Originally posted by geniusTemperature is the rate at which the particles of a mass are moving (or lack thereof). The rate at which somethings temperature can be altered depends upon just WHAT (and how much) the mass is made of and how great the external stimuli to alter particle acceleration is.
no-i presume not as you are thinking of momentum (i.e. you apply a force to two identicle masses but one is moving faster than the other then the faster one takes longer to stop) but i don't think this happens with temperature...😛 but i'm not sure
And I still maintain that physics and math co-exist by nature and depend upon each other.
Originally posted by Omnislashi new that! (actually, i did cause it's all to do with the kinetic model which i was tought about in physics...)
Temperature is the rate at which the particles of a mass are moving (or lack thereof). The rate at which somethings temperature can be altered depends upon just WHAT (and how much) the mass is made of and how great the external stimuli to alter particle acceleration is.
And I still maintain that physics and math co-exist by nature and depend upon each other.
Originally posted by AcolyteWell said. I agree with your differentiation. I guess I was envisioning the "first nano-second" of the big bang. Which was more important? The "Bang"<Physics> or the "Nano"<Math> This thought was what made me originally post "It doesn't matter. Can't have one without the other." My other point... though not well said... was that "without a PERFECT understanding of both math and physics, no mind is qualified to say which "came phirst". Any "conjecture" though is very interesting and fun to think about. I enjoy this interchange. It is great to see how each mind that touches a subject, comes upon it from a slightly different angle of attack.🙂
Ah right, you're working to a different definition of physics than me. I took 'physics' to mean the model we have produced of the universe, rather than the universe itself; similarly with mathematics. Not a deep philosophical point, but a question of nomenclature. I'm not going to discuss what is and isn't possible in the absence of a universe, because that's silly.
wow u guys have been busy in my absence, but at the moment the arguement seems to be based on "which was thought of first" weather(wrong sp i know) you think about it or not all physics is quantitative, therefore mathematical.
without maths, a mian sequence star could from the size of my first, while you can think of basic physics without maths you will never know the exacts without maths, and without the exact (numerical) rules of existance, the "bigbang" could never have happened. ill post my full arguement after ive heard pradtf's super answer, im corious as to what he has to say.
while i beleive maths came first, being human i can never be sure, maybe phyics did come first and the "big bang" was the adustment of the universe on the creation of maths?!
pradtf would u be a physysist?(sp?)
Originally posted by nktwildi'm not sure you will want to give your full argument after my next posts - i doubt if anyone will 😀
[b]ill post my full arguement after ive heard pradtf's super answer, im corious as to what he has to say.
but i will make other posts (after sunday's parameter establishment) to which i look forward to reading your arguments 🙂
here are the 3 attacks again for those who missed them in the earlier post:
1. the big mathattack
2. chemical a salt
3. fertilibelization
since 1 & 3 are similar in nature, we shall deal with them together in the next post.
so let us deal with the chemical a salt
the perpetraitor of this attack insisted that chemistry came before physics via alchemy - and wanted me to look it up if i didn't believe him. so because i am a fair individual i went to google and typed up "did chemistry come before physics via alchemy". not surprisingly there were no documents at all making it highly likely that either the answer is negative or that some sinister being has deleted all pages supporting the statement (a very implausible idea considering the security the internet offers). i have tried to look it up so my conscience is clear and can now proceed to tell the real story.
it is true that alchemy was the predecessor of chemistry. it is true that it was an early science though most references will tell you it started around the 1400s or so, its roots were probably much older and appeared in many different countries too (for example indian alchemists existed in the 7th century and the chinese alchemist ge hong existed in the 4th century).
be that as it may, what i will tell you is how alchemy transmuted into chemistry with the help of physics. this will be a rather occidental version of the story so please orient yourselves accordingly.
the ancient greek empedocles (well he wasn't really that old) established in 430 bc four elements earth, air, water and fire. (this was not the birth of chemistry just because the word element is used!) it was believed that everything else was made from these though aristotle added a fifth aether which haunted humanity right into the 20th century. anyway, so the alchemists set to work trying to make gold (and some other stuff) primarily because they thought they could get rich. well! it wasn't that simple was it? things didn't quite work out and so some tried dishonest things like creating impure mixtures of gold. fortunately, the brilliant physicist archimedes foiled one of these attempts while taking a bath. so elated was he that he ran out into the streets where he met people who had not taken a bath and quite justifiably started shouting eureka at them.
anyway, as alchemy developed in later centuries, it was reasoned that any substance could be changed into another by merely combining things in the right proportion. again the primary effort was to produce gold, but in that unsuccessful attempt many other useful elements were found. however, the unsuccessful and unscrupulous alchemists tried to fool people into thinking that all that glitters was gold - hence fools gold - and their profession fell into disrepute. so the good ones who suddenly had all these other elements in hand decided to change their name to chemists (removing anyone with the name of allan or albert from their ranks) and their science to chemistry (so that people would think there was something mysterious about them).
