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From: karl@plato.simons-rock.edu (Karl A. Krueger)
Subject: Re: See me, hear me, feel me, touch me.
Message-ID: <D8ICz3.Fr7@plato.simons-rock.edu>
Reply-To: karl@simons-rock.edu
Organization: Disorganization
References: <3n651q$qro@ds2.acs.ucalgary.ca> <9505010008.AA001en@abarnett.demon.co.uk> <D7z1up.G5u@jack.sns.com> <3otqpp$78b@cabell.vcu.edu>
Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 08:30:39 GMT
Lines: 25

In article <3otqpp$78b@cabell.vcu.edu>,
Corbett B. Hammond <mus5cbh@cabell.vcu.edu> wrote:
>>This really does not PROVE magnetism. How do you know that magnetism caused
>>the magnet to attract the iron nail? Maybe it was an invisible elf that
>>brought the two together? I think this is what the original poster tried to 
>>touch on... You can see the effects of magnetism, but can you see magnetism?
>  The force of magnetism can be proven.  On a lodestone are
>tiny little charged particles.  A lodestone is a charged little
>sliver of some earthy material.  What material, I'm not sure,
>but we'll overlook this minor point.
>  These charged particles will attract other oppositely charged
>particles, particularly those in iron, and repel similarly
>charged particles, those in most other magnets.  This effect
>can be proved theoretically, since we are not at a point in
>technological advancement where we can observe atoms by
>themselves.

It's a "magnet" because our word "magnet" describes accurately what it does. 
If our symbologies do not have a good correspondence with reality -- that
is, if our operating definitions are merely superstition -- then we might as
well give up the science game.

Science is trying to understand what happens.  Philosophy is about why it
happens, and theology is about who made it happen.  Geography is about where
it happened, and politics is about who did what to whom and why.
