An approximation
Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it.
Experiment
The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific “truth.”
Atomic hypothesis
what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.
Agnstrom in analogy
Now cm is called an angstrom (just as another name), so we say they are 1 or 2 angstroms (Å) in radius. Another way to remember their size is this: if an apple is magnified to the size of the earth, then the atoms in the apple are approximately the size of the original apple.
Helium at absolute zero
Helium, even at absolute zero, does not freeze, unless the pressure is made so great as to make the atoms squash together.
Always changing
To our eyes, our crude eyes, nothing is changing, but if we could see it a billion times magnified, we would see that from its own point of view it is always changing: molecules are leaving the surface, molecules are coming back.
Evaporation
Therefore, since those that leave have more energy than the average, the ones that are left have less average motion than they had before. So the liquid gradually cools if it evaporates.
Why atoms behave such a way?
Atoms are very special: they like certain particular partners, certain particular directions, and so on. It is the job of physics to analyze why each one wants what it wants.
Naming is challenging in chemistry!
One problem of chemistry is to name a substance, so that we will know what it is. Find a name for this shape! Not only must the name tell the shape, but it must also tell that here is an oxygen atom, there a hydrogen exactly what and where each atom is. So we can appreciate that the chemical names must be complex in order to be complete.
Brownian motion
if we look at very tiny particles (colloids) in water through an excellent microscope, we see a perpetual jiggling of the particles, which is the result of the bombardment of the atoms. This is called the Brownian motion.
Atoms –> Animals
Everything is made of atoms. That is the key hypothesis. The most important hypothesis in all of biology, for example, is that everything that animals do, atoms do. In other words, there is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.
Influences
Any other spot in nature has a similar variety of things and influences. It is always as complicated as that, no matter where it is. Curiosity demands that we ask questions, that we try to put things together and try to understand this multitude of aspects as perhaps resulting from the action of a relatively small number of elemental things and forces acting in an infinite variety of combinations.
Scientific method
Observation, reason, and experiment make up what we call the scientific method. We shall have to limit ourselves to a bare description of our basic view of what is sometimes called fundamental physics, or fundamental ideas which have arisen from the application of the scientific method.
Electromagnetic field
Another tremendous amalgamation was the discovery of the relation between electricity, magnetism, and light, which were found to be different aspects of the same thing, which we call today the electromagnetic field.
A field
waves travel away, so that by jiggling, there is an influence very much farther out, an oscillatory influence, that cannot be understood from the direct interaction. Therefore the idea of direct interaction must be replaced with the existence of the water, or in the electrical case, with what we call the electromagnetic field.
Electromagnetic Rays
These two terms, x-rays and gamma rays, are used almost synonymously. Usually electromagnetic rays coming from nuclei are called gamma rays, while those of high energy from atoms are called x-rays, but at the same frequency they are indistinguishable physically, no matter what their source.
Forces
The mechanical rules of “inertia” and “forces” are wrong Newton’s laws are wrong in the world of atoms. Instead, it was discovered that things on a small scale behave nothing like things on a large scale. That is what makes physics difficult and very interesting.
Science ok?
What is the fundamental hypothesis of science, the fundamental philosophy? We stated it in the first chapter: the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment. If it turns out that most experiments work out the same in Quito as they do in Stockholm, then those “most experiments” will be used to formulate some general law, and those experiments which do not come out the same we will say were a result of the environment near Stockholm.
Quantum Mechanics
quantum mechanics unifies the idea of the field and its waves, and the particles, all into one. Now it is true that when the frequency is low, the field aspect of the phenomenon is more evident, or more useful as an approximate description in terms of everyday experiences. But as the frequency increases, the particle aspects of the phenomenon become more evident with the equipment with which we usually make the measurements.
Nerves and living things
you cannot have animals without nerves. But you can have life without nerves. Plants have neither nerves nor muscles, but they are working, they are alive, just the same.
