Newsgroup sci.physics 207173

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Someone of particular fame wrote:
>    ....9999999999998 is equivalent to -2
 [for `Kurt Hensel's p-adic integers'] 
How/why does this follow from Peano's Axioms?
Why don't/can't you >>write<<:   ....9999999999998 + 2 = One00000...000,
using (the idea of) Cantor's Diagonal Argument to say "Oops, not yet."
in case someone >>really<< wants to write it in digits.
Who says the way we >>write<< integers has to be omega-complete?
Cautiously curious,                                       Frank  W ~@) R

Markus Kuhn wrote:
> 
> Paul Skoczylas wrote:
> 
> > metre - m
> > joule - J
> > newton - N
> > pascal - P
> > second - s  (not sec. in SI)
> 
> Just a minor correction here:
> 
> pascal - Pa     (newtons per square meter pressure, 100 kPa is very
>                  close to typical sea level athmospheric pressure)
> 
Well, I feel sheepish.  (Baa!)  Of course it's Pa.  (I assure you it was
simply a typo on my part.)
Sorry, 
  -Paul

moggin wrote:
> 
> Hardy Hulley  wrote:
> 
>>> The question of what does quantum physics *really* mean,
>>> physically, is still very controversial, and I guess one could 
>>> adopt the stance that it isn't meaningful. Of course, you'd then
>>> have to contend with the fact that it does make incredibly good 
>>> *testable* predictions, in contradistinction to Derrida, who makes no
>>> testable claims at all.
> 
> Anton Hutticher :
> 
>> And successful predictions are of course the only reliable way to
>> distinguish complex statements which sound like gibberish, but are 
>> not, from complex statements which are gibberish. The exception are 
>> fields which are formalized enough to permit a formal analysis without 
>> recourse to verbal handwaving.
> 
>      Thanks, folks, for falsifying Russell's statement that logical
> positivism is dead.
You're talking nonsense. I suggest you brush up on your logical
positivism - much more interesting reading than Derrida, anyway.
Cheers,
Hardy

In article ,   wrote:
>>
>Possible.  If so, said philosophers should make the effort to acquint 
>themself with all that happened in physics since the 20s, as well as 
>not to put too much weigh in the words of the original contributors.  
>The legacy of said contibutors is in the formalisms they left behind 
>them, their thoughts on the subject are just this, thoughts.
... whereas Mati has never had a thought in his life.
Lew Mammel, Jr.

In article Michael Kagalenko  wrote:
>
>Jeff Inman (jti@isleta.santafe.edu) wrote:
...
>]>] In similar terms, one imagines that the physicists of 500 years hence
>]>] (assuming that humans are still around, then) will look back on y'all
>]>] just as you look back on your forebears: as a bunch of well-meaning
>]>] but myopic dunderheads, who can't see the noses on their own faces.
>]>
>]> That would be strange developments indeed. Certainly, this is
>]> nothing like view of modern physicists on Newton, or, say
>]> Maxwell. All physicists I discussed Newton with had a great
>]> repect for his insight.
>]
>]The case is more clear if you go back, say, to Aristotle.
>
> Hand-picking cases to suit your theory ?
I think that you hand-pick historical examples primarily.
He could have easily chosen Kepler's planetary theory,
instead of Aristole, to show how ridiculous his theo-
ries seem today, despite Kepler's _crucial_ role into
providing Newton with the needed data and their _phe-
nomenological_ (as opposed to worldview) "grouping"/
"processing"/"compression".
It seems that you forget that science is, like biological
evolution, a field filled up with dead-end hypotheses.
These dead hypotheses are many-many more than the success-
ful ones.  And indeed, from time to time, there is radical
shift into the major "paradigme".  "Paradigme" being mostly
a family/group of theories with "topological homomorphism".
In this light, GR and QM are in the same group with CM.
But this does not need be the case for ever.  It might be
needed a radical ("topologically" speaking) change into
current science's basic conceptual framework.  Agreed,
the new science will need to be able to "compress" at least
as much data as the current science can.  But to me the
"problems" _entropy_ and _QM stochasticity_ lead to suspect
that an entirely new set of "data compression algorithms"
("scientific paradigmes") might be able to do an even better
job than the current ones (which are of the same evolutio-
nary branch).  Finally, I have to admit that the current
theories are so much successful that any shift to a new
paradigme will require no less than a major "catastroph"/
"war" to be able to recruite enough human resources for
pursuing it and developing it.  It looks very much like
a "strongly locked in" evolutionary branch/attraction basin.
Gregory

 George Penney  writes
>  When Einstein put forth his Equivalence Principal using the elevator
>   thought experiment,He reasoned that a beam of Light entering the
>   elevator through a window(lets say located 1/4 from the 'top'),
>   would curve 'downward'and hit the opposite side at a lower point
>   then where it entered,he concluded that a lightbeam would also bend
>   in the presence of a Gravatational Field produced by a Mass.Simple
>   enought so far.
        Not so simple as you think, i think.
Surely the position at which the light beam hits the opposite side of
the elevator must depend on the VELOCITY of the elevator as well as its
acceleration. 
As with Bradley's Aberration, we must expect to see the image move up
the wall by an amount equal to: 
                Width of Elevator * arc_tan (v/c)
                 where v is the downward velocity of the elevator,
                 and c is the ubiquitous velocity of light.     
So the greater we make the downward acceleration, the greater will
become the downward velocity, and we may end up sending the spot of
light across the ceiling of the elevator rather than the floor,i think.
-- 
Keith Stein

Richard Harter wrote:
> I read your comments with interest but it doesn't seem worth the
> trouble to reply.   Life is too short and all that, you know.  Sorry
> about that.
Too bad...so much to deconstruct, so little time, eh?
> I do have a question though; have you actually read anything by the
> man...
Not if reading entails comprehension.
> ...or are you simply retailing second hand opinions?
I'm not sure that your commercial idiom, with its concomitant
"historical sediment", would have found favour with Derrida.
There is one point on which I would still like to gauge your reaction
(your busy schedule permitting, of course). You provided something of a
concrete discription of what Silke implied was Derrida's conception of
the relationship between the "Einsteinian constant" and the philosophy
of physics. (I am typing this from memory, so please feel at liberty to
correct any paraphrasic errors). Essentially it was this: The philosophy
of physics cannot be reduced to Einstein's constant. I commented that
this statement was absurd. What retort?
Cheers,
Hardy

