HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Religion & Physics Don't Mix
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 17:57:50 GMT

In article <74353@hydra.gatech.EDU> cegtitd@prism.gatech.EDU (Tim Dodd) writes:

(a very thoughtful article, with which I have only a few quibbles:)

>When a person is thinking scientifically that is what I will call "rational
>mode".  In this mode of thought, the sole object is to acquire the truth.
>What do we mean by "truth"?  An assertion is judged "true" if it accurately
>reflects the nature of reality.  How do we decide if a statement is true?
>We devise an empirical test and let reality tell us if the statement is
>accurate.
>
>Religious thought is typified by "mystical mode".  In this mode of thought,
>it is recognized that there exists a level of "truth" or "reality" to which
>mere rational thought does not have access.  Mystical thought acquires
>"truth" through revelations of various sorts.  The fundamental "truths" of
>religion are not subject to empirical verification because they are defined
>in a manner which precludes even the possibility of such testing.

I think this explanation is itself unnecessarily mystical, or at least 
mystifying.  

There's nothing hard to understand, and nothing particularly religious,
about faith.  Most of you probably believe that your Significant Other 
isn't cheating on you.  Why?  Have you engaged private detectives?  Have
you designed double-blind experiments to test your hypothesis?  No; you
just trust them, and recognize that this kind of personal trust, rather than 
scientific skepticism, is what's called for in a relationship.

Religion simply asks for this kind of trust in one's god.  

>On the other hand, honest theologians admit that God cannot be found through
>the use of reason.  A "leap of faith" is required to believe in God.  The
>act of taking this leap is mystical by definition, and cannot be rationally
>justified.

Not all would agree.  In Catholic theology, for instance, it is asserted 
that the existence of God can be proved by reason alone.  But "belief" in
God is generally taken to require not just an acceptance of his existence,
but trust and allegiance, and this is what cannot be based on reason alone.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: sschaff@roc.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Stephen F. Schaffner)
Subject: Re: Religion & Physics Don't Mix
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 19:12:14 GMT

In article <73753@hydra.gatech.EDU>, cegtitd@prism.gatech.EDU (Tim Dodd) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov4.225441.22809@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU+ 
crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:


|> +     It is not backwards.  Where the burden of proof lies is a matter
|> +     of taste, especially in propositions that are not provable.  You may
|> +     well claim that 'X exists', but you will never be able to 
|> +     'prove' X's existence.
|> 
|> Where the burden proof lies is not a matter of taste.  If you are trying
|> to change someone's mind about some assertion they hold to be true, you
|> are the one who must offer reasons for them to reconsider.

It's a minor quibble, but I thought the point of this thread was to convince 
readers that scientists can (and should) dispense with religion.  By your 
argument, that would place the burden of proof on you.


|> +     As far as 'reality' goes, if you may define it as you wish,
|> +     just don't expect everybody else to share the definition, especially
|> +     outside of science.
|> +
|> 
|> If a concept is defined in such a manner that it cannot in principle
|> ever be shown to pertain to a component of reality, that concept is by
|> definition meaningless.  Science deals with reality; the fundamental tenets
|> of religion are completely beyond the bounds of reality.  They are *defined*
|> that way.

Only by your definition, and according to your concept of reality.  Plenty of 
people (of whom I am certainly not one) believe that the "reality" that 
science studies is nothing but an illusion; for them, it is the fundamental 
tenets of science that are completely beyond the bounds of reality.  
Furthermore, there is another group of people (smaller, but more likely to have 
tenure at American universities) that holds that reality is nothing but a 
social construct, or that science is just one more text to be deconstructed.
And they're just as prepared to write off your beliefs as you are to write off 
theirs.

-- 
Steve Schaffner        sschaff@unixhub.slac.stanford.edu
	The opinions expressed may be mine, and may not be those of SLAC, 
Stanford University, or the DOE.
From: columbus@strident.think.com (Michael Weiss)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: ferromagnetism: the QM basis
Date: 12 Nov 92 20:01:58 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: strident.think.com
In-reply-to: alison@wsrcc.com's message of Thu, 12 Nov 1992 05:58:37 GMT

Thank you for the explanation.  I think I'm beginning to get a glimmer.
Let me try out my own rewording for size:

1)  The exchange energy is not simply another name for the Pauli exclusion
    principle.  Rather, it is correction to the classical calculation for
    the electrostatic energy, and arises from the antisymmetry
    properties of the wave function for an ensemble of electrons.
    Coulomb's formula applied to an antisymmetric distribution yields
    (classical electrostatic energy) + (exchange energy) + lower order terms.
    (Would it be correct to say it is due to the need to treat an
    ensemble of electrons with Fermi-Dirac statistics rather than Boltzman
    statistics?)

