The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics

[Dragonfly]

And now one for that volcano in Iceland, the Eyjafjallajökull.

[Brant Gaede]

Induction. Deduction. Whatever floats your boat. What did Maxwell use?

--Brant

Abduction, Induction, Deduction. Plus a mathematical grasp of Faraday's idea of the electromagnetic field. Faraday's idea of the field was pure artistic genius. By the way, Faraday did not posses a dozen lines of mathematics. His thinking was purely pictorial, but Maxwell showed that his visualizations were a new kind of mathematics, or proto-mathematics waiting to be developed fully.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That was one of the most beautiful scientific collaborative stories ever. Incredible synergy.

--Brant

[9thdoctor]

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi? Easy!

Me holly Chick sent me holly with the accent on the capitalized syllables.

So is the cat a reference to Dune?

Anyway, I’m not sure if this belongs here or on the Pross thread. I think I’ll avoid the Pross thread, since anything I may write could become a back cover blurb for one of his books. Even an insult, be it bland or colorful.

[kiaer.ts]

And now one for that volcano in Iceland, the Eyjafjallajökull.

Loosely rhymes with "Hey, ya fall, ya yokel?

For the exact pronunciation:

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type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> Edited July 22, 2010 by Ted Keer

[Guyau]

What I would like is a really first rate history of science..the equivalent of Windleband in philosophy. . . .

David, concerning #9 these look good:

The Beginnings of Western Science

David Lindberg (Ancient and Medieval)

The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors

John Gribbin (Renaissance to Modern)

This looks like a wonderful textbook:

Natural Science in Western History

Frederick Gregory (2007)

1. The Ancient Western Heritage


Nature in Ancient Civilizations

The Cosmos of Plato and Aristotle

The Greek Heritage in Natural Philosophy After Aristotle

The Nature of Science: The Problem with Ptolemy's Equant


2. Learning in the Middle Ages

Transmission of Greek Learning to the Near East

Revitalization of Intellectual Pursuits in the West

The Assimilation of Ancient Knowledge of Nature

The Nature of Science: Delimiting Faith and Reason

Late Medieval Natural Philosophy


3. Early Modern Innovations


Recasting the Medieval Intellectual Heritage

The Nature of Science: Magic and Science

The Impact of Printing

Expanding Geographical Horizons


4. The Renaissance of Natural Knowledge

Humanism

The Study of the Human Body

Natural History: Animals, Vegetables, Minerals

The World of Copernicus

The Nature of Science: Osiander and the Motion of the Earth


5. Heliocentrism Considered

The Immediate Reception of Copernican Heliocentrism

Tycho Brahe and the Copernican Theory

Johannes Kepler's Heliocentrism

The Nature of Science: Science and Mysticism

The Status of Heliocentrism


6. Galileo Galilei: Heliocentrism Gains a Champion

Galileo's Early Career

The Nature of Science: Mathematics and Nature

Court Philosopher

The Path to Conflict

Last Years


7. Natural Philosophy Transformed

British Conceptions

French Ideas on Matter and Motion

The Question of Materialism

The Mechanical Philosophy in Britain

The Nature of Science: The Vulnerability of Experiment

A Scientific Revolution?


8. Isaac Newton: A Highpoint of Scientific Change


The Background to Newton's Achievement

Newton's Central Interests

The Nature of Science: The Status of Newton's Proof

Fame and Power


9. The Newtonianism, the Earth, and the Universe During the Eighteenth Century

The Rise of Newtonianism

An Expanding Cosmos

The Nature of Science: Was Newton Right About Hypotheses?

The Earth as a Cosmic Body


10. The Emergence of Chemical Science

"Chymistry" in the Seventeenth Century

German Rational Chemistry

British Contributors

The New French Chemistry

The Nature of Science: The Challenge of Objectivity


11. The Nature of Electrical Fire

The Historical Legacy of Electricity and Magnetism

Gathering Information: Early Eighteenth-Century Experiments

Erecting Theories: What Is Electricity?

