Quack Quack Quack...
- Thread starter Einstein
- Start date
Robot
Chrono Cadet
"Although the best ideas of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Darwin, Einstein and others have stood the test of time and taken their place in the permanent corpus of knowledge, error remains inherent in the enterprise of science. This is because interesting theories always go beyond the data that they seek to explain, and because science is made by people."
The best paragraph in there!
The best paragraph in there!
Darby
Epochal Historian
Robot is correct. Because we do not know every last detail about how the physical universe actually works all scientific theories are approximations of reality accurate only to a certain domain of applicability.
Some folks want to, on the one hand, howl in delight with a gotcha when an error in science is discovered while, on the other hand, use a flawed theory to "prove" that they are correct about some other (real or imagined) theory.
Example: On another thread a member refers to the Pythagorean Theorem to "prove" that a basic law of physics is incorrect.
So we have this very large plot of land...exactly 50 km on a side and perfectly square. It is, conveniently, impossibly flat and smooth. No peaks or valleys of any kind. We want to graphically prove that the diagonal distance, corner to corner, of the plot is 70.711 km. We have handy an impossibly accurate sheet of quadrille paper large enough for us to draw with our very sharp drafting pencil a scale drawing of the plot, 1 meter on a side. We are able to be impossibly accurate with making our drawing. We get out our impossibly accurate ruler and with impossible accuracy measure the diagonal and find it to be 1.414 meters. We verify the measurement using the Pythagorean Theorem. Check! Correct answer.
Now comes the proof of the pudding. We blow up our 1:50,000 scale drawing to 1:1 and lay it flat on our plot of land. Oops! It appears that we have a couple of real problems. The first and most obvious problem that we'll encounter is that our "very sharp" pencil lines are now about 50 meters wide. Our original "impossible accuracy" is shot to hell. Looking a bit closer we discover that (1) we have to stretch our perfectly square drawing to make it fit our perfectly square plot of land, (2)our "square" corners are no longer square, (3) the sum of the interior four angles is greater than 360 degrees, (4) the drawing does not fit the plot of land accurately and (5) the Pythagorean Theorem understates the measured length of the hypotenuse of the actual plot of land.
Pythagoras was apparently just one more quack, quack, quack "scientist" and "mathematician", correct? And thus why would the member use such a flawed character and his math to prove any point, correct? Maybe he was being purposely deceitful in order to spread MIB disinformation about science theories, correct?
I don't know the answers to the second and third questions. But the answer to the first question is, of course not. Plane geometry is valid to a close approximation "only to a certain domain of applicability." In the above case scale is the limiting factor because the Earth is a sphere and not a flat plane. Thus the precise and complete truth is plane geometry is flawed, Pythagoras was certainly wrong but it is generally accurate enough for most purposes. Scale matters, applying plane geometry to a curved space (or curved vector space) is flat wrong (pun intended), and blowing up pencil lines 50 thousand times in direct proportion to the original is silly - but not as silly as taking uninformed cheap shots at science.
Some folks want to, on the one hand, howl in delight with a gotcha when an error in science is discovered while, on the other hand, use a flawed theory to "prove" that they are correct about some other (real or imagined) theory.
Example: On another thread a member refers to the Pythagorean Theorem to "prove" that a basic law of physics is incorrect.
So we have this very large plot of land...exactly 50 km on a side and perfectly square. It is, conveniently, impossibly flat and smooth. No peaks or valleys of any kind. We want to graphically prove that the diagonal distance, corner to corner, of the plot is 70.711 km. We have handy an impossibly accurate sheet of quadrille paper large enough for us to draw with our very sharp drafting pencil a scale drawing of the plot, 1 meter on a side. We are able to be impossibly accurate with making our drawing. We get out our impossibly accurate ruler and with impossible accuracy measure the diagonal and find it to be 1.414 meters. We verify the measurement using the Pythagorean Theorem. Check! Correct answer.
Now comes the proof of the pudding. We blow up our 1:50,000 scale drawing to 1:1 and lay it flat on our plot of land. Oops! It appears that we have a couple of real problems. The first and most obvious problem that we'll encounter is that our "very sharp" pencil lines are now about 50 meters wide. Our original "impossible accuracy" is shot to hell. Looking a bit closer we discover that (1) we have to stretch our perfectly square drawing to make it fit our perfectly square plot of land, (2)our "square" corners are no longer square, (3) the sum of the interior four angles is greater than 360 degrees, (4) the drawing does not fit the plot of land accurately and (5) the Pythagorean Theorem understates the measured length of the hypotenuse of the actual plot of land.
Pythagoras was apparently just one more quack, quack, quack "scientist" and "mathematician", correct? And thus why would the member use such a flawed character and his math to prove any point, correct? Maybe he was being purposely deceitful in order to spread MIB disinformation about science theories, correct?
I don't know the answers to the second and third questions. But the answer to the first question is, of course not. Plane geometry is valid to a close approximation "only to a certain domain of applicability." In the above case scale is the limiting factor because the Earth is a sphere and not a flat plane. Thus the precise and complete truth is plane geometry is flawed, Pythagoras was certainly wrong but it is generally accurate enough for most purposes. Scale matters, applying plane geometry to a curved space (or curved vector space) is flat wrong (pun intended), and blowing up pencil lines 50 thousand times in direct proportion to the original is silly - but not as silly as taking uninformed cheap shots at science.
