xongsmith writes:
Maybe this example will help. A vacuum box with sensors and windows and a special door. We can measure to our hearts content with the sensors and windows that the inside has reached vacuum. There is NOTHING in it. All our sensors & windows provide us with is the Absence of Evidence of something in the box.
Now to the special door. It's equipped to measure the airflow rushing in when it is opened in a well-known way. A prediction can be made on a whole raft of characteristics of the air flow if it is true that the inside in a vacuum. The door is opened, the data taken and - lo - the air flow behaved exactly the way we predicted it would if the inside was a vacuum. This is Presence of Evidence of nothing inside. I think this is the kind of evidence RAZD wants '6's and '7' to come up with. Not anything off those gauges and laser measurements on the sealed vacuum box.
No, the air rushing in is not "Presence of Evidence". Air molecules interact by bouncing off each other, and the force of their bounce on the walls of the enclosure is measured as pressure. This pressure is of course commonly caused either by temperature speeding them up, or the weight of the air above pushing them along. Standard atmospheric pressure is 14.696 pounds per square inch (PSI).
When you open the valve and the air rushes in, it simply indicates that the air is not bumping into anything. You already knew this from your basic air pressure gauge inside the box failing to register any collisions (pressure) inside the box. It is "Absence of Evidence" for the presence of air.
The real crux of the issue is the wishy-washy nature of the terminology you are determined to use. Those terms are *garbage*; the fact that you looked for air and could not detect any within the chamber is evidence for the conclusion that there is no air inside the chamber, plain and simple.
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