Re: A few more fraudulent thoughts on law.

["Bob Sciamanda" <trebor@velocity.net>]

Merlin gasped:
> So the law of conservation is a fraud? . . .
> . . .
Merlin's consternation points out how we have fallen short in our
teaching of  the "conservation of energy" model in classical physics.
Energy is a calculable (and in principle measurable) quantity which we
HOPE to be able to continually re-define as needed to keep its running
total a constant in any closed system.  It is not a thing or a
substantive quantity - it is an abstract human invention - it is not even
directly measurable, only calculable from other measurements.

It has been our cherished hope (since the late 19th century) to be able
to construct a physics which identifies a conserved quantity with units
of Joules.  It is a hope for convenience, simplicity, "beauty", etc - all
human aspirations and not necessarily those of material reality.  The
"Conservation of Energy" should be taught as a hope that has proven to be
remarkably (and surprisingly) useful over a wide scope of "ordinary"
experience - it should not be enshrined as a dogma.

We had no right to expect that such a conserved quantity would long
survive - we should be teaching awe at how long it did!  (Instead we have
taught it as a GIVEN to which nature must bow!)

(I cannot help but repeat that the Mechanical Energy Theorem (MET)
depends only on Newton's laws and would survive the demise of the
conservation of energy.)

Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (ret)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor

"To me it seems as if many of those who are discussing this question of
the conservation of [energy] are plunging into the fog of mysticism."

-Written in 1858 by William Barton Rogers, founder of MIT.