ACG52 Posted January 20, 2013 Posted January 20, 2013 Nature does its job. We are the stupid ones who need laws to understand what nature does. A particle does not follow any law. It would be like saying that an apple follows what Newton said. You seem to think the laws of physics are something that a bunch of people decided on. The laws of physics are the description and explanation of what happens in the physical world. If a particle does not act as the law of physics says, then the law is wrong. But the correct law will describe how the particle will act. 2
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 20, 2013 Author Posted January 20, 2013 Math doesn't equal the universe. I went for a walk with the Jack Russel dog earlier today and sat on a bench thinking about the subject of the Laws of Physics and Maths. Two things came to my mind which I believe Einstein was quoted as saying during the great debates on quantum physics at the Early years of the 20th century. The big names of physics battled it out with discussion and argument. One thing he said " I do not believe God plays dice. " This was to do with the probability aspect of quantum physics. This proved wrong as Einstein agreed later. Another was " maybe God did not have a choice in how the universe could be created". Namely the rules of mathematics have a habit of demanding certain Maths Rules to be obeyed. I don't think Einstein was particularly a religious man so he must have been using these points as illustration of the difficulties even these men with their great minds had with modern Physics. All this gives me encouragement to persist in debating these point of physics as the great masters of physics did in the early 20th Century. So back to it: - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where are we ---------------- ?
Bill Angel Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 I can guarantee you that no credible scientist has "theorized" such a thing, a theory is not a hypothesis, it's build off of scientific experiments. Hypothesis' may have been extrapolated from exploring the quantinization of matter and energy (which makes sense without a computer universe) and nothing more. So would it then be your assertion that in the following paragraph the term theory should be replaced by term hypothesis? Super string theory is an attempt to explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature in one theory by modelling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings. Superstring theory is a shorthand for supersymmetric string theory because unlike bosonic string theory , it is the version of string theory that incorporates fermions and supersymmetry.
StringJunky Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 So would it then be your assertion that in the following paragraph the term theory should be replaced by term hypothesis? The fact that it has the word "attempt" in it would suggest so, strictly speaking. It would seem to me though, as only a layman mind, that 'theory' is used sometimes for models that have a widespread degree of consensus and not just ones that have been experimentally verified. It does muddy the waters a bit.
swansont Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 Nature does its job. We are the stupid ones who need laws to understand what nature does. A particle does not follow any law. It would be like saying that an apple follows what Newton said. An apple does follow what Newton said, but nobody is claiming that it's because Newton said it. The trajectory of an apple due to gravity is not arbitrary — it is predictable. Laws are our description of nature "doing its job".
michel123456 Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 An apple does follow what Newton said, but nobody is claiming that it's because Newton said it. The trajectory of an apple due to gravity is not arbitrary — it is predictable. Laws are our description of nature "doing its job". Yes.
SamBridge Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 So would it then be your assertion that in the following paragraph the term theory should be replaced by term hypothesis? In a way, it would be appropriate to call it a hypothesis as there is no observation of strings.
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 21, 2013 Author Posted January 21, 2013 In view of all that has been commented in the recent posts, it would seem that we are saying that :-'for what ever reasons', in the first instance All the contents of the standard model in its current and future form, respond to each other and the fields in which they find themselves, including all the photons involved, This response can be mathematically described in many ways that we call natures laws often having the name of the discoverer. We can only say that these responses are true for our initial frame of reference and are the same for other frames of references , provided we have observed and checked that all relevant responses are the same as those in our starting frame of reference. This then is not a correct assumption, as it is only true , if we have checked that it is true. That is unless we have some PROOF that the universe is totally identical throughout or else only to the regions that we have observed
swansont Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 Yes. So how about explaining your prior cryptic statements.
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 21, 2013 Author Posted January 21, 2013 Yes. Are Laws of nature are our description of nature doing its job . In line with my attempted summary posted two places Back ?
swansont Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 In view of all that has been commented in the recent posts, it would seem that we are saying that :-'for what ever reasons', in the first instance All the contents of the standard model in its current and future form, respond to each other and the fields in which they find themselves, including all the photons involved, This response can be mathematically described in many ways that we call natures laws often having the name of the discoverer. We can only say that these responses are true for our initial frame of reference and are the same for other frames of references , provided we have observed and checked that all relevant responses are the same as those in our starting frame of reference. This then is not a correct assumption, as it is only true , if we have checked that it is true. That is unless we have some PROOF that the universe is totally identical throughout or else only to the regions that we have observed You check where you can. You haven't checked gravity everywhere on earth, but it's reasonable to conclude that it's present everywhere.
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 22, 2013 Author Posted January 22, 2013 You check where you can. You haven't checked gravity everywhere on earth, but it's reasonable to conclude that it's present everywhere. Fair comment. But as we are probing now into deep space, time, the very dense ,the very large, and the very small, I'm not sure we can be convinced to assume the laws of physics are the same every where. I would think " the jury is still out on that one " Can we ? or am I being unneccessaraly cautious ?
swansont Posted January 22, 2013 Posted January 22, 2013 If you change the laws too much, all of the sudden stars don't work. So just observing stars in all directions is an indications that the laws can't be very different. There are people checking at a more precise level, but deviations, if they occur, are small.
