who else thinks that physics/science has taken a turn to a false science.

[campesino]

I feel that quantum mechanics and the big bang theory and related theories are untrue. I've tried to understand it but it doesn't make sense to me, it also seems very esoteric and BS-sy/ish. I've read about the experiment to determine whether an electrons/photons is a wave or a particle, such as the double slit experiment. I don't know it just seems weird to me. I can understand classical physics and Einstein, but I can't wrap my head head around quantum physics, to me it seems it was based on a bad interpretation of experiments and the science is now built upon the faulty interpretation.

[Ocean Seal]

I feel that quantum mechanics and the big bang theory and related theories are untrue. I've tried to understand it but it doesn't make sense to me, it also seems very esoteric and BS-sy/ish. I've read about the experiment to determine whether an electrons/photons is a wave or a particle, such as the double slit experiment. I don't know it just seems weird to me. I can understand classical physics and Einstein, but I can't wrap my head head around quantum physics, to me it seems it was based on a bad interpretation of experiments and the science is now built upon the faulty interpretation.
No quantum mechanics is very well rooted in experimental science and considerable mathematics. Its not a false science and there is no reason to believe that experiments such as the double-slit have brought about false conclusions. The reason why you feel this way is because quantum mechanics is a young science. Especially things like quantum electro-dynamics. Einstein should seem equally esoteric. Why can't you exceed the speed of light? That to me at least at first seemed like an absurd claim.

[campesino]

I've come to my conclusion, based on how it makes no sense. I used to not understand Einsteins, explanation of Gravity, and now I do. I used to not understand the speed of light limit and now I do. I know it seems, I am being ignorant, but when i didn't understand Einstein's theories, I certainly saw their effect in the real world. With quantum mechanics I see no effect or application to the real world, I don't even see how the experiments prove it is right. Quantum mechanics has the principle of wave particle duality. the double slit experiment results in light and molecules acting as waves when a particle detector is not there, but as a particle when there is a particle detector. Can you explain that to me?

[Lynx]

Hey, if the math works, it must be right. Like String Theory.

[Comrade Trollface]

The wave is the particle and the particle is the wave. If you cannot wrap your mind around that, try dropping some acid and contemplating it. Maybe listen to some Sun Ra while you're at it.

[Q]

With quantum mechanics I see no effect or application to the real world, I don't even see how the experiments prove it is right.

Eh? Considerable amounts of technology is based on our understanding of quantum mechanics.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

What might not be helping matters for the OP is the tendency of pseudoscientists and New Age cranks to use "quantum" woo in a pathetic attempt to justify their bullshit. They particularly like the Copenhagen interpretation as it appears to place primacy on observers, which is perfectly in accord with the kind of "mind over matter" horseshit they love to promulgate.

[Blake's Baby]

I've come to my conclusion, based on how it makes no sense. I used to not understand Einsteins, explanation of Gravity, and now I do. I used to not understand the speed of light limit and now I do. I know it seems, I am being ignorant, but when i didn't understand Einstein's theories, I certainly saw their effect in the real world. With quantum mechanics I see no effect or application to the real world, I don't even see how the experiments prove it is right. Quantum mechanics has the principle of wave particle duality. the double slit experiment results in light and molecules acting as waves when a particle detector is not there, but as a particle when there is a particle detector. Can you explain that to me?

Yes. If it does one thing (goes through a slit) when you are checking the slit (ie it acts like a particle), and another thing (interferes with itself) when you are checking the collector (ie acts like a wave) then that's the 'duality'.

It appears to have a 'dual' nature because it can behave in two ways. Experiment proves the wave particle duality, repeatedly light acts as photons (particles) if you measure 'which slit it came through' and repeatedly light acts as waves if you measure 'what's the interference'.

As you can do this with measures of light as low as 'one hypothetical photon', it's impossible for a single packet of light to interfere with itself if it's also a coherent body.

There are two gates in a wall; people can go through them one at a time, but both gates can be occupied. If they are, the people will bump into each other on the far side. If they're not simultaneously occupied, they won't. What can't happen is that a person going through one gate can bump into someone now, that will go through the gate in five minutes.

Light, however, can 'bump' into other light that hasn't arrived yet.

