DB Larson - Part 1 Reciprocal Systems, 1978 Conference

Transcript

those of you are the sheat seats in the back I think help if you come down and sell up some of these more expensive ones that we'll let you have without any extra Js [Music] as you noticed it took quite a little while for the CBS crew to set up this evening and uh on that account we're running uh at least a half an hour late so I'm going to omit the first half hour of what I was going to say uh that will include it's unfortunate because that will include some of my most Shady jokes but uh I'll try to take up from that half hour period Frank took you back into his quite a little way but just to go one better I'm going to go still farther back 5,000 years ago when the invention of writing on CL Tablets by the samarians first gave the human race an opportunity to make a permanent record of its thoughts and actions there was already in existence a rather sophisticate ated science of astronomy the priests who were the scientists of those days were not only familiar with Elementary astronomical facts such as the apparent movements of the sun moon and planets but they had also Advanced to the point where they were able to predict eclipses and to calculate the length of the Year within about a half hour of its present uh accepted value the premises on which these calculations and others of the same kind were made were the fundamentals of the science of that day in the sense in which I am using the term n that is they were the most basic of the relations that were used the principles that were used by the science of our day now these principles were originally derived by a simple application of what we now call inductive reasoning that is they were generalizations from experience and that is the most reliable method of arriving at scientific principles fundamental or otherwise but unfortunately it's limited by the amount of empirical information that's available and by the extent to which that information has been analyzed so the result is that an inductive science such as that of the ancient peoples has a tendency to fall behind the progress of empirical Discovery and ultimately it acquires a rather embarrassing accumulation of unsolved problems now that was the situation in Egypt in Babylonia and in the Far East about 3,000 years ago the time was clearly right for some new approach and that was provided by a remarkable group of thinkers that flourished in Greece during the Golden Age of that country's history the source of order in the universe these men said was minded in the proper way of Vari a general principles was to apply insight and reasoning the result of that change in policy was to concentrate attention on the causes from physical phenomena rather than on the phenomena themselves or the Egyptians saw only the fact that a rock falls if it's released from a height the Greeks look for the cause of the Fall of a reason that everything must have its natural place so the Rock and falling then was merely look seeking for its natural place in this way by providing an explanation for what happened they remedied the chief defect of the previous inductive theories similarly they reasoned as Professor Meer indicated that while the Earth is obviously imperfect the heavens are perfect and all Heavenly motions must then take the perfect form out of a circle so the orbits of the planets are undoutedly circular now observation and experiment were definitely relegated to a secondary position by the Greeks but they were not disregarded all together so when the observation showed that the planetary orbits are not exactly circles it was recognized that here is a awkward discrepancy that we have to do something about but one of the strong points of an inventive science such as that of the Greeks is that it can easily accommodate new discoveries simply by more invention so they assumed that the planets move in small circles called epicycles and these epicycles then move around the main planetary orbit then when further observational refinement disclose still more discrepancies those could be taken care of in exactly the same way merely by adding more epicycles this telic theory of planetary orbits is typical of inventive theories in general and since we see it in a historical perspective by taking a look at this colic Theory we can get an idea of the general characteristics of inventive theories the first point that we need to note is that that theory was mathematically correct within the existing observational limits the then existing limits that is a general characteristic of all inventive theories because they are inventive for that specific purpose they are specifically designed to fit mathematics that are already known the second Point significant point is that that theory the talic theory was conceptually wrong the interpretation of the mathematics was wrong that again is a general characteristic applies to all inventive theor because of the circumstances under which they are invented as many observers have pointed out long-standing problems in science do not continue to exist because of a lack of competence on the part of those who are trying to solve them nor do they continue to exist because of a lack of methods by which to go about solving them they continue to exist because some piece or pieces of information that are essential are missing in the case of the toic theory there were two such pieces of information the Greeks did not realize that the planets revolve around the sun rather than around the earth and they did not know that there is a force of gravitation controlling those movements without those two pieces of information neither the talic theory nor any other theory that was invented to explain the mathematics could have been correct now that is a general characteristic of inventive theories and I'm stressing it at this time because it'll be important later on in other connections if the information is available if all the essential information is there then there's no need to invent a theory then we can obtain it by inductive means if the essential information is not there then any Theory we invent cannot be conceptually right in view of the practically unlimited opportunity for making ad hoc assumptions that is adding epicycles an inventive Theory never comes to the fate of the inductive systems of theories the inventive system uh may fail to account for a few things at any given time but there's never the big accumulation that characterizes an inductive Theory an inductive system of theory that's fallen behind the progress of Discovery but the inventive Theory ultimately in inventive system of theories inventive science I might call it ultimately encounters a fate of its own sooner or later we just have too many epicycles and in the meantime the progress of observation and the construction of inductive theories of lower rank is continued so that ultimately we get to the point where the scope of those theories is Broad enough to challenge the prevailing inventive Theory and then uh the inventive Theory goes to the boards now that's what happened to the Greek inventive system about 500 years ago and at that time the Perfection of the heavens and the natural places of objects and the other governing principles that the Greeks had invented were discarded and replaced by other principles that were derived by such men as Kepler and Newton from from factual foundations by inductive reasoning now the benefit of the 2500 years of accumulated scientific knowledge since the demise of the first inductive theories this new science of Newton and his contemporaries was a vastly improved product and it scored some very impressive successes at one time the practitioners of that science were pretty thoroughly convinced that a knowledge of the entire physical Universe was within their grasp but here again the inherence which of an inductive Theory again asserted itself and Newtonian science found itself faced with a series of problems for which it had no answers so then the present day inventive science took over how when an idea or a set of ideas gains General acceptance and becomes a familiar feature of thought its Origins recede from View and I wouldn't be surprised but what many of you may be reluctant to accept the idea that the basic theories of present day physics such as the relativity theory for example belong in the same category as the toic theory of planetary orbits but they were all inventive theories The Originators of the present day theories don't deny that in fact they emphasize it we might even say they glory in it Einstein told us that pure invention is the only way by which these basic principles can be obtained and he was highly critical of Newton's attempt to to to ascertain them inductively here's what he said Newton believed that the basic concepts and laws of his system could be derived from experience the tremendous practical successes of his doctrines May well have prevented him and the physicists of the 18th and 19th centuries from recognizing the fictitious character of the foundations of his