Engineering Mathematics

[Paul Burke]

Consider a mass at a location near another mass then, move it away a
bit. It now has a different relative potential energy. This difference
in energy is manifested in a change in mass, as mass is equivalent to
energy. Its like, winding up a watch increases its mass!

I thought the subject was ENGINEERING maths. Back to the old paraphrase
of Zeno concerning the mathematician, the physicist, the engineer and
the scantily clad busty blonde (woman that is).

Sufficient unto the day the weevil thereof.

Paul Burke

 

[john jardine]

[clp]

There is really a subtle point about the "observer" effecting the object
being measured, (observer, being the physical equipment, not conscious
observer). It don't imply that without the "observer" the measured
object doesn't exist, only that the measurement is not would it would
have been. For example, too 1kg masses brought near each other, no
longer have a combined mass of 2 kg under GR. One can only measure mass
wrt another mass, and it turns out the relationship is entangled.

Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

What's that then?. Why not 2kg?. >< 2kg?. Can't mass be measured by
inertia?.

regards
john

 

[Bill Sloman]

I don't recall that it was called M-Theory but it's the one where
all forces can be approximated by the relative spins of the bodies
whether they be atomic particles, planets, stars, or galaxies.

Sounds like Roger Penrose's "twistor theory" as described in his new
book "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the
Universe"

http://www.stereoboard.com/cgi-bin/amazon-item_id-0224044478-search_type-AsinSearch-locale-uk.html

There was an interview with Robert Penrose about the book, mainly on
his "twistor theory" which is his alternative to the 10-dimensional
string theory of everything, in "New Scientist" on the 31st July 2004
- pages 26-9.

You can probably get at it via http://archive.newscientist.com if you
go to the trouble of registering for their seven day free trial.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

I thought the subject was ENGINEERING maths.

Err.. you mean kg weights are not part of engineering?
Like, aspects of clockwork design is not engineering?

Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Paul Burke]

Paul Burke wrote:


Err.. you mean kg weights are not part of engineering?
Like, aspects of clockwork design is not engineering?

No, I mean the old "near enough for jazz". Of course, there WILL be
occasions when 1kg + 1kg != 2kg for practical purposes, but I don't
expect many people fall over on that one.

It's the difference between physicist/mathematicians and engineers over
the big bang- when OUR sums give us "infinity" we tend to assume that
some other mechanism takes over and the approximations in our model no
longer apply, like you don't expect a resonant circuit's output to be
really infinite at the poles.

Paul Burke

 

[Active8]

On 27 Aug 2004 02:04:14 -0700, Bill Sloman wrote:

There was an interview with Robert Penrose about the book, mainly on
his "twistor theory" which is his alternative to the 10-dimensional
string theory of everything, in "New Scientist" on the 31st July 2004
- pages 26-9.

^^^^^^^^^
"New Scientist", indeed!

 

[Rich Grise]

Well, I don't go that far. I take the view that the universe exists,
even without consciousness to observe it. It gets way too complicated if
this aint the case. Like, how did the roads get built before *I* was
there to see them getting built.

It was built by the government, and as we all know, they're above mere
Causality.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

May I put in my usual plug for The Solipsist Society here? Sadly,
membership hasn't been growing lately, and meetings have been rather
sparsely attended, indeed often inquorate.

Sounds like they should merge with the procrastinators' club, if they
ever get around to it.

 

[Rich Grise]

I thought the subject was ENGINEERING maths. Back to the old paraphrase
of Zeno concerning the mathematician, the physicist, the engineer and
the scantily clad busty blonde (woman that is).

Yeah, and while the engineer was busy converging an infinite series on
his slide rule, the tech walked up took the babe away. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[john jardine]

[clp]

There is really a subtle point about the "observer" effecting the
object being measured, (observer, being the physical equipment, not
conscious observer). It don't imply that without the "observer" the
measured object doesn't exist, only that the measurement is not
would it would have been. For example, too 1kg masses brought near
each other, no longer have a combined mass of 2 kg under GR. One can
only measure mass wrt another mass, and it turns out the
relationship is entangled.

What's that then?.
Why not 2kg?. >< 2kg?.

Its what the complicated sums
(http://www.anasoft.co.uk/physics/gr/index.html) tell you is the case

Roughly:

Consider a mass at a location near another mass then, move it away a
bit. It now has a different relative potential energy. This difference
in energy is manifested in a change in mass, as mass is equivalent to
energy. Its like, winding up a watch increases its mass!

Can't mass be measured by
inertia?.

The issue is how is mass defined?

Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Thanks Kev.
Quite obvious once it's described. I love stuff like that!.
regards
john

 

[Bill Sloman]

On 27 Aug 2004 02:04:14 -0700, Bill Sloman wrote:


^^^^^^^^^
"New Scientist", indeed!

