How the atomist error was born
May 27, 2018 6:54 AM Subscribe
Is nature continuous or discrete? - "Lucretius could easily have used the Latin words atomus (smallest particle) or particula (particle), but he went out of his way not to. Despite his best efforts, however, the two very different Latin terms he did use, corpora (matters) and rerum (things), were routinely translated and interpreted as synonymous with discrete 'atoms'. Further, the moderns either translated out or ignored altogether the nearly ubiquitous language of continuum and folding used throughout his book, in phrases such as 'solida primordia simplicitate' (simplex continuum)."
Both, neither, it is what it is and can be viewed either way depending on what kind of measurement works best.
So think of a digital watch, discrete. Now consider an old analog watch, rotating smoothly, continuously, now look inside, gears, tick tock, click, discrete. Go back to the digital watch, consider the chip, it's ticking off ones and zeros to add up to the time but look at one of the "1's" in the chip, it's an arbitrary threshold that's chosen but the electricity is continuous.
posted by sammyo at 7:52 AM on May 27, 2018 [11 favorites]
So think of a digital watch, discrete. Now consider an old analog watch, rotating smoothly, continuously, now look inside, gears, tick tock, click, discrete. Go back to the digital watch, consider the chip, it's ticking off ones and zeros to add up to the time but look at one of the "1's" in the chip, it's an arbitrary threshold that's chosen but the electricity is continuous.
posted by sammyo at 7:52 AM on May 27, 2018 [11 favorites]
It's a wave!
It's a particle!
Hey Kool-ade!
[ John Locke smashes through wall ]
"It's all in your mind!"
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:56 AM on May 27, 2018 [10 favorites]
It's a particle!
Hey Kool-ade!
[ John Locke smashes through wall ]
"It's all in your mind!"
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:56 AM on May 27, 2018 [10 favorites]
For quantum field theory, everything might be made of granules, but all granules are made of folded-up continuous fields that we simply measure as granular. This is what physicists call ‘perturbation theory’: the discrete measure of that which is infinitely continuous and so ‘perturbs one’s complete discrete measurement’,
This is how I see it as well, that we measure particles because our tools can measure them but how or why spacetime may have come into existence may be some damn near tautological (and therefore completely bullshit) quality like: fluctuations of “spacetime memory” made up of a persistent nothingness folding upon itself for umpteen gazillion eons, creates an “isness of persistent nothingness” which then acts as a type of positive and negative (isness and nothingness) substrate that simultaneously destroys and creates itself. That state tension, if it existed and were it not totally fabricated bullcrap in my mind, would perhaps then create the substrate upon which particles and discreteness could form.
But I’m not a physicist nor am I educated in this, I just ponder this shit over coffee and read stuff on the internet and assume that I’m largely ingnorant on these matters.
But that quote above does make sense to me based on everything I’ve read and pondered which means, again, nothing more than I am totally full of shit on the matter.
posted by nikaspark at 7:56 AM on May 27, 2018 [4 favorites]
This is how I see it as well, that we measure particles because our tools can measure them but how or why spacetime may have come into existence may be some damn near tautological (and therefore completely bullshit) quality like: fluctuations of “spacetime memory” made up of a persistent nothingness folding upon itself for umpteen gazillion eons, creates an “isness of persistent nothingness” which then acts as a type of positive and negative (isness and nothingness) substrate that simultaneously destroys and creates itself. That state tension, if it existed and were it not totally fabricated bullcrap in my mind, would perhaps then create the substrate upon which particles and discreteness could form.
But I’m not a physicist nor am I educated in this, I just ponder this shit over coffee and read stuff on the internet and assume that I’m largely ingnorant on these matters.
But that quote above does make sense to me based on everything I’ve read and pondered which means, again, nothing more than I am totally full of shit on the matter.
posted by nikaspark at 7:56 AM on May 27, 2018 [4 favorites]
Really interesting article! When I read Lucretius a few years ago, I was struck by how incredibly modern his ideas are. There are also several cases in which he provides a naturalistic account of some phenomenon that is more or less spot on according to modern science, despite his having absolutely no evidence to support his claims. One of the most striking to me was his account of the sense of smell.
According to Lucretius, atoms (as translated in the text I read) of a particular material each have a specific individual shape, and objects are constantly shedding their atoms. Our noses have atoms that have complementary shapes, and when we breathe in, we inhale some of the shed atoms of things around us. These atoms interlock with the atoms in our nose, and it is this geometric interlocking that produces our perception of smell.
Replace "atom" with "molecule" and you have an account of smell that would fit perfectly in an introductory science textbook (actually probably a superior explanation to what you'd find in many such books). The only thing missing is that electrostatic interactions can also be an important mechanism for olfactory receptor binding, but the shape-based "lock and key" mechanism is exactly correct.
