Freedom of Science

In physics anything which is not a physical quantity is metaphysics. There is no exception to this rule. Example: “Newton’s laws” is not a physical quantity therefore “Newton’s laws” is metaphysics and does not belong to scientific physics. Laws, principles, axioms, definitions, conjectures and similar philosophical stuff are independent of scientific physics. If we define physics as the science that studies physical quantities then we must accept that philosophical stuff belongs to metaphysics and not to physics. A physical quantity is defined as

This definition of physical quantity is free of metaphysics. If physics is defined as the science that studies physical quantities and physical quantity includes nothing but a number and a unit, then, we must conclude that anything which is not a physical quantity does not belong to scientific physics. We can easily define a scholastic type of physics or metaphysics by defining physical quantity as

This metaphysical physics would allow deep philosophical discussions of laws, principles and conjectures of all kinds but will be unable to make predictions because nature recognizes only true physical quantities and ignores the rest. Metaphysical physics is a lot of fun but it is no different than pre-Newtonian Peripatetic philosophy. As is well-known Peripatetic philosophers endlessly discussed laws and principles of their own definition and published long commentary on them. Galileo noticed the corruption of physics and eliminated the metaphysical part by making geometry the language of physics. In the 18th and 19th centuries great scientists developed the concept of physical quantity and made physics a rigorous science based on quantities tied to a consistent system of units. There is no room in the quantitative scientific physics for qualitative philosophy expressed as authoritative laws, principles, conjectures and branded equations. Therefore, a set of rules and definitions and principles called “Newton’s laws” is not a part of the science of physics. Newton’s laws can be a nice topic to discuss in a scholastic discussion group but not in physics.

Physicists may use such philosophical arguments as heuristics and pedagogy the way Einstein did but metaphysical elements will always exist independent of physical quantities. This means that the authority of physics comes solely from physical quantities and never from heuristics and metaphysics. No metaphysical law can be offered as an authority over a physical quantity. A scientific physicist works strictly with physical quantities.

So, to say that “Newton’s laws predict planetary orbits” as one hears all too often, is to assert Newton’s authority over physical quantities. “Newton’s laws” is not a physical quantity. Doing physics by invoking “Newton’s laws” reduces physics to metaphysics. No orbit ever heard of “Newton’s laws.” All that orbit knows is its radius and period. But if you say “Newton’s force predicts orbits” that would be a scientific statement because Newton’s force F is a legal physical quantity. Do you see how the point of view changes from a scholastic discussion on Newton’s laws to a scientific discussion about a physical quantity? It is possible to discuss scientifically if force predicts orbits but it’s not possible to discuss orbits with “Newton’s laws” because “Newton’s laws” is not a physical quantity.

This distinction is usually lost on students who are attracted to physics after reading science-fictional philosophy the media associates with physics. Beware that if it is not a physical quantity it is not physics. It is metaphysics. No exceptions.

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In Definition 5 Newton defines a new word to describe a new species of force he just invented: centripetal force. Centripetal force is a force that seeks a center. Newton gives four examples of this force: Terrestrial “heaviness” with which bodies tend to the center of the Earth; iron seeking loadstone; the force holding planets in their orbits and the sling motion. In the case of the sling, the centripetal force manifests itself as the tension on the string, and the stone stretches the string “the more strongly the more swiftly it revolves.”

Newton then projects the properties of the sling rotation to planetary orbits. These properties are radial acceleration, the “endeavor” to fly off and the tension on the string dubbed “force.” According to Newton all orbits are rotational and have the same properties as the sling motion.

Newton’s claim that orbits are rotational is wrong. Either Newton goofed, or more likely, he was spin doctoring rotation in order to make his occult force the cause of planetary orbits. Rotation and revolution are ruled by different rules and orbital motion is free of the tension on the radius. The tension in the string exists because radius is constrained. In orbital motion such a radial constraint does not exist and therefore, Newtonian force does not exist.

Rules for rot and rev

Rotation	Revolution

Rotation is ruled by radian motion, Θ = S/R or S = R Θ. According to this rule, for a given radius R, increasing Θ by turning the sling faster, will increase S and consequently, the radius R will want to increase proportionately, but since R is constrained and kept constant by the string, that additional motion belonging to R will manifest itself as tension on the string. The increase in S will be a measure of this tension.

Newton, on the other hand, interprets the sling motion in terms of the force he just defined. As the sling rotates, the stone stretches the string and endeavors to fly off and the centripetal force draws the stone back toward the hand to make the orbit happen. Newton hereby defines force as the cause of the sling orbit. Then Newton claims that the same mechanism creates all orbits because “all bodies endeavor to recede from the centers of their orbits.” For example, the Moon is a body in orbit, and just like the sling, it must be hurled by something, and in this case, that something is “the hand of God” or gravity. And like the sling, the Moon, too, endeavors to fly off along the tangent but it is held in its orbit by the centripetal force acting instantaneously.

