lawless physics (fwd)

[Joseph Bellina <jbellina@saintmarys.edu>]

Thought you might enjoy this.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 11:29:59 -0800
From: Patricia Schwarz <patricia@THEORY.CALTECH.EDU>
To: WISENET@listserv.uic.edu
Subject: lawless physics

I have tried to put my philosophy of deliberately avoiding
proscriptive language into practice on my home page at
http://theory.caltech.edu/people/patricia/lctoc.html

I try to discuss the theory of relativity without invoking an
invisible proscriptive force that refuses to allow anything to
travel faster than the speed of light. I try to consistently
present the idea that relativity is a theoretical model that
encodes a history of observations of the behavior of light
with a mathematical restriction on travelling faster than
v=1. The math is not the reality or the enforcement of the
reality, it is an encoding of a history of observation that
has so far been consistent with further observation.

I wish I had the time to present the experimental side of
relativity directly but I have other things to do in my
life besides make my home page better. I won't be able to
finish it until May, rpobably, since I am in the middle of
my thesis right now.

-patricia the lawless physicist ;-)