Draft talk:Science

For the discussion page for this draft, see Talk:Science.

Creation

This is basically a fork of the current science page.

We can discuss this draft on the current science talk page, for simplicity.

I propose that we copy the consensus page back over the current science page when the time is right. We can avoid attribution problems in the history, that way. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:06, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Outline elements

@Ancheta Wis and anybody else, can you please comment on the emerging outline elements. Can the existing material on history, philosophy, and method fit into the themes of thes sections? Do we need separate sections, as in the nondraft article, for history, philosophy, and method? Just asking. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 02:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Note, furthermore, there are already separate wiki pages on science history, philosophy, and method. So I'm uncertain if we need staight summaries of those topics, important though they may be, or if, instead, the material for h, p, and m can be re-expressed in a different way here. Isambard Kingdom (talk)

@Isambard Kingdom, can I recommend a Cross-cutting? If we were to use a general scheme based loosely on time evolution of a single scientific element, such as Earth itself, history falls out naturally. Philosophy is more problematic but without history, philosophy is empty, so it could fall by the wayside (like Aristotelianism). Or method could be a central element, and philosophy would fall out naturally.

Or the future of the human race could be the central element (our place on earth, our attempt to re-create what has been lost, etc.), and I am guessing both history and philosophy would fall out naturally.

I am personally cross-cutting on light, using the Neuenschwander essay in the references. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 03:45, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ancheta Wis, can you provide an outline so that we can see the primary elements and issues addressed? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 03:49, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

---

1. Taking Earth as the central element Future of the Earth:
   • Big bang
     • an infinity of cosmological decades (the most recent 60 of them reaches the current epoch)
     • spacetime foam
       • a local force freezes out, say Electromagnetic in Chronology of the universe (a cross-cut)
       • particles appear but there are issues -- Baryogenesis#Sakharov_conditions
       • photons propagate freely
       • Gravitation -- issue; I think this is unstoppable, so why is expansion accelerating?
         • Stars
           • Gravitational collapse ala neutron star
             • Iron blows out during some catastrophic failure of a star
               • Streams of iron, other heavy elements
               • Our solar system coagulates from the dust cloud
               • Angular momentum starts sweeping up materials
                 • Earth comes to its Lagrangian point (a cross-cut)
                   • The iron core starts heating
   • In the meantime, a thin scum on the iron sphere starts collecting some stable forms (a cross-cut)
   • Miller-Urey experiment
   • DNA
   • life
   • us
   • human condition (a cross-cut)
2. So according to one possible arc of development for the article, we have a finite amount of time to get beyond our current parochial problems if we wish for the human species to live beyond the span of our local solar system.

---

I just realized you meant the Neuenschwander essay on Light. So taking light as the central element, if we examine Neuenschwander's essay

1. "Light stands at every nexus in a concept map of physics"
2. Roger Bacon on optics (1267)
3. Jacob Bronowski on optics & matter, 20th c.
4. crosscut back to Geometrical optics Euclid fl. 300 BC
5. Hero of Alexandria 300 yrs later, light obeys a minimum principle when propagating
6. Refraction obeys a minimum principle - Ibn Sahl, Snell, Descartes, Fermat
7. Newton Opticks uses refraction -> spectrum
8. Herschel Infrared spectra
9. Fraunhofer Solar spectra
10. Kirchhoff Absorption spectra
11. Solar spectrum -> helium in sun
12. Terrestial helium discovered
13. Maupertuis minimum principle -> Lagrange's formulation holds for all of mechanics -> Hamilton's principle
14. Ontology - What is Light -> double slit experiment -> Maxwell -- Light is an electromagnetic wave -> Einstein 1905 -> Electric and Magnetic field components are frame dependent
15. crosscut to photoelectric effect (a photon collides with matter, an electron is emitted) -> quantum mechanics
16. crosscut to general relativity. Einstein field equations independently formed by David Hilbert using analogy to Fermat's principle
17. crosscut to expanding universe (Hubble) -> cosmic microwave background radiation -> evidence for big bang
18. crosscut to dark matter (i.e. Vera Rubin)
19. crosscut to quantum electrodynamics <- a minimum principle

This is impressive, but to use a Wisconsin phrase, it's not all rainbows and doughnuts. There are issues such as dark matter, etc.

For light and color, my favorite is the chromaticity diagram --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 14:17, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ancheta Wis, I like the sound of this, yes. I could imagine a very nice essay following either of the outlines you've proposed. I also like your ability to think creatively. Would this not, however, be a tremendous amount of work? And, then, would other editors find it appropriate for an encyclopedia article. I'm feeling the vacuum of few contributors, here, just you and me. We need someone else to comment, I think. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:20, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Linkup Alhacen with Aristotle, Hellenic thought and Perspectivists

My motivation for participating in this draft is to produce, in a relatively quiet page, material for the role which Alhacen played with the legacy of Aristotle and Hellenic thought with the Perspectivists, who were intellectually ready for their forebears, and who directly influenced Renaissance art. His role is well documented already, by scholars who have known of him for a thousand years. Specifically, A. Mark Smith has worked on this for some 40 years already (cf David C. Lindberg). I realize I should also write Smith's page, if someone does not beat me to it. Same for Shmuel Sambursky, of course (Sambursky does have a page on he.wikipedia.org). --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 16:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

It heated up quickly. I responded, and in the process, almost put in the following in Talk:science:

Some of the consequences of Alhacen's productive example:

1. It's no crime to be wrong. (Critique of Ptolemy) You can fix it when you know it doesn't work.
2. Logic and reason will work until you don't know the limits of reason (law of refraction lay undiscovered or forgotten)
3. Experiment can augment reason (Book of optics)
4. Belief in something (in Alhacen's case, truth) leads to action (in this case, experiment)

We are hashing these consequences out at Draft:science page, in tentative outline right now. All contributors are welcome.

Do you think it would help? --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 17:21, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Constructivism and intuitionism

The philosophical schools of Constructivism and intuitionism arouse hostility for some reason. I do not think this hostility is sufficient reason not to use this philosophical basis for investigation. Otherwise, the hostile parties are left only with defensive tactics, not constructive responses in their war against their enemy. (Compare Stanislaw Lem's memoir, as a schoolboy, in his war against education. Compare Feynman's stand against education as a form of intellectual tyranny)

But a constructive action creates its own justification, as a free market will just use the action for its own purposes. Witness the success of crowdfunding. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 18:33, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Talk page location

Hi! Could we copy this discussion over to Talk:Science and leave a redirect, so we can keep discussion in one place and make sure that everyone sees it? Thanks! Sunrise (talk) 05:38, 22 January 2015 (UTC)