The Nature of Science: Must Theories Be Faultless to Succeed?


12. The Organization and Growth of Living Things

How Living Things Are Arranged

The World of Carl Linnaeus

The Nature of Science: The Subtleties of Classification

New Ideas Challenging the Fixity of Species

How Living Things Grow


13. Understanding and Treating Illness

Healers in the Eighteenth Century

Understanding Health and Disease

New Directions in Medicine

The Nature of Science: Why Mesmerism Failed

Medicine and the New Century


14. The Watershed of the Enlightenment

The Transformation of Life and Society

Enlightenment Intellectual Culture

The Fate of Reason

The Nature of Science: The Fate of the Enlightenment Agenda

The End of the Enlightenment


15. Science, Revolution, and Reaction

Weathering the Storm in France

The Reaction to Eighteenth-Century Change

The Nature of Science: Do Investigators of Nature See What They're Looking For?


16. An Era of Many Forces

Investigating Nature's Mysterious Forces

The Nature of Science: Lasting Disagreements in Science

New Institutions of Natural Science


17. New Ideas About Life and Its Past

The Romantic Understanding of the History of Living Things

Evolutionary Controversies in France

The Nature of Science: Purpose, Mechanism, and Law in Science

British Catastrophism


18. Evolution Comes into Its Own

Charles Darwin's Early Life and Education

A Formative Period for Evolution

The Making of Darwin's Origin

The Nature of Science: Cultural Influence on the Formation of Theory


19. The Aftermath of the Origin

The Immediate Reception of the Origin of Species

Scientific Objections to Darwin's Theory

Religious Considerations

The Nature of Science: Evolution, God, and Nature

Implications for Social and Political Philosophy


20. Matter, Energy, and the Emerging Spirit of Realism

New Directions in Understanding Matter

Thermodynamics and the Future

The Power of Classical Mechanics

The Nature of Science: How Seriously Should We Take Models?

The Flowering of Scientific Materialism

Medicine Becomes Scientific

An Age of Realism


21. The Erosion of Realism

The Changing Structure of Order

The Enigma of the Ether

Unrealistic Radiation

The Nature of Science: Is Light a Particle?


22. The Changing Contours of Biology

The New Physiology

Heredity Reconsidered

Competing Ideas of Evolution

The Nature of Science: Evolution Versus Natural Selection

Turn-of-the-Century Debates About Darwinism


23. The Synthesis of Biological Issues

Genetics and the Resurgence of Darwinism

The Nature of Science: Idea and Reality in Population Thinking

Human Evolution

The Rejection of Lamarckism

Molecular Biology


24. Earth in the Balance

The Earth's Dynamic Surface

Framing a Science of Ecology

The Nature of Science: Are Humans the Problem and the Solution?

Environmental Science Comes of Age


25. The Changing Worlds of the Large and Small

A Changing Universe

The Quantum Mechanical Explanation of the Atom

The Nature of Science: Quantum Mechanics and the Nature of Knowledge

Toward a More Dangerous World


26. The Nuclear Age

The Path to the Atomic Bomb

The Politics of High Energy

The Nature of Science: Science and Morality

Nuclear Fears


27. Ongoing Issues

The Physical Sciences

The Biological Sciences

Understanding the Nature of Science

The Nature of Science: The Science Wars

The Challenge Ahead

[BaalChatzaf]

Faraday is mentioned. His idea of the electrical or magnetic field is not.

Robert C

That is like talking about airplanes without mentioning aerlerons. That is like talking about the Wright Brothers and restricting one's discourse to bicycles.

