about creation and AI

Printable View

Show 60 post(s) from this thread on one page

May 22nd, 2000, 04:35 AM
kedaman

Quote:

I though the point of this thread was a discussion on our individual beliefs on various topics. I personally thought that using examples to help explain a concept was a perfectly legitimate way of furthering a discussion. I was obviously wrong.

If we are going to start resorting to the above, then prove this wrong.

Quote:

We ourselves do not exist in the sense that we are human beings. We are all just a brain living in a bucket in outer space, imagining all that is going on.

I'm not going to drag up Descartes again but if you do, you will get Sam on you :mad:

:) No you're not wrong, feel free to post anything you want, i was just pointing out that how can we ever break out a set dimensions from another, like we do in math.
May 22nd, 2000, 07:52 AM
Gen-X

Sam

Apologies for not reading your question... I am sure you can appreciate that this thread is getting so long with so many comments that occasionally missing one (Shamefully an important one) does sometimes happen...

But I will correct this :

Quote:

What does it mean when I say "We Live in 3 Dimensional Space"?

To be absolutely and technically correct... we actually "live" in 4D space.

As we all know (or assume) nothing "lives" in the 1st Dimension, nor in the 2nd (My previous example was for illustration only, I could have said 4D seeing a pencil come in from 5D but you would not have understood it as easily).... It is only in the 3rd Dimension that what we consider "reality" has a presence.

At this stage it doesn't move, it is fixed... but it now has spacial integrity. So we "exist" in 3 Dimensional space. In order for us to become "activated" we require the 4th dimension... time. If you saw my model of what I believe the 10 dimensions are you would have seen that the 4th dimension causes us here in the 3rd dimension to actually take on life and move around... without it we would simply be fragements of infinately small time segments that don't actually do anything.

So what I mean by we live (replace with exist just for technical reasons) in a 3 Dimensional Space is that us as sentient beings have a physicality and an awareness that only influences and effects the 3rd Dimension.

We cannot influence Time.. it marches on regardless, We cannot influence LENGTH (as it exists in the 1st dimension) because it is an infinate vector... and we cannot influence WIDTH (again in the 2nd dimension) because it is in another dimension.

We can only influence the 3rd dimension.

Therefor "We live in a 3 Dimensional Space"

That explaination required no mathematics whatsoever, though it did rely on terminology that has been "quantified" in Mathematics.

Kedaman

How do you know for a fact that there are no 2d Beings? Their dimension would be an infinately THIN slice of our 3rd dimension and so you would never see them.

It is my SUGGESTION that we obviously exist in the 4th Dimension... as we are pulled along by the flow of time. The thing I am not totally sure on is exactly what the "width" of time actually represents.

I have given it some serious thought and bounced my ideas off other people and just like adding the 2nd dimension allows us to plot a "POSITION" along an arbitrary 1st dimensional resonance (ie X = 3) so does the 5th Dimension allow us to plot a "POSITION" along an arbitrary 4th dimensional time point.

So I am starting to believe that althought we exist in the 4th dimension being carried along its path without choice, we can in some ways plot our existance ALONG this 4th dimension chronologically and therefor must have some presence in the 5th dimension.

Iain

I love your sighing... very reminiscent of my own ;)

I share your skepticism about the validity of these discussions when people refute examples not with common sense and logic but instead with flawed statements.

I was always of the believe that if you put forward an example, others who see flaws in that example would state them and you would adjust your example (or your thinking) accordingly... If there was no sensible reason why the example was flawed it has the validity to stand true.

But obviously I was wrong (and all of science) as well

Take your example... you made the statement and I think it is POSITIVE to either say "I cannot find flaw in it" or to add something that may inspire thought.

Quote:

We ourselves do not exist in the sense that we are human beings. We are all just a brain living in a bucket in outer space, imagining all that is going on.

In order for this to be true it would require the following :

- All minds to be "LINKED" in some way such that what I is seen by you just as what you do is seen by me

- Inanimate objects must also project into our mind as I can close my eyes in the dark and walk into a wall (If I did not IMAGINE the wall being there I STILL hit it)

But here is the conundrum.

If I do not imagine it it is not there? Then when I am "surprised" by something coming towards me, or it strikes me without my knowing then if the entire world was just my imagining why did I get struck?

To extend this... If I walk through the forest and find a pine cone on the floor... why did it fall in the first place if nobody was imagining it happening?

So as you can see... you have given an example and I have found flaws in it.. hopefully this means either the example is not a good one, or the topic it attempted to describe is not actually true. Either way it should cause a re-evaluation of beliefs as it has for me to now believe "what you say is not possible because of what I have said"

Now its up to you to come back with explainations that overcome the flaws I have described and we can look at it again

1 D Space

I did read your explanation.. and again I found it flawed. You are forgetting "relativity".

While it is perfectly reasonable and perfectly logical to apply some arbitrary Z value to the 1D space when your "perspective" is that of a 3D space it is NOT reasonable OR logical to say that the 1D space actually has a Z value.

This means that it is only when there is a COLLISION between these 2 dimensions that a Z value is created... but NOT for the 1D space but it has "come into sync" with the 3D space.

This explains why you cannot use mathematics here... because Mathematics cannot perform functions between 2 different dimensions... it MUST arbitrarily assign dimensions such that both sides of the equasion have the same number in order to do calculations.

THAT is the flaw.

X is not limited to 3... but the 1st Dimension of X = 3 IS. There is another dimension X = 3.1 and another X = 3.11... in fact there are an infinate number of 1st Dimensions... and it isn't until we get the 2nd Dimension that it is possible to actually CROSS these, ie X + Y = 3.

What happens at this point (in my belief) is that a new Dimension (WIDTH) describes the syncronization of all the existing 1st Dimensions...

ie : X + Y = 3 means that the 1st dimension X=1 is syncronized with the 1st dimension X=2, and that they run equivalent to each other based on this equation.

The same then applies for a 3rd dimension and so on... but when we reach the 3rd and successive dimensions it becomes increasingly hard for us to understand or comprehend.

must be contained

Why?

Why MUST the 2D world be contained within a 3D world for it to intersect?

Because the Mathematic formula and RULES for dimensions say so? Does that apply to us?

It only re-iterates what I have been saying all along... the longer we keep thinking in mathematical terms we will limit ourselves only to mathematical certainties...

Which the world is NOT. That is what the Uncertainty principle is all about.

How can an electron be both a particle orbiting a nucleus AND a wave that exists like a shell completely surrounding the nucleus? How can a photon be both a particle AND a wave at the same time?

Its because mathematics while being able to prectict it GENERALLY really cannot say for sure... It was because of this that we were held back for so long... Bohr's model for the atom took several years to be accepted because the scientists were too busy with Maths to see the forest through the trees.
May 22nd, 2000, 07:08 PM
Iain17

So much to reply to. I knew it was a mistake to join in these discussions.:p I don't seem to have any time to reply to actual VB questions anymore, but this topic is more interesting anyway.:)

Though i never actually seriously believed that we are brains in buckets, and did not think any one would actually take up that argument, Gen-X has made some good observations, so i will counter.

Quote:

In order for this to be true it would require the following :

1 All minds to be "LINKED" in some way such that what I is seen by you just as what you do is seen by me

2 Inanimate objects must also project into our mind as I can close my eyes in the dark and walk into a wall (If I did not IMAGINE the wall being there I STILL hit it)

But here is the conundrum.

3 If I do not imagine it it is not there? Then when I am "surprised" by something coming towards me, or it strikes me without my knowing then if the entire world was just my imagining why did I get struck?

4 To extend this... If I walk through the forest and find a pine cone on the floor... why did it fall in the first place if nobody was imagining it happening?

1
Not necessarily. Imagine we are all separate brains, or maybe just one brain. What one brain imagines is his world. It imagines all the people and objects around him. In your world you may be imagining something completely different, still inventing fake people and objects. If this is my world, then i am imagining you are discussing a point with me. IF you even EXIST as a brain, then i needn't necessarily EXIST in YOUR world. It is at this point the English language makes a run for it.

2, 3
If we are taking this brain thing seriously then i would suggest this is what is happening. The brain in outer space has created you as the main character in this WORLD. You are a projection of this brains self image. All the other people are just NPC's. It has created a world for you (its imaginary image), and invented all the rules that govern this world. The world is like a gaming engine that is produced. The brain mainly concentrates on the things affecting your life, and another part of the brain, the subconscious?, runs the world. Even though you are the one that has produced this whole world, you can not know it all, because you cannot tap into the subconscious where the brain is making the world work.

4
Following on from the last two arguments, you made it happen. Everything that happens in this world is a direct result of your brain making you think it has happened.

Which conclusively proves that this argument can't be proved either way. It is not supposed to be able to be proved. It is just an example to get everyone thinking thoughts we do not normally think. Just like this whole thread really.

Onto the 2d - 3d world again.

Quote:

must be contained

Why?

Why MUST the 2D world be contained within a 3D world for it to intersect?

If their 2d world was in a completely different set of dimensions from ours, then the pen would not be able to go through their world, as their world would not exist in our world. There may be an infinite number of 2d worlds that i am walking through all the time. I would never know. That is why maths can be used in this case, because the 2d world has a point of reference in the 3d world. If it did not the pen could never intersect the 2d world.

As you point out

Quote:

This means that it is only when there is a COLLISION between these 2 dimensions that a Z value is created... but NOT for the 1D space but it has "come into sync" with the 3D space.

This is the only time when the pen can intersect the 2d world, when the 2d world is part of the 3d world.

1d Space
While sometimes i think we are arguing the same point from different perspectives, this is one area that we obviously have different views on.

Quote:

X is not limited to 3... but the 1st Dimension of X = 3 IS. There is another dimension X = 3.1 and another X = 3.11... in fact there are an infinite number of 1st Dimensions... and it isn't until we get the 2nd Dimension that it is possible to actually CROSS these, ie X + Y = 3.

What happens at this point (in my belief) is that a new Dimension (WIDTH) describes the syncronization of all the existing 1st Dimensions...

ie : X + Y = 3 means that the 1st dimension X=1 is syncronized with the 1st dimension X=2, and that they run equivalent to each other based on this equation.

The above I think highlights our difference in thinking. While you believe that until the 2nd dimension is introduced to the equation, X is static. I believe that X is not static.

I believe that (X(1) = 1) + (X(2) = 2) = (X = 3). Where (1) and (2) are just two separate X positions. Obviously you can't cross to another dimension of X, because then that would require a 2nd dimension.

I believe that the 1st dimension is a dimension in its own right, and does not need the 2nd dimension for something to exist at any other than 1 point on the line.

If you define X=3 as a dimension, then i will agree that there is only 1 "POINT" on this line. However, if you define X as being able to have any value then, as i do, then it follows that we do not NEED a 2nd dimension to contain all of the 1st dimensions in your sense of the 1st dimension.

Imagine a piece of paper with a lot of lines running along it. All of these lines are separate 1st dimensions. Able to have a value from 0 to the length of the paper. To be able to cross between them we need to have the 2nd dimension, but to exist on one of those lines we do not.

Code:

Piece of paper x-> 0 28 y ------------------------------- | 0 |_____________________________| \/ |_____________________________| |_____________________________| |_____________________________| 4 |_____________________________| ------------------------------- Key: _______________ = x dimension | and - deinfe the paper.

