Law of Causality & Uncertainty Principle

Bob, you make good points, but your criticism doesn't stick to my argument as it was presented. Recall what it was that I was responding to ...

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*Faith* that principles govern existence cause physicists to search for them, and remain unsatisfied with approximations.
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The notion expressed in the quote above, is that physicists (as a differentiated group) require *Faith* in principles -- and will forever remain unsatisfied. My response was that only a subset of phyicists (the philosophically bankrupt ones) will suffer this perpetual epistemological damnation. Wouldn't you agree with that? I think our positions on this are closer than you think (unless you think, read: have "faith", that ALL physicists -- even though some theoretical physicists are in diametric opposition to others! -- think straight).

Yes, physicists do more than measure, they also system build ("explanation" is the great term that you used). Coherency and consistency will always be part & parcel of science, but correspondence to reality doesn't have to be -- and that is a problematic issue. Scientists, when writing about their discoveries (all science is discovery), must wear the hat of a philosopher when discussing the integration of their findings with the growing body of knowledge. If they don't do this -- if they discuss their findings without firm philosophical guardrails, then you get crap science like this ( http://www.princeton.edu/~lehmann/BadChemistry.html ) ...

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The Hydrophobic Effect does not mean that nonpolar molecules are not attracted to water!

In contrast, when a highly polar substance, such as water, is mixed with a nonpolar or weakly polar substance, such as most oils, the substances will separate into two phases. This phenomenon is usually rationalized in introductory chemistry text books by saying that oil is hydrophobic, and thus does not make solutions with water, while polar small organic acids (such as acetic acid from which house vinegar is made) are hydrophilic, and thus are miscible with water.

This explanation almost universally leads students (and even some professional chemists) to believe that individual water and oil molecules repel each other, or at least attract each other very weakly. Nothing can be further from the case!
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Case in point: "hydrophobia" is not a "repelling" phenomenon (though scores of scientists believe so -- and scores of textbooks teach so, all failing to properly integrate some findings -- with all other findings)

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Common Theory of Ice Skating is all Wet!

While one can imagine that the force is concentrated in a somewhat smaller area, the effect of pressure alone is clearly enough to shift the melting temperature of the ice by at most a few tenths of a degree. Since common experience is that ice skating is possible even when the ambient temperature is well below the normal freezing point, the pressure induced lowering of the melting point clearly does not explain this every day observations.
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CIP: Just say "no!" to textbooks teaching you that an ice skater's weight pressurizes the melting of the ice underneath the skate blade. Also ( http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadMeteorology.html ) ...

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Examples of Bad Meteorology:

The reason clouds form when air cools is that cold air cannot hold as much water vapor as warm air.

Wash your hands of this emetic explanation .

Raindrops are shaped like teardrops.

Weep over this artistic licentiousness .

The greenhouse effect is caused when gasses in the atmosphere behave as a blanket and trap radiation which is then reradiated to the earth.

Reject this explanation as nothing but hot air .

The water in a sink (or toilet) rotates one way as it drains in the northern hemisphere and the other way in the southern hemisphere. Called the Coriolis Effect, it is caused by the rotation of the earth.

This nonsense deserves to be flushed .

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Or even ( http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/PatheticFallacy.html ) ...

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�Air hates to be crowded, and when compressed
it will try to escape to an area of lower pressure.�

This is what a teacher at the University of California at Davis suggests is one of the �simple facts� which intermediate students should master. Apart from the disturbing realization that the author apparently does not distinguish between pressure and density, there is the sad business of a post-medieval university proffering animism as science to children. Mind you, the air�s hate, if thwarted, might well lead to desperation, as is explained at the University of Texas at Dallas .

�the atmosphere tries more desparately [sic]
to escape the decreasing volume�

Maybe these teachers would also recommend that the atmosphere seek professional counseling so as to help it control its psychoses, and if so, from whom? the ocean? the mountains? or, maybe the Department of Animistic Psychiatry at one of their own universities?
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Philosophically bankrupt scientists -- that is the undeniable explanation for the folly depicted above.

Ed

Post 41

Friday, February 24, 2006 - 1:56pm

Ed:

Philosophically bankrupt scientists -- that is the undeniable explanation for the folly depicted above.

You shouldn't confuse bad teachers and writers of textbooks with scientists. To see the difference, read Feynman's chapter "Judging books by their covers" in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (the funniest book in the world). Feynman was a scientist, the writers of those textbooks were not scientists.