Everything is Atoms
if we were to name the most powerful assumption of all, which leads one on and on in an attempt to understand life, it is that all things are made of atoms, and that everything that living things do can be understood in terms of the jigglings and wigglings of atoms.
Astronomy –> Physics
Astronomy is older than physics. In fact, it got physics started by showing the beautiful simplicity of the motion of the stars and planets, the understanding of which was the beginning of physics. But the most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth.
Furnace and Stars
By looking at the proportions of the isotopes in the cold, dead ember which we are, we can discover what the furnace was like in which the stuff of which we are made was formed. That furnace was like the stars, and so it is very likely that our elements were “made” in the stars and spit out in the explosions which we call novae and supernovae.
Mind
The central problem of the mind, if you will, or the nervous system, is this: when an animal learns something, it can do something different than it could before, and its brain cell must have changed too, if it is made out of atoms. In what way is it different? We do not know where to look, or what to look for, when something is memorized.
Chemical energy
Our modern understanding is the following: chemical energy has two parts, kinetic energy of the electrons inside the atoms, so part of it is kinetic, and electrical energy of interaction of the electrons and the protons the rest of it, therefore, is electrical.
Linear Momentum
There are two other conservation laws which are analogous to the conservation of energy. One is called the conservation of linear momentum. The other is called the conservation of angular momentum.
Conservation of Energy
Nature has conservation of energy, but does not really care; she spends a lot of it in all directions. We have already obtained energy from uranium; we can also get energy from hydrogen, but at present only in an explosive and dangerous condition.
Isotope
If we make measurements with an isotope with a longer half-life, then we are able to measure longer times. Uranium, for example, has an isotope whose half-life is about years, so that if some material was formed with uranium in it years ago, only half the uranium would remain today. When the uranium disintegrates, it changes into lead.
Age of earth
By comparing these fractions, we can tell what percent of the uranium disappeared and changed into lead. By this method, the age of certain rocks has been determined to be several billion years. An extension of this method, not using particular rocks but looking at the uranium and lead in the oceans and using averages over the earth, has been used to determine (within the past few years) that the age of the earth itself is approximately billion years.
Singularity
It is now believed that at least our part of the universe had its beginning about ten or twelve billion years ago. We do not know what happened before then. In fact, we may well ask again: Does the question make any sense? Does an earlier time have any meaning?
Period of Earth
We now believe that, for various reasons, some days are longer than others, some days are shorter, and on the average the period of the earth becomes a little longer as the centuries pass.
Triangulation
We have found by experience that distance can be measured in another fashion: by triangulation.
Triangulation for measuring distance of Earth to Sun
Then how can we measure the distance to the sun? We must invent an extension of the idea of triangulation. We measure the relative distances of all the planets by astronomical observations of where the planets appear to be, and we get a picture of the solar system with the proper relative distances of everything, but with no absolute distance.
Probability
The ideas of probability are certainly useful in describing the behavior of the or so molecules in a sample of a gas, for it is clearly impractical even to attempt to write down the position or velocity of each molecule. When probability was first applied to such problems, it was considered to be a convenience a way of dealing with very complex situations. We now believe that the ideas of probability are essential to a description of atomic happenings.
Fuzziness
The uncertainty principle describes an inherent fuzziness that must exist in any attempt to describe nature. Our most precise description of nature must be in terms of probabilities.
Experiments > Philosophical arguments
If measurement showed exactly how the planets moved, then perhaps it would be possible to establish one or another viewpoint. This was a tremendous idea that to find something out, it is better to perform some careful experiments than to carry on deep philosophical arguments.
Gravitation
It is, however, clear that the shape of the galaxy is due to gravitation even though the complexities of its structure have not yet allowed us to analyze it completely.
Numerical Methods
it is very interesting how long it took people to appreciate the fact that perhaps the powers of mathematical analysis were limited and it might be necessary to use the numerical methods. Today an enormous number of problems that cannot be done analytically are solved by numerical methods, and the old three-body problem, which was supposed to be so difficult, is solved as a matter of routine in exactly the same manner that was described in the preceding chapter, namely, by doing enough arithmetic.
