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From: Brian M. Scott on 28 Feb 2010 02:20 On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:30:37 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim(a)verizon.net> wrote in <news:d71436df-5a65-4a7a-9949-8653dd7bf080(a)f35g2000yqd.googlegroups.com> in sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > On Feb 27, 4:58�pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: >> On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:48:14 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels" >> <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote in >> <news:02dc31c7-bbee-4dd6-8c8f-f915da3acdab(a)g7g2000yqe.googlegroups.com> >> in >> sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: >>> On Feb 27, 1:40 pm, "sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com" <sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> [...] >>>> Until you offer a definition of "Christian" with an >>>> explanation and evidence as to why it's superior to >>>> those generally accepted by lexicographers, there's not >>>> really much left to discuss.- >>> Again I point out, as a linguist, that lexicographers have >>> no special handle on truth, especially as concerns >>> technical terminology. >> But 'Christian' is very far from being exclusively a >> technical term. > When it concerns Christians' official definitions of what > constitutes a Christian, it certainly is. It never does. Individual brands of Christianity can have official definitions of what constitutes a Christian, but since those definitions don't all agree, the notion that Christians in general have an official definition of what constitutes a Christian is patently absurd. Brian
From: Brian M. Scott on 28 Feb 2010 02:24 On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:15:15 +1300, PaulJK <paul.kriha(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote in <news:hmd4vq$9nr$1(a)news.eternal-september.org> in sci.math,sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > Roland Hutchinson wrote: >> On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:21:36 -0800, Mensanator wrote: >>> On Feb 26, 12:33 pm, Roland Hutchinson <my.spamt...(a)verizon.net> wrote: >>>> On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:00:40 +1100, Peter Moylan wrote: >>>>> Adam Funk wrote: >>>>>> On 2010-02-24, Bob Myers wrote: >>>> >>>>>>> Andrew Usher wrote: >>>>>>>> Well, I'm astounded. Indexing from 0 is so >>>>>>>> obviously the Right Way that I can't imagine why >>>>>>>> anyone would do it the other way. >>>>>>> Oh, absolutely. Why, I see people in the stores >>>>>>> every day, counting out their money or the number >>>>>>> of items they're going to purchase, and saying to >>>>>>> themselves "Zero, one, two..." >>>>>> The initialized state of my shopping basket contains >>>>>> 0 items. Each item I put in increments it. If I >>>>>> initialized at 1, my shopping would crash with a >>>>>> 1-off error on unpacking. >>>>> If your shopping basket had been designed by a C >>>>> programmer, its initial state would be the state just >>>>> before the zeroth item was inserted. That suggests >>>>> that initially the basket contains -1 items. >>>> "So I said to him, 'Moore, have you less than no apples >>>> in that basket?"..." >>> False, of course. >> Hard to tell definitively without empirical observation. >> Let's toss an apple in and see if any remain in the >> basket after we don't take any more out. > If the basket contained a (large) unknown negative number > of apples this method could be quite expensive. I propose > to weigh the basket, then tip the negative apples out of > the basket and weigh it again. Calculate the difference > and divide it by an average weight of an apple. This > method works reasonably well unless the basket also > contains some negative watermelons. In which case it's long since achieved escape velocity and is no longer our problem. Brian
From: PaulJK on 28 Feb 2010 02:49 Peter Moylan wrote: > Yusuf B Gursey wrote: >> On Feb 26, 11:13 am, R H Draney <dadoc...(a)spamcop.net> wrote: >>> Peter T. Daniels filted: >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Feb 25, 1:29=A0pm, Adam Funk <a24...(a)ducksburg.com> wrote: >>>>> "archaeoastronomy" >>>> No, that's speculation about the alignments of Stonehenge or the Nasca >>>> figures or whatever. >>>> Which is different from the sort of _recorded_ observations made from >>>> at least the early first millennium BCE in Mesopotamia (and from some >>>> point in China) down to the time of Tycho Brahe, on the basis of >>>> nothing but whose naked-eye observations, Kepler worked out the theory >>>> of elliptical planetary orbits. >>> Impressive, true, but I once got my hands on a book on celestial mechanics >>> that derived the fact of elliptical orbits (and the "equal areas in equal >>> times" principle) starting with nothing but the fact that gravity is in >>> inverse-square proportion to distance....r >> >> but Kepler didn't know that. it took Newton to figure it out. > > In fact Newton did it the other way around. He started with Kepler's > results about the shape of the orbits, and deduced from that that the > force acting on the planets must obey an