Post 42

Saturday, February 25, 2006 - 12:00am

Cal,

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Feynman was a scientist, the writers of those textbooks were not scientists.
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Well okay, but this standard -- as laid out by you -- is pretty damn arbitrary, if you ask me. Apparently, I'm just supposed to check in with you regarding which published PhD's are "scientists" and which published PhD's are merely masquerading as scientists??

That's just plain unfair argument, fella.

Ed

Post 43

Saturday, February 25, 2006 - 11:34am

Ed quotes the following:

While one can imagine that the force is concentrated in a somewhat smaller area, the effect of pressure alone is clearly enough to shift the melting temperature of the ice by at most a few tenths of a degree. Since common experience is that ice skating is possible even when the ambient temperature is well below the normal freezing point, the pressure induced lowering of the melting point clearly does not explain this every day observations.

This reminds me of the time I went skating in Minnesota when it was 20 below zero F. (which was back around 1950 when there was no wind-child factor, so we're talking some serious cold here). What I discovered, much to my dismay, was that it was very difficult to skate. My skates, which were recently sharpened by Ole Svenson (God rest his Nordic soul!), just weren't cutting the ice; they were slipping and sliding all over the place, something that had never happened at warmer temperatures, at least not to that extent. Clearly, there's an optimal temperature that is perfect for ice skating, but I'm not sure what it is. Ed, you're a good old Minnesota boy. What do you think? 10 degrees, 20 degrees? We used to play hockey in an outdoor rink at night, when it wasn't too cold, usually around 10 degrees, and that seemed to work well. When it gets up near 32 it's not as good.

- Bill

Post 44

Saturday, February 25, 2006 - 10:08pm

Bill,

I don't play hockey myself -- but I suppose I CAN give you a "rough" estimate of the optimal ice skating temperature ... 17.104572341 degrees Fahrenheit (which works out to -8.275237588889 Celsius, for all you science types out there; and it works out to 264.8747624111 Kelvin, for the REALLY hardcore scientists among us).

I was a broomball man, myself. That is, until I watched my friend run full-tilt into the boards -- with one end of his broomstick planting into the corner where the ice meets the boards (the bottom edge) and the other end of the broomstick planting smack dab into his, er, ah, his "manhood" -- so to speak. He didn't pass out, I'll give him that. But he couldn't move for about an hour or 2, and even then, he had to be carried off the ice -- and driven home by others, still crying, and gasping for air.

Back to your original point, Bill. The physics explanation of ice skating is likely 2-fold: 1) Irregular surface structure of all solids (as the edge atoms distort in order to maximize chemical bonding) -- leading to a mitigated surface melting (at temp's below the melting point of the substance itself) and 2) pure friction from the skate blade, adding to the (chemical) surface melting.

At temps too high, you're skating through water -- and that slows you down and prevents sharp cutting. At temps too low, the skate blade friction is unable to liquify the irregular bonding at the ice's surface -- leading to the poor performance you noted. So, I stand by my original estimate: 17.104572341 degrees Fahrenheit -- is the "best" temp to skate at.

:-)

Ed

Post 45

Saturday, February 25, 2006 - 11:14pm

Perhaps both Ed and Robert misunderstood what I mean by "faith". 3rd definition for "faith" in my Merriam-Webster is "confidence". A scientific theory often requires much thought and experimentation. Engineering. A lot of work is involved. You have to believe, be confident, have "faith", or "Recognize" as Robert says, that you'll get something of value - truth, understanding, for such motives as aesthetics or practical purposes, for your effort.

And I never said as Ed claims that scientists are doomed to be forever condemned to approximations. In fact, like many scientists I've read of, I'm surprized a unified-field theory remains so elusive, and string theory requires so many dimensions. IIRC phyics was getting simpler until they started smashing particles are creating new ones in the 1920's.

Scott

Post 46

Sunday, February 26, 2006 - 8:32am

String theory is an example of floating abstractions... is why there're so many of them - to hold each other up....

Post 47

Sunday, February 26, 2006 - 8:12pm

Good one, Rev.!

Ed

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 12:14pm

I think one thing needs to be noted about the Uncertainty Principle is that it's one part observation and one part mathematical formalism of the observation of subatomic particles.