The predictions of quantum mechanics underly pretty much all modern technology. They've been experimentally vindicated time and time and time again. Einstein wasted 30 years trying to demonstrate that quantum mechanics was wrong and all he succeeded in doing was giving Neils Bohr a series of opportunities to demonstrate its validity. If quantum mechanics is wrong, then your computer, monitor, TV, mobile phone, fridge and a host of other things don't work. If they do, quantum mechanics is working normally.

Bohr once said words to the effect that 'anyone who is not appalled by the implications of quantum mechanics has not understood it'. It is contrary to our 'rational' view of the world. But that doesn't mean it's wrong. With all due respect, because it is hard to get one's head around - as I mentioned, you'd be in good company, with Einstein, in rejecting it, but then again, he was wrong - the failure is not in quantum mechanics, but in your acceptance of it. Either, you can't understand it (even though it is understandable, in which case I recommend the works of John Gribben, a very good writer on the development of quantum theory, who explains things very well - In Search of Schrodinger's Cat is a great start), or you don't want to believe that it's true, even though it is. Not sure that there's a viable third option to be honest.

[homegrown terror]

here's a question: if nothing, either matter or force, can exceed the speed of light, but light it sucked into black holes, mustn't the force of the black hole's gravity be operating faster than the speed of light in order to divert the course of the photons and draw them in?

[Blake's Baby]

No.

You push a ball up a hill, how fast does the hill operate?



EDIT: that might not be terribly helpful; I'll try to explain better.

When a black hole forms, it emits a blast of light. No matter how much energy that black hole subsequently gets, it can never 'catch' its own light-pulse. There is nothing that you or God or anyone else can do to that black hole that means that it can ever travel fast enough, receive enough energy or mass to expand enough, attain enough gravity to tug at the light, or do anything else, to catch that pulse of light.


It might help if for a moment you stop thinking of gravity as a force and think of it as a property or a dimension instead. Things have length, width, depth... and gravity. Up, along, back, and uurgh are the physical properties of objects in space.

Can an object travel faster than light? No. Can it be 'longer' (wider, deeper) than light? Yes. Something (eg a Galaxy) can be so huge it can take decades or centuries for light to travel from one end to the other. This doesn't mean the object is travelling faster than light. Just that it's really long (it has a lot of the quality called 'length').

Likewise, an object can have so much gravity ('uurgh') that it affects light. It has more gravity than light, as a big object has more length than light. It is so full of uurgh that it affects light itself. Is it moving faster? No more than a galaxy is because it takes 300 years for light to pass from one edge to the other.



Time, meh, time's a force. Gravity is a dimension.

[campesino]

Yes. If it does one thing (goes through a slit) when you are checking the slit (ie it acts like a particle), and another thing (interferes with itself) when you are checking the collector (ie acts like a wave) then that's the 'duality'.

It appears to have a 'dual' nature because it can behave in two ways. Experiment proves the wave particle duality, repeatedly light acts as photons (particles) if you measure 'which slit it came through' and repeatedly light acts as waves if you measure 'what's the interference'.

As you can do this with measures of light as low as 'one hypothetical photon', it's impossible for a single packet of light to interfere with itself if it's also a coherent body.

There are two gates in a wall; people can go through them one at a time, but both gates can be occupied. If they are, the people will bump into each other on the far side. If they're not simultaneously occupied, they won't. What can't happen is that a person going through one gate can bump into someone now, that will go through the gate in five minutes.

Light, however, can 'bump' into other light that hasn't arrived yet.



I question quantum mechanics, because it hasn't explained why "Light, however, can 'bump' into other light that hasn't arrived yet."

or how a particle detector changes wave-particle duality.

it doesn't explain the wave particle duality.

all it does is say wave particle duality exist and it happens because, it just does. That is my understanding of it and it might be very ignorant, if there exist an explanation of wave particle duality, rather than experiments that proves its existence, I would love to read it and reconsider my views. So far there is no explanation(of my knowledge) yet quantum physics keeps marching on.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I question quantum mechanics, because it hasn't explained why "Light, however, can 'bump' into other light that hasn't arrived yet."

or how a particle detector changes wave-particle duality.

it doesn't explain the wave particle duality.

all it does is say wave particle duality exist and it happens because, it just does. That is my understanding of it and it might be very ignorant, if there exist an explanation of wave particle duality, rather than experiments that proves its existence, I would love to read it and reconsider my views. So far there is no explanation(of my knowledge) yet quantum physics keeps marching on.