Brian Jones wrote:
> =
> Christopher R Volpe  wrote[in part]:
> =
> >Bjon, you JUST GOT THROUGH SAYING that the events themselves "obviously
> >can have only a single time between them", which is a claim of absolute
> >time interval, and now you deny that you had argued for absolute time.
> >Make up your mind.
> =
> Let's see, how can I put this? We do not have absolute time at our
> disposal, but it does of course exist. =
Proof by blatant assertion. It is meaningless and vacuous to assert the
existence of that which cannot be detected ever, even in principle.
> We just can't use it.
> Although each and every clock has an actual intrinsic "beat," we have
That actual and intrinsic beat is called proper time, It has nothing to
do with the notion of absolute time. =
> no way of knowing or determining what this actual beat may be.  This
> is because WE slow down with the clock. =
In much the same way that we physically contract the x-extent of the
fishing rod to fit it in the trunk.
> When you say "absolute time,"
> it usually means "We possess it and can use it," =
No, when we say "absolute time" we mean "time spans between spacetime
events that are not dependent on the inertial frame in which those spans
are measured". It has been physically demonstrated that this kind of
time does not exist in our universe, because any consistent means of
measuring time will give different answers to the question of time
separation of spacetime events when measured from different inertial
frames.
> and this is obviously
> not true, so I agree with you that we don't "have" it.  But it does
> have a very real existence as shown by the actual beat of each atomic
> clock.
The actual beat of an atomic clock demonstrates the notion of proper
time. The fact that atomic clocks in different inertial frames will beat
at different rates demonstrates that time is not absolute. All you are
doing is showing that "time exists". You have demonstrated nothing about
"absolute time".
> >The invariant interval *is* proper time!!! The interval in question is
> >the space-time interval between two events. Note that in the coordinate
> >system in which an observer moves inertially between two events in
> >space-time, the two events take place at the same location (by
> >construction, each event occurs at location (0,0,0), i.e. the origin, of=
> >the observer's spatial coordinate system). Since they take place at the
> >same location in this system, the invariant interval has only a temporal=
> >aspect in this system. The entire spacetime interval is a time interval
> >in this coordinate system, and we call this time interval "proper time".=
> =
> >"Spacetime interval" between two events is synonymous with the proper
> >time experienced by an observer moving inertially from one event to the
> >next.
> =
> >Chris Volpe
> =
> The invariant interval (II):
> Observer A finds two events to be 1 LY and .0583 Yr apart.
> Observer B finds the event to be 1.4364 LY & 1.0328 Yrs apart.
> =
> A's II=B2 =3D (1 LY)=B2 - (.0583 Yr)=B2 =3D .9966
> B's II=B2 =3D (1.4364 LY)=B2 - (1.0328 Yrs) =3D .9966
> =
> What physical meaning is there to the .9966 result?  It is a
> combination of distance and time, each squared. =
First, you forgot that the time component is multiplied by the speed of
light, or, alternatively, the distance component is divided by it.
Usually, it is convenient to work in units where c=3D1, but this doesn't
change the fact that we need the c factor if only to preserve units. =
Given a right triangle with two legs of length A and B, what is the
physical meaning of A^2+B^2? It is a combination of lengths squared.
> What meaning can
> a time squared have? =
What meaning can a length squared have? (Hint: In the right triangle
case, you have to remember to take the square root to get the invariant
length of the hypotenuse. In the case of the spacetime coordinates, you
have to take the square root to get the spacetime interval, which gives
you the proper time of an observer moving inertially between the two
events.
>And what about subtracting this time squared
> from the distance squared?
I addressed that two paragraphs up. There's a missing c factor in there
that corrects the units.
> =
> OTOH, the proper time for the two events is the time recorded by a
> single clock that happened to be at each event (by moving between
> them).
By moving *inertially* between them. And as I already pointed out, the
invariant spacetime interval gives this value. But you weren't paying
attention, as usual.
> This value depends on how fast the clock had to go, which in
> turn depends upon how far apart the events were in space, and upon the
> true time between them.  =
No it doesn't. I don't need to know how far apart the events were in
your mythical fixed "space", nor do I need to know how much time elapsed
on God's wall clock. All I need to know is the coordinates of each event
in *any* inertial coordinate system. Once I know this, I can figure out
how fast an observer must go, inertially, in my coordinate system such
that he leavs the location of event A at the time of event A and arrives
at the location of event B at the time of evvent B. And lo and behold,
if I figure out the elapsed time on his clock based on the relativistic
time dilation relative to mine at his velocity relative to me and the
time in my coordinate system between the two events, I'll get the same
answer for his elapsed time as I would if I computed the invariant
spacetime interval.
>Obviously, for many events, there's not
> enough time for a clock to "span" them, even at lightspeed, so there
> would be no proper time for the events. This is the case above.
???
--
Chris Volpe			Phone: (518) 387-7766 =
GE Corporate R&D;		Fax:   (518) 387-6560
PO Box 8 			Email: volpecr@crd.ge.com
Schenectady, NY 12301		Web:   http://www.crd.ge.com/~volpecr

Matt Austern wrote:
> It's possible that I'm misunderstanding what's going on, though, and
> that Derrida actually introduced the concept of a "center", defined it
> such that it was incoherent, and then proceeded to show that the
> concept he introduced was incoherent.  I hope that's not what he
> really did, though, because that would be a remarkably uninteresting
> project.
At last we've finally located the *chosen one*, the creature of rare and
divine insight, blessed with the sublime gift, the key to the very heart
of Derrida's philosophical programme. May I worship at your feet,
Master?
Cheers,
Hardy

