"If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought."
- Isaac Newton, physicist

The scientific community surely thinks he did the public a great deal of service. They named a unit of measurement after him.

The unit of force was one of the most frequently discussed in my high school physics classes, along with it's kin, friction and tension. In physics terms, force is definited as mass times acceleration and is basically described as when one object accelerates into another. Tension is when something pushes or pulls on another. When a person pulls a block with a rope, there is tension in the rope. Friction is when one object rubs against another creating heat, a type of energy. The more rough the sides of the objects are, the more friction and thus the more heat produced.

Forces are an integral part of everyday life. Do these words have any other specific connotations?

Well, there's the old conundrum of what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object.

One of them is shown to have been wrongly labelled.

One of them, at least, is shown to have been wrongly labelled.

And thinking about forces and objects makes me think of the question thrown at the Jesuits in either Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or in Ulysses (and in other places, too, as people consider omnipotence:

If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, is it possible for Him to create something that He cannot lift?

Best regards,
SpinningWheelsWind

create something that He cannot lift?

Of course, the Zen Jesuits would have no problem with this question. Indeed, they would ask it they own se'fs.

It would be interesting to understand how the word 'force' came to be applied to what we now commonly understand the term to mean. I would risk a guess that there was a time during which the meaning of the word was used (in the scientific literature) in various ways - something akin to the term "closed system" that is used in subtely distinct ways even today.

People very often use the word force to mean something - anything - that compels something else into action - even when the origin of the force is understood (or at least implied) to be something mysterious and supernatural. This is sometimes done because it's easier to convey something as a metaphor than to create a new vocabulary. It also has the benefit of making even the most silly ideas seem scientific, modern, and facund with esoteric understanding and profound insight for one who is sufficiently openminded, intelligent, and spiritually advanced.

Often, the word 'energy' is used synonymously, or nearly so, in this context. In physics, as you well know, energy and force are distinct concepts.

k

At the head of the list of what mortals cannot do, is to say what God cannot do.

One of them is shown to have been wrongly labelled.

One of them, at least, is shown to have been wrongly labelled.

Nicking pits again, M. Faldage? The French have a word or two for that...
(Max, what was that again??)

I would be interested to hear some of our savants tell us why many intellectuals admire Leibnitz (I still prefer that spelling because it was what he used) more than Newton. (Superiority of Leibnitz' notation not to be included.)

...some of our savants tell us why many intellectuals admire Leibnitz

Considering the hoohah raised recently about speaking for others, do you consider that an appropriate request, Dr. Bill?

FWIW, I've read that Archimedes, Newton and Gauss are generally considered (among mathematicians) to be the three greatest mathematicians of all time: difficult to rank among the three, but fairly clearly above all others.

My recall is that the source is Bell, Men of Mathematics; I'll LIU tonight.

Considering the hoohah raised recently about speaking for others, do you consider that an
appropriate request, Dr. Bill?

Dear Faldage: I must confess total inability to comprehend your meaning. I resent the suggestion that I would make a post that I knew was inappropriate.

inability to comprehend your meaning.

You ask us to speak for intellectuals.

I've read the same thing.

Archimedes brought us nearly to calculus, summations of infinitesmals.

Newton developed calculus itself (although it was at one time purported that he might have gotten more from earlier, greek work than was earlier suspected, I'm not sure whether those claims went anywhere). Did Newton or Leibnitz either one actually develop the fundamental theorems of calculus?

Gauss developed probability, formulated the bell curve, and established non-euclidean geometry. I like him because of his early history - he came from semi-literate, working parents. There's a perhaps apocryphal story about his illiterate (?) mother asking one of his schoolmates whether Karl was really so good at math, to which the friend replied that he was the best mathematician in Germany. I also like him because of his comments on Kant ("Everything Kant says is either trivial or false."). I think I read somewhere that he did not publish his findings on non-euclidean geometry for years after he wrote them down, because Kant had supposedly proven that Euclidean geometry was the only possible geometry. I don't know if this is true or not, though. He was known for hording his knoweldge and honing it until it was perfect for publication ("few but ripe," wonder what that is in German ... wenige aber reif?).


I guess I get some of this from Keiva's source, and maybe some from others. (Always possible I misremembered stuff, too.)


The reason behind choosing these guys is that if you asked professional mathematicians to name their top 10, these three names would be on everyone's list. (That was the justification given in some source I read.)


k

If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, is it possible for Him to create something that He cannot lift?