All of the X dimensions can exist as individual 1st dimensions. With points on the line from 0 to 28. Let us assume that Y is the number of the X dimension. You can not cross from Y = 1 to Y = 2, unless there is a 2nd dimension. You can however move from X=0 to X=28 without the need for the Y dimension.

And another thing.
I know i have only just started taking an active part in this thread, before i felt i had nothing to contribute to the arguments put forward, so why bother, but at the beginning of this thread there seemed to be a fair number of people putting forward their views. They all seem to have disappeared though. Where have you all gone?:confused:

[Edited by Iain17 on 05-23-2000 at 04:29 PM]
May 23rd, 2000, 04:08 AM
Sam Finch

Gen-x

I think you misunderstood the point of my question, the reason I said 3 Dimensions Is Because it's much easier to explain 3 Dimensions than 4 or 5. I don't want to know anything about the world, I just want to know what the term 3 Dimensions means.

Ignoring time for a second (hmm, how much sense does that make?) just imagine our 3 dimensions of space, what do you mean by 3 dimensions, when I hear the words 3 dimensions I imagine the purely mathematical idea of a 3Space.

Explain to me without using maths, why we describe our space as 3 dimensional.

I think I've been giving you a bit too much leeway on this maths idea, especially when you say things like this

Quote:

This explains why you cannot use mathematics here... because Mathematics cannot perform functions between 2 different dimensions... it MUST arbitrarily assign dimensions such that both sides of the equasion have the same number in order to do calculations.

I think you're mistaken, read any book with the words linear algebra in the title.

Oh yeah, this too.

Quote:

It only re-iterates what I have been saying all along... the longer we keep thinking in mathematical terms we will limit ourselves only to mathematical certainties...

Which the world is NOT. That is what the Uncertainty principle is all about.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha HA Ha :D

ok Gen-X while you're doing the dimensions, where I admit it is debatable whether or not dimensions are entirely mathematical I would love to hear your explanation of the uncertainty principal without using maths. I don't want the crap explanation about deeding to hit a particle with a photon to find out where it is, that explanation doesn't wash I want the real reason. why can't I know exacly where a particle is if I know its momentum? why can't I know its momentum If I know its position?
May 23rd, 2000, 05:28 AM
kedaman

Do dimensions really kick ass?

GEN-X
[quote]
How do you know for a fact that there are no 2d Beings? Their dimension would be an infinately THIN slice of our 3rd dimension and so you would never see them.
[/code]
Quite selfexplaining. A 2d being cannot influence or be influenced with 3d objects. Something with 3dsize passing it (the pen) will not ever pass it (paper) because none of all smallest 3d particles would be on one side of the dimension because you will never get anything inside the 2d area, as it has no depth to contain something in. So if you assume there are 2d beings, it's meaningless. You could say dreams are reality, they have influence on human life, but a 2d being will never have influence or be influenced from our universe. So actually the 2d world does NOT exist. It's just a mathematical thought. And we should consider the same thing for 4d<->5d as we could kick out all other dimensioned world theories out of reality. Nothing can be more or less 3d ever ever ever.

Quote:

It is my SUGGESTION that we obviously exist in the 4th Dimension... as we are pulled along by the flow of time. The thing I am not totally sure on is exactly what the "width" of time actually represents.

As time is relative, you can kick it out from your 4dimension world and make it 3d. "Width" of time is mathematical thought.

Quote:

So I am starting to believe that althought we exist in the 4th dimension being carried along its path without choice, we can in some ways plot our existance ALONG this 4th dimension chronologically and therefor must have some presence in the 5th dimension.

Bullshit

IAIN

Quote:

If their 2d world was in a completely different set of dimensions from ours, then the pen would not be able to go through their world, as their world would not exist in our world. There may be an infinite number of 2d worlds that i am walking through all the time. I would never know. That is why maths can be used in this case, because the 2d world has a point of reference in the 3d world. If it did not the pen could never intersect the 2d world.

more bullshit
May 23rd, 2000, 11:08 AM
Gen-X

It is becomming difficult to follow everyones answers and successfully reply to each and every one of them without upsetting someone in accidentally missing them...

But I will try :)

Kedaman

You just want to throw out everything that isn't 3d because that is how you want to view the world.

I want to include 4d and 5d because that is how I view the world.

I can accept your view though I admit it differs from my own. There is no point in arguing on "personal views" because there really isn't a right and a wrong and I have only been explaining how I see things.

Sam

"I can move forward, I can step to the right and I can climb a mountain. Therefor because I can reach any destination that I choose to be it above me, beside me or behind me I exist in a place of 3 dimensions"

(And before you shout, I am using dimension in the context of "an open space").

"I can draw on a piece of paper. I can draw left and I can draw right. I can draw up and I can draw down... But I cannot draw IN and I cannot draw OUT. Therefor what I am drawing exists in a place of 2 dimensions"

(Yeah I know it has a 3rd dimension of 0 mathematically but it gives you the basic idea)

As for explaining the uncertainty principle. If none of the scientists or mathematicians can determine both momentum and position at the same time how on earth are you expecting me to do that? The whole point of the principle is "Sorry guys, Maths cannot calculate it both.. for some reason none of our equations match experimental results. Lets put it down to an ERROR factor and say we are uncertain. The closest we can get is a ballpark"

Ok Sam... Show me an equation from linear algebra that tries to plot a 2d point in only 1 dimension? Or perhaps a 1d vector in a 2d plane?

if you can do that without arbitrarily "creating" a dimension for the 1d side of the equasion I shall worship you as my God.

Iain

Have you ever heard of a 1 sided valve? Where something can go IN but cannot come OUT?

That is what a 2d existing within a 3d is like. You cannot come OUT of the 2d into 3d but there are points where you can go IN to a 2d from a 3d. That is the paper and pencil theory. If we can somehow "describe" what "making Z=0 for the paper" means in the real world you will know how to get there.

As for the "infinate number of X dimensions next to each other" you have described perfectly what Y is. To say they are lines next to each other says the 2nd dimension exist.

But why not look at it from the perspective of lowly little X=3. This poor little dimension is all alone, nothing is around it, nothing is next to it... it just IS. That is why it is called a singularity. Only when you look from a 2d perspective can you see the other X's (as you did when you listed DOWN (ie width) the page the different X values).

So what you have done is brought into a 2nd dimension called Y to create a connection between the various and infinate X dimensions.
May 23rd, 2000, 06:07 PM
Iain17

Particles

Sam

Quote:

I don't want the crap explanation about deeding to hit a particle with a photon to find out where it is, that explanation doesn't wash I want the real reason. why can't I know exacly where a particle is if I know its momentum? why can't I know its momentum If I know its position?

You want the real reason, i will give it to you, and it does involve hitting the particle with a photon, whether you like it or not.

When we measure the speed of a car we use a radar gun. Radar waves are very similar to light waves, only longer. The radar wave hits the car and bounces back to a detector. We can then do a calculation on the change in frequency of the wave using the Doppler principle to calculate the speed, and position.

As you probably know, when particles collide they exchange energy packets called "quanta". When the radar wave hits the car it will pass on some energy to the car, very slightly accelerating or decelerating the car, depending on where it hits the car. Obviously the quanta exchanged when the radar waves hit a car is negligible compared to the mass of the car. We can safely ignore the amount of energy that is transferred, and still accurately give the position and speed of the car.

The same principal applies to particles. To detect the speed and position of a particle, we have to hit it with a photon. When the photon hits the particle it transfers a quanta of energy. The particle is so small that the quanta of energy that is received from the photon rapidly changes its speed and direction. Thus we can only calculate the speed Or the direction the particle is travelling in, because by hitting the particle with a photon we are changing the speed and direction.

Kedaman
I hardly think "Bullshit" is a valid argument. If you can back up your statement with proof that my statement is in fact the waste product of a bull then, and only then, will I agree.
May 23rd, 2000, 06:41 PM
Sam Finch

Quote:

"I can move forward, I can step to the right and I can climb a mountain. Therefor because I can reach any destination that I choose to be it above me, beside me or behind me I exist in a place of 3 dimensions"

so you're saying what? that space is 3 dimensional because there are 3 directions I can move in? I can move in any direction I like thank you very much, not just 3, does this mean I'm an infinite dimensional being?

Quote:

"I can draw on a piece of paper. I can draw left and I can draw right. I can draw up and I can draw down... But I cannot draw IN and I cannot draw OUT. Therefor what I am drawing exists in a place of 2 dimensions"

ah, so this is 2 dimensional because there are 4 directions I can move in. but I can still move in an infinate number of Dimensions, 0 degrees (up) 45 degrees, in fact pick a number between 1 and 360 I can go there (fractions and irrational numbers as well)

so I'm still not clear why you call it 3 dimensions.

Quote:

As for explaining the uncertainty principle. If none of the scientists or mathematicians can determine both momentum and position at the same time how on earth are you expecting me to do that? The whole point of the principle is "Sorry guys, Maths cannot calculate it both.. for some reason none of our equations match experimental results. Lets put it down to an ERROR factor and say we are uncertain. The closest we can get is a ballpark"

That is totally utterly and completley wrong

The uncertainty principal was discovered way before experimental methods even got close to the limits of the uncertainty principal, and it was not discovered due to innacurate mesurements, it was predicted using maths, the uncertainty principal doesn't say that maths can't predict where a particle is, it says that if we know its momentum exactly it doesn't have a position. I want to know why this is.

Quote:

Show me an equation from linear algebra that tries to plot a 2d point in only 1 dimension? Or perhaps a 1d vector in a 2d plane?

the first one's easy, z=3 that defines the 2d point 3+ 0i in the single dimension of the real numbers, a 1D vector in a 2D plane? well, I'm not feeing too original so we'll go with z=3 again, a one dimensional vector in the 2D complex plane.

I'll have to pass on the worshiping seeing as that was a very easy question indeed.
May 23rd, 2000, 11:31 PM
Iain17

Sam

3d space

Personally i think you know exactly what Gen-X means. You have proven in your other posts that you have some grey matter, and i get the impression you are good at maths, you're on a maths degree aren't you, so lets not get picky. I personally though he did a good job of explaining 3d space without using maths, which i think you will agree is necessary for describing dimensions.

N dimensional space is called Nd because i can move in that many directions. I am not an infinite dimensional being, because combining those N directions i can move to anywhere in that N dimensional space.

1d. I can only move along the line. 1 direction.

2d. I can move anywhere on a piece of paper. Using 2 directions i can describe anywhere on that piece of paper.

3d. I can move anywhere in the world. Using 3 directions i can move to anywhere in the world.

