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To: Alamo-Girl
According to Sir Karl Popper, when given two theories an experiment will decide one true and one false. But in wave-particle duality one experiment proves the electron is a wave, another proves it is a particle.

Strictly speaking, these experiments "prove" is that what they are seeing is neither a particle nor a wave. Which of course physicists have known for a while. They know that using the concepts of "particles" and "waves" are just that -- concepts.

10 posted on 06/15/2003 11:06:23 AM PDT by dark_lord (The Statue of Liberty now holds a baseball bat and she's yelling 'You want a piece of me?')
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To: dark_lord
Thank you so much for your post!

Indeed, they are both constructs with their own sets of problems - hence quantum field theory.

13 posted on 06/15/2003 11:16:54 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: dark_lord
"They know that using the concepts of "particles" and "waves" are just that -- concepts. dark_lord " [In a whisper, so as to avoid flames ...] I'm betting that it is our limited understanding of the nature of time that yields this ambiguity, this duality of particle and wave. Will the antrhopic principle help to resolve this paucity on time? Oh my, that is the conundrum!
18 posted on 06/15/2003 11:37:33 AM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote Life Support for others.)
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To: dark_lord; Alamo-Girl
Strictly speaking, these experiments "prove" is that what they are seeing is neither a particle nor a wave. Which of course physicists have known for a while. They know that using the concepts of "particles" and "waves" are just that -- concepts.

While I would concede the point concerning "concepts", I always thought the explanation was that light was a particle that traversed space-time in the form of a wave.
Am I incorrect in this assumption? ( All these years? )

37 posted on 06/15/2003 2:29:39 PM PDT by Drammach
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To: dark_lord
The proof that contemporary evolutionary theory is successful is also attested to by the number of posts attempting to refute it on this forum.

From:HLMencken( http://www.geocities.com/danielmacryan/oldbooks.html#nietzsche6)

This period of diligent but groping inquiry kept on for a couple of centuries and before the beginning of the French revolution a vast mass of facts had been accumulated. Bacon, Nicolas of Cusa and Machiavelli had put common-sense into ethics; the physicians had begun to know not a little about the human machine; through the efforts of Althusius, Mariana and others the old superstitions about the divine rights of kings and princes were dying out; Adam Smith was preparing to unearth the forces which made for national welfare, and a host of impious doubters were examining the current schemes of religion and showing their absurdity. The French revolution then made its blinding flash and after that the air was clear. Since the latter part of the 18th century, indeed, our whole outlook upon the universe has been changed. We have learned to judge things, not by their respectability and holiness, but by their essential truth. It is now possible, not only to approach facts with an unbiased mind, but also to make critical examinations of ideas: i.e., to consider the human mind itself as a living organism and to examine, not only its functions, but also its growth.

Comte, a Frenchman, was the first to perform this last feat with any success. He looked back over the history of the human race and found that it had progressed through three intellectual stages.((3)) During the first stage, men ascribed every act in the universe to the direct interposition of the deity. During the second, they tried to analyze this deity's motives, and so endeavored to learn why things happened: why the sun rose every morning, why one man was white and another black, one tall and another short; why everyone had to die. During the last stage, they began to realize that this inquiry was futile and that the answer would be out of their reach for all eternity. Then they turned from asking why and began to ask how. In a word, they began to accept the universe as it was and to content themselves with learning all they could about its workings and about the invariable laws which controlled these workings.

Personal Homepage-http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-tat

182 posted on 06/17/2003 7:52:23 AM PDT by Helms (Springer-Geraldo Ticket in 2008 (Hows That for an Appetite For Destruction ?))
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