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Re: Capacitor charge, were is it?



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> From hullr-at-whitlock-dot-comMon Nov 11 23:12:02 1996
> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 16:01:25 -0800
> From: Richard Hull <hullr-at-whitlock-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Re: Capacitor charge, were is it?
>

Hi Richard,

 
> No reason to throw out the baby with the wash water.  I swallow what 
> works and can be seen to repeatedly respond to experiment.  I do not 
> necessarily swallow all that I am told MUST BE SO.
> 
I agree completely, but who can afford to check all the results of others?
As much as I personally dislike the idea, one must have some degree of
faith in what others have done. Else, can we even be sure that Keithly
really understands the proper physics and engineeering necessary to design
electrometers which actually measure volts. Etc. etc....

>   Conservation of energy seems like a good idea and works for me time and

> time again.  A portion of the rest of physics needs some review, I fear.
> 
>   As we drift farther and farther away from the definitively knowable and

> readily observable, the more we drift into a gray zone of official, 
> scientifically sanctioned conjecture.  Science is becoming as the church 
> was in the 1400s.  Rife with Officially sanctioned dogamtic beliefs held 
> by those enviously called "the blessed" and "the faithful".  Any one 
> who dares question the belief system is just laughed at. 

When new theories are not very well tested, I have never seen anyone
laughed at because the disagreed with it. In fact, at the physics
conferences, one is likely to see a new theory attacked without mercy until
a large number of experiments validate its predictions. However, if you're
going to argue against well tested theories, you are expected to have a
theory which makes better predictions of experiments than the old one -
otherwise you're just arguing with semantics and interpretation. That's
what makes it different from dogma. As an aside, Maxwell concieved all
these mechanical models of electromagnetic fields to help him visualise his
theories. The mathematics of his theory is quite testable, but the models
have no direct test. Which has more physical reality or which is more
appealing to the human mind? Who knnows? 

 Science at 
> least respects human life but not the spirit of disagreement the way it 
> once did.
> 
> Richard Hull, TCBOR