Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => That CAN'T be true! => Topic started by: charles1948 on 25/12/2020 20:41:05
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It's a polite way of saying Philip Ball doesn't understand it.
Phillip Ball did understand it and proceeded to offer his own explanation which I thought joined the category of 'not at all easy to follow'.
Does anyone understand Physics these days. Hasn't it become a kind of fantasy subject, filled with speculations about Black Holes, multi-dimensional wormholes, Gravity Waves revealed by wiggles on pre-filled in graphs, the so-called "Higg's Boson" supposedly found by electronic detectors -without leaving any trace in Bubble Chambers.
Doesn't present-day "Physics" increasingly resemble a mathematical construct, divorced from physical reality.
This is the tragedy. Physics has ceased to explain how the Universe works. It just says, in the famous words, "Shut up and calculate". Who doesn't find this deplorable?
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Gravity Waves revealed by wiggles on pre-filled in graphs, the so-called "Higg's Boson" supposedly found by electronic detectors -without leaving any trace in Bubble Chambers.
And so it seems that the title of this thread is indeed (at least partly) correct.
The principles behind gravitational wave and Higgs boson detection are very well understood.
Black holes are fairly well understood as well, although wormholes are admittedly still purely theoretical at this point.
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Doesn't present-day "Physics" increasingly resemble a mathematical construct, divorced from physical reality.
That it does. Some of us consider that a wonderful clue instead something to be deplored. If you’re open to having your views challenged, become a physicist. If you’re not, join a church.
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Physics is the business of building mathematical models of the universe. Always has been. And the more we find out about the universe, the more interesting (and admittedly less useful - I don't see anyone wanting to visit a black hole in the near future) the models become.
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Maybe the study of black holes and dark matter, and other exotic forms of matter are not so directly useful technologically, despite their cosmological relevance.
But the cutting edge of quantum physics is very much at our fingertips, as it were. Advances in theoretical and experimental QM are often very much relevant to computation, encryption, and spectroscopy. And it goes both ways too: advances in spectroscopy and computing directly help us to pry deeper into the underlying physics (as well as having applications to chemistry, medicine, information science, etc. etc. etc.)
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I love physics at the Newtonian mechanics end of the scale, but the cutting edge stuff leaves me disillusioned and impatient at the slow progress.
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Doesn't present-day "Physics" increasingly resemble a mathematical construct, divorced from physical reality.
That it does. Some of us consider that a wonderful clue instead something to be deplored. If you’re open to having your views challenged, become a physicist. If you’re not, join a church.
Do you think modern Physicists have become a kind of separate breed of scientists? Beyond criticism.
I mean, in the sense that they can't readily be confuted in their wild assertions. For example, suppose a Physicist makes some outlandish claim - like Black Holes provide a wormhole through Space and Time. Who's able to say "No they don't"? There's no experimental proof that they don't.
Whereas, suppose a Chemist were to claim, that mercury can be transmuted into gold, by mixing it with sulphur.. He/she would be a laughing-stock. Experiment would quickly expose the falsity of the claim.
Is that the attraction of modern Physics? You are free to speculate, without fearing experimental tests.
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For example, suppose a Physicist makes some outlandish claim - like Black Holes provide a wormhole through Space and Time. Who's able to say "No they don't"? There's no experimental proof that they don't.
That claim is based on implications given by general relativity. So in order to successfully refute it (at least as best as one can without experimenting on actual black holes), then one either needs to demonstrate that general relativity does not, in fact, imply it, that general relativity is wrong, or that it violates the laws of physics in some way.
Whereas, suppose a Chemist were to claim, that mercury can be transmuted into gold, by mixing it with sulphur.. He/she would be a laughing-stock. Experiment would quickly expose the falsity of the claim.
What are they basing the claim on? Is it based on (or even predicted by) a highly successful theory, or is it pure speculation? That's the difference between coming up with any random idea that you want and an idea that has grounding in modern physics.
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For example, suppose a Physicist makes some outlandish claim - like Black Holes provide a wormhole through Space and Time. Who's able to say "No they don't"? There's no experimental proof that they don't.
That claim is based on implications given by general relativity. So in order to successfully refute it (at least as best as one can without experimenting on actual black holes), then one either needs to demonstrate that general relativity does not, in fact, imply it, that general relativity is wrong, or that it violates the laws of physics in some way.
Whereas, suppose a Chemist were to claim, that mercury can be transmuted into gold, by mixing it with sulphur.. He/she would be a laughing-stock. Experiment would quickly expose the falsity of the claim.
What are they basing the claim on? Is it based on (or even predicted by) a highly successful theory, or is it pure speculation? That's the difference between coming up with any random idea that you want and an idea that has grounding in modern physics.
The claim about transmuting mercury into gold by mixing it with sulphur was an old idea of the medieval alchemists, as you probably know. The idea probably arose from these considerations:
1. Mercury is a metal, as is Gold
2. But Gold is a hard unchanging metal. Whereas Mercury is liquid. Hence possibly more amenable to alteration;
3. Sulphur has a yellow colouration, like Gold;
4. Therefore a suitable admixture of Sulphur into Mercury might alter it into Gold.
This was not an unreasonable idea in the 16th century. But modern Chemistry busted it and exposed it as utter cobblers.. Because the Chemists developed an experimental science to test their ideas on. Like Gold and Mercury.
Whereas, modern Physics seems to be going in the opposite direction. Any wild ideas like Black Holes, Dark Matter, Wormholes, Negative Energy, Gravitons, Higgs Bosons, and all the rest, can't be experimentally tested.
That's the point. I know you mention the "Laws of Physics", but who has decided what these Laws are?
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I love physics at the Newtonian mechanics end of the scale, but the cutting edge stuff leaves me disillusioned and impatient at the slow progress.
Like you, I love Newtonian physics. It works, has been tried and tested for over three centuries, both mathematically and in practice. The Apollo missions to the Moon used Newtonian mechanics to calculate their trajectories.
But as you rightly say, the cutting-edge stuff of modern Physics must leave everyone with a feeling of disappointment. It seems like Physicists have lost the plot.
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old idea of the medieval alchemists
Which was hardly subject to the same kind of scientific scrutiny that modern theories are.
Any wild ideas like Black Holes, Dark Matter, Wormholes, Negative Energy, Gravitons, Higgs Bosons, and all the rest, can't be experimentally tested.