The idea is that wave-particle duality is the best explanation for the observed behaviour of particles in experiments. Before further experiments eliminated them, scientists were debating as to whether purely particle or wave-based models were the best explanation, but as scientists became increasingly familiar with the behaviour of the universe at the subatomic scale, they discovered that physics at that level works in a counter-intuitive fashion.

Take gravity. At the human scale, it appears to the be this all-pervasive thing that effectively pushes most things in one direction, towards the ground. But if one realises that gravity is a function of mass, then one can calculate that everything has a gravitational pull, but that noticeable gravity requires the presence of non-trivial amounts of mass. Thus really massive objects like stars and planets settle into a state of hydrostatic equilibrium, making them spherical. But the difference of scale between a plant like the Earth and a unaided human observer means that one appears to be standing on a flat plane instead.

If it turns out through repeatedly verified observations and experiments that the universe looks quite different on very large scales, then why should it come as a surprise, let alone a skeptical response, when things turn out to be different yet again at very small scales?

It's not just photons that display wave-like behaviour, either. If I remember correctly, all particles are capable of wave-like behaviour under certain conditions, with more massive particles being less likely to display wave-like behaviour.

[Kenco Smooth]

I question quantum mechanics, because it hasn't explained why "Light, however, can 'bump' into other light that hasn't arrived yet."

or how a particle detector changes wave-particle duality.

it doesn't explain the wave particle duality.

all it does is say wave particle duality exist and it happens because, it just does. That is my understanding of it and it might be very ignorant, if there exist an explanation of wave particle duality, rather than experiments that proves its existence, I would love to read it and reconsider my views. So far there is no explanation(of my knowledge) yet quantum physics keeps marching on.

Welcome to physics. If that unnerves you then you'd also no doubt have taken issue with the Newtonic view of the universe when it was predominate. After all, it said nothing on how gravity worked or what gravity was. But thankfully science left these questions to the philosophers and theologians and went ahead to mathematically model how the universe works anyway. All science ever constructed has never gotten past an eventual stopping point where they have to accept that the universe on this level 'just is'. It is an endpoint in no way unique to quantum theory.

[homegrown terror]

No.

You push a ball up a hill, how fast does the hill operate?



EDIT: that might not be terribly helpful; I'll try to explain better.

When a black hole forms, it emits a blast of light. No matter how much energy that black hole subsequently gets, it can never 'catch' its own light-pulse. There is nothing that you or God or anyone else can do to that black hole that means that it can ever travel fast enough, receive enough energy or mass to expand enough, attain enough gravity to tug at the light, or do anything else, to catch that pulse of light.


It might help if for a moment you stop thinking of gravity as a force and think of it as a property or a dimension instead. Things have length, width, depth... and gravity. Up, along, back, and uurgh are the physical properties of objects in space.

Can an object travel faster than light? No. Can it be 'longer' (wider, deeper) than light? Yes. Something (eg a Galaxy) can be so huge it can take decades or centuries for light to travel from one end to the other. This doesn't mean the object is travelling faster than light. Just that it's really long (it has a lot of the quality called 'length').

Likewise, an object can have so much gravity ('uurgh') that it affects light. It has more gravity than light, as a big object has more length than light. It is so full of uurgh that it affects light itself. Is it moving faster? No more than a galaxy is because it takes 300 years for light to pass from one edge to the other.



Time, meh, time's a force. Gravity is a dimension.

i always saw it as, to quote your example, the hill wasn't "operating" at all, but the earth's gravity was operating at a speed up to an object's terminal velocity. the explanation does make a bit more sense though. so would the black hole technically be bigger in dimension as well as mass than what we can actually observe then?

[Lynx]

Not sure that there's a viable third option to be honest.
The 'third option' is an alternative explanation for observed effects. This happens frequently in economics and can occur in science. Developing new experiments can uncover previously unobserved effects. If this leads to inconsistencies, then theories have to be revised.


If quantum mechanics is wrong, then your computer, monitor, TV, mobile phone, fridge and a host of other things don't work.
If they operate according to QM then you should be able to point out aspects of their design that make use of (or compensate for) QM effects.