Newton’s attempt to describe planetary orbits as rotational motion fails. The Moon’s orbit is not described by the radian rule. Increasing R does not increase the orbital arc the Moon describes in unit time. On the contrary, the Moon obeys Kepler’s rule and moves according to the rule S :: R^-1.5. Unlike the sling motion, increasing R decreases S.

In orbital motion the integrity of the radius is not respected because there is no material radius connecting the mover and the moved. In fact, there is no mover. Newton ascribes material qualities to orbital radius which is nothing more than distance created by the orbit. The orbital radius is not constrained because it does not exist. Without the sling the string will continue to exist but without the orbit there will be no radius. Therefore, in orbital motion, there is no radial or “centripetal” acceleration and there is no “endeavor” to fly off. Orbits are inertial, i.e., geometric and Keplerian, and not dynamical and Newtonian. This is proved by the fact that all of the rotational elements Newton projected to orbital motion by turning them into occult qualities must be eliminated in order to describe orbits.

These Newtonian elements, force F, mass m, and acceleration a, are always eliminated from orbital computations.¹ This cannot be otherwise because orbits do not obey the radian rule, orbits obey Kepler’s rule. Newton defined his centripetal force to define orbital motion as rotational motion. But Newton’s force fails to describe orbits and consequently it is eliminated from computations of orbits. Yet, following Newton blindly, physics textbooks still enforce Newton’s absurd explanation of orbital motion.

1. Keplerian part of acceleration, that is, R/T^2 = radius/period^2, remains, what is eliminated is the Newtonian label acceleration. [↩]

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Not Even Wrong points to a paper by the string theorist Moataz Emam that asks the question So what will you do if string theory is wrong? As an answer he suggests that physics may divest itself from string theory and create a new academic department equidistant from physics and mathematics. I believe that my proposal put forth in this comment quoted below, is even better for all parties concerned: Divide physics into physics and fine physics.

Maybe something that I wrote in an earlier post can be useful here. I propose to divide physics into two distinct academic divisions: physics and fine physics. In fine physics, as in fine art, there will not be a requirement to conform to a standard of evidence. Already string theorists use fine art concepts such as elegance and beauty as fundamental concepts of string theory.

Also, just like art, string theory can only be defined by way of its practitioners: String theory is what string theorists do. There is no independent definition of string theory and this is how string theorists like it.

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A scientific principle:

If a problem is independent of a term that problem is independent of that term.

Example: Given f(x0, x1), then, the problem modeled by f(x0,x1) is independent of any term xn > x1.

Question: This principle is generally accepted and used in physics. For instance orbital motion is described by f(R,T) where x0 = radius = R and x1 = period = T, and it is independent of a constant term x2 = mass = m. Physicists apply this principle and say that “orbital motion is independent of m.”

I am wondering, though, if this principle is a casuistic principle in physics or if it is a general principle which is valid unconditionally. In the example above, f(R,T) is also independent of x3 = force = F, but physicists do not use this principle in the case of force F and they don’t say “the orbit is independent of force F.” This suggest to me that in physics this is a casuistic principle.

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Humans have a unique ability to create environments that are depressing, writes John Baez. Some are melancholy, unloved, like a dimly lit highway overpass at night covered with graffiti, or this building in Shanghai:

I understand this feeling. At times I felt the same way. But unlike the holographic principle, the surface of a building is not proportional to the happiness of the people living inside it. The residents of the building may be as happy as anyone else and pay no attention to the ugly side of the building.

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Check out Peter Callesen’s wonderful paper cut-outs.¹

These paper figures that come out of paper but could never fully free themselves from the background inspire us to speculate on the most fundamental philosophical question: Is there a theater of operations where phenomena happen? Or asked in the language of physics, Is there a background? If so what type is it? Ether? Vortex? Vacuum? Density continuum? Is it neutral or dynamic and interactive? Linear or non-linear?

In the case of the paper artwork, the “phenomena” come out of the paper background, in other words, the flat background curls up into some shape that we perceive as familiar objects. When a figure is cut and it curls out of the background it leaves a hole in it. Apparently, conservation laws are not valid in this world, at least not at this scale.

1. from Mathematics under microscope. [↩]

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Water inside a rotating sphere:

I assume that the spiral shape arises because the bottom of the vortex touches the sphere?

