From: Tony Hollick (anduril@cix.compulink.co.uk)
Date: Sat Nov 22 1997 - 10:44:00 MST
Dear John, 22 November 1997
Thank you for your -- amusing! -- response.
Next time, just make sure that your mind is engaged before putting
your keyboard into gear. OK? >:-}
As Popper says, the 'wrong' approach to science betrays itself in
its craving to be 'right.' You can have certainty, or you can have
depth, but you cannot have both. My state of mind has little or
nothing to do with physics, except to a reductionist monist. A
moment's thought should show this, but thinking is _so_ hard, isn't
it? And a moment is _such_ a long time... >:-}
Clearly, you -- and Carl -- are unreasoningly pissed off by my
pointing out the origins of Quantum ElectroDynamics in Walter Ritz's
[1908] work. Yet others before me have pointed this fact out, and
Feynman and Wheeler's interested in Ritz's work is well-known among
historians of science.
As Paul Forman (Smithsonian) writes, Ritz's work deserves critical
extension. I'm glad that Richard Feynman did just that; and sorry
he didn't acknowledge Ritz's priority. We all want to be original,
of course, but the nature of the creation of World Three, the world
of Objective knowledge, makes that kinda difficult...
[ FX: "One man deserves the credit. One man deserves the blame. And
_Nikolai Ivanovitch Lobachevski_ is his name..." -- Tom Lehrer ]
> After Tony Hollick, our resident crackpot, showed he was ignorant enough
> to publicly malign Richard Feynman, one of the greatest men of the 20'th
> century, and offensive enough to do it in front of his son, I resolved to
> take Carl's advice about people who refuse to learn and just ignore his
> babbling, but Hollick's last post was so stupid my resolve weakened.
There you go... I also think Richard Feynman is one of the greatest
men of the Twentieth Century. He's a great writer, especially.
Matter/forces/empty space metaphysics is hardly new... The Ancient
Greeks gave us the basic idea thousands of years ago...
Still and all, good criticism is hard to find, and is often more
valuable than praise or friendship. I just wish yours was better...
> >There _is_ a long-standing rivalry between the 'world-picture'
> >approach to physics (i.e. my preference);and the instrumentalist
> >reified' mathematical approach.
> There _is_ a long-standing rivalry between the comic book approach to
> physics (i.e. your preference); and the intelligent mathematical approach
> (i.e. Feynman's preference).
Popper describes your view as vicious; now you're proving him right.
> >Electrons held in orbit by a balance of electric force against
> >inertia
> That's idiotic. The electron has very little inertia, the smallest mass
> of any non zero particle. Because the proton in an atom is so near, the
> electron feels a huge force tugging it into the nucleus. Even the tiny >
> force exerted by a feather could move an iceberg the size of a mountain
> if you give it enough time, yet we know that matter has been stable for
> billions of years. Not that you'd need billions of years, the electron's
> mass is so small and the force of attraction toward the proton is so
> strong that if classical physics were correct the electron would crash
> into the nucleus in much less than a nanosecond.
"Inertial mass: n. the mass of a body as determined by its momentum,
as opposed to gravitational mass. The acceleration of a falling
body is inversely proportional to its gravitational mass: as all
falling bodies have the same constant acceleration the two types of
mass must be equal."
So follow the logic: at a sufficient orbital velocity, the inertial
mass _must_ balance the electric force attraction of the electron to
the nucleus. The logic is _unbreakable_. You're 'Arsgefichte'...
The electron orbits are 'locked' into quantized fixed series
('shells') by the necessity for the wiggly electron paths to form
exact integer frequencies (so the ends of the orbital paths 'join
up', right?). This is all in Petr Beckmann's 'Einstein Plus Two'
[1997]. R.A. Waldron deals with Beckmann and Mandics, BTW. They
were friends (and rivals).
Petr Beckmann received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Prague. He received his Dr. Sc. degree from
the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in 1962. He defected to the
US in 1963, and taught at the University of Colorado until his
retirement in 19681. ISTR he was Professor Emeritus there. I've
chatted with him on a number of occasions. He gave me my copy of
'Einstein Plus Two.' I think he's competent.
He has published more than sixty scientific papers, mostly devoted
to electromagnetics and probability theory. His best-selling books
include 'A History of Pi' [1981]; and 'The Health Hazards of NOT
Going Nuclear.' [1985] He edited and published 'Access To Energy',
the pro-science, pro-technology, pro-free enterprise monthly
newsletter, now in its 25th year, with 15 000 subscribers.
> And that's far from your only problem. All the protons in the nucleus
> have the same charge and are even closer together, the repellent force
> they experience is truly astronomical, yet the nucleus does not fly
> apart and the thing that stops it sure as hell isn't inertia, it's the
> strong nuclear force.
<Sigh>. I explicity point out that the extension of Relational
Mechanics to the nucleus is the task of the Third Revision,
whereupon it will become Relational Dynamics. Quantum
Chromodynamics is a hopeless mess, so demolishing it and
reconstructing particle physics along classical lines (the original
project of Bohr and Einstein, by the way) will be great fun. You
seriously expect me to do all this _on my own_ on the back of an
envelope, when my 'competition' has thousands of people, and
billions of Statist dollars and vast Statist laboratories staffed by
conformists with obsolete State-certified 'credential' (all of which
we will take over in due course, natch! >:-} ).
[ FX: "First, we take Manhattan: Then we take Berlin." ]
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
I have to work on all this stuff, on a budget of a hundred bucks a
week, when I'm partially disabled with Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder. No-one gives you-all more 'bang for the buck.' >:-}
Just imagine what I could do with a MacArthur Foundation grant!
http;//www.macfdn,org
And fight to save gloriously fair endangered Americans like Mary Kay
Schmitz LeTourneau!
