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- From: moss@cs.umass.edu (Eliot Moss)
- Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
- Subject: Re: Laws of physics
- Message-ID: <MOSS.92Jul21102429@ibis.cs.umass.edu>
- Date: 21 Jul 92 14:24:29 GMT
- References: <920719032153_72240.1256_EHL23-1@CompuServe.COM>
- Sender: news@dime.cs.umass.edu
- Reply-To: moss@cs.umass.edu
- Organization: Dept of Comp and Info Sci, Univ of Mass (Amherst)
- Lines: 26
- In-reply-to: 72240.1256@compuserve.com's message of 19 Jul 92 05:46:36 GMT
-
- >>>>> On 19 Jul 92 05:46:36 GMT, 72240.1256@compuserve.com (Jed Rothwell) said:
-
- Jed> Paul Karol comments: "I was not aware CNF violated "known laws of physics"
- Jed> as stated in Jed Rothwell's posting. I thought CNF only violated known
- Jed> mechanisms and models, but not any laws..."
-
- Jed> Don't misquote me, I said "appears to violate." It is a common figure of
- Jed> speech. You have expressed the same idea, in a more technically accurate
- Jed> fashion. Nothing anywhere ever actually violates the laws of physics. The
- Jed> problem is, we don't know for sure what those laws are, because we are not
- Jed> God.
-
- Of course, nothing can violate the true laws of physics, by definition. The
- issue here is whether it violates the known and generally accepted laws of
- physics. That is, are we dealing with a phenomenon that can be explained in
- terms of known laws, even though we have yet to figure out the explanation, or
- does our collection of known laws need revision to permit and explain the
- phenomenon?
- --
-
- J. Eliot B. Moss, Associate Professor
- Department of Computer Science
- Lederle Graduate Research Center
- University of Massachusetts
- Amherst, MA 01003
- (413) 545-4206, 545-1249 (fax); Moss@cs.umass.edu
-