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arggh. See, I used to really love paradoxes. Studying Economics cures you of that quick-smart. The whole subject's just stupid paradoxes/sophisms.
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Depends which. you get over things like Xeno's paradox real quick.
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Faye: true, Einstein probably isn't wrong, but then he may not be completely right either. Einstein was never comfortable with Heinsenberg's (sp?) uncertainty prinicple ("God does not play dice" is well known, and I've heard, but don't know if it's actually Einstein: "God does play dice, but the dice are loaded").
As far as incorrectly measuring speed: I think my professor implied that our ability to detect velocity isn't quite precise enough. I think he made that statement because that is/was his primary focus in physics, so after he said that he (or anyone) doesn't understand why neutrinos can go faster than anything else with mass, that maybe we could find out that neutrino's aren't special if we could measure more accurately. It seems quite likely that the nature of a neutrino is still quite veilied.
When I was a pupil of the prof in question, I was taking modern physics (quantum/relativistic) at the University of Colorado (where the Bose-Einstein condensate was first made).
Can one of you two tell me about this alleged Zeno and his/her paradox? (is that the one that states I can never get from here to there, because I have to cover half the distance first, and before that I have to cover half of that distance, ad infinaum (sp?))
Abdo:lol. And the prize for grammar nazi goes to.... AbdoRinbo!! Come on down!!
I'm pretty sure I've seen it spelt with an X, but ok, whatever.
Az:I'd love for Einstein to be wrong. I really, really would. But, yeah, they probably inaccurately measured velocity. How do they measure it anyway? I bet it's all maths and calculations. I have no idea how they'd physically measure it. I mean, neutrinos very rarely interact with matter-if they passed through lead 90 light years thick, they'd only have a 50% chance being absorbed.... so how do they measure their velocity? ha! You're studying quantum? I'd probably really hate to do that. It just seems like they make it up as they go along sometimes *doesn't know what she's talking about* well, you know, they always seem to be revamping their theories.
ack! don't post under severe time constraints! why do i always do that? can't finish last post/post decent reply now. promise to finish earlier post later. will ans az q. later. achilles and tortoise. sure you've heard of it anyway. sorry for overall halfa-ssed ness. hope you had a great Christmas.
Thanks Faye. Christmas is/was great. I got lots of stuff to cook with and some beer. As far as measuring Neutrino velocity, I have no idea. I'm pretty sure they measure number of each neutrino type ejected from the sun with heavy water some where in Canada, but I really don't know much about the subject (fyi: heavy water is water with deuterium (sp?) instead of regular hydrogen). I'll have to ask about neutrinos when I go back to school, in July (or next February, depending on when I take the approprate classes). I would ask now, but I don't have a professor to ask, and I took quantum about 2.5 years ago, so memory is getting quite fogged.
OMG. It did it. AGAIN. I'm gonna complain to Admin. I click 'submit' and it says I'm not logged in when I am, And i lose the whole damn post I just typed up. Seriously, I put real effort into that thing. ARRGGGHHH.
AGAIN. Az, isn't heavy water still less dense than lead? *waaay too lazy and frustrated to calculate it* I still don't see how they're going to measure velocity.
Abs: my point about the paradox remains the same. They quickly bore me. The one you put up is far too much like 'I always tell lies' and 'I'll give you this advice. Ignore my advice.' I get sick of them quickly. But they're not all bad. I like the paradox of thrift because I use it to justify all my spending. I am happy to discuss paradoxes. Go on, post em up. Dish out whatever you got. the more complex the better. Have you or Az heard of Russel's paradox? Can one of you explain it to me?
Warning: I will rip them apart and try to reduce them to sophisms. And I may be a real condescending b**** about it to. Am aware I've been condescending in this thread. sooorrry. Trying to rile you and Az into a debate. hasn't worked. you're both too nice.
ok, paradoxes. Az, I did originally answer your question, but I'm gonna let Tolstoy do it for me, because now I'm irritated.
-Tolstoy's War and Peace. (less than 3oopgs left and I'm probably NEVER gonna finish it. :()Quote:
There is a well known, so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in this, that Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was following, in spite of the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the tortoise. By the time Achilles has covered the distance that separated him from the tortoise, the tortoise has covered one tenth of that distance ahead of him: when Achilles has covered that tenth, the tortoise has covered another one hundredth, and so on forever. This problem seemed to the ancients insoluble. The absurd answer (that Achilles could never overtake the tortoise) resulted from this: that motion was arbitrarily divided into discontinuous elements, whereas the motion both of Achilles and of the tortoise was continuous.