inverse-square law. > > Once I tried to follow the same line of reasoning, and got nowhere. > Showing that an inverse-square law leads to elliptical orbits is a > simple undergraduate exercise these days, although it would have been > harder in Newton's day. Showing that elliptical orbits leads to an > inverse-square law is a problem of fiendish difficulty. > > I imagine that Newton started with a variety of guesses (constant force; > force varying inversely with distance; etc.) and tried each one until he > found one that gave a match with Kepler's results. If he imagined gravity as force lines emanating from an object A into infinity, then another object B would be struck by a number of such force lines depending on its distance from the object A. The relationship between distance A to B, and gravity attraction is similar to the relationship between diameter and surface areas of the spheres of various diameters. I would be surprised if the inverse-square-of-the-distance law wasn't the first one he thought of. It seems to be so obvious. pjk > In some other problem domains, e.g. radiant energy, > conservation-of-energy arguments lead directly to an inverse-square law. > In the case of gravity, anything other than an inverse-square law would > lead to planets that either fell into the sun or flew off into the outer > void. It's not clear to me, though, that Newton had enough information > to be able to guess that inverse-square was the most obvious candidate. > These days it's standard practice to publish only the final tidied-up > version of theoretical results, omitting any insight into the reasoning > that led to the results. I think that's also what Newton did.
From: sjdevnull on 28 Feb 2010 02:57 On Feb 27, 3:48 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > On Feb 27, 1:40 pm, "sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com" <sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > > On Feb 27, 9:57 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > > > On Feb 27, 2:29 am, "sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com" <sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > > On Feb 27, 12:20 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > > > > > On Feb 26, 9:04 pm, "sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com" <sjdevn...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > > > > At that point you claimed they are "by definition, not Christians". > > > > > > Sigh. The essence of Christian dogma is encapsulated in the Nicene > > > > > Creed. > > > > > That is a different statement than the original, and would appear to > > > > It may be a different "statement," but it conveys the obvious intent > > > of the original statement. > > > No, it conveys a different intent, which is obvious if you reread your > > original question: "Doesn't _every_ extant Christian church use the > > Nicene Creed? (With or without the _filioque_.)" That's clearly > > Since it's my question, I think I am entitled to state what its intent > was. Whatever you might have meant, your words didn't convey it. With an ambiguous statement, it's certainly reasonable to admit that you were wrong and revise your statement--I've certainly made ill-formed statements in this thread and others, and altered them. In this case, though, it's pretty obvious from the wording what you meant by the original question, and if you're now asserting that you didn't mean to ask whether all Christians actually use some real wording of the Nicene Creed then I absolutely believe you're lying. I have no further interest in continuing this thread if you're going to insist otherwise (and several other people in this thread also took your words to mean what they meant to me, so I don't feel that's an idiosyncrasy of mine). > (I gather, from the sources you cite, that you are some sort of > conservative Catholic, the type that in Chicago flocked to the one > parish in the city that had dispensation from Rome to say Mass in > Latin, so I wouldn't be surprised if you don't know anything about > such questions.) Have fun with that (Fwiw, I'm a liberal atheist).
From: Andrew Usher on 28 Feb 2010 02:59
PaulJK wrote: > > I imagine that Newton started with a variety of guesses (constant force; > > force varying inversely with distance; etc.) and tried each one until he > > found one that gave a match with Kepler's results. > > If he imagined gravity as force lines emanating from an object > A into infinity, then another object B would be struck by a number > of such force lines depending on its distance from the object A. > The relationship between distance A to B, and gravity attraction > is similar to the relationship between diameter and surface areas > of the spheres of various diameters. > > I would be surprised if the inverse-square-of-the-distance law > wasn't the first one he thought of. It seems to be so obvious. It may be obvious now but there's no reason Newton would think in those terms. He himself described how he came to the law: he calculated the force (i.e. acceleration) to keep the moon in its orbit and compared it with the distance of the moon. A scientist naturally picks out the simplest law consistent with the data. Andrew Usher |