Subject: Re: When will the U.S. finally go metric?
From: jac@ibms46.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Date: 19 Nov 1996 20:21:19 GMT
d005794c@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us (James Wentworth) writes:
>
>This is a most interesting thread. However, no one gave an answer to the
>question, "When will the U.S. finally go metric?" My answer is, "never."
Actual answer: we already have, legally, for more than a century,
but widespread use of metric units in common parlance takes time.
>A more meaningful question would be, "Why should the U.S. go metric at
>all?" There are no doubt many answers to this question, but my response
>would be that there is _no_ compelling reason for the U.S. to do so.
The only reason that makes sense in the US is that it makes economic
sense to make the change. That is why the change is fairly complete
in some areas and non-existent in others. At some point the cost
and inconvenience of a dual system will make it economical to absorb
the costs of the remaining changes.
> The global economy and interdependence arguments are mere bogies.
They are quite real. An assertion based on an historical anomaly
during the post WW II era rather than the fraction of US jobs that
depend on trade with 100% metric countries is not a sound argument.
> Up until
>about 1965, the U.S. was capable of manufacturing all of the goods
>needed/wanted by industry and the citizenry, respectively.
For one very good reason: massive government subsidies of our
manufacturing infrastructure between 1942 and 1945 and the near
total destruction of the manufacturing capacity of every other
industrialized country on earth. So the US could use that
capacity to supply us *and* the world with little investment,
generating massive profits. Things changed twenty years later
when the rest of the world had rebuilt -- and rebuilt with
1960s rather than 1940s technology. Everything in the US, from
the level of manufacturing wages to the overhead in management,
was skewed by this unusual one-time-only situation.
>If we wished, we could once again be a self-contained economy and
>society.
The United States has never been a self-contained economy, certainly
not in the post-war years when it exported goods and food worldwide,
while the idea of a self-contained *society* has come and gone as each
immigrant group blames the more recent immigrant group for its troubles.
Our real problems began when we abandoned bi-metalism for the gold
standard. ;-) What would William Jennings Bryan say today!
--
James A. Carr | "The half of knowledge is knowing
http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/ | where to find knowledge" - Anon.
Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst. | Motto over the entrance to Dodd
Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306 | Hall, former library at FSCW.
Subject: Re: Time & space, still (was: Hermeneutics ...)
From: sassociation@worldbank.org (Gene C. Miller)
Date: 19 Nov 1996 21:22:06 GMT
In article , meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
> In article ,
sassociation@worldbank.org (Gene C. Miller) wrote:
> >NNTP-Posting-Host: sa.worldbank.org
> >If this is true, then the world could be quite different from the
> >scientific descriptions of it.
>
> Coitenly. And if said difference gives rise to observable phenomena
> then, sooner or later, they'll be observed and incorporated in the
> scientific description. And, if they've no observable consequences
> then as far as you know they don't exist.
If science can lay no claim to saying "how things really are", then what
exactly are you claiming when you claim that something "doesn't exist"?
(How can you tell how far you know?)
Or is the question of existence also completely unrelated to the question
of "how things really are"? Remember here that you have volunteered that
science pronounces not merely on what is relevant to its work, but on what
exists and what doesn't, which seems a far broader claim. Do you agree?
>
> >But if scientific descriptions are modified, updated, and changed
> >only by subsequent scientific descriptions, then, as you say, we
> >haven't really gained any ground on "how things really are."
>
> Didn't I just say that science has no business with this. Define how
> you distinguish "how things really are" from "how we observe them to
> be".
Supposing I were to do this, would such a definition itself be scientific?
Since you've already claimed this distinction as valid (and perhaps even
universal!), which discipline has produced the definition that science is
unconcerned with "how things really are"? Has it been developed and
confirmed by one or another of the sciences? If so, when, where, and by
which scientist? If not, then is it properly scientific? If it is not
scientific, then what is it? And what are the implications of having a
principle from "outside" science that defines the limits of science?
If you're not careful, we may soon have to report you to the authorities
for practicing metaphysics without a license.....Gene
Subject: Re: Maple and Mathematica
From: vanesch@jamaica.desy.de (Patrick van Esch)
Date: 19 Nov 1996 22:14:16 GMT
Kyle Wilson (kwilson@ezl.com) wrote:
: In article <56t7uc$t1l@dismay.ucs.indiana.edu>,
: glhansen@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Gregory Loren Hansen) wrote:
: > I'm looking at buying either Maple or Mathematica. As a student, Maple
: > will cost me about $80 and Mathematica about $110, and I'm not really
: > interested in that $30 difference. I've been told Maple is a lot easier
: > to learn. How else are they different? What would you recommend?