[danyboy27]

I head somewhere this little gem:
IF you think you understand quantum mechanics, you dont understand it at all.

[Lynx]

Welcome to physics. If that unnerves you then you'd also no doubt have taken issue with the Newtonic view of the universe when it was predominate. After all, it said nothing on how gravity worked or what gravity was. But thankfully science left these questions to the philosophers and theologians and went ahead to mathematically model how the universe works anyway. All science ever constructed has never gotten past an eventual stopping point where they have to accept that the universe on this level 'just is'. It is an endpoint in no way unique to quantum theory.
Surely physics has not reached an endpoint. There must be ideas as to new experiments or instruments?
Would a larger particle accelerator be useful?

[Lynx]

For the record, I don't have a problem with QM. String Theory on the other hand...

[Skyhilist]

Just because all of the details of quantum physics (supersymmetry for example) aren't entirely worked out yet, doesn't make it false science. That fact is that much of it is proven and is even rooted in universal scientific agreement like the ability of particles to act as waves.

[Comrade Trollface]

Has anyone mentioned quantum computing yet by the way? The field is still in its infancy, but it is the clearest example of tech that just wouldn't work if QM was simply pseudoscientific horseshit.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Surely physics has not reached an endpoint. There must be ideas as to new experiments or instruments?
Would a larger particle accelerator be useful?

I take Leeb rocks to mean that no matter how much we discover, the number of potential questions one can ask are unending.


For the record, I don't have a problem with QM. String Theory on the other hand...

...is actually a hypothesis?

[Book O'Dead]

I feel that quantum mechanics and the big bang theory and related theories are untrue. I've tried to understand it but it doesn't make sense to me, it also seems very esoteric and BS-sy/ish. I've read about the experiment to determine whether an electrons/photons is a wave or a particle, such as the double slit experiment. I don't know it just seems weird to me. I can understand classical physics and Einstein, but I can't wrap my head head around quantum physics, to me it seems it was based on a bad interpretation of experiments and the science is now built upon the faulty interpretation.

I think I understand your dilemma.

For those of us--and I emphasize 'us'--who are illiterate in mathematics and physics it all seems like one big inscrutable puzzle. But there are many sources that can help us understand in very general terms these complex sciences.

For example, I recommend watching Carl Sagan's TV series 'Cosmos (http://www.hulu.com/cosmos)' on DVD. Also, the PBS documentary 'The Atom Smashers (http://documentaryheaven.com/the-atom-smashers/)' (also HERE) (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/atomsmashers/) which explains the search for the Higgs boson and the competition for the search between Fermilab and CERN.

But, really, I respect your skepticism. After all, skepticism in one of the mindsets necessary for scientific inquiry.

It's important for the layperson to be able to distinguish between real science and pseudoscience. Look, for example, how so many people in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries fell for the falsehoods of Eugenics and the distorted, perverse interpretation of Darwinian natural selection that the Nazis used to justify their racist ideology.

Skepticism is never unhealthy.

[Skyhilist]

Has anyone mentioned quantum computing yet by the way? The field is still in its infancy, but it is the clearest example of tech that just wouldn't work if QM was simply pseudoscientific horseshit.

Ahhh yes I've heard about that. Seems like a very promising field. I believe they've even made a few quantum computers that can preform basic functions, but as of not it's about at that stage that regular computers were in terms of size and function in the 1950s.

[Lynx]

I take Leeb rocks to mean that no matter how much we discover, the number of potential questions one can ask are unending.
Is this true of particle physics?

...is actually a hypothesis?
Not even a hypothesis, if it can't be tested.

[campesino]

The idea is that wave-particle duality is the best explanation for the observed behaviour of particles in experiments.

wave-particle duality isn't an explanation, wave-particle duality is the behavior of the particles in experiments, and it demands an explanation.

If someone can please finish the following sentence I would love to reconsider my views(I don't like not understanding science).

"The wave function collapses in presence of a particle detector because....."

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

wave-particle duality isn't an explanation, wave-particle duality is the behavior of the particles in experiments, and it demands an explanation.

If someone can please finish the following sentence I would love to reconsider my views(I don't like not understanding science).

