Re: Cliff Parker's question

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

At 14:40 -0700 9/12/99, Cliff Parker wrote:

> > [I said] Energy is an
> > abstract invention, the product of the mind of man, with absolutely no
> > corporeal existence. If Man had never existed energy would not exist in
> > even its present ephemeral form.
>
> Can't the same be said for mass?  We have no way of detecting it directly.
> > Haven't we simply invented it to allow our minds to hold on to observed
> > phenomenon?

I suppose the same could be said for mass (depending partly on whether
one uses the modern definition (proper mass) or the one with which I
was raised). I don't think that it can be said of matter, however.

> If this idea is pushed hard enough couldn't just about all of physics be
> looked as a human construct?

All of physics is a human construct; Nature is not, and the universe
is not. Physics is our formulation of the laws of Nature. There is
nothing real about a formulation.

I hope that readers here do not think that I am suggesting that a
solipsistic conspiracy is afoot in physics. Physicists are just
trying to read Nature's mind by watching her actions. Most of us do
believe in an objective reality.

> I am still wondering how you would describe the "stuff" of waves?  Is it
> that you simply would not attempt such a description because our language
> would not do it justice?

Waves are easy; our language fully supports the concept because we
can see and touch waves. Your question really relates to wavelike
phenomena, I suspect, and not to mundane water waves.

Let's start with the easiest problem then. Is there any "stuff" in
water waves? I think not. One merely observes a substance in motion
of a sort to which we give that name. It is to the motion itself
that we refer  when we speak of water waves. That motion can be
described far more accurately (if less poetically) using mathematics
than by any other means. Is the mathematics "stuff"? No, it is not.

Leigh