Ortho-physics

RANT #3: Ortho-physics has been overrun by likes of Heisenberg and Dirac: these are the guys who maintain that purely mathematical explanations only have to predict accurately and do not need any physical interpretation. This attitude that physical models are unnecessary and mathematical models are all that matter developed over the 1920s-'30s. What preceded this was about a century of development of physical phenomena using the strict logic of mathematics. It should be said that mathematics is not the culprit in either case. The phenomena dealt with in the 1800's included light (electromagnetism), heat (thermodynamics), solids (mechanics), liquids (fluid mechanics) and gases (statistical mechanics). This approach can be summarized as "phenomenal." The opposite approach might best be described by its antonym: noumenal. The only use of this word that I've read was by psychologist Carl Jung, who was himself an outstanding empiricist. I chose to use it in the most illustrative example with Heisenberg's noumenal "Matrix Mechanics" and Schroedinger's phenomenal "Wave Mechanics". Both approaches were ultimately shown to be equivalent in spite of the difference in their models. The last 30 years have seen the leading edge of physics devoted to the noumenal study of string theory with many of its detractors claiming that nothing predictable has been developed. I suggest that there is still a place on another edge of physics to return to the phenomenal approach. Hence we come around to cis-physics.