moggin wrote:
> 
> hoh@rmb.co.za wrote (Hardy Hulley):
> [much deleted]
> 
>> If by relativity, you mean Einstein's theory, then Derrida's claim 
>> that the Einsteinian constant "is the  very concept of variability" is 
>> surely false. If you are referring to some other theory of relativity, 
>> then his claim is meaningless.
> 
>      Your post ran back and forth between the claim that Derrida
> writes only nonsense and the complaint that his work contains an
> over-abundance of meaning.
Over-abundance of meaning is tantamount to nonsense. Consider the number
of interpretations available for the Book of Revelations. Actually, that
brings me to an interesting point - I wonder what Nostradamus would have
made of Derrida...or Derrida of Nostradamus, for that matter. I sense
fertile ground for satire here - a dialogue wherein Derrida deconstructs
Nostradamus' interpretations of himself.
> Here, however, you don't seem to have any trouble finding an exclusive 
> meaning and declaring it false.
I note, wryly, that you're in need of an introduction to the
conditional. Observe the leading "if" in the passage you quote - I
didn't claim to have isolated an "exclusive meaning" for anything.
> I think you're mistaken.  The phrase, "the Einsteinian constant,"
> was Hyppolite's -- what he meant isn't clear.
Well, Derrida thought he understood the question. So, either the
question was clear, or Derrida is in the habit of answering "unclear" (a
quaint euphemism in this case) questions - and of offering "unclear"
answers, as a natural consequence. The latter, as you well know, is my
own pet theory.
>      (In your post, you keep referring to "writing," but Derrida
> and Hyppolite were both thinking aloud -- remember, too, that
> you're reading a transcript and a translation of their remarks.
> As the editor says, "Some of the participants in the discussion
> may have difficulty recognizing themselves....")
Sometimes I have been referring to the specific piece attributed to
Derrida, and sometimes to Derrida in general (when "writing" would have
been appropriate). Nevertheless, your point is duly noted.
>      Now, if you assume that the "constant" Hyppolite refers to
> is the speed of light, then your conclusion follows -- but since
> nothing Hyppolite or Derrida says fits that hypothesis, it seems
> to be a dead end.  So let's try again.  Immediately before he
> brings up Einstein, Hyppolite describes the natural sciences as
> "an image of the problems which we, in turn, put to ourselves."
> That means he's referring to something in Einstein which strikes
> him as similiar to the questions Derrida brings up.   The speed
> of light?  No, that doesn't work.  What, then?  Well, see what
> he says:
> 
>      "[...] we see a constant appear, a constant which is a
> combination of space-time, which does not belong to any of the
> experimenters who live the experience, but which, in a way,
> dominates the construct; and this notion of the constant -- is
> this the center?  [...]"
My superficial diagnosis is that Hyppolite suffers from the same
cognitive disorder as Derrida. The problem with even attempting to
decipher a passage such as the above is you have to disable so many
shit-filters, that eventually even televangelism becomes illuminating.
But, let's continue...
>      Confusing, it's true -- a comment made on the spot, copied
> from a tape, and translated into a foreign language.  But maybe
> we can make something of it, especially in relation to Derrida's
> reply.  Derrida appears to grasp what Hyppolite was getting at,
> and he answers, "the Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is
> not a center."  Silke thinks he's correcting the term "constant"
> to the term "center," and she may well be right.  But he could
> just as easily be correcting Hyppolite.  In that case, he isn't
> saying that a constant isn't a constant, but rather that what
> Hyppolite calls "the Einsteinian constant" is better described
> in different words; in particular, the ones he substitutes.
In other words, so far, Hyppolite and Derrida are engaged in a verbal
juggling act. Not a sin, in itself, but not very instructive either.
>      So look at them again (remembering that this only a part
> of Derrida's response to Hyppolite's question).  Derrida says
> that something in Einstein "is not a constant, is not a center.
> It is the very concept of variability -- it is, finally, the
> concept of the game.  In other words, it is not the concept of
> some_thing_ -- of a center starting from which an observer
> could master the field -- but the very concept of the field
> which, after all, I was trying to elaborate."  Can't that be a
> valid comment about Einstein?  Taken as a remark about a part
> of relativity that _isn't_ a constant (just as Derrida says),
> it doesn't seem either meaningless or false.
Having squinted at this for a long time, I can see the following: There
exists *something*, not necessarily Einstein's constant, as physicists
know it, but somehow related to Einstein. This *something* happens to be
the "concept of variability", and, furthermore, has the alarming
property of not enabling one to master an entire field (physics,
presumably) when one uses it as a deductive starting point.
If this seems like a reasonable statement about relativity to you, I
must advise you to desist from smoking your underwear.
Cheers,
Hardy

A better wheel choice might be to use freestyle skateboard wheels.  They
are much smaller in diameter (hence less torque needed to turn), with
greater contact surface area, and the same degree of hardness.  I would
then load the car to the specified weight, with the weight centered over
the drive wheels.  Good luck with your car!  I wish we had a contest like
that in high school!

jrhodes@pupgg.princeton.edu wrote:
>In article <3280d36b.0@news.softronics.com>, guru@top.o.de.mountain.top (Vishnu Verheer) writes:
>
>>Well, remember, this also works the other way around.  The Earth cannot
>>be a sphere!  The people at the bottom would all fall off!  There
>>were many scientists who regarded the "sphere" theory as mental
>>masturbation as well.  With much more education, we learned to discount
>>-Vishnu Verheer (destroyer of ozone!)
>
>
>I'd personally like to see you, or anyone else, name a scienctist
>who didn't believe the earth was a sphere.
>
>
>Jason
I cannot blame the ancients, but I can't understand why a modern
observer would not see the fallacy that the earth doesn't
behave like a ball you can hold in you hand--no jokes, please :)
The rubber ball is suspended in the earth's gravitational field,
so, of course, objects would not stick to the underside.  The earth
is, however, travelling through space and is only weakly affected
by the gravity of nearby objects.  Same deal with the flat earthers...
-Craig

Archimedes Plutonium wrote:
>   Infinite Integers all of them have an endless string of digits to the
> leftward, thus 1 is .....000000001  or 231 is .....00000231 but not
> every Infinite Integer repeats in zeros, for instance the Infinite
> Integer
>    ....9999999999998 is equivalent to -2
Thank you, but please explain the above "equivalency" to this naive 
learner who doesn't see it. ken collins
_____________________________________________________
People hate because they fear, and they fear because
they do not understand, and they do not understand 
because hating is less work than understanding.

Brian Jones wrote:
> 
> Christopher R Volpe  wrote[in part]:
> 
> >Right. You have given a definition, but not an OPERATIONAL definition.
> >An operational definition is a procedure that you are physically able to
> >follow in any inertial lab (and by "physically able to follow", I mean
> >without being magically "given" things like clocks presumed to be at
> >absolute rest) to determine whether two events occur at the "same time",
> >independent of inertial frame. I.e. you have to be able to say something
> >along the lines of "Events A and B are simultaneous if this-and-that
> >happens when I do such-and-such", and have the answer be independent of
> >the inertial frame in which the procedure is carried out.
> 
> >Chris Volpe
> 
> It is operational in the sense that it could be carried out by simple
> trial and error if by no other means.
Really? Give it to me. Describe this trial and error procedure. Describe
the conditions by which you actually deetermine success. How do you
determine which of your "trials" are "errors". When will you learn what
"operational definition" means?
You have no operational definition of simultaneity that is not
frame-dependent. 
--
Chris Volpe			Phone: (518) 387-7766 
GE Corporate R&D;		Fax:   (518) 387-6560
PO Box 8 			Email: volpecr@crd.ge.com
Schenectady, NY 12301		Web:   http://www.crd.ge.com/~volpecr
.