: >
: > --
: > *==================================*
: > 667 -- the neighbor of The Beast
: > *==================================*
: Hello, I am a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
: I am enrolled in a Mathematica math course right now. I don't know much
: about Maple, but from experience I can tell you that mathematica is
: incredible. We use mathematica 2.2. It is not hard to use at all. I
: imagine v3.0 which should be out very soon will be even more user
: friendly.
Just be careful. This cheap version of mathematica is the student
version, not the professional one, and has some limitations build
in.
Why don't you try an absolutely free symbolic processor, called
MuPad, from the university of Paderborn ? It works great for me.
You have to register, but it doesn't cost any money.
(I don't have the site handy, but do a network search on 'MuPad"
and you'll find it).
cheers,
Patrick.
--
Patrick Van Esch
mail: vanesch@dice2.desy.de
for PGP public key: finger vanesch@dice2.desy.de
Subject: Re: What is a constant? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 22:42:42 GMT
In article , moggin@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:
>moggin:
>
>>The only fraud committed in our conversation was your rewriting
>>of some of my posts. Aside from the, the worst we've seen is your
>>constant weaseling, as demonstrated here -- but I'd hardly call that
>>"fraud."
>
>Mati:
>
>:Since you keep asserting it, lets see an example. Mind you, it has to
>:be rewritting, not snipping. Snipping is routine and necessery,
>:without it this post would've been some 100000 lines long already.
>
> You're really a masochist, aren't you? Suddenly I understand
>this entire conversation. O.k., if you insist, I'll post them for
>you,
Please do.
>just as I posted all the statements you denied making -- but
>I'm getting tired of these games.
Yep, that's evident. Well, all you need to do is stop posting to
sci.physics and go back to a.p. That'll allow you to write anything
you wish.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: Re: what causes gravity? (remedial)
From: "Paul G. White"
Date: 19 Nov 1996 13:01:09 GMT
nurban@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Nathan M. Urban) wrote:
>In article <56q93h$o53@mark.ucdavis.edu>, carlip@dirac.ucdavis.edu (Steve Carlip) wrote:
>
>> There is an important theorem in
>> general relativity that says that as long as matter has positive
>> energy (in a suitable technical sense), if you start with a group of
>> objects that are initially at rest with respect to each other and
>> are interacting only gravitationally, the volume they take up will
>> always decrease in time.
>
>Two questions: (1) Does this theorem have a name, and (2) precisely how
>is "initially at rest with respect to each other" defined? Are we
>speaking of a local group of objects in some Lorentz frame, or an
>extended region of them?
>--
>Nathan Urban | nurban@vt.edu | Undergrad {CS,Physics,Math} | Virginia Tech
I think you must have misquoted this theorem. Assume just such a group of objects
which are released from stationary positions at time zero. Surely, under Newtonian
mechanics, they will oscillate about some centroid with the enclosed volume
sometimes decreasing, sometimes increasing. In fact, occasionally some will be
ejected from the group, boil off, so to spesk, so that in this sense the volume
must increase. As an approximation, take a globular cluster. General relativity
ought to arrive at the same conclusion for weakly interacting particles.
PGWHITE
Subject: Re: What is a constant? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: moggin@mindspring.com (moggin)
Date: 19 Nov 1996 23:15:21 GMT
Mati --
Here are examples, as you requested, of the editing you performed
on some of my posts. I'm simply re-posting the replies I made at the
time, without any additional comment.
-- moggin
* * *
Mati:
>>>Just for example (I'm sure it'll go over your head but some of your
>>>friends may understand it) the set of complex numbers is a
>>>generalization on the set of real numbers. But, it contains in it
>>>something "unthinkable" in terms of real numbers alone, namely numbers
>>>the square of which yields a negative number. Nevertheless it is a
>>>generalization since it contains the real numbers as a proper subset
>>>and maintains the same structure of operations.
moggin:
>> Bad analogy, precisely because Newton's theory isn't a sub-set
>>of relativity,
Mati:
>Since it was already shown that it is, the above is nonsense.
Sorry, retreating into the passive voice won't help you -- I
notice you science-types do that alot -- "It was already shown," "You
have been told," etc., etc. No, dude -- you made a contention, that's
all. And I showed where I thought you were wrong -- although I could
just say, "And it was already shown that your demonstration was full
of shit."