Black holes and the Higgs boson have been directly detected, so your claim that they "can't be experimentally tested" is pure nonsense. Dark matter, wormholes and negative energy can indeed be detected in principle. Gravitons, I'm not sure about. There is currently no known way to detect them because they would have such low energy.
I know you mention the "Laws of Physics", but who has decided what these Laws are?
Experimenters and mathematicians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem
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I love Newtonian physics. It works, has been tried and tested for over three centuries, both mathematically and in practice.
...and it was known as early as 1859 that Newton's physics had problems.
We have now had a century and a half to confirm that Newton's error is real, and to identify a solution and confirm it is correct (Einstein's General Relativity).
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity#Perihelion_precession_of_Mercury
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I love physics at the Newtonian mechanics end of the scale
I prefer to get the right answer on any scale.
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I love physics at the Newtonian mechanics end of the scale, but the cutting edge stuff leaves me disillusioned and impatient at the slow progress.
It took 2000 years for Newton and Galileo to displace Aristotle. It took less than 20 years to develop quantum physics and relativity.
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I know you mention the "Laws of Physics", but who has decided what these Laws are?
Consensus. Scientific laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. If an equation has been shown to predict a phenomenon with sufficient precision and consistency, it becomes a law. There is no penalty for nature breaking a law - we just investigate further and propose a better law.
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I know you mention the "Laws of Physics", but who has decided what these Laws are?
Consensus. Scientific laws are descriptive, not prescriptive. If an equation has been shown to predict a phenomenon with sufficient precision and consistency, it becomes a law. There is no penalty for nature breaking a law - we just investigate further and propose a better law.
Yes. But what happens if we investigate further, and then discover - there aren't any "laws" - only "randomness"?
How can there be any "laws" governing "randomness"? Surely the term "random" means essentially "lawless"?
I think this is the fundamental problem facing modern Physics. When it investigates sub-atomic particles such as electrons, it is forced to conclude that they behave in a "random" way. That's to say - their precise positions within an atom cannot be calculated by any fixed mathematical equation.
All that can be done is assign higher and lower "probabilities" to where they are, at any given instant.
Much the same as rolling a pair of dice. You cannot predict what number the dice will add up to, at the instant they come to rest.
The best you can do is predict that there's a higher probability that the number will be "7", rather than "2" or "12".
Einstein famously complained about this a century ago. Has his complaint been convincingly answered?
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How can there be any "laws" governing "randomness"? Surely the term "random" means essentially "lawless"?
Just because randomness can be demonstrated does not imply lawnessness. Quantum theory has been one of the most successful theories of all time and it doesn’t get there by declaring that nothing can be known.
When it investigates sub-atomic particles such as electrons, it is forced to conclude that they behave in a "random" way. That's to say - their precise positions within an atom cannot be calculated by any fixed mathematical equation.
From that, some of us are simply led to question the assumption that a particle unmeasured has a precise position. The assumption is a classic one, not a fundamental one.
All that can be done is assign higher and lower "probabilities" to where they are, at any given instant.
Or far better, to not assume there is a ‘where they are’ at all.
Much the same as rolling a pair of dice. You cannot predict what number the dice will add up to, at the instant they come to rest.
Yes you can, given sufficient information on the roll. So it’s not much the same. The dice do not fall randomly, just in a way difficult to predict with limited information. The result of a given roll is usually determined upon being thrown.
Einstein famously complained about this a century ago. Has his complaint been convincingly answered?
He indeed didn’t like the randomness, and would likely today have supported a quantum interpretation that doesn’t involve any fundamental randomness. Most of them were not introduced/refined until after Einstein’s time.
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I love physics at the Newtonian mechanics end of the scale, but the cutting edge stuff leaves me disillusioned and impatient at the slow progress.
Like you, I love Newtonian physics. It works, has been tried and tested for over three centuries, both mathematically and in practice. The Apollo missions to the Moon used Newtonian mechanics to calculate their trajectories.
But as you rightly say, the cutting-edge stuff of modern Physics must leave everyone with a feeling of disappointment. It seems like Physicists have lost the plot.
I'm sure they'll get there eventually, I just have difficulty maintaining interest when (at 62) it doesn't look as if it'll happen in my lifetime.
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I love physics at the Newtonian mechanics end of the scale, but the cutting edge stuff leaves me disillusioned and impatient at the slow progress.
Like you, I love Newtonian physics. It works, has been tried and tested for over three centuries, both mathematically and in practice. The Apollo missions to the Moon used Newtonian mechanics to calculate their trajectories.
But as you rightly say, the cutting-edge stuff of modern Physics must leave everyone with a feeling of disappointment. It seems like Physicists have lost the plot.
I'm sure they'll get there eventually, I just have difficulty maintaining interest when (at 62) it doesn't look as if it'll happen in my lifetime.
62? You're a mere stripling! With years ahead of you (Covid permitting). Keep up your interest, and bear this in mind:
Modern Science can progress much faster than in the past, because nowadays, there are far more scientists.
Millions of them. All over the place. And all of them eager to overthrow each other's theories and win a Nobel Prize.
This intense internecine competition must result in rapid advances.
Two of the advances which I predict in Physics are:
1. The replacement of Einsteinian "Relativity" by a modified form of Newtonian Mechanics;
2. The "Big Bang" idea being supplanted by a new "Steady State" theory.
Of these two, I'm more confident about the second. But anything can happen! Just hang around, and see!
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Two of the advances which I predict in Physics are:
1. The replacement of Einsteinian "Relativity" by a modified form of Newtonian Mechanics;
2. The "Big Bang" idea being supplanted by a new "Steady State" theory.
You are predicting that science will go backwards to something which we know to be incomplete (in the case of (1) ) and impossible (in the cases of (2)).
Why?
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Surely the term "random" means essentially "lawless"?
So, it's not just physics you don't understand.
You can't grasp English either...
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Einstein famously complained about this a century ago. Has his complaint been convincingly answered?
Yes, it has.
And the answer is "just because you don't like it won't stop the universe acting that way.".
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Much the same as rolling a pair of dice. You cannot predict what number the dice will add up to, at the instant they come to rest...
How can there be any "laws" governing "randomness"?
There are laws of statistics.
If you roll a pair of dice, the total score can be anywhere from 2 (snake eyes) up to 12 (double 6).
