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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Rapparee Date: 29 Sep 04 - 08:45 AM Time. We have to differentiate between time and duration, folks. Time is what happens, duration is what is measured. (Or as someone defined it, time is what happens when you kiss someone and duration is what happens if that person turns out to have bad breath.) You have to understand the difference, and it isn't immediately evident. Right now, time is passing for me, but in this room the only measuring devices are the watch on my wrist and the clock inside the computer. I can't see either device, but time still exists. If I'm not measuring it, does duration exist? Or does it only exist for my computer and as some wear on the innards of my watch? Entropy must be distinct from duration, as my body (I'm told, anyway) is going all to hell even as I type. Hello, Herr Schrodinger? You can bring in your cat now. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: DMcG Date: 29 Sep 04 - 09:27 AM Daylia - you said This may be splitting hairs a bit, but how can there be nothing scientific about anything to do with symbols, when without those same symbols (numbers, letters, formulae etc) there could be no "science" in the first place? Seems to me that Science itself is totally dependent on symbols. This is one of the problems with language: the word 'symbol' is being used in two quite different senses. True, a mathematician or scientist will say a2 + b2 = c2 but the actual symbols are not important. q2 + f2 = h2 would do just as well, so would sqr(a)+sqr(b)=sqr(c), a*a+b*b=c*c and many other forms. The symbols are simply placeholders with no intrinsic value beyond agreed conventions (which we keep getting back to), in this case of mathematical notation. On the other hand, a pagan would usually regard a pentagram as significant in its own right as a Christian would a cross: it is not a placeholder where any other item you may wish to substitute would do as well. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: DMcG Date: 29 Sep 04 - 09:29 AM Sorry about the font there, folks. [left out a /sup--fixed] |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Amos Date: 29 Sep 04 - 09:34 AM Daylia: Science uses symbols, and so does engineering, and so do the authors of fairy tales. But symbols are not fairy tales and symbols are not amounts or qualities of real things, and symbols are not scientific facts. There is no "science" to, for example, the kind of numerology that adds up the values of arbitrary symbol sets and then tells you you are probably unhappy as a Walmart clerk...that is what I meant by my remark about there being nothing scientific about symbols. They aren't "science". Sure scientists use them to communicate. If they all suddenly started using encrypted Ukrainian Cyrillic to write their papers, the scientific facts and amounts would be exactly the same, I believe. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: *daylia* Date: 29 Sep 04 - 10:12 AM The symbols are simply placeholders with no intrinsic value beyond agreed conventions (which we keep getting back to), in this case of mathematical notation. On the other hand, a pagan would usually regard a pentagram as significant in its own right as a Christian would a cross: it is not a placeholder where any other item you may wish to substitute would do as well. Yes, of course symbols have no meaning or "power" in and of themselves; the only "power" a symbol has is whatever "power" people may (or may not) choose to invest in it. Symbols are "wrappings" for the truth - and as such can be quite distracting, even deceiving. Yet imo it would be interesting to investigate scientifically the results, historically speaking, of using a particular symbol (ie the pentagram, or 50 of them! - on a nation's flag). It would probably be quite impossible to eliminate all the other contributing variables though (economics, geography etc) so that any "effect" the symbolism itself may have had on the "collective psyche" of a nation could be measured. And even if this could be done, what would be measured is not the power of the symbol itself, but the power of the beliefs or expectations people hold regarding it. OK, now I'm talking myself around in circles ... but thanks guys, I think I've got it now. daylia |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Sam L Date: 29 Sep 04 - 10:15 AM Mm. Some artists use and discuss the golden mean, but usually their stuff looks perpetually like student work, or like technical demonstrations for students. There's a book out about math and the Mona Lisa, but it's discussion of optics and elusive smiles and such doesn't seem to me to rise above the level of a neat visual trick. Those moving images you used to get in cracker jack boxes have really improved over the years, but haven't risen to the level of high art yet. I think I disagree that symbols aren't real. It's like saying there's a "line" between art and life, when art is really a wholly owned subsidiary. Symbols are real in the firmest reified sense because people use them and think in the shadows of them, and actual things happen. Take away the concept of zero, or repetion systems of numbers, and things would probably be observably different. So if you grant that science can observe itself to some extent, or can observe people, learning, brain development, language, and such, you have to grant symbols some real status, but just so much. Why does a mirror reverse things from left to right, but not up and down? This simple problem was in my daughter's homework and generated a little controversy. If you take 100, divide it by 1/2, add 19, and subtract 11, what's your result? Why can math divide things longer than they are? How do you determine how high a kite is flying? