Measurement of things (time, space, distance)

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience' started by RainbowSingularity, Mar 8, 2018.

  1. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    7,447
    while reading another thread i noticed i had a question arise.
    in how many ways(& in what different ways) do we measure things scientifically ?

    keeping in mind i am not a physacist or mathamatician.

    it rose my curiosity to ask generally ...
    "have we got all the different types of measurement systems we need to comprehend the universe and all its weird & wonderful scientific principals ? (im guessing thats a soft 'no' with hard examples)

    time, a generic frequency of a given thing...
    distance a generic given pre-established value of size to render quantitative distance...
    then all the rest etc.. magnitude, gravity etc etc ...
     
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  3. river

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    Subjective indeed
     
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  5. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    was hoping to delve into peoples opinions of the scope of what is unknown as a question toward potential technalogical advancement.

    if mathamatics is the language of the universe as some say,
    how many languages could there be and how far along on that scale might science be ?

    opinions, speculations and ideas welcome.
     
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  7. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    You seem to be talking about measuring physical quantities. Offhand it seems to me we can measure all the observable physical quantities that have been defined. But there are are physical quantities that are not observable, for example the values of quantum numbers. Things like these manifest themselves in observable quantities that they give rise to, but can't really be measured in themselves.

    If your question is broader, in that there may be as yet undiscovered or uninvented observable physical quantities that may one day prove important, well yes I suppose the history of science suggests that is likely to be so.
     
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  8. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    yes both.
    leaning on the concept that if we do not have the theory to formulate something then it woudl be hard to compute it.
    worm hole(read black hole/dark matter etc) mathamatics for example.

    i often ponder if our knowledge of a broardening perspective is wide enough prior to moving in a straight line forward/up.
    culture bieng quite the thing as a good example. (having the technology to wipe out the species yet not having the social and cultural intellect to prevent that from happening)
    we have all sorts of scientific technology that makes life vastly better yet many people reject that calling the concept of religion to be a dictatorship to limit human advancement.
    we are currently seeing a new-wave of psychology evolution taking place in the western world.
    re-instigating principals that had been discovered some 30 years ago or more.

    obviousely when it comes to the geniuses ... their ability to be free of the bonds of dogma and barbarianism enables them to achieve more.
    thus a scope of perspective ability becomes a question to leverage the principals of pure mathamatics(quisically).
     
  9. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    12,451
    Sorry, I cannot understand that. Can you try again?
     
  10. nebel

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    2,469
    Not related to your theme question, but there seems to be something special about the measurements, the metric system we use , in most places.
    The meter of course was meant to be a portion of the earth girth, but it is good that the atmospheric pressure would equal a water column of 10 meters, That in the Bode sequence the Earth drew a 10, that the 1 AU in diameter is 1000 light seconds. 30o 000 km/sec for c. and
    It was not planned that way.
    consolation prize for our American friends, km/miles is the golden ratio 1/1.6
    that would be easy to fix.
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2018
  11. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    12,451
    Except that atmospheric pressure is variable and not equal to exactly 10m water, the golden ratio is not 1.6 it is (1+√5)/2..etc etc. One might as well say gosh what a coincidence that the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is almost 3!!!

    In other words, this is just more junk numerology and indicative of nothing whatsoever.
     
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  12. nebel

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    bold added for emphasis.

    Of course there is scattering, and who said it was indicative of anything, just convenient to get quick approximations, like knowing the bode numbers, and the 1000 sec AU diameter gives you instantly max min message delay times to other planets perihelion, aphelion.
    Was not planned that way, but nice coincidences,
    Almost 3?--The hexagon radius length inside a circle does not count here, because it is not a later man made measure, that turned out interesting numerology when applied to nature.
     
  13. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    12,451
    You did.
     
  14. nebel

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    bold added for emphasis.

    .... who said it was indicative of anything, .
    As I recall, I mentioned (in not so many words) that it was coincidental, indicative of not being causative, not planned, but the fortunate outcome of our measuring units aligning with the numbers of our fingers,
    I mean, how could we have planned the Earth orbit to be 1000 light seconds?
    fascinating co-incidences making life easier.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2018
  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    We observe/ measure in all known possible ways, but obviously we can always get more data. Scientists would love to get up close to black holes and exotic stars and measure things, but that's difficult.
     
  16. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    Fibonacci sequence
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number


    maybe there is a certain value to the concept of "magic-formula"/magic-soup?
    statistically we are extremely odd having only 1 sun and such a small sun.
    thus it occured to me that statistically that changes things if we asserted that advanced life, as we define ourselves, requires various things.

    note planet finder has just been launched which i look forward to following(might add a link later in a few days)

    its time for HUBBLE II to be built & launched
    Elon can launch it, i think his company has proven they have the ability to get the job done without it blowing up on the launch pad
    all we need is countries to simply donate a tiny fraction of thier GDP & away we go.

    i am going to guess
    HUBBLE II cost 2.5 billion
    launch vehicle finalisation & launch 1.5 billion
    launch control - new space comms centre to run all scientific satalites 500 million including HUBBLE I & HUBBLE II and various Earth Science satalites etc...

    yearly budget of 350 million for running costs.
    with ongoing GDP co-op fund for repairs, maintanance and assorted scholarships & public scientific study funding for development.

    "in all known possible ways"
    binary reality...
    holding up what cant be done to evaluate what can be done...
    "Scientists would love to get up close to black holes and exotic stars"
    im not a big supporter of this theory of intellectual ground work.

    the religiousely broken mind of the child needs to know what the answer is before the question has been asked.
    this is part of the larger problem.

    data should not be excluded because it does not have a logo on it.
     
  17. nebel

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    Yeah, at our astronomy meeting tonight is a presentation by a prestigious prof. showing it will be gone in 5 billion years, but: with a smaller size, and closer orbit we could have had a longer life expectancy than that.
    folding down paper down the middle into the Fibonacci golden ratio forever, well at least longer.

    Children are born with amazing minds, religious answers can really screw them up. There are answers to question built into nature already though, before we ask the questions.
    J Kepler is an example, after trying polygons for orbits, he discovered ellipses in Brahe's data, in Praha.
    Johannes Kepler got kicked out of his religion bsw. always a badge of honour that.
     
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  18. nebel

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    yes, so: to design the right instruments to carry on those probes, we better have solid, and even way out questions to ask, data to look for, possibly derived from alternate hypothesis. because lucky finds come to those well prepared to measure time, space and distance.
     
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  19. nebel

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    here is some real junk : I just ran into: Pi= 3.1416
    Number of seconds in a year (1 orbit around the sun, a derivatit of PI,= 315576oo seconds, a match in numbers in 10 millions within .4 %.-- year and day getting longer though.
     
  20. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    is the increase in length additional to the expansion of the universe ?
     
  21. nebel

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    I believe this is local celestial dynamics. ask the experts. has to do with tidal forces of moon, earth and sun. Even the match in size of Moon and Sun, an eclipse essential, is temporary, unique, specially relevant for our present presence.
    IMHO. the universe is expanding into time. big stuff, not local.
     
  22. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    7,447
    yet when we ask if the glass is half full, we already know what the glass is and percieve a sense of its size.

    inherant metric facilitation of perceptive relativism ?
     
  23. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    Gotta love that! Seriously do.
     

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