[time-nuts] A philosophy of science view on the tight pll discussion

Fri Jun 4 14:06:10 UTC 2010

What! You don't have white crows where you live?

Steve

On 4 June 2010 04:40, Don Latham <djl at montana.com> wrote:
> Does it mean that if you have a can of white spray paint, you can produce
> a white crow?
> Don
>
> WarrenS
>> Ulrich posted a bunch of logic stuff, some of which I did not understand.
>>
>> but  I do think he missed the main point
>>
>> This does not need to prove what does and doesn't work with every example,
>> only prove that is needed  to answer ALL of Bruce's clams and concerns is
>> if
>> Oversampling will give good Integration results.
>> Bruce has said integration works and non integrating does not work very
>> good.
>> we both agree on that, No problem
>>
>> The only problem is that Bruce had got himself in a corner by denying that
>> high rates of oversampling will do integration.
>> Once he has finally admitted that, now we can move on to the next thing,
>> which I guess was why do I like H/W better than S/W.
>> Now, I can understand why that would not be logical to many time nuts.
>> But to say that oversampling does not provide integration, that is pure BS
>> and I could not let it go.
>> I don't know how Bruce got into the corner in the first place, I certainly
>> give him all the chances to get out before this.
>>
>> The answer is: that ones needs to integrate the Freq, to get good ADEV and
>> there are various ways to do it, each with it's own set of trades.
>> The one I choose  is working good enough.
>>
>> ws
>>
>> *********************
>>
>> Gentlemen,
>>
>> the discussion between Bruce and Warren concerning Warren's implementation
>> of NIST's "Tight PLL Method" has caused quite a stir in our group.
>>
>> My scientifical knowledge about the discussed topic is so much inferior
>> compared to Bruce's one that I don't have the heart to enter a
>> contribution
>> to the discussion itself. It may however be helpful to have a look at the
>> discussion from a "philosophy of science" point of view.
>>
>> The most basic form of logic is the propositional logic. A proposition in
>> the definition of propositional logic is a linguistic entity which can be
>> assigned a logic value like "true" or "false" or "0" or "1" without any
>> ambiguity. Whether a proposion is true or false may depend on
>> circumstances.
>> For example the proposition "Today is tuesday" is true on tuesdays and
>> wrong
>> on all other days of week.
>>
>> Other proposions are true or false due to their logic construction. The
>> combined proposition "Today is tuesday or today is not tuesday" is always
>> true from a logic point of view despite the fact that you may consider it
>> as
>> kind of "useless".
>>
>> Propositional logic then deals with the question what happens when two or
>> more propositions are combined by logic operators as in the second example
>> with the operator "or". Since a proposition, say "a", and a second
>> proposition, say "b", can only have the values of "0" or "1" it is easy to
>> put every possible combination of a and b values into a simple diagram,
>> for
>> example for the "or" operator:
>>
>> a  b  a or b
>> ------------
>> 0  0     0
>> 0  1     1
>> 1  0     1
>> 1  1     1
>>
>> Most if not all of us not only know such diagrams but really make use of
>> them in digital electronics. The well known operators are the "or", the
>> "and" and the "negation" and indeed it can be shown that ALL digital
>> operators can be constructed by a a combination of "negation" and either
>> "and" or "or". BTW this is the reason why the first logic circuit to
>> appear
>> as a single chip, the 7400, was a quad NAND gate, a combination of
>> "negation" and "and". The designers had learned their lesson and made
>> their
>> very first chip in a way that ALL possible combinations of two input
>> variables could be realized with one type of chip.
>>
>> Nevertheless the 3rd column of the above diagram can be considered a
>> four-digit binay value and so it becomes immediately clear that their must
>> be a total of 16 different logic operators whith each of them  producing a
>> number between 0 and 15 (Decimal) or rather 1111 (Binary) in the 3rd
>> column.
>> Each of these operators has a name of its own. Although widely used in
>> common speech one of the not so well known operators is the "formal
>> implication", or "a implies b" as we say or "b follows from a".
>>
>> The "formal implication" has the logic diagram (which is identical to
>> "(not
>> a) or b"):
>>
>> a  b  a -> b
>> ------------
>> 0  0     1
>> 0  1     1
>> 1  0     0
>> 1  1     1
>>
>> What may look unspectular at the first glance in effect holds two of the
>> most important supports of ALL scientific reasoning:
>>
>> While the third row of the diagram basically says that it not possible to