I seem to recall from my A-level maths that i do not necessarily have to use 3 straight co-ordinates to plot anywhere in 3d space. I think you can use a 2d plane and a line that goes through this 2d plane. I am sure there were other methods, but i was not that interested in maths at that time, i was more interested in programming. And yes I know its sad.
May 24th, 2000, 02:27 AM
Sam Finch

ian,

Quote:

Personally i think you know exactly what Gen-X means. You have proven in your other posts that you have some grey matter, and i get the impression you are good at maths, you're on a maths degree aren't you, so lets not get picky. I personally though he did a good job of explaining 3d space without using maths, which i think you will agree is necessary for describing dimensions.

of course I know what he means, but only because I know what 3 dimensions mean (if he offered your explanation I would havre been confused about what he ment by combining directions and tried to confuse him into saying four or six directions (you can't move absolutley anywhere by moving in in 3 directions, you have to be able to move backwards in them, which makes 6 directions, but you can also do it in 4)) as you say you need maths to discribe the concept of 3 dimensions, I'm trying to illustrate my point that dimensions are just a mathematical model of the space we live in.

oh, and I've just seen your post about the particles, that's the crap reason I was talking about, the fact is if we look at a particle with a laser we know the momentum of the photon we are hitting it with exactly (we don't due to the uncertainty principal but we can't use that in the argument) other than the uncertainty principal there is no limit to the accuracy and consistancy of laser photons, if we know the original momentum of the particle exactly and can measure the time and position it hits our sensor we can work out the momentum of the particle after the collision and the time and therefore position of the collision.

The actual reason for the uncertainty principal is my favorite piece of maths in the whole world (now that's sad) and it involves the Idea that a particle is in fact a probability wave of wavelength h/P (h is plancs constant p is the momentum of the particle)

we then define the probability of a particle being in a particular position as it's wave function divided by the integral of it's wave function, which for a simple sinsquared wave gives a probability of 0 for every position, however if we don't know it's momentum and we assume that there is an equal probability of its momentum being at any point between 2 bounds then we can simply integrate it's wave function with respect to P and then we get a partial differential with a finite integral over the whole of it's range, ie we start getting non zero probabilities of the particle being in various positions, if we integrate over the whole of the range of P (ie we don't know it's momentum at all) then we get a single probability of 1 that the particle is where we think it is.

that probably doesnt make much sense, it's quite hard to discribe something like that without graphs, but that is the reason for the uncertainty principal, it's just not the surt of thing you can require A level physicists to understand (we didn't even have to do calculus for A level physics, partial differentials of complex probability waves are quite hardcore (yes it's a complex probability wave, we have to square it somewhere in there t make it a real probability))

This is part of my point about maths, the non maths explanation, although a reasnoble model as long as you don't think about it too hard isn't the real reason for things, it's just an oversimplified version that "normal" people can understand, nobody want's to read that sort of maths out of intrest, they want a nice explanation about having to bounce a particle off of something, which is fair enough, as long as you don't argue that maths has no place in physics because it's all done with these simplified models.
May 24th, 2000, 05:09 AM
kedaman

Lain and Gen-x, sorry for having "bullshit" instead of "false" as an argument there. i was just coming up with that idea so that might have causen it.

Hmm, this is ignoration you was talking about Gen-x, i wrote a explanation there but I didn't actually get any feedback. Ok maybe I wasn't clear enough:

1. For a 2d world to interact with a 3dworld, we need there to be an interefering point or area, in this case a interfering volume.
2. In a 2d world contained in a 3d we have 2dmatter and 3dmatter outside.
3. An oject witout a size cannot exist, the size is in factors of it's dimensions>0 in it's reality.
4. 2d matter cannot have a volume, just an area, 3d matter cannot have a 0 volume or they wont exist:
5. All 2dmatter in 3d world have volume 0 so it doesn't exist.

Tada!

We obviously can imagne there are 2d beings in our universe, but as they can't interact with us in any way, there's no need of calling them "existing" as they live in a totally different universe and have totally different rules. If there are other universes, it's correct to call them "not existing" because a universe refers to everything existing, and what's not existing is "not existing". So this time i've not refered directly to reality as before but from our view instead.

And 4d-5d interaction fails also:

All 5d objects have a 5dvolume and all 4d objects have a 4dvolume. 4d objects 5dvolume is 0, so they cannot interact with 5d world.

This is so far purely dimensional perspective, if you look at your pencil drawing on paper, it's actually 2 3dobjects, that's why they can interact. If you have a paper with depth=0 no inc from the pen will attach to the paper. Also the pen will go trough the paper as it wouldn't exist. Actually the paper does not exist.

Quite an explanation, this time you surely have to give me some feedback (or this will mean you've given up on quarks existing in a 5'th dimension while we're in 4th)

One more thing, if you believe in a 4d world, then there's nothing wrong with it. You just can't have 5d or 3d objects interacting with it.
May 24th, 2000, 07:04 AM
Sam Finch

Ked,

good argument but flawed.

I'll just describe to you a 2D world contained in a 3D world.

I'm assuming you know one of the following Games

Snooker, Pool or Billiards.

These are all basicly the same game, hard spherical balls bouncing around a green table

and we imagine a robot, with 2 "eyes" consisting of cameras mounted between 2 plates, like so.

Code:

Camera / K=========== <-------Light / Plates

so the robot can see light only if it comes parrallel to the plates which are parralell to the surface it stands on.

now the robot is standing on the table. (this robot is fully equipped with a concious mind and is trying to work out the world around it) it's eyes are parralell to the table and the same height as the centre of the balls. The cushons are perpendicular to the surface of the table.

As far as the robot is concerned it lives in a 2D world, it cannot see anything in the 3D world it is actually in, it is level with the centre of the balls which are perpendicular to the tables surface so no light can get to it from the 3D world, if there is no light source level with its plates its world is totally dark, It is totally in a 2D world contained in our 3D world.

as to the question why cant it see a pencil moving down to make a hole in the table, it's because in this situation the plates are in the way, (as it happens it won't see the hole, it'll just see an object apear)

as it happens this 2D world is bounded, ours isn't so that rules out the Idea that we're little robots on some crazy 4D pool table but you get the Idea.

so that kinda kils the rest of your argument, with the quarks it is the shape of the quarks and the laws governing their movement that I object to.
May 24th, 2000, 07:55 AM
Gen-X

Kedaman

Sam couldn't have explained it better. Your theory is flawed in more ways than he explained.

1. You use the term "exists" from our perspective. I was using "exists" from the perspective of the being itself. "We EXIST in OUR universe... They EXIST in THEIR universe"

You really have to stop focusing everything on US and OUR perspective. WE live, WE are here, therefor WE are the only source, WE are the only perspective, WE have the only universe, WE are the only reality,WE, WE, WE..

Think about things from other perspectives and your mind might open up. Imagine something that lives in TIME just like we live in REALITY. It can move backward and forward or sideways. If you can imagine that then you are on the track to actually thinking about something that does not centre around yourself ;)

Sam

Iain is right, you set out with a purpose and even when I provided an answer that BEAT the purpose you set out with you tried desperately to cling to it ;)

Quote:

so you're saying what? that space is 3 dimensional because there are 3 directions I can move in? I can move in any direction I like thank you very much, not just 3, does this mean I'm an infinite dimensional being?

Hehehhe.. Even you know you were grasping at that one. No I am not moving in infinate directions, I am moving in extremely small portions of EACH of the 3 directions at once.

Oh and BTW, the term "Dimension" was not created by mathematics. Nobody sat down and studied their little but off and said "Eureka! I have discovered a mathematical equasion that I shall call... the DIMENSION". The word existed in the english language BEFORE it existed in the mathematical language. Therefor Maths decided to APPLY this term to rules it had come up with because the word closely described EXACTLY what the mathematic principle was for.

So I can use words like Point, Axis, Dimension, Line and not be talking mathematical. I knew you wanted me to use one of these words so you could go "Aha! You said the word Dimension", I'm not as stupid as you may think me... sarcastic yes... but stupid no.

Quote:

the first one's easy, z=3 that defines the 2d point 3+ 0i in the single dimension of the real numbers, a 1D vector in a 2D plane? well, I'm not feeing too original so we'll go with z=3 again, a one dimensional vector in the 2D complex plane.

*sigh*
So you resort to imaginary numbers? How positively pathetic of you.

So explain to me. z = 3, a 1 dimensional vector. How then does it define the 2d point 3 +0i? I thought a "2d point" means you have to state an X and a Y?

Oh but you have only stated an "i". So I guess that is only 1 dimension you have quantified.

As for your second one you have perfectly described how a lower dimension is contained within a higher one. Using your own robot example the z=3 vector doesn't know ro see the fact it is in a 2D complex plane so there is no correlation. The 2D complex plane however must assign arbitrary X,Y positions in order to see it. Don't you agree?

If I asked you to describe z=3 in terms of that 2D complex plane what would you say?

Let me ask you something about your "frikken laser" :)

When you fire this extremely narrow beam of photons, does it somehow miraculously MISS every other particle on its way to the one you want? And how do you actually HOLD that particle in its path... and when it actually DOES stike that particle what are you using to RECORD where its position is? Some device that relies on a particle coming back to your detection device?

Oh and BTW, photons are effected by gravity as well... so if you do this experiment on the earth have you taken into consideration the slight pull of gravity on your particle? So you do the experiment in a vaccum, have you taken into consideration the fact particles appear in a vaccum, what if they exhurted a weak molecular force on either your particle or the laser? But then again what if the photon struck the particle when its electron was on the other side rather than on the side of the photon, perhaps this energy exchange effected differently.

The point is that there are so many factors and variable in this that you could not possible use mathematics to predict both.
May 24th, 2000, 04:40 PM
kedaman

Gen-X you're driving me nuts, I explained by refering to outher universe perspective, you didn't understand anything, and so I explained the other way, from our perspective, Sam killed it and you're pointing me not to do it. Thanks :):( You drived me out.

Before I go explaining back again in outher universe perspective, I want you having this "WE" thing clear:
1.
By refering to "WE" I refered to all objects in our universe. That is our perspective. Their perspective is 2d-objects in a 2d-universe contnaining nonvolume existing objects.
2.
By refering to "WE" I refered to all 3d-objects in universe. That is our perspective. Their perspective is 2d-objects contained in 2d-plane contained in 3dworld, that cannot interact with 3d-objects

Quote:

Think about things from other perspectives and your mind might open up. Imagine something that lives in TIME just like we live in REALITY. It can move backward and forward or sideways. If you can imagine that then you are on the track to actually thinking about something that does not centre around yourself

Actually i was going that subjective to make you understand, you know that i'm always objective otherways. Yeah I can image something that goes backwards in time, but what makes that "REAL"?
1.
It's because it lives it's own universe and to us it's not existing, as parallell universes do not.
2.
It's because it lives in another universe and it exists out of our contact as parallell universes do.

Now to Sam's argumentation:

Probably totally irrelevant, because it's an example out of 3dworld with a limited 3dvolume inside it.

Quote:

so the robot can see light only if it comes parrallel to the plates which are parralell to the surface it stands on.

There's nothing parallell in universe, it's a concept of math. Light, a photon will travel to the camera as a 3d-vector with the camera-perspective as the x axis. The 3d vector has therefor irrational values and will not hit the camera as x is not 0.

Maybe you could find another example that handles parallell photons but i doubt, this doesn't actually explain anything, just making your example irrational.

Now for dismissing it, we need to look at the photon, it has a size. A width, height and depth. The plates are there to dismiss photons that's not parallell, they have to be infinitely close to each other, actually 0, as you could find any higher value i could dismiss it as it would make your example irrelevant. The photon has a depth so it can't travel between the plates, because it doesn't fit there.

If you come up with that the distance between the plates is the size of the photon and that it will travel there parallell, it's cannot apply in a 2d-world, which has no depth.

