HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Subject: Re: EINSTEIN'S SCHOOL DAYS
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 07:13:25 GMT

In article <1992Nov15.170825.60872@cc.usu.edu> sl3nf@cc.usu.edu writes:
>In article <1992Nov14.004431.3351@wdl.loral.com>, mab@wdl39.wdl.loral.com (Mark A Biggar) writes:
>>>Gordon_Wong@mindlink.bc.ca (Gordon Wong) writes:
>>>
>>> I read that Einstein was a very poor student in his early years. Was it
>>> because he just didn't bother to go to school because he found that what was
>>> being taught just wasn't stimulating enough for him or was it something else?
>>> 
>> 
>> I read somewhere that this is a myth.  Einstein moved from one country
>> to another in the middle of his education, and the grading systems in the two
>> countries were very different.  If I remember right in one of the countries
>> 5 was a good grade and 1 a bad while in the other it was other way around.
>> Someone looking at Einstein's grades, without knowing about the difference,
>> started the rumor that Einstein did poorly in math in grade school.
>
>	From what I remember from reading Carl Sagan's _Cosmos_  Einstein was
>absolutely brilliant as an adolescent, spending much of his time on thought
>experiments such as the simultinaeity (sp) paradox and the like.  The time he
>spent on his studies suffered while he let his imagination roam.
>
> "... where the 'stuff of life' is raining out of the skies..." 
>                                -Carl Sagan 

      He was at various times considered a relatively poor student because 
      he was a) a bit sloppy in primary school, b) contemplative 
      and considered a bit slow at other times, c) arrogant and 
      independent in his college years (among other reasons no one offered
      him a job after graduation).  Read his collected works before 
      reading Pais.

      And you'd think Mr. Sagan wouldn't talk about himself in the 
      third person.

                                 dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                          crb7q@virginia.edu        
Department of Mechanical, 
     Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering
University of Virginia                              (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.weird-theories
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: parallel slit kets OK after all?
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 23:03:48 GMT

In article <By35BM.LpA@well.sf.ca.us> sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti) writes:
>
>Sarfatti Lectures in Super Physics (Lecture 2)

And when I warned sci.physics about things that begin with the word "super"
some of you laughed...

>#7 Quantum connection communication is required if the Princeton PEAR
>reports of "precognitive remote viewing" are a real phenomenon. 

This is technically known as a "big if".
From: quest@iowegia.uucp (Steve J. Quest)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Number of "religious scientists"
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 01:17:52 CST
Distribution: world
Organization: Iowegia Public Access Usenet/UUCP, Clive IA USA.

To All;

        I received the following letter that I truly appreciate.  
I am glad I recieved this letter, it allows me to realize that I 
am not alone- that I am one of a growing number of people who have 
advanced toward science as an explanation of life and lifes 
purpose- as opposed to the religious explanations.

        The letter is complete and intact- the authors name and 
address was removed in case the author wouldn't want this
information being made public.  The letter follows:

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Dear Steve,

In <6cJ6TB3w165w@iowegia.uucp> you write:

>       When I was younger, I believed in a deity.  I prayed and
> all that.  I also noticed nothing happened.  I took up science, I
> experimented and all that.  I also noticed that GREAT things could
> happen!  Needless to say, I am a scientist today- but above all, I
> am a complete unequivocal atheist.  I have no beliefs or need for
> belief in any form of deity.  I believe in science..........sq

This is the most eloquent, intelligent and simple statement I've read for a 
long time!

Best wishes,

[name removed]
[uucp address removed]

Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian)
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA. Att:  D. McCULLOUGH  re:FTA 
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
                               
 
                                        11-22-92
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 04:30:38 GMT


Dear Mr. McCULLOUGH,


   I should say that you were THE ONLY PERSON WHO CORRECTLY UNDER-
STOOD MY PROOF OF  FUNDAMENTAL THEOREM OF ALGEBRA.  
  
   Your reasoning in your last posting - is absolutely correct.

   As far as your question is concerned, an answer can be given by
the so called  Casorati-Weierstrass Theorem (you can find it in almost
every textbook on Complex Analysis) it says:

  "In every neighborhood of an isolated essential singularity of an
analytic function, the latter comes arbitrarily close to every complex
number.  Hence has no limit at that singularity".