In another post you claimed that I dismissed your point with
nothing more than a casual, "Bad analogy." That's a falsehood. You
started by ignoring evidence; now you've moved on to manufacturing
it by deleting material from my posts. Before your editing job, the
paragraph beginning "Bad analogy..." read as follows:
Bad analogy, precisely because Newton's theory isn't a sub-set
of relativity, and Einstein's universe doesn't have the same structure
as Newton's. In certain regions they appear similar, and the theories
produce comparable results, but that's not an example of generalizing.
Relativity doesn't generalize on Newton for the simple reason that it
doesn't operate on his principles. (You're probably confused by the
fact that in certain limits, it approximates the outcome of his laws,
with points where the two coincide.)
moggin:
>>>>>>The idea that all theories simply can't be wrong, so one of them
>>>>>>_must_ be right is sheer nonsense.
Mati:
>>>>>So you said. And you think that repeating something hundred times
>>>>>will make it so.
moggin:
>>>> No, I think your assertion has no possible basis -- at least,
>>>>I can't imagine one. Of course, that might just be a failure of my
>>>>imagination, but you certainly haven't offered any reason for me to
>>>>think that you're right. You've offered a proposition that seems to
>>>>be nonsense, and failed to support it. That's your prerogative, of
>>>>course, but it doesn't help your case, or boost confidence in any of
>>>>your other claims, or in your reasoning abilities, in general.
Mati:
>>>Whetehr you think I'm right or not is purely your business. I really
>>>couldn't care less. I'm talking to the people you keep misleading.
>>>>You just happen to make a convenient sounding board.
moggin:
>> I was being conversational. Since that was too hard for you
>>to understand, I'll re-phrase my point. You haven't offered a reason
>>for anyone to think you're right.
Mati:
>No. I just didn't offer a reason for you to think I'm right (you
>don't really think you represent everybody, do you). But what you
>think isn't important to me.
Another heavy-handed editing job. Let's try this again, with
the original version of my post:
[moggin:]
>> I was being conversational. Since that was too hard for you
>>to understand, I'll re-phrase my point. You haven't offered a reason
>>for anyone to think you're right. Matter of fact, you simply haven't
>>offered any support for your assertion at all. Its absurdity remains
>>undiminished.
As you can now see, I was pointing out that you didn't merely
fail to give reasons that I found convincing, you failed to offer any
support whatsoever for your assertion that if all theories are wrong,
one of them must be right.
I'm sorry you've become desperate enough to lower yourself to
this kind of thing -- I would have thought that it was beneath you.
[...]
Mati:
>>So far I answered any question you had. If you didn't understand the
>>answers, sorry.
moggin:
>> Was I speaking of questions? You've "answered" several of my
>>posts by saying, in effect, "I'm not talking to you! I'm not talking
>>to you!" That's juvenile. More importantly, it's not a reply to the
>>points that I've made. (However, it makes you a very good candidate
>>for talk.origins -- I think you could find a home there.)
Mati:
>Opinions differ. I think that I provided a coherent answer to any
>issue you've raised while you engaged in endless repetitions of "it
>ain't so". You happen to believe that by repeating "he didn't answer
>it" you'll make others believe that it is so. Well, I trust that they
>can read and make up their own mind.
Of course they can, and undoubtedly will. However, it would
be nice if you stopped trying to fiddle their reading material -- if
nothing else, that's bound to make you look bad in the eyes of your
public.
* * *
Peter [quoted by Mati]:
:>>Please note that the Riemannian picture could also be a generalization
:>>of other models; I don't know of any offhand, but that is not precluded.
Now _this_ is an interesting manuever! Instead of misquoting
me, you inserted the wrong quotation above my reply, turning my answer
into an apparent irrelevancy. I'll put things back the way they were.
Peter:
>>>And while it is only in the limit that the
>>>two correspond exactly, you will find that there is a very broad area
>>>of agreement, where the amount of percentage error is very small.
>>>In fact, the disagreement is so small, for most terrestrial enterprizes,
>>>that it is not detectable. And this is more than sufficient to justify
>>>the continued use of Newtonian mechanics: it has sufficient validity,
>>>and sufficient power, to make it extremely useful. And unlike GR, it
>>>is simple enough to use.
moggin:
:> With all due respect, this is irrelevant. I'm not suggesting
:>that Euclid should be banned, and I'm well aware that he has at least
:>a thousand-and-one practical uses. (Buy two -- keep one at home, one
:>at the office!) But that's immaterial, since the question isn't "How
:>much of an error can we get away with, if we never leave Earth?" but
:>rather, "What's the case with the universe?"
