Post by Robert PeirceThe point was that no scientific theory is necessarily true. In fact,
to be a scientific theory the possibility must exist to prove it false.
It may in fact be true, in which case it never will be proved false.
I cannot cite papers or other evidence for what follows. In many cases
it comes from something I read, possibly years ago. For that reason it
could be wrong. Consequently, it should be taken for the idea, not the
details.
Let us go back thousands of years when the widely accepted theory was
that the earth was the center of the universe. This theory had been
proven both mathematically and through observation. It was a very sound
theory but it was wrong.
There, in fact, was no "theory" that the earth was the center of the
universe. It was a religious doctrine. It was, in fact, TRVTH (tm),
handed down from on high that was to be followed without question,
and often, not followed at the risk serious personal consequences.
And, again, the point you seem to refuse to accept is that first,
it was NOT a theory and, second, whatever "math" was used (epicycles,
for example), the books were deliberately cooked to support a
political, religious and economic agenda.
Post by Robert PeirceIf a theory is supposed to be accepted as scientific, then the
possibility of disproving it must exist. That doesn't mean it ever will
be, just that it could be.
No again, you are using an extremely limited and thus incorrect
definition of "theory". In addition to explaining observed
phenomenon, a supportable theory must also make testable predictions
and it is those predictions that provide the notion of falsifiablility.
Einstein's general theory of relativity not only provided a mathematical
framework for explaining the observed behavior of gravitational systems,
one that was substantially different in its basis from Newtonian gravity,
but also made a number of testable prediction of phenomenon not yet
observed, among them:
1. Due to the warping of spacetime by massive objects, the paths
of light around massive objects should be warped. This
prediction was observed and confirmed numerous times POST
the formulation of the theory
2. Again, due to the warping of spacetime around massive objects,
time itself should be warped, with time slowing down the closer
one gets to a massive pobject. Again, this was confirmed in
a number of experiments post the formulation of the theory, in
notable experiment where Mossbauer spectrometry was used to detect
the difference in the warping of spacetime due to the earth's
mass over a difference in altitude of maybe a few dozen feet.
3. Massive objects interacting create gravitational waves. TO my
knowledge, this has yet to be universally confirmed. It's lack
of confirmation is a missing piece of the puzzle, but if an
experiment were to be devised where a definitive negative result
could be obtained, it would be a serious challenge to general
relativity.
Now, the DSR's point about making this relevant to audio. All good
scientifically-based theories are provisional: they stand until
something better comes along, whether it be a refinement of that
theory or a wholesale replacement. The Shannon-Nyquist THEOREM,
the basic foundation underpinning not only digital audio but
audio in general, does not fall into that category. It is a theorem,
provable mathematically, unlike theories. I might suggest you do
a search on the topic before you continue to hold forth on it.
And, yes, it is the basis to the engineering behind current audio
systems. But, be careful here for a couple of reasons:
1. Those who are, for whatever reasons, unsatisfied with
digital audio, have yet to advance even the most crude
theory of what's wrong that will withstand the same level
of unimpassioned, agenda-free objective scrutiny which,
if their hobby-horse was valid, would survive,
2. To paraphrase Suffolk Audio's First Law of Acoustics: any
idiot can design a digital audio device and, unfortunately,
many do. Often, the grossly incompetent implementation of
an audio design is held up as "proof" of someone's absurd
"theory". I can only once again cite a real-world example.
The cable crowd has often pointed to a number of examples
where different cables did sound different. And, in doing some
related research, I in fact, found such an instance. Take
a specific semi-pro DAC recorder whose design was hobbled
an incompetently design S/P-DIF output driver, couple it
with a very fancy, expensive S/P-DIF cable with excessive
capacitance (but it has arrows on it and it was fat, so it had
to be good), and use that to drive a very expensive high-end
DAC with among the most incompetently design clock recovery
circuit, and the combination was, at best, marginally functional.
swapping the cable made ENORMOUS differences in the sound,
simply because the DAC was unable to make sense out of clock
recovery. As a result, that particular DAC was championed in
the high-end audio realm as being transparent and revealing of
subtle differences in cables.
When, in fact, it was a seriously overpriced piece of sh*t.
and, in egual fact, it was the current standing theory that
predicted exactly WHY it was the piece of sh*t that it was.
3. Much of high-end audio is not about engineering, it's not
about theory, it's about cult of personalities. I point to
long and often sordid career of people like Tiffenbrun, how
had not theories, but almost religious doctrinal declarations:
* The presence of ANY digital device in the same room as a
premier audio system will negatively affect the sound of
that system, regardless of what the device is (and that
included digital wrist watches) or whether that device is
even on or not.
* The existing (at the time) theory that the effective mass
of a tonearm in combination with the stylus's compliance
leads to a mechanical resonance MUST be wrong, because
tone arms CANNOT have mass. They can have moments of
inertia, but that's not mass.
That and many other pronouncements turned out, on further
examination, not only to be wrong, but embarrasingly wrong.
And the same goes for pronouncements like "stuff is missing between
the samples" or "digital audio systems have stair-step outputs",
or "the higher in frequency you go, the more errors you have in
the phase response of systems" and on and on and on.
Here we are, as mere three decades after the commercial introduction
of the CD. One might argue that the field of digital audio is not
yet mature enough to withstand the onslaugfht of challenges to the
"theory".
But, wait, folks: the CD is a new comer to the field of sampling.
The basis of the theorems behind it are approaching their 200th
birthday. Nyquist did his formulation of the sampling theorEM
in the first quarter of the 20th century, SHannon published
his works in 1952.
Yes to be a theory, it has to walk like a theory, talk like a
theory and act like a theory. Hanging a "Theory" sign around a
an incoherently babbling immobile drunkard is not less of a
strawman than insisting on Nyquists theorem being a "theory".