🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov4.134033.368@prim>, dave@prim.demon.co.uk (Dave Griffiths) writes...
> 
>Surely physics is more than just a branch of engineering? You seem to take
>the attitude that if there are conceptual difficulties, they can be swept
>under the carpet - provided the model is effective and you can crank the
>handle and get good predictions, who cares?

It's exactly the opposite.  However, I take a practical approach.  How do 
you expect to learn how to correct the conceptual problems if all you have
is a theory with conceptual problems which always agrees with experiment?
There are are two choices on how to proceed:

(1) Speculate about new models which don't have the given conceptual 
difficulty.
(2) Vigorously pursue the experimental science until a discrepancy is 
revealed.

The problem with (1) is that there is no rational way to discriminate
between models if they all predict all  the experimental data.  There is
no way to know what parts of QM might need modification to produce a 
better theory.  All you can do is wait until someone follows path (2)
to the point of success.  In the meantime, you must understand the limits
of applicability of the model and the range of data it was designed to 
explain, and accept the fact that without more data you are never going
to do better than to construct a model with explains all the data you
already have.  

So it's not that I say "who cares?," but rather "what you are going to
do about it?"

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas