liveforphysics said:
Don't be lead down the rose path and end up so foolish as to think...we have a bit more of a clue...
Oh, I agree about that too - we have workable models to explain what's in the black box, but that doesn't mean we know what's in the box.
But we made a lot of good stuff out of newtonian physics - still do even, even though we know it's not really the way things work.
This is kind of what I'm saying though - gravity? we have it modeled and we work with it on a day to day basis in extreme depth. light? (and other forms of electromagnetic radiation) again - we have a great model that enables us to do incredible things with the properties we can work with. nuclear fusion / fission - the same.....
But at some point someone is gonna say...."no, that's close enough to work some stuff out but actually this is how it really works"
This is what I'm talking about.....
There is so much to study nowadays just to get to the cutting edge of any of these sciences, that by the time you get there you are already indoctrinated in "the way things work".
To start thinking outside of the box is a hugely difficult undertaking for the majority of scientists and researchers. It almost takes some idiot who doesn't really understand things to come along and find something new.
Or some genius. Or someone with a brain that's just wired up differently - savant style.....autistic or aspergers type of brain. Rossi seems a bit like that, but maybe its a red herring and that's one of the ways he gets the support. With the greatest respect, Our hero Cedric Lynch is that type of brain as well, I think.
There was an article in Wired recently about experiments that would be great to do if they weren't totally unethical.... I wonder if we could somehow raise a generation of kids to discover and invent things free from the shackles of what had come before them - what might they discover?