                         
   
 Below, I am writing ONLY and ONLY FOR YOU (I will not answer  any remarks 
if someone other than you reads and makes them), because you  understand
beautiful, exciting  reasoning and analogies:

   If you want to have a feel for your question (just a feel, no rigor, 
just a subconscious feeling, vague, but extremely profound)  consider
linear functions (even in Real Analysis) in one variable of simplest form, 
say,
  
                    b  f(z) =  z
    
  Now, if  b = 0   (yes, if  b = 0)  then   z = 0  can be considered

as an essential singularity of f(z).  But then

                    0 f(z)  =  0

is satisfied by any value of f(z).  Thus, in this particular case not only
at the point of essential singularity  f(z)  becomes as close as you 
wish to any complex number, but actually assumes every complex number and
consequently does not have any limit at  O !
(it behaves worse than stated in Picard's Theorem which allows at most one 
exceptional value).  THIS IS ONLY FOR YOU.

   With best wishes and regards,
                                                 Alexander Abian

-- 
   The tendency of maintaining the status-quo, Reaction to provocation and
                The tendency of maintaining again a status-quo.  
    TIME HAS INERTIA  and some energy is lost to move Time forward  
  E = mcc  (Einstein)    must be replaced by    E = m(0) exp(-At) (Abian)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Loop variables questions
Organization: MIT, Department of Mathematics
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 23:14:21 GMT

I wrote:
>Take the matrices
>
>1 1+a
>0 1
>
>These are conjugate for all a > 0 but not for a = 0.  (This is a good
>exercise - >they are conjugate by an element of SL(2,C), I mean.)  

There's a typo here -- 1+a should've been a.

By the way, Allen's remark that the holonomy of a connection around a
loop varies smoothly as a function of the loop gives rise to a nice easy
proof that the "measures" on the space of connections mod gauge
transformations that arise in Chern-Simons theory (and give link
invariants) cannot be honest measures.  They are most likely generalized
measures of the sort that frequently appear in quantum field theory.
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Lowneheim-Skolem theorem (was: Continuos vs. discrete models)
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 22:04:24 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.124233.24312@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>columbus@strident.think.com (Michael Weiss) writes:
>
>>In short: there may be good reasons for radically changing the foundations
>>of physics (and there may not-- pace, defenders of the status quo(ntum)!),
>>but the Loewenheim-Skolem theorem is not one of them.
>
>LS doesn't demand that we adopt Paul Budnik's discretized physics, but
>I believe it gives us permission to do so. LS shows that there can
>never be a demonstration that space-time must be continuous, because
>there is no property of an uncountable set that doesn't also hold of
>some countable set.

I object.  Lowenheim-Skolem says there are countable models of the
reals; you can go ahead and use these if you like, and I will not
object, since this does not affect what *theorems* you can prove about
the real numbers.  (Theorems, those statements that follow from the
axioms, are defined purely syntactically and are utterly independent of
a choice of model.)  So I am at a loss to think of any sense in which
using a countable model of the real numbers makes ones physics more
"discrete."  
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: kieran@cmatter.physics.indiana.edu (kieran)
Subject: Re: How can you measure the following ?
Keywords: stopwatch
Organization: Indiana University
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 16:20:04 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.115552.16917@daimi.aau.dk> 
       snil@daimi.aau.dk (Sven Nielsen) writes:


>   In how many ways can you measure the height of a tall building using only
>these three tools : Stopwatch, barometer and tape measure.
>

    My favorite solution comes from Terry Pratchett, in his book "Strata".
I paraphrase, since I don't have the original with me:

   "In olden days a wise king promised his kingdom and the hand of his
only daughter to whoever could determine the height of the castle using
only a barometer.  Many were the sages who tried and failed.  So many,
that the king had to impose the death penalty on all those who tried and
failed, in order to cut down on the traffic.  No one could determine the
height of the castle to the accuracy the king desired.

    Then Bob, the mighty and wise physicist decided to try.  He took a
golden, jewel encrusted barometer to the master builder of the castle and
said `I will give you this valuable barometer if you will tell me the
height of the castle.'  

    Bob and the Princess were married that month."


                         Kieran Mullen



Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: franl@centerline.com (Fran Litterio)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: No Spin in 2 Dimensions?
Date: 16 Nov 92 23:33:47
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
	<ZOWIE.92Nov11230652@daedalus.stanford.edu>
	<1e9n4cINNq40@huon.itd.adelaide.edu.au>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.3.116
In-reply-to: hoconnel@iti.org's message of 17 Nov 92 02:58:20 GMT

hoconnel@iti.org (Heath O'Connell) writes:

> zowie@daedalus.stanford.edu (Craig "Powderkeg" DeForest) writes:
> 
> > but then QM doesn't work too well with SR anyway
> 
> QM and SR work quite well together.

Then how do you reconcile wavefunction collapse with the relativity of
simultaneity?
--
franl@centerline.com   || Fran Litterio, CenterLine Software R&D
617-498-3255           || 10 Fawcett St, Cambridge, MA, USA 02138-1110
"So what we've decided to do is set you up in Cicely, situated
 in an area that we Alaskans refer to as The Alaskan Riviera."
From: dvs@soda.berkeley.edu (Doug Simpkinson)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA - A challenge for Abian
Date: 18 Nov 1992 22:21:18 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu
Summary: QUANTIFY!!!!
Keywords: TIME HAS INERTIA,  i.e., TIME IS MATTER  NOT!!!!

Dear Mr. Abian:  Please quantify ANYTHING with your theory.  Please do not
use any of the "noises" of famous bravo-sierra purveyors such as Newton,
Einstein, Hamilton, et al.  Among the problems you may wish to address:

   Compute the trajectory of a particle of mass m in a uniform gravitational
field (or the Abian equivalent) equal to earth's at sea level given an
initial velocity, neglecting air resistance.  Simplifying, How high will a 1
kg ball go if I throw it straight up at a velocity of 20 m/s?  Where will it
land if I throw it at a 45 degree angle to the vertical?

   What is the kinetic energy of the muon in the rest frame of the pion in
the decay
                  pi+  ->  mu+  +  neutrino
given the following masses:
              Mpi+ = 139.5675 MeV/c^2
	      Mmu+ = 105.658387 MeV/c^2
	      Mnu  ~ 0 

   What are the energy levels of the Hydrogen atom?  This one took my QM
professor many months to calculate in class (3 hours per week), I'm sure
that with your new theory it should take a few minutes.

   Design a nuclear weapon and calculate its yield.  Make sure to mention
Hitler at least 3 times.

   Design and build a working computer from scratch - and I do mean
scratch.  Abandon the silly noises of traditional engineering.
Transistors?  I don't got to show you no STEENKING transistors.  Start with,
say, sand, and end with something with at least 20 MIPS.  

   How many people will Ted Bundy kill when provoked with a Marilyn
Monroe-type temptress?


As you can see, the scope of your magnificent theory is very broad.  In
fact, of the above questions, the last does not fall into the scope of
physics, and thus should not be addressed in this newsgroup.  Is there
perhaps a sci.psychology group you have yet to enlighten?  

Awaiting a quantitative answer with baited breath,

Doug Simpkinson
douglips@ocf.berkeley.edu
dvs@soda.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math
From: dwilkins@maths.tcd.ie (David Wilkins)
Subject: Re: Covariant vs. Lie Derivative in Gen. Rel.?
Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 19:49:01 GMT

>In article <1992Nov13.213840.10075@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu
>(John C. Baez) writes:
>>              If nothing did, every symplectic maniold would be blessed
>>with a natural connection analogous to the Levi-Civita connection.  If
>>such a thing existed I should have heard about it, but I haven't.  Of
>>course, it's possible that I am missing out on this crucial facet of
>>symplectic geometry!!
>>
>>Perhaps the symplectic geometers and fans of gravity theories with
>>asymmetric metric tensors can straighten this out in a jiffy.