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 22, 2013 Author Posted January 22, 2013 If you change the laws too much, all of the sudden stars don't work. So just observing stars in all directions is an indications that the laws can't be very different. There are people checking at a more precise level, but deviations, if they occur, are small. Yes I could see that, as its all very similar stuff. But what about the extremes, :- Black holes, quasars, neutron stars, inter galactic space, voids, Big bang etc
swansont Posted January 22, 2013 Posted January 22, 2013 Things like black holes and neutron stars are consistent with existing laws, just as they are.
michel123456 Posted January 22, 2013 Posted January 22, 2013 (edited) It is supposed that we are a random sample. Laws of Physics are supposed to be different on a different scale (small or big) but not on a different place, not even on a different time. But even if the LoP are different elsewhere or "elsetime" it must still be coherent with what we observe here today. IOW the change must be smooth and under the influence of a change-operator (a force of some sort, a coefficient, something). And because we are currently observing objects all around that are elsewhere and "elsetime" we ought to be capable to determine the values of these coefficients if they exist and include them in our LoP. So how about explaining your prior cryptic statements. I ment that: Particles do not obey laws. We humans have artificially extracted some "laws" that help us understand nature*, make calculations and predictions. These laws are usually simplifications of what really happens (for example the laws of motion). As much scientists go deeper trying to understand what is deeply going on, the laws get more and more obscure. I guess one could derive the laws of motion of a macroscopic object from sum of all little quantum-foam-laws of each sub-particle, but in the end, if you go into calculations by this way you would do slower than nature.* you wrote "Laws are our description of nature "doing its job"." .Statement at which I agreed by saying "yes". I think we 2 basically agree, the rest is maybe bad wording from me. Unless you truly believe that particles follow the laws we have created. Edited January 22, 2013 by michel123456
swansont Posted January 22, 2013 Posted January 22, 2013 I think we 2 basically agree, the rest is maybe bad wording from me. Unless you truly believe that particles follow the laws we have created. Saying that we create laws is bad wording, or if it isn't, it's something with which I disagree. A particle will follow certain rules, i.e. they will behave in a certain way. Those are the laws. We infer them after our best attempts at observing and testing, but we do not create them — you can't create something that was already there. But an apple will fall the way it falls regardless of whether you know Newton's laws or not, and they didn't start falling a different way after Newton as compared to before Newton.
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 23, 2013 Author Posted January 23, 2013 Things like black holes and neutron stars are consistent with existing laws, just as they are. What about Quasars, Voids, and the initial Singularity or Big Bang
swansont Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 What about Quasars, Voids, and the initial Singularity or Big Bang I don't know. AFAICT, not enough is known to show that they are not,
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted January 23, 2013 Author Posted January 23, 2013 (edited) Thanks for your comments Swansont, Sambridge, Angel123 and Michael from Athens and any others.. I think we are left with lowering the canary in a cage down the mine ( in case of killer gases). That is .. Before we make positive assumptions about places in the universe dissimilar by too many degrees from our Known environments. Edited January 23, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted February 14, 2013 Author Posted February 14, 2013 (edited) Thanks for your comments Swansont, Sambridge, Angel123 and Michael from Athens and any others.. I think we are left with lowering the canary in a cage down the mine ( in case of killer gases). That is .. Before we make positive assumptions about places in the universe dissimilar by too many degrees from our Known environments. The subject of assumptions are being raised again, . These are made in connection with Relativity ( The laws of Physics are assumed to be the same in all the universe [All frames of reference] ) Edited February 14, 2013 by Mike Smith Cosmos
swansont Posted February 14, 2013 Posted February 14, 2013 The subject of assumptions are being raised again, . These are made in connection with Relativity ( The laws of Physics are assumed to be the same in all the universe [All frames of reference] ) Assumptions which are then tested. We observe the spectroscopic signatures of various elements from remote regions. If the physics were different, we would not observe this. There is a different line of argument called fine-tuning, which notes how narrow the choice of parameters and physical laws is in order to have e.g. stable nuclei and atoms, at all. The ability to have different laws is pretty narrow. Then, we test to see how much variation we could have within that small window.
michel123456 Posted February 14, 2013 Posted February 14, 2013 There are still windows open to research into "varying constants". That changes a lot in physics but the basic laws remain the same. Like VSL for example.
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted February 21, 2013 Author Posted February 21, 2013 There are still windows open to research into "varying constants". That changes a lot in physics but the basic laws remain the same. Like VSL for example. I would like to take this up a bit Michel. But the Meteor seems to have taken over .!
michel123456 Posted February 22, 2013 Posted February 22, 2013 If you make physical constants vary, these are not "constants" anymore. By changing the constants you obtain other "physical" effects that may or may not correspond to datas. But that's always about "constants" as factors in existing equations. for example the value of C may be considered different and produce different result but the equation E=mC^2 is not under question. When one states that "the laws of physics could be different" that would be for example E=mC or E=mC^3 or wathever. Which is not what happens as much as I know.
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