Sigh.
Midterms are this week and I've had a throat/cold thing for the last four days. I am not happy. I apologize for not being around or visiting people's journals--I've been otherwise occupied.
Oh, and replacing circuits as the new, reigning This Sucks is...*drum-roll*...the Biot-Savart Law! I like electro-magnetics, but goddammit, people!
Always willing to share my pain, I present to you...Biot-Savart!
dB=μ/4π (I ds x r)/r
Biot-Savart is accompanied by the Right-Hand Rule and likes to be integrated over non-symmetric conductors! Let's all give a hand for the integration of cross-products! Yeah!
Sigh.
Midterms are this week and I've had a throat/cold thing for the last four days. I am not happy. I apologize for not being around or visiting people's journals--I've been otherwise occupied.
Oh, and replacing circuits as the new, reigning This Sucks is...*drum-roll*...the Biot-Savart Law! I like electro-magnetics, but goddammit, people!
Always willing to share my pain, I present to you...Biot-Savart!
dB=μ/4π (I ds x r)/r
Biot-Savart is accompanied by the Right-Hand Rule and likes to be integrated over non-symmetric conductors! Let's all give a hand for the integration of cross-products! Yeah!
Sigh.
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
Epistemology and phil sci. are definitely linked. Epistemology is, generally speaking, the theory of knowledge - epistemologists deal with all the questions like, "how do we learn things about the world?" and "how can we justify the things we think are true?" So there's a sense in which you could see the philosophy of science as almost a sub-field of epistemology (with some overlap into metaphysics). At the same time, many epistemologists (esp. early-mid 20th century analytic philosophers) have taken their cue from the methods of the sciences in trying to build theories of knowledge. Interestingly, I always thought of Chalmers as more of a metaphysics guy than an epistemology guy.
I have more background in epistemology than in phil sci. But there are a few things I can think of that you might want to check out, to get a sense of whether philosophy of science is the right kind of place for you...
Thomas Kuhn - _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_
Karl Popper - can't think of any titles off the top of my head, but pretty much anything aside from _The Open Society and its Enemies_ is on Phil. Sci.
W.V.O. Quine - "Epistemology Naturalized"
Bertrand Russell - again, sorry, can't think of any titles.. works mostly in phil. language, but has written some classic stuff on sense-datum theories of epistemology
If you're feeling a bit more ambitious, also good in the area are:
Michael Dummett - _The Logical Basis of Metaphysics_ (deals esp. with the connection b/t epistemology and metaphysics, less on science in particular)
Susan Haack - _Philosophy of Logics_ (has a section on multivalent quantum logic and other 'deviant' logics, some with scientific applications)
Nancy Cartwright - _How the Laws of Physics Lie_ or (shorter) "The Truth Doesn't Explain Much" (more metaphysics than epistemology, but a good representative of scientific particularism)
Bas van Fraasen - sorry, again, blanking on titles
Edmund Husserl - _The Crisis of the European Sciences_ (a different philosophical perspective than the rest)
Does that help?