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Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all?

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On 7/14/2016 10:53 AM, Omar Shabsigh wrote:
> Dear Maker of Fine Toys, Tools and Tables {I like such makers especially if they make them
> of wood. Cheers} No, I am not talking about any illusions  but about the universe as it is.
> It is there and by nature the human being is a discoverer. Yes SCIENCE is as limitless as
> the universe is.

Just to be clear, I believe that it is the job of physicists to infer 
(this means to guess, and then verify by experiment) what the rules are 
that nature abides by. Nature doesn't tell us these laws, we have to 
figure them out by watching things behave the way they do. After a while 
of watching, we can discern what a possible law of nature might be. But 
at that point it's only a guess, and that's alright. What happens then 
is that scientists take the next step. They say, so IF this guess is 
right, then what we should be able to do is see this OTHER predictable 
implication. That is, they make a testable prediction of the way things 
will behave IF the guessed law is right. It is very hard for those 
things to happen exactly the way predicted, unless the guess was right. 
So the test of the prediction is the way you know the guessed law really 
is a law of nature.

Now, a law of nature is a constraint. It tells you that anything can 
happen AS LONG AS it does not violate a law that nature abides by. 
Nevertheless, a law of nature is very useful, even though it might 
forbid something you had hoped might be possible. The reason it is 
useful is that it allows you to predict outcomes in certain 
circumstances. That is, a law of nature will tell you that if 
circumstances X, Y, and Z apply, then this particular outcome Q will 
always occur. That's extremely useful because if you want to produce an 
outcome Q on demand, then it is simply a matter of creating a device or 
finding an occurrence such that X, Y, and Z apply. This is how practical 
devices, ranging from radio towers to lasers, are built.

But now suppose that one of the laws of nature you have guessed is that 
the speed of travel is limited to c. First, of course, that guess has to 
be thoroughly tested by checking the implications of that guess. In this 
case, the implications would be things like the relationship between 
measured speed and measured momentum of things in (say) and accelerator; 
or the relationship between source speed and Doppler shift of (say) 
radio waves; or the time-dilation of nuclear decay lifetimes. All of 
these things are directly tied to the limit of speed of travel being c. 
If it turns out that all those predictions have come out correct, then 
you know in fact that the speed limit law is a true law of nature. Then 
of course, any aspirations to travel faster than the speed of light 
would be foolish.

As it turns out, of course, all those tests of that guessed law that I 
mentioned have been done, and it turns out that the predictions of the 
law have all been confirmed against experimental observation. Thus we 
know that the law of the speed limit is a true one, otherwise it 
wouldn't have been the case that all those tests got confirmed.




-- 
Odd Bodkin --- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

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Where are the Einsteinians after all? Pentcho Valev <pvalev@yahoo.com> - 2016-07-09 02:57 -0700
  Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Pentcho Valev <pvalev@yahoo.com> - 2016-07-09 10:49 -0700
    Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? JanPB <filmart@gmail.com> - 2016-07-09 16:09 -0700
      Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Maciej Woźniak <mlwozniak@wp.pl> - 2016-07-10 09:32 +0200
    Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Pentcho Valev <pvalev@yahoo.com> - 2016-07-12 01:27 -0700
      Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? JanPB <filmart@gmail.com> - 2016-07-13 08:49 -0700
        Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Maciej Woźniak <mlwozniak@wp.pl> - 2016-07-13 20:22 +0200
  Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Omar Shabsigh <omar.shabsigh@gmail.com> - 2016-07-13 05:55 -0700
    Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Poutnik <poutnik4nntp@gmail.com> - 2016-07-13 15:05 +0200
    Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Odd Bodkin <bodkinodd@gmail.com> - 2016-07-13 09:04 -0500
      Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Omar Shabsigh <omar.shabsigh@gmail.com> - 2016-07-14 08:53 -0700
        Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Odd Bodkin <bodkinodd@gmail.com> - 2016-07-14 12:44 -0500
        Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? Odd Bodkin <bodkinodd@gmail.com> - 2016-07-14 13:25 -0500
          Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? mlwozniak@wp.pl - 2016-07-14 23:26 -0700
    Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? JanPB <filmart@gmail.com> - 2016-07-13 13:17 -0700
    Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? "Paul B. Andersen" <relativity@paulba.no> - 2016-07-13 22:34 +0200
      Re: Where are the Einsteinians after all? JanPB <filmart@gmail.com> - 2016-07-13 14:19 -0700
    Imbecile Omar Shabsigh is back "Dono," <sa_ge@comcast.net> - 2016-07-21 07:07 -0700

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