Abstract

The historical struggles between the geocentric and the final winner, the heliocentric model, (should) have taught us that neither pure observation nor pure mathematics suffice to provide a physically tenable model. The all-important ingredient in truly successful modeling is physical analysis. It helps to discard defective theories in spite of some of their numerical pseudo-successes (albeit confirmed by experiment like E = mc²; de Broglie's (lambda), Planck's (h-bar) that are owed to mathematical indifference against replacement errors rather than to physical intuition. A critical view discloses that these successes by no means prove the theories that became famous for them. Physical analysis should and can do still more as exemplified by accounting for both kinds of results of the MM experiment. Physical analysis does not strive for grand unification, explanation, understanding, nor does it call upon common sense. Based on uniqueness, causality, and consistency it simply intends to be the proper language of physics, clarifying basic definitions, respecting dimensions, trying to solve simple important tasks, keeping track of approximations, and distinguishing the event from the impression of observers who often are victims of their own gedanken experiments. The latter usually neglect the dynamic context and hence fail to handle energy, force, etc. correctly.