Applied Philosophy

Physicists worldwide were baffled and shocked when a group of European scientists announced last week that they had successfully recorded subatomic particles called neutrinos traveling at speeds higher than light.

—U.S. Scientists to Test Findings that Neutrinos Defied Physics’ Basic Tenet [my emphasis]

This post is not about the recent measurement of faster-than-light speeds, it is about the reaction of the scientific community to this news. The bafflement and shock are a result of the prevalent anti-philosophical nature of the modern education of scientists

Though the difference of speed compared to light is small, it could challenge the entire laws of physics, open up the possibility of time travel and play havoc with longstanding notions of cause and effect.

—U.S. Scientists to Test Findings that Neutrinos Defied Physics’ Basic Tenet [my emphasis]

Physical or natural laws are the abstraction of empirical observations, they are not universal or consist. Physical laws are valid within the range of the empirical observations. The laws of Newton were once considered universal and terminal until the late nineteenth century, but General Relativity had absolutely no effect on the usage of the laws of motion; they are used in every calculation on the surface of the Earth: mechanical machines, construction, geology, et cetera.

Which physics theory is applicable in which domain (original image from Wikipedia)

Even sending a probe to Mars is calculated with Newtonian laws and not with General Relativity, because the difference is well within the margin of error of the instruments and can easily be corrected by the on-board computer. The only people who regularly use General Relativity are astrophysicist and most of what they do is scientific research; in fact the only practical application that I know of is the calibration of the clocks in the GPS system, but only the military get the highly accurate measurement, the rest of us have to live without it.

But many are not convinced. Carlos Rubbia, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1984, said: “I will be very, very surprised that, at last, Einstein will not be the winner.”

—U.S. Scientists to Test Findings that Neutrinos Defied Physics’ Basic Tenet [my emphasis]

So much for Nobel Prizes I guess; that is what you get when you throw philosophy out and just leave “scientific facts”! As to worried scientists who think they are in danger now that robots can go back in time to kill their mothers they should sleep soundly because they will never be leaders of men; as to time travel I am keeping an open mind*.

See also:

• Scale Appreciation in Modern Science
• The Fable of the Cannoneer and the Observer

*: JOKE!

This post is dedicated to those who are still reading and to the dead,
who cannot read anymore.

In Scale Appreciation in Modern Science I wrote the following:

Almost all resources have been put towards developing better computational implementations and bigger computational capacity; while very little has been devoted to developing theories that need less computation.

Now we read in a recent article:

“The models run on these computers can generate visualizations of everything from supernovas to protein structures.But even with the speed supercomputers provide, the complex models are quickly overwhelming current computing capabilities.”

—Mock Supernova Created by Supercomputer [my emphasis]

The real problem is that supercomputers are being overwhelmed by the models, while scientific theory has hardly moved forward for the last two generations. Now that is a scientific crisis.

In the past science advanced by bounds and leaps from one generation to another, sometimes the scientific output of one country declines while that of another increase. Now the whole modern world, with its modern science, is declining without an alternative to take over. There is a real qualitative difference between the so-called scientists of today and real scientists who advanced science in the past.

Newton, who died in 1727, built on the foundation of his predecessors. His three abstract laws became the foundation for scores of empirical laws already discovered by great scientists like Johannes Kepler (died 1630), Galileo Galilei (d. 1642) and Christiaan Huygens (d. 1695), to name just a few.

Those men had built their empirical laws on a solid foundation consisting of observations collected by their predecessors, great names like Nicolaus Copernicus (d. 1543) and Tycho Brahe (d. 1601).

They in turn built on the science developed by the Islamic East and in particular the invention of Algebra, the basis for all subsequent mathematical advances (see the Wikipedia articles: Astronomy in medieval Islam & List of Muslim astronomers).

Newton himself acknowledged this when he wrote: “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants”. Unfortunately the view of modern science is blocked by huge super-computers.

In The Fable of the Cannoneer and the Observer I wrote the following:

They have spent huge amounts of money on building larger and larger accelerators, the failure of each one to advance the science becomes the reason for building an even bigger one; this process of enlargement has resulted in an accelerator as big as a city, the biggest pyramid is always built shortly before the end.

