RobinZ comments on Rationality Quotes January 2013 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: katydee 02 January 2013 05:23PM

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Comment author: Sengachi 04 January 2013 07:44:41AM 4 points [-]

Viewing the interactions of photons as both a wave and a billiard ball. Both are wrong, but by seeing which traits remain constant in all models, we can project what traits the true model is likely to have.

Comment author: RobinZ 05 January 2013 04:58:19AM 2 points [-]

Does that work? I don't know enough physics to tell if that makes sense.

Comment author: Sengachi 06 January 2013 10:11:10AM 4 points [-]

It doesn't give you all the information you need, but that's how the problem was originally tackled. Scientists noticed that they had two contradictory models for light, which had a few overlapping characteristics. Those overlapping areas allowed them to start formulating new theories. Of course it took ridiculous amounts of work after that to figure out a reasonable approximation of reality, but one has to start somewhere.