Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: Physicist
I would say that they're being used in precisely the same sense. A theory--mathematical or scientific--is a conceptual framework.

Well, you have generalized the word "theory" quite a bit to get this "used in the same sense" result. Generalize enough and a word can mean anything, y'know. ;-)

Throughout this conversation we had been implicitly using the word "theory" in contexts where it was understood that "theories" can be proven false. See, it is not how they are developed that I see as the key difference, I suppose.

It is the fact that a "scientific theory" may be disproved, or at least proven incomplete; it is always tentative and pending further results. A "mathematical theory" if you want to call it that is always completely 100% flat-out true. Nothing can "prove it wrong". Ever!

That is the key difference because it means that Doctor Stochastic was comparing apples and oranges when he brought up "mathematical theories". They can't be "wrong" in the first place. Best,

448 posted on 12/15/2002 10:04:40 AM PST by Dr. Frank fan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 434 | View Replies ]


To: Dr. Frank
A "mathematical theory" if you want to call it that is always completely 100% flat-out true. Nothing can "prove it wrong". Ever!

Perhaps it's the fact that I'm an experimentalist, but I still don't see the difference. A mathematician considers a theory "right" if only it is self-consistent. By contrast, "right" or "wrong" for a scientific theory also addresses the question of whether or not it applies to the real world. But I can also apply the same standards to mathematical theorems: an experimental test of Euclid's theorems shows that they don't apply to real spaces as well as Riemann's do. To me, Riemann is "right" where Euclid is "wrong". Apples to apples, you understand.

So you see, it isn't that the word "theory" is used differently in mathematics and physics, but that the standards of "right" and "wrong" are different.

453 posted on 12/15/2002 10:56:58 AM PST by Physicist
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 448 | View Replies ]

To: Dr. Frank
It is the fact that a "scientific theory" may be disproved, or at least proven incomplete; it is always tentative and pending further results. A "mathematical theory" if you want to call it that is always completely 100% flat-out true. Nothing can "prove it wrong". Ever!

This is conceptually incorrect regarding a mathematical "theory". "Proving" a mathematical theory simply establishes that it is consistent with the assumptions of the established framework of discussion; it says nothing about whether or not it is true in any sense of the word.

462 posted on 12/15/2002 2:37:12 PM PST by balrog666
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 448 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson