From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: LARSONIAN Physics and Astronomy
Date: 28 Sep 92 21:40:50 GMT
Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <1992Sep27.172211.1391@cnsvax.uwec.edu> mcelwre@cnsvax.uwec.edu writes:
>
>                          LARSONIAN "Reciprocal System"

Some E-MAIL I got this afternoon asked for clarification about what was 
wrong with this STUFF.  Now there was plenty of evidence in previous 
POSTINGS to make it clear that this stuff is lacking in its agreement 
with EXPERIMENT, but I wanted to be sure.  SO I logged into the on-line 
catalog for the State University System libraries and looked for 

>          BOOKS of Dewey B. Larson

and, lo and behold, *our* poor beknighted library actually has 

>               "The Structure of the Physical Universe" (1959) 
>    
>               "The Case AGAINST the Nuclear Atom" (1963)
>    
>               "Beyond Newton" (1964) 
>    
>               "New Light on Space and Time" (1965) 

so it was off on a most amusing expedition.  After an hour with "The 
Case Against the Nuclear Atom" ... it is a thin little PINK BOOK ... 
I have been ENLIGHTENED.  This book is amazing. 

The copy in our LIBRARY was checked out repeatedly in 1964 and 1965, but 
the last two times it was taken out were in 1969 and 1975.  It has also 
been ANNOTATED; one comment is a classic: "The author concludes from 
his inability to understand the [atomic] theory that it must be wrong 
in its conclusions."  I could not say it better.  

The book TAKES EXCEPTION to the interpretation of the "Rutherford"  
experiment, and replaces it with a model that says the entire ATOM 
is of NUCLEAR size.  Of course, the author is clearly ignorant of 
the fact that the experiment was done by Geiger and Marsden (his 
reference list is mostly textbooks, Scientific American articles, 
and the like, no actual papers are referenced) and that Rutherford's 
paper dealt with the LAWSON HYPOTHESIS.  The idea Lawson proposes 
is that the observed scattering is due to small hard neutral spheres, 
thereby ignoring the fact that what is seen is not hard sphere but 
rather COULOMB scattering.  All of which ignores the data published 
in 1956 by Hofstadter for electron scattering from nuclei that shows 
great detail -- and how would an electron scatter electrically from 
a small neutral object?  But this is all easy if you use NO MATHEMATICS 
and calculate no results for COMPARISON with experiment. 

Anyway...

My favorite is the way Lawson confuses QUANTUM THEORY with Bohr ORBITS.  
Also the way he misinterprets statements of the Copenhagen interpretation 
and proceeds to confuse PHILOSOPHY with physics.  

A confused example: he quotes Lande' about the need for a UNITARY theory 
and uses it as an argument for a UNIFIED theory.  Not the same thing.    

 heh heh (excuse my chuckle, but the book is full of such things)

I also like the way he dismisses the idea that there might be a strong 
nuclear force as just some EPICYCLE to explain away the repulsion of 
protons in a nucleus.  Of course, he does not know of the detailed 
experiments of proton and neutron scattering circa 1960 that mapped 
out that force and showed it had the very properties needed to 
explain the properties of nuclei.  It is unclear if he is aware of 
the existence of nuclear excited states, and how he explains them. 

What is interesting is the similarity between his photon model for 
atoms and particles and a quark-antiquark model for mesons.  He was 
worried about some of the right problems, but WASTED too much effort 
on the wrong ones.  

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)