- If you roll the die once, you could get any of these
- But if you roll it many times (eg 100 times, or more) you are almost certain to see a 7 more than a 2 or 12
- This is because out of the 36 possible combinations of two dice:
- Only 1 combination gives a 2 = 1+1
- Only 1 combination gives a 12 = 6+6
- But 6 combinations gives a 7 = 6+1=5+2=4+3=3+4=2+5=1+6
- So a 7 is six times more likely than 2 or 12
- So you can predict the outcome of rolling a pair of dice, if you are predicting the results over many experiments.
Just like you can predict the bright and dark bands in the 2-slit experiment, if you run the test over very many photons.
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Much the same as rolling a pair of dice. You cannot predict what number the dice will add up to, at the instant they come to rest...
How can there be any "laws" governing "randomness"?
There are laws of statistics.
If you roll a pair of dice, the total score can be anywhere from 2 (snake eyes) up to 12 (double 6).
- If you roll the die once, you could get any of these
- But if you roll it many times (eg 100 times, or more) you are almost certain to see a 7 more than a 2 or 12
- This is because out of the 36 possible combinations of two dice:
- Only 1 combination gives a 2 = 1+1
- Only 1 combination gives a 12 = 6+6
- But 6 combinations gives a 7 = 6+1=5+2=4+3=3+4=2+5=1+6
- So a 7 is six times more likely than 2 or 12
- So you can predict the outcome of rolling a pair of dice, if you are predicting the results over many experiments.
Just like you can predict the bright and dark bands in the 2-slit experiment, if you run the test over very many photons.
Or another example that deals with atoms: There is no way to tell when any given atom of Radon 222 will decay. It could be in the next sec or a thousand years from now. However if you have a significant number of Radon 222 atoms ( say even a gram's worth), you can be certain that after 3.82 days, half of them will have decayed.
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Appealing to statistics is the last refuge of incompetent Physics
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Appealing to statistics is the last refuge of incompetent Physics
Apparently my statistical mechanics professor didn't know anything about physics...
And my data analysis course didn't prepare me for experiments that told me what their own results meant without my needing to muddy the water with mere significance and power testing...
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If you don't mind my asking, what is a "Statistical Mechanics Professor"? I've never heard of that occupation before, and would appreciate your enlightenment.
Does it mean, someone who designs mechanisms that may work, or not work, depending on mathematical probability-curves?
I wouldn't like someone like that designing an air-liner, or anything else mechanical for that matter.
Probably I've stupidly misunderstood what it means. If so, put me straight please, if you feel like it.
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1. The replacement of Einsteinian "Relativity" by a modified form of Newtonian Mechanics
If you're bent on taking this road, why not complete it by predicting replacement of the periodic table by a modified form of Earth, Water, Wind and Fire?
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Statistical mechanics is the route to understanding thermodynamics and the practical application of semiconductors.
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I wouldn't like someone like that designing an air-liner, or anything else mechanical for that matter.
I’d stay away from airliners if I were you ;D
Bernoulli (he of the famous aerofoil theory) set it going in the 1700s by realising that for moving air or water you don’t need to know where each individual molecule is, just where statistically it is likely to be or move to. Boltzmann in the 1800s set statistical mechanics well on its way with his gas theories. It has applications not only in aeronautics but also in chemical processes, materials science, biology and most fields of science.
Statistics is at the heart of how the application of the classical, Newtonian world works and statistical mechanics led the way to quantum mechanics where you don’t need to know where or when an electron is, just where and when it is most likely to be ie statistically.
So a Statistical Mechanics Professor is someone who is an expert in that area and researches and teaches it.
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How can there be any "laws" governing "randomness"? Surely the term "random" means essentially "lawless"?
You clearly did not read the post to which you were replying. Scientific laws do not govern, they describe and predict.
Let's take a very simple example. The single toss of a coin is random, but the statistical mechanics of coins says that in a large number of trials you will approach 50% heads.
Others have quoted the random disintegration of radionuclides. In a simple case where a nucleus decays to a stable form, statistics predicts that the radiation dose rate will decay according to an exponential law. Using a very simple dosemeter, you can detect deviations from that law, which tell you that there is more than one nuclide present, and this can allow you to determine the source of the material.
Likewise we use statistical mechanics to decode the signal from proton spin flip, to produce an MRI image that distinguishes different tissues and fluid flow rates. The fundamental process is random but follows very well characterised laws.
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Appealing to statistics is the last refuge of incompetent Physics
This is beginning to more and more like a simple "sour grapes" attitude. Modern physics has grown beyond your understanding, so you you respond by claiming that modern physics isn't worth understanding.
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Appealing to statistics is the last refuge of incompetent Physics
I think that you want physics which describes cause and effect relationships. If x happens, then y must follow.
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Appealing to statistics is the last refuge of incompetent Physics
Demonstrably false.
You start by saying that you can't do physics.
That makes you an incompetent physicist.
Yet the appeal to statistics is not your refuge at all.
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Paul Dirac gave a guest lecture at Princeton back in the day when people really did write on blackboards with chalk. At the end, a distinguished professor said "I didn't understand the third line on the lefthand board."
Long silence, then the chairman said "Professor Dirac, do you have an answer?"
to which PD relied "It wasn't a question."
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At the end, a distinguished professor said "I didn't understand the third line on the lefthand board."
It seems to me that the professor couldn't derive the equation from previous lines on the board and other underlying assumptions that he knew. It's likely that he missed some information used by Dirac to arrive at that equation. He could have expressed it in a better sentences which specify what he was missing.
I've also seen a similar situation, which turned out to be caused by some typos.
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Appealing to statistics is the last refuge of incompetent Physics
Demonstrably false.
You start by saying that you can't do physics.
That makes you an incompetent physicist.
Yet the appeal to statistics is not your refuge at all.
He said incompetent physics instead of physicists.
He also said about last refuge, so it's possible that he hasn't arrived there yet.
If a then b
b is the case
you shouldn't expect a
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The laws of physics simply state "If a, then you are entitled to expect b because nobody has observed anything else. Yet."
Far from statistics being the last refuge of physics, the laws of physics are the first refuge of engineering. But now and again something odd happens and we revise the laws a bit.
That's what makes science interesting for scientists and really infuriating for philosophers, politicians and priests, who all demand or profess certainty.
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1. The replacement of Einsteinian "Relativity" by a modified form of Newtonian Mechanics
If you're bent on taking this road, why not complete it by predicting replacement of the periodic table by a modified form of Earth, Water, Wind and Fire?