By adopting smaller and smaller elements of motion we only approach a solution of the problem, but never reach it. Only when we have admitted the conception of the infinitely small, and the resulting geometrical progression with a common ratio of one tenth, and have found the sum of this progression to infinity, do we reach a solution of the problem.
Tolstoy gave the first quibble I have with it. the second is that he chose two objects with mass and dimensions of their own, which, in themselves would surpass the tiny distance between them. If you think of it in terms of two points travelling in discrete motion, you can think about it for more than two seconds without thinking it's b.s. (*snigger* sophism.)
I meant to explain the paradox of thrift too, but now I'm totally not in the mood. basically savings are a leakage from the economy, if not matched by equivalent investment it will result in reduced incomes. i use this to justify all my stupid spending, but there are sooooooo many reasons that's plain sophistry -ack. I'm turning into a sophist. Is that like my word of the day or something?- I'm just not going into it.
Finally, off topic, how come I'm the only girl to have posted in this WHOLE thread? *feels intimidated* used to think sloegin was female, apparently not..... Az, from now on I'm calling you Ax because I always type it like that anyway.
AND. have you heard this stupid thing (sure you'll both get it in 2secs, testing you anyway)
A father and son go hunting, In a car accident [:P], the father is instantly killed and the son taken to hospital. When he arrives, the surgeon looks at him and says 'I can't operate on this boy. He's my son.' How could this be?
Alright. the q, quantum, maths, paradoxes, hit me.
I'm done here.
Yes, I'm guessing that heavy water is less dense than lead, but I think something about heavy water allows it to be useful for measuring neutrino emissions, 'cuz otherwise it'd probably be a pain in the a$$ to make large quantities, when lead would do just as well.
I don't know how they measure velocity either, but I'll ask when I get a chance (up to 1.5 earth years, at an acceleration of ~9.8m/s/s and what ever earth has as standard velocity, but these are details).
What is Russel's paradox? What is a sophism.
Faye, you are the only girl to have posted in the whole thread, because you are (apparently) the only girl cool enough in the forum to post on the thread.
Oh, and you might want to try copying (ctrl+c) your future posts just before you submit them, that way if they die you can just log back in and paste it right back in (ctrl+v, but I'll bet you already knew the commands).
As far as the "stupid thing" goes, I'm guessing one of the "fathers" was a step father, or perhaps you mention that it is "a" father, so not necessarily that boy's father, but just a guy with children, who goes hunting with someone else. I think the second one is more probable, but either should work.
lol. Thanks Az. I think heavy water has some special properties-it can stop/slow particles without absorbing them. Why are you writing about earth years and gravitational acceleration? ::confused:: :)
A sophism has specious reasoning-looks good, seems logical, but contains fallacies. (a paradox is supposed to be totally logical) A sophist was the kinda person who used that sort of reasoning... I think there mighta been some philosophers who would sit around all day and argue about stuff with really specious reasoning-the Sophists *something like that anyway. giving abdo chance to correct me. Could look it up but faaarrr too lazy*
Russell's paradox is some maths thing.... Something about sets, and I don't really understand it.
And, yeah, I figured that copying thing.. bit too late. It did it twice actually, luckily the second time I had copied. I'm just too lazy and don't want a whole bunch of crap on my clipboard. Thanks for the advice anyway. :)
As for the 'stupid thing' man-you were way off! Let's stay quiet and see if Abdo gets it.
Here: found something on Russell's paradox. ;) (minor breakthrough for me. Don't like looking for things on internet. The reason I just ask Abdo. :) )
confused? you bet. ;)Quote:
Call the set of all sets that are not members of themselves "R." If R is a member of itself, then by definition it must not be a member of itself. Similarly, if R is not a member of itself, then by definition it must be a member of itself. Discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, the paradox has prompted much work in logic, set theory and the philosophy and foundations of mathematics
I wrote about earth years to keep anyone from being a smart *** and asking about years of other planets. The gravitational acceleration has to do with relativity. Since we are in an acceleratory field time is distorted for us, as compared to "zero gravity" (which doesn't really exist, VERY close, but not quite... at least not any scientist I've ever met).
Thanks for the explain on Sophisms. That Russell's thing is cool, but I'm generally not one to consider most paradoxes for long.
Speaking of internet research, I looked into that deconstruction paradox. The reason it works in math land and not physics world is there is a bit about 'the sphere must be infinitely divisible.' This basically means that it has infinite density, so when it is split into 2 spheres, the density IS halved. Since infinity divided by 2 is infinity, each product of the division is identical to the original.
I think I might have heard that 'stupid thing' before, and I'm not sure why my answers wouldn't work. Granted they aren't the right answer, but if someone else came up with the same question (ie. me) then my answers could be right. Unless you see some glaring logic error on my part.
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