Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Mooney
Maddog,
This may come as a wake-up call for you on all those extra dimensions in string/M-theory.
From near the end of the "The Ontology and Cosmology of Non-Euclidean Geometry"
essay we are discussing in the spacetime thread:
The Ontology and Cosmology of Non-Euclidean Geometry
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[cropped]The worst thing that can ever happen for philosophy, and for science, is that people are so overawed by the conventional wisdom in areas where they feel inadequate (like math) that they are actually afraid to ask questions that may imply criticism, skepticism, or, heaven help them, ignorance.
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It fits Modest's overblown estimate of 'the more math the better' (not a quote) as well. |
Michael, I have made no posts in this thread (the thread from which this one was split) and I have never expressed anything like what you attribute to me. I hope you understand that those two facts make your comment inappropriate. It is, in fact, me who gave you that quote regarding the idea that math doesn't prove ontology 6 months ago:
Quote:
Originally Posted by modest
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Mooney
Don't count me out just yet from the latter group just because I haven't your math expertise.
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I honestly am neither expert in math nor physics.
Quote:
The worst thing that can ever happen for philosophy, and for science, is that people are so overawed by the conventional wisdom in areas where they feel inadequate (like math) that they are actually afraid to ask questions that may imply criticism, skepticism, or, heaven help them, ignorance."
-Dr. Kelly Ross
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[...]
It's interesting, considering what you were saying about math, that this quote [I also quoted Faraday in the post regarding something different] can be found in "Great Physicists by William H. Cropper" which goes on to explain that Faraday's ideas on this topic were not well-received and gives reasons why:
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Faraday’s theories were opposed because they were revolutionary, always sufficient reason to stir opposition, and also because Faraday did not speak the sophisticated mathematical language his fellow theorists expected to hear. Beyond rudimentary arithmetic, Faraday had no mathematics; his mathematical methods were about the same as those of Galileo. In Faraday’s time, that may actually have been an advantage for creativity. The field concept was the product of “a highly original mind, a mind which never got stuck on formulas,” wrote a great twentieth-century field theorist, Albert Einstein.
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Many members will use math to critically analyze theories in the astronomy and cosmology forum. If, for some reason, you fail to see what is being implied by the math involved it would be best to simply ask and I'm sure the member would be willing to explain.
~modest
