01 January 2018 9 3K Report

Eddington [1] was one of the few who tried to answer the above question, for the case of the decomposition of white light by a prism; however, his answer is ambiguous. Burgers [2] reportedly (see Ref.[3]) reportedly also refers to this case, but his interest lies in the phenomenon of turbulence, where Fourier analysis and other methods of decomposition are employed. Also, Hinze [3], just before mentioning the Burgers paper, says: "... Though a harmonic analysis of the velocity fluctuations [in a turbulent fluid] can be carried out, this fact is no proof that, conversely, the turbulent fuctuations are composed of these harmonics. Compare the similar problem in the case of sound, where one may distinguish between noise (turbulent) and note (composed of a number of harmonics)."

This problem could conceivably appesr in every domain of physics. Is there an unambiguous abnswer to Eddington's dilemma: "discovery or manufacture?"

[1] Eddington, A.S.: "The philosophy of physical science". Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor Press, 1978. Chapter VII, section I.

[2] Burgers, J. M.: Proc. Koninkl. Akad. Wetenschap. vol.51, p. 1073 (1948).

[3]Hinze, O.: "Turbulence". Mc Graw-Hill, 1975, Ch. 1, pp. 7-8.

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