🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3288d...@cfanews.harvard.edu>,
John Girash <gir...@skyron.harvard.edu> wrote:
>Followup-To: alt.folklore.science
>References: <SHESS.96N...@howard.one.net> <56ae8o$f...@newsgate.sps.mot.com>
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>
>Danny Bersch (ber...@sst.sps.mot.com) wrote:
>: sh...@one.net (Scott Hess) writes:
>
>: Perhaps more correctly stated, "The speed of light in a vacuum, c, 
>: *appears to be* a property of our universe, like pi or e.  Current
>: popular theory predicts that one _cannot_ go faster than the speed 
>: of light while remaining in our universe."
>
>Oh for Pete's sake, the values of pi and e have nothing to do with "which"
>universe you're in.  They're mathematical concepts, that'll be the same
>anywhere that 1+1=2.  They are NOT properties of our (or any other) universe!

hehe.. uh.. actually, yeah they are properties of our universe...  not
only properties of our universe, but the properties that help define
our universe.  And he's correct, they may not be properties of another
universe.

>: 
>: Yeah, imagine where we'd be .....
>: 
>: Actually, these are not that absurd.  The semiconductor industry, for 
>: years, used the equivalence (1 mil) = (0.025 micron).  When device
>: geometries were on the order of a mil or two and error was 5%, this 
>: was close enough.  Pi comes from the ratio of the circumference of
>: a circle to its diameter.  The ancients could have chosen the inverse
>: ratio and given pi a value nearer 0.31831, and the universe would 
>: still have unfolded as it should.  EE's tend to use 'j' for the 
>: "imaginary" axis, rather than 'i'.  Who knows, perhaps the theory
>: would be easier to learn if we considered the axis to be the frequency
>: axis rather than a "make-believe" axis.
>
>You're just plain wrong.  Pi comes from a lot of different places, one of
>which is the circumference/diameter ratio _in a flat geometry_.  It is a
>fundamental mathematical constant, which is a hell of a lot stronger
>statement even than saying c is a fundamental physical constant.  It is
>_not_ an approximation IN ANY UNIVERSE.  We don't know what c is in "other"
>universes, or even if relativity is valid there.  But pi remains pi. It's a
>horribly anthrocentric attitude that lets you say he ancients "defined" pi.
>
>btw, you seem to be confusing the idea of "what pi represents" with
>"how we choose to communicate that idea".  It's the former that is of
>relevence to discussions like this; the latter is just semantics
>(e.g. whether sqrt(-1) is called "i" or "j").

Well, while I disagree with pi being a constant in any universe, I do agree
that he mainly seems to be arguing from the "labeling" point of view: calling
sqrt(-1) 'j' instead of 'i', or considering the ratio of the diameter to the
circumference (1/pi) to be more significant than pi in history.  Those are
just labels... the ratio is still the same for pi no matter how you look at
it, and the sqrt(-1) is still the sqrt(-1) no matter what letter you call it.

Now back to pi being a constant in every universe... a simple request: prove
it.  Another universe may have an entirely differently formed space-time
continuum than our own or may not even have a continuum, but something
completely different.  How can you claim pi will be the same when the
structure of the universe will be different?  It seems arrogant to think
any other universe would be exactly the same as ours.

>
>j "mainly writing this to change the followups line" g.
>
>
>(*) but you can't even say that Newton was "exact" up until Einstein
>"discovered" (described is a better word) relativity: once Maxwell
>quantified classical electrodynamics in 1864 (and thus first introducing
>"c" to fundamental physics), Newton was in conflict with Maxwell.
>Einstein was just the first to recognise the conflict's implications
>and to describe its resolution.
>

Newton never was exact.  Newtonian mechanics are close enough (meaning there
was no technology available to measure the error) to the real values for small
relative velocities.

Btw, I may be incorrect with this myself.  I remember reading somewhere
that Newton defined force F = d(mv)/dt (derivative of mass * velocity
with respect to time).  Since others assumed that mass was a constant,
they simplified this to F = m * a.  Newton may still have been correct,
others who built on his work were the incorrect ones.  Can anyone verify
this?

-- 
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