And now the recent article:

“The world’s largest scientific machine has cost $10 billion, has worked only nine days and has yet to smash an atom. The unique equipment in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) circular tunnel with cathedral-sized detectors deep beneath the Swiss-French border has been assembled by specialists in many countries, with 8,970 physicists eagerly awaiting the startup.

But despite the expense, thousands of physicists around the world, many of whom hope to conduct experiments here, insist that it will work and that it is crucial to mankind’s understanding of the universe.

…

The collider emerged as the world’s largest after the U.S. canceled the Superconducting Super Collider being built in Texas in 1993. Congress pulled the plug after costs soared, and questions were raised about the value of the science it could produce.

…

They hope the higher energy will enable them to see particles so far undetected, such as the elusive Higgs boson, which in theory gives mass to other particles — and objects and creatures — in the universe.”

—Particle collider: Black hole or crucial machine? Associated Press [my emphasis]

I can say no more than: “the biggest pyramid is always built shortly before the end”.

In The Fable of the Cannoneer and the Observer I wrote the following:

The social phenomenon of the high priests building ever bigger pyramids at great social expense with no social benefit at all is a worrying phenomenon to those who study history, such a phenomenon usually appear just before everyone ‘decides’ to abandon the cities to the jungle and turn away from complex societies to simple subsistence

Now we read the following in the news:

“The US has finished constructing a huge physics experiment aimed at recreating conditions at the heart of our Sun.

The US National Ignition Facility is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of nuclear fusion, a process that could offer abundant clean energy.

…

To work, it must show that more energy can be extracted from the process than is required to initiate it.

Professor Mike Dunne, who leads a European venture that is also pursuing nuclear fusion with lasers, told BBC News that if NIF was successful, it would be a “seismic event”.

-Giant laser experiment powers up, 31 March,BBC [my emphasis]

Yet another “huge” experiment worth billions of dollars! Again fantastic promises are made that cannot and will not be kept. Nuclear fusion is quite feasible and there is no need to demonstrate its “feasibility”, the important point is that it’s a phenomenon that does not exist in nature!

Trying to recreate “conditions at the heart of our Sun” would be like asking a cave man to produce a laser beam, or a small island-state to support the industrial base of China or asking a child to sing like the late Pavarotti.

Nuclear reactors takes a natural phenomenon (nuclear fission) and concentrates it to produce energy, it does not manufacture the phenomenon itself but works like a lens or a laser device or a sound amplifier that takes something that exists in nature and focus it.

Fusion on the other hand does not exist in the natural world inhabited by mankind, it only exist in the heart of a Star, that is beyond nature and any attempt to recreate it will sound like a five year old singing Nessun Dorma.

We return to the news article to read further:

“The California-based NIF is the largest experimental science facility in the US and contains the world’s most powerful laser. It has taken 12 years to build.

…

Experiments will begin in June 2009, with the first significant results expected between 2010 and 2012.

…

Fusion is looked on as the “holy grail” of energy sources because of its potential to supply almost limitless clean energy.

But the challenge of creating a practical fusion reactor has eluded scientists for decades. Now, however, they believe they are nearing their goal.

“We are now very close to the culmination of 50 years’ effort,” explained Professor Dunne.

There are currently several experimental facilities around the world aimed at demonstrating the building blocks of nuclear fusion.

Fusion naturally occurs at the centre of stars where huge gravitational pressure allows the process to happen at temperatures of about 10 million Celsius.

At the much lower pressures on Earth, temperatures to produce fusion need to be much higher – above 100 million Celsius.”

-Giant laser experiment powers up, 31 March,BBC [my emphasis]

Well now California can boast of having the biggest laser as well as the biggest state deficit in the union. The madness contained in the first sentences alone boggles my mind. Building dedicated experimental facilities for science is madness, building the world’s largest laser for scientific research is madness and spending twelve years on the project is twelve times madness.

