Charge Explained

[Farsight]

A-level and ladmag.

 

Yes I have read your ENERGY EXPLAINED and MASS EXPLAINED papers Popular, and I understand your taking on details which physics kinds of skirts either around or over. (which is very brave and commendable).

 

But physics does this kind of thing because it's very careful not to say to much about things it doesn't know or can't know.

 

I'm afraid I'm of the opinion that saying little and knowing what you are saying is accurate is better than saying a lot and being wrong in some areas.

 

You can't say that ENERGY is fundamental and nothing else is you end up with a physics which has little useful to say about the universe.

ie

E = E

 

I would much rather discuss

 

E = hV

E= mgh

E= k*(q1*q2/d)

E= 1/2 mv^2

E= mc^2

 

its rather more interesting I hope you would agree.

 

It's all interesting, Snoopy. Here's an excerpt from something that maybe explains where I'm coming from:

 

The problem was that when I tried to explain those basic concepts, I found I couldn’t. I couldn’t explain it to my grandmother. It was like a double take. I consulted my physics books and searched the internet, I delved deep, I read substantial papers, but I just couldn’t find the answers. Then I looked at the mathematics, and thought about it. I applied that Systems Analysis experience. I found what my problem was. Mathematics is a vital tool for physics, we can’t do physics without it. But the basic concepts I was trying to explain is where the mathematics starts. And whilst I’m a top-down sort of a guy, the mathematics is bottom-up. The basic concepts I was trying to explain were base mathematical terms, like E, and m and t and c and g. I was trying to explain axioms, postulates, things we take for granted. I realised then that whilst mathematics is a vital tool for physics, when it comes to basic concepts, it doesn’t have a handle. It doesn’t offer any grasp. Don’t get me wrong. With mathematics we can calculate and predict, and then conduct experiments to confirm these predictions and validate a theory. But mathematics can’t explain the world. It’s like trying to understand the Jury System using legal shorthand, or teaching English in a foreign language. You just can’t do it.

[snoopy]

A-level and ladmag.

 

 

 

It's all interesting, Snoopy. Here's an excerpt from something that maybe explains where I'm coming from:

 

 

Yes Popular I do know where you are coming from and appreciate deeply what you are trying to do here. Basic concepts in Physics like Energy, Mass, Charge, Dimensionality, Color, Inertia, the Electron, Time and Entropy are really not that well defined, yes sure the bones are there but there is no real flesh on the body. I appreciate you are trying to correct that by adding some flesh to these bare bones but all I am asking for is a little caution as it truly is difficult to answer questons like 'What is Space ?' which seems to be rather basic on the surface but is fraught with many difficulties both mathematically and philosophically.

 

I think once you have gone through more Physics courses, 1st year uni, 2nd year uni and so on, you will get a better appreciation of these questions and the difficulties involved in answering them as I said before, Physics does shy away from these type of questions for reasons that are to do with being careful about what you can actually prove.

 

But I do understand and appreciate where you are coming from.

 

All the Best

:)

[Farsight]

Thanks Snoopy. Here's another excerpt:

 

...I am deeply curious about the world, I want to know how the universe works. I seek the secrets of the universe. Doesn’t everybody? No. My wife doesn’t. My two teenage children don’t. They tell me physics at school is dull. Perhaps it’s the way the dead hand of Health and Safety has turned it from Van Der Graaf generators into bookwork and pendulums. I’m not sure exactly what it is. But it’s real. It’s happening. I hear about physics departments closing down, and other science departments too, and it sets my alarm bells ringing. I read about the number of A-level students taking physics falling 56% in 20 years, and it worries me. I found myself saying: What are you going to do about it?

 

I didn’t wake up soon enough for my own children. Their subjects are picked, their courses set. But perhaps, I said to myself, perhaps I could do something to enthuse other people’s children. Or laymen. Perhaps I could use my skills to make physics just a little more interesting, and just a little more accessible, and just a little more fun...

 

It might surprise you, but I really do know what space is. No kidding. And it isn't philosophical at all.

[arkain101]

I beg to differ lol.

 

There is much about it that I think is philisophical.

 

Which is part of the form of which to explain the unique behavior of things.

[Farsight]

Sorry arkain, I didn't mean to cast aspersions at philosophy. Newton was a philosopher. A Natural Philosopher. Einstein was rather philosophical too. It's just that nowadays when physicists talk about philosophy, some are disparaging with a "mere" thrown in. I like philosophy. I think it's important. LOL, maybe physics is just a branch of it.

[snoopy]

I like philosophy. I think it's important. LOL, maybe physics is just a branch of it.

 

Yes Popular, physics is a branch of philosophy that's why when you do your Doctorate in physics you get a Phd.

 

It's also a science, you can't explain the universe purely in terms of mathematics, nor can you explain it without it.

 

Nevertheless philosophy is a necessary part of it, although physics tries not to read too deeply into things as there is always the chance you can wildly wrong.

 

For instance in classical physics Einstein truly believed in a spacetime block in which, the past present and future all exist at once, and the passage of time is merely an illusion and freewill suffers the same fate.

 

That was his philosophy.

 

But I would be interested to know what you think this spacetime is made of, if indeed you think it is made of anything.

 

Cheers

:doh:

[Farsight]

Yes Popular, physics is a branch of philosophy that's why when you do your Doctorate in physics you get a Phd.

Wish that some physicists took note.

 

It's also a science, you can't explain the universe purely in terms of mathematics, nor can you explain it without it.