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Rapparee Date: 29 Sep 04 - 10:30 AM How do you determine how high a kite is flying? 1. Mark the string where you're holding it and pull the kite in. 2. Jerk the kite so that it falls directly to earth, or have someone walk out until they're directly under the kite. Measure this distance. 3. Apply the Pythogorean Theorem (a^2 + b^2 = c^2) as Length of string^2 - distance to kite/person^2 = height of kite^2. Thus: [100 li of string^2 =] 10,000 - [50 li to person/kite^2 =] 2,500 = a kite height equal to the square root of 7,500 li, or about 86.6 li. But I don't bother with such things; I just fly the kite and enjoy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: *daylia* Date: 29 Sep 04 - 10:35 AM By using a known measure of kite-string, and measuring how much is left on the spool at any given moment while you're flying it? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: *daylia* Date: 29 Sep 04 - 10:40 AM Oops I just read Rapaire's answer, and realized I left the angle of the kite-string to the ground completely out of my "equation". Duh ... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Bill D Date: 29 Sep 04 - 11:32 AM kite strings actually sag, that is go from the ground to the kite in a curve. This is most noticible in long runs. Therefore you only get an approximation with the measurements noted. If I HAD to know, I'd find a laser distance measuring device and stand under the kite. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: CarolC Date: 29 Sep 04 - 12:39 PM People keep talking about time as though it's been scientifically proven to exist. Has it? Or has "duration" only been scientifically proven to exist? Why does a mirror reverse things from left to right, but not up and down? Because we have microscopes for that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Amos Date: 29 Sep 04 - 12:50 PM Time is a perception, not something that can be proven to exist. Concepts and symbols are two different things. The concept of zero would reemerge rapidly if you somehow ordered the symbol for zero to be discontinued. The concept of time -- which always involves comparing a state that does not exist with another state that may or may not exist--would resurface even if all the symbol sets for its measurement disappeared. Itis true that some people get too bruised by life and reality and retreat into a world of symbols becau8se they behave better and are less painful and give one the illusion of control. That doesn't make them "real". A pagan cross could be replaced by an upside-down chocolate ice=cream cone, and the reality it referred to would not change. The emotions of the pagan about his deity are not normally about the symbol, but about a postulated reality structure he thinks of as powerful and infinite. Never mind how "real" that is or is not, it is different from the symbol. When a person gets so immersed in symbols that all his emotions and rationale and reactions can be manipulated by symbols instead of thinking clearly about the reality behind the symbols, he is called a Republican. A A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Little Hawk Date: 29 Sep 04 - 01:22 PM I had no idea what I was putting into motion when I launched this thread. It doesn't really need me at all... :-) This is good. I will check in occasionally and enjoy all the contributions from you good people. Be back in 50 or so posts... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 29 Sep 04 - 01:29 PM Someone said: "This simple problem was in my daughter's homework and generated a little controversy. If you take 100, divide it by 1/2, add 19, and subtract 11, what's your result?" 208. That is, 100 divided by 1/2 (which is .5) equals 200. Add 19 = 219 Subtract 11 = 208 Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 29 Sep 04 - 01:45 PM Time is one of the four dimensions with which we can measure reality. It is "the fourth dimension". (More later) Yes, mathematicians and philosophers talk and play their conceptual games about other dimensions, but the ones that an ordinary human can deal with are four, which we can call length, width, height, and time. All of the phenomena we can actually measure can be measured by those four. Yes, I hear people just jumping up an down, saying something like, "Show me time!" I show you time by showing you movement or change. Change or movement is the other "line" by which reality can be measured. No, you can't visually measure it with a ruler, say, because a ruler as we look at it exists in the first three dimensions--length, width, and height. But the ruler also exists in time: It can be moved; it can wear away with handling; the wood may change colors with the application of light over time; and indeed, it had a beginning, when it was manufactured, and at some point it may be destroyed--all aspects of time. "What about the weight of the ruler?" I hear someone say. Gravity is a combined observation of the effects of the four dimensions, not a separate dimension. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: GUEST,heric Date: 29 Sep 04 - 01:49 PM Rapaire, I believe your wife the lawyer has been logging in on your account. Look what she wrote, above: " . . . I will have to disagree with your disagreement with my agreement." Don't put this up with. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: CarolC Date: 29 Sep 04 - 02:40 PM So does time create change, or does change create time? If we only measure time using change as our measure, how does this prove the existance of time? Why can't we say that it only proves the existance of change? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Amos Date: 29 Sep 04 - 02:52 PM It doesn't "prove" the existence of time. Time is a convention of perception, an agreed-upon illusion. It stems from the belief that objects persist. There is no objective way to prove the existence of time as it is a construct that is primordial to the material universe, which would fall apart without it keeping moments neatly organized as an apparent sequence. From within the universe, it seems inherent. THe two things that might disprove it are some quantum phenomena that appear to transmit information in zero time, and spiritual phenomena in which individuals transcends time and discover the creative center of things as their own time-free origin point. Rare, and beautiful when it occurs. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Peace Date: 29 Sep 04 - 02:57 PM Time does not exist except moment to moment. Moments, however . . . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: GUEST,heric Date: 29 Sep 04 - 04:17 PM "He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised." Ishmael at page 483 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: GUEST,God Date: 29 Sep 04 - 05:47 PM Time is the perception of any isolated consciousness that observes the process of life (or being) from a particular fixed personal vantage point which it has decided to limit itself to...for what it would call "the time being". Earth time is a derivative of the movements of the planet on its axis in regards to the sun, one day being a full rotation, one hour being an arbitrary measurement based on dividing that day into 24 equal parts. Most people live by that system of awareness. A few do not. One could just as well live by a 100 hour system or a 4 hour system, if one chose to. The one element of fact in the whole matter is this: it does take one full "day" for the Earth to complete one rotation on its axis (under normal conditions). If some other factor (such as a passing heavenly body with a strong gravitational field) caused the Earth to slow down or speed up its rotation, of course, the relative length of the day would change...and this would produce some interesting changes in human consciousness. Some people might find it enlightening, while others found it unbearable. Still others might take only slight notice of it. Such are the wide variances in human awareness. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Bill D Date: 29 Sep 04 - 06:34 PM awww...c'mon, 'God'...what do you know about it? You are just pushing some silly abstract notion to confus... ZZZZZzzzzzzaaaaapppppppppp arrrrggggghhhhhhh |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Little Hawk Date: 29 Sep 04 - 07:08 PM LOL! I knew that was going to happen to you someday, Bill ... :-) (Just blame it on a random event of some kind, like ball lightning.) What I can't understand is why God hasn't zapped Wolfgang right in the most tender and private spot while he's standing at some public urinal in Stuttgart? I guess this proves just how merciful God really is. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: CarolC Date: 29 Sep 04 - 07:13 PM How do we know he hasn't already done that, LH? (It could acount for a lot.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Little Hawk Date: 29 Sep 04 - 07:22 PM Naw. If God did things like that, Ooh-Aah would have been turned into a french fry some time ago, and he's still doing fine, relatively speaking. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Joe_F Date: 29 Sep 04 - 07:23 PM The golden ratio is supposed to yield the shape of the prettiest rectangle, neither skinny nor stubby. A remarkable property of such rectangles is that if you take three of them, and arrange them with a common center so that each is perpendicular to the other two, and each pierces one of the two and is pierced by the other, then the 12 corners form the vertices of a regular icosahedron. I have always wanted to make a colored model of that, but haven't the right materials. Mirrors do not reverse left & right if positioned in the usual way so that you are facing them. A mirror reverses the direction perpendicular to it -- that is, front & back if you are facing it. But the human body is roughly symmetrical right to left, and not in either of the other two dimensions; so on seeing my image in a mirror, it sounds less odd for me to say "look at that left-handed fellow in the mirror" than to say "look at that fellow in the mirror with his face on the back of his head". Likewise, when you look at a printed sheet in a mirror, you flip it so it faces the mirror, and you probably do so around a vertical axis. The mirror hasn't reversed left & right; *you* have. You could have reversed top & bottom instead. If the printed sheet is transparent, so that you don't have to flip it, you can hold it up to the mirror and read the image the same way you read the original. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Sam L Date: 29 Sep 04 - 07:58 PM yes, that's the simple solution. It reverses front to back. But I once enjoyed a much more complicated discussion of it by professional engineers and patent attorneys. The math question was controversial because it was expressed in language rather than properly written. Divide 100 by 1/2 may mean by .5, in the customary sense of half of one, or it might be an adjective applying the fraction in to 100, and mean 50. I had my daughter write both answers, because I insisted the question wasn't clearly stated. It should be written as math, not mixed in with words, so you know what they want. But my opinion was not much trusted, because I'm not widely regarded for my contributions to the field of math. Just as, when playing trivial pursuit, I told my team that Pb stands for lead, they all went on discussing it (potassium? or maybe it's that stuff, what's it called?) as if I had said nothing. But Amos, the concept and symbol of zero were both invented, an Indian thinker, it's believed. The concept would surely re-emerge, but in a very different landscape of human endeavor than had been, because it's very handy. It's my hero, zero. What I'm saying is, the peculiar properties of symbols get mixed in, because true or real or not, we make them real eventually by interacting with them. Students whose language reflects our muddled expression of "eleven, twelve, thirteen" etc. trip up and slow down compared to those with a more sensible ten-one, ten-two, ten-three, etc. set of words. So when science looks at how we use words and symbols, and when we use them, things happen a little differently because of an interaction with them as tools. Song patterns of threes seem to have a special appeal, and that's also about how many times you have to take off a plane around a group of penguins for them to consider it normal, and stop leaning back until they fall over like a row of dominos. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 29 Sep 04 - 08:47 PM Au contraire, mon frere! You say "The math question was controversial because it was expressed in language rather than properly written. Divide 100 by 1/2 may mean by .5, in the customary sense of half of one, or it might be an adjective applying the fraction in to 100, and mean 50." No. The math question was clearly and unambiguously stated, and stating it in math terms would not change it. You are suggesting that the solver multiply by 1/2 rather than divide, as the problem clearly states: "Take 100 and divide it by 1/2", not "multiply it by 1/2". 1/2 is five tenths. 100 (division sign) .5 is the operation prescribed. Written other ways (shortened) it may be expressed as: __100__ or __100__ or __200___ (1/2) .5 .5) 100 208 is the answer, and no other. Frankly, I think the problem as stated was intended as a trap for the inattentive. But if one pays attention, it's clear. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: GUEST,Miss Arithmatic Date: 29 Sep 04 - 09:26 PM Students Please check your work before turning it in. (100 divided by 0.5 is not 208 on this side of the pond) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Peace Date: 29 Sep 04 - 09:29 PM "What I can't understand is why God hasn't zapped Wolfgang right in the most tender and private spot while he's standing at some public urinal in Stuttgart?" Jaysus, Little Hawk, have some mercy on the guy. Makes ya tingle jus' thinkin' about it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Amos Date: 29 Sep 04 - 09:55 PM Dave is right about the statement of the problem. As for fair zero, while the articulation of it as peculiar to mathematics may have been invented, the fact of a zero of things has been with us ever since the first hominid found no mammoth ribs left in the larder, or no water over the next hill, or any other example of a not-there of something. Using it as a place-holder in a symbol system was a major breakthrough, understandably heroic. WHat a leap! But from time immemorial, wherever there were ducklings to be counted one, two and so on, there was also the painful consciousness of a zero of ducklings to deal with as well! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Little Hawk Date: 29 Sep 04 - 10:10 PM Absolutely. Zero is a concept anyone can grasp. To give it a numerical designation is only sensible. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Bert Date: 30 Sep 04 - 12:30 AM There's no such thing as nothing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 30 Sep 04 - 02:38 AM Thirteen is just an abbreviated form of 'three & ten', which I'll let German speakers here comment on... :-) (some parts of English language have Germanic ties)... ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: GUEST,noddy Date: 30 Sep 04 - 03:52 AM getting back to this mirror bit. can you then explain why when you look in a spoon you are upside down and not left to right? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Rapparee Date: 30 Sep 04 - 08:40 AM Noddy: yes. But for boring, man, can anything beat Fibanoci Sequences? (probably not spelled correctly) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Sep 04 - 08:56 AM Bert - Exactly. There's also nothing else like it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Amos Date: 30 Sep 04 - 10:26 AM The Fibonacci Series is a sequence of numbers first created by Leonardo Fibonacci (fi-bo-na-chee) in 1202. It is a deceptively simple series, but its ramifications and applications are nearly limitless. It has fascinated and perplexed mathematicians for over 700 years, and nearly everyone who has worked with it has added a new piece to the Fibonacci puzzle, a new tidbit of information about the series and how it works. Fibonacci mathematics is a constantly expanding branch of number theory, with more and more people being drawn into the complex subtleties of Fibonacci's legacy. The first two numbers in the series are one and one. To obtain each number of the series, you simply add the two numbers that came before it. In other