Subject: Re: Hempfling's Cryonics bafflegab
From: "Robert L. Watson"
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 15:20:23 -0800
Tom Potter wrote:
> As a non-religious person, it seems to me that
> it would be extremely difficult and time consuming
> to raise good atheist kids as they would tend to
> have casual attitudes toward lying, stealing,
> having casual sex, keeping their words, etc.
>
> Now, I raised three good, moral, athiest kids,
> but I must state that I had to deal with all
> moral issues on a one to one basis. It would
> be much easier to tell them that some God
> will deal with them, IF they do not conform to
> some laundry list of rules.
>
> Frankly, I have come to respect the concept
> of religion as I come to understand more
> about the world around me. I suggest that
> the better societies would evolve the
> laundry list of rules over some time,
> and that this would be better than for
> the people in a society to be whiplashed
> with constantly changing mores, promoted
> by government, industry and media.
An analogous question comes up conerning absolute versus situational ethics, even in a religious context.
Which is worse: to hard-code a list of absolute moral injunctions, which leaves no room for interpretation,
and so can go seriously astray in unusual circumstances; or just to spell out one or two high level principles,
and leave flexible interpretation to the discretion of the individual? Sometimes I'm inclined to believe that
the advantages of intelligent interpretation are outweighed by the tendency to bend the rules in favor of
personal ego objectives. Or to put it another way, the more power we have to choose, the greater the odds
become that we'll screw it up.
--
Robert L. Watson
rlwatson@amoco.com
Subject: Re: Time & space, still (was: Hermeneutics ...)
From: moggin@mindspring.com (moggin)
Date: 19 Nov 1996 23:21:27 GMT
patrick@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk (Patrick Juola):
[...]
>>>Once you have a set of consistent observations, one can make and test
>>>predictions against further observations. Evidence, then, is simply
>>>things that we observe -- and accuracy is the degree to which what
>>>we observe matches our predictions.
moggin@mindspring.com (moggin):
>> Damn right: that's why we always toss out inaccurate observations.
Patrick:
>Sometimes, yes. And then some damn fool comes along, tosses them back
>in, and produces a new theory that explains them all. Of course, the final
>clause is the important bit. Any damn fool can simply toss the inaccurate
>observations back in to muddy waters. (But, look! I measured a flashing
>12:00 for the elapsed time whe I didn't bother to reset the clock!)
Well, that's modern times for you -- nothing like the olden days,
when clocks, it's been said, would occasionally strike thirteen.
-- moggin
Subject: `CRAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN'!
From: edconrad@prolog.net (Ed Conrad)
Date: 19 Nov 1996 13:43:43 GMT
Jukka Korpela wrote to sci.anthropology and many other news groups,
seriously challenging the reputation of the human skull in the boulder
as ``The Most Important Fossil."
> edconrad@prolog.net (Ed Conrad) writes:
> The WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT FOSSIL, unquestionably, is
> a petrified human skull embedded in a boulder which was discovered
> between anthracite veins in Carboniferous strata near Shenandoah, Pa.
>
> I suppose no-one is fool enough to take this kind of crap
> seriously . . .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I suppose you're right, Jukka. After all, ``The Book" says it can't
be, so it certainly can't be.
Funny, though, that two individuals highly respected in their fields
-- Wilton M. Krogman, author of ``The Human Skeleton in Forensic
Medicine," and Raymond M. Dart, M.D., discoverer of the significance
of the Taung Skull and one of the world's most famous and respected
human anatomists -- felt my specimens not only COULD be petrified
bones, but are.
I suppose another believer would have to be Jeremy Dahl, the bone
expert at Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center -- the most
prestigious laboratory of its kind in the world -- who stated in
writing above his signature that one of the specimens he had examined
microscopically indeed is petrified bone.
Ditto for the expert at Teledyne Isotopes, the world's largest
independent research laboratory, who also said a specimen is petrified
bone.
And how about the veteran dentist who took an Xray of one of the
tooth-like specimens and confirmed, in writing, that it ``reads'' like
a tooth?
Or the physician-surgeon who interpreted the infra-red scan taken of a
different ``tooth" and stated in writing that the subtance was ``bone
or tooth" in origin?.