So back to my argumentation:

1. 2d objects have no volume
2. objects in 3d world with no volume cannot exist
3. 2d objects cannot exist in a 3d world

I have to modify the two last if you want a objective perspective not our perspective:

2. objects in 3d world need a volume to interact with each other.
3. 3d objects cannot interact with 2d objects

For you Gen-x:

4. 4d objects cannot interact with 5d objects
5. quarks do NOT exist in a dimension above us.
May 24th, 2000, 06:20 PM
Iain17

All

The Uncertainty Principle

Quote:

The actual reason for the uncertainty principal is my favorite piece of maths in the whole world (now that's sad) and it involves the Idea that a particle is in fact a probability wave of wavelength h/P (h is plancs constant p is the momentum of the particle)

Sam i have read that explanation, and have seen the drawings and graphs used to explain the uncertainty principle, and i can grasp the principle of it, though i will never be able to explain it using maths.

Isn't the uncertainty principle fun though. Because it i might go to sleep one night and "tunnel" to Australia. You can even calculate the probability of this happening. Apparently the time i would have to wait for this to happen is longer than the life time of the universe, so we can disregard it as a possibility. Though it would certainly save me the flight cost.

As i am sure you are all aware, this "tunneling" of particles has been proven. It seems particles can move through whatever they so choose. I can't remember the exact details of the experiment that proved this at the minute, i have so much information flying around my head at the minute it is easy to get mixed up.

Which brings me rather neatly to the Neutrino. This is another factor in the detection of the speed and position of a particle. Neutrinos, it seems can penetrate anything. Some of the experiments that have been conducted underground to detect particles still get interference from these Neutrinos because they penetrate the earth like it is not there.

Kedaman

Quote:

4. 4d objects cannot interact with 5d objects
5. quarks do NOT exist in a dimension above us.

How about this for a theory then. String theory says that there are 10 dimensions. Every single piece of matter, i mean everything, is just a vibration of a string in a higher dimension. This means that everything actually exists in the 10d already. This means that 5d beings could interact with us, because we are both really 10d. All we are seeing is the effects of these strings vibrating in a higher dimension.

Though i believe this theory unnecessary to explain what happens anyway. As Gen-X has pointed out before, we can interact with the 2nd dimension, because we are in a higher one. They can not interact with us because they would need to develop planck energy to probe our dimension.
May 25th, 2000, 06:09 AM
kedaman

quote]
How about this for a theory then. String theory says that there are 10 dimensions. Every single piece of matter, i mean everything, is just a vibration of a string in a higher dimension. This means that everything actually exists in the 10d already. This means that 5d beings could interact with us, because we are both really 10d. All we are seeing is the effects of these strings vibrating in a higher dimension.
[/quote]
yeah everything exist in 10d and that's all, don't go involve any 5d-objects then, because here's the point, the 5d objects (as you see them) are just a mathematical concept. If we live in a n-dimensioned world, we are n-dimensioned, and anything less is just mathematical projections.

Quote:

Though i believe this theory unnecessary to explain what happens anyway. As Gen-X has pointed out before, we can interact with the 2nd dimension, because we are in a higher one. They can not interact with us because they would need to develop planck energy to probe our dimension.

Now you have to admid something IS wrong with your argumentation. You supposed 3d objects can interact with 2d objects but not the other way round. Where did you get that from? Every ACTION has a REACTION!

And before you state anything like that, just proove me how you can interact with an object with no volume.
May 25th, 2000, 08:13 AM
Gen-X

Megatron... every thing we touch and see is comprised of 3 dimensions. We are descending into that dimension all the time.

Imagine a desk.

Look at the edge of the desk. That edge exists in the 1st dimension... its LENGTH. But there is an end to the desk, ot doesn't go on forever so you have intersected the 2nd Dimension (WIDTH). Of course you can swap the perspective between height, width and depth because in reality all of them are actually 1st Dimensions... it is only the 3rd dimension which provides a "resonance" to bring them together that we see their differing intersection.

If your not sure what I mean by resonance I will explain something that I read not long ago about atoms.

Carbonate (CO3)
Now don't quote me specifically on all of this because I am trying to use my photographic memory here and my camera occasionally only takes black and white pictures.

Carbon has 6 electrons. 2 at the inner shell completing it and 4 in the outer shell. Atoms like having their shells "filled" because its the lowest energy state for them to exist in. This means that the Carbon atom will try to attack itself to other atoms such that those 4 electrons in its outer shell are either lent to other atoms such that it either "appears" to lose them or it gains another 4 (or both... I'll explain later).

Oxygen has 8 electrons. 2 at the inner shell completing it and 6 in the outer shell. Therefor it wants an extra 2 in order to complete its pattern.

With the Carbon Dioxide Molecule of CO2 each of the Oxygen atoms form Double Covelant bonds (ie because both Oxygen want 2 each and Carbon has 4 to give it gives 2 to each of the Oxygen Atoms)

Code:

O // C \\ O

Now Carbonate on the other hand has an overall charge of -2, which means "I have 2 electrons missing... please fill me up". This forms an Covelant Bond to 1 of the 3 Oxygen Molecules and Ionic bonds to the other 2 like this :

Code:

O- / O=C \ O-

As you can see, the Carbon has still lent itself to 4 electrons completing its outer shell while one Oxygen is completed and the other 2 have a single electron each left "hanging". Now because of this they "WANT" to attach themselves to the Carbon bit it isn't possible because it is already full.. But it DOES happen.

What acutally happens is each Oxygen takes turns in being the Double Bond with the Carbon, while the other 2 have 1 electron each floating. This means it cycles between 3 different configurations :

Code:

State 1 State 2 State 3 O- O O- / // / O=C -O-C -O-C \ \ \\ O- O- O

The net result is that the Carbonate molecule "resonates", it switches between these 3 configurations at the speed of light which creates if you wil a "harmonic".

String theory tells us that we exist in 10 Dimensions and that in each of those dimensions we have a "resonance" to explain our presence there. For us our "awareness" is in the 3rd Dimension (dont ask me how) but we actually exist in ALL dimensions at the same time.

Personally I believe the fact that our molecules resonate like this and our dimensions resonating via string theory is to much of a coincidence to be just luck. This to me says how we are connected between the different dimensions.

The only way in which us as humans can "see" things, or "hear" things is through the vibration and bombardment of particles (photons, air via sound waves etc) which means we can only DETECT those things that exist in our own dimension. As each of these particles consist of ALL the dimensions below it (they have height, and width and depth) they get an "echo" allowing us to effect the lower dimensions but not the higher ones.
May 25th, 2000, 10:11 AM
Gen-X

Sam
Your arrived as I posted my other one.

Quote:

oh no you're not.let's go back to my box, how far is it from one corner to the oposite corner, if I have to go a really small amount up, then a small amount left then a small amount in I have to move 9+12+20 = 41 cm, if I move in only one direction I only move (9^2 + 12^2 + 20^2)^0.5 = 25 cm

Who said I was moving 9 then 12 then 20?

I am moving 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001 then 0.00000000000000000000000000001 then 0.00000000000000000001 in each direction. Why don't you add all of them up.... Guess what!?!?!? They add up to exactly 25 cm!!!!

Oh my... fancy *drip* that *drip*

I'm dissapointed in you Sam, even you know better than that, I could even take offense that you would begin to believe I would think that.

Quote:

I genuinley don't know what a non maths axis is

Its an imaginary line through the centre of the earth to which we seem to move around.

Quote:

What's wrong with imaginary numbers then, the're great.

I don't know exactly why you're objecting.

let's start with something I like to call proposition 1

Now your starting to get ridiculous.

If you have 0.i that means "I DONT FRIKKEN HAVE IT!".

0 means NONE, NADA, ZILCH, ZERO.

So you can't say z=3 is the same as 3 + 0i because you are simply saying z=3 is the same as 3

AGAIN another reason why maths can't cope... in REALITY 0 of anything means nothing so you can't have 20 nothings!!! And you cant have the Square Root of 1 nothings either

Whats your problem here Sam? This is DEFINATELY grasping at straws to start using Zeros and using LARGE numbers against Pythagorus.... Do you think I am stupid or something?

Quote:

my experiment is in a vacuum in a perfectly closed bok falling freely due to gravity in another vacuum.

No such thing.
Vacuums don't exist, particles appear inside them regardless. Oh and Gravity is STILL there because we are feeling the gravitational effect from every star in our universe.

Sam 0 : Gen-X : 1

Quote:

So, I have a perfect vacuum, With my particle in it

No you DONT have a perfect vacuum... No such thing exists.

What is this "vacuum" contained in? Titanium? Steel? What about the surface particles that are coming off of that surface? What about the neutrino emissions from it being above 0 Kelvin? The gravitons passing through it?

Quote:

experiment at absolute zero apart from the particle

HAHAHAHAHAH!!!! Oh my frikken God!!!!

So everything inside is at Absolute Zero (Definition : Particles are unable to move in this zone because there is no energy to allow them movement) and yet the particle is NOT at absolute Zero? It isn't possible. Temperature doesn't simply EXIST at one point and NOT exist at another. To have something even NEAR absolute zero means that the space around it is at temperatures near that. Your vaccum would have to be the size of a pinhead to make sure everything inside was at the same temperate (accept for the particle for some reason of course)

Sam 0 : Gen-X : 2

Quote:

Surely there's no limit to how accuratley we can measure our particle

What are you using to MEASURE it? The photon that is bounced back? But its Absolute Zero in there, the photon WONT bounce back. What is the photon hitting? And how are we reading it? What is our "equipment" that you speak of?

ALL of reality requires particles to DETECT anything... and not just ONE particle but MILLIONS of particles. As I said before... On a sunny day 10 billion billion photons strike the head of a pin in 1 second.

Quote:

Your making about as much sense as Ked there

Sam, you say this without reading up on String theory, just like when I tried to explain the uncertainty principle without having read it clearly recently.

Just like you told me that I had it totally wrong (which I agree) you have this totally wrong because you don't have an understanding on string theory.

Quote:

Photons are 2 Dimensional They are completley flat

Interesting. I have never heard of this before... what is your source on this Sam?

Quote:

but in a 5th real dimension it's just too constricted for my liking

And thats the problem. its your "liking" that has to be satisfied... not common sense, not logic... not even "reason"... but if you dont LIKE it then you wont accept it.

It is believes that the 5th dimension is a series of tiny "loops" that fit within and between each particle and each quark. I cant explain to you the reasoning behind it but then again I think most human beings will find it difficult trying to even wrap their head around anything above the 4th dimension...

Quote:

think we just answered this one didn't we.

Actually I dont think you did. Photons are particles and particles are made up of quarks. While we might be able to say "it has no mass" or "it is flat" it simply means "its mass is too small for us to calculate" and "its depth is too thin for us to calculate". That doesn't mean it doesn't exist it just means we cannot measure it.

A neutron is made up of 3 quarks as is a photon. Why then is the photon 2D while the neutron is 3D? Are you saying different "flavours" of quarks have different sizes and masses?

If photons are flat then what happens in your experiment with the laster when it strikes the particle with its "EDGE" as opposed to its "SURFACE"? Or some combination of the 2. Does the particle bounce differently? And how exactly does the photon travel? Edge first? or surface first?

If you dont know those things how then can you tell where the particle you are striking will end up?

Code:

Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 (closeup) / /O --O--> |O--> -----/--\ \ | |pt| \ \--/\ \

Case 1 : The photon strikes it at an angle sending the particle off at an angle.

