- #1
daso
- 8
- 1
In my work, I sometimes try to explain what a plasma is, and how it behaves, to people not knowing much about physics. Now and then I start to think about what I am saying. I talk about electrons and ions as balls which collide and feel the elctric field, and so on. But all this is just a picture to help us work out theories. What an electron or an ion is, nobody knows. To think of them as balls and in some cases treat them as balls in calculations works to predict their behaviour. In other cases, you have to treat them as waves.
I get the feeling that the public really think of physics as being able to describe the world as it is. When I talk about electrons as balls, they really believe that it is what the real world looks like. No wonder they get confused by quantum theory with its particle duality. Don't you think they would get disappointed if I made it very clear that this is just a way of thinking. I mean, what is the point to try to understand something if it is just a way of thinking to make predictions? They are not interested in some tool for working out theories, they just want to know what the real world looks like. Even I can feel some disappointment when I think about that all we can do is predict the nature to some accuracy.
What is your thoughts on this?
/Daniel
I get the feeling that the public really think of physics as being able to describe the world as it is. When I talk about electrons as balls, they really believe that it is what the real world looks like. No wonder they get confused by quantum theory with its particle duality. Don't you think they would get disappointed if I made it very clear that this is just a way of thinking. I mean, what is the point to try to understand something if it is just a way of thinking to make predictions? They are not interested in some tool for working out theories, they just want to know what the real world looks like. Even I can feel some disappointment when I think about that all we can do is predict the nature to some accuracy.
What is your thoughts on this?
/Daniel