🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5NOV199211132101@csa2.lbl.gov> sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.010054.24588@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes...
>> 
>>     Internal consistency does not constitute a 'test'.  It is a
>>     necessary condition.
>
>Only in a strictly logical sense.  But experience has taught us that 
>consistency is, in practice, a very powerful guide in high-energy 
>physics.  Chris Lewellyn-Smith (I apologize for the spelling - I never
>can get the name right), the new director of CERN, is famous for,
>among other things, demonstrating that you can "derive" the Standard
>Model from nothing more than trying to build the simplest consistent
>theory that includes all the particles we know about - all the wonderful
>details of how they interact fall out of the model-building process
>as you try to avoid unphysical results (non-unitarity) and inconsistency.

     My guess is that there are far more assumptions in this than you
     are letting on, many hidden.

     However, getting back on track it is silly to say that a theory that in 
     some sense avoids internal inconsistency has passed some sort of 
     valid scientific 'test'.  It's like patting oneself on the back
     for not having assumed ii equals 3 and ii equals 5 at the same
     time.  

                                  dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926