I hadn't heard of this in a while. Many of my grad school instructors worked with Pauli among others; Watson, Crick, Delbruck, etc.
Pauli had a rep for being a bit eccentric as was later demonstrated in his belief that Vitamin C would cure virtually everything under the sun, including cancer. But he DID receive two Nobel's I believe.
nwtk2007 wrote:
I hadn't heard of this in a while. Many of my grad school instructors worked with Pauli among others; Watson, Crick, Delbruck, etc.
Pauli had a rep for being a bit eccentric as was later demonstrated in his belief that Vitamin C would cure virtually everything under the sun, including cancer. But he DID receive two Nobel's I believe.
I could say all quantum physicists are a bit eccentric. It was Feynman that said nobody could really understand the science.
CarolSeer2016 wrote:
I could say all quantum physicists are a bit eccentric. It was Feynman that said nobody could really understand the science.
Their ability to describe mathematically things not possible to visualize with the human brain; he refers to that. The fundamental limit to thinking, thus requiring the human capacity to leap logic.
nwtk2007 wrote:
Their ability to describe mathematically things not possible to visualize with the human brain; he refers to that. The fundamental limit to thinking, thus requiring the human capacity to leap logic.
No, that wasn't what he was referring to.
The math is good for predictions; that doesn't mean the math actually or even accurately describes reality.
CarolSeer2016 wrote:
No, that wasn't what he was referring to.
The math is good for predictions; that doesn't mean the math actually or even accurately describes reality.
I'm pretty sure I have it right. But you're also correct about the math not predicting reality. It's all the same thing.
nwtk2007 wrote:
I'm pretty sure I have it right. But you're also correct about the math not predicting reality. It's all the same thing.
The original Rayleigh-Jeans equation for black box radiation predicted an "ultra-violet catastrophe". So Planck thought deeply (for a German--he was in a hurry. Competing with the Brits, you know) and came up with a new equation that didn't involve a catastrophe, but was a good prediction of the relation between intensity and wavelength. However, he used Maxwell's probabilistic distribution for kinetic energy of gases (and I suspect a flaw in Maxwell's reasoning here; he assumed that the vector quantities of velocity and position were independent. I think he did it mainly to make the math easier, but anyway...) and came up with a "quantum" of energy, instead of the presumptive (at the time) wavelength. Although Planck himself warned against taking it too literally, or even trying to use for other physical concepts.
Gosh, nwtk, I feel better already, just contemplating math and physics. America's soul is driving me mad today.
CarolSeer2016 wrote:
The original Rayleigh-Jeans equation for black box radiation predicted an "ultra-violet catastrophe". So Planck thought deeply (for a German--he was in a hurry. Competing with the Brits, you know) and came up with a new equation that didn't involve a catastrophe, but was a good prediction of the relation between intensity and wavelength. However, he used Maxwell's probabilistic distribution for kinetic energy of gases (and I suspect a flaw in Maxwell's reasoning here; he assumed that the vector quantities of velocity and position were independent. I think he did it mainly to make the math easier, but anyway...) and came up with a "quantum" of energy, instead of the presumptive (at the time) wavelength. Although Planck himself warned against taking it too literally, or even trying to use for other physical concepts.
Gosh, nwtk, I feel better already, just contemplating math and physics. America's soul is driving me mad today.
The original Rayleigh-Jeans equation for black box... (
show quote)
Sounds like your area!!
It was the black box problem which got Plank to postulate the existence of discreet packets of energy rather than the continuous wave as was then thought. How do you suppose he decided on that. He was right of course, but still, it was quite a leap.
nwtk2007 wrote:
Sounds like your area!!
It was the black box problem which got Plank to postulate the existence of discreet packets of energy rather than the continuous wave as was then thought. How do you suppose he decided on that. He was right of course, but still, it was quite a leap.
Actually, even then they were wondering if light was a "corpuscle" (as Newton expostulated) or a wave, according to Huygens. Light demonstrated the effects of both and neither. Of course, cause is not the same as effect. Unless you are a Marxist, in which case cause and effect are the same-same.
Interesting how Hegel/Marx/Lenin/etc. seemed to be (according to their writing) in accord with the "principle" that all nature was based on change---which I have no quarrel with---yet believed that, as Zeno put forth (in paradox form, motion itself was impossible.
That is one of the reasons I'm still trudging through their so-called philosophy. Hard to make sense of it. Every other sentence contradicts another one. It just takes time, I guess. (That was a pun, by the way!)
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