Quote from: mumblemumble on April 03, 2017, 09:32:04 PMYou know, I do find the ideas of "laws" brought into debate of this rather ironic : laws must ALWAYS match what actually happens, and if the law is broken, the law is no more : In science, these "laws" are there to show the CURRENT understood limits of physics and the world, but this never means they cannot be broken, just our current UNDERSTANDING is broken.
And due to this, these laws should always be challenged : Because sometimes laws are incorrect, or done wrong, or whathaveyou. It happens, and is forgivable, but true physics exist because they can happen over and over again.
And if the laws hold up to countless experiments and no experiment disproves them, they are clearly useful enough to describe the world. If you do have an experiment which disproves them, go ahead and publish. If you pass peer review and independent scientists can recreate your findings, have fun with your Nobel prize. Of course, that is a very, very big if.
Quote from: mumblemumble on April 03, 2017, 09:32:04 PMBeyond that, it should always be based on TANGIBLE ideas : Some of the laws of energy seem a bit silly to me, particularly when calling the mass of something "potential energy" : The energy is not from the mass itself, but the weight of it being pulled downward. The downward force is the energy force, not the object itself, potential energy is not actual energy which exists inside the object, it is the energy of the downward force, which can only be observed when a pathway down is given.
This is where it becomes clear that you don't have even a basic understanding of terminology in physics. Energy is, in fact, defined in terms of force; specifically, the integral of force over distance (basically, it's a measure of how much force you have to apply over a distance to get your object from one point to another).
If you had a 10 kilogram rock on Earth's surface and wanted to lift it up by 2 meters, you'd have to exert a force of about 100 Newtons, which is the weight of the rock, to compensate for gravity. Lifting it 2 m, then, would require about 200 Joules (say, in terms of electrical energy for an engine, minus inefficiencies), and the potential energy of the rock would increase by those 200 J. If you want to get those 200 J back "out of the rock", you could drop it and use it to spin a generator, which would then (minus inefficiencies) get you 200 J of electrical energy. That's how energy works. If you want to use weird terminology nobody else uses (say, "energy force"), that changes nothing about what happens and just makes it harder for others to understand you.
Regardless, requiring laws of physics to be "tangible ideas" would be foolish. Potential differences driving current in a circuit, oscillations being described by complex numbers, quantum mechanics – none of that is tangible, but it works – otherwise a lot of modern technology couldn't have been built. If you were to restrict physics to those things a layperson finds intuitively understandable and "tangible", you won't get very far.
I've heard the following said: "You can never hope to defeat your enemies without knowing how they think. And by the time you know enough science to fight the scientific, it's already too late – you're already a scientist." Basically, if you knew what you're talking about, you wouldn't be talking about it because you'd know why you're wrong.
I'm sure there's a book out there written to give an introduction to physics to people with your level of understanding. If you're in this discussion because you're interested in facts, reading something like that would be a good idea. If you're interested in winning the argument, reading up on the matter would be a good idea as well, because at least you'd learn how concepts are expressed in physics and what specific terms mean, so you could express your ideas in a way we can actually understand. If you're just here because you like arguing, well, I guess it's your right to waste your time like that.
Quote from: Thyme on March 19, 2017, 01:00:34 PMI intentionally avoided mathematics. I doubt it will help the case, as "conservative force field" and similar arguments did not convince mumble2.
While it is unlikely to convince him, other people will probably be interested in it. And even if not, practicing the basics doesn't hurt. (And yes, I'm still planning to do the math, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.)