From that there can be some misunderstandings. First, Heisenberg, atleast from what I've read of his work, never said particles didn't have trajectories, but rather he said that because all measuring devices require an energy output to interact with the given particle measured, that all measuring devices have a builtin level of uncertainty. In that regard, Heisenberg was exactly right. Whenever we make measures at the macroscopic level, we don't notice that often any device used to produce a resultant measure requires either it to be an analogous object, such as a meter stick, or that it's an active measuring device in that the device in question directly interacts with the object. Examples of active measuring devices today are more common than not, such as laser levels[used to produce a near perfect line to manually level any piece of wood against a wall or other large flat surface] and rulers[these sort of laser measuring devices use the ambient reflection of objects to measure the length or distance between the measuring device and the target]. Both use photons of monochronomic quality to produce an ambient reflection of light so that one can detect the difference in measure. Whether it's to level a particular piece of wood on a wall, or whether one needs to know the length of a room from one wall to another. Since photons are used in this way, they produce a very small different in the numbers in the actual distance. How this is possible is because that photons being the primary force carrier of electromagnetism, any object that is made of atoms that have electrons in orbit will subtly shift. But here at the macroscopic level, that subtle shift is negliable, but when you are dealing with individual atoms or electrons, the distance shift is great.

In short, all Heisenberg showed was a subatomic game of billards. This isn't necessarily proof that QM is wrong, rather than QM is wrong since it has issues with regard to gravity and particular phenomena in superconduction. As such, the Uncertainty Principle is rather an inaccurate term for what actually goes on when observations of particle deviation are applied to the equations used in the principle. Primarily, the equations used in the Uncertainty Principle are dependent on the mathematical formalisms of matrices. As such, their results can vary greatly, but luckily this variation can be limited within a given constant, which can produce very arbitrary results. As such, the U.P. is often rechecked and thus isn't an absolute proof to the 'uncertainty' of particle position except in its own equations used to produce a normative prediction.

-- Bridget

Post 49

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:13pm

That was good, Bridget. It is nice to hear from someone who knows what they are talking about. How people get so much extraneous nonsense from something designed as a tool, and an inexact one at that, is beyond me.

Post 50

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 3:05pm

Kurt:

That was good, Bridget. It is nice to hear from someone who knows what they are talking about. How people get so much extraneous nonsense from something designed as a tool, and an inexact one at that, is beyond me.

What nonsense? What inexact tool?

Post 51

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 5:39am

Bridget wrote:

Heisenberg, atleast from what I've read of his work, never said particles didn't have trajectories
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In short, all Heisenberg showed was a subatomic game of billards.

Post 52

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 7:00am

Cal - People making broad philosophic generalizations, for instance regarding causality, from a very narrowly defined tool designed to work with observed phenomena on an atomic scale that we have no other better explanation for yet. That is what I mean.

Post 53

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 8:25am

That's not my understanding. Uncertainty implies "particles" are not like little billiard balls; billiard balls don't take every possible path, and linearly superpose to decide where their momentum has a high probability of causing them to materialize.

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Partially right, but my point is not that particles are three dimensional entities [They're not according to what I've read. Many are either 2d or 1d depending on the equations one uses in physics.] but that such particles require an interaction to be detected. The greater the interaction the greater the momentum of the particle, thus the greater the velocity change. The billard ball analogy is meant to capture that point, perhaps I didn't explain it well, but in this case I will.

Why do I say Heisenberg's U.P. is similar to a billard ball game? In this case, what both subatomic particles and billard balls have in common is how both interact or are acted upon through direct force application. When one wishes to move a billard ball across the table one must either pick it up and move it, or use some other means to apply force so that it will roll to the position or general area one wishes for it to be.

In the case of subatomic particles, it is the same case whether one is observing the particle or attempting to detect the particle's energy state. Because of this nature of subatomic particles requiring direct interaction to be detected, there will always be a small measure of 'uncertainty' in position and momentum since all direct interactions cause an exchange in energy [In this case, it would usually come as photons.]. That leaves a physical reason for uncertainty without falling back to some irrational anti-causal position since the U.P. is very much an entity causality centered concept and mathematical formalism.

So, when you have some New Age Neo Hippie try to tell you that U.P. means all things are uncertain, please explain to them energy interaction proves the existence of something and that interaction validates Realism over existential drivel! :-)

-- Bridget

Post 54

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 10:46am

Kurt:

Cal - People making broad philosophic generalizations, for instance regarding causality, from a very narrowly defined tool designed to work with observed phenomena on an atomic scale that we have no other better explanation for yet. That is what I mean.

OK, but a very narrowly defined tool is not the same as an inexact tool. It's true that there are many people who try to cash in on the reputation of QM, by suggesting QM "explanations" for their own brand of mysticism, holism, Eastern religions, New Age and all such crap. A good antidote is Victor J. Stenger's "The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology" (Prometheus Books, 1995). It is also a good introduction to QM for the layman.

Post 55

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 10:41pm