[MD] 'Uncertainty

[Ian Glendinning]

BTW Marsha, I'm reading the Lindley book.

It is very good, very readable, all the usual suspects, a history of
"subatomic" physics and the philosophical weirdness that arisess.
Recommended.

Regards
Ian

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 11:15 AM, MarshaV<valkyr at att.net> wrote:
>
> Ian,
>
> Yes, they are all there.  It must have been very dynamic times, indeed.  War
> and hate everywhere, and they were safe within their abstract concepts.  I
> understand that isn't really a fair statement.  -  It is a very enjoyable
> book.  I have another one like it next in the queue. I'm only beginning to
> understand the language.
>
>
> Marsha
>
>
> p.s.  Page 86 of the paperback edition.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
> [mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Ian Glendinning
> Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 5:01 AM
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] 'Uncertainty
>
> Absolutely Marsha,
>
> Einstein, Heisenberg and Bohr, not to mention Schroedinger and Born,
> all I believe (and have said before) got the metaphysical implications
> of the weirdness before them - the lack of intrinsic reality for any
> of us.
>
> Trouble is Copenhagen, (and "many worlds" and the like) created
> mathematical recipe books, that simply ignored them - LHC continues to
> ignore them.
>
> (I shall have to take a look at that Lindley reference.)
>
> Regards
> Ian
>
> On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 9:49 AM, MarshaV<valkyr at att.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >From 'Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the
> Soul
>> of Science' by David Lindley:
>>
>>
>>
>> "   . "When it comes to atoms," Bohr concluded enigmatically, "language
> can
>> be used only as in poetry.  The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with
>> describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental
>> connections."
>>
>>   This, to Heisenberg, was strange and revelatory.  Only a generation
>> earlier, Boltzmann and his allies had argued strenuously for the atom as a
>> concrete .thing., not a theoretical abstraction, still less a poetical
>> allusion.  Was Bohr now saying that physicists couldn't hope to describe
>> atoms concretely, that they must make do with analogies and metaphors?
>  That
>> the intrinsic reality of an atom was inaccessible to them?  That perhaps
> it
>> was meaningless even to talk about the intrinsic reality of an atom?"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> The other day I heard a physicist, talking about the equations to
> calculate
>> spin, say "This isn't just mathematics, this is real".    Huh?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  _____________
>>
>>
>>
>> "There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them."
>>
>>     (Werner Karl Heisenberg)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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