And how about the comparison of the cell structure of the ``petrified
bone" with non-petrified bone, revealing almost similiar-size
Haversian canals.
Or the SEM (scanning electron photographs) comparing the surface
features of the interior of the ``tibia-like" object, which
dramaticlaly resembles the surface features of bone.
I suppose you'r right, Jukka. There's just not enough physical
evidence.
``Crappy days are here again!"
Subject: Re: Time & space, still (was: Hermeneutics ...)
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 23:08:39 GMT
In article , sassociation@worldbank.org (Gene C. Miller) writes:
>In article , meron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:
>
>> In article ,
>sassociation@worldbank.org (Gene C. Miller) wrote:
>> >NNTP-Posting-Host: sa.worldbank.org
>
>> >If this is true, then the world could be quite different from the
>> >scientific descriptions of it.
>>
>> Coitenly. And if said difference gives rise to observable phenomena
>> then, sooner or later, they'll be observed and incorporated in the
>> scientific description. And, if they've no observable consequences
>> then as far as you know they don't exist.
>
>If science can lay no claim to saying "how things really are", then what
>exactly are you claiming when you claim that something "doesn't exist"?
>(How can you tell how far you know?)
>
Suppose you're asked to distinguish between the following hypotheses:
1) There exists a particle (insert here any name of your choice)
which has no interaction whatsoever with anything in the worls.
2) Said particle doesn't exist.
Can you distinguish between them?
Science deals with what's observable. The term "exists" in science
means "has observable consequences, at least in principle".
>Or is the question of existence also completely unrelated to the question
>of "how things really are"? Remember here that you have volunteered that
>science pronounces not merely on what is relevant to its work, but on what
>exists and what doesn't, which seems a far broader claim. Do you agree?
I agree. See above what is meant by "exists".
>>
>> >But if scientific descriptions are modified, updated, and changed
>> >only by subsequent scientific descriptions, then, as you say, we
>> >haven't really gained any ground on "how things really are."
>>
>> Didn't I just say that science has no business with this. Define how
>> you distinguish "how things really are" from "how we observe them to
>> be".
>
>Supposing I were to do this, would such a definition itself be scientific?
If the definition prescribes an operational way to distinguish between
the two, it is scientific.
>
>Since you've already claimed this distinction as valid (and perhaps even
>universal!), which discipline has produced the definition that science is
>unconcerned with "how things really are"? Has it been developed and
>confirmed by one or another of the sciences? If so, when, where, and by
>which scientist? If not, then is it properly scientific? If it is not
>scientific, then what is it? And what are the implications of having a
>principle from "outside" science that defines the limits of science?
Whoa, lots of questions here. All the distinction means is abolishing
pretentiousness. Our contact with the outside world is through
observations. To specify "how things really are" you would've to have
at your disposition the complete set of all possible observations and
be able to prove it. Can you?
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: Re: What is a constant? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: moggin@mindspring.com (moggin)
Date: 19 Nov 1996 23:45:21 GMT
moggin:
>>>>The only fraud committed in our conversation was your rewriting
>>>>of some of my posts. Aside from the, the worst we've seen is your
>>>>constant weaseling, as demonstrated here -- but I'd hardly call that
>>>>"fraud."
Mati:
>>:Since you keep asserting it, lets see an example. Mind you, it has to
>>:be rewritting, not snipping. Snipping is routine and necessery,
>>:without it this post would've been some 100000 lines long already.
moggin:
>> You're really a masochist, aren't you? Suddenly I understand
>>this entire conversation. O.k., if you insist, I'll post them for
>>you, just as I posted all the statements you denied making.
Mati:
>Please do.
Done. By the by, your notion of "routine snipping" is highly
questionable. Not only do you eliminate context, you habitually
erase comments that bother you, down to the level of individual
sentences: often ones offering conclusions that you would rather
ignore. I haven't bothered to complain since that kind of thing
is, unfortunately, routine on the net.
>>But I'm getting tired of these games.
>Yep, that's evident. Well, all you need to do is stop posting to
>sci.physics and go back to a.p. That'll allow you to write anything
>you wish.
I'm happily in a.p. right now; ask somebody to explain cross-
posting to you.
-- moggin
Subject: Re: What is a constant? (was: Sophistry 103)
From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 23:57:22 GMT
In article , moggin@mindspring.com (moggin) writes:
>Mati --
>
> Here are examples, as you requested, of the editing you performed
>on some of my posts. I'm simply re-posting the replies I made at the
>time, without any additional comment.
