Comparing lists

[Christian Stapfer]

"Steven D'Aprano" <steve at REMOVETHIScyber.com.au> wrote in message
news:pan.2005.10.16.18.52.56.797555 at REMOVETHIScyber.com.au...
> On Sun, 16 Oct 2005 19:42:11 +0200, Christian Stapfer wrote:
>
>> Pauli's prediction of
>> the existence of the neutrino is another. It took
>> experimentalists a great deal of time and patience
>> (about 20 years, I am told) until they could finally
>> muster something amounting to "experimental proof"
>> of Pauli's conjecture.
>
> Pauli's conjecture was the result of experimental evidence that was
> completely inexplicable according to the theory of the day:

So was it mere experiment or was it the relation
between experiment and theory that provided
the spur for creative advancement? My position
is the latter. Mere experiment does not tell you
anything at all. Only experiment on the background
of suitable theory does that.

> energy and
> spin was disappearing from certain nuclear reactions. This was an
> experimental result that needed to be explained, and Pauli's solution was
> to invent an invisible particle that carried that energy and spin away.

Pauli's creativity lay in proposing *this*
particular solution to the puzzle. And, surely,
if it had not been for Pauli's characterization
of that hypothetical particle, experimentalists
like Cowan and Reines would not have *anything*
to aim for in the first place.

But I'm not going to argue Pauli's case any futher
in this NG, because this is, in the end,
not a physics NG...

> (When I put it like that, it sounds stupid, but in fact it was an elegant
> and powerful answer to the problem.)
>
> The neutrino wasn't something that Pauli invented from theoretical first
> principles. It came out of hard experimental results.
>
> Physics of the last half century is littered with the half-forgotten
> corpses of theoretical particles that never eventuated: gravitinos,
> photinos, tachyons, rishons, flavons, hypercolor pre-quarks, axions,
> squarks, shadow matter, white holes, and so on ad nauseum.
>
> Neutrinos and quarks are exceptional in that experimental predictions of
> their existence were correct, and I maintain that is because (unlike all
> of the above) they were postulated to explain solid experimental results,
> not just to satisfy some theoretical itch.
>
> So yet again, your triumph of theory is actually a victory for experiment.

Well, I might tell now the story of Maxwell,
sitting in his garden - and deducing, from
his equations (which, admittedly, were inspired
by earlier experimental work by Faraday),
something really quite shockingly *new*:
the existence of electromagnetic waves.

Regards,
Christian
--
»From a long view of the history of mankind -
 seen from, say, ten thousand years from now
 - there can be little doubt that the most
 significant event of the nineteenth century
 will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the
 laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil
 War will pale into provincial insignificance
 in comparison with this important scientific
 event of the same decade.«
- Richard P. Feynman: "The Feynman Lectures"