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Re: energy and other things



At 10:14 AM 2/2/00 -0800, Leigh Palmer wrote:

Slow down and think, folks! Energy is not a thing; it is not real.

I slowed down and thought about it (again). I still disagree.

Saying it is not a "thing" may be based on a misunderstanding of the
definition of the word "thing". Look it up. Most people are perfectly
capable of talking about abstract things.

-> There is no such thing as "pure energy". <-

That particular statement is an improvement. I still disagree, but I can
at least understand where it comes from.

I disagree because of the following: Consider the difference between an
anvil at ground level and an anvil 2 meters above ground level. Depending
on what you consider important, you might well say that the most important
difference is an energy difference, and in some sense it is "purely" an
energy difference.

Of course, the energy could not have existed without the anvil. But by the
same token, you can't put a liter of water on the table without a jug to
hold it. That doesn't mean that water isn't real, or that water isn't a
"thing".
Most of us are capable of abstracting away the jug and considering only the
water. So it is with energy: most of us are capable of abstracting away
the anvil and considering only the energy. If you can't, fine, but don't
demand that the rest of us share your incapacity.

[energy nonreality] is a fundamental physical principle, as you will
see by an example of its application.
...
One invokes the arbitrary nature of the
zero of energy and the result (the Boltzmann factor) drops out
entirely naturally. There is no way I know to derive it otherwise.

This is even more illogical than the usual "argument from ignorance" (which
says that if I don't know about X, then X doesn't exist). In this case the
essence of the argument is "if I don't know about X, then Y doesn't exist".

And here's a more specific counterargument against this alleged principle:
There are other things (yes, I call them "things") such as position and
voltage that are also measured relative to arbitrary zero-points. Are we
to conclude that there's no such thing as position? No such thing as voltage?