Belief and knowledge—a plea about language

[rewebster]

Yes--wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone 'knew' what every word that everyone ever said or wrote, so that there wouldn't be any confusion---but that's no the way the world has ever been.

Even in your first post, you used abbreviations/contractions in statement (I'm, I've, etc.). Someone, probably a long time ago (in a far away galaxy) first used the phrase, "wave-particle duality" as a shortened term (a contracted form) for the actual and correct meaning or scientific terminology for the longer phrase.

Blaming anyone who now uses it cannot, and should not, be 'their' fault for using it now. It has become a part of culture.

It sounds as if just because it written some place in 'one' of the posts somewhere on the PF of the over one and a half million posts, or even here, that saying "wave-particle duality", for example, is wrong, that everyone posting anytime now or in the future should know better. I don't think it will ever work that way.

Z, even it scientific discussions by scientists, its probably wrong, but it is still used. Just do a Google search---it seems to be even in quite a few abstracts, articles, etc.

 

[rewebster]

In the last paragraph, the line should read, "...even in scientific discussions..."


For some reason, there is no 'edit' button to change the typo

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Goodness what tripe!

Quantum mechanics is a model, not a fact. It is useful and considered valid because it makes very accurate predictions, especially in the form of QED. Yet how many physicists would consider QED to be a true absolute fact?

I would venture to say that QED is the best that science has to offer in terms of precision validation of a scientific model.

Some "laws" might be more certain, but at some point, it they become tautologies (true by definition). For example, conservation of energy is now true by definition because any new quantity that is supposedly a new form of energy would only be considered to truly be energy if it you can add it to the already described kinds of energy and have a conserved quantity.

Likewise, cell theory was once a valid expression of many empirical observations that all known living things are composed of cells. It is morphing into a tautology because biologists are reluctant to classify things as "living" if they are not made of cells.

I guess my point is that the general public should be engaged and educated rather than given the pablum of oversimplified platitudes. If "theory" is the right word to use among scientists then it is OK for the general public also. Let us strive to bring them up to a more complete level of understanding.

Michael Courtney