I am awaiting my copy of Harriman's book. My direction of criticism will be induction in physics (taken literally, thank you). How much was physics really guided by the kind of induction that J.S. Mill writes about? We shall see how well Harriman manages his task. Please note how Maxwell came up with the concept of displacement current to account for capacitance in open circuits. At the time Maxwell had his bright idea there was no laboratory evidence for it. Maxwell was motivated by a mathematical deficiency in the description of electrical current. Ampere's law as Ampere stated it leads to a contradiction, so Maxwell fixed it for mathematical reasons. Maxwell's innovation led to the discovery of EM. waves revealed by Hertz in his experiments. In testing Maxwell's theory Hertz made a radio transmitter/receiver pair by way of a tuned circuit.

From the Wiki Article:

"In electromagnetism, displacement current is a quantity that is defined in terms of the rate of change of electric displacement field. Displacement current has the units of electric current density, and it has an associated magnetic field just as actual currents do. However it is not an electric current of moving charges, but a time-varying electric field. In materials, there is also a contribution from the slight motion of charges bound in atoms, dielectric polarization.The idea was conceived by Maxwell in his 1861 paper On Physical Lines of Force in connection with the displacement of electric particles in a dielectric medium. Maxwell added displacement current to the electric current term in Ampère's Circuital Law. In his 1865 paper A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field Maxwell used this amended version of Ampère's Circuital Law to derive the electromagnetic wave equation. This derivation is now generally accepted as an historical landmark in physics by virtue of uniting electricity, magnetism and optics into one single unified theory. The displacement current term is now seen as a crucial addition that completed Maxwell's equations and is necessary to explain many phenomena, most particularly the existence of electromagnetic waves."

I can hardly wait till my copy arrives. Stay tuned.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[merjet]

Faraday is mentioned. His idea of the electrical or magnetic field is not.

Robert C

That is like talking about airplanes without mentioning aerlerons. That is like talking about the Wright Brothers and restricting one's discourse to bicycles.

This is irrelevant. Faraday is discussed in TLL only in connection with how atoms combine into molecules. Electrical or magnetic fields are not a topic in TLL. (Electrical current is, with the people being Galvani and Volta.)

My direction of criticism will be induction in physics (taken literally, thank you). How much was physics really guided by the kind of induction that J.S. Mill writes about?

The section titled 'The Methods of Difference and Agreement' is on pages 67-74. Harriman explains how Galileo used these methods for pendulum motion and free-fall. He explains how Newton used them for the light-color spectrum.

Edited November 25, 2010 by Merlin Jetton

[Philip Coates]

> My direction of criticism will be induction in physics (taken literally, thank you). How much was physics really guided by the kind of induction that J.S. Mill writes about?

Baal, if you are actually going to do this, since you clearly know a lot of physics I will read it - if you step away from your usual posting style and do the following:

1. Write for the layman. No "inside baseball" stuff: Don't use a lot of technical jargon (or refer to jargon-filled sources)that most non-physicists or those who have forgotten high school or college physics will not understand.

2. Back up and prove any claims you make: Don't use sweeping, cranky-old-man, one line contemptuous dismissals. Or 'any fool ought to know' kind of statements.

3. Tone and attitude: Substitute facts, logic, proof for rage, alienation, and distemper**.

**Yes, I know, in a bad mood, I've sometimes posted with one or more of these attitudes. :-) As have others. But my better posts and those of others avoid this. Do what we recommend, not what we are always consistent about doing.

[BaalChatzaf]

This is irrelevant. Faraday is discussed in TLL only in connection with how atoms combine into molecules. Electrical or magnetic fields are not a topic in TLL. (Electrical current is, with the people being Galvani and Volta.)

Interesting. I look forward to dealing with that when I read the book. I just point out that the field concept is the second most important idea in physics. The first most important idea is that everything material is made of atoms*. I can see that the book will be not only interesting for what it said, but for what it did not say. Omissions count nearly as much as commissions.

Ba'al Chatzaf

* Feynman: Lectures on Physics Vol 1.

[BaalChatzaf]

1. Write for the layman. No "inside baseball" stuff: Don't use a lot of technical jargon (or refer to jargon-filled sources)that most non-physicists or those who have forgotten high school or college physics will not understand.

