Re: convert light into energy

[Joseph Bellina <jbellina@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

Ah Ludwik, you do like to open cans of worms...we physicists tend to be
naive instrumentalists and bifurcate our lives since we believe in our
daily lives that some things are real.  This is not unlike our students
who have an Aristotlean view in the real world, and perhaps a Newtonian
one in class.  We all live with ambiguity, which reminds me to send the
next note, but I digress.
To bring the bifurcated together, to ask the question of what is real in
physics, and on what basis we can claim it is real is a sticky question.
 Perhaps in the end we may have to appeal to faith based, rather than
reason based statements...curious isn't it.

cheers

On Thu, 3 Feb 2000, Ludwik
Kowalski wrote:

> I was only reacting to an attempt to make some attributes
> (of physical things) more real than others. You are bringing
> an interesting topic. I hope somebody will address the issue
> of "what is real" in physics. Also in which way the so-called
> "mathematical objects" differ from physical objects?
> Ludwik Kowalski
>
> Joseph Bellina wrote:
>
> > I'm jumping into this late as usual, and perhaps this has been said,
> > but such a position, the instrumentalist one, as I see it, presents
> > problems if one wants to make any claims about reality...in this
> > model, what is real, and what is instrument for understanding?
> > On what basis do you justify such a conceptual cut?