In article <55vho0$o2k@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
>meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
>: In article <55uibp$12v@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
>: >-Mammel,L.H. (lew@ihgp167e.ih.att.com) wrote:
>: >: In article <55q9p3$gjd@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
>: >: Russell Turpin  wrote:
>: >: >
>: >: >GR can extend CM only *because* they share common, operational
>: >: >notions of time, space, and many other common concepts.
>: >
>: >: I'm just wondering how you react to the melodramatics of
>: >: e.g. Minkowski, Born, and Weyl in their discussions of 
>: >: relativity. In 1922 Weyl wrote that "A cataclysm has been
>: >: unloosed which has wept away space, time, and matter".
>: >
>: >: Maybe now that those concepts have been swept away, they are no
>: >: longer missed very much by those that never knew them as
>: >: "pillars of understanding".
>: >
>: >Which might explain, just as a footnote, why French philosophers who 
>: >might read the original contributors rather than self-declared Usenet 
>: >experts think of certain developments in 20th century physics as 
>: >de-centering rather than stabilizing.
>: >
>: Possible.  If so, said philosophers should make the effort to acquint 
>: themself with all that happened in physics since the 20s, as well as 
>: not to put too much weigh in the words of the original contributors.  
>: The legacy of said contibutors is in the formalisms they left behind 
>: them, their thoughts on the subject are just this, thoughts.
>
>Quite. However, Derrida is in the business of thoughts, even though he 
>just might omit the just. Different priorities, so to speak.
>
Sure.  And the thoughts of scientists are sometimes interesting at 
their own right.  Still, it is worthwhile to realize that the thoughts 
of scientists, at any given moment, are a set which overlaps but is in 
no way identical to science.
>The talk, btw, took place in the 60s.
Well, the big physics revolution was between 1900 and 1930.  But, it 
takes a while for the dust to clear.  That's on reason why the 
thoughts of those involved in this (or, in fact, any) revolution have 
to be taken with a grain of salt.  Great events need some perspective 
to be fully comprehended, when you're too close it is difficult to 
see the overall pattern.
Mati Meron			| "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu		|  chances are he is doing just the same"

In <19961108141100.JAA23861@ladder01.news.aol.com> lbsys@aol.com
writes: 
>
>Im Artikel <55t1kp$8im@News.Dal.Ca>, jayadams@is.dal.ca (Jason Elliot
>Adams) schreibt:
>
>>If something is attached to the engine crank it will use some of that
>>crank's power to overcome internal friction and whatnot thus
>>subtracting some of the power gains.  Whereas a turbo has no direct
>>connection to the crank so it doesn't rob any of the power gain
>>generated.
>> --
>
>Sorry, but that's not quite right. Suppose the engine being driven,
>valves opening, closing etc., but NO ignition, no fuel used. Then
>still the turbocharger would start spinning just by the pump function
>of the engine,sucking air in, pumping air out. The energy needed to
>move the air through the outlet valves is taken from the crank. But of
>course, that's just a small amount. So in praxis, you're quite right,
>the turbo doesn't add very much to what is taken away from the crank.
>But what it really lives on is, that when the outlet valves open,
>there is still some pressure left from the combustion - which then
>expands and drives the turbo.
>
>Cheerio
Well, I can't say the above paragraph is correct or not.  I don't know
what you are saying.  If the first guy is saying that there is *NO*
loss of power via the use of a turbo, then he is partly wrong.  Of
course there is *some* power loss due to the use of a turbo, it takes
some energy to turn the turbine.  If you are saying that the operation
of a turbo has nothing to do with the temperature of the exhaust
gasses, then you are partly wrong.  The real question is how much power
is used to generate the boost for either a turbo or a supercharger. 
I think the whole turbo argument/discussion is clouded by the early
experiences of turbo powered passenger cars.  Back in the day, turbos
were often initially designed for large trucks.  Methinks that the
first turbos to arrive in modern production cars were showing their
heritage when it came to size and efficiency.  Can anyone remember the
monster 930 turbo's.  I was a passenger in one as a child, and I DO
remember being quite frightened by the violent lurch that accompanied
the boost introduction. (But I LOVED the sound they made when spooling)
Since those heady days, I believe turbos are being directly designed
for their applications.  As a previous poster noted some european
turbos have a quite different point of maximum boost than, say, a
japanese turbo.  
The whole argument about boost lag, I think, is a red herring,
depending on the car.  One can not say that I like superchargers
because I do not like boost lag that a turbo produces.  Today's turbos
are smaller, more efficient, made of far superior materials, can reach
maximum rpm more quickly and can hold sustained rpm's far longer than
the turbo's of even 10 years ago.  
This same argument is true about some superchargers.  They have also
come a long way in the past 10-20 years.  Materials are superior,
manufacturing, depending on the design, is much cheaper, etc.
Actually, I can't understand why some love turbos and hate 'chargers or
vice versa.  I think they are both kinda cool.
-Dan C. 

+@+.+ (G*rd*n) writes:
| >| >| ...
| >| >Actually, I've had the idea of plagiarizing the Hoax, and
| >| >filling it out with material from the now-discredited
| >| >_Scientific_American_, my own imagination, and some of those
| >| >curious little books I find on tables disclosing the message
| >| >of the Pyramids.  I'd like to whip it into an attractive
| >| >farrago, and find a semi-defective copier to run off my
| >| >publication.  Maybe I could get Dr. Sokal to sue me.
| >| >
| >| >Well, god damn it, _somebody's_ got to do it.
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu:
| >| Go for it.  Submit it to a refereed science journal and we'll see the 
| >| result.
+@+.+ (G*rd*n) writes:
| >No way.  This gets distributed in that vast intellectual
| >underworld I wrote about.  Hoaxing refereed science journals
| >is for refereed scientists.
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu:
| You set your sights too low.
Not as long as my shoes remain dry.
-- 
   }"{    G*rd*n   }"{  gcf @ panix.com  }"{

Archimedes Plutonium wrote:
> 
> In the future there is no other holiday, just one, plutonium day. It
> comes 7 November, today.

> This year 1996 I celebrate PLutonium Day with a poem of things recently
> on my mind. Here is the poem. You too can write a poem for this years
> Plutonium Day.

I, too, can write a poem?  O.Kaaay...
  My holidays will surely stay;
  A.P.'s poem was out of line.
  November 7, just another day;
  Sorry but I'm out of time ;^)
-- 
C.W. Parker

In article <55u757$ijt@sjx-ixn2.ix.netcom.com>, Brian Jones
 wrote:
[snip]
> SRT does not deny the existence of absolute motion -- it just says
> that it is undetectable.
....and continues to give a perfectly convincing theory neglecting any
concept of absolute space or absolute time.
SRT gave a sound theoretical basis to some puzzling empiric data, and
predicted quite a few testable phenomena. Testing these phenomena failed
to falsify SRT.
As far as SRT is concerned, absolutes are no more than romantic
phantasies and irrelevant to physics. You might as well say they do not
exist.
-- 
Regards, Cees Roos.
Viewing facts in the light of your theory is only feasible
if you view your theory in the light of the facts.

Wayne Hayes (wayne@cs.toronto.edu) wrote:
: But this reduces to the same paradox.  If, say, the guy gets mugged and
: then sends himself a message back in time saying "don't turn left into
: that dark alley down the street 2 minutes from now", and then gets the
: message, and doesn't turn down the alley, then... who sent it?  Certainly
: not the same guy who DIDN'T turn into the alley, because he never turned
: into the alley, and so didn't get mugged, and so didn't send the message.
But the person he is sending  the message to who didn't end up getting
mugged is not him as he is now.  He will still have gotten mugged whether
he sends the message to prevent himself from getting mugged in the past.
I've read through this thread and it seems people are assuming that there
is only one timeline.  If you go back into the past to change an event
which will affect your current future, then you would be disassociating
yourself from your current timeline and placing yourself into the one you
created by changing the event.  The problem is however that if you do this
you will a) not be able to get back to your own future. You will be stuck
existing with another self for the rest of your life because that self
will never have to go into the past now to change that event. or b) you
will go into the future, but since it wont be your future you may have the
perfect oportunity to kill off yourself (since he wont be going anywhere
anytime soon) and replace him. :)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
dan.brown@usask.ca
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
To attract good fortune, spend a new penny on an old friend, share an old
pleasure with a new friend and lift up the heart of a true friend by
writing her name on the wings of a dragon.
                        -Chinese proverb
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Hardy Hulley (hoh@rmb.co.za) wrote:
[...]
: You're talking nonsense. I suggest you brush up on your logical
: positivism - much more interesting reading than Derrida, anyway.
How do you know? Did you graduate to reading a whole page of it lately?
Silke

lew@ihgp167e.ih.att.com (-Mammel,L.H.) wrote:
>In article ,   wrote:
>>>
>>Possible.  If so, said philosophers should make the effort to acquint 
>>themself with all that happened in physics since the 20s, as well as 
>>not to put too much weigh in the words of the original contributors.  
>>The legacy of said contibutors is in the formalisms they left behind 
>>them, their thoughts on the subject are just this, thoughts.
>... whereas Mati has never had a thought in his life.
Was this necessary?
Richard Harter, cri@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-508-369-3911
Life is tough. The other day I was pulled over for doing trochee's
in an iambic pentameter zone and they revoked my poetic license.

meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
: In article <55vho0$o2k@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
: >meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
: >: In article <55uibp$12v@netnews.upenn.edu>, weinecks@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria  Weineck) writes:
: >: >-Mammel,L.H. (lew@ihgp167e.ih.att.com) wrote:
: >: >: In article <55q9p3$gjd@peaches.cs.utexas.edu>,
: >: >: Russell Turpin  wrote:
: >: >: >
: >: >: >GR can extend CM only *because* they share common, operational
: >: >: >notions of time, space, and many other common concepts.
: >: >
: >: >: I'm just wondering how you react to the melodramatics of
: >: >: e.g. Minkowski, Born, and Weyl in their discussions of 
: >: >: relativity. In 1922 Weyl wrote that "A cataclysm has been
: >: >: unloosed which has wept away space, time, and matter".
: >: >
: >: >: Maybe now that those concepts have been swept away, they are no
: >: >: longer missed very much by those that never knew them as
: >: >: "pillars of understanding".
: >: >
: >: >Which might explain, just as a footnote, why French philosophers who 
: >: >might read the original contributors rather than self-declared Usenet 
: >: >experts think of certain developments in 20th century physics as 
: >: >de-centering rather than stabilizing.
: >: >
: >: Possible.  If so, said philosophers should make the effort to acquint 
: >: themself with all that happened in physics since the 20s, as well as 
: >: not to put too much weigh in the words of the original contributors.  
: >: The legacy of said contibutors is in the formalisms they left behind 
: >: them, their thoughts on the subject are just this, thoughts.
: >
: >Quite. However, Derrida is in the business of thoughts, even though he 
: >just might omit the just. Different priorities, so to speak.
: >
: Sure.  And the thoughts of scientists are sometimes interesting at 
: their own right.  Still, it is worthwhile to realize that the thoughts 
: of scientists, at any given moment, are a set which overlaps but is in 
: no way identical to science.
Believe me, I'm aware of it. I am not aware, however, of Derrida having 
applied for a professorship in physics, so it doesn't seem all that 
relevant. The argument against Derrida so far has usually taken the form, 
"hah, the guy doesn't even know the science, he doesn't know what he's 
talking about, why should I listen to him." As soon as it turns out, 
however, that some people who know intimately what they are talking about 
when talking about science share some of the concerns that seem oh-so 
risible in the allegedly undereducated Derrida, the question of expertise 
is all of a sudden declared to be irrelevant -- I find this an amazingly 
backtracking strategy. If people who _do_ know QM or SR etc. as you seem 
willing to grant draw philosophical conclusions that you don't agree 
with, then you will have to address these conclusions in the realm in 
which they were raised, and you cannot hide behind "you guys don't know 
your science so I don't have to engage with your thought" anymore. I know 
that Heisenberg and Bohr are controversial figures in the philosophy of 
science and amongst scientists sans philosophy, but it seems that 
dismissing them tout court will not do.
Silke

Brian Jones wrote:
> 
> Two events have an absolute distance and an absolute time between
> them. This is patently obvious.
Two points on a plane have an absolute x-extent between them and an
absolute y-extent between them. This is patently obvious. (See how silly
this sounds?)
>  Of course, each SRT observer will
> get different space values as well as different time values, and all
> of these are merely relative values of course.
Of course, each orientation of coordinate axes will get different
x-extent values as well as different y-extent values, and all of these
are merely relative values, of course. (Has it started sounding silly
yet?)
--
Chris Volpe			Phone: (518) 387-7766 
GE Corporate R&D;		Fax:   (518) 387-6560
PO Box 8 			Email: volpecr@crd.ge.com
Schenectady, NY 12301		Web:   http://www.crd.ge.com/~volpecr

In article <32834706.1BD1@eskimo.com>,
Stephen La Joie   wrote:
>Bill Oertell wrote:
>> 
>>     I don't know of any other battery type that can deliver the current
>> necessary for turning over a cold engine.  Lead acid batteries can
>> deliver over 500 amps.
>>     Internal resistance depends on the condition of the battery's
>> plates.  If the voltage falls below 9 volts while cranking, the battery
>> should be replaced.  If I knew what normal cranking current was, the
>> internal resistance would be easily computed.  Unfortunately, I don't.
>> 
>>                                   Bill
>
>Humm. If you know the open circuit voltage to be 12 volts, and the voltage 
>falls to 9 Volts at 500 Amps, why can't you calculate the Theivenin 
>resistance?
If you'll look closer at Bill's post, you'll see that the difference is between
"can deliver" and "normal cranking current."  I think the latter is on the
order of 100 amps.  So the resistance would be roughly 3 V / 100 A = .03 Ohm.
Damn, that's small!  No wonder they use thick copper wires.  Anything else
would drop too much voltage.
Also note that that's the resistance for a battery that's going bad.  A good
one might give 10 mOhm.
Have fun,
breed