2. Back up and prove any claims you make: Don't use sweeping, cranky-old-man, one line contemptuous dismissals. Or 'any fool ought to know' kind of statements.

3. Tone and attitude: Substitute facts, logic, proof for rage, alienation, and distemper**.

**Yes, I know, in a bad mood, I've sometimes posted with one or more of these attitudes. :-) As have others. But my better posts and those of others avoid this. Do what we recommend, not what we are always consistent about doing.

Roger that. Everything I say will be backed up by a reference to the literature. And facts and logic will be priimary. My religion is Facts. And I don't do "any fool ought to know....". You are dealing with a literal minded Aspie here. I will go into fact and detail, ad nauseum if necessary. And I will reference mathematics when required. What you call "technical jargon" is language proper to the subject matter. I will not "dumb down" anything. Since I will give references the interested user may follow them for the details. Physics is not for dumb schmucks. It is for people who can and will use their brains. If the going gets rough, then too damned bad. Those who cannot swim must either not get in the water or they must drown.

When I review Harriman's book, I do not plan on taking prisoners. No quarter is asked and none will be given.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

This is irrelevant. Faraday is discussed in TLL only in connection with how atoms combine into molecules. Electrical or magnetic fields are not a topic in TLL. (Electrical current is, with the people being Galvani and Volta.)

This may come as a shock to you(sic), but Coulomb attraction and repulsion is a field phenomenon. Fields are at the heart of it as Faraday and Maxwell showed.

Just as a matter of historical correctness and completeness, point to point interaction a la Newton was not sufficient to deal with electricity and magnetism or more correctly electro-magnetism. The inverse square law of electrical/magnetic interaction only holds when the bodies involved are static, which they almost never are. Look up the Lorentz Force Law sometime, and see how velocities enter into the matter. Electrical force and magnetic force (they are each components of a four-tensor) was not clearly understood prior to Faraday and Maxwell. If our understanding of electricity and magnetism had stopped where it was with Ampere and Gauss, (say), we never would have had radio. Telegraphs, maybe, but not radio.

I would also point out that Good Old Mechanics was not properly understood until the concept of Force (a vector quantity) was replaced by the concept of Energy (a scalar quantity).* The works of Bernoulli, Lagrange, Gauss, Hamilton which put Energy at the center was the perfection of Newtonian Mechanics and it also provided the mathematical methodology for the quantum physics that came later as well as the General Theory of Relativity which Hilbert got before Einstein using Langrangian methods. The key to laws of motion in fields is finding the right Langrangian action function to derive the differential equations of motion. I will, in due course, find out whether or not Harriman bothered to look in this direction. I don't know but I would be willing to bet he did not. We shall see. A day without Lagrangians, is a day without action. A day without Hamiltonians is a day that lacks energy. (Forgive my lame puns, please).

Ba'al Chatzaf

*See -The Variational Methods of Mechanics- by Cornelius Lanczos.

Edited November 25, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

This is irrelevant. Faraday is discussed in TLL only in connection with how atoms combine into molecules. Electrical or magnetic fields are not a topic in TLL. (Electrical current is, with the people being Galvani and Volta.)

This may come as a shock to you, but Coulomb attraction and repulsion is a field phenomenon. Fields are at the heart of it as Faraday and Maxwell showed.

Just as a matter of historical correctness and completeness, point to point interaction a la Newton was not sufficient to deal with electricity and magnetism or more correctly electro-magnetism. The inverse square law of electrical/magnetic interaction only holds when the bodies involved are static, which they almost never are. Look up the Lorentz Force Law sometime, and see how velocities enter into the matter. Electrical force and magnetic force (they are each components of a four-tensor) was not clearly understood prior to Faraday and Maxwell. If our understanding of electricity and magnetism had stopped where it was with Ampere and Gauss, (say), we never would have had radio. Telegraphs, maybe, but not radio.

