Re: Bad Science - Good Fiction

::: I rather suspect that quarks can just be thought of as mathematical
::: abstractions, and not as real particles, seeing as how they can never
::: be found free in nature.

:: They said the same thing about atoms. And nuclei.

: kts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (K.Schwarz)
: Who said that about atoms and nuclei? Cite? All I can remember is
: the plum pudding model.

Well, I recently (well, relatively recently) read Sacks' "Uncle Tungsten",
wherein he autobiographically spends a bit of time reviewing the state of
chemistry early in the century. And he recounts (with quotes from various
sources) how the notion of "atom" and the periodic table developed.
And some of the quotes (iirc) were to that effect.

Of course, they didn't really say "they can never be found free in nature",
that's pretty specific to quarks; but the notion of atoms and subatomic
particles were both alleged by some to be mere mathematical abstractions.
IIRC.

I don't have a page number and/or quote to hand; if you are *really*
interested, I could try to dig out the book. But it'd probably be
more fun for you to read the book... :-)
I like Sacks in general, and recommend Uncle Tungsten as the
sort of thing you'd like if you like that sort of thing.


ObSfXref: "The Trouble Twisters", the story about the three corned wheel,
where the notion of elliptical orbits and Kepler's laws are introduced by
selling them as roughly "just a convenient mathematical description",
since it was heresy, and fatal, to suggest anything but circles.
Which in turn, I suppose, is modeled on Galileo's situation.


Wayne Throop throopw@xxxxxxxxx http://sheol.org/throopw
.