Top Law Schools

Having trouble with A vs B on this one..

I looked at like this:

A says Max Planck "dismantled" AN ASSUMPTION of classical wave theory with his quantum theory and law of blackbody radiation.

B says the passage introduces this assumption, and then that Planck's theories led to the "overthrowing" of classical wave theory.

To me, "overthrowing" implies that the theory has been made obsolete.. i.e. Bohr's model of the atom is obsolete. However Maxwell's Wave Theories are still a very accurate approximation for the vast majority of cases.. And it is certainly not deprecated; every physics student today will still spend thousands of hours studying classical E&M (classical means non-relativistic and non-quantum.) Quantized energy levels are really only appropriately discussed on a very tiny atomic level.

So I guess I see it as Planck's work didn't overthrow the whole theory, but rather overthrew (or dismantled) one assumption of that theory; by showing that energy levels are quantized rather than continuous..

I see the definitions of overthrowing and dismantling in this context as basically synonymous. So really, then the only difference I can see is that A attacks the one quantum/continuous assumption of the theory, whereas B says that classical EM is destroyed, which frankly is just not true.

Saying classical EM is destroyed by quantum theory is like saying classical mechanics is destroyed by relativity.. when really relativity and quantum principles only apply in very specific cases (very large and very small things, respectively.)

Anyone able to shed some light on this?

.

My problem is with how can you make the jump from showing that one tenet, ie one assumption, of Classical Wave theory is inaccurate to the theory has been overthrown?

B to me implies that the entire theory was overthrown by conflicting experimental data... It was not.. One small part of the theory was shown to be inaccurate.. Plus the theory still stood until the theories of quantum mechanics modified that one small part.. but the rest of theory still survives today.

I do see now that A is not a great answer either.. but I think the jump from one piece of a theory being false to the entire theory being overthrown is quite a bold jump

I haven't read this passage in a while, and don't have time to look back at it now,

but if I told you that this information was entirely hypothetical, in fact we are talking about theories that don't even exist, the LSAT made them up just for the purpose of this passage, and none of it bares any truth to the outside world, then with that understanding of the passage and using only the evidence from the passage would you change your answer?

If so, then welcome to LSAT world. They could care less what physics students study. The passage says one thing, then for the purposes of reading and comprehending that passage, we don't care what the real world truth is, just what the passage claims.

Micdiddy wrote:I haven't read this passage in a while, and don't have time to look back at it now,

but if I told you that this information was entirely hypothetical, in fact we are talking about theories that don't even exist, the LSAT made them up just for the purpose of this passage, and none of it bares any truth to the outside world, then with that understanding of the passage and using only the evidence from the passage would you change your answer?

If so, then welcome to LSAT world. They could care less what physics students study. The passage says one thing, then for the purposes of reading and comprehending that passage, we don't care what the real world truth is, just what the passage claims.

I agree that's where I get in trouble.. I was excited to see a topic that would just be review..

I don't have the PT on my atm, but iirc they DID mention 'Classical Wave Theory' or something synonymous to that. I looked it over and over, and didn't see anything in the passage that would support that the entire Theory had been 'overthrown.'

Is it expected by the LSAT to make the jump from 1 assumption of theory is false to theory is false?

Regardless of the real world validity of this jump in this particular case.. this seems to be a pretty big leap to me, much bigger of a leap than we would see in any LR section.

SaintsTheMetal wrote:

Micdiddy wrote:I haven't read this passage in a while, and don't have time to look back at it now,

but if I told you that this information was entirely hypothetical, in fact we are talking about theories that don't even exist, the LSAT made them up just for the purpose of this passage, and none of it bares any truth to the outside world, then with that understanding of the passage and using only the evidence from the passage would you change your answer?

If so, then welcome to LSAT world. They could care less what physics students study. The passage says one thing, then for the purposes of reading and comprehending that passage, we don't care what the real world truth is, just what the passage claims.

I agree that's where I get in trouble.. I was excited to see a topic that would just be review..

I don't have the PT on my atm, but iirc they DID mention 'Classical Wave Theory' or something synonymous to that. I looked it over and over, and didn't see anything in the passage that would support that the entire Theory had been 'overthrown.'

Is it expected by the LSAT to make the jump from 1 assumption of theory is false to theory is false?

Regardless of the real world validity of this jump in this particular case.. this seems to be a pretty big leap to me, much bigger of a leap than we would see in any LR section.

Don't be. As already said, outside knowledge is useless. But not only that, it's distracting. I almost always find that students who are very, very familiar with the content of passages tend to get more wrong, and be less accepting of the right answer, than others.