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Re: [Phys-l] amazing instruments



But don't we also transform the mundane into the wondrous. Recognizing the
fact that it is a computer animation doesn't make it mundane. It shifts the
wonder to the animator's art. True we are argumentative, but so are people
who believe that the phrase "it stands to reason" is proof of something.

Every physics book has pictures of all kinds of things that are wondrous.
There is a very wondrous physics lecture on the web which shows how vision
works to create all kinds of spectacular illusions. Why do people have to
turn one wondrous thing into a different fake wonder?

Questioning is what we do. We question things that are nonsensical. In
return others accuse us of being obstructionist. At the same time the
others question our ideas and try to refute them by using their beliefs
rather than reasoning. Just look at the current hearings in the Congress to
see this going on.

I have been through too many pop psychology sessions where the speakers have
not really looked at the research. Now I am very happy that I don't have to
do this anymore. So if I ask a pointed question I am labeled obstructionist
or impolite.

People don't like their beliefs challenged. That is why we are sometimes
disliked, not because we destroy the wondrous. Actually according to my
daughter, a chemist, chemists act like they are gods on the Earth, but
physicists are much more humble. True or not??? I don't really know.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX



The responses here serve to illustrate why physicists are so universally
disliked. We transform the wondrous into the mundane.

Bob at PC