Philosophy of Physics

[Mise]

I think I do misunderstand what you're after...

It's not that I'm afraid of physics, as it's traditionally taught, involving too much math, but rather not enough philosophy (for my tastes). Do you think that's true?

Probably ^^ I'd imagine a basic QM course would teach you a lot of the stuff you mentioned, and you could read the rest of it in your own time (although the arrow of time is purely a statistical phenomenon).

 

[aneeshm]

Hmm, I smell bias.

Doesn't really matter much which language you choose , as long as its philology is rigorous . I selected Sanskrit as it has a formalised grammar , approaches both mathematics and computer science most closely , is the most rigorous , and is something I wish to study later myself .

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

I always thought this stuff was fascinating. Seems like quite a few here agree, as we've had plenty of threads relating to it.

So how do I go about studying it? It'd be nice to have a fairly deep understanding of it, not just know a bunch of scientific terms to throw around and impress Aunt Suzy. The most obvious answer would be to take my high school's physics course and study physics some in college, but then I have to put up with boring crap like this:

I'm perfectly willing to do this, but only if it leads to the more interesting (and by that I mean having philosophical implications) stuff. I fear most physics courses, especially introductory ones, quite simply don't (besides touching on it a couple times here and there). Am I right or wrong here?

Of course, if school fails me, I can always educate myself. What books would you recommend?

Seems like a pretty easy problem to me. From what I remember of physics, you can ignore the 15 N downward force in your calculation, because that's not contributing to friction in any way.

Physics is pretty intuitive stuff, so I don't see why you need to learn any special philosophy to understand it. Physics laws are gospel, and there are never exceptions, unlike in some sciences where there are often exceptions in some circumstances. If you just study the laws of physics, and apply them strictly, without interpretation, you won't have a problem. Everything in physics seems to come down to vectors, and vectors are nothing but a number and a direction.

 

[Bootstoots]

I'd recommend studying Sanskrit philology as a complement to philosophy . And by the way - the answer is 5 Newtons .

How exactly did you arrive at that answer? I'm sure I'm doing something stupid, but I keep getting 7 N myself.

 

[Mise]

Seems like a pretty easy problem to me. From what I remember of physics, you can ignore the 15 N downward force in your calculation, because that's not contributing to friction in any way.

Did you mean to say that you'd ignore the 12N force?

 

[WillJ]

Physics is pretty intuitive stuff

Classical physics, sure, but I'd be hesistant to call modern physics intuitive...

Probably ^^ I'd imagine a basic QM course would teach you a lot of the stuff you mentioned, and you could read the rest of it in your own time (although the arrow of time is purely a statistical phenomenon).

Hmm, okay.

I'm assuming you're typically ready for a basic QM course after taking a nice little intro physics course or so?

 

[Ayatollah So]

Back in the dark ages when I was in college, you needed two intro physics courses before you could start drinking the hard stuff. As for philosophy, I think if you could get a prof to talk to you for a half hour they'd probably let you skip any intros. I say go for it. You probably need a fair amount of science courses to fulfill liberal arts degree requirements anyway.

Have you already picked a college? A major?

And it's 3 Newtons. You're supposed to ignore the horizontal force. But then, f really just stands for fudge factor anyways; if you want the real deal, study tribology in mechanical engineering

 

[Bill3000]

Classical physics, sure, but I'd be hesistant to call modern physics intuitive...
Hmm, okay.

I'm assuming you're typically ready for a basic QM course after taking a nice little intro physics course or so?

Assuming said nice little intro physics course includes partial differential equations.

I'd reccommend buying Feynman's lectures.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Did you mean to say that you'd ignore the 12N force?

No, the 15 N downward one.

 

[Mise]

@WillJ: You need to know basic stuff about energy and momentum conservation, waves and diffraction, things like that (in UK terms, an A-level understanding will probably be enough to learn "about" those things, but if you want to know how they actually work beyond a handwaving arguement then you'll need to study it further). Any maths (eigenvalue equations in particular) that you know is a bonus.

No, the 15 N downward one.

Oh, well, that's wrong then

 

[WillJ]

Back in the dark ages when I was in college, you needed two intro physics courses before you could start drinking the hard stuff. As for philosophy, I think if you could get a prof to talk to you for a half hour they'd probably let you skip any intros. I say go for it. You probably need a fair amount of science courses to fulfill liberal arts degree requirements anyway.

Dark ages? For some reason I thought you still were in college, or are studying for an advanced degree. I wonder why...

And yeah, if my college requires science, I'm definitely filling it up (for the most part) with physics. By "skip intros," you mean skip philosophy intros?

Have you already picked a college? A major?

I have a year of high school left and haven't quite picked a college (possibilities are the Uni of Alabama, Washington Uni in St. Louis, Vanderbilt Uni, Wake Forest Uni, Boston Uni, and some others); I'm going to major in economics.

Assuming said nice little intro physics course includes partial differential equations.

Is that covered in first-year calculus (which I'll be taking next year, and maybe again my freshman year in college), or not? Whatever the case, I imagine I'll be taking lots of math in college anyway.

I'd reccommend buying Feynman's lectures.

Okay. I've heard good things about Mr. Feynman.

@WillJ: You need to know basic stuff about energy and momentum conservation, waves and diffraction, things like that (in UK terms, an A-level understanding will probably be enough to learn "about" those things, but if you want to know how they actually work beyond a handwaving arguement then you'll need to study it further). Any maths (eigenvalue equations in particular) that you know is a bonus.

I see.

Of course, just by being on CFC I'm already an expert in handwaving.

 

[Ayatollah So]

possibilities are the Uni of Alabama, Washington Uni in St. Louis, Vanderbilt Uni, Wake Forest Uni, Boston Uni, and some others

Wash U = my alma mater.

Okay. I've heard good things about Mr. Feynman.

Feynman diagrams are supposedly the basis of the handshake interpretation of quantum mechanics. Which rocks, philosophically.

 

[Shaihulud]

Well i don't really know anything about philosophy, but philosophy of Physics should be about the interpretation of truth derived from observation and experimentation. Inductive reasoning or Karl Poppers method of falsification as a method to derive a theory could be a form of philosophy. Thomas Kuhn idea about the evolution of the scientific method is also a form of philosophy. There are propably much more, but this are the few popular ones that i come across in my study of physics. Its really no point to study this things unless you want to study science or do any form of research (not always pertaining to science). Yeah contribution to frictional forces are always perpendicular to the direction of motion and friction is always opposite to the direction of motion.

 

[WillJ]

Wash U = my alma mater.

Cool! What year did you graduate?

Well i don't really know anything about philosophy, but philosophy of Physics should be about the interpretation of truth derived from observation and experimentation. Inductive reasoning or Karl Poppers method of falsification as a method to derive a theory could be a form of philosophy. Thomas Kuhn idea about the evolution of the scientific method is also a form of philosophy. There are propably much more, but this are the few popular ones that i come across in my study of physics. Its really no point to study this things unless you want to study science or do any form of research (not always pertaining to science).

That's not quite what I mean by "philosophy of physics" (see bottom of post # 20); that seems to me like general philosophy of science, which I'm also interested in---I am interested in doing research, BTW.

 

[El_Machinae]

I think I do misunderstand what you're after...

Probably ^^ I'd imagine a basic QM course would teach you a lot of the stuff you mentioned, and you could read the rest of it in your own time (although the arrow of time is purely a statistical phenomenon).

The first four CDs of Feynman's QM lecture series contains very little math, and is quite illuminating.