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Re: reifying energy



Both you and your power company use a model in which energy is treated as
a commodity, a thing. This is a very useful economic model and yields the
proper results. We do this all the time - we buy and sell man-hours, we
add/subtract dollars from our accounts even though no "thing" has changed
hands, etc.

Even in physics questions, we are speaking of a model - a convenient way
for us to view the situation. In truth we will never have any verifiably
"correct" idea of the ultimate nature of objective reality in any real,
existential sense - we can speak only of USEFUL models - a way of looking
at our calculations which yield verifiably measurable results. These
models are not "right or wrong", they are more or less useful in accuracy
and scope and more or less weird according to our subjective personal
and/or cultural proclivities.

Bob Sciamanda (W3NLV)
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor