Computational Modeling
Fall 2008

For today, you should:

1) work on your chapter 6

2) read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentalism and
   one other source, do exercise 6.5 and come prepared to discuss.


Today:

1) particle-wave duality

2) instrumentalism survey

3) work on your chapter 6


For next time you should:

1) finish your chapter 6 (evaluation packets due next Friday) 

2) prepare for a quiz on Chapter 6

3) read the article about Einstein's famous quote (link below)

4) (maybe) read my Chapter 7


Particle-wave duality
---------------------

1) How do we know that light is not a (classical) particle?

2) How do we know that light is not a wave?

3) When you studied particle-wave duality in high school, what
   was the conclusion?


What does it mean to unify seemingly contradictory theories?
Why is it so appealing?

You might find these ideas helpful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partially_ordered_set
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_partial_order

Reading for next time:
http://www.eequalsmcsquared.auckland.ac.nz/sites/emc2/tl/philosophy/dice.cfm
or Google "god does not play dice"


Instrumentalism
---------------

How might an instrumentalist answer these questions?

1) Do observation statements have truth values?

2) Do theoretical statements have truth values?

3) Why might we prefer one theory over another?

4) Do non-observable theoretical entities exist?

5) Do observable theoretical entities exist
   (or does the question even make sense)?

6) What does it mean to say that science makes progress?

7) If science makes progress, why?


Let's see where we lie on the instrumentalism spectrum...