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Re: [Phys-L] Particles, Fields or ?



Good question Larry Smith! Good response, Richard Tarara.

Science is model-building using all the creativity, tools and imagination that we can muster. Thus, science is necessarily rooted in our symbolic languages (verbal and mathematical). Correct?

So, the only things that are "real"- whatever that means- are the model itself and the reading of the measuring device. We constructed the model based on observation. We test the model the best we can with the limited tools that we have.

Certainly, I believe there's a reality out there, but getting to know what it is will be a never-ending quest. Hopefully, mankind will progress in this.

I'm not a philosopher...just a simple teacher of undergrad physics. So help me. How do we as physicists define the term "real"?

I am a Phys-L fan- you folks make me think! I am also Donald Simanek fan (Donald, are you out there?)- he makes me think too. He offers the following essay on this issue that I just re-read:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/reality.htm

Y'all have a great New year!

david

-----Original Message-----

From: Larry Smith <larry.smith@snow.edu>
To: <Phys-L@Phys-L.org>
Subject: Re: [Phys-L] Particles, Fields or ?

There is an article in the August 2013 (I'm behind) issue of Scientific American discussing the ontology of the universe. The author, Meihard Kuhlmann, claims in the article titled "What Is Real?" that neither particles nor fields are fundamental (or even exist); rather, what is real are the properties and relationships. "What we call an electron is in fact a bundle of various properties or tropes: three fixed, essential properties (mass, charge and spin), as well as numerous changing, nonessential properties (position and velocity).... A particle is what you get when those properties bundle themselves together in a certain way."

Comments?

Larry

Subject: Re: [Phys-L] Particles, Fields or ?
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Welcome to the world of Philosophy (Philosophy of Science). The debate about what is 'real', the nature of knowledge, the existence (or not) of Truth (with a capital T) has been ongoing since Plato and the Sophists.
I'm listening to a lecture currently (from The Great Courses) on the Science Wars of the past few decades that is dealing with just these kinds of issues. Bottom line...there is no consensus, just varying
schools of thought. One sobering comment from the lectures...consider
how much of the accepted science (physics in particular) of 1900 is still mainstream today. Can we, should we, expect that today's accepted science will still be such 100 years from now?

rwt