Several of Lucretius's ideas are like this: if you set aside the concept that the particles he's talking about are indivisible atoms, you get a strikingly modern-seeming description of a phenomenon. So to me it's pretty fascinating to learn that Lucretius himself actually avoided using the term "atom" in favor of terms less directly tied to Leucippan atomism. I'd actually be pretty interested to read this new translation of Lucretius and see how that changes the way his ideas scan in a modern scientific context.
posted by biogeo at 9:23 AM on May 27, 2018 [9 favorites]
According to Lucretius, atoms (as translated in the text I read) of a particular material each have a specific individual shape, and objects are constantly shedding their atoms. Our noses have atoms that have complementary shapes, and when we breathe in, we inhale some of the shed atoms of things around us. These atoms interlock with the atoms in our nose, and it is this geometric interlocking that produces our perception of smell.
Replace "atom" with "molecule" and you have an account of smell that would fit perfectly in an introductory science textbook (actually probably a superior explanation to what you'd find in many such books). The only thing missing is that electrostatic interactions can also be an important mechanism for olfactory receptor binding, but the shape-based "lock and key" mechanism is exactly correct.
Several of Lucretius's ideas are like this: if you set aside the concept that the particles he's talking about are indivisible atoms, you get a strikingly modern-seeming description of a phenomenon. So to me it's pretty fascinating to learn that Lucretius himself actually avoided using the term "atom" in favor of terms less directly tied to Leucippan atomism. I'd actually be pretty interested to read this new translation of Lucretius and see how that changes the way his ideas scan in a modern scientific context.
posted by biogeo at 9:23 AM on May 27, 2018 [9 favorites]
This is what physicists call ‘perturbation theory’: the discrete measure of that which is infinitely continuous and so ‘perturbs one’s complete discrete measurement’
This is not what perturbation theory means AT ALL. And the author apparently got this idea from reading some popular physics book from 2011?
Perturbation theory is just a method for solving non-analytical equations.
I wouldn’t trust a thing this guy writes.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:55 PM on May 27, 2018 [16 favorites]
This is not what perturbation theory means AT ALL. And the author apparently got this idea from reading some popular physics book from 2011?
Perturbation theory is just a method for solving non-analytical equations.
I wouldn’t trust a thing this guy writes.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:55 PM on May 27, 2018 [16 favorites]
It seems strange to me to claim that a scientific idea could be an 'error' just because it might have its original inspiration in someone possibly misunderstanding what some ancient poet intended to say.
Does any given argument about whether or not the universe is in some sense fundamentally continuous or discrete depend on correctly understanding Lucretius?
posted by Reverend John at 1:49 PM on May 27, 2018 [8 favorites]
Does any given argument about whether or not the universe is in some sense fundamentally continuous or discrete depend on correctly understanding Lucretius?
posted by Reverend John at 1:49 PM on May 27, 2018 [8 favorites]
I think the article is using the term "atomist error" to refer to the claim that it is an error to think Lucretius was an atomist.
Agreed that the author misunderstands what is meant by perturbation theory. I'm not sure that invalidates everything else he has to say.
posted by biogeo at 2:56 PM on May 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
Agreed that the author misunderstands what is meant by perturbation theory. I'm not sure that invalidates everything else he has to say.
posted by biogeo at 2:56 PM on May 27, 2018 [5 favorites]
The quantisation of phenomena has nothing to do with Lucretius. It's a fundamental and measurable feature of our universe that actually came as a surprise to the physicists who initially observed it, and its explanation won a Nobel prize for Einstein in 1921 and for Millikan in 1923.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:21 PM on May 27, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:21 PM on May 27, 2018 [4 favorites]
That time humans considered distinguishing discrete and continuous.
posted by johnca at 6:02 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by johnca at 6:02 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
Is nature continuous or discrete?
Betteridge's Law applies.
It's really tempting to look at a discrete model of some aspect of nature, compare it to a continuous model of the same aspect of nature, notice that one or the other seems simpler or more convenient or more elegant or easier to work with for one's present purposes, and draw the conclusion that nature actually is that way. But there are a couple of good reasons to distrust that intuition.
The first reason is the brute mathematical fact that any continuous mathematical model capable of some specified degree of predictive precision can be mechanically transformed into an equivalent discrete model, and vice versa. Some of the resulting transformations are horrendously ugly, but the point is that they exist and they work.
The second is that we have no good grounds to assume that any given model of any given aspect of nature will be useful for explaining all of it. We have found some really large unifying ideas, like evolution and quantum physics and relativity and deterministic chaos, but the vast bulk of the day-to-day predictions about nature that all of us use in every waking hour involve none of these. Instead, we have a patchwork of simple rules of thumb, each with quite a limited range of applicability, that fall in the sweet spot between usefulness and practicability. And some of those (the ones that involve counting things, for example) are discrete models, while others (the ones that involve measuring things, for example) are continuous ones.
So think of a digital watch, discrete. Now consider an old analog watch, rotating smoothly, continuously, now look inside, gears, tick tock, click, discrete. Go back to the digital watch, consider the chip, it's ticking off ones and zeros to add up to the time but look at one of the "1's" in the chip, it's an arbitrary threshold that's chosen but the electricity is continuous.
OR IS IT?
posted by flabdablet at 6:23 PM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
Betteridge's Law applies.
It's really tempting to look at a discrete model of some aspect of nature, compare it to a continuous model of the same aspect of nature, notice that one or the other seems simpler or more convenient or more elegant or easier to work with for one's present purposes, and draw the conclusion that nature actually is that way. But there are a couple of good reasons to distrust that intuition.
