Regarding the article on Light in the June 1997 issue of NightTimes:

In the first paragraph, you say "Everything is theory. But if there were clear answers to all problems, then there would be no point to scientific inquiry."

I think this statement misrepresents the real process that is Science. When you say "Everything is theory", you imply that scientists have no clue, and that a Theory is nothing more than a guess. This reinforces the common misunderstanding of what it means for something to considered a scientific theory.

To be a scientific theory, a proposal must do two things:

- Describe an aspect of reality/nature. For example, ghosts and angels are not included in scientific theories.

- The proposal must be testable.

Theories that are not supported by testing/experiment are discarded. Theories validated by experiment are kept, but are still called "theories".

Gravity is real. The descriptions of its behavior by Newton and Einstein are still both theories. Light is real. Your article mentions several aspects of its behavior covered by current theory.

What I think you are really trying to say is that the behaviors of light (wave/particle duality, least time path) are contrary to our common experience in the macro world. That's fine. Just say it that way. My complaint is that, in the article, you slipped into the common (public) misuse of the term "theory". In a scientific publication (even an amateur one) it is important that we take the time to make the distinction.

Michael Purcell

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Michael brings up a valid point; I did unfortunately use the word "theory" in the loose, common-use sense. The scientist attaches a good deal more certainty to the term than does the man in the street. However, I did not mean to imply that "scientists have no clue". My intent was to point out that explanations of the phenomena of light are more certain than untested hypotheses, but they are not laws in the same sense as Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion. The Quantum Electrodynamics explanation of light as a photon (particle) is widely accepted, but there isn't universal agreement on this.

The problem with the word "theory", even in the scientific sense, is that there can be conflicting theories. Even though only one is ultimately correct, scientists point to test results or observations that support their divergent theories. But there cannot be conflicting physical laws. It would have been more correct had I said simply that there are some puzzling aspects to the theory of light and disagreement among scientists about certain aspects of the theory. In the realm of science, many explanations of phenomena that we accept as valid are still considered "theories". But there may never be an explanation that is anointed as the "law" of light!

Jack Kramer

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