2)  The exchange energy affects the way electrons fill up energy levels in a
    solid, again modifying classical expectations.  For iron, it turns out
    the minimum energy configuration is with the electon "gas" having aligned
    spins, and the bound electrons having spins aligned too, but aligned
    opposite to the free electrons.

3)  There is no simple qualitative explanation of why iron should have this
    sort of minimum energy state, while copper, for instance, doesn't.
From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: dimensionality of space
Date: 9 Nov 92 23:12:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: ut-emx.83286
Distribution: na
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin


In article <1992Nov06.211115.134895@watson.ibm.com>, lucas@watson.ibm.com (Bruce D. Lucas) writes:
> How do we know space is three-dimensional, or space-time
> four-dimensional?  Is there a simple experiment one can do to
> determine the dimensionality of space or of space-time?

Snap your fingers.  Wait a moment and snap your fingers again in a
different location.  Count the number of coodinates you need to
uniquely the location of the finger snaps.

The number will be 4.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jcm@coombs.anu.edu.au (J.C. McPherson)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: WHO MURDERED ALBERT EINSTEIN?
Date: 8 Nov 92 05:35:26 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.76.2

I heard the following joke from a friend:

Q. Why did the Mafia murder Albert Einstein?

A. 'Cos he knew too much.

(select your favourite "I love to hate" organisation instead of the Mafia
if you wish ;>)

JC.
--


   Internet: clement@arp.anu.edu.au
		jcm@coombs.anu.edu.au
From: johan@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl (Johan Wevers)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Religion & Physics Don't Mix
Date: 6 Nov 92 10:28:03 GMT

Cameron Randale Bass writes:

>>> Actually, most core doctrine is taken on faith.  There ain't no
>>> way to determine the 'truth' of faith.  It's 'true' until the 
>>> last adherent dies, after which may be debate.

>>You can believe in something that can be proven wrong. What's the point?

> I don't know?  Does there have to be a 'point'?

Yes. If something is proven wrong and you still believe in it you're
views about the world are inconsistent.

> Not necessarily within their religion.  Within science certainly,
> but you cannot insist that they play by *your* rules in
> *their* religion.

>>> Why do certain people have such difficulty with the proposition
>>> that there are domains which 'science' and 'logic' can never reach?

> You seem to be having difficulties with delineation between
> science and religion.  Let me help you out, if you're talking about
> 'gods' your rules for science do not necessarily apply.  Similarly,
> in science there is no place for unfalsifiable concepts like 'God'.

Hmmm. I conclude from this that your opinion about science is an
instrumentalistic one: you use it to describe some things you want
to measure.

My view is realistic: I believe that there exists a reality, independant
wether we know this or not. The main thing QM has to learn us about this
is that the interaction between observers and the rest of reality is not
always neglectable.

Therefore, I believe in only one reality. This reality can be described
by science. I've never seen any hint that there exists anything more.
-- 
********************************************************** 
* J.C.A. Wevers                *   The only nature of    * 
* johan@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl *   reality is physics.   * 
**********************************************************
From: ande@sierra.com (Ande Rychter)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Religion and Science don't mix
Date: 6 Nov 92 01:13:31 GMT
Organization: Sierra Geophysics Inc.,  Kirkland, Wa

In 26495 Angelo J. Paguia writes:

> "... The two [ie religion and science] don't mix and do not contradict 
>  nor support each other."

You are right.  But they can displace each other.  And that's what's
happening in this country right now.  (Guess which one is doing the 
displacing.  Hint: Think of Oral Roberts) -AR
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian)
Subject: TIME HAS INERTIA        ABIAN REPLIES TO M.S.T.  WATTS
Keywords: (A1) and (A2)
                                      
                                          11-9-92
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 04:13:13 GMT

Mr. Watts,                          

   I tried to read your two  page posting. It is difficult for me 
to manage to catch your whole posting since (repeating your words)
the construction of your sentences are grammatically faulty.  If
you rewrite your posting (again repeating your words) in correct
English, I may  reconsider replying to it.
   In the meantime you are proving the validity of my (A1) and
so do I too:

(A1)     THE TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING THE STATUS QUO, REACTION TO PRO-
         VOCATION AND THE TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING AGAIN A STATUS QUO.


