gsmith@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith) (09/23/86)
This has become a discussion on physics, and perhaps the discussion should be directed there. (Unfortunately, this is likely to annoy some physics types). In article <7666@tekecs.UUCP> mikes@tekecs.UUCP (Michael Sellers) writes: >Now, I will agree that *IF* it were true that, for example, >a particle's position and momentum were existentially mutually exclusive, >then God nor anyone else could know them simultaneously. This (the IF >part) is what I believe Wayne to be asserting. What I want to see is a >defense of this assertion, since I maintain that such limitations are >either based on our own instrument resolution or that we could not tell >for sure if they were or not; basically, I don't think you can say if >a currently unknowable thing is only unknowable to us or is simply and >totally Unknowable to anyone anywhere with any abilities. No experimental >data that I know of can say for sure if intra-nuclear uncertainty is >part of the actual thing, part of the instrument's shortcomings, or part >of the model that we use to describe it. That a theory cannot be falsified is not a reason for accepting it. I could maintain that faeries dance in the forrest darkness but only when mundane persons or instruments are not around. I could, but why should I? Why do you want to maintain an electron has both a position and a momentum, despite the weight of scientific evidence against this view? I don't get it. We have a simple model without "hidden variables", and all the local hidden variable theories which one would naturally propose have been excluded. If I understand what you are proposing, an electron might really have both a position and a momentum exactly defined at all times, but somehow manages to fool us (maybe the interference of faeries?) into thinking it doesn't. Why assume something bizarre unless you are forced to? Assuming unnecessary bizarre things is in practice not a good scientific principle, in any case. ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720 Imagine what the world would be like if football was a worthy ritual performed in stadiums but mathematics was a misunderstood activity ignored by almost all.