one of the first of these new chemists was robert boyle, who in 1661 published a journal called the sceptical chymist, because he was sceptical about being a chemist (hence the unusual spelling), since he figured he should be a physicist because he had discovered boyle's law of gases which of course had nothing to do with chemistry at the time.
within a couple of centuries physicists had worked out some of the principles of atomic theory and so that gave the chemists something to do with all the elements they kept on discovering. so the italian chemist avogadro created a large number that proved to be useful (though it irked the mathematicians who liked to keep numbers to themselves - more on this in the next post though) and mendeleev was brought in from russia periodically to help organize the elements onto a table. now the biggest problem the chemists faced though was finding names for all these elements. so they started naming them after their own countries scandium Sc and germanium Ge, after gases such as oxygen O and hydrogen H, and then just to confuse everyone they started doing weird things like calling sodium Na and gold Au and mercury Hg and all kinds of stuff like that!
there was still the problem of identifying further information about the elements such as atomic numbers and things so several physicists such as roentgen, barkla, von laue and the braggs used xrays to help determine crystaline structures. characteristic xrays of atoms were later used to help pin down the element to mendeleev's table by their atomic number - so hydrogen was given the number 1, and helium the number 2 etc. unfortunately, the table had become so crowded that the chemists actually lost four elements numbers 43, 61, 85 and 87. some chemists looked around and claimed they had found these elements but since no one else could find them, for a while, they remained lost.
when the chemists had come to the end of collecting and losing elements, physics opened a whole new door for them - that of radioactive elements. marie sklodowska a polish chemist married pierre curie and became a physicist and the two of them proceeded to discover radioactivity. radioactive elements consist of large atoms (sometimes called fatoms) that transmute into other smaller elements. for example uranium U could break down into ura and nium, but it doesn't because those elements don't exist so instead it breaks down into other elements that do exist because it was so fat to begin with. those other elements wind up being something like Sr and Xe which have nothing to do with U, but that's because of the weird way they were all named in the first place, isn't it!
anyway, by looking in all the debris produced by some of these fatoms chemists were able to find those lost elements which they promptly proceeded to name anyway they felt like. the final element of the group to be discovered was not 87, because that would be too rationale. instead, they discovered 61 last and called it promethium after the greek chemist prometheus who had stolen fire for mankind. well they thought he was a chemist because of the fire thing since chemists use fire in their bunsen burners, but really he was a physicist because he invented astronomy. fortunately, he was eventually freed by the physicist hercules who performed 12 physical tasks all involving physics (occasionally called labours, because they were done in the laboratory of the universe).
(after the periodic table was filled up the chemists tried looking for new territory by starting quantum chemistry, but it was too late since the physicists already had quantum physics. however, in a typically noble gesture, the physicists shared a few nuclei because otherwise much grant money would be taken back.)
so there wraps up the development of chemistry from the alchemistic beginnings. as you see, the physicists did eventually help realize the alchemists' dream of transmuting elements, but not in the way they wanted so they weren't very happy and took to writing their stuff on webpages instead.
now we shall deal with points 1 & 3 but together so they can really be point 4 or perhaps 13 depending on how you do your mathematics.
now the oxford dictionary defines mathematics as "abstract science which investigates deductively the conclusions implicit in the elementary conceptions of spatial and numerical relations". we will not accept that definition simply because then the history of math cannot possibly go back further than Thales 600 bc (d smith - history of mathematics - p2) and we couldn't have any phun.
so let us start in the early days when essentially there were only a few numbers 1 was one of them. after 1 there may have been 2. and everything else was many, because there wasn't any need for other numbers. gradually though the mathematicians wanted more. the physicists who were watching this development for quite sometime did not object them this desire - after all, they had the whole universe to play with - but little did they know what was in store.
the overwhelming greed for numbers led to the acquisition of the whole numbers first because they were the most handy. there were quite a lot of them, but it wasn't enough so the conquests continued in barbaric fashion as numbers were fractured into pieces to produce fractions (they were sometimes called decimals because someone wanted to make a point). how the poor fractions were able to remain rational throughout it all is a good question, but many decimals went totally irrational as a result of what they witnessed. the numbers were undergoing a terrible ordeal and developed multiple personalities as a result of the stress - some became very negative, for others the change was quite complex. fortunately, the number zero appeared taking a leadership role and stabilized the system somewhat.