The first reason is the brute mathematical fact that any continuous mathematical model capable of some specified degree of predictive precision can be mechanically transformed into an equivalent discrete model, and vice versa. Some of the resulting transformations are horrendously ugly, but the point is that they exist and they work.
The second is that we have no good grounds to assume that any given model of any given aspect of nature will be useful for explaining all of it. We have found some really large unifying ideas, like evolution and quantum physics and relativity and deterministic chaos, but the vast bulk of the day-to-day predictions about nature that all of us use in every waking hour involve none of these. Instead, we have a patchwork of simple rules of thumb, each with quite a limited range of applicability, that fall in the sweet spot between usefulness and practicability. And some of those (the ones that involve counting things, for example) are discrete models, while others (the ones that involve measuring things, for example) are continuous ones.
So think of a digital watch, discrete. Now consider an old analog watch, rotating smoothly, continuously, now look inside, gears, tick tock, click, discrete. Go back to the digital watch, consider the chip, it's ticking off ones and zeros to add up to the time but look at one of the "1's" in the chip, it's an arbitrary threshold that's chosen but the electricity is continuous.
OR IS IT?
posted by flabdablet at 6:23 PM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
The quantisation of phenomena has nothing to do with Lucretius. It's a fundamental and measurable feature of our universe
and the central equation used to describe such quantized phenomena, the Schrödinger wave equation, is a differential equation relating continuous terms (in particular, it describes the evolution of continuous probability amplitudes over continuous time).
posted by flabdablet at 6:33 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
and the central equation used to describe such quantized phenomena, the Schrödinger wave equation, is a differential equation relating continuous terms (in particular, it describes the evolution of continuous probability amplitudes over continuous time).
posted by flabdablet at 6:33 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
fluctuations of “spacetime memory” made up of a persistent nothingness folding upon itself for umpteen gazillion eons, creates an “isness of persistent nothingness” ... But I’m not a physicist nor am I educated in this, I just ponder this shit over coffee and read stuff on the internet and assume that I’m largely ignorant on these matters.
The good news is that if you spend enough years training up to become able to express this exact kind of incoherent self-contradictory nonsense in the form of equations, large numbers of people will start taking you seriously.
Mathematics clothes many emperors.
posted by flabdablet at 8:25 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
The good news is that if you spend enough years training up to become able to express this exact kind of incoherent self-contradictory nonsense in the form of equations, large numbers of people will start taking you seriously.
Mathematics clothes many emperors.
posted by flabdablet at 8:25 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
The Schrödinger equation doesn't describe the thing that's supposed to be discrete, though—that's more along the lines of the Pauli exclusion principle, as evidenced by spectral lines for example.
posted by XMLicious at 4:50 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by XMLicious at 4:50 AM on May 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
...this simple but systematic and ubiquitous interpretive error constitutes what might well be the single biggest mistake in the history of modern science and philosophy. Wait, Lucretius also inspired physiognomy?
What’s more, even when confronted with apparently continuous phenomena such as gravity, electric and magnetic fields, and eventually space-time, Isaac Newton, James Maxwell and even Albert Einstein fell back on the idea of an atomistic ‘aether’ to explain them.Wow, I didn't know we had quotes from Maxwell's and Einstein's papers where the draw upon Epicurian philosophy as direct inspiration for their ideas, maybe a citation be useful here?
So, I'm actually befuddled by how carelessly the author draws connections between modern physics and Roman philosophy. Epicurian texts aren't even the first, and western philosophy is not the only tradition that came up with ideas that could be ascribed to atomism. It's almost as if the lesson to draw from the history of philosophy is that some ideas in themselves are not unique. This is befuddling because I took philosophy classes in college and was by no mean brilliant and I have to admit I'm very quickly out of my depth when it comes to the role of classic philosophy in renaissance and modern thought. Is the a strong existing argument that ties Dalton, Michelson-Morley and Plank to Diogenes that I'm not aware of? Or is this an example of an author who is really strong in one area, trying to link to another area where his knowledge is pretty superficial, who has a book to sell?
posted by midmarch snowman at 10:06 AM on May 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
"If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms[.]"
Richard Feynman, Six Easy Pieces, p.4.
posted by heatherlogan at 6:53 AM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Richard Feynman, Six Easy Pieces, p.4.
posted by heatherlogan at 6:53 AM on May 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Everything is made of fields!
That day I'd been playing with a little magnetic levitation toy, and the penny suddenly dropped and I understood how things can have shapes without having edges, and that in fact everything that seems to have edges doesn't, not really, it just has places where its shape is quite sharply bent? That was a good day.
posted by flabdablet at 7:38 AM on June 16, 2018
That day I'd been playing with a little magnetic levitation toy, and the penny suddenly dropped and I understood how things can have shapes without having edges, and that in fact everything that seems to have edges doesn't, not really, it just has places where its shape is quite sharply bent? That was a good day.
posted by flabdablet at 7:38 AM on June 16, 2018
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Same as it ever was. The Mother as the Ground of Being.
posted by kozad at 7:27 AM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]