Aren't Physicists already on the same road. By dismissing the Chemists' Periodic Table, and actually anything else Chemists suggest, as just "stamp-collecting".
Modern Physicists claim that everything is made of "Quarks". Which come in 5 different "Flavours":
- Up, Down, Top, Bottom and Strange
Is that much different from the Ancient Aristotelian Physicists who claimed that everything is made of "stuff", in
5 different "Flavours":
- Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Celestial.
Have Physicists learned nothing in 2,000 years? Shouldn't they take some advice from the Chemists?
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Is that much different from the Ancient Aristotelian Physicists who claimed that everything is made of "stuff", in
5 different "Flavours":
The physicists have evidence.
Aren't Physicists already on the same road. By dismissing the Chemists' Periodic Table, and actually anything else Chemists suggest, as just "stamp-collecting".
No, they aren't doing that.
Have Physicists learned nothing in 2,000 years?
They have learned a lot.
You should try it, learning can be very satisfying.
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The trouble with "learning" things is this: how can you be sure what you are "learning" is actually true?
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Eddington (or was it Rutherford?) said science was either physics or stamp collecting. If you understand science, you can see the subtle truth in the statement, and realise that most science is a combination of the two disciplines..
Chemistry is "physics in a bucket". What goes on in a test tube or a gas reactor is so varied and so complicated that it is best studied as a separate subject because there are around 120 elements (the stamp album is full) each with its own physics, and an unlimited number of ways of combining them (if you understand the physics) to make something useful.
Modern biology rapidly moves from stamp collecting (identifying a new species) directly to physics and indirectly via chemistry - why does that shape or color confer an advantage? Why are there different chemical pathways to photosynthesis which exploit different bits of the solar spectrum and ambient temperature?
Dismissing other sciences as "mere" stamp collecting is a bit like dismissing architecture as merely piling bricks. The world is very simple to a simpleton who doesn't appreciate its complexity, or to a genius who can see how the complexity all derives from a few quarks, but for a lot of us the complexity deserves a lifetime of study.
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how can you be sure what you are "learning" is actually true?
In science, you can't. That's the whole essence of the scientific method. What we know is nothing more or less than the totality of hypotheses that have not been disproved by experiment.
This distinguishes us from parasites like philosophers, priests and politicians, whose worthless product is absolute truth.
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The trouble with "learning" things is this: how can you be sure what you are "learning" is actually true?
The physicists have evidence.
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The trouble with "learning" things is this: how can you be sure what you are "learning" is actually true?
Philosophically speaking, you can't. You can only become increasingly certain of an idea's truth or falsehood based on the strength of evidence. For all we know, the Earth might really be flat and there are super-advanced aliens out there feeding us false observations to fool us into believing it is round. Does that mean we should reasonably bring the Earth's roundness into doubt just because that is technically possible?
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I agree with your point about the "roundness" of the Earth. There are enough photographs of the Earth, taken from orbit and the Moon, to establish its roundness beyond any reasonable doubt. There's direct photographic evidence. So we can sure about it.
But this is the thing - what photographic evidence do Physicists have that the "Higg's Boson" exists?
In the past, Physicists used "Bubble Chambers" which allowed particles to be tracked and photographed as they passed through the chamber and visibly ionised the fluid within it.
But nowadays, physicists don't use Bubble Chambers any more. Just racks of diodes and transistors which register differences in electrical current. These differences could result from anything, perhaps differences in thickness of the wiring, or conductivity of the silicon, or quality control between the different manufacturers who supplied the components.
So the Higg's Boson might not actually exist, but just be a product of variation in electric wiring?
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But nowadays, physicists don't use Bubble Chambers any more. Just racks of diodes and transistors which register differences in electrical current. These differences could result from anything, perhaps differences in thickness of the wiring...So the Higg's Boson might not actually exist, but just be a product of variation in electric wiring?
The first thing to say is that the existence of the Higgs Boson was not inferred from a single reading (a single reading which may have been due to a fault or tolerance variation).
The Higgs Boson was seen by two different teams, using two different types of experimental devices (CMS & ATLAS, kilometers apart) at the LHC.
- Each of these teams studied trillions of proton-proton collisions at various energy levels before they homed in on the particular "resonance" that is represented by the Higgs Boson.
- These trillions of collisions (the vast majority of which did not assist the search for the Higgs boson) exercised all parts of these machines, and showed that they worked well.
- While psychology papers are accepted if they demonstrate a p=0.05 (ie 5% probability that they could be talking nonsense), particle physicists look for 5σ, or approximately 0.00006% chance that the result could be just luck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_the_Higgs_boson#Discovery_of_new_boson
Having said that, physicists have never detected a Higgs Boson directly.
- The mass of this particle is so great (125GeV/c2), and the lifetime is so short(10-22s) that it doesn't make it out of the vacuum pipe and into the detector before it decays.
- So the existence of the Higgs was determined from its unique decay products and distinctive energy
- This is not so different from the way chemistry worked for many years - many chemical reactions took place in such a small volume, in such a small time, that chemists had to work backwards from the mix of chemical products to determine what chemical species had produced them.
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This is not so different from the way chemistry worked for many years
Nobel prizes were awarded in 1998 and 2013 for computational methods in chemistry.
- These apply the laws of quantum physics in a computer program to determine what is going on inside chemical reactions- chemical reactions that take place in such a small volume, in such a small time, that they can't be observed directly.
- Other techniques like superfast pulsed lasers and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance are now able to study chemical structures in more detail.
See: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/computational-chemists-take-nobel-prize/6676.article
So you could say that chemistry is like physics, but taken to an entirely different level
- And biology is like chemistry, but taken to an entirely different level
- And brain science is like biology, but taken to an entirely different level
- And psychology is like brain science, but taken to an entirely different level
- Nobody can hope to understand all these levels in great detail
Dr Karl says that he can take an expert in any field, and in 20 questions, come to some area where the expert says "nobody really knows".
- So nobody really understands everything, these days
- Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean that someone just "made it up"
- All you can do is to try and identify the limits of your ignorance, and try to expand your boundaries.
- But do recognize that there is a difference between a p=0.05 and a 5σ result.
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So the Higg's Boson might not actually exist, but just be a product of variation in electric wiring?
No, that's obviously silly.
The differences in wiring (and it's more complex than that but, never mind, the point is still valid) are constant.
But the signature of the particles are not.