I would also point out that Good Old Mechanics was not properly understood until the concept of Force (a vector quantity) was replaced by the concept of Energy (a scalar quantity).* The works of Bernoulli, Lagrange, Gauss, Hamilton which put Energy at the center was the perfection of Newtonian Mechanics and it also provided the mathematical methodology for the quantum physics that came later as well as the General Theory of Relativity which Hilbert got before Einstein using Langrangian methods. The key to laws of motion in fields is finding the right Langrangian action function to derive the differential equations of motion. I will, in due course, find out whether or not Harriman bothered to look in this direction. I don't know but I would be willing to bet he did not. We shall see. A day without Lagrangians, is a day without action. A day without Hamiltonians is a day that lacks energy. (Forgive my lame puns, please).

Ba'al Chatzaf

*See -The Variational Methods of Mechanics- by Cornelius Lanczos.

You seem to be laboring under the strange notion that this is a book about physics. It is not. It is a book about the hierarchical nature of concept formation as applied to induction in science. You are going to have to understand what the stolen concept is and why it is significant if you are going to understand this book. Given your repeatedly falling into that fallacy yourself, such as your offering inductive arguments for the invalidity of induction, your insistence that the mind and all things are material, a concept which has no meaning if not differentiated from the immaterial, and your repeated insistence on the superiority of moral relativism, I think you need to start with something more basic, like reading ItOE with a view toward understanding it.

Edited November 25, 2010 by Ted Keer

[BaalChatzaf]

You seem to be laboring under the strange notion that this is a book about physics. It is not. It is a book about the hierarchical nature of concept formation as applied to induction in science. You are going to have to understand what the stolen concept is and why it is significant if you are going to understand this book. Given your repeatedly falling into that fallacy yourself, such as your offering inductive arguments for the invalidity of induction, your insistence that the mind and all things are material, a concept which has no meaning if not differentiated from the immaterial, and your repeated insistence on the superiority of moral relativism, I think you need to start with something more basic, like reading ItOE with a view toward understanding it.

Kindly look at the title of the book:

The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics

He invokes physics to support his notions of induction. We shall see just how accurately and how well he appeals to physics.

I am taking his book -as he wrote it- word for word and literally. I am not going to interpolate any Objectivist material. I am not reading between his lines. I am tackling the book -as written-. Word for word, literally. We shall see just how well he connects induction with physics.

I await the arrival of the book. I sharpen my pencil, my wits and my knives. No quarter is asked and none shall be given.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited November 26, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[Philip Coates]

> What you call "technical jargon" is language proper to the subject matter. I will not "dumb down" anything. Since I will give references the interested user may follow them for the details. Physics is not for dumb schmucks. It is for people who can and will use their brains. If the going gets rough, then too damned bad.

Baal, who are you writing this for?

If it's for yourself alone, then do exactly what you said.

But you have an audience of a handful of regulars here, most of whom are not physics experts. If you are writing to actually be -understood- by those who actually read this board, your approach will be understood by exactly no one.

It is not "dumbing down" to write clearly and to translate jargon into simple English. (See Isaac Asimov or other writers who are skilled in translating complex matters of science into language understood by college-educated, intelligent non-professionals.)

I truly feel sorry for you if you are unable - or stubbornly unwilling - to understand this.

Edited November 26, 2010 by Philip Coates

[BaalChatzaf]

It is not "dumbing down" to write clearly and to translate jargon into simple English. (See Isaac Asimov or other writers who are skilled in translating complex matters of science into language understood by college-educated, intelligent non-professionals.)

I truly feel sorry for you if you are unable - or stubbornly unwilling - to understand this.

I will tell you for whom I am not reviewing TLL. I am not reviewing for Dumb Schmucks who won't make an effort to understand a modicum of the physics involved. I will provide all the references that an intelligent non-physicist would require to get a glimmer of what is going on.

