joigus

Oh, yes. But all this would fall under the category of the description of particular scenarios. If you want to be very specific, that's where Ockham's razor is not in its proper domain of validity. Remember what @Eise said: (My emphasis.) "Heuristic" refers to scientific hypotheses, thereby to general patterns, rules, or laws. One thing is "this happens to be here and going in that direction"; quite a different thing is trying to put forward a pattern according to which things that are here or there, going in this or that direction, behave.

They are. There is no mention to any particular space-time coordinate frame, so how could they depend on any of them? What is more, they have an internal symmetry. You can rotate in the electric-magnetic reference frame \( \boldsymbol{E}\), \( \boldsymbol{B}\) and the equations remain the same, which amounts to arbitrarily re-define part of the purely electric \( j \) as magnetic. Yes, it is the divergence of a curvature term, and thereby identically zero by the Bianchi identity. Please, give me some time to read your other points.

I think it's about at what level you wish to describe the theory. It is well understood that, e.g., Maxwell's equations are very simply formulated in a coordinate-free way as, \[dF=0\] \[d*F=j\] But it takes a considerable amount of time to explain to students what all of these symbols mean. Then again, in particularly "dirty" situations, it does no good to tackle the problem in such an all-encompassing, highfalutin way. And we're approaching the level at which everything I say is just my two cents.

The waves that are used in Bell's gedanken are completely un-polarised. The key to Bell's scenario is that entangled pairs of particles are described with fewer variables than those needed to describe two independent particles, so the particles are sharing some internal physical reality, so to speak. The reason for the angle 45º is a bit technical: It's the angle at which a certain projection of spin for a 2-state spin differs the most from two states that are perpendicular in ordinary 3-space. Keep in mind perpendicularity --orthogonality-- in the internal space is different from perpendicularity in ordinary 3-space. I don't see anything terribly obvious in any of that. But maybe it's just me.

I wouldn't put too much stock on that. Mechanism? Male insecurity, that's what this is all about.

Economy hasn't got all the answers. OTOH, if you just let the lazy mouse die, there's no lesson to be learnt either. I'm missing a third mouse in the story. One that's capable of foreseeing. The diligent mouse will strive just as hard when Nature stops delivering her goods.

The risks of auto correction.

I think this belongs in Spec elation.

Yes, that's one valid way to put it, IMO. In physics there are certain theoretical constructs, like the field, charge, couplings between different fields, etc. Takes considerable time to acquaint yourself with them, but once you do, you're completely won over by their power and generality. You need to let go of the old equipment: push, pull, levers, and so on. You can always go back to them, because sometimes it doesn't help to think about, (eg., an engineering problem) in terms of fields and elementary interactions. So if you're curious about magnetism and the like, you let go of the other stuff. It does no good.

Oh, boy. I'm sorry. I should have read you out. You are much more knowledgeable on this than I am. But your comments reinforce my impression that Gödel's theorem does not provide much in the way of a constructive process, even though the proof itself is constructive. I think what you mean is something like theorems in number theory, propositions on prime numbers, and the like, right? I simply don't know. I've never heard of any of those. That is a very good question. Maybe @wtf has something interesting to say about it.

Cohen's proof that it is undecidable whether there is a cardinality (number of elements) intermediate between that of \( \mathbb{N} \) and that of \( \mathbb{R} \). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis "Undecidable" is perhaps my colourful way of saying it. People seem to prefer the wording:

It's the other way around. We live in a DeSitter universe. So your proposal is against the observations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_expansion_of_the_universe

My condolences, @MigL. I know how hard it is to say goodbye to a friend.

And what is speed? And what is change? Isn't time already implied there?

It's a noble way to end your days in this planet. I can only hope for a dignified final position.

That is trivially true: \[\frac{\triangle Q}{\triangle Q/\triangle t}=\triangle t\] \( \triangle \) meaning "change" and \( Q \) being any physical quantity.

Well, not word by word. I would have probably said "then the one with fewer assumptions is the better one". I'm a stickler for language. Good to see you again, Eise.

This is almost word by word what I wanted to say in answer to,

I remember Sidney Coleman praising this particular moment of Feynman's. How complicated or puzzling a phenomenon is rests on what level of fundamental principles you're allowed to use. It's as @studiot said: The contact force is considered simple by many people, while it's actually a very derived phenomenon in the theory. At some levels, certain simplifications seem to appear, but that's only because we come across emergent levels of simplicity. Same happens with thermodynamics. Internally, it's very complex, but regularities appear. Contact forces, which Feynman mentions there, are an outstanding example.

Well, yes, as @studiot said, that's 'arbitrary', as in, 'those arguments are too arbitrary to be compelling at all' I meant it in a different sense, as in 'to any degree'.

If he was a member of an American religious sect, I'd say he couldn't have been OK. Sorry, I meant Ockhamish. You lot use far too many consonants. Not necessary. What you can do with a "ck", you can do with a "k".

You're becoming less and less Okhamish by the minute. Sorry for being so blunt.

That was my second-favourite one.

The "for the ghost of Hugo Chávez" one was hilarious. 🤣

Just one observation which I hope is relevant to the ongoing discussion: Simple principles can have arbitrarily complicated consequences. The much more "derived" theory is thus expected to be more unwieldy to Ockham-based criteria.