Here’s a simplified geometry of the same phenomenon:

This is figure 11.7: Shape of liquid surface in a rotating bucket, in Equilibrium statistical physics by Michael Plischke and Birger Bergersen. They reason that “in a normal fluid, rotating uniformly, the shape of the upper surface is determined by a balance between the centripetal and gravitational forces giving

But I believe that the shape can be investigated geometrically without considering gravity or pressure. I don’t know if this is true. I have a sketch here that was inspired by Doug’s comment at Mass.

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Every important unit in physics progresses through five stages. The following process is a constant of physics and cannot be changed.

1. No unit

Initially a proportionality new to physics is stated without a unit. In the 18th century physics textbooks stated “Newton’s law” as 1/R2. Just like that, no unit, no constant and no M&ms attached to it yet.

2. Personal units

Any length can be chosen as a unit to make measurements and accordingly in this early stage every physicist defines his own unit and tries to enforce it as the absolute true unit. Chaos ensues. Concerns are voiced for unification of physics.

3. Standard unit

At this stage a senior physicist defines a new unit by using a gadget he calls an experiment and enforces it as the true unit by his authority. His definition becomes the standard used by every practitioner and enters the textbooks under his name.

4. Constant of nature

The next generation learns about the standard unit in textbooks and believes it to be a constant of nature and eventually a physicist formally elevates the unit into the status of an absolute property of nature discovered by physicists.

5. Variable constant of nature

When a physical quantity is finally coupled to a constant of nature and becomes textbook material, active research ceases on it. But there will always be some enterprising physicists who will refuse to let such a valuable professional commodity as a constant of nature die a peaceful death in textbooks and they will re-open research on it by defining it as a variable constant. This is, of course, no different than re-opening research on the meter, the unit of length, by defining it as a variable constant of nature. Physicists who speculate about G, the unit of force, as a variable constant of nature look as foolish.

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Is there really a distinction between a physical quantity and a non-physical quantity? Judging from the definition of physical quantity, there isn’t. “Physical” means “belonging or owned by the profession of physics.” If a quantity exists in the legal physics code, it is called a physical quantity. It is implied that only what belongs to physics is “natural” because physics = nature. And it goes without saying that nature = Newtonian.

Let’s look at an example from Wikipedia. Power is a physical quantity:

• P is the physical quantity of power
• 42.3 * 10³ is the numerical value of {P}
• W is the symbol for the unit of power [P], the Watt.

A physical quantity is defined as a number multiplied by a unit. This definition says nothing about the physicallness of the physical quantity. It only says that if you define a unit and multiply it by a number then the resulting quantity is a physical quantity. Let’s define the physical quantity of power in terms of the unit of authority, W = the Wig. We’ll obtain the same result for power P

• P is the physical quantity of power
• 42.3 * 10³ is the numerical value of {P}
• W is the symbol for the unit of power [P], the Wig.

Indeed, a person with more authority is more powerful than another person with less authority.

The definition of “physical quantity” makes sense because we are living in a definitional world, not in an absolute world with discontinuities. This also supports the density continuum view, e.g., software and steel are equally “matter,” they happen to have different densities. This result follows directly from the denial of the Newtonian atomic materialism.

Physics itself, in theory, is sensibly based on a definition that allows a natural description of nature by definitions:

What makes physics a scholastic and authoritarian profession and therefore the anti-science is the fact that physicists defined physical to be only what is included in their professional code called physics. So, in practice, physicists really use another definition of physical quantity:

According to this definition only quantities expressed by an official and legal physics unit is considered a physical quantity.¹ This is how physicists assert the ownership of scientific concepts that for generations lived independent of physics and its doctrines.

If we uphold the original definition of physical quantity we must conclude that there is no physical/non-physical duality. There is only legal/non-legal duality enforced by physics professionals who defined non-legal to be unphysical.²

If physicists’ definition of the physical quantity is true, then we must believe in a definitional nature: The standard is the unit. Or the standard is the thing. If it has a unit it exists. No one owns nature. It’s yours and mine. Nature doesn’t belong to a professional class.

1. This makes sense because the scholastic corporation defines standards and sells them to engineers, governments and the media. [↩]
2. All professionals find in themselves the right to enforce their definition of legal as the only truth to protect their monopoly. Physics is no different. [↩]

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To me F=ma is an absurd statement which is equal to

Here’s the derivation: F is the Newtonian force. By definition the Newtonian force acts instantaneously from a distance. Therefore, for the Newtonian force all distances are zero. As far as F is concerned radius R of any orbit is zero because F traverses any distance in zero time. Therefore, for F, time terms in an equation are always zero. Time does not exist for F. Consequently, the period of any orbit, as seen by F, is always zero.

So we can write F=ma as

Therefore the fundamental equation of the precise science of physics is:

But any science which is based on an equation of type

will have in its toolbox sophisticated renormalization methods. Therefore it is trivial in physics to apply a triple renormalization to

and recover Newton’s authority:

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