Scientists today have the same difficulty with reality that Maxwell had. But Faraday, the greatest experimental scientist of the century, had his feet firmly planted in reality
Scientists today seem to discount the broad concept of substance as in the following post.
Energy Is Not A Substance And How To Easily Understand This
Here are my responses to this article:
Sascha, if you are saying that energy is not a material substance then you are right; but if you say energy is not a substance than you have the concept of substance very narrowly defined. Light is “something.” It is not made of material substance, but it is made of energy substance because it has momentum that can be sensed and measured.
Kinetic energy cannot exist by itself. Something must be in motion for kinetic energy to exist. When there is nothing, then there is no motion and no kinetic energy. So, there is substance underlying kinetic energy, which is not always material substance. The concept of substance from its derivation is “that which stands under.”
In your cart example, what flowed from the body to the carts was force. Force was recognized by Faraday as the most basic substance. Einstein loved Faraday. Faraday was the greatest experimental scientist of his time. He was very much in touch with reality unlike the mathematical scientists of today. You may want to study the following from Faraday.
Faraday: Electrical Conduction & Nature of Matter
Faraday: On the Conservation of Force
Faraday: Thoughts on Ray Vibrations
It was the concept of force as SUBSTANCE that Maxwell disagreed with Faraday on. Faraday was not a mathematician like Maxwell. Maxwell did discover wonderful relationships by applying mathematics to Faraday’s concept of field; but Faraday’s intuition of field being a substance was right. Maxwell missed that. See
Faraday & Maxwell
To understand whether energy is a substance or not, one needs to define the word SUBSTANCE first.
SUBSTANCE
Origin: “That which stands under.” A thing is made of substance. The substance is a spectrum that extends from tangible matter to intangible light to ephemeral thought. This whole spectrum of substance is substantial enough to be sensed one way or another. The substance may be divided broadly as material substance, energy substance and thought substance.
I think that most people limit the definition of substance to material substance only. This is just a narrow viewpoint.
MATERIAL SUBSTANCE
The material substance comes in the forms of solids, liquids and gases. All of these forms of material substance can be reduced to discrete particles. These discrete material particles have a solid form and a center of mass. The ultimate material particles are protons and neutrons.
The general characteristics of substance is that it can be sensed and measured.
ENERGY SUBSTANCE
The energy substance is that which fills the atom beyond its nucleus. It is real. It is much more than just mathematical symbolism. Einstein demonstrated the existence of atoms in his 1905 paper.
Thanks for letting me express my broader viewpoint.
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