically are unscientific. They're based on something in our emotional make up, and our personal expierences.

For example, I know that physicists have an emotional attachment to the concept of elegance. (I do to! I'm not pointing fingers...) Theories that propose elegant solutions are presumed to be more likely to be correct. And yet, its doubtful that the concept of elegance could even be operationalized, much less tested scientifically.

Quote:
I'm going to summerize what I think QBeams and FourSkys positions are:

1) QBeam: that science is based on unscientific principles and that unscientific principle can get funding.
2) FourSkys: that science is based on scientific principles and that most (all) funding goes to scientificly based work.

No, if I've given the impression that this is my thesis, then I've chosen my words poorly. As I hope the section above makes clear, my thesis is that it is completely impossible for us, as human beings, to do anything relying entirely on scientific knowledge--including the practice of science.

Quote:
Now QBeam gets back with non-understanding why FourSkys says that people can't get funding with research based on non-scientific guesses and further remarks that "scientist often formulate their opinions based on unscientific guesses." (NOTE: This is different to what QBeam said prior which is quoted above. ie diff between often and all) Then gives an example of funding decisions based on "purely unscientific guesswork." and FourSkys gets back with two examples of well planned and justified funding projects.

Ah, I hope this hasn't been a source of confusion. My choice of words may have been sloppy, but the truth is there's no logical difference between the two statements, at least as I meant them. The reason is that something can't be "a little bit scientific," any more than one can be "a little pregnant." Either something satifies the conditions to qualify as scientific methodology, or it doesn't. As I've said, the overall process by which humans decide which hypotheses to test scientifically can't be scientific. (See Goedel's incompleteness theorum.)

That's why the counter to the funding issue I raised, about people doing pilot studies, doesn't work. It's just begging the question, by moving the pre-scientific decision point farther forward (in those cases where those pilot studies in fact qualify as good science--they don't always, of course).

Quote:
I must say that QBeam and FourSkys are both right depending on what area they are talking about. If I remember correctly FourSkys is in Physics (Masters, right?) and QBeam has stated undergrade Physics and then goes onto use examples from medical related feilds, which leads me to think that he's in a medically related feild.

An interesting deduction, but a mistaken one... Most of my degrees are in physics. Frankly, biology was my weakest area. My roomate on campus was a molecular biologist/geneticist, which is how I learned most of what I think I know about those fields.

FOURSKYS

Monday, July 25, 2005 3:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by QBeam:
All I'm saying is that, by definition, before we know something via the scientific method, we have to form opinions about it using our other faculties.

But what about this is unscientific? just because something has yet to be proven, doesn't mean that the hypothesis is unscientific. The development of the numerous hypotheses is based on purely scientific grounds (under normal circumstances). You make assumptions based on previous scientific evidence. There is a logical train of thought that leads you to new hypotheses. Yes, there are surely many hypotheses that can lead from a single experiment, and there are many different ones to investigate. The choice is "generally" made from a plausibility argument, (i.e., which hypothesis is more liekyl to prove true), but not necessarily. Sometimes you look at what you think would be more interesting, sometimes you look into what you think is more fun. Is this what you mean by unscientific? Because the hyptothesis is still completely scientifically sound. The decision on what to investigate needs to be made sure, and I'll admit, one doesn't always need to use the scientific method to chose the one to look at, but that doesn't make it unscientific in my opinion.

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