>> achieve wrong results when logic is applied correctly to correct
>> propositions, rows one and two say that logic may deliver wrong results
>> (line one) or correct results (line two) if applied correctly to WRONG
>> (false) propositions. That is why already ancient logicians knew:
>>
>> Ex falsi omnis
>>
>> which freely translated from Latin means as much as: "From wrong
>> propositions everything can be condluded".
>>
>> One of the consequences of this is the fact that for a true proposition
>> "b"
>> the inference to the trueness of the proposition "a" from that it has been
>> concluded is NOT possible.
>>
>> A second consequence of this is that NO scientifical theory can be
>> verified
>> by an experiment. A theory may formulate a proposition on the outcome of a
>> certain experiment. Even if the outcome of the experiment and the
>> proposition are in good congruence it would be completely wrong to infere
>> that the theory is correct due to the experiment.
>>
>> It is possible to harden the theory by experiments. For this purpose it is
>> necessary to produce a big number of different and indpendend propositions
>> based on the theory and test each single proposition with an experiment.
>> The
>> more propositions and the more experiments the chance that the theory is
>> correct increases but note that even with an unbound number of
>> propositions
>> and experiments this is no proof of the theory. Interesting enough that
>> you
>> need ony a SINGLE experiment to falsify a theory if the outcome of the
>> experiment is different from the theory's proposition. What can really be
>> infered from experiments and observations may also be shown by the
>> following
>> joke:
>>
>> A physicist, a mathematician and a logician are sitting in a train riding
>> through Germany. Suddenly they notice a herd of sheep whith all being
>> white
>> with the exception of one which is black.
>>
>> The physiscist: "That is a proof that there are black sheeps in Germay"
>>
>> The mathematician: "You physicists are using the term 'proof' in a too
>> relaxed way. If at all this is a proof that there is at least ONE black
>> sheep in Germany"
>>
>> The logician: "Let's get serious: This is a proof that there is at least
>> ONE
>> sheep in Germany with ONE BLACK SIDE".
>>
>> So, what the heck has this all to do with the tight pll discussion? One
>> thing that I had to read in a time nuts mail of the last days was:
>>
>>>> It doesnt, it only appears to in a very
>>>> restricted set of circumstances.
>>
>>> Bruce, I don't understand you, when presented
>>> with visual evidence that this method works
>>> you still deny it.
>> .
>> .
>>>> That doesn't work as it has the wrong
>>>> transfer function.
>>
>>> Again, it it does not work, how come the
>>> evidence shows that it does, how do you
>>> explain that Bruce?
>>
>> Due to the criteria explained above the term "evidence" is used here in a
>> too far-ranging way. The experiment performed by John Miles is NOT a
>> "experimentum diaboli" in the sense that the outcome of the experiment
>> would
>> enable us to decide whether Bruce's or Warren's theory about his
>> implementation of the NIST tight pll method is correct. It is not because
>> it
>> has not falsified anything.
>>
>> As far as my limited understanding of the topic allows me to judge: The
>> outcome of the experiment is not a direct antithesis to anything that
>> Bruce
>> has remarked and if I see it correct the outcome of the experiment is by
>> no
>> means contested by Bruce. However, if we want to check who's right and
>> who's
>> wrong with experiments, we need to know that we need a lot of experiments
>> with different references and different DUTs. If all combinations of all
>> DUTs and all references in the hands of time nuts would lead to equally
>> well
>> results as in John Miles's experiment, that would allow to conclude that
>> the
>> method works ok for all practical aspects of time nuts life (however
>> without
>> the guarantee for every future experiment outcome). Having not done these
>> experiments yet who knows whether there is a falsifying experiment among
>> the
>> set of combinations?
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>> Ulrich Bangert
>> www.ulrich-bangert.de
>> Ortholzer Weg 1
>> 27243 Gross Ippener
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> "Neither the voice of authority nor the weight of reason and argument are
> as significant as experiment, for thence comes quiet to the mind."
> R. Bacon
>
>
> Dr. Don Latham AJ7LL
> Six Mile Systems LLP
> 17850 Six Mile Road
> POB 134
> Huson, MT, 59846
> VOX 406-626-4304
> www.lightningforensics.com
> www.sixmilesystems.com
>
>
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-- 
Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
- Einstein