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

Nevertheless philosophy is a necessary part of it, although physics tries not to read too deeply into things as there is always the chance you can wildly wrong.

Noted.

 

For instance in classical physics Einstein truly believed in a spacetime block in which, the past present and future all exist at once, and the passage of time is merely an illusion and freewill suffers the same fate. That was his philosophy.

 

I'm pretty sure that he didn't think this later in life, Snoopy. Not after he spent time with Godel in Princeton. See the TIME EXPLAINED essay for more.

 

But I would be interested to know what you think this spacetime is made of, if indeed you think it is made of anything.

It isn't spacetime. It's space. I prefer not to say more at the moment in case a) I'm wrong or B) I'm right. Sorry.

[CraigD]

Yes Popular, physics is a branch of philosophy that's why when you do your Doctorate in physics you get a Phd.

Wish that some physicists took note.

I think what most math/science folk note of math/science doctorates is either that the “Ph” for philosophy is an anachronism, or that much of academic philosophy has become so specialized that it needs a new name - perhaps reusing a very old one, sophistry. “SD – doctor of sophistry” does have a ring to it, if you’re completely deaf to the ancient and modern derogatory connotations of the word.

 

Seriously, I don’t think either of the disciplines are in great hardship or peril, as there are many people who are both excellent scientists and philosophers. That most people in either field are not excellent at both, or either, is an inevitable consequence of how difficult it is to be excellent. As the population and availability of education increases, however, I’m optimistically confident that humankind is assured that the rate of excellent work in both fields is likewise increasing

But I would be interested to know what you think this spacetime is made of, if indeed you think it is made of anything.

It isn't spacetime. It's space. I prefer not to say more at the moment in case a) I'm wrong or B) I'm right. Sorry.

Since I can’t be accused of being more cryptic than Popular is being evasive, :doh: I’ll throw in my unsolicited opinion: space of any number of actual dimensions, time of any number of actual dimensions, and any other attribute necessary to describe any ensemble of particles, is the notation for an algorithmic process more fundamental than its notation. Or, to put it in the form of a catchy aphorisms, “underlying what, where, and when, is how”.

 

I’ve a really elegant, comprehensive elaboration of this, which this post is too narrow to contain :)

[Farsight]

I'm sorry to be evasive.

[Qfwfq]

I think what most math/science folk note of math/science doctorates is either that the “Ph” for philosophy is an anachronism, or that much of academic philosophy has become so specialized that it needs a new name - perhaps reusing a very old one, sophistry. “SD – doctor of sophistry” does have a ring to it, if you’re completely deaf to the ancient and modern derogatory connotations of the word.

 

Is your family doctor a cardiologist, or a rheumatologist?

[snoopy]

I think what most math/science folk note of math/science doctorates is either that the “Ph” for philosophy is an anachronism, or that much of academic philosophy has become so specialized that it needs a new name - perhaps reusing a very old one, sophistry. “SD – doctor of sophistry” does have a ring to it, if you’re completely deaf to the ancient and modern derogatory connotations of the word.

 

:cup:

 

No my brother has a Phd in Plasma Physics from the Imperial College London and I can tell you he thinks Modern Philosophy is a 'crock....'.

 

This is basically because once upon a time Philosophy was supposed to be logically self-consistent but a lot of modern philosophers are using it as a sort of artform to write 'a load of old bo****ks'.

 

So for that reason Physicists dont like or trust philosophy that much and also for the very valid reason you have to be careful how deeply you read into what the math is saying as you can be wildly wrong like for example with Dirac and his equation for the electron which some physicists took to mean it predicted an electron with negative energy as well as positive energy, Dirac's view which eventually became accepted was that it predicted an anti-particle for the electron with an opposite charge which by experiment has become the current view.

 

Will read your other link later.

 

Cheers

:cool:

[Qfwfq]

...Dirac and his equation for the electron which some physicists took to mean it predicted an electron with negative energy as well as positive energy, Dirac's view which eventually became accepted was that it predicted an anti-particle for the electron with an opposite charge which by experiment has become the current view.

Actully the two views are philosophically equivalent, due to the exclusion principle, and this was exactly how Dirac himself argued for antiparticles.

 

Apart from the fact that it is valid not just for "the electron" but for any fermion, the most freakin' thing is that exactly the same can be said exchanging particle and antiparticle. Each one is a lack in the negative-energy sea of the other. This is only one of the crazy things in quantum physics, which is one of the craziest parts of philosophy.

[snoopy]

Actully the two views are philosophically equivalent, due to the exclusion principle, and this was exactly how Dirac himself argued for antiparticles.

 

Apart from the fact that it is valid not just for "the electron" but for any fermion, the most freakin' thing is that exactly the same can be said exchanging particle and antiparticle. Each one is a lack in the negative-energy sea of the other. This is only one of the crazy things in quantum physics, which is one of the craziest parts of philosophy.

 

 

Yes but as far as I know no-one has confirmed by experiment that negative energy exists.

 

Cheers

:doh:

[Qfwfq]

That isn't really necessary. What we observe are the antiparticles. The formalism works perfectly, from Dirac's equation to Feynman diagrams, Fermi's rule, crossed processes etc.

[snoopy]

That isn't really necessary. What we observe are the antiparticles. The formalism works perfectly, from Dirac's equation to Feynman diagrams, Fermi's rule, crossed processes etc.

 

 

 

Yes agreed but it was just a small example to illustrate a point.

 

Cheers

;)