-- 
   The tendency of maintaining the status-quo, Reaction to provocation and
                The tendency of maintaining again a status-quo.  
    TIME HAS INERTIA  and some energy is lost to move Time forward  
  E = mcc  (Einstein)    must be replaced by    E = m(0) exp(-At) (Abian)
From: Bruce.Scott@launchpad.unc.edu (Bruce Scott)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Campfire and plasma musings
Date: 8 Nov 92 20:34:20 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service

Scott Chase has already posted that a plasma is an ionised gas. That is
the usual approximation that those of us who do fusion theory take:
purely ionised gas. But there is more to it that that. The density of
charged particles must be such that a phenomenon known as "electron
screening" is important. This means that each particle interacts mostly
with the electric field set up by all the other particles of the gas.
Only rarely during the flight of any given particle does it come so
close to another that direct, two-body electric forces enter play. These
are the short-lived affairs we call "collisions", and do not actually
mean that the two particles touched (the plasma collisionality is
usually much greater than what would obtain if the particles were not
charged).  "Electron screening" means that if I place a test charge in a
plasma, the background electrons will move in response to the charge's
own electric field such that the new charge will not feel direct,
two-body force from any other charge (both positive ions and electrons)
if it is more than a certain distance away (called the "Debye length",
after its discoverer). The ensemble is a "plasma" if the number of
*charges* in a Debye sphere (sphere of radius Debye-length) is large
compared to 1. This means that there is a lot of screening, and two-body
forces are dominated by collective effects (a fancy way to say that the
electric field to which each charge reacts is from the ensemble and not
from only one or two of the other charges).

Now, I've said "charge" rather than "particle", because in general a
plasma need not be fully, or even dominantly, charged. Both a flame and
the glow discharge in a flourescent light are examples in which the
charge density is very small compared to the neutral density. However,
there are in both cases enough charges at high enough temperature to
satisfy the above condition.

In an industrial place like Germany, most plasma research (by number of
researchers rather than money) is on glow discharges, and most new PhD's
go to places like Siemens and Phillips.

In a defense-oriented place like the US, most work on things like beam
physics and high-performance lasers.

Fusion is the wild card, requiring much money (for the big experiments)
and comparatively fewer people.

Read what you want into that.

Gruss,
Dr Bruce Scott                             The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik       odorless and transparent
bds at spl6n1.aug.ipp-garching.mpg.de                 -- W Gibson

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: No big crunch?
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 02:00:22 GMT

In article <1dcf7vINNfi0@agate.berkeley.edu> ted@physics.Berkeley.EDU (Emory F. Bunn) writes:

>I also want to reiterate that the dark matter hypothesis looks considerably
>less "outrageous" when you note that virtually every extension of the
>standard model of particle physics predicts heavy new particles.
>The suggestion that the reason for this is that the particle physicists
>have rigged their theories in order to make this true so that they can
>solve the dark matter problem is manifestly absurd:  The idea that there
>should be a grand unified symmetry is older than the dark matter problem,
>and has many strong arguments to recommend it that are independent of
>cosmology.  Grand unified theories require new massive particles.  This

      How can one make definitive statements about GUT's *requiring*
      new massive particles without there existing a tenable GUT?
      After all, I am reasonably sure that there are infinite possible
      theories that do not require new particles.  In fact, there are 
      probably potential GUTs that do not even use the concept of particles.
      I am not so confident as to the suitability nor the uniqueness of
      our representations as you appear to be.

>is an argument in favor of nonbaryonic dark matter which is completely
>independent of the usual cosmological ones.

      In the absence of a tenable theory, this is not an argument for
      much of anything.

      I repeat my question.  How would Einstein have fared against
      an army of 'believers' in the nonbaryonic dark matter hypothesis?
      Thank goodness the particle zoo was rather barren at the time.
      I suspect that he wouldn't have wasted his time because one
      of his primary motivations would have been gone.  Even if he
      did, I suspect no one would have listened.  Seelinger's hypothesis
      of intra-Mercurial matter would have been greatly strengthened
      if he had just known about the nonbaryonic dark matter that was 
      everywhere in great abundance, especially seeing as you didn't
      actually have to *see* anything.

>The most important point is simply this:  If you want to decide whether
>or not to believe in nonbaryonic dark matter, you'd best study the evidence,
>and see whether or not you find it compelling.  It's not good enough just
>to say, "It sounds pretty strange to me, so I don't buy it."

      Nor is it good enough to say 'everyone accepts it, so it must
      be okay'.   I am reminded of the emperor's clothes.

                              dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
From: matt@physics16.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Solid-state doesn't use QED! (Was Re: Particle Research)
Date: 8 Nov 92 22:55:53
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
	<1992Nov7.034453.2080@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <23767@galaxy.ucr.edu>
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics16.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: baez@ucrmath.ucr.edu's message of 8 Nov 92 23:20:21 GMT

In article <23767@galaxy.ucr.edu> baez@ucrmath.ucr.edu (john baez) writes:

> In solid state you have
> quite a bit of choice in terms of finding systems that have roughly some
> Lagrangian or other, so you can really test your mathematical notions to
> some extent.  (Typically, of course, the real condensed matter system is
> more complicated than the Lagrangian you guessed for it, so these "tests"
> are always suspect.)

