Re: "quantization"

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca>]

> The 'mathematical abstraction' of energy conservation is so firmly held in
> established physical thought, that the neutrino was INVENTED to keep it so.
> Many years passed before the neutrino was 'discovered', but it was well
> accepted because it allowed us to keep holding to our ideas of energy (and
> momentum) conservation.

I use the invention of the neutrino as a demonstration of my
point that physics is a belief system. Acceptance of the neutrino
model was an act of faith.

The same is true of some other great ideas in physics. There was
no physical evidence for the motion of Earth around the Sun until
1729, when Bradley discovered stellar aberration (only four years
after Newton's death, by the way). Newton's mathematical scheme
had so accurately described the solar system by that time that no
sentient being believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

Leigh