MOTION MOUNTAIN

concepts, lies and patterns of nature 281
perimentalists, a term derived from the Latin ‘experiri’, meaning ‘to try out’. Most of
them are part of the category ‘graduate students’.The experts of steps 5 and 4 are called
theoreticalphysicists or simplytheoreticians.*This is a rather modern term; the first professors
of theoretical physics were appointed around the start of the twentieth century.
The term ‘theory’ is derived from the Greek θεωρία meaning ‘observation, contemplation’.
Finally, there are the people who focus on steps 1 to 3, and who induce others to
workon steps 4 to 6; theyare called geniuses. Thegeniuses are thosepeople whointroducetheconceptsthatbesthelptodescribenature.
Obviously an important point is hidden in step 6: how do all these people know
whether their checks fail? How do they know if a concept or statement applies to nature?
How do they recognize truth?
“Allprofessions areconspiracies against
George Bernard Shaw
laymen.”
What is a lie?
“Getyour factsstraight, andthenyou candistort
thematyour leisure.
MarkTwain” “Thepure truth isalwaysalie.
BertHellinger”
In most countries, every person must know what ‘truth’ is, since in a law court for example,tellinganuntruthcanleadtoaprisonsentence.Andthecourtsarefullofexperts
inliedetection.**
Incourt,alieisastatementthatknowinglycontrastswithobservations.***The truth
of a statement is thus checked by observation. The check itself is sometimes called the
proof of the statement. For law courts, and for physics, we thus have
⊳ Truth is the correspondence with facts.
⊳ Facts are observations shared with other people or machines.
Therefore,
⊳ Alie is a statement in contrast with facts.
activity – and also, unfortunately, a lot of esoteric nonsense.The term ‘physics’ is either derived from the
Greek φύσικη(τέχνηis understood) meaning ‘(the art of) nature’,or from the title of Aristotle’ works τά
φυσικάmeaning ‘natural things’.Both expressions arederivedfromφύσις,meaning ‘nature’.
* If you like theoretical physics, have a look at the refreshingly candid web page by Nobel Prize winner
Gerard ‘t Hooft with the title How to become a good theoretical physicist. It can be found at www.phys.uu.
nl/~thooft/theorist.html.
**Some scholarshavespentmostof their researchcareer on liesand lying. Awell-known example isPaul
Ekman,whosefascinatingwebsiteatwww.paulekman.com tellshowtospotliesfromthebehaviourofthe
persontelling it.
*** Statements not yet checked are variously called speculations, conjectures, hypotheses, or – wrongly –
simplytheses.Statementsthatareincorrespondencewithobservationsarecalledcorrectortrue;statements
thatcontrastwith observations arecalled wrong or false.
Motion Mountain – The Adventure of Physics copyright © Christoph Schiller June 1990–November 2015 free pdf file available at www.motionmountain.net