The Origin and Its Meaning
Facts, Theories and Copernicus
n Data from experiment and observation become fact when sufficiently confirmed.
However, while confirmed data is fact even hypotheses that are long-accepted can still be opinion.
Geocentric astronomy was the archetypal non-recognition of that difference. It gave correct results for millennia. Yet it was wrong.
· Near its end it could not explain new observations even with revisions and elaborations.
· But, in spite of those failures a more correct alternative was strongly opposed.
n The lesson of that experience in astronomy is that there is something wrong in a scientific theory if:
· its hypotheses are ever more complex and they require continuous further adjustments,
· bypassed problems are ignored and unrealistic positions are maintained.
n That is precisely the situation with 20th Century physics. Consider a few of the indications.
· The many "fundamental" particles of high energy physics and the constant revision of the "building blocks" of matter.
· Ridiculous assumptions as that conservation does not apply to quantities less than the related Heisenberg uncertainty.
· Bypassed problems such as:
- why the "stable" atomic orbits are stable,
- the wave / particle problem of light never resolved,
- field as an explanation of action-at-a-distance without dealing with what it is or how it does what it does.
· The inability:
- to successfully grapple with gravitation,
- to reconcile relativity and quantum theory.
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The Origin and Its Meaning
does for physics what Copernicus did for astronomy -- it supersedes the exhausted old theories with a new theory that is realistic, simple and direct, and that overcomes all of the above problems.