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All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'fragments/reports' and 'Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics'

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5 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
     Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
     From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / b. Fields
Fields can be 'scalar', or 'vector', or 'tensor', or 'spinor' [Baggott]
     Full Idea: Fields can be 'scalar', with no particular direction (pointing, but not pushing or pulling); or 'vector', with a direction (like magnetism, or Newtonian gravity); or 'tensor' (needing further parameters); or 'spinor' (depending on spin orientation).
     From: Jim Baggott (Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics [2013], 2 'Quantum')
     A reaction: [compressed] So the question is, why do they differ? What is it in the nature of each field the result in a distinctive directional feature?
A 'field' is a property with a magnitude, distributed across all of space and time [Baggott]
     Full Idea: A 'field' is defined in terms of the magnitude of some physical property distributed over every point in time and space.
     From: Jim Baggott (Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics [2013], 2 'Quantum')
     A reaction: If it involves a 'property', normal usage entails that there is some entity which possesses the property. So what's the entity? Eh? Eh? You don't know! Disappointed...
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / b. Standard model
The current standard model requires 61 particles [Baggott]
     Full Idea: The current model requires 61 particles: three generations of two leptons and two flavours of quark, in three different colours (making 24); the anti-particles of all of these (48); 12 force particles (photon, W1, Z0, 8 gluons), and a Higgs boson.
     From: Jim Baggott (Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics [2013], 6 n)
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Stilpo said if Athena is a daughter of Zeus, then a statue is only the child of a sculptor, and so is not a god [Stilpo, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stilpo asked a man whether Athena is the daughter of Zeus, and when he said yes, said,"But this statue of Athena by Phidias is the child of Phidias, so it is not a god."
     From: report of Stilpo (fragments/reports [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.10.5