Mike

"...But particles do not diffract...."

Electrons diffract
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=electron+di...

If you construct a water table and place in two slits, water waves exhibit diffraction. Both water and electrons are particles.

Would you care to amend that sentence or retract it?

Perhaps the so-called ether of the past is what we call dark matter today. So, we're back to the original problem. Or are we?

Do you mean "pipe dreams" like the square root of two, negative numbers, and the square root of minus one?

If, as Harriman claims (and I agree), our ideas are consequences of our experience of objective reality, then it is no surprise that at least some of what we imagine, we can do. Moreover, and more to the point, if, as Harriman claims (and I agree) that logic is not just some arbitrary word game of socially-constructed rules, but works because it describes reality, then ultimately, all mathematical ideas must be real, i.e., applicable to material reality -- even if we have no application for them at this time.

Dr. Z, our comprehension improves. There was a time when we had no word for "five." The decimal system is not natural. Medieval astronomers figured that Saturn is a billion miles away, and the stars are farther out than that. But they had no comprehension of the Andromeda Galaxy. That came later. Hans Oested did not know what James Clerk Maxwell did. Luther Burbank knew nothing about DNA; and today kids in high school extract DNA. So what?

The inference of dark matter and dark energy is our present comprehension. In the future, we will know more, and still not know everything.

You would be surprised to learn just how difficult it is to avoid mystical influences in physics, from thermodynamics to quantum physics, to special relativity and to general relativity. Epistemology has been the best guide we have seen, period.

That is unfair to Dr. Sheldon Cooper and Dr. Leonard Hofstadter. The show has a physics advisor. The white boards contain actual physics. If you pay attention to what they say and do, it is real. In fact, Sheldon abandoned string theory. Leonard, of course, being an applied physicist, performs interesting experiments for Penny and us. Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard may be funny, but they are not clowns. In point of fact, Amy Farrah Fowler is Dr. Mayim Bialik (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayim_B....

Perhaps you should read Heisenberg's book Philosophy and physics, before you prove your ignorance once again.

Both

Sorry, but Harriman's essay is not an excellent article: it is an assertion without evidence or consequence. Except for one unsubstantiated quip without context attributed Einstein, Harriman does not quote any physicists. Instead he sets up a straw man.

Furthermore, he would have to show how the faulty epistemology of Ernst Mach, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, and the others led them to failures of application in physics.

More to the point, do our computers work because engineers constructed them by trial-and-error like monkeys at typewriters, or does quantum mechanics actually help you to design very large scale integrated circuits?

Perhaps Harriman should ask Dr. T. J. Rodgers of Cypress Semiconductor. An avowed Objectivist, Rodgers earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford developing VMOS (vertical metal oxide semiconductors).

The foundation of quantum mechanics is the wave-particle duality of light. Harriman has never attempted an explanation.

Myself, I can easily accept that the wave-particle duality is a false dichotomy. But I also have performed some of the experiments that support it. I have created a diffraction slit. I did not do the experiment that shows that light has "pressure", but I saw it performed by teachers from MIT. Waves do not push forward; only particles do. But particles do not diffract. So, what is Harriman's answer to that?

What is yours, Dale? I have none. I do not pretend to. I just accept the duality the best answer that I have been given.

See my review of Harriman's Logical Leap ("... almost makes it") on my blog here:
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...

Yeah...but the money's good!

I am always, however "tempting" the contrary, to return to the bedrock of understanding that must ALWAYS accompany ones claimed understanding of Existence. Reason must always be Man's ONLY absolute. Mathematics is its "absolute" representation, rigorous adherence to "the scientific method" the demonstration of its efficacy.

All rational questions become relevant, all apparent answers, tentative.

I am inclined to agree with dbhalling's assessment. Integration of what amount to theories surrounding quantum mechanics, with Newtonian physics, has pursued ideas that make such integrations logically impossible.

It seems to underscore the importance of being always eager to check one's premises.

Was the point to say that the observation of quantum physics has inherent philosophical problems or that one must start from a certain philosophical viewpoint in order to properly study physics at all? Please explain.

I always thought that people misunderstanding QM leads to quantum mysticism. This article, however, suggests there are some mystical elements to the way real physicists understand the universe.

Thanks for posting, Dale. Very interesting.

I agree. Excellent.