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Richard, Richard, Richard...
In my life I have actually known only one Ph.D. in physics from Harvard. He had what to me seemed to be a very strange attitude: every test he ever gave any of his students (even final exams) were all open book tests. Not only that but he also seemed to give questions almost exactly the same as the examples in the text book. I used to think he was slow witted for not realizing that his technique allowed his students to pass without understanding what they were doing at all. His position was that the field of physics was too broad to expect one to remember everything; what was important was that the student could find the answer if he needed it.
That must be a Harvard thing: plug and play; there is no need to understand what you are doing!
You apparently cannot hold an idea in your head after finishing a sentence and seem to have no comprehension of mathematics at all.
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Yanniru: You in other posts have admitted that the delta functions are all zero in the region F=0
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I have not "admitted" that, I have stated that! If the data is valid, F is zero. F is a function and F=0 is the constraint which will force the data to be valid, F=0 is not a "region". That is, if F is not zero, we are looking at invalid data!
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Yanniru: But you have argued that they need not be zero in the region Psi=0.
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Well, just exactly what does Psi=0 mean? Since the probability of seeing the data is the magnitude of Psi squared, the probability of seeing invalid data must be zero. If Psi=0 for some set of data, then that data must be invalid data! Certainly F need not be zero if the data is invalid!
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Yanniru: So all the contributions to the algorithm you derive for Psi are from the region Psi=0.
But that by definition is the region of invalid data.
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Tell me Yanniru, is the value of a wave function ever non-zero when the situation described by that wave function cannot occur? What I have put forth is a constraint on the wave function! A constraint on the wave function which cannot be violated by definition!
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Yanniru: So how can you derive a valid algorithm from invalid data?
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Go back and read the two paragraphs following equation 1.7. You will find the following statement: "It should be clear that only experiment can determine the correct algorithm; all I am concerned with in this presentation is removing extraneous constraints imposed by considerations outside the data: i.e., constraints imposed by definition."
I am not deriveing a valid algorithm! What I am saying is that no valid algorithm can fail to obey my equation. Those are very different statements.
All you are doing is restating the comment I make in the last paragraph of Part III of Chapter 1: "in accordance with the world view of modern science, under the constraints I have placed on myself, I should be able to deduce absolutely nothing of significance!!
How can I derive a valid algorithm from invalid data? Clearly I cannot but I can certainly eliminate some algorithms which yield invalid data! What ever the valid algorithm is, it is certainly constrained to obey my equation! If it doesn't then the probability of seeing invalid data will not be zero!
I haven't constrained my results in any way except by eliminating algorithms which inconsistent with the definitions which I have established. Equation 1.27 must be true! and the constraint F=0 does not appear in equation 1.27.
What a rational scientist would see is that, if his duty is to separate what is from what is possible, he is wasting his time with any relationships he finds in nature which obey my equation because anything which is possible will obey that equation. On the other hand, if he can find a solution to my equation which he cannot find in nature, then he has found something significant; otherwise he is just pulling the wool over his own eyes: what ever he is looking at is true by definition.
I am sorry this is all so far over your head -- Dick
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