Case 2 : The photon strikes the particle with its edge it moves off directly away

Case 3 : It strikes it with its flat surface. Wouldn't it make the photon "spin" and the particle move off at an angle depending on the difference in masses?

Case 4 : A close up of Case 2 where hitting it with its "infinately small" depth but at a point that is NOT in the centre of the particle causes it to fly off at a different angle.

All of these things just prove even more that all this theory just doesn't hold together logically.
May 25th, 2000, 05:04 PM
kedaman

Sam and Gen-x: 1 Ked: 0 I'm not too sure about that yet

Well, ok Sam, you're right then, but why didn't anyone tell me that in the first place, that there are no volume 3dobjects? Especially Gen-x. I'm am totally aware of what a dimension is, there was just one point I got wrong and it certainly wasn't you that pointed it out.

But have the irrational argument left Sam. I thought also we had photons as both
1. Particles
2. Waves

Isn't you refering to these waves now? We also have them as particles.

On more thing, the photons need to be angled to fit into the 2d dimension. This means they have to be perfectly parallell, can you explain that? Polaroid glasses does not makes the photons go parallell, just as near as possible. Secondly they need to have a direction parallell to the 2n'd plane.

Same thing for the quarks, how can we have them go in a specific angle and 5d-direction, how can they all match so perfectly? Talking about impossibilities like evolution.

Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your making about as much sense as Ked there
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam, you say this without reading up on String theory, just like when I tried to explain the uncertainty principle without having read it clearly recently.

Just like you told me that I had it totally wrong (which I agree) you have this totally wrong because you don't have an understanding on string theory.

Well just answer me this before you tell me i'm wrong: Isn't parallell just a mathematical concept, just like dimensions are?
May 25th, 2000, 06:55 PM
Iain17

Sam

Quote:

Photons are 2 Dimensional They are completely flat

Now i am not saying you are wrong, but i to would like to hear where this one came from. Do you have a reference or a web-site i can look up?

Quote:

Having thought about it, it does make some sense that quarks exist in complex space for some dimension, although this is entirely mathematical and if someone puts forward a better theory Ill accept that model, but in a 5th real dimension it's just too constricted for my liking.

I agree that 5 dimensions are too restricting, it has been proposed before, by Klazu Klein (spelling?). As you know Einstein was looking for a way to combine the theories of relativity, and gravity into one, Klein managed to do this by proposing a 5th dimension. Obviously his theory was dismissed for a long time. The thing was that 5 dimensions were not enough to describe everything in the standard model. This is where string theory came in.

With 10 dimensions we see that string theory contains Einstein's theories, Maxwell's theory on light, gravity theories and the standard model. When i say contain i mean this. From string theory it is possible to re-derive all of the above theories, they just simply pop out of the equation. This is the true beauty of it. All the theories that we take as proved, are automatically a part of string theory, which leads us to believe that we are on the right track.

I know it is hard to fathom how we can be the result of vibrating strings in higher dimensions, i don't even claim to fully understand how this can be, but i can accept it as a possibility.

This other post is relevant to string theory. It looks a little bit lost in the Scientific Proof Of God's Existance thread. More on Strings

Gen-X

Quote:

Are you saying different "flavours" of quarks have different sizes and masses?

This is a bit out of my league at the minute as i have not read up on quarks for a couple of years, and the book i have on them is at least 10 years old (probably out of date by now), but i thought the answer was yes.

I cannot say for definite, but i thought these quarks did have different properties. They certainly have different electrical charges.

Kedaman

Quote:

Well just answer me this before you tell me i'm wrong: Isn't parallell just a mathematical concept, just like dimensions are?

Not really. Parallel just means running adjacent to, or equal distance apart everywhere. e.g. Railway lines are parallel, though of course it is a mathematical term as well.

[Edited by Iain17 on 05-26-2000 at 12:58 PM]
May 25th, 2000, 10:01 PM
Sam Finch

Quote:

I am moving 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001 then 0.00000000000000000000000000001 then 0.00000000000000000001 in each direction. Why don't you add all of them up.... Guess what!?!?!? They add up to exactly 25 cm!!!!

Oh my... fancy *drip* that *drip*

I'm dissapointed in you Sam, even you know better than that, I could even take offense that you would begin to believe I would think that.

of course you don't think that, you're not stupid, just slightly miguided by all those physics books you keep reading

you might not have thought that but you implied it.

Quote:

No I am not moving in infinate directions, I am moving in extremely small portions of EACH of the 3 directions at once.

The point is as long as I don't admit to knowing what you're talking about and take you up on little mistakes like that you will have to resort to the mathematical ideas to explain what a dimension is.

I don't suggest we keep going with you trying to explain a dimension without maths, our posts are getting long and confusing enough already but do you see my point, it's very very hard to say what a dimension is without maths whether it's impossible or not I don't know, It's a bit like me trying to describe a cat in pure maths. I could give you some equations that gave graphs that look a bit like cats, I could give a time element to the eq and have the cat walk (this would take me years to work out and it's unlikley I'd be able to express the cat equations in Ascii)

complex numbers

Quote:

So you can't say z=3 is the same as 3 + 0i because you are simply saying z=3 is the same as 3

you are saying that I'm wrong purely on the grounds that I'm right, that's the point of an equation both sides are the same thing

z = 3 + 0i = 3
what's wrong with that then?

if I say z = 3 where z is a complex number to anyone in the world who understands complex numbers (except you obviously) they will know what point in 2D complex space I'm talking about, the point z = 3 + 0i which is a point in 2D complex space. but it's also a point in 1D real space, so I've expressed a 2D point using a 1D vector

The Icredible battle of my frikkin Laser

OK, i'm changing my experiment, the walls of my vacuum chamber are at absolute zero, my chamber is perfectly spherical so it doesn't produce a gravitational field inside it (can't remember who's law that is but do the maths, the chamber doesn't produce a gravitational field on the inside.)

other than the uncertainty principal there is no limit to how close I can get the walls of my chamber to absolute zero.

Quote:

Quote:

my experiment is in a vacuum in a perfectly closed bok falling freely due to gravity in another vacuum.

No such thing.
Vacuums don't exist, particles appear inside them regardless. Oh and Gravity is STILL there because we are feeling the gravitational effect from every star in our universe.

Sam 0 : Gen-X : 1

you scored a terriffic own goal there

the reason vacuums don't exist is because particles create and destroy themselves inside it.

This is due to the uncertainty principal, if you use this as an argument against the accuracy of my experiment you are effectivly saying "The uncertainty principal exists because of the uncertainty principal" it's like saying "God exists because it says so in the bible"

I'll just quote this bit again because it amuses me

Quote:

Oh and Gravity is STILL there because we are feeling the gravitational effect from every star in our universe

my experiment is falling freely under gravity, it is falling freely under the effects of every star in the universe hence it is not under the effect of any gravitational field (see general relitivity page 1)

so in fact that's

Sam 1 Gen-x 0

your second goal I'll allow, but I'm changing my experiment so that's OK

the walls of my chamber are made of hmm, plastic, maybe metal, I think Diamond's going a bit over the top, maybe lead, that blocks most particles so that gets rid of a few of them. (as long as the chamber is charged equally there's no electric or magnetic field either from it for the same reason as there's no gravitational field. oh and there at absolute zero so no particles are falling off on the inside.

OK, what's getting in

Quote:

What about the neutrino emissions from it being above 0 Kelvin? The gravitons passing through it?

it's at absolute zero so there's no neutrino emmissions it's not in a gravitational field so there's no gravitons.

The only thing influencing my particle is the gravitational field from the laser and the detector.

so I'm going to make my chamber big enough so that the gravitational field from the laser and detector are negligable (this is one scource of error, but there's no limit on how big my chamber is so there's no limit on how small the error is)

err particles coming in from the outside, seeing as my experiment is so large it has it's own gravitational field strong enough to support a sea of cleaning fluid (the stuff they use to detect particles) there is no limit to how big my sea of cleaning fluid is so there's no limit to the %age of particles I can stop.

this may generate a little heat but I've got some clever devices to ship that out by Lasers, and I have enough lasers positioned on all sides of my chamber to producce no net accelaration on my experiment.

Now, I fire 2 photons, one strikes the particle at a time t and bounces on to my sensor, I can work out exactly the position of my particle, (because there's no limit to .....) then I do it a second time and work out the position again, so I knw it's exact position at 2 seperate times and can work out it's speed, so as I know what kind of particle it is and hence its mass I can work out its momentum going into the second collision, as I know the momentum of my photon going in I can work out its momentum afterwards as well.

This is what's known as a thought experiment, obviously I can't do it, and I'd have to be pretty lucky to hit the same particle twice (I'd have to be pretty lucky to hit it once in fact) but the only reasons we can't do it are practical reasons, so there's no theoretical limit to how accuratley we can measure it.

That is until we do some maths.

Flat photons

Quote:

Interesting. I have never heard of this before... what is your source on this Sam?

I just made it up and assumned some physcist somewhere had suggested it

It goes on how poleroids work, light waves have an orientation (a wave is a 2D thing right, so if a light wave is in 3D space the 2D plane the wave is in must have an orientation.) a poleroid only lets through light waves with their planes parralell to the slits in it (did I mention a poleroid is a piece of glass with tiny slits in it.) If we translate these results over to the particle model we see that photons must be disc like travelling edge first. (this is just a model, obviously photons don't have a shape as such, a shape is a macroscopic thing)

Quote:

Photons are particles and particles are made up of quarks

quarks not particles then? what about gravitons I thought they were quarks, I didn't think photons were made up of 3 quarks, what about electrons, are they made up of 3 quarks too?

I thought you of all people would readily take this on board as a model.

oh, and all your cases, the photon always flys edge first and case 4 doesn't really apply, because we're talking about particles which just don't act that way, you're taking your macroscopic view of the world and trying to apply it photons etc, I thought you'd be the last one to do this. :)
May 26th, 2000, 02:31 AM

[quote]
I am moving 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001 then 0.00000000000000000000000000001 then 0.00000000000000000001 in each direction. Why don't you add all of them up.... Guess what!?!?!? They add up to exactly 25 cm!!!! [quote]

No they don't
May 26th, 2000, 02:39 AM
kedaman

Sam, Even though Photons have a 2-dimensional movement, they don't need to be 2-dimensional. A photon can hit a wall and be absorbed by it, how do you explain that with using math? YOu need an interference with the wall, but you can't get any without having a size of the photon.

Now talking about polaroid glasses again, if you need the photons to go parallell, you need the width of the slits to be the size of a photon, which is theoretically possible to manage at least two photon to go parallell if it had a size, but if it doesn't there's no slits to pass trough, it would be like saying "Photons can pass trough a wall".

Now give me another no-volume object, or we should have this quark-idea cleared out of this thread.

Sam:0 Gen-x:0 Ked:0

3d-space

Quote:

if I say z = 3 where z is a complex number to anyone in the world who understands complex numbers (except you obviously) they will know what point in 2D complex space I'm talking about, the point z = 3 + 0i which is a point in 2D complex space. but it's also a point in 1D real space, so I've expressed a 2D point using a 1D vector

About complex numbers, do you know what the i stands for? Yes, imaginaire, sqr(-1). I'm sure you can't have that applying to reality. ALthoug 3=3+0i is a complex value, it's also totally rational, 3+sqr(-0) put it 3+1i, 3+sqr(-1) and you will get an error in your calculator. A 1d vector in another direction than it's base direction will just project it self on it's base vector. Remove the i, or we could have a million of dimensions out of 1, if you just want.
May 28th, 2000, 10:28 AM
Gen-X

Kedaman

Quote:

Isn't you refering to these waves now? We also have them as particles.

