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Re: Voting on LIGHT



What I find most interesting about this discussion is the mix of reality
claims and model claims. Are you voting on what is real (how would you
know) or what is the best model to use?

cheers,

joe

On Wed, 14 Nov 2001, Jim Green
wrote:

At 11:24 14 11 2001 , you wrote:
What is wrong to start with rays (to
solve mirror problems or lens problems, as most
textbooks do), and progress toward more general
models of light?

Ludwik, given that _no one_ has the foggiest notion what light is, there is
nothing wrong with saying that sometimes it is helpful to describe light as
behaving as rays, sometimes it is helpful to describe it as a wave, and
sometimes it is more helpful to describe it as a collection of particles.
But in reality it is none of these.

I wish I could remember which noteworthy physicist said something like the
following:

A Martian was to visit the Earth, so he chose to learn both French and
German so he could wander about Europe relatively freely. But something
went awry with his rocket ship and he landed in Kansas City by mistake - He
was confused because he heard words which sometimes sounded a bit like
French and other words which sounded a bit like German, but he could
clearly tell that the spoken language was neither French or German -- It
was not the case that the language was sometimes French and sometimes
German. It was neither one!

Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen


Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. 219-284-4662
Associate Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556