There is not a single commercial project financed by private capital that takes half as much time since the railroads connected the coasts of North America. Whether the machine will work or not is yet to be seen, the European’s fanfare about the new accelerator turned into embarrassment when it failed to function.

In my previous post I wrote:

They have spent huge amounts of money on building larger and larger accelerators, the failure of each one to advance the science becomes the reason for building an even bigger one; this process of enlargement has resulted in an accelerator as big as a city, the biggest pyramid is always built shortly before the end.

We go back, one last time, to the news article:

“NIF’s beams are intended to deliver more than 60 times the energy of any previous laser system. When fired, the pulse will last just a few nanoseconds (billionths of a second) but it will impart an energy equivalent to 500 trillion Watts – more than the peak electrical generating power of the entire United States.

…

Other experiments have shown that ignition is possible, but so far none have been able to demonstrate a net energy gain.

“The world is looking to NIF to provide a clear, unequivocal demonstration that lasers can initiate fusion energy gain,” said Professor Dunne.

“This would lay the fundamental physics question to rest, allowing the community to focus on harnessing this energy.”

Although NIF is only at the beginning of its experimental life, scientists are already planning its successor, a European project known as Hiper (High Power Laser Energy Research).

…

At approximately the same time, scientist will also get their hands on another mammoth fusion experiment, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter), currently being built in Cadarache, France.”

-Giant laser experiment powers up, 31 March,BBC [my emphasis]

The big numbers sure do dazzle, even thought they are wrong! Watt is the unit of power and not energy. The energy imparted by the laser will be the power multiplied by the duration, thus 500 trillion by billionths of a second, or 10¹⁴ by 10^-9 or a hundred thousand joule. This energy according to Wikipedia is about “the average kinetic energy of an automobile at highway speeds” (Orders of magnitude (energy))!

“Net energy gain” will forever elude them, no matter how close they come to zero they will never achieve it. The problem has nothing to do with technology it is a problem of mathematical education! Engineers are always trying to trisect the angle or square the circle, they keep coming up with system that approximate the desired end but never really get there. They refuse to accept that it is mathematically proven that one cannot trisect the angle or square the circle, or generate energy from fusion on Earth for that matter.

What is the “fundamental physics question” that will be answered? Or maybe we should ask: should we build such an expansive experiment when the “fundamental physics question” is still unanswered? How is it possible that Einstein could come up with the special theory while working for the patent office-I could name many others, Descartes is another good example-and the legions of current scientists are unable to do anything without first spending a couple of billion dollars-and even after spending the money they cannot come up with the goods.

These “scientists” belief in the power of science is just as irrational and dangerous as ancient priests’ belief in the power of a statue housed in a temple to change the climate. As more resources are directed towards building larger temples instead of better irrigation-works collapse becomes inevitable-the film Rapa Nui (1994) demonstrates this points wonderfully, it is the film that Apocalypto (2006) wanted to be.

The Fable

A cannoneer sets up his cannon on a high plateau and starts firing cannonballs into the valley below him. His cannonballs are all alike but for every shot he varies the elevation of the cannon and the charge-the charge affects the velocity of the cannonball as it leaves the cannon-according to a pattern set in advance.

Science would say that an observer in the valley who would observe where the cannonballs hit the ground and how fast they are travelling would be able to deduce the elevation and charge used by the cannoneer, thus deducing the pattern used to vary them and subsequently predicting where the next cannonball would fall.

In practice an observer placed in the bottom of the valley measuring the velocity of the cannonballs would discover that they all hit the ground at the same velocity! All cannonballs would be moving at their terminal velocity, because air friction would reduce the velocity if it is higher and gravity would increase it if it were lower than terminal velocity.
Read the rest of this entry »

The worst thing that happened to science in the last fifty years is the invention of the super-computer, while the great computational power of these machines made it possible to solve some problems using the latest scientific theory it has also been a barrier to the development of newer and more efficient theories.

Almost all resources have been put towards developing better computational implementations and bigger computational capacity; while very little has been devoted to developing theories that need less computation.
Read the rest of this entry »