Being omniscient, powerful and wise, God could. but would not be so capricious and inconsistent as to break His/Her own laws ...
at least that is what the Good Sisters told us ... except .... their puzzle was "Can or would God make a square circle?"

could, but would not

These apparent contradictions are, more often than not, more a measure of our inability to properly formulate the problem than any measure of the abilities or inabilities of the entity or entities involved in the apparent problem.

Speaking of which, once the Ark has grounded on relatively dry land and the animals have all dispersed to eat each other in peace, God contacts Noah again.

"Noah," he said. "Noah, I have another task for you."

Noah stamps (or splashes muddily) on the ground, in no mood for another losing contract.

"Lord," he said, "Haven't I done enough? I build the Ark as you commanded, I worked as an animal tamer and trainer for 40 days. I didn't even eat the dove although we were sorely tempted after twenty-eight straight days on lentils and dried bean." Sighs. "Oh well, what do you want?"

"Noah," the Lord said in a reflective tone of voice, "I want you to build another Ark."

Noah is flabbergasted. "Another o' them mothers, Father? You know what you're askin', given that little spring shower you coughed up lasstime washed damned near every tree ever planted into the water?"

"Yep," agreed the Horde of Toasts, cheerily. Pause. "Only bigger this time. Much bigger."

"Bigger?" gasps Noah. "How MUCH bigger?" And where, oh where, he wondered, would he get the wood?

"Well," says Yahweh, "You can take the size of that wreck over there and cube it."

"But Lord," protests the Unsuspecting Carpenter of Ararat, "That'd make it twenty decks high!"

"Sounds about right," the Pi in the Sky replies. "Get going! Time's a wastin'!"

Noah contemplates suicide briefly, but realises that that would only make things worse all round, although the free brimstone would be welcome. Ararat is 12,000 feet high and not exactly tropical.

"Lord," he mutters finally, capitulating. "And what do you want me to put in it?"

"Oh, that's easy," God replies. "Trout. Lots of trout. Swimming in water, of course."

Noah is now beyond surprise. But he has to ask. "Why trout, Lord?" And where the hell am I going to find them? he wonders.

"Oh, I dunno," the Man replies. "Just kinda fancied a multi-storey carp ark."

Courtesy of Bunty Kennedy, BBC Radio 2.

Dear CK Old Noah would have had quite a job whomping up the vehicles to fill the carp ark. Where were all the trout going to go?

These apparent contradictions are, more often than not, more a measure of our inability to properly formulate the problem than any measure of the abilities or inabilities of the entity or entities involved in the apparent problem. -the faldage

No no Fallaged, it is moreso a measure of the inability of words to transfer meaning to the gods.

And the cosmologists are challenging the old laws so extensively we know less and less about more and more.

Here we are:
Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss, these three, are in a class by themselves among the great mathematicians, and it is not for ordinary mortals to attempt to range them in order of merit.
-- E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics (1937); p. 218

Did Newton or Leibnitz either one actually develop the fundamental theorems of calculus?
This is the fundamental theorem of the calculus as it presented itself to Newton and independently also to Leibniz.
[¶] Later, in 1712, .. the question as to who had invented the calculus became a matter of acute national jealousy, and all educated England rallied behind its somewhat bewildered champion, howling that his rival was a thief and a liar.
Newton at first was not to blame. Nor was Leibniz. But ... Newton acquiesced in the disgraceful attack and himself suggested or consented to shady schemes of downright dishonesty designed to win the international championship at any cost -- even that of national honor. Leibbniz and his backers did likewise. The upshot of it all was that the obstinate British practically rotted mathematically for all of a century after Newton's death, while the more progressive Swiss and French, following the lead of Leibniz, and developing his incomparably better way of merely writing the calculus, perfected the subject and made it the simple, easily applied implement or research that Newton's immediate successors should have had the honor of making it. Id., pp. 103, 113-114 (1st emph. added; 2nd in orig.)

Here's Thoreau on Newton:

"Over a period of 18 or so months ... Newton discovered the expansion of the general binomial (a+b)n, invented the 'fluxions' (differential calculus), demonstrated that white light was composed of different colors of light, discovered the law of gravitation, and laid the foundations of celestial mechanics."

WordWaldened

Voltaire : "All was darkness, and God said:'Let Newton be!'"

Oh, Bill--that's a great quote. Do you know where you read it?

I can think of a lot of people that would hold true for:

All was darkness, and God said, "Let __________be!"

Fill in the blank:

(Here are some examples...)

Brahms
Beethoven
Milstein
Heifetz
Dickinson
Picasso...

Best regards,
Eyes openWideWind