::: bjon@ix.netcom.com (Brian D.  Jones)
::: There are quite definite and real physical results of such clocks
::: that directly reflect the absoluteness behind the definition.  For
::: example, given any two events, each observer will find a different
::: time between them.  This tells us that their clocks all read
::: differently at these same two events.  And yet the events themselves
::: obviously can have only a single time between them. 
:: throopw@sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
:: [] obviously vacuous, and a non-sequitur []
: bjon@ix.netcom.com (Brian D. Jones)
: Vacuous to whom?
To everybody.  Things that are vacuous, are vacuous; there's no "to whom"
involved in it.  There is no logical content to bjon's statement.
It's empty of content, empty of any support for the claim it makes,
and swapping from "clocks have different readings" to "yet there can
be only a single time" is a non-sequitur.
Though perhaps bjon meant "obvious to whom".
Well, I don't know for certain, but it's my prejudice (though I'm willing
to be convinced otherwise) that it's obvious to anybody with N brain cells
to rub together, for very low values of N.
: The invariant interval is not proper time -- but the square of the
: difference of the squares of both time and distance values combined --
: which obviously has no physical meaning. 
I see.  It's just a coincidence that this is always numerically
equal to the square of the proper time.  Suuuuuuuuuure bjon.
Now *that*'s a convincing claim.
:: Bjon's seems to have some prejudice against treating proper time as
:: the absolute time, and coordinate time as observer-dependent.  He
:: keeps insisting there must be some absolute coordinate time.  This is
:: equivalent to having a prejudice against treating distance as the
:: absolute, and delta-x-coordinate as observe dependent, and insisting
:: there must be some absolute x direction. 
: Mixed up as usual, Throop. 
Yet "distance" and "interval" *are* precisely, mathematically analogous.
They are both instances of the same kind of coordinate system invariant.
When you deny the physical meaning of the one, you can only grant it
to the other by being inconsistent, employing a double standard.
What's to be mixed up about?  Facts is facts.
--
Wayne Throop   throopw@sheol.org  http://sheol.org/throopw
               throopw@cisco.com

Mike Kohlbrenner wrote:
> 
> Christopher Drayson wrote:
> >
> > >One other thing,
> > >turbos need to be kept cool.  As my friend has to idle his car for about
> > >40 seconds before turning the car off.  This is to let the turbo cool
> > >down, superchargers do not require this, as the article points out.
> >
> > Geez! What was it, a Chrysler? It is true that turbos require better
> > cooling, but I've never heard of anything that bad! Some turbos these
> > days have electric pumps that continue to circulate coolant after
> > shutdown, which apparently is quite helpful.
> 
> Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought this was an issue of oiling rather than
> cooling.  Essentially the idling period is to allow the turbo to stop
> spinning at 10s of thousands of rpm before you remove the oil flow to
> the turbo bearings by shutting off the engine.  And the electric pumps
> are known as "turbo oilers" or something like that.  As far as I know,
> turbos don't have any cooling circuitry.
> 
> --
> Mike Kohlbrenner
> 
The Turbine housing heat transfer is enough to "coke" the oil in the 
bearing. Water-cooled center section reduces chances of this problem 
both during operation and on shut-down. Good to idle engine for a minute 
as you say to allow compressor wheel to slow from 120,000 rpm to 10,000 
before shut-down.
Regards,
On the 'Bahn,
Randy, a.k.a. BoltMeister
NEW** VW/Porsche/BMW Interest At: http://www.wwnet.com/~raceware **NEW

Christopher Drayson wrote:
> 
> >One other thing,
> >turbos need to be kept cool.  As my friend has to idle his car for about
> >40 seconds before turning the car off.  This is to let the turbo cool
> >down, superchargers do not require this, as the article points out.
> 
> Geez! What was it, a Chrysler? It is true that turbos require better
> cooling, but I've never heard of anything that bad! Some turbos these
> days have electric pumps that continue to circulate coolant after
> shutdown, which apparently is quite helpful.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought this was an issue of oiling rather than
cooling.  Essentially the idling period is to allow the turbo to stop
spinning at 10s of thousands of rpm before you remove the oil flow to
the turbo bearings by shutting off the engine.  And the electric pumps
are known as "turbo oilers" or something like that.  As far as I know,
turbos don't have any cooling circuitry. 
-- 
Mike Kohlbrenner

Ahhh, keep it coming.  Who says sci.physics isn't just for laughs?
breed

Matt Austern (austern@isolde.mti.sgi.com) wrote:
> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
> 
> > > ... This presumption of a structural framework, Derrida says, 
> > > is *itself* the "center" that claims to ground and orient all 
> > > creation stories. ...
> > 
> > Perhaps Artese would oblige us with a definition of center that
> > would help make sense of its use above and below.
> 
> If I understand what is being claimed here, the term "center" doesn't
> come from Derrida.  He was critiquing earlier writers, such as
> Levi-Strauss, and was showing that the concept of a "center" wasn't
> actually coherent.  
> 
More ammo for Russell? Yes, here is another interpretation, but this REALLY is the right one:
LS himself spends a little time explaining how he will take these myths and explain their
relations to each other and how these myths will for a structure around a central myth. He
talks about how his work is to expand the periphery of this structure. This is right out of
the intro to R & C. In fact, I think he is not quite as naive about all this as the big D might
lead us to believe because LS already (always?) talks about a moving centre that is shifting as
the whole structure moves about as more myths are assimilated into it.
It is THIS that D refers to when he mentions structure and centre. D does want to show that this
is baloney, that it is incoherent, that he never really tells us what the center is or where it is
and that this explanation and definition is always deferred to another moment in time.
Now, when I had to read this and write on it -- and I hope Russel appreciates the irony here --
I remember thinking of the Structuralists as yet another movement to make the social sciences
"harder." This talk of structures and centres, this talk of universal principles for human
consciousness, this talk of COLLECTING DATA and the graphs that LS produced certainly was a move
(in my mind) to win some sort of scientific respect, and it is precisely THIS pretension that
D set out to debunk. D is on R's side!
So, Russell, if you want to understand SS&P;, I suggest you read R&C; first.
	-Omar

turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin):
|                                            ...  Long before GR,
| there was any number of myths and stories and religions where
| time ran in circles or back and forth, and the mere presence of
| these notions caused no stir in physics at all, nor in the larger
| culture.  Why not?  Because there was no reason to think that
| these notions had any connection (beyond metaphorical) with time
| as we experience it.  ...
You just haven't taken the right drugs.
Then there's Dick Gregory's experience:  "I love the South.
I spent twenty years of my life in the South -- one night."
I wonder if people's notions of time have not been
increasingly spatialized, regularized, and mechanized in the
modern era.  Because of capitalism, of course.  Has anyone
written about this?  It seems like a worthy sociological
topic, although I suppose medieval and ancient notions of
time might be difficult to get at.  Thus far I've only seen
a thing by Jeremy Rifkin which I thought was, um, wrong.
(Rifkin is Bad, though, right?  I won't get flamed for
saying he's wrong, will I?)
-- 
   }"{    G*rd*n   }"{  gcf @ panix.com  }"{