>
>-- moggin
>
> * * *
>
>Mati:
>
>>>>Just for example (I'm sure it'll go over your head but some of your
>>>>friends may understand it) the set of complex numbers is a
>>>>generalization on the set of real numbers. But, it contains in it
>>>>something "unthinkable" in terms of real numbers alone, namely numbers
>>>>the square of which yields a negative number. Nevertheless it is a
>>>>generalization since it contains the real numbers as a proper subset
>>>>and maintains the same structure of operations.
>
>moggin:
>
>>> Bad analogy, precisely because Newton's theory isn't a sub-set
>>>of relativity,
>
>Mati:
>
>>Since it was already shown that it is, the above is nonsense.
>
> Sorry, retreating into the passive voice won't help you -- I
>notice you science-types do that alot -- "It was already shown," "You
>have been told," etc., etc. No, dude -- you made a contention, that's
>all. And I showed where I thought you were wrong -- although I could
>just say, "And it was already shown that your demonstration was full
>of shit."
>
> In another post you claimed that I dismissed your point with
>nothing more than a casual, "Bad analogy." That's a falsehood. You
>started by ignoring evidence; now you've moved on to manufacturing
>it by deleting material from my posts. Before your editing job, the
>paragraph beginning "Bad analogy..." read as follows:
>
> Bad analogy, precisely because Newton's theory isn't a sub-set
>of relativity, and Einstein's universe doesn't have the same structure
>as Newton's. In certain regions they appear similar, and the theories
>produce comparable results, but that's not an example of generalizing.
>Relativity doesn't generalize on Newton for the simple reason that it
>doesn't operate on his principles. (You're probably confused by the
>fact that in certain limits, it approximates the outcome of his laws,
>with points where the two coincide.)
>
>moggin:
>
>>>>>>>The idea that all theories simply can't be wrong, so one of them
>>>>>>>_must_ be right is sheer nonsense.
>
>Mati:
>
>>>>>>So you said. And you think that repeating something hundred times
>>>>>>will make it so.
>
>moggin:
>
>>>>> No, I think your assertion has no possible basis -- at least,
>>>>>I can't imagine one. Of course, that might just be a failure of my
>>>>>imagination, but you certainly haven't offered any reason for me to
>>>>>think that you're right. You've offered a proposition that seems to
>>>>>be nonsense, and failed to support it. That's your prerogative, of
>>>>>course, but it doesn't help your case, or boost confidence in any of
>>>>>your other claims, or in your reasoning abilities, in general.
>
>Mati:
>
>>>>Whetehr you think I'm right or not is purely your business. I really
>>>>couldn't care less. I'm talking to the people you keep misleading.
>>>>>You just happen to make a convenient sounding board.
>
>moggin:
>
>>> I was being conversational. Since that was too hard for you
>>>to understand, I'll re-phrase my point. You haven't offered a reason
>>>for anyone to think you're right.
>
>Mati:
>
>>No. I just didn't offer a reason for you to think I'm right (you
>>don't really think you represent everybody, do you). But what you
>>think isn't important to me.
>
> Another heavy-handed editing job. Let's try this again, with
>the original version of my post:
>
>[moggin:]
>
>>> I was being conversational. Since that was too hard for you
>>>to understand, I'll re-phrase my point. You haven't offered a reason
>>>for anyone to think you're right. Matter of fact, you simply haven't
>>>offered any support for your assertion at all. Its absurdity remains
>>>undiminished.
>
> As you can now see, I was pointing out that you didn't merely
>fail to give reasons that I found convincing, you failed to offer any
>support whatsoever for your assertion that if all theories are wrong,
>one of them must be right.
>
> I'm sorry you've become desperate enough to lower yourself to
>this kind of thing -- I would have thought that it was beneath you.
>
>[...]
>
>Mati:
>
>>>So far I answered any question you had. If you didn't understand the
>>>answers, sorry.
>
>moggin:
>
>>> Was I speaking of questions? You've "answered" several of my
>>>posts by saying, in effect, "I'm not talking to you! I'm not talking
>>>to you!" That's juvenile. More importantly, it's not a reply to the
>>>points that I've made. (However, it makes you a very good candidate
>>>for talk.origins -- I think you could find a home there.)
