Re: heat is a form of energy

[Bob Sciamanda <trebor@VELOCITY.NET>]

Leigh,
I guess you overshot the rest point, so I get another turn!

I repeat that I am mostly just curious of your notion of "substance".  It
seems that you count an atom (or even just an electron?) as a substance,
and its charge as another substance (correct me if I mis-read).
Apparently you base this on your purely mathematical definition of
substance (localizability, etc?).

My use of the word is more vulgar.  From my sensory impressions, I
construct a model of observable reality as composed of corporeal
substances (things, stuff), and their properties.  A property does not
have an existence of its own (as does a substance); it is something we
invent to describe the behavior/appearance of a substance.  Thus, we
describe the behavior of the sun and planets in terms of their properties,
including "gravitational charge"; in the same way we introduce the
property "electrical charge" to describe our observation of substances
which participate in (what we call) electrical interactions.  But this
schema does not encompass the possibility of a substance playing the role
of a property of another substance,  as your schema seems to do (charge is
a property of an electron, but both are substances).  Unless you literally
model the electron's charge as a paint substance added to an electron
substance.  Is this it?

(As an aside, let it be said that these substance/property notions are
derived from sensory observations of corporeal, macroscopic reality, and
are extrapolated into sub-microscope reality only tentatively and for
purposes of visualization and classification.  Substance as "stuff" is
probably only a macroscopic concept, and has only some analogous meaning,
if any, beyond a certain level of analysis of matter, but we perforce
construct our conceptual models of submicroscopic reality hanging on to
this terminology.)

Bob Sciamanda (W3NLV)
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor

----- Original Message -----
From: Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 1999 3:41 PM
Subject: Re: heat is a form of energy


> Your thoughts are welcome, Bob, and never an imposition. It is
> hard to let it rest, however.
> . . .