🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep26.220918.12607@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt) writes:
>Sounds like
>you've defined "experiment" so as to rule out altogether the
>possibility of experimental math.
[...]
>It follows that we should respect both the theoreticians and the
>experimentalists in both subjects.  Backing one kind to the exclusion
>of the other would greatly impede the progress of science.

     No one is claiming that theory is bad.  However, a computer
calculation is just that: a calculation.  If mathematicians use the word
"experiment" to describe some of their computer work, that's fine.
However, physical scientists must reserve to the word the exclusive
meaning of performing measurements on actual systems.
     Let's take a ridiculous example.  Suppose I want to know something
about ideal gases and calculate the pressure at several different
volumes and temperatures from the equation P = nRT/V.  Is that an
experiment?  Of course not.  Tell me now, just how complicated does a
calculation have to be before it becomes an experiment?  You see the
problem now, I hope.

				Marc R. Roussel
                                mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca