Re: FN-FORUM: OT: Friday funny, sort of, also kinda scary

date posted 11th November 2007 15:01

Dom Latter wrote:

> Unfortunately in every-day speech "theory" has come to mean
> something that's unproven and speculative. To a scientist a
> theory is anything but. It's something that has been tested.
> An unproven idea is a hypothesis.

I agree that common usage of "theory" does not match that of science.
Nor does "fact" for that matter, as nothing in science can ever be
considered factual (thereby denying uncertainty). In practical terms
the difference between certainty and extremely high probability is
negligible, but in science it is crucial, especially given that
science does regularly disprove theories that were considered
almost-certainties for a long time. Given the scientific nature of the
original thread, and my own declaration of a scientific approach, I
stand by my original statement that "getting over-unity energy by
splitting water molecules is theoretically impossible". Splitting the
atom was once theoretically impossible too, and a lot of people at the
time stated quite adamantly that it WAS impossible. Perhaps the only
difference is that I am happy to acknowledge that I might be wrong.

> An essential part of a good theory (alongside it making testable
> predictions) is, as you note, its falsifiability. The laws of thermodynamics
> would be *every* easy to disprove. Just build a perpetual motion machine.
> But nobody ever has and I'm prepared to say nobody ever will.

Despite my best efforts as a child to create a perpetual motion
machine (I didn't get out much) I would happily side with you on that
one and state that in my opinion, given my current scientific
understanding, a working perpetual motion machine at our everyday
scale of perception should be impossible, or at least almost
infinitely improbable - yes I am a fan of Douglas Adams too.

> > nothing in science is anything more than observation and theory. We
> > cannot know for certain that the laws of thermodynamics hold true in
> > all cases. They don't even apply at the quantum level and so "science"

> I say they do.

Even science allows for personal opinion, otherwise it would not be
anywhere near as heated in discussion as it is, and nothing would ever
get disproved :o)

Quantum thermodynamics is an attempt to form an equivalent set of laws
that could apply at the quantum level, and allows for a lack of
equilibrium (a basic tenet of thermodynamics) amongst other things. As
a subscriber to the big bang theory, I would also have to disagree
that the laws of thermodynamics apply at the universal scale, but that
is also just an opinion ;o)