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Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> Zeno's Paradox can only be overcome if time is a
> continuous variable, and since things _do_ move,
> time is continuous.
Actually, Zeno's Paradox can also be overcome if space is not a continuum,
since then you can't divide the last quantum of space. The gliders in
Conway's "Game of Live" move, too (though time and space is obviously
quantized there). If you have problems with different speeds, forget it:
The universe works fine even if it's composed of waves which all have the
speed of light - all slower movements are superpositions of more than one
wave.
Jonah Thomas wrote:
> In general you can't argue that physics solutions have to be right
> because the only alternative doesn't make sense. That approach sometimes
> works in mathematics but in general it fails for physics.
It is also rarely the only alternative in physics, whereas in math, you
often can proof that it is.
> It fails pretty consistently for economics, psychology, etc because
> people usually do not make sense.
Actually, people usually make a lot of "sense", just in a different way
economics or psychology thinks they should. In fact, the standard economics
theory about humans makes no sense at all, at least not with the humans on
this planet. However, if the premise is wrong, you'll soon find that the
way economics actually behaves makes a lot more sense: The premise is that
people make informed decisions when buying and selling goods. Premise wrong
=> The good that sells best is the one where the most uninformed decision
is made => look at the current subprime crisis for evidence (or whatever
else, like marketshare of Windows, etc. ;-).
--
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/
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