words, each number of the series is the sum of the two numbers preceding it. Note: Historically, some mathematicians have considered zero to be a Fibonacci number, placing it before the first 1 in the series. It is known as the zeroth Fibonacci number, and has no real practical merit. The Fibonacci series is defined recursively. That is, in order to find each term of the series using the definition, you have to find all the terms that precede it. This makes finding the nth term very difficult for large values of n, as you must find every term that comes before. However, there could be a way to find Fibonacci numbers without using the definition. If this were possible, one would be able to find the nth term of the series simply by plugging n into a mathematical formula. In 1843, Jacques Philippe Marie Binet discovered just such a formula for finding the nth term of the Fibonacci series. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Peace Date: 30 Sep 04 - 10:30 AM Fibonacci made a great pasta sauce. However, he never used tomatoes in any of his creations. Why? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Sam L Date: 30 Sep 04 - 10:37 AM Well, I'm sure you're right, but it seems to me that .5 would be clearer on the one hand, "in" half on the other, since a fraction can apply to other figures than one, and seems to ask, half of what? The reason you would multiply, it seems to me, is only because your calculator doesn't have a handy 1/2 key, while your head does. One doesn't multiply it in one's head, but simply halves it with a mental knife. Because it was phrased in a sentence, the adjective relation of half-to-ahundred seemed just as reasonable to me, but I seem to be alone in thinking it. Yes Amos, I see that, but it doesn't help you do complex problems with roman numerals. I agree that symbols only seem to "mean" whatever they are used to represent, through association, and I feel the same way about analyzing dreams. There's no reason to think they should explain anything, and if they did, why would they do it in some portentious code? My dreams are plainspoken and always say "Boy, you sure have a lot of dust-bunnies and junk laying around here in your head, dude." Still, however arbitrary, the signs and symbols we make and use have peculiar properties that come into play when we use them. It's the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis, I think, that suggests that different sets of symbols, different languages, don't simply re-name things, but construct meaning in different ways. English is a great language in which to see that language is arbitrary and a mess. Greek is supposedly more misleading in that it seems very logically inter-related. Whatshisname, Chomsky, tried to determine an underlying universal language of syntax, but only got so far and the car broke down. It seems that the symbols and tools might have some residual peculiarity, which leads mental development this way or that. There was test that showed Asian students performed differently in terms of western class-discussion. It annoys their learning process.Western students do about as well at solving puzzles while talking through it, Asian students suffer. And their essays are not so linear, but sort of encircling. I'm guessing western students very often do much the same thing, but here we call it Poor Work, and don't develop it. Kind of like how high western art for generations now has tried to escape commodification and materialism, but the test of success at this strange game remains "Success." It's very easy to merely succeed at it, success is all around us, it's called "Failure." If symbols have any effect on brain development and so on, they aren't quite utterly arbitrary and immaterial from a scientific point of view. Scientists can study that stuff. It's empirical, because we are, and our tools for understanding are--we aren't in some other world, above it, or across a real dividing line, looking at everything else. The idea that we are, or that science really quite puts us in that position, is fanciful--it's the fantasy of science, its airbrush unicorn. I still can't think of much boring science stuff I believe. Maybe because I'm trying to think of INTERESTING "boring science stuff I believe," to post, which defeats the idea. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Rapparee Date: 30 Sep 04 - 10:40 AM Wasn't Chomsky a gnome? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Amos Date: 30 Sep 04 - 10:44 AM Fred: Consciousness subscribes to limits in order to have experience, and syntaxes and semantic symbols are condensed maps of limit, each one defining an acceptable array of possible awareness. So it follows clearly that changing the limits changes the awareness allowed when encountering that symbol. It also follows that after a period of inculcation and habituation, the array of possible experiences awareness conceives as allowed begins to match thos experiences allowed by symbols. This is known as "taking up residence in the encyclopedia", and is also summarized in the pithy Yankee expression that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Similarly when all you have is a yard stick, all distances--all space, in fact-- appears in feet, yards, or miles. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Wolfgang Date: 30 Sep 04 - 11:55 AM To write about something you should have a basic understanding, to joke about something you should understand at least as much as when you write seriously. I've always found insider jokes much more interesting than outsider jokes. Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 30 Sep 04 - 12:35 PM Someone (and I'm lazy enough not to go back and check who) said: Scientific theories are always disputable. You can always replace a theory with a better theory (more accurate, simpler, more complete ...) Many people misunderstand what "a theory" means. A theory, no matter how venerable or respected or widely believed, is not fact. A theory is an attempted explanation of a set of facts, procedures, or whatever. Note, "attempted explanation". Thus, Darwin's theory of the origin of species is his attempt to make sense of what he and others had observed in the real world. As more facts come in, or as others reclassify the observed facts, and so forth, the theory needs to be modified. This is, in fact, the function of science: To make successive approximations of what is real, successively better explanations of the relations of currently understood sets of facts. In legal affairs, a lawyer will base his case on his theory of the law, and often the lawyer on the other side will dispute that explanation of what the law is in a particular circumstance. Most if not all of the physical "laws"--such as the "law of gravity" are not fact but someone's explanation of observed phenomena. Newton's laws, while they have shaped our culture and scientific thought, are well thought out theories, but which in some cases don't hold up in all scientific contexts, even though they are entirely adequate for most real world purposes. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Wolfgang Date: 30 Sep 04 - 01:31 PM Dave, a very fine and necessary distinction between facts and theories about facts. Just one remark: I know that philosophers of science hate that for it blurs a mostly useful distinction, but sometimes a theory can become a fact when the level of knowledge reaches a new quality. Example: For some decades in the history of science there was a quarrel between two theories explaining why we can see clearly at (mostly) all distances. One theory said it was because of the lens of the eye changing its curvature. The other said because the distance between the lens and the retina was changing. Both theories could explain the observed facts and there was for some time no way to decide between the two theories. Both were theories in the usual sense of the word, for they tried to make sense of the facts and both hypothesized something (changes in the eye) that was not observable at that time. Decades later, new methods made what was before just a theoretical claim observable and from then on what was before a theory (lens changing its curvature) became a fact. Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Amos Date: 30 Sep 04 - 01:38 PM As for gravity not being a fact, it has survived extensive scrutiny, and most efforts to disregard it have been painful in the extreme. Now theories about whether it is a wave of some kind or some other gizmo are another issue. As far as I know there is no settled anatomical analysis of why it comes about. If there were we would probably be working hard at designing anti-grav plates. My own opinion is that we won't be able to do that until we have a new model of space, what it is, why it behaves as it does and so on. But that's not even theory, just speculation and opinion, my specialty! :D A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 30 Sep 04 - 02:22 PM Gravity is a fact (or maybe a set of facts) which can be observed and measured. But why it operates as it does, and even in some respects what it does in some situations are beyond the objective knowledge from observation. Newton's classical laws as related to gravity are useful in most real world situations even today, but when we get into far-out physics his description seems to break down, or at least not cover. And the "why" I suppose will be forever a mystery. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Amos Date: 30 Sep 04 - 02:56 PM Mass seems to make space act as though it is curved, and objects (also mass-like) tend to follow the curve of space -- which "steepens" in inverse proportion to the distance of a point from the "strange attractor" of the curvarture. At least I think that is right. How space manages to contain so much is an interesting question. If I were a witless object I would try and fight my way out... :)) Charming conceit, I am sure.... A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: Rapparee Date: 30 Sep 04 - 05:15 PM Well, this stuff is cool and all and great to talk about, but I don't believe it. Since, therefore, "we all" don't believe it, this thread becomes oxymoronic. (I learnt a brand new word yesterday! "Reinsourceification." It means bringing outsourced jobs and stuff back inside a company. Feel free to drop it into your next conversation.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Boring science stuff we all believe... From: GUEST,William Shatner Date: 30 Sep 04 - 05:43 PM I think it's time I added a word or two to this discussion. Why? Because this is the 300th post, and because I am an authority on unconventional science, due to my years navigating interstellar space. I have boldly gone where no man went before on several occasions and I can tell you that I was NOT bored on those occasions. (Specially the one with the Spanish dancer...) However, Little Hawk has a point. Some science talk is boring. In such cases, give the offensive party who is pontificating at you a phaser blast. Set to stun. That usually does the trick. A flying drop kick works great too. Check out my old shows for that. And don't forget to buy my book. It's called: "Get A Life!" |