Oh, but that's the whole point of a renormalization group analysis,
right?  You just show your Lagrangian includes all of the relevant
parameters.

In a sense, I think that the renormalization group justifies, in
retrospect, a lot of what physicists have done for over a century:
modeling a very complicated system by a simple mathematical
description.
--
Matthew Austern                   Just keep yelling until you attract a
(510) 644-2618                    crowd, then a constituency, a movement, a
austern@lbl.bitnet                faction, an army!  If you don't have any
matt@physics.berkeley.edu         solutions, become a part of the problem!
From: antennae@gn.apc.org
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: TIME HAS INERTIA - for laymen?
Date: 13 Nov 92 22:48:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:gn:1541700002:000:1107
Nf-From: gn.UUCP!antennae    Nov 13 22:48:00 1992



As a non-physics person who stumbled into this conference by accident
and stayed out of fascination, it seems to me that you are all behaving
very oddly towards Professor Abian.

If his theory (not a syllable of which can I understand) is wrong,
why can't the brainiest of you give a proper scientific proof once and
for all?

I would like someone to explain to me in layman's terms what are the
implications of Professor Abian's idea.  Even supposing that it is
utterly crackbrained, might his line of thought not be worth exploring
in case it sparks some insight?

The oddest thing for me is how those who claim to be most scientifically
orthodox attack Abian in the most emotional terms.  Has science always
been conducted in this way?

Finally, how much of the physics that all of you spout has been learned
from books?  And how much by creative thought and experiment?  Are most
of you merely parroting conventional wisdom and if so, isn't that at the
very least rather boring?

These questions are posed by someone who read English at university
and who earns his living by creative writing.

Indra
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: columbus@strident.think.com (Michael Weiss)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math
Subject: Re: What's a manifold?
Date: 5 Nov 92 17:35:55
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
	<1992Nov5.060400.14203@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
	<SMITH.92Nov5101553@gramian.harvard.edu>
	<1992Nov5.161930.21320@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: strident.think.com
In-reply-to: pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU's message of Thu, 5 Nov 1992 16:19:30 GMT


Vaughn Pratt asks why the modern abstract definition of a manifold is
"better" than an "imbedded" definition.

The theory of Riemann surfaces surely provided important motivation,
historically, for the modern approach.  For example, consider the classic
situation for elliptic functions: you can start by constructing the branched
two-cover of the Riemann sphere associated with the equation 
w^2 = (z^2-1)(k^2 z^2 -1), and take integrals on that, but you only really
see what's going on when you recognize that this surface is conformally
equivalent to a torus.

Now of course you could pick a particular imbedding of the torus in 3
space, and a particular immersion of the branched surface in 3 space, but
this emphasizes the incidental and obscures the essential.

If you'll buy this argument for conformal atlases, why not for smooth ones?
(It would be interesting to know which came first.)

I believe there is a historical connection between this line of thought and
the origin of the modern definition of a topological space, but I better
not say any more without checking.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: wvhorn@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (William VanHorne)
Subject: Re: Gravity, why?
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 15:21:46 GMT

In article <5795@npg-sd.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM> claborne@npg-sd.SanDiegoCA.NCR.COM (Chris Claborne) writes:
>I am looking a book or books that will explain gravity for the lay person.
>I want to know why an object with a large mass (like the earch) pulls at 
>everythng arround it (light, me, my computer).  What is it that is causing
>the pull?  How can we have gravity waves?
>

  "The Relativity Explosion"  by  Martin Gardner
  "The ABCs of Relativity"  by  Bertrand Russell
  "Gravity"  by  George Gamow

Any one of the three will do, all are excellent presentations of gravity/GR.
All three are still in print and in paperback (gee, I *hope* they're still 
in print).  Gamow is, of course, the most fun.

As a sidelight, can we add "The Relativity Explosion" to the FAQ?  This book is
an update of Gardner's c.1960 book "Relativity For The Millions" and covers
SR and GR without any of those nasty ol' equations. Gardner abandoned his usual
mission of proving how clever he is to provide a lucid explanation of all
sorts of "paradoxes" inherent in SR & GR. It has often seemed to me that the
questions seen here about twins, poles and barns, FTL scissors, etc., 
need not take up as much bandwidth as they do since they are covered so well
in a cheap and readily available paperback.

IMHO, of course.

---Bill VanHorne

--------------------------------------------------
Please try to use the word paradigm in every post.
Thank you.
-------------------------------------------------- 
From: ric@hpspdla.spd.HP.COM (Ric Peregrino)
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 19:20:56 GMT
Subject: Re: Covariant vs. Lie Derivative in Gen. Rel.?
Organization: HP Stanford Park - Palo Alto, CA