Read Quantum Mechanics. It describes how a photon can be BOTH a particle AND a wave at the same time.

Quote:

Well just answer me this before you tell me i'm wrong: Isn't parallell just a mathematical concept, just like dimensions are?

As Iain described but I will give it to you without any mathematics.

"Parallel" means that no matter which direction I decide to travel, I can always reach out and find it at exactly the same distance away from me at ALL times.

Iain

Quote:

I know it is hard to fathom how we can be the result of vibrating strings in higher dimensions, i don't even claim to fully understand how this can be, but i can accept it as a possibility.

Now that you mention it (thought I have heard all this before), the way you described it here makes me wonder if my theory of our "souls" being the presence of higher dimensional attachments to our physical presence seems more likely.

Quote:

I know it is hard to fathom how we can be the result of vibrating strings in higher dimensions, i don't even claim to fully understand how this can be, but i can accept it as a possibility.

As far as I know, although they differ in properties, charge etc they are the same mass... Not quotable but that was what I can recollect.

Sam

Quote:

of course you don't think that, you're not stupid, just slightly miguided by all those physics books you keep reading

As you are misguided by those maths books you read ;)
(But you still didn't credit the fact that I STILL travelled 25cm)

Quote:

The point is as long as I don't admit to knowing what you're talking about and take you up on little mistakes like that you will have to resort to the mathematical ideas to explain what a dimension is.

Actually, the point is that there is no way I can explain any of this to you without mathematics because that is the only language you are willing to understand.

I could use terms as I have and other people would EASILY understand what I mean... as they all did. (And credited me with doing so very well)

Quote:

z = 3 + 0i = 3
what's wrong with that then?

I have done complex numbers but it was a while ago. What is wrong with it is that with i = 0 there really isn't an i at all is there... so you are really saying z = 3 = 3

You conveniently overlooked and ignored this bit... obviously because you had no answer to it and would rather continue your calculations in ignorance than acutally admit that 0 of something is NOTHING and therefor doesn't really even exist in there in the first place... (You keep i in there because you INTRODUCE that dimension.. which is what I said in the first place)

Quote:

OK, i'm changing my experiment, the walls of my vacuum chamber are at absolute zero, my chamber is perfectly spherical so it doesn't produce a gravitational field inside it (can't remember who's law that is but do the maths, the chamber doesn't produce a gravitational field on the inside.)

If the walls are absolute zero then how does your photon get INTO the chamber? When it attempts to pass through the wall it would cease to move because "the walls are absolute zero". Oh and if you say that "The place where the photon enters is NOT absolute zero" then I say "So there could be OTHER particles entering through this apperture

Quote:

other than the uncertainty principal there is no limit to how close I can get the walls of my chamber to absolute zero

Oh for Christs #$()&@#$^ Sake!!!!

You are telling me that even though the probability of you being able to even get this thing to work being 1 in 1x10e99 it is STILL absolute proof that you can get BOTH position and momentum?

Grow a frikken brain Sam!!! You are starting to take what has been reasonable discussions and plausible possiblities into the realm of total fiction.

Based on the uncertainty principle I can catch a photon in my hand and let it go again...

So *I* knew its position and its momentum...

Quote:

you scored a terriffic own goal there

the reason vacuums don't exist is because particles create and destroy themselves inside it.

Really now? So they create and destroy themselves inside it... So how do you know one didn't create itself directly infront of the photon's path?

Sam : 0 Gen-X : 1

Quote:

This is due to the uncertainty principal, if you use this as an argument against the accuracy of my experiment you are effectivly saying "The uncertainty principal exists because of the uncertainty principal" it's like saying "God exists because it says so in the bible"

What I am saying is that there is just as much certainty as there is uncertainty. Therefor if the whole point of your expierment USES the uncertainty principle it works against you just as much...

Quote:

my experiment is falling freely under gravity, it is falling freely under the effects of every star in the universe hence it is not under the effect of any gravitational field (see general relitivity page 1)

so in fact that's

Sam 1 Gen-x 0

Oh really? Now this is where I see what you have written as complete and total BULLSHIT and will happily say so.

First you write : "falling freely under gravity"
Then you write : "The only thing influencing my particle is the gravitational field from the laser and the detector"

and then : "it has it's own gravitational field strong enough to support a sea of cleaning fluid "

Hang on? Doesn't all that contradict itself. If it now has its "own" gravitational field doesn't that mean there are gravitons flowing through here?

Oh but its free falling in gravity... so there is nothing here... but hang on... it has the gravity of the laser and detector... but hang on, they have been cancelled out by the gravitational field of the chamber...

Oh my Sam... Now you are tying your head up in knots... Make your damn mind up if it has one or it doesn't...

Quote:

this may generate a little heat but I've got some clever devices to ship that out by Lasers, and I have enough lasers positioned on all sides of my chamber to producce no net accelaration on my experiment.

How can it generate heat if it is in absolute zero? Oh and if you have enough lasers positioned on all sides of the chamber are they exhurting gravitational fields? If not why not?

Quote:

Now, I fire 2 photons, one strikes the particle at a time t and bounces on to my sensor, I can work out exactly the position of my particle, (because there's no limit to .....) then I do it a second time and work out the position again

Here is where your ridiculous and unplausible experiment really falls down.

You do it a second time... So how do you KNOW where it is the second time? You struck it with a photon which means you altered the course of the particle... How do you know where the course was changed to? What is the maths to show its new course?

Quote:

That is until we do some maths

No, no.. when you do some maths you crawl back into your little comfy world and start cooking the entire universe flowing the way you want it to make your own answers come true.

By your own admission they used mathematics to PROVE you cannot know both position and momentum... And yet you wont accept it even when your own "God" tells you.

Quote:

I just made it up and assumned some physcist somewhere had suggested it

And you have just shown your ability to reason sensibly... Make up what you dont know to support what you WANT to be true.

Thank you so much for validating my opinions so thoroughly.

Quote:

quarks not particles then? what about gravitons I thought they were quarks, I didn't think photons were made up of 3 quarks, what about electrons, are they made up of 3 quarks too?

The difference between a PROTON and an ELECTRON is the quark configuration.

Code:

PROTON : Q(+2/3) + Q(+2/3) + Q(-1/3) = +1 NEUTRON : Q(-1/3) + Q(-1/3) + Q(+2/3) = 0 ELECTRON : Q(-2/3) + Q(-2/3) + Q(+1/3) = -1

They are ALL made up of quarks as is everything in our universe... Neutrinos, gravitons, electrons, photons, mesons the whole lot.

Quote:

oh, and all your cases, the photon always flys edge first and case 4 doesn't really apply, because we're talking about particles which just don't act that way, you're taking your macroscopic view of the world and trying to apply it photons etc, I thought you'd be the last one to do this.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! oh now you are just showing your ignorance of science sam!!!

What the #$*#@ do you think Einstien did when they discovered Quantum Mechanics????

They applied his frikken laws of motion to them and guess what!?!? They ALL worked! Laws governing macroscopic views of the world worked PERFECTLY on a microscopic (read that photon) level.

Of COURSE you can apply those rules, its the whole basis for Quantum Mechanics... Go and read a book and stop talking **** Sam... I know I make mistakes and incorrectly retrieve things (we all do)... but at least I dont just make **** up as I go along and do it just to prove myself right.

[Why do I get the feeling you wrote that purposely to provoke the answer you got?]

:mad:
May 29th, 2000, 08:04 AM
Sam Finch

Gen-x

*Great big fat Sigh*

Quote:

As you are misguided by those maths books you read
(But you still didn't credit the fact that I STILL travelled 25cm)

There's a difference between a maths book and a physics book

Physics book People buy popularized physics books to read because they are full of oversimplified models that poeple can understand unfortunately the price we pay for this is that they are wrong.

Maths Book Nobody would ever buy a maths book unless they were studying maths
Maths books are never oversimplified and are always right

the fact is if you travel in a little bit of each direction at a time you will alwayus move 41cm no matter how small your steps are, but a 25cm piece of string between the 2 corners can reach even though it can't stretch to 41cm. this is where the non maths breaks down.

Quote:

I could use terms as I have and other people would EASILY understand what I mean... as they all did. (And credited me with doing so very well)

yes, they all credited you for making a very good attempt at the impossiple task of explaining the Idea of a dimension without maths

Quote:

so you are really saying z = 3 = 3

that's exactly what I'm saying but by using z I'm refering to a point in the coplex plane ie a 2D point, but I'm refering to it in terms of the single dimension of real numbers It's a very simple Idea I don't see why youre objecting

Quote:

If the walls are absolute zero then how does your photon get INTO the chamber?

It's generated in the chamber by the laser, the energy gets into the chamber by a wir, which is only connected for long enough for enough energy to generatre a single photon

Quote:

You are telling me that even though the probability of you being able to even get this thing to work being 1 in 1x10e99 it is STILL absolute proof that you can get BOTH position and momentum?

I'm saying it's possible, if we do the experiment enough times, remember there is no limit to the number of times we do this experiment

Quote:

Quote:

you scored a terriffic own goal there

the reason vacuums don't exist is because particles create and destroy themselves inside it.

Really now? So they create and destroy themselves inside it... So how do you know one didn't create itself directly infront of the photon's path?

Sam : 0 Gen-X : 1

I know it's difficult but try reading a whole sentence at a time, sentences make more sense that way.

Quote:

What I am saying is that there is just as much certainty as there is uncertainty. Therefor if the whole point of your expierment USES the uncertainty principle it works against you just as much...

you're missing the point of this, I'm looking for the reason behind the uncertainty principal, you cannot use the uncertainty principal to explain its own existance. You are saying that the reason we cannot measure a particles position and momentum is a practical one of having to use a particle to measure it, I have provided aan experiment which could measure them both if it wasn't for the MATHEMATICAL uncertainty principal (that one about doing calculus on probability waves)

Quote:

Oh really? Now this is where I see what you have written as complete and total BULLSHIT and will happily say so.

First you write : "falling freely under gravity"
Then you write : "The only thing influencing my particle is the gravitational field from the laser and the detector"

and then : "it has it's own gravitational field strong enough to support a sea of cleaning fluid "

Hang on? Doesn't all that contradict itself. If it now has its "own" gravitational field doesn't that mean there are gravitons flowing through here?

Oh but its free falling in gravity... so there is nothing here... but hang on... it has the gravity of the laser and detector... but hang on, they have been cancelled out by the gravitational field of the chamber...

Oh my Sam... Now you are tying your head up in knots... Make your damn mind up if it has one or it doesn't...

Now you're just embarrasing yourself. If you're going to make sarcastic comments about peoples arguments then you should at least read them first.

you're getting confused between the Ideas of INSIDE and OUTSIDE

Inside the chamber the chamber itself exerts no gravitational field because it is a hollow sphere (either do the maths or try it, your choice either way there is no gravitational field inside)

Outside the Chamber there is a gravitational field equivilent to a point like mass at the center of the chamber. (this is the type of physics that's not in your books, it's only in the boring ones)

Quote:

How can it generate heat if it is in absolute zero? Oh and if you have enough lasers positioned on all sides of the chamber are they exhurting gravitational fields? If not why not?