>
>ISN'T IT EASY TO SHOW THAT THE LIE ALGEBRA OF SYMMETRIES OF AN
>AFFINE CONNECTION ON A CONNECTED FINITE-DIMENSIONAL MANIFOLD IS
>FINITE-DIMENSIONAL?  THUS THE LIE ALGEBRA OF INFINITESIMAL
>SYMPLECTOMORPHISMS OF A SYMPLECTIC MANIFOLD IS FAR TOO BIG TO
>PRESERVE AN AFFINE CONNECTION.
>
>-JAMES DOLAN

To have a second bite at this cherry, having thought about it
some more:-

The problem is to determine whether or not a simplectic manifold
admits a natural affine connection preserved under symplectomorphisms.

Suppose that we are given a smooth affine connection on a connected
smooth manifold.  Then any connection-preserving diffeomorphism
will be completely determined by its derivative at a single point.
This follows easily from the fact that such a diffeomorphism will
send geodesics to geodesics.

Consider the plane with the usual area form as the symplectic
2-form.  One can easily construct area preserving maps that are
not determined by their derivative at the origin.  For instance,
consider maps that, when restricted to each circle centred on
the origin, rotate that circle through an angle that varies
with the radius of the circle.  By considering this sort of
map, we see that symplectomorphisms (i.e., area-preserving maps
in this instance) are not uniquely determined by their derivative
at a single point, and thus the plane cannot admit a natural
connection that would be uniquely determined by the symplectic
structure and thus invariant under symplectomorphisms.

DRW


Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: rivero <rivero@cc.unizar.es>
Subject: Re: No Spin in 2 Dimensions?
X-Xxdate: Wed, 18 Nov 92 17:27:41 GMT
Organization: fisica teorica UZ
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 16:30:04 GMT

In article <MATT.92Nov17124108@physics16.berkeley.edu> Matt Austern,
matt@physics16.berkeley.edu writes:
>If you're not happy with the collapse interpretation, shop around!
... but be careful in the travel.

Only to add evidence for QFT, I want to point that there is some examples
of Bell inequalities in the AQFT setup. I thinsowed this in the AMP at
Leipzig, but I dont remember who (perhaps Karyn (Apfeldorf) has
notes of the symp, I don find the reference here...).
By the way, had a interesting debate on hidding things in that meeting.
(If I must to choose between pilot waves and C* things, I
Haag side...)

Alejandro Rivero
Theoretical Phys, Zaragoza Univ, Spain.
rivero@cc.unizar.es
From: ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Sarfatti and would-be FTL
Date: 19 Nov 1992 05:09:44 GMT
Organization: UBC, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, "Loudmouths' Anonymous"
NNTP-Posting-Host: unixg.ubc.ca

In article <Bxw9qF.369@well.sf.ca.us> sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us 
(Jack Sarfatti) writes:
|*I don't deny it. There is no reason why, in the one-photon problem with
|zero connection that arg<a,e,+|a,o,+> cannot be different for every
|different superposition in order to preserve unitarity. 

Ack!

|Why do you
|automatically assume invariance of arg<a,e,+|a,o,+> - what law of physics
|requires such invariance?*

This is a real gem. It is a fine illustration of the difficulties in
discussing material involving "variables".

In order to talk about the superpositions of two states, the states
themselves must be already defined. We can, of course, recycle our
variables and use |a,e,+> and |a,o,+> to refer to analogous states
within another experimental design-- but each joint reference to
|a,e,+> and |a,o,+> has to refer to a particular one.

What the principle of superposition means is that we can vary our
choice of superposition, e.g. z1 |a,e,+> + z2 |a,o,+>, *without* also
varying the experimental design, and hence also without varying such
relationships among |a,e,+> and |a,o,+> as the value of <a,e,+|a,o,+>.
Each design will have its own value of <a,e,+|a,o,+>, not varying
depending upon z1 and z2.

I assumed that you implicitly fixed the experimental design. That is
why I "automatically assumed" the invariance of <a,e,+|a,o,+>. If you
never fix the experimental design, then it is easy to evade questions
about unitarity as you have just described: by positing a different
experimental design for each state!

*Fix*, then, any *one* experimental design such as you've described,
so that it is possible to speak of *the* fixed value of <a,e,+|a,o,+>,
and so on. Consider the family of possible initial states of the pair
of photons:

    |a,b> = |a,e,+> [ z1 |b,e,+> + z2 |b,o,-> ]
           +|a,o,-> [ z3 |b,e,+> + z4 |b,o,-> ],

where |z1|^2+|z2|^2+|z3|^2+|z4|^2=1. If |a,e,+> evolves in the
experiment to e^{i*phi} |a,e,+> and |a,o,-> to |a,o,+>, then we get a
state

    |a,b> = e^{i*phi} |a,e,+> [ z1 |b,e,+> + z2 |b,o,-> ]
           +          |a,o,+> [ z3 |b,e,+> + z4 |b,o,-> ].

In order for this to be a state, its bracket with itself has to be 1.
This has to hold true for *all* possible choices of z1,z2,z3,z4. We
already know that |b,e,+> and |b,o,-> are orthogonal and normal. How
can you possibly arrange all of this, without <a,e,+|a,o,+>=0? It just
doesn't work.

Keith Ramsay         "But I really think that frequent posters such as 
ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca  myself, Dale, Scott, McIrvin and others are not 
                     crackpots; we are simply loudmouths."
                                        -John Baez
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth)
Subject: Re: Lowneheim-Skolem theorem (was: Continuos vs. discrete models)
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 13:32:19 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.124233.24312@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:

>LS doesn't demand that we adopt Paul Budnik's discretized physics, but
>I believe it gives us permission to do so. LS shows that there can
>never be a demonstration that space-time must be continuous, because
>there is no property of an uncountable set that doesn't also hold of
>some countable set.

Necessary, but not, I fear, sufficient.  If you are to replace the
continuum with a *single* discrete manifold, then you must show that,
for any uncountable set with certain properties, there exists a
*single* countable set with all the same properties.

I freely grant that we still have trouble defining a single continuous
manifold that accommodates all our favourite theories (like GR and QM),
but I can't see how dropping the assumption of continuity will make
this problem any easier to solve.
Xref: sparky sci.physics:19064 sci.math:15130
From: paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Lowneheim-Skolem theorem (was: Continuos vs. discrete models)
Date: 20 Nov 92 17:47:03 GMT
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga. CA 95070

In article <COLUMBUS.92Nov19155452@strident.think.com>, columbus@strident.think.com (Michael Weiss) writes:
>...
> In article <362@mtnmath.UUCP> paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik) writes:
> 
>    They do allow one to avoid making certain errors such as
>    thinking that the continuum is a necessary mathematical element in
>    any physical theory.
> 
> Did anyone ever make this claim, i.e., that it is impossible to build a
> consistent physical theory without the continuum?

No, but I think some are overly fond of the continuum as a philosophical
concept that seems to be naturally correct. It is a bit like the attachment
to Euclidian geometry. L-S shows that there is a certain arbitrariness
to this mathematical concept.

> My impression is that
> the Defenders of the Continuum (hmm...  sounds like the title for an SF
> novel) in this newsgroup simply prefer continuum math to discrete math--
> and also, there are well-worked continuum-based theories, with warts to be
> sure, for which detailed discrete replacements have yet to be offered.
> 
> "We can dream, but we need not deliberately court nightmares."  For some,
> getting rid of R looks like a nightmare.

No doubt replacing a model that one knows and loves with one that is new
and foreign will be a nightmare for many physicists. It will only happen
from necessity. I think the key to doing this will be tests of Bell's
inequality. I have posted arguments and my paper is now under review that
shows that quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory. QM does not predict
the delays to be expected in tests of Bell's inequality. If these arguments
hold, this will provide the incentive to do the experiments to measure these
delays. QM needs to be extended to predict these delays and the only way
to do this is through experiment. My expectation is that these experiments
will provide the first measures of the structure of quantum collapse. I
think it will be impossible to account for this structure with a continuous
model. 

> Personally, I am not fond of the Brouwer-Heyting-Bishop approach to
> mathematics.  On the other hand, I think it would be delightful if someone
> created a new physical theory out of some strange-smelling brew of math
> logic, model theory, and who know what else (braids too, gotta have
> braids!), that at one blow "solved" quantum gravity, gave a new resolution
> to all the old QM koans, and predicted new, experimentally verified,
> physics.  However, I'm not holding my breath.

My approach is much simpler than this. The class of models I am proposing
are elementary and simple. Going from these models to experimental predictions
is the hard part.

Paul Budnik