>> >Well i was taught that it was due to the extra electrons shooting out of
>> >the hotter(black) side, but i am certainly not saying that your
>> >explanation is wrong, as many of the things i was taught subsequently
>> >turned out to be wrong :-(  Indeed that's why i wrote this Charles :-)
>> 
>> >"Nevertheless the vanes in the Crookes radiometer do go round
>> > with the reflective side to the frount, as J M Woodgate says above.
>> 
>> >        So here we have an excellent example of a theory making the
>> >           RIGHT PREDICTIONS, but for totally the WRONG REASONS.
>> 
>> >         (Similarly with many of Einstein's predictions,i think:-)"
>> 
>> >--
>> >Keith Stein
>John Torset  wrote in article
>> Since the radiometer supposely should be a wheel inside a evacuated
>(vacum)
>> glassbulb with very few molecules left, I would say that the last
>explanation
>> sound more resonable.
 James Hannum  writes
>Actually, the tube cannot be fully evacuated.  If it is, the device will
>not work.
>
>But why should you take my word for it.  Check it out yourselves.
        It is not possible to fully evacuate anything,of course! In
fact, one can't even get within an order of magnitude of the vacuum
which exists in space, and there's still plenty of Hydrogen out there.
        Due to difficulties beyond my control(like i don't live in a
high vacuum laboratory) I have not actually been able to try this for
myself, as you suggest James,  but nevertheless i am sure that
        the Crookes radiometer will work at 'ALL OBTAINABLE VACUA',
        if the bearings are 'good enough', it must,because the thermal  
        electrons contribution to the moment must surely be there,i
think.................................................................
(but if everyone else has actually managed to try it and finds that it
actually don't work at very low pressures, then, all i can say is 
                "get a better bearing" :-).
-- 
Keith Stein

 David Byrden  writes
>       Keith, when you say "we should expect", you ought really to 
>say "I, Keith Stein, happen to expect, based on what I happen to have 
>read, or rather the parts of it that I have managed to comprehend".
>
>Keith Stein  wrote in article
> if the density 
>> of the universe is decreasing with time, then we should expect to 
>> see density increase as we look further out into space.  
prima facie:-)
         if the density of the universe is decreasing with time,
         then           we should expect to see 
         density increase as we look further out into space.  
>       Keith, when you say "we should expect", you ought really to 
>say "I, Keith Stein, happen to expect, based on what I happen to have 
>read, or rather the parts of it that I have managed to comprehend".
but i think i should explain for David that as we look further out into
space, then due to the finite velocity of light, we must be looking
further back in time, ie to those earlier times when the density of the
universe was more than now,from the initial proposition,David :-)
>> "When the Universe was 
>> still a hot plasma at the 100,000 year mark,  its temperature was
>> roughly the same as the surface of the Sun today...Just before 
>> escaping from matter, this radiation was predominantly composed 
>> of visible and shorter wavelength ultraviolet light."
>>      It is not obvious why Big Bang cosmology should attribute the 
>> background radiation to an original temperature only a few 
>> thousand degrees, 
>
>       Not obvious to YOU, perhaps, Keith. To me, it's very obvious.
>
it's still not at all obvious to me why this radiation should have
choosen to break free of matter at about 6000 K rather than say 12000 K,
because we know that radiation can certainly escape from matter at much
hotter temperatures than that even. I didn't say it was impossible to
concoct a theory which purports to explain same,David, i said, and i
repeat:-                IT IS NOT OBVIOUS WHY 6000 K
(unless of course the radiation really does come from distant stars)
>       What is not obvious to ME is why you are willing to post an 
>essay titled "THE BIG BANG MYTH" which tells us nothing except 
>that you do not understand much of the big bang theory.
>
>                                               David
>
please post your 'obvious explanation' of the 6000 K temperature David,
so we can compare the 'obviousness' of the two rival explanations :-)
-- 
Keith Stein

In article , moggin@nando.net (moggin) writes:
	... snip ...
>
>Mati:
>
>> Fine, lets assume that we've an element with a lifetime of 10^40 
>> seconds.  This will give us 10^(-10) decays per second.  You'll have 
>> to wait few hundred years to observe one.  Lets assume a lifetime of 
>> 10^50 seconds.  Now even if you wait over a time span equal to the age 
>> of the universe, there is still a negligible chance to observe a 
>> decay.  So, also this element is in principle unstable, you cannot 
>> distinguish it from a stable one (which has an infinite lifetime).
> 
>> "But", you may say, "I know it is unstable."  Well, how do you know.  
>> Its instability is not a mathematical definition, it can only be 
>> established experimentally.  There is no outside source of information 
>> here, no direct line from God.  So, stability is the limit of 
>> instability here. 
>
>     Sorry, I can't agree.  I know it's unstable because you told
>me.  (You're the physicist here, right?)  
Is that a reason to trust all I say? :-)  
>Presumably you have some
>way to know it's unstable that you didn't bother to fill me in on
>(which is fine -- please spare me the details).  Or maybe you were
>just making an assumption, as you said.  In that case, it's given
>for purposes of this example.  But it's unstable either way.  If
>experiment _was_ the only way to know,
The experiment is the only way to know.  And I may assume, for the 
purpose of an example or based or other some theoretical reasons that 
such instability exists, but the assumption doesn't make it into a 
certainty.  You think in terms of a student in a lab who views his 
goal as getting as close as possible to the "exact" result known by 
the instructor.  But no such result exists, at most you've the results 
of more precise experiments.
Sure, you can compare the experimental results to theory, where the 
calculation may be seemingly "exact".  But who said that the theory 
itself is exact.  It may be a scary thought to some but there isn't a 
single bit of science which is a "stable ground", an absolutely and 
exactly known reference to which everything else can be compared.  No 
lab instructor notebook where you can peek to find out whether what 
you got matches the "true result".  All that's there is  a bunch of 
mental approximations being compared with experimental approximations.
>> Similarly no change is the limit of change in any 
>> case.  And a flat is the limit of the hill. 
>
>     Exactly -- the limit is the point that it never arrives at,
>as far as it's a hill.  And no change is the condition change is
>never in, so far as it's change.
Only if you've an independent way to find out that the change, in 
fact, exists.  Which you don't.
>
>> If the finest instrumants 
>> cannot measure the difference between the assumed hill and the flat, 
>> how do you know there is a hill over there?  By definition?  Whose 
>> definition?  We do not define differences, we find them through 
>> measurement.  And if no measurement can distinguish between two 
>> situations then, physically, they are identical. [...]
>
>     You know it's a hill because I told you.  That's the premise
>I began with, just as you assumed that some element was unstable.
Yeah.  And in bost cases you reach a point where the statement is 
unverifiable.  "I told you so" is not a sufficient basis in science.
>Notice that I underlined "if," just to make that clear.  And if it
>_is_ a hill, then it can't be flat (by definition).  But I made a
>place for your perspective.  If you decide that it must be flat,
>since your measurements don't detect any height, then it can't be
>a hill.  Simple.
I wouldn't say "it can't be" only "it can't be distinguished from".
But that's nitpicking.  The point is, the limit doesn't need to be 
"arrived at", you just need to arrive at a situation which cannot be 
distinguished from the limit.
Mati Meron			| "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu		|  chances are he is doing just the same"