And your word "jargon" is loaded to the gills. I prefer the term "appropriate technical terminology".

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited November 26, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[Mikee]

Ba'al,

I'm looking forward to your review. I like how you think.

[kiaer.ts]

I don't see why Bob's even waiting for the book. He's obviously ready to review it now.

In the meantime:

[medium]

[/medium]

[BaalChatzaf]

I don't see why Bob's even waiting for the book. He's obviously ready to review it now.

In the meantime:

I aim to examine every word written in the book. To the last jot and tittle. The book will be analyzed precisely on the basis of its contents -as written-, not as possible intended. I don't do intentions. I do not look between the lines. I do literal reading. I am willing to bet Harriman has never been reviewed by an Aspie.

Anyway the book is on the way and I shall read it carefully when I get it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[James Heaps-Nelson]

> What you call "technical jargon" is language proper to the subject matter. I will not "dumb down" anything. Since I will give references the interested user may follow them for the details. Physics is not for dumb schmucks. It is for people who can and will use their brains. If the going gets rough, then too damned bad.

Baal, who are you writing this for?

If it's for yourself alone, then do exactly what you said.

But you have an audience of a handful of regulars here, most of whom are not physics experts. If you are writing to actually be -understood- by those who actually read this board, your approach will be understood by exactly no one.

It is not "dumbing down" to write clearly and to translate jargon into simple English. (See Isaac Asimov or other writers who are skilled in translating complex matters of science into language understood by college-educated, intelligent non-professionals.)

I truly feel sorry for you if you are unable - or stubbornly unwilling - to understand this.

There are some here who are physics experts and some who are not physics experts but who can follow physics mathematically if it is well explained. A board with Dragonfly, Dan Ust, Ellen Stuttle, Stephen Boydstun and others, is the perfect place for Baal's approach.

Jim

[Philip Coates]

> There are some here who are physics experts and some who are not physics experts but who can follow physics mathematically if it is well explained. [Jim]

Yes, but the reason for my post was that Baal's posts are usually -not- well explained and they tend too heavily to jargon unnecessarily (and often sweeping crackpot claims).

Plus the people you mentioned in some cases may -think- they are up to date on the latest physics or history of science, but that knowledge may be partial or from decades ago.

It's always best to explain too much than too little.

Furthermore, it's always best to explain something in layman's language when possible because then you get both audiences - the expert and non-expert. [As an aside, in order to deal with the issues in Harriman's book and to assess the validity of his -entire- thesis, one should be concentrating mostly on epistemology not on mathematical aspects of physics. And the whole Galileo-Newton thing is a huge sideshow.]

The "dumb schmuck" comment is typical Baal: patronizing, elitist, contemptuous, and redneck.

And typical of the kind of thinking of too many arrogant Oists who can't be bothered to learn some skills of explanation.

BTW, I mentioned Isaac Asimov's science writing for a reason.

(Anyway, this is the kind of 'tar baby' type debate over what should not require multiple posts, explanations, and re-clarifications that I typically wish I hadn't gotten into.)

Edited November 26, 2010 by Philip Coates

[kiaer.ts]

There are some here who are physics experts and some who are not physics experts but who can follow physics mathematically if it is well explained. A board with Dragonfly, Dan Ust, Ellen Stuttle, Stephen Boydstun and others, is the perfect place for Baal's approach.

Bob's comment immediately above yours, James, is reassuring.

But I find all this talk of high powered physics equations confusing. Were there a few chapters missing from the chapter I bought? Once again I am reminded of a speech I attended by a nuclear regulator who bragged how she added five hundred pages of regulation to the bureaucratic manual under her watch. In the question and answer, I asked her, to uproarious laughter, if, perhaps, she had discovered new wires or pipes that no one had previously noticed?

Harriman's book is a narrative with analytic commentary about the methods and thought processes of scientists, not a book on physics. He could have written the exact same book using medicine, palaeontology, genetics and historical linguistics and made the exact same points about induction. The history of induction in the science of physics is only one of the units used in Harriman's monograph as an illustrative example.