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So the Higg's Boson might not actually exist, but just be a product of variation in electric wiring?
That's a completely unreasonable conclusion in light of all of the testing that has been done. You'd think any such wiring issues would have been found after 8 years. Many different experiments have been done on the Higgs to establish that its properties align with what has been predicted. Do you really expect equipment errors to conveniently give those results, especially when false positives from equipment errors are exactly the kind of things that are checked for?
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So the Higg's Boson might not actually exist, but just be a product of variation in electric wiring?
That's a completely unreasonable conclusion in light of all of the testing that has been done. You'd think any such wiring issues would have been found after 8 years. Many different experiments have been done on the Higgs to establish that its properties align with what has been predicted. Do you really expect equipment errors to conveniently give those results, especially when false positives from equipment errors are exactly the kind of things that are checked for?
I take your point. But just suppose that after all the years of checking - someone did find find that the LHC, and all the other electronic equipment used to to detect particles such as the Higgs, and Gravity Waves, had been wrongly wired up
Wouldn't that be a huge embarrassment to Science? Could it ever be admitted? I mean, thousands of scientists have written papers based on the results from these instruments. What a disaster it would be for them, and their careers, if their papers turned out to be based on some technician having connected the input-lead to terminal B instead of A..
Don't these things sometimes happen? Not the scientists' fault. Any more than it was a few years ago, when NASA technicians wrongly inputted US measurements instead of Metric into a Mars probe causing the total destruction of the probe.
There are no "Scientists", only human beings who sometimes get things wrong.
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The trouble with "learning" things is this: how can you be sure what you are "learning" is actually true?
That’s why when learning science (physics, chemistry, biology etc) we don’t just read books and sit in front of spoon feeding lecturers. There are numerous experiments to check what you are being told is true, and quite a few to explore things you haven’t been told.
You will never know until you try it.
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There are no "Scientists"
That's not what it says on my passport.
Seriously, there are loads of scientists. Essentially everyone under about 3 years old is a scientist.
It's when you stop asking "but why...?" that you stop being one.
Wouldn't that be a huge embarrassment to Science? Could it ever be admitted?
Not really, and yes it was,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly#Measurement_errors
It's a bit awkward but fundamentally, science is self correcting.
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You don't have to be a scientist to screw things up with measurement systems. An old flying chum was an industrial architect who was commissioned to design a hangar for a municipal airport in Saudi Arabia. If it still exists (this was 45 years go) it is the most expensive garden shed on earth. Being wise to the fact that the rest of the world is metric, he specified every component in meters, and the prime contractor, being wise to the disgusting and depraved
Imperial system, had all the steelwork fabricated in feet and decimals thereof. Of course it all fitted together perfectly and the riggers built a beautiful doll's hangar, just big enough for a few tractors.
There was a wiring problem in 2011 that led to a brief embarrassment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly. The neutrinos that arrived before they were created turned out to be a loose plug. Egg on several hundred faces.
Likewise "ice nine". Kurt Vonnegut wrote some great sci-fi including "Cats Cradle" (1963), which was predicated on the synthesis of a phase of water that was solid at room temperature. No problem until somebody dropped a crystal into the Atlantic. By 1966, several labs had reported making a gel phase at 20°C. I narrowly missed getting recruited into an Ice Nine research project which was well funded because, of course, solid water would be an incredibly useful and unbelievably dangerous material. Turned out to be a silicate sludge - test tubes are indeed slightly soluble! - but almost as many good people were involved in that wild goose chase as in the later Pons and Fleishmann cold fusion debacle.
The great strength of science is that it survives cockups because nobody claims to have the absolute revealed mystic truth, only a bunch of indicative measurements which everyone else is at liberty to scrutinise and reinterpret.
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I thought about the FTL neutrinos when composing my post. But left it out, because it was a very brief incident, sorted out in a few months.
But the Higgs Boson nonsense has been going on for years and years!
After that length of time, it has acquired an imperviousness to doubt, which none dare question for fear of imperilling their reputation and career.
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My reputation and career are imperilled every day. It's part of the game. If you invent or discover anything remotely different or profitable, some folk will use your results for the benefit of mankind, and others will try to disprove them. Giving your first presentation of findings or product that nobody else has ever seen, is like a barmitzvah and inquisition all in one, and marks your transition from pupil to student.
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After that length of time, it has acquired an imperviousness to doubt, which none dare question for fear of imperilling their reputation and career.
Says who?
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But just suppose that after all the years of checking - someone did find find that the LHC, and all the other electronic equipment used to to detect particles such as the Higgs, and Gravity Waves, had been wrongly wired up
You want to take a guess as to how incredibly unlikely that is? Doubly so for gravitational waves, given that we had two different projects (LIGO and VIRGO) working on it at the same time and confirming one-another's observations.
But the Higgs Boson nonsense has been going on for years and years!
Nonsense? Excuse me?
After that length of time, it has acquired an imperviousness to doubt, which none dare question for fear of imperilling their reputation and career.
Or (and this is the better option) there is no good evidence that there is anything to doubt in the first place.
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Wouldn't that be a huge embarrassment to Science? Could it ever be admitted?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment#Most_famous_%22failed%22_experiment
- This "failed" experiment was one of the inputs to Einstein's theory of relativity
- What you have missed is that scientists actually like finding errors in previous theories, as it gets them research grants and highly-cited papers (eg anomalous rotation of galaxies)
- and the bigger the error they discover, the more likely they are to receive a Nobel prize (eg the accelerating expansion of the universe)
- The Nobel committee tends to be very conservative, so if an area receives a Nobel Prize, it has been fairly convincingly demonstrated (eg gravitational waves)
For failures of a different kind, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#Controversy_and_criticism
In fact, there are Wikipedia pages listing things that just seem wrong (or at least incomplete).
- One of them is physics beyond the Standard Model (which many physicists today link to identifying the nature of Dark Matter)
- In contrast to this, the Higgs Boson was predicted as part of the current standard model, and some of it's characteristics fairly well predicted (but it's mass was highly uncertain)
- If the Higgs were not real, you would find several new entries on the following page:
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics
It's not the only field with unsolved problems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_mathematics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_chemistry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_biology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_neuroscience
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...Gravity Waves, had been wrongly wired up
It is true that LIGO (USA), VIRGO(Italy) and KAGRA (built by a team in Japan) are continually straining to extract a Gravitational Wave signal from the noise.