I only said this because you would have brought up the Idea that our sea of cleaning fluid being bombarded with particles would geerate heat, I am providing a meathod of shipping the heat out of my experiment and keeping at absolute zero, the lazers do not generate a gravitational field because there are enough of them positioned equaly around my sphere to keep the approximation to a sherical shell (which generates no gravitational field on the inside)

Quote:

No, no.. when you do some maths you crawl back into your little comfy world and start cooking the entire universe flowing the way you want it to make your own answers come true.

By your own admission they used mathematics to PROVE you cannot know both position and momentum... And yet you wont accept it even when your own "God" tells you.

now clearly you have missed the pint of this rediculus experiment.

The point is there is no practical limit to the accuracy of my experiment, only the mathematical one, when we do the maths we fuind it is not possible too know both because it cannot have both, when we measure one the other disapears.

Quote:

The difference between a PROTON and an ELECTRON is the quark configuration.

code:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------PROTON : Q(+2/3) + Q(+2/3) + Q(-1/3) = +1
NEUTRON : Q(-1/3) + Q(-1/3) + Q(+2/3) = 0
ELECTRON : Q(-2/3) + Q(-2/3) + Q(+1/3) = -1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They are ALL made up of quarks as is everything in our universe... Neutrinos, gravitons, electrons, photons, mesons the whole lot.

This make protons and electrons the same mass. Please think about what you say before you say it :)

Quote:

They applied his frikken laws of motion to them and guess what!?!? They ALL worked! Laws governing macroscopic views of the world worked PERFECTLY on a microscopic (read that photon) level.

Laws of particle motion yes, Laws of rigid bodies no, so don't try to apply the rigid bodies laws to particles because they don't work.
May 29th, 2000, 11:14 AM
Gen-X

Sam

No point repeating myself to a brickwall.

Your not about to budge on Maths and I am not about to budge on reality.

So why even bother?

Your entire argument is based on RULES that humans came up with and my entire argument is based on the REALITY of what is around us.

HUMANS make mistakes... REALITY doesn't.

HUMANS only know what they have learned... REALITY knows all

MATHS is only as good as what they BASE it on.

Thanks for the talk... it was enlightening.
May 29th, 2000, 07:07 PM
Sam Finch

Yeah, I don't think this is actually getting anywhere, what you've missed though is that reality is only what se can see and hear etc, everything else is just a model.

Sam's list of things that are real

The 3 Dimensions of space
Protons & Neutrons and Stuff that's made of them
Light and EM Waves (or maybe just visible light)

everything else is just a model trying to explain what's happening, nothing else is real, not even electrons, time, gravitons. etc. They're all just a way of trying to predict what these 3 real thing are going to do next.

Some models are pretty right, others are less right, the quantitative ones use maths, the qualitative ones don't, but there is no completley accurate model and I don't think we'll ever find one.

Other than that it's been a good argument, and it's good that the Science Vs Maths argument was much more interesting than the Science Vs Religion one.

N.B. I'll continue to use the word Proove as proove mathematicly, however this does not of course make it right but it is a strong argument and I will still pull you up If you say something that disagrees with the maths I love.

Remember any model you have is usually backed by maths or can at least be described by maths, maths isn't the rigid thing you seem to think it is, The right piece of maths will always produce the right results, it's just that we don't know which is the best bit to use.

Let's call it a Draw :)
May 29th, 2000, 08:02 PM
kedaman

Quote:

"Parallel" means that no matter which direction I decide to travel, I can always reach out and find it at exactly the same distance away from me at ALL times.

Distance - math, exactly - math. Hmm, you don't get it Gen-x at least that "exactly" part, because that doesn't fit in reality. Point me out an example just like Iain did with the railway (except that railways are not exactly parallell) and don't ignore gravity!

About a object being both 2 and 3 dimensional does only say one thing: It's 3 dimensional and act's 2dimensionally

Quote:

Sam

No point repeating myself to a brickwall.

Your not about to budge on Maths and I am not about to budge on reality.

So why even bother?

Your entire argument is based on RULES that humans came up with and my entire argument is based on the REALITY of what is around us.

HUMANS make mistakes... REALITY doesn't.

HUMANS only know what they have learned... REALITY knows all

MATHS is only as good as what they BASE it on.

Thanks for the talk... it was enlightening.

Gen-x, how can you ever know what REALITY is? You're just refering to it and that makes nonsense if you go stating anything and tells it IS REALITY! Actually we could consider you as alien

Kedamans list of things that are real:

Me
What i see or what creates the illusion.
Math

Quote:

Other than that it's been a good argument, and it's good that the Science Vs Maths argument was much more interesting than the Science Vs Religion one.

I would like to change that Science Vs Religion to Religion Vs Religion as Science is a religion, But when you have Science Vs Math, it's actually Theories Vs Facts, where Math is the FACT part.

Quote:

N.B. I'll continue to use the word Proove as proove mathematicly, however this does not of course make it right but it is a strong argument and I will still pull you up If you say something that disagrees with the maths I love.

We should use the words proove mathematically and proove scientifically as prooving something real doesn't work. And a scientific proof is never waterresistant, but a mathematic proof always is, whenever it's not refering to science.
May 29th, 2000, 08:24 PM
Sam Finch

Ked, Maths isn't real, it's the properties of the real number line, or the complex plane, or some group, ring or field, it's not real, it's just such a big subject that it can be applied to anything.
May 29th, 2000, 10:18 PM
kedaman

Sorry, Math does not refer to reality, what i meant was math is true as it doesn't refer to anything else. Remove it from the list, it's in it's own category
May 30th, 2000, 06:23 AM
Gen-X

Sam

*sigh*

How can we have a conversation when you contradict your own words :(

Quote:

Yeah, I don't think this is actually getting anywhere, what you've missed though is that reality is only what we can see and hear etc, everything else is just a model.

Sam's list of things that are real

The 3 Dimensions of space
Protons & Neutrons and Stuff that's made of them
Light and EM Waves (or maybe just visible light)

So you have actually seen or heard a Dimension have you? Or have you only seen and hear what is INSIDE this dimension. By your own words that means the dimension itself isn't real because you cannot see it.

Oh and when was the last time you SAW/HEARD a Proton? Or a Neutron?

Now you say That you believe "light" but that you DON'T believe in electrons... Funny, because without electrons the protons/neutrons you BELIEVE in so much would never stay together. It is BECAUSE they know electrons are real that they can determine (even mathematically) which atoms will hold to which other atoms... PURELY by the number of electrons they have.

Yet you think they are just a "model"

Oh and when was the last time you SAW/HEARD/FELT an electromagnetic field?

Quote:

N.B. I'll continue to use the word Proove as proove mathematicly, however this does not of course make it right but it is a strong argument and I will still pull you up If you say something that disagrees with the maths I love.

Why bother? If every time you held up an orange I said "Its an Apple" you would not understand the point... You have stated that the only form of proof you accept is mathematical (or has some relation to maths) which is diametrically opposed to nearly every scientist on the face of the earth.... Why pull someone up when what you are talking about is different to what they are talking about?

Quote:

Remember any model you have is usually backed by maths or can at least be described by maths, maths isn't the rigid thing you seem to think it is, The right piece of maths will always produce the right results, it's just that we don't know which is the best bit to use.

*SIGH* You keep answering my own question and yet you don't SEE the answer you make yourself.

"it's just that we don't know which is the best bit to use"

Look at that statement Sam... READ that statement Sam.

Before you said that "Maths can be used to prove something". If this is true, that Maths can be an ABSOLUTE proof of something... then isn't the fact that you have just said "WE DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHICH IS THE BEST BIT TO USE" mean that you cannot use Maths as proof because you could be using the WRONG Maths as proof.

You have just highlighted AGAIN why Maths cannot be used as proof... Because its CONSTRUCTED by humans and CHOSEN by humans. You suddenly decided to use complex numbers, pulled it out of the aether because it suited your argument. You cannot do this in science... it is either THERE or its NOT.

Please... at least agree to that much... you have said it yourself right here and right now... Don't back out on your own words at this point.

Kedaman

Quote:

Distance - math, exactly - math. Hmm, you don't get it Gen-x at least that "exactly" part, because that doesn't fit in reality. Point me out an example just like Iain did with the railway (except that railways are not exactly parallell) and don't ignore gravity!

Oh Brother! Ked... I know your english is not good, I am making allowances for that. Terms like Distance, Point, Axis, Dimension, Space and Line were all used BEFORE mathematics... in fact the whole reason Mathematics USED those words was because it matched what they were trying to say.

Because I use the word "Distance" doesn't make it maths, it means I am talking about a concept OLDER than the concept of COUNTING... which is the foundation of maths.

Quote:

Kedamans list of things that are real:

Me
What i see or what creates the illusion.
Math

Hehehehe... I think I understand now. How wonderfully ego-centric.

But tell me... Why do you include Maths in that list? You are real because you think, you can touch yourself etc etc... What you see is real (or the illusion) because it comes into your brain and you interact with it... But why maths? You can't touch it, you can't feel it, you don't see it... its something IN YOUR MIND.

Quote:

I would like to change that Science Vs Religion to Religion Vs Religion as Science is a religion

Thats like saying Christianity is just a CLUB. Religion is something you believe on "faith", something that you are required to have ABSOLUTE faith in. Science by its own definition re-invents itself every time it disputes some of its findings. Religion answers "WHY", Science answers "HOW". The old cliche of them both answering the same questions is rather stupid.

Quote:

And a scientific proof is never waterresistant, but a mathematic proof always is, whenever it's not refering to science

So doesn't that mean we should NEVER use a mathematic proof in science if it is never water resistant?
May 31st, 2000, 08:08 AM
Gen-X

Kedaman

I have only one thing to say to you as I am tired of talking to a brick wall.

Science is a "METHOD", Religion is a "BELIEF".

I don't "believe" in science I accept its "methods", and I use them in order to understand the reality around me.

When Science comes up with something as "REAL" it allows itself to be disputed if more evidence comes to light. It re-invents itself because the "PURPOSE" of science is to discover more and to "GROW" as you learn.

Religion is the OPPOSITE of this. It requires you to accept IMMEDIATELY everything to be true, the ONLY truth and undisputable. Once you BELIEVE you stop growing, you stop learning, you close yourself off into a bubble and keep going over and over the same things.

Its why we consider incest BAD... in-breeding is the destruction of the species... Focusing on religion and just re-focusing, going over it again and again NEVER changing, NEVER expanding.... You are just speeding up your own destruction.
May 31st, 2000, 06:09 PM
Iain17

Kedaman

Quote:

Dimension is a totally mathematical concept, if they didn't have that word "math" they did still used it as well as we did. Point is also just plain mathematical concept, you cannot prove there is any point in universe at all, some for axis space and line, everything that is math, have no reference in reality.

So a dimension is a totally mathematical concept? HAH! Has no reference to reality. HAH! What about the dimensions of the room you are in. Do these have no reference to reality? If that is the case I guess the room must not really exist.

What about the point of the room you are positioned at? This point does not exist in the universe? Well I guess that means that you don’t exist in the universe because there is no point for you to exist at.

