I don’t consider this an advantage. My goal is to find vivid and direct demonstrations of scientific truths, and so I am happy to use things that are commonplace today, like telephones, computers, cameras, or what-have-you.
Well, you could use your smartphone’s accelerometer to verify the equations for centrifugal force, or its GPS to verify parts of special and general relativity, or the fact that its chip functions to verify parts of quantum mechanics. But I’m not sure how you can legitimately claim to be verifying anything; if you don’t trust those laws how can you trust the phone? It would be like using a laser rangefinder to verify the speed of light. For this sort of thing the fact that your equipment functions is better evidence that the people who made it know the laws of physics, than any test you could do with it.
Well, you could use your smartphone’s accelerometer to verify the equations for centrifugal force, or its GPS to verify parts of special and general relativity, or the fact that its chip functions to verify parts of quantum mechanics.
These don’t feel like the are quite comparable to each other. I do really trust the accelerometer to measure acceleration. If I take my phone on the merry-go-round and it says “1.2 G”, I believe it. I trust my GPS to measure position. But I only take on faith that the GPS had to account for time dilation to work right—I don’t really know anything about the internals of the GPS and so “trust us it works via relativity” isn’t really compelling at an emotional level. For somebody who worked with GPS and really knew about the internals of the receiver, this might be a more compelling example.
But I’m not sure how you can legitimately claim to be verifying anything; if you don’t trust those laws how can you trust the phone? It would be like using a laser rangefinder to verify the speed of light. For this sort of thing the fact that your equipment functions is better evidence that the people who made it know the laws of physics, than any test you could do with it.
Yes of course. In real life I’m perfectly happy to take on faith that everything in my undergraduate physics textbooks was true. But I want to experience it, not just read about it. And I think “my laser rangefinder works correctly” doesn’t feel like experiencing the speed of light. In contrast, building my own rangefinder with a laser and a timing circuit would count as experiencing the speed of light.
I am starting to worry that my criteria for “experience” are idiosyncratic and that different people would find very different science demonstrations compelling.
I am starting to worry that my criteria for “experience” are idiosyncratic and that different people would find very different science demonstrations compelling.
Otherwise known as the Typical Mind Fallacy :-)
But yes, you are correct, as long as your main criterion is something like “compelling at an emotional level”, you should expect that different people understand it very differently.
But yes, you are correct, as long as your main criterion is something like “compelling at an emotional level”, you should expect that different people understand it very differently.
This actually brings out something I had never thought about before. When I am reading or reviewing papers professionally, mostly the dispute between reviewers is about how interesting the topic is, not about whether the evidence is convincing. Likewise my impression about the history of physics is that mostly the professionals were in agreement about what would constitute evidence.
So it’s striking that when I put aside my “working computer scientist” hat and put on my “amateur natural scientist” hat, suddenly that consensus goes away and everybody disagrees about what’s convincing.
mostly the dispute between reviewers is about how interesting the topic is, not about whether the evidence is convincing
Your observation of little conflict about whether the evidence is convincing could be explained by a consensus about whether it is convincing, but it could also be explained as low priority. That is my experience in math.
Well, you could use your smartphone’s accelerometer to verify the equations for centrifugal force, or its GPS to verify parts of special and general relativity, or the fact that its chip functions to verify parts of quantum mechanics. But I’m not sure how you can legitimately claim to be verifying anything; if you don’t trust those laws how can you trust the phone? It would be like using a laser rangefinder to verify the speed of light. For this sort of thing the fact that your equipment functions is better evidence that the people who made it know the laws of physics, than any test you could do with it.
These don’t feel like the are quite comparable to each other. I do really trust the accelerometer to measure acceleration. If I take my phone on the merry-go-round and it says “1.2 G”, I believe it. I trust my GPS to measure position. But I only take on faith that the GPS had to account for time dilation to work right—I don’t really know anything about the internals of the GPS and so “trust us it works via relativity” isn’t really compelling at an emotional level. For somebody who worked with GPS and really knew about the internals of the receiver, this might be a more compelling example.
Yes of course. In real life I’m perfectly happy to take on faith that everything in my undergraduate physics textbooks was true. But I want to experience it, not just read about it. And I think “my laser rangefinder works correctly” doesn’t feel like experiencing the speed of light. In contrast, building my own rangefinder with a laser and a timing circuit would count as experiencing the speed of light.
I am starting to worry that my criteria for “experience” are idiosyncratic and that different people would find very different science demonstrations compelling.
Otherwise known as the Typical Mind Fallacy :-)
But yes, you are correct, as long as your main criterion is something like “compelling at an emotional level”, you should expect that different people understand it very differently.
This actually brings out something I had never thought about before. When I am reading or reviewing papers professionally, mostly the dispute between reviewers is about how interesting the topic is, not about whether the evidence is convincing. Likewise my impression about the history of physics is that mostly the professionals were in agreement about what would constitute evidence.
So it’s striking that when I put aside my “working computer scientist” hat and put on my “amateur natural scientist” hat, suddenly that consensus goes away and everybody disagrees about what’s convincing.
Your observation of little conflict about whether the evidence is convincing could be explained by a consensus about whether it is convincing, but it could also be explained as low priority. That is my experience in math.
That may be a peculiarity of physics (and math). Compare that to biology and medicine, not to mention social sciences.
Well, of course, because “compelling at an emotional level” isn’t really about evidence. Cute puppies are compelling at an emotional level.
You’re basically talking about getting a “proper” gut feeling, and that is very idiosyncratic.