"The wave function collapses in presence of a particle detector because....."

We don't know. Finding out why is part of the measurement problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem) in quantum mechanics, of which the various interpretations of quantum mechanics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics) constitute different approaches in resolving the problem.

Wave-particle duality has been definitively observed, so I don't understand how you can be skeptical of QM itself, rather than the various interpretations of it.

[Comrade Trollface]

Ahhh yes I've heard about that. Seems like a very promising field. I believe they've even made a few quantum computers that can preform basic functions, but as of not it's about at that stage that regular computers were in terms of size and function in the 1950s.Maybe function, but definitely not in terms of size. Existing quantum computers are anything but ballroom-sized labyrinths of punch cards and vacuum tubes. They're pretty tiny. And things are moving pretty fast at this point. Like:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/18/first-light-wave-quantum-teleportation-achieved-opens-door-to-u/

http://www.dwavesys.com/en/pressreleases.html#lm_2011

http://www.viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/2011/operational-quantum-computing334119.htm

http://www.futurity.org/science-technology/quantum-computer-built-inside-diamond/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400930,00.asp

[Raúl Duke]

Good news everybody!

They detected a black matter string or something like that between two galaxies today and yesterday they detected a Boson-like particle that may just be (or has been ascertain to be exactly) the Higgs-Boson particle.

But to be honest, I don't know much about physics.

However, I agree with Noxion, a lot of the "BS about quantum physics" come about with the whole observer-centric "Copenhagen interpretation" which some people used to say New Agey shit that when I first heard of it I thought "well quantum physics is BS" but on closer exception realized that what they did was misinterpret the information. "Sure it may seem like the particle 'knows what you're thinking' or whatever" but that's because to observe this particles we need to shoot objects at them. (Thus particle smashers like the collider at CERN) SO, I assume the natural behavior of this particles are inferred from these tests but in these tests those particles are taken out of their natural process by shooting waves/particles at them which of course will effect their behavior for a bit. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm no quantum scientist.

[Kenco Smooth]

Surely physics has not reached an endpoint. There must be ideas as to new experiments or instruments?


I didn't mean physics has no where to advance to. I meant simply that no science to date (and I may even venture ever) has been able to provide causal explanations for every single item of overarching theory. Imagine the child who consistently follows up an innocent enough question with 'but why?'. You can follow the causal train back a long way through explanation after explanation but eventually you hit a point where 'it just is'. Under Aristotelianism objects just did move to their natural place in the cosmos, under Newtonism gravity just is force at a distance and in modern physics the most basic behaviour of particles and waves at a subatomic level just do act in the manner they do. The fact that the causal tree of explanation ends here is no indictment of a science if science is properly understood. This ignorance of base 'why' questions is what allowed Newton to model the behavior of bodies mathematically. It is more strength than weakness if anything.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

I don't understand Quantum Mechanics either, but that won't make me reject it.
As a biologist I trust that the physicists know their stuff.

[Lynx]

I didn't mean physics has no where to advance to. I meant simply that no science to date (and I may even venture ever) has been able to provide causal explanations for every single item of overarching theory. Imagine the child who consistently follows up an innocent enough question with 'but why?'. You can follow the causal train back a long way through explanation after explanation but eventually you hit a point where 'it just is'. Under Aristotelianism objects just did move to their natural place in the cosmos, under Newtonism gravity just is force at a distance and in modern physics the most basic behaviour of particles and waves at a subatomic level just do act in the manner they do. The fact that the causal tree of explanation ends here is no indictment of a science if science is properly understood. This ignorance of base 'why' questions is what allowed Newton to model the behavior of bodies mathematically. It is more strength than weakness if anything.
If you agree that science is a work in progress, then naturally there will be questions left unanswered. Consequently, theories can never be assumed to be 'complete'.
From an engineering standpoint, there are areas of physics that can be considered 'complete'.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

If you agree that science is a work in progress, then naturally there will be questions left unanswered. Consequently, theories can never be assumed to be 'complete'.
From an engineering standpoint, there are areas of physics that can be considered 'complete'.

Isn't that because engineering is an "applied" rather than a "pure" science? Research scientists have to be exact in order to be scientifically rigorous. Engineers have to be exact if the job calls for it, but aren't interested if it isn't relevant to the project at hand.