>
>Mati:
>
>>Opinions differ. I think that I provided a coherent answer to any
>>issue you've raised while you engaged in endless repetitions of "it
>>ain't so". You happen to believe that by repeating "he didn't answer
>>it" you'll make others believe that it is so. Well, I trust that they
>>can read and make up their own mind.
>
> Of course they can, and undoubtedly will. However, it would
>be nice if you stopped trying to fiddle their reading material -- if
>nothing else, that's bound to make you look bad in the eyes of your
>public.
>
>
> * * *
>
>Peter [quoted by Mati]:
>
>:>>Please note that the Riemannian picture could also be a generalization
>:>>of other models; I don't know of any offhand, but that is not precluded.
>
> Now _this_ is an interesting manuever! Instead of misquoting
>me, you inserted the wrong quotation above my reply, turning my answer
>into an apparent irrelevancy. I'll put things back the way they were.
>
>Peter:
>
>>>>And while it is only in the limit that the
>>>>two correspond exactly, you will find that there is a very broad area
>>>>of agreement, where the amount of percentage error is very small.
>>>>In fact, the disagreement is so small, for most terrestrial enterprizes,
>>>>that it is not detectable. And this is more than sufficient to justify
>>>>the continued use of Newtonian mechanics: it has sufficient validity,
>>>>and sufficient power, to make it extremely useful. And unlike GR, it
>>>>is simple enough to use.
>
>moggin:
>
>:> With all due respect, this is irrelevant. I'm not suggesting
>:>that Euclid should be banned, and I'm well aware that he has at least
>:>a thousand-and-one practical uses. (Buy two -- keep one at home, one
>:>at the office!) But that's immaterial, since the question isn't "How
>:>much of an error can we get away with, if we never leave Earth?" but
>:>rather, "What's the case with the universe?"
Lovely. In short, you've no material whatsoever to support your
assertion that I engaged in fraudulent editing of your posts. Just
like I thought. Still, you've produced a post entartaining enough to
be worth keeping in my archives. Thank you. Keep up the good work.
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Subject: Re: Physics Question........
From: Alan \"Uncle Al\" Schwartz
Date: 20 Nov 1996 00:04:05 GMT
pmars@en.com (Hiker) wrote:
>I hope someone can give me an answer to this question.....I'm only a
>microbiologist, and I know I learned this sometime long ago and far away,
>but the answer eludes me...
>
>What force is at work to prevent an electron (in the lowest "orbital" or
>energy level) from being attracted to the nucleus? They have opposite
>charges. Also..is this force mediated by a particle?
An electron in, for instance, the Bohr orbit of a hydrogen atom is in its
lowest energy state. To go closer in or further out from the nucleus
requires energy input and is metastable.
Or, the innermost electron is at its lowest energy as a half-standing
wave about the nucleus. Everything else is kept inflated by Fermi
statistics.
Or, s-orbital electrons have a finite probability of being in the atomic
nucleus. However, being leptons, they are unaffected by the strong
nuclear force (which only affects hadrons). Electordynamics are
insufficent to overcome quantum mechanics (first paragraph).
Or, it happens - electron capture decay in Ta-175,176,177,178m. Maybe
common matter just has a really long half-life (low probability for the
event).
--
Alan "Uncle Al" Schwartz
UncleAl0@ix.netcom.com ("zero" before @)
http://www.ultra.net.au/~wisby/uncleal.htm
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children, Democrats, and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!
Subject: Re: Earth's rotating speed
From: kfoster@rainbow.rmii.com (Kurt Foster)
Date: 20 Nov 1996 00:00:15 GMT
In <32902D21.4DF6@unifr.ch>, Olivier Glassey asked the
readers of sci.astro and sci.physics about
Subject: Earth's rotating speed
as follows:
- A few years ago, one second was added to all the clocks
- of the world. I think it was done because the earth's
- rotating speed is decreasing. But, according to W. Greiner
- (German scientist), the day is today only 0.0165 seconds
- longer than 1000 years ago, which means that one second
- should only be added each 166 years.
-
- Therefore, I'd like to ask a few questions:
- 1) am I wrong?
- 2) if not, is Greiner wrong?
- 3) if not, why didn't we wait a little century before
- changing the time?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The following may be of some use. From
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 06 Nov 96 4:45:08 GMT
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.answers,news.answers
Subject: [sci.astro] (Astronomy) Frequently Asked Questions (3/8)
Expires: Fri, 22 Nov 96 4:45:08 GMT
Message-ID: <08450407Nov96_3@ism.tn.cornell.edu>
Summary: This posting addresses frequently asked questions about time,
calendars, and and related terrestrial phenomena.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
we find,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
. If you are interested in time more precisely than 1 s, then you'll
. have to differentiate between the following versions of Universal
. Time:
.
