🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <77125@ut-emx.uucp> johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb) writes:
>In article <25125@dog.ee.lbl.gov>, sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
>
>{In reference to Rustum Roy's Macneil Lehrer Newhour interview opposing the 
> SSC}
>
>|>I guess it depends on what you mean by "effective."  Statements to the effect
>|>that particle physics has nothing to do with the origins of the universe
>|>and that if we want to understand it we need to study chemistry and biology
>|>just convinced me that he had *no* idea of what was going on around him.
>
>Be careful here. You need to define terms. What you mean by "Universe" and
>what Roy did may be two different things. His point may have been that the
>average person may find his perspective more useful than an alternate
>perspective that relied on reduction to earlier times and higher
>energies.
>

It is commonplace for mathemeticians to say that they will constinue to
do real mathematics despite any work that is being done to formalize
the foundations of mathematics. A mathemetician working in topology
(say) knows that he is working in a valuable field and is generating
important results. The topology results that he is generating 
are the important aspects of his work, the rules governing the
generation of consistent axioms are of only limited interest.

Now as Roy said, what effect will the discovery of the Higgs
particle have on the work of biologists. Will their work
in the operation of photosynthesis pause even for an
instant when the mass and existence of the Top quark
is confirmed?

Why do the HEP physicists think that their results are any
more fundamental then results in biochemistry? Fundamental
biochemistry results certianly do not depend on any fundamental
results in HEP. By this I mean, that no theory in biochemistry
will be modified by any result of work at the SSC.

-- 
i.sinature