If I may butt in for a moment...
Somewhere in this thread I seem to have lost the point.  Three
questions for +@+.+ :
a) OK, some aspects of Newtonian mechanics can be understood without
calculus, or even without any math at all.  Why is this such a big
deal?
b) Other aspects of Newtonian mechanics cannot be understood
without calculus.  Do you doubt this?
c) Why did you pick such a peculiar user-name?  (Just asking.)
By the way: you can substitute any other branch of physics for
Newtonian mechanics in the statements in (a) and (b).

Hardy Hulley (hoh@rmb.co.za) wrote:
: Richard Harter wrote:
: > I read your comments with interest but it doesn't seem worth the
: > trouble to reply.   Life is too short and all that, you know.  Sorry
: > about that.
: Too bad...so much to deconstruct, so little time, eh?
: > I do have a question though; have you actually read anything by the
: > man...
: Not if reading entails comprehension.
: > ...or are you simply retailing second hand opinions?
: I'm not sure that your commercial idiom, with its concomitant
: "historical sediment", would have found favour with Derrida.
: There is one point on which I would still like to gauge your reaction
: (your busy schedule permitting, of course). You provided something of a
: concrete discription of what Silke implied was Derrida's conception of
: the relationship between the "Einsteinian constant" and the philosophy
: of physics. (I am typing this from memory, so please feel at liberty to
: correct any paraphrasic errors). Essentially it was this: The philosophy
: of physics cannot be reduced to Einstein's constant. I commented that
: this statement was absurd. What retort?
Just for clarification -- I "implied" no such thing. Centering is not 
reducing by a long shot, and the "philosophy of physics" is not even 
remotely at issue. At issue was the question whether "the Einsteinian 
constant" provides a center in the sense which Derrida develops in SSP.
Silke
: Cheers,
: Hardy

pmj@netcom.ca(Peter Michael Jack) wrote:
>
>Well, I guess it's old news to some. But, for me,
>I'm a late commer. I only just figured it out. 
>So, forgive the intrusion. But, here goes. Very 
>briefly -- 
>
>The EYE OF HORUS has a very specific meaning. 
>The eye is represented as a figure with 6 parts.
>These 6 parts correspond to the six senses -
> Touch, Taste, Hearing, Thought, Sight, Smell.
>These are the 6 parts of the *eye*. The eye is the
>receptor of *input*. It has these six doors, to
>receive data.
[merciful snip]
The Ark of the Covenant is a radio.  
The Pyramid is a time-displaced beta version of the first working NASA 
space toilet at 16% scale.
Mad Cow Diesase (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) is being spread by the 
Holy Eucharist.  The Body of Christ is contaminated and the Vatican is 
not amused.  I have a list of 56 more religions to belittle.  Eternity is 
long but life is short.
To call you an idiot would be to insult idiots.  Get a life.
-- 
Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz
UncleAl0@ix.netcom.com ("zero" before @)
http://www.ultra.net.au/~wisby/uncleal.htm  (lots of + new)
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children, Democrats, and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"  The Net!

David Weinstein wrote:
>         Are you nuts???? If you truly believe what you say, you will
> find more untouched land than you could ever need, just get off your
> ass. Its in the form of mountains, deserts, plains, tundra, etc.... If
> you expect the majority of the sane population that embraces tech + its
> benefits, to give up choice land, often produced from unfavourable land
> by TECHNOLOGY, than you are mistaken.
As an example of what David says here: I happen to live in Toronto. The
land here was a swamp when white men showed up. The whites bought it
from
the natives for a load of this-and-that. The natives went away saying
unkind things about the stupid white men who bought a swamp.  We filled
in the swamp, often with our own refuse, and now there is a city of
several millions here.
-- 
Standard disclaimers apply.
In an attempt to decrease the junk e-mail advertising I get,
I have mangled my return address. Commas to dots in the
obvious fashion.
Dan Evens

We have already posted Carezani's new Radium-E experiment as a
direct test of whether Einstein's Special Relativity equations match
physical reality.
http://www.autodynamics.org/Experiments/NewRaE.html
It was published in Physics Essays, vol. 1, no. 4, 1988.
Basically, it is a simple and unambiguous way to plot
kinetic energy versus velocity.  A radioactive pellet emits electrons.
A mass spectrometer selects particular velocities to hit a calorimeter
and counter.  In this way, the neutrino is *out of the picture*.
This experiment can decide between theories like SR, AD, or others
that commit to a kinetic energy equation.  It directly tests SR's
applicability to decay phenomena, independent of the correctness
of Autodynamics.
The Autodynamics proponents will do everything possible to have this
experiment performed. And we solicit feedback on the experiment
itself, as well as help in funding it.  Who in the establishment
will put their money where their mouth is, to perform this *theory-
confirming* experiment?
Considering the paucity of proofs for SR and the controversy
surrounding the SR postulates, we exhort the physics establishment
to perform this experiment.  If it confirms SR, the performing group
will gain fame for the most convincing proof of the theory.  If it
disproves SR, the performing group will gain far greater renown,
perhaps even a Nobel prize.  Surely the experiment is a win-win.
Whoever performs this experiment first will know much more about physics
than we do today.  Do we want the wrong people to potentially have tools
that we are not aware of?  I think of China, Gadhafi, Saddaam Hussein.
Even if you believe it is remote, the chance is greater than zero that
Einstein's is not the last word in physics.
The experiment has been out there for eight years.  What are we
waiting for?  Let's stop the babble, join forces, and do it!
Amnon Meyers
Member of the Society for the Advancement of Autodynamics
http://www.autodynamics.org
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I need to know how to calculate the force opposing the motion of a permanent
magnet moving above the surface of an electrically conductive material.  I assume
that this force relates to the magnetic field strength, the distance between the
two surfaces, the electrical conductivity of the conductive material, the relative
velocity between the two surfaces, the area of the magnet, the thickness of the
magnet, and the thickness of the conductive material.  Also, how does the magnetic
force vary if a ferromagnetic material is placed below the conductive material?
Thanks,
Mike D.
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