Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to re: Fields, waves, mass, acceleration, etc.

Minor clarification...
Michael Gmirkin — (archived)

Though I suppose I should have qualified some of that last bit taking into account your mention of wave / frequency compatibility.

IE, perhaps not all of the energy from one system gets transferred to another, if their waveforms aren't conducive to it. But mass would still be the same principle of whatever energy IS received ibeing dissipated if possible, or being retained internally and affecting velocity until the energy can be re-emitted.

Makes sense. Again, thanks.

----------

Who says we can't reason it out verbally? I think that natural language debate works just as well a theoretical formal mathematical proofs for bouncing ideas off each other. Just have to be careful with definitions and how we decribe interactions. But it can be done. :) Now, working out specific examples, in terms of doing an actual calculation of mass or a calculation of forces applied and work done, should be done in mathematical formalism.

But just shooting the breeze about a conceptual model of how things work. That nigh requires natural language to communicate the concepts. IE, you can't say "an apple" in mathematical terms, you can certainly say "drops" in terms of a velocity, acceleration, etc. But you can't say head in mathematical language either. So, some conceptualizing MUST be done and communicated in regular language.

So, if an apple drops on Newton's head, but nobody's around to conceptualize it, can we still describe the event fully in mathematical language? Well, no, not really. We can write an equation describing the acceleration and deceleration of the apple, and its change in position. But we can't really say WHAT it is that accelerated in math language, nor can we say what it hit that caused it to stop accelerating and deflect, changing its trajectory. So, we definitely lose something in the translation in terms of conception.

Anyway. That's neither here nor there. Thanks again for the input & all. Good stuff.

Cheers,
~Michael

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (68 posts)