Who is your favorite Physicist?

@emmett grogan,

Quote:

Also: why do you choose to make what seems like a personal attack on his possesion of "expertise" as opposed to an argument regarding his points on Einstein????

You can call it a "personal attack" if you want, but I think it is a simple matter of fact that Max himself has demonstrated in his recent posts.

But I don't confine my evaluations to his "recent posts," as you seem to have detected. Max and I have had a significant number of previous "debates" and by now I'm pretty familar with his thought patterns and his "modus operandi."

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@layman,

Quote:

May be.

Perhaps you would like to enlighten me about how to read Max's post "well," eh, Emmet.

My point is your comment criticizing his comments regarding Einstein indicated either a misreading and subsequent mis-characterization of what he said, or perhaps a wilful misreading to self serve an opportunity to mope slap him.

Not having been here long enough to develop any sense about you or maxdanica, I choose to be charitable and attribute your misconception to misreading his point.

At any rate this topic certainly beats what appears to be a enormous interest on this site to make light weight requests for relationship advice.

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@maxdancona,

Made me laugh, while we know you can increase my grouchiness.
Depending on the tea kettle's physical attributes, if tossed, it could at least bring consternation, scald someone or thing, and cause damage to a rag rug with various leaves..
The china cup may possible please a tea sipper with its beauty, causing the sipper to forget to piss.

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@Olivier5,

History is much more than historical facts. I am not a historian, but have read history books. From Tacitus to Kerns-Goodwin what historians do is quite a bit more than listing historical facts.

You are right about experiments; that I can't replicate a supernova. But I can test my theories about supernovae. I can say, if my theories are correct than I will expect to see this spectral signature when I point a telescope with this capability at this feature. Scientific theories are testable and tested. And most importantly, scientific ideas that are contradicted by experiment are dropped.

It seems like this argument about whether History is the same as Science is really more of an argument about History than about science. It seems to me that Historians tell a narrative.

When you hear Kearns-Goodwin talk about the end of slavery, there is a shared understanding between writer and reader that slavery is bad. There is no experimental way to determine that slavery is bad (you can say it causes suffering, but you can't say empirically that the suffering of slaves is morally wrong), it is a moral judgement.

If you really see History as the study of historical facts, I guess we disagree about what History is. But, I don't have a degree in History... this is a debate for the historians.

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@layman,

Quote:

Read up on the "scientific method" and it should be readily apparent. It is not a matter of *my* expertise, but rather a matter of (relatively) common knowledge.

Seriously? But I do get it now. You conflate "insult" with debate. You have no expertise to judge anyone re: scientific method. But you do have opinions, of which on this page all seem wrapped around an insult.

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@emmett grogan,

emmett grogan wrote:

My point is your comment criticizing his comments regarding Einstein indicated either a misreading and subsequent mis-characterization of what he said, or perhaps a wilful misreading to self serve an opportunity to mope slap him.

OK, that's your "point," then. However you purport to be responding to my post where I asked if you wanted to "explain" (state the basis, rationale, etc., for) your point.

You have made no attempt whatsoever to do that.

Instead you opt to "insult" me in a passive-aggressive way.

Go figure, eh?

Don't get me wrong: I don't feel the least bit "insulted," but, by your apparent criteria, you have just "insulted" me.

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Meantime, welcome to A2k (at the least, a sometimes interesting place, sometimes annoying in many ways, watch out, it can be catching) to Emmett Grogan.

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@maxdancona,

Edit:

Quote:

It seems to me that Historians tell a narrative.

That is correct. The equivalent in history of a physics theory is a credible, rational narrative of what happened, excluding for instance acts of God. The same is true of paleontology, geology, and to a lesser degree astronomy.

Quote:

You are right about experiments; that I can't replicate a supernova. But I can test my theories about supernovae. I can say, if my theories are correct than I will expect to see this spectral signature when I point a telescope with this capability at this feature.

The point is that the very same thing is done routinely in historical research. E.g. people are dating documents based on where they were found, their style, paper, ink etc. because one would expect, if our theory of the development of writing through the ages is correct, a correlation between certain writing styles, certain languages, certain places, certain papers and inks. And if we find a document or several ones that contradict our theory, it is proven wrong by observation*, just like in the case of astronomy.

*That, or the document is a fake.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

You are missing the important point; history is more than a set of historical facts and that when historians write, there is an implicit understanding of a shared set of moral judgments between author and reader. I agree that historical facts can be disproved. So what.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

historical facts can be disproved. So what.

Can be disproved by facts = empirical, falsifiable by observation.

And to put a fine point, it's not historical facts that are sometimes disproven by facts (how could that be?), it's historical theories ie narratives.

Quote:

You are missing the important point; history is more than a set of historical facts and that when historians write, there is an implicit understanding of a shared set of moral judgments between author and reader.

There is a "voice", a POV on the events. Some historian would see the French terror as an inevitable (necessary) part of the revolution, while another may see it as a stupid waste of lives and talent. But this POV of the historian is not necessarily shared by the reader. You don't need to agree ideologically with a historian to read his work. You can take his work with a grain of salt, and predictably so to a degree. It's an accepted theory that Josephus over-reported armies and casualties numbers in his Jewish War. I just finished an account by a Catholic historian of the early church martyrs and was able with Wiki and other sources to contextualize what I was reading (it's a pretty gastly story that of the early Roman martyrs).

Why is that important? Because once again, it's the same thing in science: you don't need to adhere to the religious or occult views of Newton to read his work either. You can take some and leave some, in the work of any scholar.

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@Olivier5,

For what it's worth, Ollie, I share your viewpoint about this. Physicists are prone to claiming that the "social sciences" are not "true science."

