Why not a Python compiler?

[Grant Edwards]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

On 2008-02-09, Doug Morse <morse@edoug.or gwrote:

> Or just the old particle/wave dichotomy... particles
> travel, waves propagate (that is, the wave form -- crest/dip
> -- changes position, but the material of the medium it is in
> just jiggles in place).

So, showing of my physics ignorance: I presume then that this
means that light, say from the sun, is actually sending
particles to the earth, since the space between is mostly
vacuum? Or is there enough material in the near-vacuum of
space for propogation to occur?

They act like both waves and as particles depending on what
experiment you do. Though even if you consider them as waves
they don't depend on "jiggling" of a medium. That medium was
called the "luminifero us aether" (aka ether), and in the 19th
century experiments showed conclusively that it doesn't exist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! .. I think I'd
at better go back to my DESK
visi.com and toy with a few common
MISAPPREHENSION S...

[greg]

Re: OT: Star Wars and parsecs

Bjoern Schliessmann wrote:

No, even simpler: In the Star Wars galaxy, parsec is a time unit.

Yep, it's the Paradoxical Second, defined as the average length of
time it takes a person to figure out that the pilot they've
hired is feeding them a load of bull for the purpose of finding
out how long it takes them to notice they're being fed a load
of bull.

--
Greg

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:54:30 +1300, greg wrote:

>Until DeBroglie formulated
>its hypothesis of dual nature of matter (and light): wave and particle
>at the same time.

>
Really it's neither waves nor particles, but something else for which
there isn't a good word in everyday English. Physicists seem to have got
around that by redefining the word "particle" to mean that new thing.

I like the term "wavical" to describe that. We're all made of wavicals,
it's just that the wave-like fuzziness is usually too small to notice.

Unless you drink too much tequila.


--
Steven

[Grant Edwards]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

On 2008-02-11, Steve Holden <steve@holdenwe b.comwrote:

Well the history of physics for at least two hundred years has
been a migration away from the intuitive.

Starting at least as far back as Newtonian mechanics. I once
read a very interesting article about some experiments that
showed that even simple newtonian physics is counter-intuitive.
Two of the experiments I remember vividly. One of them showed
that the human brain expects objects constrained to travel in a
curved path will continue to travel in a curved path when
released. The other showed that the human brain expects that
when an object is dropped it will land on a spot immediately
below the drop point -- regardless of whether or not the ojbect
was in motion horizontally when released.

After repeated attempts at the tasks set for them in the
experiments, the subjects would learn strategies that would
work in a Newtonian world, but the initial intuitive reactions
were very non-Newtonian (regardless of how educated they were
in physics).

In strict linguistic terms the word "subatomic" is a fine
oxymoron. I suspect it's really "turtles all the way down".

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Yes, but will I
at see the EASTER BUNNY in
visi.com skintight leather at an
IRON MAIDEN concert?

[Robert Bossy]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2008-02-11, Steve Holden <steve@holdenwe b.comwrote:
>
>

>Well the history of physics for at least two hundred years has
>been a migration away from the intuitive.
>>

>
Starting at least as far back as Newtonian mechanics. I once
read a very interesting article about some experiments that
showed that even simple newtonian physics is counter-intuitive.
Two of the experiments I remember vividly. One of them showed
that the human brain expects objects constrained to travel in a
curved path will continue to travel in a curved path when
released. The other showed that the human brain expects that
when an object is dropped it will land on a spot immediately
below the drop point -- regardless of whether or not the ojbect
was in motion horizontally when released.
>
After repeated attempts at the tasks set for them in the
experiments, the subjects would learn strategies that would
work in a Newtonian world, but the initial intuitive reactions
were very non-Newtonian (regardless of how educated they were
in physics).
>

I'm pretty sure we can still hear educated people say that free fall
speed depends on the weight of the object without realizing it's a
double mistake.

Cheers,
RB

[Gabriel Genellina]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

En Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:05:27 -0200, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.co m>
escribi�:

On 2008-02-11, Steve Holden <steve@holdenwe b.comwrote:
>

>Well the history of physics for at least two hundred years has
>been a migration away from the intuitive.

>
Starting at least as far back as Newtonian mechanics. I once
read a very interesting article about some experiments that
showed that even simple newtonian physics is counter-intuitive.

The inertia principle is counter-intuitive too, in a real world with
friction. Things don't just "keep going" when impulse cease to exist;
everyone knows that a running car eventually stops if the engine stops.
That it "would" keep moving at the same speed in a straight line is an
abstraction that people hardly can build from experience.

--
Gabriel Genellina

[Erik Max Francis]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Steve Holden wrote:

Well the history of physics for at least two hundred years has been a
migration away from the intuitive. In strict linguistic terms the word
"subatomic" is a fine oxymoron. I suspect it's really "turtles all the
way down".

Well, hard to say that's been a monotonic pattern. For instance,
Aristotelian physics had an awful lot of components that were fairly
bizarre, counter-intuitive, or even contrary to easily gained
experience. The notion of impetus -- where an object throw moves in a
straight line until it runs out of impetus, then falls straight down --
is clearly contrary to everyday experience of watching two people throw
a ball back and forth from a distance, since the path of the ball is
clearly curved.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war.
-- Miguel de Cervantes, ca. 1600

[Jeff Schwab]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Erik Max Francis wrote:

Robert Bossy wrote:

>Grant Edwards wrote:

>>After repeated attempts at the tasks set for them in the
>>experiments , the subjects would learn strategies that would
>>work in a Newtonian world, but the initial intuitive reactions
>>were very non-Newtonian (regardless of how educated they were
>>in physics).

>>
>I'm pretty sure we can still hear educated people say that free fall
>speed depends on the weight of the object without realizing it's a
>double mistake.

