Electrodynamics

[Bruce Sherwood]

I sent the link to the "philosophical" paper on electromagnetism to a
physicist colleague who is extremely knowledgeable about these
matters. Here is what he says:

Thanks Bruce, but I don't think this paper adds much to the literature
on these matters.

 The philosophical papers by Frisch and Muller that the authors refer
to are focused on the issues of self-fields and renormalization, ala
Rohrlich and others. They question the consistency of classical
electrodynamics as a dynamical theory, relativity aside.

 The authors seem to want to dredge up variations on the old issue of
conventionalism, see the Reichenbach reference. The paragraph (Q1)(d)
on page 4 begins to hint at some kind of ambiguity/conventionality in
the relationship between physics represented in different frames (its
quite confusing). They set up a maze of relations T_V, P_V and M_V on
pages 10 and 11 to, in my opinion, muddy up the notion of
corresponding states [there is a reference to Bell's paper on page 14
that mentions these]. I just don't think there is any problem or
ambiguity with the notion of corresponding states.

 The idea that the concept of an "electromagnetic field moving with
velocity v(r, t) at point r and time t" must be meaningful in order to
sort out what they portray as confusion about corresponding states is
simply wrong headed. So, the fact that the concept doesn't exist is
not a problem for relativity or anything else.

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[glen ep ropella]

Excellent commentary!  Thanks for sending that and thanks to your friend
for taking the time to read and respond.  This sentence is especially
helpful: "So, the fact that the concept doesn't exist is
not a problem for relativity or anything else."  Perhaps it shows that
your friend is tolerant enough of philosophy to recognize when a
nonexistent (or nonsensical?) component might matter and when it does not.

[sigh]  I suppose I should write a proposal and farm it around for a
grant to choose some collection of border crossing philosophy/practical
artifacts and to choose a spread of of philosophers and practitioners
and pay them to seriously consider and comment on those artifacts.  (Not
likely. ;-)

Bruce Sherwood wrote at 07/14/2011 09:08 AM:

> I sent the link to the "philosophical" paper on electromagnetism to a
> physicist colleague who is extremely knowledgeable about these
> matters. Here is what he says:
>
> Thanks Bruce, but I don't think this paper adds much to the literature
> on these matters.
>
>  The philosophical papers by Frisch and Muller that the authors refer
> to are focused on the issues of self-fields and renormalization, ala
> Rohrlich and others. They question the consistency of classical
> electrodynamics as a dynamical theory, relativity aside.
>
>  The authors seem to want to dredge up variations on the old issue of
> conventionalism, see the Reichenbach reference. The paragraph (Q1)(d)
> on page 4 begins to hint at some kind of ambiguity/conventionality in
> the relationship between physics represented in different frames (its
> quite confusing). They set up a maze of relations T_V, P_V and M_V on
> pages 10 and 11 to, in my opinion, muddy up the notion of
> corresponding states [there is a reference to Bell's paper on page 14
> that mentions these]. I just don't think there is any problem or
> ambiguity with the notion of corresponding states.
>
>  The idea that the concept of an "electromagnetic field moving with
> velocity v(r, t) at point r and time t" must be meaningful in order to
> sort out what they portray as confusion about corresponding states is
> simply wrong headed. So, the fact that the concept doesn't exist is
> not a problem for relativity or anything else.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Bruce Sherwood]

The colleague is Mark Haugan, a general relativist at Purdue. He has
been using our two-volume intro textbook for 11 years and is currently
writing "volume 3", for the "modern physics" course taken mainly by
physics majors. His intent is to build on the two semesters of our
curriculum, which take a 20th-century perspective rather than a
19th-century perspective on intro physics. His idea is that if
students have already had two semesters of physics from a modern
perspective, the third-semester course could and should build on that,
and look quite different from the traditional "modern physics" course.

Mark knows the electrodynamics literature very well, the math
literature very well, and the physics education and math education
literature very well.

Bruce

On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 11:25 AM, glen e. p. ropella
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Excellent commentary!  Thanks for sending that and thanks to your friend
> for taking the time to read and respond.  This sentence is especially
> helpful: "So, the fact that the concept doesn't exist is
> not a problem for relativity or anything else."  Perhaps it shows that
> your friend is tolerant enough of philosophy to recognize when a
> nonexistent (or nonsensical?) component might matter and when it does not.
>
> [sigh]  I suppose I should write a proposal and farm it around for a
> grant to choose some collection of border crossing philosophy/practical
> artifacts and to choose a spread of of philosophers and practitioners
> and pay them to seriously consider and comment on those artifacts.  (Not
> likely. ;-)
>
> Bruce Sherwood wrote at 07/14/2011 09:08 AM:
>> I sent the link to the "philosophical" paper on electromagnetism to a
>> physicist colleague who is extremely knowledgeable about these
>> matters. Here is what he says:
>>
>> Thanks Bruce, but I don't think this paper adds much to the literature
>> on these matters.
>>
>>  The philosophical papers by Frisch and Muller that the authors refer
>> to are focused on the issues of self-fields and renormalization, ala
>> Rohrlich and others. They question the consistency of classical
>> electrodynamics as a dynamical theory, relativity aside.
>>
>>  The authors seem to want to dredge up variations on the old issue of
>> conventionalism, see the Reichenbach reference. The paragraph (Q1)(d)
>> on page 4 begins to hint at some kind of ambiguity/conventionality in
>> the relationship between physics represented in different frames (its
>> quite confusing). They set up a maze of relations T_V, P_V and M_V on
>> pages 10 and 11 to, in my opinion, muddy up the notion of
>> corresponding states [there is a reference to Bell's paper on page 14
>> that mentions these]. I just don't think there is any problem or
>> ambiguity with the notion of corresponding states.
>>
>>  The idea that the concept of an "electromagnetic field moving with
>> velocity v(r, t) at point r and time t" must be meaningful in order to
>> sort out what they portray as confusion about corresponding states is
>> simply wrong headed. So, the fact that the concept doesn't exist is
>> not a problem for relativity or anything else.
>
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org