. UT0 is the precise solar local time on the zero meridian. It is today
. measured by radio telescopes which observe quasars.
.
. UT1 is UT0 corrected by a periodic effect known as Chandler wobble or
. "polar wandering", i.e., small changes in the longitude/latitude
. of all places on the Earth due to the fact that the geographical
. poles of the Earth "wander" in semi-regular patterns: the poles
. follow (very approximately) small circles, about 10--20 meters in
. diameter, with a period of approximately 400--500 days. The
. changes in the longitude/latitude of all places of Earth due to
. this amounts to fractions of an arc second
. (1 arc second = 1/3600 degree).
.
. UT2 is an even better corrected version of UT0 which accounts for
. seasonal variations in the Earth's rotation rate and is sometimes
. used in astronomy.
.
. UTC (Universal Time, Coordinated) is a time defined not by the
. movement of the earth, but by a large collection of atomic clocks
. located all over the world, the atomic time scale TAI. When UTC
. and UT1 are about to drift apart more than 0.9 s, a leap second
. will be inserted (or deleted, but this never has happened) into
. UTC to correct this. When necessary, leap seconds are inserted as
. the 61th second of the last UTC minute of June or December. During
. a leap second, a UTC clock (e.g., a GPS receiver) shows:
.
. 1995-12-31 23:59:59
. 1995-12-31 23:59:60
. 1996-01-01 00:00:00
.
. The C in UTC stands for "coordinated." Today, practically all
. national civil times are defined relative to UTC and differ from
. UTC by an integral number of hours (sometimes also half- or
. quarter-hours). UTC is defined in ITU-R Recommendation TF.460-4
. and was introduced in 1972.
.
. If you are interested in UTC more precisely than a microsecond,
. then you also have to consider the following differences:
.
. The abbreviation UTC can be followed by an abbreviation of the
. organization who publishes this time reference signal.
. For example, UTC(USNO) is the US reference time published by the
. US Naval Observatory, UTC(PTB) is the official German reference
. time signal published (via a 77.5 kHz long-wave broadcast) by the
. Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig and
. UTC(BIPM) is the most official time published by the Bureau
. International des Poids et Mesures in Paris, however UTC(BIPM) is
. only a filtered paper clock published each year that is used by
. the other time maintainers to resynchronize their clocks against
. each other. All these UTC versions do not differ by more than a
. few nanoseconds.
.
. DUT1 is the difference between UTC and UT1 as published by the US
. Naval Observatory rounded to 0.1 s each week. This results in the
. UT1 which is used e.g., for space navigation.
.
. ET (Ephemeris Time): Somewhere around 1930--1940, astronomers noticed
. that errors in celestial positions of planets could be explained by
. assuming that they were due to slow variations on the Earth's
. rotation. Starting in 1960, the time scale Ephemeris Time (ET) was
. introduced for astronomical purposes. ET closely matches UT in the
. 19th century, but in the 20th century ET and UT have been diverging
. more and more. Currently ET is running almost precisely one minute
. ahead of UT. In 1984, ET was replaced by Dynamical Time and TT. For
. most purposes, ET up to 1983-12-31 and TDT from 1984-01-01 can be
. regarded as a continuous time-scale.
.
. TT and Dynamical Time: Introduced in 1984 as a replacement for ET, it
. defines a uniform astronomical time scale more accurately, taking
. relativistic effects into account. There are two kinds of Dynamical
. Time: TDT (Terrestrial Dynamical Time), which is a time scale tied to the
. Earth, and TDB (Barycentric Dynamical Time), used as a time reference
. for the barycenter of the solar system. The difference between TDT and
. TDB is always smaller than a few milliseconds. When the difference
. TDT-TDB is not important, TDT is referred to as TT. For most purposes,
. TDT can be considered equal to TAI + 32.184 seconds.
.
. TAI (Temps Atomique International = International Atomic Time):
. Defined by the same worldwide network of atomic clocks that defines
. UTC. In contrast to UTC, TAI has no leap seconds. TAI and UTC were
. identical in the late 1950s. The difference between TAI and UTC is
. always an integral number of seconds. TAI is the most uniform time
. scale we currently have available.
.