Also if I remember correctly most engineers do not receive formal training in scientific investigation, which is why relatively speaking more engineers than scientists hold creationist views.

[homegrown terror]

I don't understand Quantum Mechanics either, but that won't make me reject it.
As a biologist I trust that the physicists know their stuff.

to quote someone i can't remember "biology is just applied chemistry. chemistry is just applied physics. physics is just applied math." :D

[Lynx]

Isn't that because engineering is an "applied" rather than a "pure" science? Research scientists have to be exact in order to be scientifically rigorous. Engineers have to be exact if the job calls for it, but aren't interested if it isn't relevant to the project at hand.
In general, engineers have to deal with technological limitations. If a project does not work as predicted, the problem is rarely due to lack of scientific understanding. Materials and processes used in manufacturing are common stumbling blocks, as well as design flaws. Engineering can also come up with workarounds to certain problems without resorting to more scientific methodology.


Also if I remember correctly most engineers do not receive formal training in scientific investigation, which is why relatively speaking more engineers than scientists hold creationist views.
I don't know how this would be related. If they view God as an engineer, perhaps they would hold creationist views like intelligent design, but evolution is an entirely different process. An appreciation of science has led me towards agnosticism.

[Lynx]

to quote someone i can't remember "biology is just applied chemistry. chemistry is just applied physics. physics is just applied math." :D
And math is just an applied number system.

[The Jay]

I feel that quantum mechanics and the big bang theory and related theories are untrue. I've tried to understand it but it doesn't make sense to me, it also seems very esoteric and BS-sy/ish. I've read about the experiment to determine whether an electrons/photons is a wave or a particle, such as the double slit experiment. I don't know it just seems weird to me. I can understand classical physics and Einstein, but I can't wrap my head head around quantum physics, to me it seems it was based on a bad interpretation of experiments and the science is now built upon the faulty interpretation.

If you take the courses in college you get to actually do experiments that demonstrate those principles. You can "see" what's happening with your own eyes. That is the purpose of lab courses. They aren't only to get you used to equipment, they prove the information provided in lectures.

Just because it seems contradictory doesn't mean that it is. Nature never contorts to our views on what is, we must accommodate nature.

[The Jay]

And math is just an applied number system.

I don't see the difference between a number system and math. If you count at all the math is there. It's not applied, it just is.

PS: I don't want anyone jumping down my throat saying that is Idealism, because it's not. People misuse that term too often.

[Lynx]

Numeral system. In order to count or do arithmetic, you need a numeral system. Decimal, octal, binary, etc.

[The Jay]

The very act of counting is addition. Through addition you get everything else, regardless of the base that you use for that counting.

[Lynx]

The very act of counting is addition. Through addition you get everything else, regardless of the base that you use for that counting.
What you get is represented differently, depending on the base.
5+3=8 decimal
5+3=10 octal
1/3=0.3 repeating decimal
1/3=0.3 nonal

Without a base, you'd have to use unique symbols for each number and that would make mathematical operations.... impossible.

[The Jay]

What you get is represented differently, depending on the base.

The fact that is looks different does nothing to change the fact that the operations are the same.


5+3=8 decimal
5+3=10 octal
1/3=0.3 repeating decimal
1/3=0.3 nonal

Without a base, you'd have to use unique symbols for each number and that would make mathematical operations.... impossible.

It would not make it impossible, just very difficult. You could do math using roman numerals but it would just be a pain.

[homegrown terror]

And math is just an applied number system.

and a number system is just an applied use of a cave man's fingers.

[Lynx]

The fact that is looks different does nothing to change the fact that the operations are the same.
The operation depends on the system used, and includes limitations, such as 0.333333...

It would not make it impossible, just very difficult. You could do math using roman numerals but it would just be a pain.
That too is a decimal system. Unique symbols would require the use of tables.

[Lynx]

and a number system is just an applied use of a cave man's fingers.
If he were a banker, then yes.

[The Jay]

The operation depends on the system used, and includes limitations, such as 0.333333...

I disagree. No matter if you set the base of your counting system at two or fifty five there will always be irrational numbers and repeating decimals.


That too is a decimal system. Unique symbols would require the use of tables.

