On 5/22/2014 4:16 PM, LizR wrote:
On the other hand, I find arguments along the lines of "we generate physics because we
demand certain types of answer from nature" unsatisfying, indeed they strike me as
postmodernism in disguise, which I'm personally averse to.
Me too. But that's not what I (or Stenger said). What we said was that we demand that
our descriptions of nature apply in all circumstances in order to count as "laws of
physics". What's surprising is how much you can get from this, as shown by Noether. Just
demanding translation invariance implies a conserved quantity we call momentum. Look up
Vic's book. As I say, I think he makes it sound better than it is because it's not always
to obvious what transformation relative to which we want to maintain invariance. You have
to know that you want make the speed of light invariant in order to get conservation of
4-momentum.
Brent
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