Abstract ideas
All of our ideas in physics require a certain amount of common sense in their application; they are not purely mathematical or abstract ideas. We have to understand what we mean when we say that the phenomena are the same when we move the apparatus to a new position. We mean that we move everything that we believe is relevant; if the phenomenon is not the same, we suggest that something relevant has not been moved, and we proceed to look for it. If we never find it, then we claim that the laws of physics do not have this symmetry.
Relative position
Therefore the laws as seen by Moe appear the same; he can write Newton’s laws too, with different coordinates, and they will still be right. That means that there is no unique way to define the origin of the world, because the laws will appear the same, from whatever position they are observed.
Mathematics
Therefore we say that the laws of physics are symmetrical for translational displacements, symmetrical in the sense that the laws do not change when we make a translation of our coordinates. Of course it is quite obvious intuitively that this is true, but it is interesting and entertaining to discuss the mathematics of it.
Pendulum
we know that a pendulum clock up in an artificial satellite, for example, would not tick either, because there is no effective force, and on Mars it would go at a different rate. Pendulum clocks do involve something more than just the machinery inside, they involve something on the outside. Once we recognize this factor, we see that we must turn the earth along with the apparatus.
New position
While we are rotating in space our angles are always changing, absolutely; this change does not seem to bother us very much, for in the new position we seem to be in the same condition as in the old. This has a certain tendency to confuse one, because it is true that in the new turned position the laws are the same as in the unturned position, but it is not true that as we turn a thing it follows the same laws as it does when we are not turning it.
Simple idea
Any simple idea is approximate; as an illustration, consider an object, … what is an object? Philosophers are always saying, “Well, just take a chair for example.” The moment they say that, you know that they do not know what they are talking about any more. What is a chair? Well, a chair is a certain thing over there … certain?, how certain? The atoms are evaporating from it from time to time not many atoms, but
Laws
In fact, the glory of mathematics is that we do not have to say what we are talking about. The glory is that the laws, the arguments, and the logic are independent of what “it” is. If we have any other set of objects that obey the same system of axioms as Euclid’s geometry, then if we make new definitions and follow them out with correct logic, all the consequences will be correct, and it makes no difference what the subject was.
Friction
There is another kind of friction, called dry friction or sliding friction, which occurs when one solid body slides on another. In this case a force is needed to maintain motion. This is called a frictional force, and its origin, also, is a very complicated matter. Both surfaces of contact are irregular, on an atomic level. There are many points of contact where the atoms seem to cling together, and then, as the sliding body is pulled along, the atoms snap apart and vibration ensues; something like that has to happen.
Geometry
Einstein found that gravity could be considered a pseudo force only at one point at a time, and was led by his considerations to suggest that the geometry of the world is more complicated than ordinary Euclidean geometry.
Work and power
A newton-meter is called a joule; work is measured in joules. Power, then, is joules per second, and that is also called a Watt(W). If we multiply watts by time, the result is the work done. The work done by the electrical company in our houses, technically, is equal to the watts times the time.
Satellites
Therefore the first thing that was done historically with satellites was to get one to go around the earth, which requires a speed of five miles per second. The next thing was to send a satellite away from the earth permanently; this required twice the energy, or about seven miles per second.
Ideas and experiments
The only relevant question is whether the ideas are consistent with what is found experimentally. In other words, the “strange ideas” need only agree with experiment, and the only reason that we have to discuss the behavior of clocks and so forth is to demonstrate that although the notion of the time dilation is strange, it is consistent with the way we measure time.
Light years
We can only see Alpha Centauri by the light that has come from our past, up to four years ago, but we do not know what it is doing “now”; it will take four years before what it is doing “now” can affect us. Alpha Centauri “now” is an idea or concept of our mind; it is not something that is really definable physically at the moment, because we have to wait to observe it; we cannot even define it right “now.”