Can you think of any other way we could understand, and manipulate our knowledge of, physics besides quan....?

Question

Can you think of any other way we could understand, and manipulate our knowledge of, physics besides quantifying things?

An example I have in my head is, imagine if we wanted to put a satellite into orbit. How else could we figure out how to do this besides quantifying mass, speed, distance, etc. and knowing the mathematical relationships between these things?

You might be tempted to say something like trial and error, but that does not give us any understanding of physics.

Answer #1, I do not believe you understood the question, please re-read it.

Answer #2, Let's not and say we didn't.

Answer #3, Maybe, but I do not see how this answers my question.

Answer #4, Perhaps I should have worded my question this way:
"Can you think of any other way we could understand the concepts and ideas outlined in what we call physics, and manipulate this understanding in ways that would allow us to still use this knowledge in things such as the example I gave, all without basing these understandings upon quantifying things"

Answers #s 5, 6 & 7, I mostly agree with.

To question #6, I have no counter-examples. I asked this question because I was unable to think of any solutions to it.

To question #7, There is, unfortunately, not much behind this question of mine. My (main) reason for asking was to answer the question, do we need mathematics to understand ou world? There are a few other reasons, such as wondering if they way we represent things (mathematically) has any significance in the nature of these things.
I hope that doesn't disappoint too much ;-)

Thanks for the great answers!

Answer 1

Not likely. Even if you're not taking numerical measurements, you're mentally quantifying. You notice it's harder to push an adult on a bicycle than a child. You notice whether blue or red light bends more as it passes through a prism. When you throw a basketball through a hoop, you're either consciously doing quantitative physics, or unconsciously doing quantitative physics. The only reason you even try to throw a ball is that you observed someone else doing it, and inferred a cause-effect relationship. I'd like to hear of any counterexamples you might come up with.

Answer 2

Nop, unless you're unimaginably smart alien from out of space. Humans have to use symbols and things to measure and calculate. We're hard wired to solve problems the way we do and you can't change that unless you have whole new hardware. Which means something other than human being. Or souped up human being with crazy souped up big brain may be.

You can't run today's PC games on old PC from 1980. Same thing here.

It takes many experiments to confirm very simple idea. If you can't quantify things in those experiments no ideas can be confirmed. Humans are not hardwired to be able to somehow quantify things precisely without use of symbols and hard tools.

Answer 3

No

Our knowledge about things that happen, especially in the area we call physics, is only the quantification, the measurement, of things and how they are related and interact. By doing so we support or replace theories of how the world works.

Leaving aside the the semantics and taking your specific example the only way of putting a satellite into orbit - itself the product of millions of measurements and trials in the creation of its components and systems - is measurement and computation and, more than likely, a lot of trial and error.

No system has ever sprung completely formed and functional without one or both these activities.

I look forward to reading other answers and your reactions to see what was really behind your question that I have not discerned.

Answer 4

If you want repeatable results, quantifying things is unavoidable. If you throw a random quantity of gunpowder into a cannon, the cannon ball is going to travel an unpredictable distance, making aiming hard.

Common sense dictates that to discover the effect that one parameter has on a system, we should change that parameter while keeping the others unchanging. To accomplish this, you have to know how much you've changed the parameter, and that the other ones are actually staying constant.

Answer 5

I think you asked a contradictory question.

Physics, as a scientific study, depends on quantifying forces and the relationships between elements.

It's correct to say "Every action has a reaction."

But it's physics to say "Every action has an EQUAL and OPPOSITE reaction."

The words EQUAL and OPPOSITE quantify the expected reaction. That's really important in understanding the physics of our world.

Answer 6

there is only one way to understand physics...and that is to use the scientific method. there are no other ways. Everything else is just guessing.

by the way scientific method involves trial and error. without trial and error we would learn nothing and would still be using rocks to brak open bones for marrow.

Answer 7

Maybe somewhere in the universe there is a being that can manipulate, modify and create matter.

Answer 8

I can't come up with any other way!

Answer 9

Lets use magic!