No offense at all to Bob, who will hopefully have something interesting to say based on his credentials as a thinker in general, but his expertise in mathematical physics per se will be about as relevant as the technical opinion of a citrus grower on a book about the role of nutrition in sports. There are several moves upwards and to the side here in the abstractional hierarchy between Harriman's thesis and Kolker's strict professional expertise.

Edited November 26, 2010 by Ted Keer

[Philip Coates]

> Harriman's book is a narrative with analytic commentary about the methods and thought processes of scientists, not a book on physics. He could have written the exact same book using medicine, palaeontology, genetics and historical linguistics and made the exact same points about induction. [Ted]

Exactly.

As an aside, you don't do a treatise on a complete solution to the problem of induction and only have it be about induction in physics and philosophy. You must show induction across many other fields as well ... biology, history, literature, understanding people....etc.

It's like saying I have a method of doing proofs in every area of mathematics and then your 'proof' is showing that it works in trigonometry and fractions.

Edited November 26, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Brant Gaede]

There are some here who are physics experts and some who are not physics experts but who can follow physics mathematically if it is well explained. A board with Dragonfly, Dan Ust, Ellen Stuttle, Stephen Boydstun and others, is the perfect place for Baal's approach.

Jim,

Dan Ust and Dragonfly no longer post here. It's impossible to tell if they were driven away or they just drove off, one in confusion and the other disgust.

--Brant

most women leave, too, but that may be Internet generic

[merjet]

This is irrelevant. Faraday is discussed in TLL only in connection with how atoms combine into molecules. Electrical or magnetic fields are not a topic in TLL. (Electrical current is, with the people being Galvani and Volta.)

This may come as a shock to you(sic), but Coulomb attraction and repulsion is a field phenomenon. Fields are at the heart of it as Faraday and Maxwell showed.

Just as a matter of historical correctness and completeness, point to point interaction a la Newton was not sufficient to deal with electricity and magnetism or more correctly electro-magnetism. The inverse square law of electrical/magnetic interaction only holds when the bodies involved are static, which they almost never are. Look up the Lorentz Force Law sometime, and see how velocities enter into the matter. Electrical force and magnetic force (they are each components of a four-tensor) was not clearly understood prior to Faraday and Maxwell. If our understanding of electricity and magnetism had stopped where it was with Ampere and Gauss, (say), we never would have had radio. Telegraphs, maybe, but not radio.

I would also point out that Good Old Mechanics was not properly understood until the concept of Force (a vector quantity) was replaced by the concept of Energy (a scalar quantity).* The works of Bernoulli, Lagrange, Gauss, Hamilton which put Energy at the center was the perfection of Newtonian Mechanics and it also provided the mathematical methodology for the quantum physics that came later as well as the General Theory of Relativity which Hilbert got before Einstein using Langrangian methods. The key to laws of motion in fields is finding the right Langrangian action function to derive the differential equations of motion. I will, in due course, find out whether or not Harriman bothered to look in this direction. I don't know but I would be willing to bet he did not. We shall see. A day without Lagrangians, is a day without action. A day without Hamiltonians is a day that lacks energy. (Forgive my lame puns, please).

Ba'al Chatzaf

*See -The Variational Methods of Mechanics- by Cornelius Lanczos.

Please tell us the relevance of this to induction. Please tell us why a book on induction needs to address it in order to have any merit.

[BaalChatzaf]

Please tell us the relevance of this to induction. Please tell us why a book on induction needs to address it in order to have any merit.

I will be pleased to tell you. Look at the title of Mr. Harriman's book. There is your answer.

I will be getting the book soon. I will read every word -as it is written, not as it is "intended" to be read-.

I will see what Mr. Harriman's understanding of physics is and I will say what I think.

You are now answered.

Ba'al Chatzaf