>
Well, you have to qualify it better than this, because what you've
stated in actually correct ... in a viscous fluid.

By definition, that's not free fall.

[Erik Max Francis]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2008-02-09, Thomas Dybdahl Ahle <lobais@gmail.c omwrote:

>Quantum mechanics are closely related to philosophy.

>
I've never understood that claim. You can philosophize about
anything: biology, math, weather, the stars, the moon, and so
on. I don't see how QM is any more related to philosophy than
any other field in science.

It probably comes from reading popularizations that make the really
silly attempt to join physics to Eastern philosophy and metaphysics, for
instance, garbage like _The Tao of Physics_. Modern physics can get
weird and spooky and counterintuitiv e, but any real connection made with
Eastern philosophy is only in the eye of the beholder.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
I woke up this morning / You were the first thing on my mind
-- India Arie

[Erik Max Francis]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:54:30 +1300, greg wrote:
>

>>Until DeBroglie formulated
>>its hypothesis of dual nature of matter (and light): wave and particle
>>at the same time.

>Really it's neither waves nor particles, but something else for which
>there isn't a good word in everyday English. Physicists seem to have got
>around that by redefining the word "particle" to mean that new thing.

>
I like the term "wavical" to describe that. We're all made of wavicals,
it's just that the wave-like fuzziness is usually too small to notice.

It's usually spelled _wavicle_, by the way.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
I woke up this morning / You were the first thing on my mind
-- India Arie

[Lou Pecora]

Re: OT: Star Wars and parsecs [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

In article
<9635c9ed-ba6e-4172-932f-01d88a625452@f1 0g2000hsf.googl egroups.com>,
"mensanator@aol .com" <mensanator@aol .comwrote:

On Feb 8, 2:53?pm, Lou Pecora <pec...@anvil.n rl.navy.milwrot e:

In article <13qotf2mgpvk.. .@corp.supernew s.com>,
?Grant Edwards <gra...@visi.co mwrote:

On 2008-02-08, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfr...@ix.net com.comwrote:

? ? ? A Parsec is a fixed value (which, admittedly, presumes the culture
developed a 360degree circle broken into degrees =minutes =>
seconds... or, at least, some units compatible with the concept of an
"arc second", like 400 grads of, say, 100 "minutes", each of 100
"seconds")

It also presumes a standard diamter of that circle.

Which is the Earth's orbit. ?So, long, long ago in a galaxy far, far
away did they know about the Earth and decide to use it as the basis for
length in the universe? ?Even before people on earth defined it? ?

Or (ominous music builds here, switch to low voice) is it as some now
contend? ?We are the decendents of a long, lost civilization who
colonized Earth and used it as a base for their operations to the point
of adopting it as their own home?

... ?You Betcha!

:-)

>
How come they spoke English?

Because they taught it to us. It's obvious.

--
-- Lou Pecora

[Erik Max Francis]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2008-02-12, Jeff Schwab <jeff@schwabcen ter.comwrote:

>Fair enough!

>
Dear me, what's Usenet coming to these days...

I know, really. Sheesh! Jeff, I won't stand for that! Argue with me! :-)

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Because a bullet has no name / And sees no face
-- Skee-Lo

[Jeff Schwab]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Erik Max Francis wrote:

Grant Edwards wrote:
>

>On 2008-02-12, Jeff Schwab <jeff@schwabcen ter.comwrote:

>>Fair enough!

>>
>Dear me, what's Usenet coming to these days...

>
I know, really. Sheesh! Jeff, I won't stand for that! Argue with me!
:-)

OK, uh... You're a poopy-head.

Forgive the cliché, but there's already too much road rage on the
information superhighway. I've had limited access to Usenet for the
last couple of years, and coming back, I find myself shocked at how many
people seem to be mean and argumentative just for the heck of it. Was
it really always this hostile? Maybe I've gotten soft in my old age.

[Erik Max Francis]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Jeff Schwab wrote:

Erik Max Francis wrote:

>Grant Edwards wrote:
>>

>>On 2008-02-12, Jeff Schwab <jeff@schwabcen ter.comwrote:
>>>Fair enough!
>>>
>>Dear me, what's Usenet coming to these days...

>>
>I know, really. Sheesh! Jeff, I won't stand for that! Argue with
>me! :-)

>
OK, uh... You're a poopy-head.
>
Forgive the cliché, but there's already too much road rage on the
information superhighway. I've had limited access to Usenet for the
last couple of years, and coming back, I find myself shocked at how many
people seem to be mean and argumentative just for the heck of it. Was
it really always this hostile? Maybe I've gotten soft in my old age.

Note smiley. Grant and I were joking.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Because a bullet has no name / And sees no face
-- Skee-Lo

[Jeff Schwab]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Erik Max Francis wrote:

Jeff Schwab wrote:
>

>Erik Max Francis wrote:

>>Grant Edwards wrote:
>>>
>>>On 2008-02-12, Jeff Schwab <jeff@schwabcen ter.comwrote:
>>>>Fair enough!
>>>>
>>>Dear me, what's Usenet coming to these days...
>>>
>>I know, really. Sheesh! Jeff, I won't stand for that! Argue with
>>me! :-)

>>
>OK, uh... You're a poopy-head.
>>
>Forgive the cliché, but there's already too much road rage on the
>information superhighway. I've had limited access to Usenet for the
>last couple of years, and coming back, I find myself shocked at how
>many people seem to be mean and argumentative just for the heck of
>it. Was it really always this hostile? Maybe I've gotten soft in my
>old age.

>
Note smiley. Grant and I were joking.

Yes, I understood.

Ahhh, back to that familiar, awkward discomfort...