Lines are just mathematical as well. If that is the case you must be blind, how can you see without a line of sight?

Space is purely mathematical? So we were flying through equations to get to the moon? Astronauts kept seeing numbers flying past them? HAH! No space in reality. How do you fit into a room without space?

The word Axis has at least 10 definitions, I suggest you look them up.
Jun 1st, 2000, 09:30 PM
kedaman

If it is Iain, why are you so ignorant and use sarcasm instead of prooving something, you keep looking for garbage around my statement while you leave the concept intact instead. Burn your garbage Iain and keep to the topic.

Let's have a look at your totally ignorant statements:

1. The room exists not if the dimensions of it has no reference in reality
2. Point does not exist in universe if it doesn't exist at all.
3. You can't see if lines are mathematical
4. You fly trough equations and see numbers if space is mathematical
5. "Axis" has at least 10 definitions.

Now Iain, this is exactly what you stated, without sarcasm, and look how silly it got now! This is totally bullshit in disguise, in other words.

1. The room exists only in your mind, with dimensions, your observation is applied to that concept in your brain. This means when they didn't have that word "math" they had it integrated in their brains.
2. Well that is like saying There is a glas on the table if the glas is there.
3. y=x+2 - that's a definition of a line - oh and now you can't see anything
4. Hehe, now Iain, look around you, do you see any numbers? Space is purely a matematical concept.
5. Possible, but why point the other out when we're talking about math? And why point all nonmathematicall definitions at all when we're not talking about them?
Jun 2nd, 2000, 01:26 AM
Sam Finch

I think we're all a bit confused here.

A dimension is just a mathematical concept.

Personally I agree with this, the non maths translation of the word dimension is measurement ie a box can have dimensions 10cm by 15cm by 20cm, this is 3 measurements so we live in 3 dimensions, this Idea is pretty meaningless however unless you're measuring boxes.

other than that the word dimension has no real meaning, gen-x will jump in and tell you about "the third dimension" and "The Fourth dimension" but he just has his terminoligy wrong, when he says "the third dimension" he means 3 dimensional space.

in maths n dimensional space is defined by the number of solutions to various vector equations that exist in that space, however 1, 2 and 3 dimensional space translate well to ideas in he real world, a straight line, a flat plane and the space we live in, but there's nothing we can do with these concepts other than maths.

point, line, axis etc

in maths a point is a 0 dimensional space, in reality it's pretty much the same thing, but it's closer to a physical object (you can point to a point) the 2 Ideas are very close but seperate, the same with a line (athough in maths lines are always straight) axes in maths are very different from axes in reality but there is still a slight parralell.

the moral of the story

in fact there is a mathematical version of reality, we havn't yet found it perfectly but most of the pieces are in place, in this mathematical reality we have the concepts of relitivity, string theory, quantum mechanics etc, in our reality we do not, the mathematical reality (called physics) is a model of reality which makes accurate predictions of our own reality, obviously there are parralelly between the 2 realities but it is important to keep the distinction clear.(it's like the word integer which has different meanings in maths and computing but the 2 ideas are similar if you use the mathematical Idea of integer in a program you risk getting an overflow)

that's my view on this, now watch gen-x half read it and take various sentances out of context.
Jun 4th, 2000, 08:00 AM
Gen-X

Sam, Sam, sam....

So little faith you have in me ;)

I'm not even going to bother bantering with your concept... I shall instead attack it at its very heart.

What is maths?
Why was it invented?
When was it invented?
Jun 4th, 2000, 04:51 PM
Sam Finch

Gen-x

Thanks for your questions,

1 Maths is the language of Logic, it is the method of quantitativly describing the world we see around us through the use of models.

2 It was not "Invented" as sutch, it was discovered. In its earliest form it was used to answer simple questions sutch as "Is my field bigger than farmer uggs field?" and "How much fence do I need to enclose enough land to feed four sheep. Later the concept of mathematical proof was used to provide definate answers to questions that had never been answered before and to ensure that equations used to calculate things were the correct ones.

3 It is not known when maths was first used by settlers, the ancient Babilonians used rudimentary arithmetic and was probably around the same time as the invention of trade.

I'm glad you're taking an intrest in the subject. :)

[Edited by Sam Finch on 06-05-2000 at 10:55 AM]
Jun 5th, 2000, 10:21 AM
Gen-X

Quote:

1 Maths is the language of Logic, it is the method of quantitativly describing the world we see around us through the use of models.

Question :

If Maths is used to describe the world around us, and the term "dimension" is a mathematical term... then doesn't that define a dimension as :

"A word used to describe the world we see around us"

So I ask you again... How can a "dimension" be a purely mathematical concept when the whole POINT of maths is to describe the world?

Quote:

2 It was not "Invented" as sutch, it was discovered. In its earliest form it was used to answer simple questions sutch as "Is my field bigger than farmer uggs field?" and "How much fence do I need to enclose enough land to feed four sheep. Later the concept of mathematical proof was used to provide definate answers to questions that had never been answered before and to ensure that equations used to calculate things were the correct ones.

Discovered? Mmmmm...

Can you show me where in our world they "discovered" complex numbers?

And where did they "discover" 5-Dimensional Geometry?

Oh and while your at it... please show me where they "discovered" infinity?

Quote:

3 It is not known when maths was first used by settlers, the ancient Babilonians used rudimentary arithmetic and was probably around the same time as the invention of trade.

So in other words, prior to this time people were "ignorant" of the fact that maths existed. They used "alternatives" to describe the things they saw and the nature of the universe around them because they didn't have a better thing (maths) to do it for them.

So they used stones and chips of metal or currency, having to "count" (thought they didn't know that was the word for it) them out individually to make sure you got the right amount for each animal you sold.

Amazing. This sounds very much like the belief in God. They were ignorant of the science around them and so they explained the universe and its nature with what they could understand.

The difference being that we have thrown away the abacus and the stone chips and replaces them with calculators and computers because we have "outgrown such ignorant things".... While we have kept our earliest concept of "religion" in tact and stated that the beliefs they held 2000 years ago HOLD PERFECTLY TRUE TO THIS DAY.

Now don't you find that just a TAD hard to believe?

Quote:

I'm glad you're taking an intrest in the subject

Oh am sure you won't be so glad when you have to try and provide reasonable answers to these questions.

Perhaps now you may start to see why I say things like "dimensions are NOT purely a mathematical concept" and instead of just saying "they are" you can read your own words and realise EXACTLY what it is you are really saying to me.

I look forward to hearing your "explainations" and "flaws" that show your original statements hold true and everything I have said here is complete bullshit.
Jun 6th, 2000, 07:05 PM
Sam Finch

Quote:

1 Maths is the language of Logic, it is the method of quantitativly describing the world we see around us through the use of models.

I'm saying this again to see if you'll manage to read the whole sentance this time, I know quantitivly is a big word, and I did spell it wrong but you still have to read it It kinda changes the meaning of the sentence.
the bit in bold means that
if you wish to describe the world we see around you quantitivly then you must use maths, so If I want to know how far away something is but I know only its distance from the floor, its distance from 2 seperate walls then I can use the idea of dimensions to work out how far it is away from me (as long as I know where I am) If I don't use maths and therefore don't use any quantitive terms then the Idea of a dimension is meaningless.

I'll Put that into seperate points for you

Code:

1 in order to describe anything quantitivly you must use maths 2 Dimensions are used only to describe things quantitvly imlplies 3 Dimesions are a meaningless concept outside of maths

onto point 2

discovered vs invented

imagine a nice easy arithmatic problem

I have n boxes

in the first box I put 2 apples, in the 2nd 2 apples, in the third 3 etc, how many apples to I have altogether.

once apon a time you would have to count all the apples, then it was discovered that the number of apples you have is n(n+1)/2, it was still n(n+1)/2 before but nobody knew this is why it was discovered, sometime later it was discovered that using complex numbers it is possible to find solutions to differential and discrete equations which were previously very difficult. and if you had a set of 5 linear equations with 5 unknowns the best way of solving it was to think of it as a 5 dimensional space. Infinity is just an interesting philosophical Idea and is used to prove that some mathematical methods are effective.

Complex Numbers and 5 Dimensioal spaces weren't discovered in the real world until quantum mechanics, and 5 dimensional spaces weren't discovered in reality until General relitivity.

as for question 3 we already have 3 threads devoted to theological arguments, I don't think we need a fourth, especially when you are essentially making the same point as in the others.
Jun 7th, 2000, 11:50 AM
Gen-X

Sam

Code:

1 in order to describe anything quantitivly you must use maths 2 dimensions are used only to describe things quantitvly imlplies 3 Dimesions are a meaningless concept outside of maths

I agree with what you said whole heartedly.

Now lets see if you can follow this.

Maths = "quantative description of world around us"

So If I re-write your final line...

"3 Dimensions are a meaningless concept outside of the quantative description of the world around us"

So you are saying that Dimensions are meaningless in any use that is not representing the "quantitative" nature of something within the world we see around us????

I see where you are coming from, but you are basically trying to put across that Concept A which was used to generate Concept B can not be described in terms of Concept A any more...

By this definition Maths is a SUBSET of the world around us... therefor to say it is "purely" mathematical is to also say that there is no existance outside of Maths for that item... Considering that Concept B was derived from Concept A that means concept A must have existed "OUTSIDE" Concept B... So this negates the original postulation that Concept B self-contains (ie "purely") something that existed in Concept A.

Just because we have labelled something "maths", such as the definitions for a line, axis and dimension doesn't mean that maths is the ONLY field it exists in or the only context it can be used in.

Do you agree that "Length" is a dimension?
Do you agree that "Width" is a dimension?
Do you agree that "Height" is a dimension?

They can all be measured and they all fit into a 3D space quite nicely.

Now I ask... is "Time" a dimension?

Well it CAN be measured... but we are unable to DRAW anything greater than 3 dimensions to explain this... We can place 2 points inside a 3Space and say that it took "time" to get from Point A to Point B but for the first time we have broken the original "model" which showed everything as having points.

Now I know that you have the "maths" that can fully describe a 4Space, 5Space etc... But considering that "maths is based on our observations of the world around us" and is used to "QUANTATIVELY" describe those properties...

Surely that means that 5Space is NOT maths because it has no existance in the world around us????

Quote:

I have n boxes

Nice example. I agree with it completely.

Quote:

Complex Numbers and 5 Dimensional spaces weren't discovered in the real world until quantum mechanics, and 5 dimensional spaces weren't discovered in reality until General relitivity

Can you do Maths on 6 Dimensional spaces? And when where they discovered in the real world?

I understand your point... but that doesn't mean maths can then take it and run PAST what we observe in the real world. Just because these theories hold true for Dimensions 1-5 doesn't mean it is right for anything more.

I suggested there were 10 dimensions... and you said "WRONG! There is nothing around us that suggests this and I don't like it". Now you tell me Maths is capable of modelling 6D space even though we can't see it.

That is a contradiction.

Quote:

as for question 3 we already have 3 threads devoted to theological arguments, I don't think we need a fourth, especially when you are essentially making the same point as in the others

In other words you are telling me that they have never "discovered" infinity and that thought mathematics can describe it there is no basis for it in the world around us....

I thought as much... *sigh*... I was really hoping you might have been able to back up your statements.

Show 60 post(s) from this thread on one page

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:05 AM.