Posts by Martin

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Martin's Visit to Gottingen Archaeological Museum - Statues of Epicurus and Metrodorus - and a certain other person with outstretched hand - Member Life Events, Musings, and Condolences - Epicureanfriends.com

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I would also like to ask a question for those who don't mind on "atoms and void". From what i can tell science tells us that the space between atoms is not really "empty space" but more like energy (electromagnetic, gravitational energy, quantum waves) which provided no friction and has no form, thus allowing movement. Do you all consider this to be a kind of "Epicurean void" or do you still believe in the classical void that there's empty space in-between?

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Martin maybe you can give a good answer to the question in the above post.

Don gave already a good answer, but OK, here is my answer:
The space with properties (field) is a kind of "Epicurean void", and there is space in-between particles, which is empty almost everywhere most of the time under typical circumstances on Earth.

There is a fundamental difference between Epicurus and the Kantian philosophy of science adhered to by the majority of modern scientists, of whom I am a dumbed down specimen.
After careful consideration, Epicurus came to the conclusion that he found the truth about reality and called his philosophy "true philosophy". "True" referred to materialism, his metaphysics, his ethics and his pre-scientific methodology, not the description of particular phenomena, for which he typically offered multiple materialistic explanations and suspended judgement on which one is true. Today, the majority of scientists think that reality/truth is fundamentally unknowable, but we can create models which describe the phenomena very well. So, when scientists talk like quoted above, they do not mean that this is true for reality but true within the chosen model.

For Newton and Coulomb, masses and charges, respectively, interact at a distance, with the space in between remaining like Epicurus' void.
Faraday changed this. He let mass and charge give properties to the space around them and called that space with properties field. The field affects other masses or charges in that field, and the contributions of these other masses or charges to the field affect the first mass or charge. This was a major progress because it removed the spooky interaction at a distance in Newton's theory of gravity. Field theory was consequently applied to the more recently discoverd other fundamental forces. Except for virtual particles occasionally popping up as part of the description of interactions, the space is empty. The field adds something fundamentally new to Epicurus' plain void and enables that coming into existence of virtual particles. Again, this is all talk about properties of a model, not reality. However, there are some scientists, even excellent ones, who believe that science has been approaching the truth and who might claim that they talk about reality and its truth and not just a model of it but ultimately, they can neither know nor prove this.

Welcome Wbernys!

Yes, I have the icons/avatars on my screen instead.

It shows the avatars on my PC screen as usual.

The meme seems to be at least 7 years old. I found no definite source.

Welcome Chump!

Welcome Natalia!

There is not necessarily great pleasure over time for a scientist. Paul Ehrenfest contributed to quantum theory but felt that peers made greater discoveries around the same time and commited suicide.
In other cases, peers have dismissed a revolutionary new theory, even with ad-hominem. Accolades which come in only posthumously are too late. Examples of this are Ludwig Boltzmann and Alfred Wegener (geologist, but close enough). In Boltzmann's case, the hostility by peers probably contributed to his suicide. Dan Shechtman's discovery of quasicrystals was initially rejected, even by his boss, such that Dan Shechtman had to leave his research group and was the target of ridicule, e.g. Linus Pauling's infamous ad-hominem "There are no quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists". Luckily, Dan Shechtman is not a "snowflake" like Boltzmann and Ehrenfest may appear to have been and got eventually the accolades, including the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Welcome Ontologix!

"Engaging In Discovery" should be changed to "Making a Discovery" or similar because the path to a discovery is more or less painful, as expressed in quotes attributed to Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein on the ratio of inspiration to perspiration. We can skip the "Great" because the pleasure I had with my small discoveries was certainly not less than the great physicists had with their great ones, in analogy to the "Great Physicist" and the lion.

Welcome back JMGuimas!

Welcome O2x Ohio!

Welcome Ernesto.Sun!

Welcome Hubblefanboy!

Welcome ZarathustrasGarden!

Welcome Sam_Qwerty!

Welcome Simteau!

The worst part of that AI overview is that the AI misrepresents our position in a way that it appears to contradict Epicurus' philosophy. A reader with some familiarity with Epicurus but not us is likely to dismiss epicureanfriends.com.
This shows that attempts to countercheck AI by letting it contrast different positions may still lead to misleading nonsense. You already need to be an expert to make good use of AI.