the mathematicians' lust however was not satisfied. in fact, they became concerned that they would soon run out of numbers (you see, infinity was not enough for them) and began raiding the languages. first they took an x and forced it to be anything they felt like, and then the y followed and more (the one good consequence of this aggression was that algebra was born). if this wasn't bad enough they raided the greek alphabet and stole an alpha, then a beta and anything else they could usurp. the noble physicists couldn't just stand by and watch this mayhem taking place so they kindly gave the mathematicians a useful place to put the letters. for instance, the d's were often used for distance, and the t's were used for time, and F for force. but because there was considerable indecision amongst the mathematicians certain letters wound up in strange places - like p for momentum. well actually it wasn't a problem initially because momentum was originally pmomentum with the 'silent p' as in psychology, or pseudopod, but the physicists didn't want to confuse everyone like the psychologists and biologists and decided to drop the p. (i should point out here that the biologists didn't take too kindly to the dropping of the unnecessary p in pmomentum, even though it wasn't their field, and went around taunting the physicists by calling them physicysts, physicysts rather childishly stressing the cysts implying they were undesirable growths.) because the greek alphabet had also been ravaged, the physicists even went as far as creating a whole new field, high energy physics, to help place some of those letters in the form of muons, pions, lambdas, sigmas and etceteras.
of course, not satisfied yet, even the roman system was attacked as mathematicians overworked certain letters excessively. for instance, take the letter I - it was actually used 3 times III to represent the number 3! as a result the roman system was severely impacted and certain letters like G, J, U, W, X, Y just disappeared. however, because they had a good army they tried to get some of the letters back from the greeks, but with only moderate success: the romans ran over greece and fell (understandably), but recovered everything except the J,U, and W. it really didn't do much good though, because their mathematics never progressed much beyond rudimentary multiplication as a result of the number systems that the mathematicians had left them, so when the visigoths descended upon them and started dividing up the roman empire they really didn't know what was happening.
now in all fairness, i must state that not all mathematics was this violent. there were many peaceful developments too. for example, the first methods for counting sheep were developed by a greek mathematician named eweclid. but he realized just in time that this activity was making him drowsy and so went on to develop the axes of geometry which were subsequently used by woodcutters not warriors. the techniques of counting sheep though are still used by people sometimes before bedtime, but especially in math classes.
now i won't go into the many other instances where the physicists had to help out the mathematicians (such as how newton had to invent the calculus, because the mathematicians just couldn't be bothered since they were busy arguing about some triviality or other - geewiz, he even had to write the principia mathematica for them) simply because they are too numerous and i can't remember them anyway.
please note that not all other fields reacted like the mathematicians - most actually worked with the physicists to create wonderful sciences. for instance, geologists who are of solid and stable character went on to create geophysics. the biologists (after that earlier bit of silliness) saw the marvels of physics in life and created biophysics. astronomers who are stellar people created astrophysics. even a group of philosophers a long time ago, after they met a physicist (can't recall whom) developed metaphysics. the list goes on and on.
so where did some people get the naive idea that math is the foundation of physics? i think it is because of the very poetic and beautiful statement
"Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe."
which was made as a magnanimous gesture by the physicist Gallileo in the famous walt disney film "donald duck in mathemagic land". i know this to be true, because i saw that excellent film many times. perhaps you have seen it as well.
Originally posted by pradtfJust setting here in my burko-lounger enjoying all the connections.😵
which was made as a magnanimous gesture by the physicist Gallileo in the famous walt disney film "donald duck in mathemagic land". i know this to be true, because i saw that excellent film many times. perhaps you have seen it as well.[/b]
Originally posted by AcolyteObviously mathematical proof is very different from physcial proof, because in physics, nothing is ever proven-merely disproven. The last part:
I disagree. Physics and maths are made distinct by the different type of proof required. A scientific 'proof' is usually unacceptable in mathematics (unless it's proof by exhaustion!), and a mathematical proof is often distrusted in physics (the nature of physics means that you usually have to make many assumptions to construct a mathematical proof, and ...[text shortened]... non-starter.
Like 'philosophy', 'mathematics' has since taken on a more specific meaning.
"also maths features empirical observations, but these serve to disprove hypotheses by counter-example, and to illustrate, suggest and inspire theorems, not to prove them (again, unless by exhaustion.)"
is what I was trying to say, albeit less well. However, that is all that observation is good for anyway in physics. Physics lacks the certainty that distinguishes mathematics.
When one creates a theoretical model in physics, everything one does to it is mathematical. So physics in this sense is mathematics. It is at the interface between theoretical models and experimental/observational science that the schism occurs.
Originally posted by royalchickenall theoretical models in physics, do not have to be 'analysed' or utilized through math do they? certainly, many explanations can be illuminated through the math, when the math exists in the first place and is adequate, but it isn't always so. existence may not fit neatly into the explanations of the mathematician's imagination, however ingenious it may be.
Physics lacks the certainty that distinguishes mathematics.
When one creates a theoretical model in physics, everything one does to it is mathematical.
as far as the certainty issue goes, mathematics just may not be one's ticket to the universe. a rather well-known physicist who was a pretty good mathematician too once wrote:
"As far as mathematics pertains to reality it is not certain; as far as it is certain it does not pertain to reality"
Originally posted by pradtfBah, this claim of yours is bunk. No physics can proceed without there first being a metaphysics in place. The existence of observable particulars is a preconditon for there being observation.
...even a group of philosophers a long time ago, after they met a physicist (can't recall whom) developed metaphysics.