--- In synergeo@yahoogroups.com, "John Brawley" <jb@...> wrote:
>
> In place of Dave...
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "coyote_starship" <kirby.urner@...>
> >
> > I looked at the Waterman page awhile.
> > What's this thing at the top where it says math only, no physics?
>
> Steve wants to keep the discussion/presentation "pure."

Well, there's "pure physics" which usually means "theoretical".
I may have met some empiricist physicists who don't want to
sully their pure physics with a bunch of mere "theory", but
usually it's the theorists who are purists.

You should watch out for "purity" as a meme. It often hides
many unexamined assumptions.

<aside>

The idea of a "pure specimen of one's race" is, for example,
fraught with hidden assumptions, such as that "race" is a well
defined genetic concept. In fact, there is no "race gene" and
no agreement on what genetic sequences might be essential to
any particular race. The best science might do is try to
define "genetic distance" and then look for clumps of sequences
that correlate, although the reasons for correlation are case
by case and besides, these linkages do not add much in the
way of substance or definition to this obsolete notion of a
"genetic boundary" between "races" (hence the idea of "pure
specimens" is pure pseudo-science).

Fuller used to write about this, but so did many others with
a lot more formal study in anthropology. You'd think these
top ranking professionals might have made a difference and,
indeed, Scientific American did a cover story awhile ago on the
fading relevance of "race" as a concept of science. The talk
shows don't do nearly enough to communicate these updates,
and people just sleepwalk through their dreamy worlds, believing
in nonsense.

Over on math-teach, I've taken PhDs to task for (a) wearing these
KKK-looking hoodys and (b) allowing universities to keep shoving
these check boxes in peoples' faces where they ask about race.

Don't they realize how retro-Nazi this all seems to so many
Europeans, where governments asking about "race" is simply illegal?
At least that's what the geeks are telling me, when the US Pycon
organizers propose (mostly out of reflex) that we put such check
boxes on the registration forms.

</aside>

> He also (you may have noticed) simplifies the concept involved, by reducing
> the dimensions/axes (of the coordinate system) to one.
> I recently made the argument to him that the discussion could be made even
> more "pure" by not using a point (or, pointS, depending on how one looks at
> it) at all, instead merely using coordinates themselves.
> (Thus, instead of "place a point at", which imaginarily means three 'things'
> in the discussion (two coordinate systems and the point), one "specifies a
> location," which leaves the discussion at two 'things' (two coordinate
> systems).)
>
> > How does one define "no physics"?
>
> Pure math.
>

This "pure math" is an artifice of ethnicity, a cultural taxonomy.

Having "pure math" depends a lot on having an Ivory Tower type
institution and a strong notion of "pure" specialties. People
would be trained to turn up their noses at content that didn't pass
various subtle "smell tests" for acceptance into their studios.

In OMFSE, there's a deliberate "divide and conquer" mentality at
work, with the overview people jealously guarding their privileged
access by making sure minions stayed preoccupied with only a few
puzzle pieces. Some of the last overview people wound up teaching
naval officers in Annapolis, where Bucky just happened to go.

> > I'd say if velocity and time are in the expressions, then it's
> > physics, not math only.
>
> The Galilean is phrased that way, yes, but it is *equivalent to* using
> distance instead. A velocity times a time results in a distance, so it's OK
> to use the distance in isolation: the results of applying the Galilean
> should be the same ( 'd' is a static case, 'vt' is a dynamic one, and if one
> chooses an infinitesimally short time and an instantaneous 'picture' of
> velocity, 'vt' reduces to 'd' ).
>

The problem becomes ambiguous if we say "Einstein was wrong"
because Relativity is a physics theory, not a pure mathematics.
Pure mathematics should not rely on energetics. The terms should
be emptyset (as Bucky would call 'em) i.e. perfectly logical and
without necessary referents in the so-called "real world".

Is there something about the mathematics that people weren't
seeing? If so, this should be expressible without appeal to
a lot of physical parameters. That way lies Frequency, which is
more than primitive 4D, is in the direction of Time, which pure
math tends to eschew. CJ and I were discussing Frequency w/r
to Synergetics and whether Fuller was confused about it. Most
readers have a hard time tuning him in at the level of angle
versus frequency (core to Synergetics, but Synergetics is
difficult).

> > But all these particles (e.g. "physics") have "word meaning
> > trajectories" (WMTs), and writing about what you see in the
> > scope changes these trajectories (to observe 'em is to make
> > 'em swerve).
>
> Tell me about it.
> (*g*) (That's rhetorical only.)
>
> From your other:
> > Two observers see events A and B in a different order they tell me.
> > Which caused the other?
>
> The page you reference differentiates causality from acausality (incl.
> inverse causality), based on whether or not light could have 'made it'
> between the two events. Not, and there's no causality violation even though
> events *seem* to be inverted in order, and If (a lightspeed signal could
> have), relativity forbids causality inversion (no different order possible).
>
> > Curious about Wolfram Alpha. Is this URL to a static thread?
> > http://community.wolframalpha.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5927
>
> Looked at the thread, wonder what you mean by "static" thread? You mean
> "dead"?
>

Yeah, whether these frozen bits of ice are part of the wolframalpha
ecosystem.

Kirby

> > Kirby
>
> PS: it bothers me that Steve doesn't seem to see where or why he's going
> astray with the Galilean argument (he'd disagree with me, that he is going
> astray at all), 'cause I like the man and he's done herculean good work
> otherwise, and because it always disturbs me when someone argues against
> well-established scientific factualities. (Doubtless that's a holdover,
> bleed-through, or side effect of my long journey beside (while wearing thick
> insulation) the creationists....)
>
> JBw
>