Anybody want to talk about ‘Physics’? Anybody?

[Politecat]

Working on a Chem major, need to take a class in Physics, interesting class, wish I chose physics instead of chemistry. Personally in a half physics half chemistry topic, earthquakes emit two kind of waves and with that we have been able to better understand that there is a weird Iron alloy (Nickel I believe) and that it should be solid but since it's so hot and always moving it's actually liquid.

Now going in even further, since we don't actually really have any evidence other than the waves that are emitted from earthquakes and taking Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal, since we used waves to detect that there is something liquid (Iron alloy) is it possible that the earthquake had actually moved it out of the way and there is even more to it than just a lot of iron under the mantel? Of course we'll never find out but applying HUP does keep me awake.

I know this isn't physics related, but it's also interesting, to me at least, but what is a number? Yes. It's something we use to count, but WHAT is a number? What exactly does it mean to have zero of something? If we have zero apples what does that mean? What does negative numbers really mean? My Calc teacher gave us a lecture about what a number really is, and he ended it by saying "A number is what you want it to mean. Numbers don't truly exist, but we choose to believe they exist."

 

[WayOut]

My Calc teacher gave us a lecture about what a number really is, and he ended it by saying "A number is what you want it to mean. Numbers don't truly exist, but we choose to believe they exist."

Interesting! The statement your teacher gave is right and wrong. Basically, it's a philosophical statement, to some extent, and there is no answer at the same time as there are many answers.

As a side issue, about our numerical system, man's biggest mistake when he started "counting" and assigning numbers, was that he counted his thumbs as well as his fingers. Bad move. It gave us the decimal system, which is complete rubbish. It's not elegant, even at the most basic level, ie, halve 10 and you get 5. Halve 5 and you get 2.5. Then 1.25. Etc. Now we get unnecessary problems and complexities.

If first counting man had used fingers only, and not thumbs, the system would have been octal, base 8. Halve 8 and you get 4. Halve 4 and you get 2. Halve 2, you get 1. Neat, elegant, simple. However, it could be a little cumbersome, so double the base, and you get the hexadecimal system. Base 16. Elegant, and very handy to use. It's the best compromise between the decimal system that we are used to, and the original binary system of computing.