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Hi Dick,
I will attempt brevity, though I enjoy
elaboration and appreciate its advantages.
Your writing is fun to read.
I am "well behind" in so many of my tasks that
it is best if I speak tersely in response just
for now.
Hi Mike,
"...intellectual capabilities of the human race in general."
The brain is adequate. Learning to use it
will yield more power than anyone has yet shown.
(laughs madly, wrings hands)
"...most of the publications were nothing more than regurgitation of the current status quo ..."
I can accept that statement. It is more true in physics than in biology.
"Ph.D.'s are awarded for proved facility with the mechanical procedures of physics, not for understanding physics."
Yes...in every field, it is a guild initiation
to show willingness to "stay in line" and "talk
the way we do." I have met many (dozens! persons with doctorates in science whom I respected in accordance with the title, tho'.
"...what if all interactions are contact interactions: i.e., if action at a distance were impossible?"
This is the only way I can conceive...there must be a point of contact or there is no interaction;
the propagation of waves may seem like
action at a distance.
(He said) "Physics isn't concerned with 'what if', Physics is concerned with 'what is'..."
He misunderstood you, tho' shouldn't have. Einstein's famous flight of imagination as a 15-year-old was,"What if..." he were riding on a beam of light.
Thanks for telling me about your thesis.
"...however, your continued response also seems to me to be somewhat simple minded."
Yes, it's one of my many apparent talents.
I was trained as a newspaper editor in the
Air Force to write at the level I had been reading since age 12. I still see some value in it.
When you see a fault, then I have not used up
too many minutes constructing beautiful prose
only to have it collapse under analysis.
"When I say "simple minded", all I mean that the response is essentially based on an emotional reaction and displays no real serious thought about the comments I made."
Displays? Emotion is all about 'display.'
I think I played my cards too closely
to communicate clearly. I was not experiencing
visceral responses but abstract ones. If you
are saying my brain is the equivalent of a Commodore 64 to your Cray Supercomputer, then
I agree. But I am kidding when I say that.
True, I've had too many cups of coffee for too many years. But I'm working on it!
" Most everyone takes mathematics as a recipe book for solving problems (think about some Aurino's comments on E&M)."
I think E&M is ...electricity and magnetism?
"As such, the deductions of mathematics are very powerful tools; however, the real issue of mathematics is the logic which yields those deductions. One of the great problems in education is that many people (and this includes a lot of the professional teachers of the subject) only know it as a recipe book and have no real facility at all with the logic behind those deductions."
My Dad's Aunt Edy was married to a guy who
helped produced the SMSG texts in the 1960s.
Remember that? School Math Study Group, I think
it was called.
"What I am saying is that mathematics is, in fact, a language within which logic can be extended far beyond the capability of your conscious mind.
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