ONGOING PROJECTS:
Twelve Track Parallel Plans - for individual and world-scale transformation
Relational Mechanics: a unified neoclassical Scientific Research Programme
which replaces Special and General Relativity and subsumes Quantum Mechanics.
Democratic Agorism: social and political systems to maximize positive _and_
negative liberties and life-chances.
Roller Skis: a new design of electrically-propelled inline roller-skates.
Lenticular Aerodynes: real VTOL/STOL 'flying saucers'! Tiny or vast!
Golden Arrows: enclosed streamliner motorcycles -- road-going fighters!.
Biocompatible single-stage dental implants -- permanent replacement teeth!
Prophylactic anti-viral medicines -- 250mg. BHT (E321) daily, ferinstance.
Krell Laboratories: 'Mind Enhancement' skills-eliciting multimedia programs.
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
> >are in a condition which is analogous to 'free fall.' They're not
> >accelerating in a way which causes emission of photons.
> If something is falling it is by definition accelerating and if charges
> moving in a circle are not accelerating in " a way which causes emission
> of photons" then when electrons move in a large circle in one of our high
> energy laboratories they shouldn't radiate photons but they do, and the
> effect is not subtle, the radiation is massive. The classical laws that
> work so well when the electrons move in a circle many meters in diameter
> are useless when you talk about the atom.
You're being tedious. Bohr's hydrogen atom is essentially
'classical.' I explain why the electron doesn't (ordinarily)
radiate in orbit. No angular acceleration. If it constantly
radiated, it would be violating the conservation laws. It can't.
Then you shiftily start to give us this stuff about ring
accelerators. Since I actually worked at Bristol University with a
CERN project (hunting muons) which involved visiting NIMROD at
Harwell (England) when it was under construction, and since a friend
of mine is Director, the Neutron Spallation facility at the
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and designs the darned things, I
should know a little bit about all this. And I can even read.
> >Does anyonwe here think that geometry is _empirically decideable_?
> Is this a debatable point, does anyone here really think that the geometry of
> the universe in which we live is not empirically decideable_?
You're on dangerous ground now. As Lakatos points out, Classical
Mechanics can be derived _inductively_. Since Classical Mechanics
is based on Euclid's geometry, with the addition of mass-points and
vector forces, you've just played Russian Ruolette with all six
chambers loaded. And you lost... >:-}
[ FX: "BANG!!! You're dead!" ] >:-}
> >There's no point in quoting Maxwell at us -- Maxwell's theory has a
> >(non-existent) aether to transmit forces
> Let's see, Maxwell was wrong
You want to 'bring back the aether'? C'mon, show us all - I dare you!
> Huygens misled
That's what Richard Feynman says. Explicitly. 'Light is Particles'
> Einstein was an idiot
Well, we're _all_ ignorant, compared to how much there is to know...
> Bohr was a little slow
No! He gave up _too easily_ on his original project of extending
Classical Mechanics into the microworld, is all. We can all make
mistakes...
> Hawking is ignorant
True, I don't think much of Hawking's ideas. Look what his mind did
to his poor body... Would you want that to happen to you? >:-}
> Copernicus was a plagiarist
We can't really say that until we prove that he _knew of_ Nicholas
of Cusa's work. It's an interesting question, though...
> as was Feynman
We _can_ prove that Feynman knew of Walter Ritz's work. >:-}
> the second law of thermodynamics is an evil plot
Whoever mentioned Goethe and Schiller? [ FX: "FLASH!!!" ] >:-}
> relativity is foolishness
_Galilean_ Relativity is _perfectly sound_. That's what I'm saying!
> and quantum mechanics a con game.
"A shaky game" is the usual epithet in the 'trade', I believe...
> Sounds like you'd be happy with physics as it was around 1840, unless
> that's not going far enough and you think that punk Newton shouldn't have
> tried to improve on Aristotle.
Wrong. I'm quite happy with 'physics' as it is now (i.e. including
Relational Mechanics), with the exception of the problems of
particle physics. Abraham Pais' book "Inward Bound" is a
clearly-delineated descent into madness. I don't have to follow
him, do I?. Neither do you. Neither does anyone else.
I 'walk back the cat', as the counterspies say. I evaluate past
problem-situations and data in the light of present knowledge.
20/20 hindsight! Easy-peasy!
> Your theory is that all the great physicists in at least the last 150
> years didn't know what they were talking about, but there is an alternate
> theory, Tony Hollick doesn't know what he's talking about.
Following Alfred Tarski's Correspondence Theory of Truth utilizing a
metalanguage (and it doesn't get any better than this):
"The statement 'Tony Hollick ne sait pas quest'ce que'il parle' is
true if -- AND ONLY IF -- Tony Hollick doesn't know what he's
talking about."
You're now demolished on two counts:
[A] I plainly do know that of which I speak: and
[B] What I say corresponds with the facts.
Thanks for an interesting exchange!
"Be Seeing You!"
/ /\ \
--*--<Tony>--*--
Tony Hollick, LightSmith
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/la-agora (LA-Agora Conference)
http://www.agora.demon.co.uk (Agora Home Page, Rainbow Bridge Foundation)
http://www.nwb.net/nwc (NorthWest Coalition Against Malicious Harrassment)
PS: I don't really know why you use this. NSA can crack it dead easy.
Maybe it's not NSA you're worried about... http://www.nsa.gov:8080 >:-}
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