From: chiriu@cco.caltech.edu (Michael Edwin Ichiriu)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA Reply to: Steven Groom
Date: 9 Oct 1992 11:08:39 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: yvonne.caltech.edu

abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian) writes:

[stuff deleted]

>You ask me to    prove my statements! But who has proved (without virtually postulating it) that there is a rectilinear motion with constant velocity! Who?! 

>     Now, as far as Axioms, Principles and Postulates are concerned, if I had  to accept a Principle which is convincing to me, I would accept

>(S)    THE PRINCIPLE OF THE TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING THE STATUS QUO

[more stuff deleted]

>   I am quite well acquainted with Mathematics of Physics.  I have taught 
>many course in Mathematics of Physics (at graduate levels) which however is
>mainly used to "formulate" (often extremely elegantly and very usefully) and
>to "quantify" physical phenomena without giving in depth explanation.  Per-
>sonally, I will take  (S) any time over many other Principles.  TIME also
>wants to maintain its status quo (and to stay still) and some energy is irre-
>trievably used to push TIME forward.    
>                                                  Alexander ABIAN

Having taught all of these "graduate level" courses in Physics, you should
already know that once you put forward a hypothesis, you also have to come
up with some way to test it.  Why should I reject current theory if you
can't prove your hypothesis is correct?

You say the "principle of the tendency of maintaining the status quo" is
"convincing" to you.  How much *you* like an argument has no bearing on
its validity.

As for your arguments against electrostatics, you explained that "one has
to accept some concepts without definitions."  Then why cannot repulsion of
like charges be one such given?	

You explained gravitational attraction by saying it was the "tendency of
matter to be collected together the way they (supposedly) were before the
Big Bang."  Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't rejected the Big Bang!

Let's apply this "Principle" to some problems:

1. A mass m is at height h.  The mass is then moved to height h', where
   h' < h.  What is the magnitude of the repulsion between the earth and m to
   return m to height h?  

2. Two reactants react completely to form a product.  Using the principle
   of the tendency of maintaining the status quo, determine the time t1 at
   which the reaction has been completely reversed.

Obviously, this principle is absurd!  There is no "tendency to maintain the
status quo."  The system is more stable than it was initially in both problems.
Why should I assume that the Big Bang was the beginning of time, i.e. the
original status quo?  Does the failure of the product to decompose into
its constituents reflect that the system was originally in the form of
the product and that the reactants were part of an "intermediary phase?"

You are arbitrarily choosing initial conditions which suit your purposes.
The implications of your "Principle" are different, depending on when you
choose time t=0.

You make unsupported statements and expect us to accept them at face value.
Concerning disease, you have neglected the facts that:

1.  The conditions on Earth which led to the rise of bacteria are the same
    conditions which led to the rise of man, and

2.  Your "theory" is not nearly developed enough for you to advocate any
    action whatsoever.

Basically, you came up with an idea (probably stolen from Lenz) and
tried to apply it on a grand scale.  The three or four examples you thought
of could more or less be explained by your hypothesis, so you adopted it
as a law in your own mind, without devising any method to test it.
If this is the type of mind teaching "graduate level courses" in Physics,
American science doesn't have much of a future to look forward to.
Newsgroups: sci.physics