Spencer Heath Archive

Item 61

Penciled by Heath on lined notepad paper.

June 28, 1952

 

 

 

     In physical science the court of last resort is the objective test. The thing that is tested is always a hypothesis, a generalized statement of how an event and all other events of a specified similarity take place under similar conditions — that is, within a given set of circum­stances, frame of reference.

     The hypothesis describes the how of the event, its mode, method or manner, usually in terms of the numerical ratios that obtain among the measurable elements or aspects, the dimensions of the event. These ratios, taken together, are the rationale of the event. The criterion is the operational validity of the hypothesis as determined by observation and experiment indefinitely repeated by various persons at various places and times.

 

     The hypothesis may spring directly from an observa­tion of the several dimensions (analysis) of an event or it may come intuitively as the result of many partial obser­vations of many events.

 

     The purpose of a scientific observation or experiment is either (l) to discover in an event some mode of operation that can be generalized as a hypothesis or (2) to test the validity of a hypothesis previously formed. In either case the conditions of the experiment constitute the circumstances, the frame of reference to which the hypothesis refers.

 

     When a hypothesis proves valid within the specific frame of reference in which it is tested or examined it may be wholly false in either a much larger or a much smaller frame.

     With respect to energy as action or event there is confusion in treating its elements as ratios and also as if they were quantities that could be experienced severally and separately from the event or action which they unitedly compose.

     An objective event has three measurable elements or aspects. The kind, quality or character of the event (but not its over all magnitude or dimension) depends solely on the ratios or proportions in which these three aspects or elements are united in the event.

In every event there are just three elements or aspects: (1) There is the element of mass or force or inertia, which three are always directly proportional and hence quantitatively interchangeable; (2) there is the element of motion or length or space (linear) and, (3) there is the element of discontinuity or periodicity of succession, frequency, rhythm, of process or proceeding as time.

     These three together constitute the objective unity of an event. Any one or two of them can be subjectively con­ceived by disregarding the remaining two or the third, but all three are inexorably united in the event and only the event in its totality can come into objective experience. Furthermore, there is a hierarchical order in which each presupposes the next and the first and second together presuppose the third and the three together constitute the objective event.

     Mass or force presupposes some unit of the same, and any concept of mass as a quantity is the ratio which that quantity bears to some unit of mass, such as the pound, the gram or the dyne. Each magnitude or dimension therefore is a numerical ratio to its unit. The same is true of motion or length, and, no less, of frequency or time. Each magnitude or dimension is a number that expresses /?/ the numerical relation or ratio to its dimensional unit.

     There is also in any event a rational proportion between its mass dimension and each unit of motion or length. Hence its mass-motion content or dimension is the product of its mass dimension times the motion dimension of the event.

     Similarly this mass-motion (work) dimension of the event is the rational proportion between that dimension and each unit of time involved in the event. This is its energy rate. Hence the over-all dimension of the event, the quantity of energy as action, is the product of the energy rate times the time dimension or total duration of the event. This last quantity or dimension constitutes the event in its entirety in which alone it can be objectively experienced, however much its constituent elements or aspects may be sub­jectively considered and conceived.

Energy involves motion, or a ratio of motion to time, which is velocity.

Motion may be rectilinear without rotation, as that of a stone dropped down a well, or with rotation as that of a projectile that spins, or it may be rotational alone. It may be planetary /?/ in a plane or it may be spiral or helical with ________ progression.

All these motions have reference to definite masses or particles moving in accordance with the well-known Newtonian laws, each being possessed of energies proportional to its mass and the square of its velocity.

There is, however, a kind of energy that does not seem to be associated with any definite or describable particle or mass called radiant energy. Radiant energy is not a perceptible mass having rectilinear (or other linear) motion. In this the motion is not linear; it is volumetric or cubical. It proceeds from a point of origin and extends outwardly in all directions and with discontinuity. It pro­ceeds spherically, with a definite radial velocity in rhythmic periods called waves. The energy, including its mass or force element (particle aspect), is thus diffused throughout a globe or sphere the volume of which increases as the cube of its successively increasing radius. The rhythmic or periodic increase of radius is the length of the wave. This length dimension of the wave is directly proportional to its time dimension or period and thus inversely proportional to its frequency. The motion of the wave, being not merely linear but cubical, the wave has a volume that is proportional to the cube of its radial length. The volume of each wave in succession therefore increases as the cube of its length from its point of origin.

 

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Commentary by Alvin Lowi, Jr.

III  B.5, D.3

SUBJECT:  The Method and Substance of Physical Science

The objective test — “court of last resort” (Eddington)

The hypothesis and how formulated and validated — scientific method

Observation and scientific experiment

Events — dimensions and rationale

Frame of reference and circumstances.

Unity in events — constituent units

Motion — Newtonian Laws

Waves and Particles — Energy in masses and radiation

REMARKS:  A valuable piece of work — very Eddingtonian (not mentioned) — Incorrect on inverse-square law of radiation