But the Nobel Committee awarded a prize in 1993 for astronomical evidence of Gravitational Waves from a binary pulsar.
- This was well before the first gravitational wave detection by LIGO, in 2015
- This pulsar method doesn't require detection of subtle vibrations smaller than the diameter of a proton.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulse%E2%80%93Taylor_binary
In reality, the generation of Gravitational Waves in Spacetime from accelerating masses is no more surprising than:
- generation of Electromagnetic Waves from accelerating charges in a wire (eg radio, TV and cell phones)
- generation of Water Waves from a stone dropped in a pond (accelerating water molecules)
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@charles1948
I think the aspect of science that appears to be eluding you is that scientists, above all else, want to be right. Yes, I want the answer that I found to be the right one, because it is important to my ego and career to be the one who found it. But I would much rather use someone else's better answer than my own worse one!
Because of this, often scientists are their own most dogged critics. We test, and double test, and triple test. Concerned about false wiring? I'm sure the guy who did the wiring spent more time checking it than actually setting it up. And then come the control experiments!
The nifty thing about control experiments is that they very unambiguously allay "what if it's just ___" questions. Because you can set up thee experiment exactly the same way many times, and then verify that the results are X. Over and over and over: always X. Then you change something about the experiment, and the result is Y. Try it the first way again, X. New method? Y. Back and forth a few times, two experiments simultaneously in neighboring setups. Multiple experiments done on different parts of the planet! etc. If what you change about the experiment doesn't change the result, then you have "controlled for" that variable.
So a control experiment is not a guarantee that the experiment is valid, but it can guarantee that whatever factor is being "controlled for" is not causing the results (or it can identify that it is). We only say A causes B when we have ruled out C causes B, D causes B, C and D cause B... etc.
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Technicians should not be blamed for design faults caused by engineers ! it is up to them to vet their designs so that they are technician proof it should be very difficult to put a wrong plug in a socket and power pin outs should be adjusted so that alarums sound and no damage is caused
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Technicians can certainly be excused for a major statutory stupidity.
3-phase wiring used to have the live phases red, yellow and blue, with neutral black. No possibility of getting it wrong even in a dim light, and the incoming conductor to any single-phase ring main was easily identified so you couldn't have two different phases in the same room. No likelihood of motors running backwards because everyone knows in the numeric color code red < yellow < blue, so connect to terminals 1, 2, 3 on the motor.
The European Powers that Be mandated that the live phases shall be brown, grey and black (so they all look the same in a dim light and have no special order) and the neutral, blue (so it is at 230 volts to the old blue wire). But par raison de logique the live feeds to single phase rings must all be brown, whichever incoming phase they are derived from.
My best story so far was finding that the parts of a newly-installed x-ray machine that would be in contact with the patient, measured 440 volts to the casings of all the other equipment in the room. Other guys have been surprised when the x-ray table rotated in the wrong direction and dumped the patient on the floor.
From the Technician's Book of Common Prayer: "That which a genius hath invented, let no committee put asunder."
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Are technicians really scientists who failed their exams
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No.
There are two distinct aspects to the provision of scientific services in health care, and probably in most other industries. Broadly speaking, some problems require investigating and solving "off line" and are in the realm of research and development rather than clinical service, though they usually originate from a perceived failure or inadequacy of a clinical service. Meanwhile, the much larger area of clinical services requires the continuous provision of quality-controlled scientific investigation using proven techniques and technologies. Pretty much the same academic entry requirements apply to both areas of work, but in my experience people succeed and progress in one or other area depending on a developing preference for radical innovation versus consistency and patient contact. Within the NHS, at least, this was recognised by constructing parallel pay scales, the "scientific officer" scale consisting of several short bands with promotion depending on a record of innovation and discovery, and the "technical officer" scale with longer bands to allow for personal development in post and promotion reflecting managerial and clinical responsibility.
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No.
There are two distinct aspects to the provision of scientific services in health care, and probably in most other industries. Broadly speaking, some problems require investigating and solving "off line" and are in the realm of research and development rather than clinical service, though they usually originate from a perceived failure or inadequacy of a clinical service. Meanwhile, the much larger area of clinical services requires the continuous provision of quality-controlled scientific investigation using proven techniques and technologies. Pretty much the same academic entry requirements apply to both areas of work, but in my experience people succeed and progress in one or other area depending on a developing preference for radical innovation versus consistency and patient contact. Within the NHS, at least, this was recognised by constructing parallel pay scales, the "scientific officer" scale consisting of several short bands with promotion depending on a record of innovation and discovery, and the "technical officer" scale with longer bands to allow for personal development in post and promotion reflecting managerial and clinical responsibility.
Thanks Alan for your post. It's difficult for me to understand. It's full of "management-speak".
I wonder, could you express it in lucid English?
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I'm not a manager, and no speaka da bullshit. Which words didn't you understand?
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I'm not a manager, and no speaka da bullshit. Which words didn't you understand?
You used too many abstract nouns, instead of concrete words, that's my objection. But it's the current fashion:
So please carry on. The advantage is that no-one understands what you say, so no-one can disagree.
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You used too many abstract nouns,
I am sorry to hear that you can not understand abstract ideas .
This is a science forum; Abstract ideas are the only way we can do science.
Please feel free to ask for a refund on your membership fee when you leave.
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So please carry on. The advantage is that no-one understands what you say, so no-one can disagree.
It’s not true that no one understands what he says, but I can understand that some might not. However, it is obvious many of those don’t understand concrete ideas either.
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When I was but a mere stripling I was mucking about with vacuum systems attached to an electron accelerator. I had a great friendship with Louie, a refugee from Eastern Europe and a brilliant mechanical workshop technician who built most of my kit.
Came the day a couple of parts didn't mesh together. After a long (four pint) discussion Louie admitted he had misread my drawing, then said "OK, boy, you got it in your head, but I got it in my trousers, which is where the missus likes it."
Is that sufficiently concrete?
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Too much information!
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It's a polite way of saying Philip Ball doesn't understand it.
Phillip Ball did understand it and proceeded to offer his own explanation which I thought joined the category of 'not at all easy to follow'.
Does anyone understand Physics these days. Hasn't it become a kind of fantasy subject, filled with speculations about Black Holes, multi-dimensional wormholes, Gravity Waves revealed by wiggles on pre-filled in graphs, the so-called "Higg's Boson" supposedly found by electronic detectors -without leaving any trace in Bubble Chambers.
