Re: Newton Lives !

["James R. Olson, jr." <jhavok@xxxxxxxx>]

At 02:25 PM 3/1/97 -0800, Paul wrote:
>Mason A. Clark wrote:
>
>> I can't let this stand:
>>
>> >100 years ago the data for Newton's theory of gravity surely appeared
>> >more than adequate -- as it had for quite some time.  But by 1920
>> >everyone in the field had abandoned it for Einstein's theory.  And now,
>> >of course, things are all very much up in the aire, with various
>> >competing projects of grand unification theory of the fundamental
>> >forces, as they have been for some time.
>>
>> This is a National Enquirer view of science.
>
>Oh really?  Well, I've studied history as well as philsophy of science
>-- and the best teachers I've had in math and sceince taught their
>disciplines in an historical perspective, as a series of problems
>resulting from crises of theory confronting "empirical" problems.
>(Integral calculus confronting Dirac's "delta function" which was not
>really a function is an example of an "emipirical" problem in this
>sense.) So I'm not just drawing on the viewpoints of outside observers.

Etc.

As an ex-physics student, current philosophy student, I believe Paul has it
down pretty well.  Einstein's advance came from looking at things from a
totally different perspective, and because he was able to do that, he
resolved problems that had been bedeviling classical physics for over fifty
years.

Newtonian physics remains only as a pragmatic method of dealing with the
most common special case, where the frames of reference are close enough to
be considered identical, and as an exercise for students in order to build
their problem solving ability.

The problem of economics today is to find that totally different way of
looking at things that will resolve the problems that are leading us into
social/economic collapse.  the difficulty is that there are political
forces at work which oppose that new way of looking, since the old way,
despite its obvious disadvantages, gives them a moral justification for
their rapacity.

I had been thinking about how differences between theory and observation
generally produce an advantage for those who can detect the gap, and
wondering if there were any examples of this.  George Soros' thesis is that
he is one of those people, and his fortune is proof that he has at least
some effective grasp of that gap.  Perhaps his ideas are a starting point
for a new perspective.

Side note:  the major advantage that I see physics having over economics is
that the character and relationship of the important quantities have been
established, and conversions that produce new insight are possible.  I've
seen various uses of quantities here that make it obvious that that is not
yet true in economics, and I would consider that to be the first project.

Of course, such a project cannot be completed all at once, physics has the
advantage of dealing with simple consistent behaviours, and even so it took
hundreds of years to establish the various quantities.