Honestly, I'm not sure what you mean here. Every number is a unique symbol. It's just that the ones that we use are more obvious in their relation than other ways of denoting each number.

If what you mean is that there would have to be some long list stating the symbol of each number, that would be a pain to deal with but it wouldn't make math impossible. It would only make it necessary to name each individual number something that "looks" completely different than all the others. It would be impractical, but not impossible. Were you not being literal?

[Lynx]

I disagree. No matter if you set the base of your counting system at two or fifty five there will always be irrational numbers and repeating decimals.
Repeating digits is a limitation which can be resolved by using fractions. Or maybe there is another obscure system that avoids this.


Honestly, I'm not sure what you mean here. Every number is a unique symbol. It's just that the ones that we use are more obvious in their relation than other ways of denoting each number.

If what you mean is that there would have to be some long list stating the symbol of each number, that would be a pain to deal with but it wouldn't make math impossible. It would only make it necessary to name each individual number something that "looks" completely different than all the others. It would be impractical, but not impossible. Were you not being literal?
I am being literal. The number 527 is unique in the combination and position of the symbols, not the symbols themselves. Depending on the base, 527 references several numbers. We just assume that it's decimal.

p.s. these posts should be split from the original thread

Mechanical memory would be an analog to the use of unique symbols. It would use displacement to reference each number.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I would say to a degree yes, due to capital however science has always regrettably been held back by some ideology or another which has perverted it, so I could also say no, idk.

[The Jay]

Repeating digits is a limitation which can be resolved by using fractions. Or maybe there is another obscure system that avoids this.

The use of fractions doesn't actually solve that problem. It's just another way of writing the same thing. I'm not even sure why you're calling repeating digits a limitation.


I am being literal. The number 527 is unique in the combination and position of the symbols, not the symbols themselves. Depending on the base, 527 references several numbers. We just assume that it's decimal.

The number 527 itself is a symbol in addition to the digits that make it up being symbols as well.


p.s. these posts should be split from the original thread

Yup.


Mechanical memory would be an analog to the use of unique symbols. It would use displacement to reference each number.

In order to use mechanical memory you would have to take an individual unit and equate it to a distance, mass, whatever and use multiples of that thing to determine the number. That same amount equated to the unit of the first system could be said to equal a certain number in another. This means that the relation of any one system to another is simply that of methods of denoting counting and not the fundamental mathematics behind the operation.

[Lynx]

The use of fractions doesn't actually solve that problem. It's just another way of writing the same thing. I'm not even sure why you're calling repeating digits a limitation.
Because I am forced to carry a digit indefinitely for certain fractions. I find it ironic that some people hate fractions and dislike it when numbers are expressed that way.


The number 527 itself is a symbol in addition to the digits that make it up being symbols as well.
Or it could be an area code, an index or a label. It is rarely referred to as a symbol.


In order to use mechanical memory you would have to take an individual unit and equate it to a distance, mass, whatever and use multiples of that thing to determine the number. That same amount equated to the unit of the first system could be said to equal a certain number in another. This means that the relation of any one system to another is simply that of methods of denoting counting and not the fundamental mathematics behind the operation.
You take a number line and bend it into the shape of a gear. The rotational distance references each number. Numbers can be stored and read, as well as added or subtracted. Each position is unique, if one gear is used.

It is easier for us to use the decimal system. Mechanical cash registers had to be designed around that fact, computerized ones do not.

[The Jay]

Because I am forced to carry a digit indefinitely for certain fractions. I find it ironic that some people hate fractions and dislike it when numbers are expressed that way.

That's just personal preference, and fyi you just put a bar over the repeated digits to denote the repetition.


Or it could be an area code, an index or a label. It is rarely referred to as a symbol.

Wow.


You take a number line and bend it into the shape of a gear. The rotational distance references each number. Numbers can be stored and read, as well as added or subtracted. Each position is unique, if one gear is used.

It is easier for us to use the decimal system. Mechanical cash registers had to be designed around that fact, computerized ones do not.

Bending a number line into the shape of a gear makes literally no sense what-so-ever. That would imply that there is an end to numbers and that they just start over. Maybe you just poorly worded that.

[Lynx]

That's just personal preference, and fyi you just put a bar over the repeated digits to denote the repetition.
I don't want to denote the repetition. 1/3 is an exact number.
And beyond 1/7 it gets messy.