Doesn't present-day "Physics" increasingly resemble a mathematical construct, divorced from physical reality.
This is the tragedy. Physics has ceased to explain how the Universe works. It just says, in the famous words, "Shut up and calculate". Who doesn't find this deplorable?
I believe Mr Eric Weinstein has been trying with his theory of geometric unity to actually drive the subject forward.
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I believe...
That's a long list.
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a lot of comments, could not read everything
I completely agree with the comments above, I am very sorry that physics turned into numbers and nothing else, I really liked physics at school, but in college I completely disliked it and I was disappointed in it
Stephen Hawking you are the best
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a lot of comments, could not read everything
I completely agree with the comments above, I am very sorry that physics turned into numbers and nothing else, I really liked physics at school, but in college I completely disliked it and I was disappointed in it
Stephen Hawking you are the best
The trouble is that modern Physicists can only operate with numbers. They can't deal with "qualitative" properties.
Such as colour, smell, taste, softness and hardness. These qualities are recognised by Chemists, who use them as an essential tool to distinguish between the different atomic Chemical elements. As they exist in the real world.
But to a Physicist, these qualities count for nothing. All a Physicist wants to know is:
What's the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in each atom.
Thus the Physicist inhabits an abstract world of numbers, quite divorced from reality.
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These qualities are recognised by Chemists, who use them as an essential tool to distinguish between the different atomic Chemical elements.
Nope.
I do not rely on taste to identify any of the elements.
That would be silly.
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But to a Physicist, these qualities count for nothing. All a Physicist wants to know is:
What's the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in each atom.
No
It's likely that a physicist would like to know why the total mass of a neutron and a proton separately differs from the mass of a neutron and a portion when they are the nucleus of a deuterium atom.
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BC, I fear you are straying into mere sophistry. Again!
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What's the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in each atom.
Thus the Physicist inhabits an abstract world of numbers, quite divorced from reality.
So you think the number of particles in an atom is divorced from reality, huh?
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What's the number of protons, neutrons and electrons in each atom.
Thus the Physicist inhabits an abstract world of numbers, quite divorced from reality.
So you think the number of particles in an atom is divorced from reality, huh?
Look, these days Physicists have invoked so many "particles" that they've lost count.
They've invented more particles than real Chemical elements. How can that make sense?
Isn't it like someone suggesting that there are more "letters of the alphabet", than exist in real written words?
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They've invented...
The correct word is "discovered".
...more particles than real Chemical elements.
So you've counted them? I somewhat doubt there are more than 118 known subatomic particles, but I'm willing to be corrected on this if you can find a list.
How can that make sense?
Argument from incredulity fallacy.
Isn't it like someone suggesting that there are more "letters of the alphabet", than exist in real written words?
No, because letters are abstract concepts. Subatomic particles are not.
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When you say :"letters are abstract concepts", this is false.
I can confute it by showing you a letter: Here it is A
Now show me a sub-atomic particle. A Higgs Boson would do nicely.
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When you say :"letters are abstract concepts", this is false.
I can confute it by showing you a letter: Here it is : A
Those are pixels on a screen that represent a concept.
Now show me a Higgs Boson.
I didn't know you had microscopic vision.
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Even microscopic vision wouldn't reveal a Higgs Boson, as it doesn't exist.
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Even microscopic vision wouldn't reveal a Higgs Boson, as it doesn't exist.
Begging the question fallacy.
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I believe that electrons really exist. Because if they didn't, we wouldn't be having this conversation on our computers.
Which are powered by currents of electrons.
But as for the Higgs Boson, it's not real. It's a product of Physicists' imagination.
Don't you know that, in your heart and mind?
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Don't you know that, in your heart and mind?
I would be a science denialist if I agreed (or a conspiracy theorist, or maybe both).
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Science is not a matter of "denial". It's looking at things objectively. And from that, arriving at the truth.
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Science is not a matter of "denial".
Obviously.
It's looking at things objectively. And from that, arriving at the truth.
Objective evidence for the Higgs has been found, so that checks the boxes (unless you either want to argue (1) there's a conspiracy involved, or (2) particle physicists are morons and you know more about their experiments and equipment than they do).
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They've invented more particles than real Chemical elements. How can that make sense?
In the same way that there are more bricks than houses.
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They've invented more particles than real Chemical elements. How can that make sense?
In the same way that there are more bricks than houses.
But bricks are all the same. Whereas to follow your analogy, the builders of a house would be confronted by all kinds of different bricks. Which would confuse them so much, that they couldn't actually construct anything.
Isn't that the state modern Physicists find themselves in?
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Which would confuse them so much, that they couldn't actually construct anything.
It honestly sounds like you doubt the Standard Model because it confuses you.
Isn't that the state modern Physicists find themselves in?
Nope. The vast majority of particles are made up of quarks, which makes it far easier to classify and understand them.
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But bricks are all the same
Not to a builder or architect.
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How many "quarks" are there. Will there be "anti-quarks" discovered? Which are mirror-images of standard quarks. But with some incomprehensible difference.
What will that difference be described as?
We've already used up epithets such as "colour", "charm" "up" "down" "bottom" "strange" and so on
May I suggest variations on "bonkers"?
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But with some incomprehensible difference.
You do know that the argument from incredulity is a logical fallacy, don't you? That's pretty much the entire feel of your posts on this topic.
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But with some incomprehensible difference.
You do know that the argument from incredulity is a logical fallacy, don't you? That's pretty much the entire feel of your posts on this topic.
Why is it necessarily a "logical fallacy" to argue from incredulity?
For example, suppose you posted this suggestion (not that you would, I know. Just as a hypothesis)
"Drinking bleach makes you immune to Covid-19"
And I expressed incredulity. Would that make me guilty of a logical fallacy? Why would it?
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How many "quarks" are there.
6 Up, down, strange, charm, top, bottom ( top and bottom were, for a while, called truth and Beauty, but soberer heads prevailed) Will there be "anti-quarks" discovered? Which are mirror-images of standard quarks. But with some incomprehensible difference.
Anti-quarks already are part of the family, They are what make up antiprotons and antineutrons. Their properties are just the opposite of their counterparts (opposite charge, for example.)
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Why is it necessarily a "logical fallacy" to argue from incredulity?
Because you are implying that something isn't true because you don't understand it.
I don't understand calculus. Therefore calculus is wrong.