A long-established U.K./Australian based weekly magazine, aimed at the
same sort of market as the "Scientific American" but written by
science journalists, where the "Scientific American" commissions
articles from real scientists (and edits them intensively to keep them
readable). Since "New Scientist" is published every week rather than
once a month, it is more interested in providing topical snippets, but
you do get a couple of multi-page articles every week, albeit rather
more superficial than those in "Scientific American".

Dutch science journalists are much better than their English-speeaking
equivalents, but the Dutch-reading market is too small to support
comparable publications - someone tried a couple of years ago, but it
didn't survive.

The Dutch quality newspapers (the Volkskrant and the NRC Handelsblat)
both have science sections in their Saturday editions which cover
science pretty well - much better than the equivalents in British
newspapers like the Guardian and the Independent.

 

[Active8]

You cock knocker You corrected the page numbers and I had to go
back to make sure I wasn't computer fatigued when I did that.
<snip>

 

[Bill Sloman]

You cock knocker You corrected the page numbers and I had to go
back to make sure I wasn't computer fatigued when I did that.
<snip>

I started off using the usual convention for page numbers in
literature references, where the second number is edited down to the
non-identical part - since you seemed to be having trouble processing
that, I restored the omitted "2" when I re-posted.

It wasn't that easy to work out what you were objecting to - "New
Scientist" has been around for twenty or thirty years now, but I don't
ever recall seeing it in the U.S. so you could have been woried by the
title.

 

[Active8]

I started off using the usual convention for page numbers in
literature references, where the second number is edited down to the
non-identical part - since you seemed to be having trouble processing
that, I restored the omitted "2" when I re-posted.

It wasn't that easy to work out what you were objecting to - "New
Scientist" has been around for twenty or thirty years now, but I don't
ever recall seeing it in the U.S. so you could have been woried by the
title.

I underscored the CIQ (convention in question) with ^^^^^^^^

I haven't seen or used a page ref or paid attention to one like that
in some time, but you've jogged my memory. It's probably used often.

 

[john jardine]

On 27 Aug 2004 02:04:14 -0700, Bill Sloman wrote:

[clip]

The Dutch quality newspapers (the Volkskrant and the NRC Handelsblat)
both have science sections in their Saturday editions which cover
science pretty well - much better than the equivalents in British
newspapers like the Guardian and the Independent.

I've read the Guardian for 20 years and now cringe whenever they are forced
to report any 'sciencey' news. They *without fail* get the science and
technical data wrong. They did though set a policy of including an
occasional scientist's obituary in amongst the actors, musicians and
writers.
regards
john

 

[Bill Sloman]

On 27 Aug 2004 02:04:14 -0700, Bill Sloman wrote:

[clip]

The Dutch quality newspapers (the Volkskrant and the NRC Handelsblat)
both have science sections in their Saturday editions which cover
science pretty well - much better than the equivalents in British
newspapers like the Guardian and the Independent.

I've read the Guardian for 20 years and now cringe whenever they are forced
to report any 'sciencey' news. They *without fail* get the science and
technical data wrong. They did though set a policy of including an
occasional scientist's obituary in amongst the actors, musicians and
writers.

I read the Guardian for the 21 years that I lived in the UK, and still
read "The Guardian Weekly". They don't get everything wrong, but it is
a rare article that doesn't include at least one obvious error.

By contrast I've been reading the Dutch Volkskrant for ten years now,
and detected an error for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Dutch
science journalists mostly have university degrees in science, and -
probably more important - tend to send a draft copy of their article
to their scientific source for checking before publication. I can't
attest to this behaviour personally, but my wife says that the draft
articles rarely need correction.

 

[Malcolm]

Speaking of physics, and yeah, Hawking is some sh*t, what do you
think of that "Theory of Everything." Should I spand (waste?) any
time reading any of that?

It is amazing that Hawking can do this, though he is not unique. I
read that Poincare used to do everything in his head before writing it
down on paper. But you could say that stage "mathematicians" can
perform similar manipulations with "big sums". What is most amazing
about Hawking (and Penrose) is what they actually did with the
Mathematics. Together, they proved that, in the mathematical model of
general relativity, our universe was originally contained within a
sphere of zero radius. That is, all space and matter was contained
within a point called a singularity. They also proved that space, time
and matter had a beginning in what is called the big bang. Note this
wasn't just idle musing, they actually PROVED it. That is, the maths
was as watertight as a proof of Pythagoras' theorem. Of course general
relativity may break down at a very small scale, so a new
"mathematical model" may be needed.

What is your definition of a waste of time? If you consider that
learning about the fundamental nature of our Universe is not a waste
of time, then certainly check out TOE. Don't expect someone to pay you
for it, though. There are too many good people (Hawking, Penrose...)
fighting for very few places in this area. If you want a secure
career, get into a field of engineering for which there is much demand
& few people seeking to enter.

Penrose's latest book is a great way to "waste time". Check out some
reviews and interviews at:

http://www.321books.co.uk/reviews/the-road-to-reality-by-roger-penrose.htm