Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: "quantization"



Re: =93quantization=94

In a Phys-L posting of 5/10/98 with the above title, Leigh Palmer quotes
Igal Galili's quote of Dewey Dykstra=92s signature quote of Einstein:

=93Physical concepts are the free creation of the human mind and are not,
however it may seem uniquely determined by the external world.=94 -- A.
Einstein in =93The Evolution of Physics,=94 with L. Infeld, 1938.

Leigh then writes =93...It is unclear to me who said this, and in what
language it was said. Is this a statement from Einstein? Did it,
perhaps occur in the context of a paragraph? Einstein was not into
solipsism.=94

Einstein=92s outlook is reviewed by Roger Newton in his excellent book
=93The Truth of Science: Physical Theories and Reality,=94 (Harvard Univ.
Press, 1997):

=93If we can agree that the adoption of the scientific method is a
convention, must we conclude that the results obtained by this method
-the laws and theories of science- are also conventions? This is the
fundamental question raised by the school of conventionalism, called
=91nominalism=92 in it extreme form, which has sprouted malignant variant=
s
among some influential contemporary thinkers. All scientific results
and theories are conventions, they contend, with the implication, at
least in the minds of some, either that these results say nothing about
the real world at all or that Nature and reality are simply defined by
these conventions.
Einstein on several occasions, expressed sentiments that superficially
appear to be conventionalist: =91Science,=92 he wrote =91is...a creation =
of
the human mind, with its freely invented ideas and concepts=92;(9)
theories, he said in his 1933 Spencer lecture, are =91free inventions of
the human intellect.=92 THIS PHRASE, however, it is important to note,
APPEARED IN A CONTEXT THAT LIMITED ITS VALIDITY (our CAPS):

=91The structure of the [theoretical system of physics] is the work of
reason; the empirical contents and their mutual relations must find
their representation in the conclusions of the theory. In the
possibility of such a representation lie the sole value and
justification of the whole system, and especially of the concepts and
fundamental principles which underlie it. Apart from that, these latter
are free inventions of the human intellect or in any other fashion a
priori.=92 (10)

Furthermore, it appears that what seems like conventionalism is in
reality an expression of a Leibnizian philosophy:

=91No one who has deeply thought about this subject will deny that the
world of sense perceptions practically determines the theoretical system
uniquely, even though there is no logical path leading from the
perceptions to the fundamental laws of the theory; this is what Leibniz
so beautifully called =91pre-established harmony=92 =91 (11)

It would therefore be a mistake to regard Einstein=92s view of science as
conventionalist.=94


___________________________________
References (from Newton, loc. cit.)

9. Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, =93The Evolution of Physics: The
Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta,=94 (Simon
and Schuster, 1961), p. 294.

10. Einstein, =93Ideas and Opinions,=94 [translation of =93Mein Weltbilt=94=
]
(Crown, 1954), p. 272.

11. Einstein, =93Mein Weltbild,=94 (Querido Verlag, 1934), p. 168 (Newton=
=92s
translation).

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<hake@ix.netcom.com>
<http://carini.physics.indiana.edu/SDI/>