And I expressed incredulity. Would that make me guilty of a logical fallacy? Why would it?
It would be a logical fallacy if you were using your own inability to understand it as evidence that it is wrong. It wouldn't be a logical fallacy if you pointed out valid, biochemistry-based reasons why it is wrong. So far, you haven't provided any reason why the Standard Model is wrong beyond it being "confusing" or "bonkers" or "it's in their imagination".
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They've invented more particles than real Chemical elements. How can that make sense?
It is true that in the 1960s, many new particles were being discovered that didn't seem to fit into any pattern.
- This came to be called the "particle zoo"
- The huge range of observed particles was simplified with the introduction of quarks.
- These different particles were revealed as diquarks and triquarks (more recently, tetraquarks & pentaquarks have also been discovered).
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_zoo
This has some parallels with the situation in chemistry in the 1800s, with new elements were being discovered that didn't seem to fit into any pattern.
- The huge number of observed elements was simplified with the introduction of the periodic table, which (it was discovered later) relate to electron shells.
- A lot of chemistry questions were further resolved with the discovery of electrons, protons and neutrons.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_periodic_table#First_categorizations
You could draw some parallels with the situation in biology in the 1900s, with many species known (a real zoo).
- The huge number of species were simplified with the discovery of DNA
- A lot of biology questions were further resolved with the ability to sequence genomes into A, T, C & G bases.
Science seems to progress in two phases:
- Categorization, where groups of disparate samples are combined into general categories and explained as a pattern
- Differentiation, where small differences from the general pattern are explored, often producing a more detailed pattern
I suggest that you start with the current categories in Physics: The Standard Model and General Relativity (even though physicists know that they are incomplete, it is the best we have at the moment!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity
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They've invented more particles than real Chemical elements. How can that make sense?
Absolutely.
Earth, air, fire and water. "Chemistry" is just mumbo jumbo.
Physiology my arse. Just balance the phlegm and choler and all will be well.
The sun goes round the flat earth and everything else is fixed in a blue sphere. Simples.
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They've invented more particles than real Chemical elements. How can that make sense?
In the same way that there are more bricks than houses.
But bricks are all the same. Whereas to follow your analogy, the builders of a house would be confronted by all kinds of different bricks. Which would confuse them so much, that they couldn't actually construct anything.
Isn't that the state modern Physicists find themselves in?
A better analogy might be "there are more items for sale in a builder's yard, than houses".
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They've invented more particles than real Chemical elements. How can that make sense?
There are millions of chemical compounds known. Is that evidence that chemistry doesn't make sense?
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Does anyone use the forum these days, quite strange at one time we had quite a few posts but these days they are very few.
73s G0FEX Ken
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Does anyone use the forum these days, quite strange at one time we had quite a few posts but these days they are very few.
73s G0FEX Ken
Your post resonates with me Ken. As a relative newcomer to this forum, I've struck by the paucity of posts on it.
So many posts are only from the people running the site. Not much input from outside. Do you think that's because the day of the dedicated scientific forum is over. Replaced by Twitter and Facebook?
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They've invented more particles than real Chemical elements. How can that make sense?
Absolutely.
Earth, air, fire and water. "Chemistry" is just mumbo jumbo.
Physiology my arse. Just balance the phlegm and choler and all will be well.
The sun goes round the flat earth and everything else is fixed in a blue sphere. Simples.
I empathise with your despair. But does modern physics offer any more sense than "Earth, air, fire and water"
At least these were elements that you could see, and experience.
Whereas modern physics proposes invisible, intangible, "quarks". Which apparently come in different "flavours" and "colours" which can be experienced by no-one. Except with the eye of faith, interpreting meter-readings from the LHC.
I fear that modern physics is descending into a mysticism akin to the worst excesses of ancient astronomy, where everything in the sky had to be explained by perfect circular movements at constant speed.
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Arguing that something doesn't exist because you can't see it or experience it is fallacious reasoning. Scientists have become far more clever than that at finding evidence.
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Arguing that something doesn't exist because you can't see it or experience it is fallacious reasoning. Scientists have become far more clever than that at finding evidence.
Aren't they increasingly relying for their "evidence" on meter-readings. From ridiculous contraptions such as the LHC.
What has that got to do with reality?
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Aren't they increasingly relying for their "evidence" on meter-readings.
So what? It sounds like you are arguing that meters are a poor way to record something. If you get pulled over by the police for speeding, are you going to argue that his radar gun is an invalid way of determining your speed because it's just a "meter reading"? Would you willingly walk through an area that had an extreme reading on a Geiger counter? It's just a meter reading, after all. Meter readings have nothing to do with reality. You'd be perfectly safe, right?
From ridiculous contraptions such as the LHC.
So you know more about the Large Hadron Collider than the people who work on it, eh?
What has that got to do with reality?
Everything.
Do you ever plan on using an argument that doesn't rely on your incredulity or lack of understanding?
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I think Charles lives in a world where you are insulated from electricity bills and hard surfaces.
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Aren't (scientists) increasingly relying for their "evidence" on meter-readings?
We have realized over several centuries that there is more going on in the universe than our senses revealed.
- The telescope which revealed moons around Jupiter
- Infra-red radiation, off the red end of the spectrum - and now we use it to change channels on our TV sets
- The microscope which revealed a world of microscopic life, including our own cells and disease organisms
- Electricity, which now does a lot of our housework
- Ultraviolet, off the blue end of the spectrum - and now we know to put on sunscreen to avoid sunburn.
- Radio waves that brought news from around the world, or allow us to fix our position via GPS, or take pictures of a tumor in 3D, assisting cancer treatment
- X-Rays that can improve treatment of a broken bone.
- Seismic waves that travel through the Earth from distant earthquakes
- As well as radioactivity that can blacken a photographic plate (and now generates some of our electricity),
- Cosmic rays that travel through our atmosphere
- Neutrinos that can travel through the thickness of the Earth without hitting anything
- Gravitational waves from distant black hole collisions.
You could call all of these things "sounds", "images", "sensations" or "meter-readings", etc.
- The common thing is that these instruments improve the sensitivity of our natural senses by many orders of magnitude.
This guy was really living in a sensory-deprived world:
Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not
It seems that you want to live there, too (with a life expectancy half of what we can expect today...)
- You would be more likely to end up as the slave who does the menial tasks around the house, rather than the philosopher remembered millennia later!