In the begining...... nothing.... unless infinite past.

When I was in high school, our English teacher would always tell us that if you think you know something but can't explain it very well, then you don't really know it. My college freshman physics prof once told me the same thing.Young people (including myself) tend to believe that we know more than we do. The only way for us to self-check to see whether we know as much as we do is to see if we can really explain what we think we know. You have to remember that not being self-critical is a straight path toward arrogance.For example, I frequently tutor physics in my school. Part of this job is to get to know the stuff really really well before a tutoring session. Especially when there are more than 5 people who show up to ask questions about homework and stuff, it would be really embarrassing to be standing up there writing stuff on the board and appear to not be on top of those stuff. However, there have been times when I thought I knew exactly what to say and write on the board but realized during the session that I was unsure of some things or how to approach a problem. The question is did I really know those stuff even if I couldn't really use them for physics problems? If you say yes, the people I tutored might disagree with you. (Don't worry, it hasn't happened to me for a long time now. I've been working hard to keep ahead of my students.) You are trying to apply a philosophical concept of "absolute laws" into science. It really doesn't work that way in science.Here is something for you to think about while you're at it. If something is an absolute law, how do you propose we go on confirming that it is indeed an absolute law and not a scientific law that is subject to change?This message has been edited by Resurrected Hector, 03-21-2005 01:29 AM

I think I know where Guid is coming from, as I was in the same mentality not too long ago. Whether or not this is a good way to teach students how to approach science, schools these days often get into the pattern of not explaining the uncertainty parts of the laws that are taught in science classrooms. I remember believing, as were my classmates, that the laws we learned in our science classes were really "absolute" laws. Of course we were never told that these were absolute laws, the curriculum certainly steered us toward believing that the universe behave the way it does because it follows these laws. Because I went on into the fields of science, I stumbled upon the fact that it was the other way around that these laws exist because the universe seemed to have behaved in such ways according to our past observations.It is like the question of whether a tornados don't usually touch down on cities because the cities are there or because the cities are there because tornados don't usually touch down on those locations. Recently, I became amazed by how many people I've talked to who actually believe that the reason tornados don't touch down on cities is because artificial structures prevent the winds from forming into tornados. It never occured to them that tornados existed before there were cities.The same concept can be applied to laws. The universe behaved the way it appear to behave long before any of the laws were "discovered". It , therefore, is not that hard to come to think that these laws dictate the universe rather than the universe dictating these laws.By the way, this message was meant for Guid as well as AJ.

I'll answer your question if you answer mine first. If the cobalt bomb exists, would you say that it would be the most powerful bomb in the universe? If so, how would you find out for sure?

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People, please look at the Style Guide for EvC thread by Sylas. Pay particular attention to step 3.SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Refusal to use the search engine may cause brain cancer.

You know, I really think you should familiarize yourself more with the logical fallacies. I've been noticing that you tend to use these fallacies a bit much. Try to guess which one you just used in that quote.

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People, please look at the Style Guide for EvC thread by Sylas. Pay particular attention to step 3.SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Refusal to use the search engine may cause brain cancer.

Actually, very rarely. I usually keep them busy if all the questions have been answered. If all the homework questions have been answered in a session, I tend to give them new ones based on the old ones to do on the spot to see if they really understood the material we covered. It helps them do better when dealing with new stuff, which professors often give on exams.There's nothing in physics that we cover that directly challenge religious beliefs... unless a religion teaches people that things fall upward. Well, in this case I seriously don't know. What I can say is it doesn't really help my case if I were to say "I know for sure that blah blah blah... but I can't really explain it... you just have to take my word for it."This message has been edited by Lam, 03-22-2005 02:33 PM