X-Message-Number: 21978 From: Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 16:06:22 EDT Subject: Re: CryoNet #21955 --part1_6b.1338f8c6.2c1cda3e_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Robert Ettinger: > math isn't physics and that > most mathematical theories, if not all, are approximations with limited > domains > of application. > There is citation: "From this fountain (the free will of god) it is those laws, which we call the laws of Nature, have folowed, in which there appear many traces of the most wise contrivance, but not the least shadow of necessity. These therefore we must not seek from uncertain conjecture, but learn them from observation and experimental. He who is presomptuous enough to think he can find the true principles of physics and the laws of natural thing by the force alone of his own mind, and the internal light of this reason, must either suppose the world exist by necessity, and by the same necessity follows the law proposed or if the order of Nature was established by the will of god, the (man) himself, a miserable reptile, can tell what was fittest to be done." Isaac Newton. That was said more than 300 years ago. Well, the first mirror symetry would turn god into dog, but that taken out, and if we let the reptiles to fairy dragons world, we need indeed to experiments. The difference with 300 years ago, is that we have a good background of experiments behind us and a fairly large stock of theories to extrapolate from them. So we can see far away in the broad lines. That allows us to plan for more experiments. This is particularly true when the objective is not the mere knowledge but the production of new tools such a brain scanner. Even a mind deduced true theory got without experiment would not give us the sought after instrument. > Whether there are more points in a surface than a line is a matter of > definition. For example in the simpler case of all integers vs. odd > integers, their > numbers are equal by Cantor's method of counting; but by another method of > counting there are twice as many integers as odd integers. The method of > counting > used by nature must be found experimentally in each case. > > Robert Ettinger > The trick is that in different environments, the right method may not be always the same! So, "in each case" must indeed taken into account. There is a practical example of the experimental problem we have to solve: Entangled waves, I have said, may be used in many technologies. Many low energy photons in an entangled state are absorbed simultaneously and work as some high energy radiation. I said that, but where are the proofs? The theory was published by A.N. Boto et al. in Physics Review Letter, vol.85, p. 2733 in the year 2 000. Now, O. Stenernaget in quant-ph/0305042v1 point out that there is a very low intensity treshold in this process. For large intensities of practical interest, the phenomenon disapears. After reading the paper, my opinion is that the critics don't takes into account the near field waves. so the original proposal would work with sufficient entanglement. Now,how you know how nature count entanglement? the Boto or the Stenernaget way? The answer is to do the experiment. If the first solution is OK, well no need to bother, if the second is right, we will have to go back to the quantum tool box and use the many quantifications from Tsutsui et al. to get a sufficient intensity. Well, that is not about how the world work, even if we have to know, but about what path to take to get to a given result. In my view, theories are a prerequisite to define experiments, because they give a representation of the world we are working on. But such theories must not be frozen, they must adapt to new experimental data. This is a continuous interplay: Theories suggest experiments, experiments chose a winning theory. That is science. Technology is about selecting science winning theories to get a given objective. In the past weeks, cryonet readers may have seen a sample of the theories forming my idea of the world, they have not seen the steel tools coming in my garage. :-) Yvan Bozzonetti. --part1_6b.1338f8c6.2c1cda3e_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21978