But the methodology can be virtually identical, even when the subject matter isn't.

The ability to analyze the behavior of inanimate matter in terms which can be reduced to mathematical formulas is simply not available in a subject like history. But that's not what all "science" is about, notwithstanding Max's oft-repeated (but mistaken) claim that physics IS math.

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

Some historian would see the French terror as an inevitable (necessary) part of the revolution, while another may see it as a stupid waste of lives and talent.

This is a difference between Scientists and Historians. When Scientists have such a disagreement, they devise an experiment (or set of experiments) to resolve the disagreements. Scientists understand that if no such experiment is possible to define (there is a difference between defining an experiment and running it) then the disagreement is scientifically unimportant.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Scientists understand that if no such experiment is possible to define (there is a difference between defining an experiment and running it) then the disagreement is scientifically unimportant.

You once again undertake to express (and advocate) YOUR personal philosophy of science, eh, Max?

What is "scientifically unimportant" to you, and others with a (now discredited) Percy Bridgman-like positivistic "operative" approach to the philosophy of science, is of significant "scientific importance" to scientists with a less naive view.

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@maxdancona,

In history, the discovery of new historical artifacts is the equivalent to a new experiment in physics. You don't seem to register that... Try to focus. Remember that you can't REPLICATE A DINOSAUR in a lab either, but you can DISCOVER a new SKELETON. Same with a new document, or work of art or skeleton in a tomb. It is a new fact, a new observation.

Consider that paleontology was once called "natural history". These two sciences are very similar to one another.

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@layman,

layman wrote:

What is "scientifically unimportant" to you, and others with a (now discredited) Percy Bridgman-like positivistic "operative" approach to the philosophy of science, is of significant "scientific importance" to scientists with a less naive view.

For example, Max, you have stated in the past that, since it has been claimed (erroneously, I believe) that there is no experimental way to distinguish (mathematically) so-called "Lorentzian relativity" from special relativity, there is no difference and that they are, in essence, "the same theory."

What you completely fail to see is that the difference has vast and profound consequences for the conclusions you will reach regarding many other distinct areas of "scientific reality," depending on which view you adopt: Absolute simultaneity or relative simultaneity.

This is of extreme "scientific importance," your denial of it notwithstanding

Earlier you said that Einstein's "hidden variable" view had been "proven wrong." People making such claims will often cite "Bell's theorem." But only because they misunderstand what Bell said and/or the implications of his conclusions.

As I have shown in other threads, Bell NEVER said that "hidden variables" could be ruled out. He merely said that such variables were incompatible with generally accepted scientific premises such as special relativity. He expressly said that the easiest means to reconciling some of the apparent problems in QM would be to abandon special relativity and revert to Lorentzian relativity as the preferred theory of relative motion.

Again, such issues are of paramount "scientific importance."

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@MKABRSTI,

So, Mkabrsti, you are the author of this thread, and I don’t know you from Adam and Eve, but when I get to read you in this thread, now your OP, I see you right away to be one of the guys here into name-drooping and eventually technical terms dropping, silly vanity stuff for your own self-complacency shallowness.

Dear readers here:

This is just one of these threads started by guys who want to engage in name-dropping and technical terms dropping, without ever saying anything at all that is of any cognitive value, in the way of advancing the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence.

Dear Mkabrsti, have you started any thread at all that is about a thought from your own personal ratiocinating with your brain resources, instead of engaging in name-dripping err dropping, and also eventually technical terms dropping, but nothing from your very own personal ratiocination with your brain resources?

Tell you all guys here, when you tell folks here reading this thread about your favorite physicist, say something that is into explaining what you see to be a YOUR very insightful grasp of the physicist's most truly novel idea, or some in dept and in substance critique of his pet theory whatever.

Otherwise you are not of any benefit to readers here, except that you are into getting an audience to engage in your name-dropping and technical terms dropping - silly vanity.

Okay, dear readers here, let us sit back and await to witness some guy here telling you that you have here a troll – hehehehehehe.

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@layman,

Oh dear !What a pity you your obsession with SR issues has detracted from your earlier post in which you appeared to understand how 'scientific paradigms' evolve and progress.* (seminal reference:Kuhn ""The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" READ IT !).
Your argument with Max's 'realism' is a sham if you revert to your own version of 'realism'.

*
https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Oh dear !What a pity you your obsession with SR issues has detracted from your earlier post in which you appeared to understand how 'scientific paradigms' evolve and progress.* (seminal reference:Kuhn ""The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" READ IT !).
Your argument with Max's 'realism' is a sham if you revert to your own version of 'realism'.

Heh, Fresky, as usual you completely misunderstand the point. I was merely using an example, courtesy of Max himself, which undercuts his claim that "philosophy" is unimportant in science. The preference for one theory of relative motion over another is not merely a matter of "philosophy," just because they cannot be distinguished experimentally, as some have claimed. There are philosophical aspects involved, sure. But it also has extensive ramifications for virtually all of theoretical physics.

Done read Kuhn, long-ass time back, btw. Maybe you should recommend it to Max, ya know? I done done that too, but I'm sure he didn't pay the least bit of attention.

If you had actually read and absorbed it, you wouldn't be touting SR as "indubitable" just because it became part of the generally accepted "paradigm."

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@layman,

I'll let others judge where the 'philosophical misunderstanding' lies !

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

I'll let others judge where the 'philosophical misunderstanding' lies !

You do that. In the meantime, I will rely on my own evaluations, not those of others.

Nice outline in that link, btw. Quite extensive and complete (for an outline, that is).

1 Reply

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