Wow.
Word or symbol?


Bending a number line into the shape of a gear makes literally no sense what-so-ever. That would imply that there is an end to numbers and that they just start over. Maybe you just poorly worded that.
Gears can rotate a number of times, not infinitely, so there would be a range limit. Modern computers have range limits too!

Cash registers I've seen have 'bones', which look like sprockets. But they only have to store ten discrete positions. The 1s 10s 100s and 1000s are stored as decimals.

[Lynx]

Physics is no more applied mathematics than it is 'applied' String Theory.

Equations however, are elegant statements. They describe relationships succinctly.

[homegrown terror]

i've always disliked math. everything is always either right or wrong, black or white. there's no room to debate, no situation where you can argue the answer to 2+2. it's always four, and absolutes have always bothered me.

[Lynx]

i've always disliked math. everything is always either right or wrong, black or white. there's no room to debate, no situation where you can argue the answer to 2+2. it's always four, and absolutes have always bothered me.
In algebra you can have more than one solution.

2+2=11 in base 3 or trinary.

[Kenco Smooth]

I would say to a degree yes, due to capital however science has always regrettably been held back by some ideology or another which has perverted it, so I could also say no, idk.

It's not simply capital which enables the perversion of science due to ideology. Some of the most ardent eugenicists at the turn of the 20th century were progressives.

[homegrown terror]

In algebra you can have more than one solution.

2+2=11 in base 3 or trinary.

that's all true, but in math there is always one or more answers that are RIGHT and the rest are WRONG. in politics, or psychology there are multiple layers to anything, room to debate, opposing opinions and viewpoints. i've always taken comfort when there's always a different way to look at things. i truly abhor "ultimate truths" and math is full of them.

[Mr. Natural]

Campesino, Your statement, "I can't wrap my head around quantum physics," expresses a universal difficulty. Here is Einstein on the new physics: "All my attempts to adapt the theoretical foundation of physics to this [new type of] knowledge failed completely. It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built."

Human perception/consciousness "sees" life as a collection of separate things, as do the anti-dialecticans and formal logicians. In contrast, the new physics and the Marxist materialist dialectic and the Hegelian philosophy of internal relations in which it is rooted understand life and the cosmos to be dynamically, inseparably interdependent wholes.

Quantum physics is not mysticism: it is science and employs the scientific method. However, it works with the unseen relations of life and therefore "contradicts" our common perceptions. It confounds those who are looking for certainty. It mystifies, but is not mysticism.

I have to wrestle with the realities of the new physics each time the subject is broached. My go-to guy on this for accuracy and clarity is the theoretical physicist, Fritjof Capra, and his Tao of Physics (1976). Here is one of his observations of the nature of quantum theory: "Quantum theory forces us to see the universe not as a collection of physical objects, but rather as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of a unified whole." (p. 138)

Capra quotes the Marxist physicist, David Bohm: "One is led to a new notion of unbroken wholeness which denies the classical ideal of analyzability of the world into separately and independently existing parts ... We have reversed the usual classical notion that the independent 'elementary parts' of the world are the fundamental reality, and that the various systems are merely particular forms and arrangements of these parts. Rather, we say that inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality, and that relatively independently behaving parts are merely particular and contigent forms within this whole." (p. 138)

So, Campesino, your difficulties with quantum theory are the difficulties all of us have in "seeing" life's invisible relations. Your difficulties also represent the problems Marxist are now having in "seeing" dialectical organization and getting organized.

I believe, though, that this and other posts should make it impossible for you to continue to deny the organizational realities underlying the "things" of "nature, human society, and thought." And please read Bertell Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic (2003) to see the uncanny similarities of the new physics and Marx's and Engels' materialist dialectic.

My red-green, Marxist, new scientific, dialectical best.

[Kenco Smooth]

that's all true, but in math there is always one or more answers that are RIGHT and the rest are WRONG. in politics, or psychology there are multiple layers to anything, room to debate, opposing opinions and viewpoints. i've always taken comfort when there's always a different way to look at things. i truly abhor "ultimate truths" and math is full of them.

Psychology has a few absolutes itself although very general ones. The fact it doesn't have more is an indictment of the science, not a strength.