Re: reifying energy

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 15:01 -0400 5/9/02, Bob Sciamanda wrote:

> My viewpoint is that mathematical models, which assert a numerical
> equality between functions of the readings of defined measurement devices,
> are indeed testable and can be branded "right or wrong" as an empirical,
> mathematical model.
> The human mind is not satisfied to stop here.  It goes on to account for
> these device readings and their connections by erecting a  conceptual
> model of the object under consideration, the measuring devices and their
> interactions.  The device readings then acquire conceptual meanings within
> the context of that conceptual model.  These concepts come from our
> library of sensory-provoked ideas.
> Eg; the point particle model of the "reality" behind the empirical ideal
> gas equation PV=RT.  Another example is the meaning of the particle
> velocity in the magnetic force F=qVxB.  Common wisdom was to (delightedly)
> take it as an absolute velocity (or at least, relative to an ether
> medium};  Einstein's weird conception was that it was the particle
> velocity in whatever inertial frame the physics was being done.  One man's
> (or generation's) weirdness is often another's beauty.
> Perhaps the best example is the plethora of conceptual models being
> invented to conceptualize the reality behind the (notoriously useful)
> equations of quantum mechanics.
Good points all. We humans do have this irresistible drive to draw
pictures, don't we? Even when "pictures," in the ordinary sense are
not appropriate or possible. There is a good book on the subject of
physics and models, "Doing Physics: How Physicists Take Hold of the
World," by Martin H. Krieger (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1992, ISBN 0-253-33123-4), It's all about the models that physicists
build, and how they use them. Very interesting stuff. He talks a
great deal about the utility of models, and when the utility gets
poor enough that it's time to discard a model. In Krieger's (and my
and I suspect most physicists) view, models aren't just pictures, but
the equations we write and the physical context in which we construct
them. Some have wider utility than others, some are kept, not because
of their accuracy but because of their imagery. How else does one
explain the chemists' continuing to use, after almost 90 years, the
planetary model of the atom developed after the Bohr picture. One can
only hope that the images provide more benefit than the errors
introduced by the false impression engendered by those same pictures.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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