Bignose

Well, I already gave you an example. What is the sum of 1 kilometer and 12 milliseconds? I may as well ask you what is the sum of 4 oranges and 13 automobiles? The point is that you cannot add incompatible units. x can be a length, and t can be the time is get to travel that length, but you still cannot just add the two of them together and get something meaningful. How a professional scientist uses them is that as a first check, any equation must be dimensionally sound. If it isn't, a mistake has been made. Now, that doesn't mean that if an equation is dimensionally sound, that it is right -- but it is a first check for wrongness.

I don't think that anyone is asking for an exact answer at this time. But, you should be able to provide what equations you would program into a computer for it to solve. And from those equations, estimates and order-of-magnitude arguments are usually fairly straightforward to make. This is done all the time by practicing engineers and physicists. How soon can you post them? If you need help doing it, just posting the pertinent equation is a good start and forum members can help you.

Two thoughts. 1) the 'Pythagorean theory' of sports scores is actually fairly amazingly accurate considering that the properties of a right triangle don't have much to do with sports. The Pythagorean theory of sports is: [math]\frac{\text{points scored by team}^2}{\text{points scored by team}^2 + \text{points scored by opposing team}^2} = \text{projected win percentage}[/math] That is, if a baseball team has scored 50 runs and allowed 35 to score, this formula predicts that the team should have a 50^2/(50^2+35^2) = 2500/3725 = 0.671141 winning percentage, or in other words, the team should have won about 2/3 of their games. It is a nice measure of how lucky or unlucky a team has been. I.e. if that above team had only won half of its games, it says that it has been very unlucky because it should have won 2/3. So, an easy way to rank the players of the games are those who have the best W-L percentage AND those whose W-L is above the predicted Pythagorean. It really is an impressive formula, that seems to work pretty well in most any sport. It is rarely off by more than 10% at the end of the season for every team in most professional sports leagues. 2) Now, if you guys are truly playing random teams, the above should be enough, especially the more games you play. But, in a small sample size, someone could just be unlucky and have gotten rotten teams more often than pure randomness would say. In this case, I would modify the above formula by an inverse weighting of how many stars on the team. That is, every goal for a 5 star team counts as a single goal. Every goal by a 1 star team counts as 5 goals. And use this weighted goals in the above formula. You may want to tweak the weights some, depending on the relative strengths of the teams. That is, while a 5 star team is clearly superior, is it really 5 times better than a 1 star team? Tough to say. But, in this case, the player with the highest Pythagorean ratio is probably the most skilled. That is, the skill it takes playing a 1 star team to score a goal on a 5 star team helps bump the percentage up a lot more than playing a 5 star team versus a 1 star team. Again, if you think that you'll be playing a fairly large number of games (I'd say 50+), I wouldn't use the weights, simply because it should all average out after a large number of games. But, if you want to include smaller numbers, that is people who don't play very often, the weighting will help make those stats comparable.

So from this to this: something is definitely wrong. How can you add x, which you list has units of length, to t, which you list has units of time? I.e. what is a 1 kilometer plus 12 milliseconds? It isn't anything meaningful. You can only add like units. You can answer "what is 1 kilometer plus 12 millimeters?", because kilometers and millimeters are both lengths. So, do you want to try again? Because both of the equations in the first post add x to t, and that just doesn't have any physical meaning. If your equation isn't dimensionally sound, that is a huge red flag that you have something very wrong.

Please define each variable, including the units each variable should take. This "1 means 1 second in mm/s" is unintelligible. You may also wish to try to use this forum's LaTeX capabilities to print this in a much easier to read format. I am not sure what belongs under which fraction when you write it like that. Thanks.

you do realize that Pixel provided a link to a .pdf version of the manual for your calculator, don't you?

I believe that history says that the German scientists who invented petroleum jelly were looking for a way to make it edible. That doesn't mean that it is a good idea to eat though, in my opinion.

tone does not convey well in this medium. You have to be careful when you write jokes, because they are not always easily identifiable as such. That is part of the reason these things are common:

and you've pretty much ignored all of it. You certainly haven't demonstrated how your idea comes anywhere close to replicating the many thousands of reported experimental evidence. Sure, even if I accept your masses of the particles -- which has many additional unanswered questions that you refused to answer in that other thread -- that is 1 teeny tiny piece of the puzzle. What about all the evidence for quarks? I mean, seriously -- there are thousands and thousands of pages published with evidence. Surely you can show how your idea fits with more than just kind-of sort-of maybe-if-I-squint a list of masses. Especially since your theory predicts lots of experiments that haven't been found. Funny guy. A regular laugh riot. I do not need to be insulted by you. I've been very patient and have not insulted you and tried numerous times to show you things I gave you the benefit of the doubt on -- that is, that I thought maybe you had just missed or misunderstood. But, now, I am convinced you are trolling. The repeated ignorance of the evidence is enough for me, and the repeated ignoring of answering questions leaves no doubt.

How exactly is the evidence for neutrinos stronger than the evidence for quarks? Or to put it another way, why reject the evidence for quarks (of which there is quite a significant amount, despite your reluctance to actually, you know, look at it) but accept neutrinos? You want to argue Higgs boson? Fine. That is at least fair, while it remains undetected. But, to lump quarks in that same category is simply putting your fingers in your ears, and shouting 'LA LA LA LA LA'. Or to put THAT another way, it is using a tactic a 4 year old would use. Or a troll. Which I am still reasonably convinced that you are, because of your abject reluctance to look at evidence, reluctance to attempt to learn anything about the model you think you can replace, and reluctance to answer direct questions. If that is not trolling behavior, what is it?

If this is your definition of 'time travel', then no, most physicists do not believe in the H. G. Wells' storytelling version of time travel. Therefore, what I have asked of you has not been fulfilled. To remind you: please provide an example of some wide-held belief that the majority of physicists have that is based on faith alone.

I think that a majority of physicists will accept that there are certain equations that attempt to answer some of the currently unsolved problems of physics appear to allow time travel. But, they aren't going to accept the 'Star Trek', 'Dr. Who', 'H.G. Wells', 'Back To The Future' vision of time travel without significant evidence, and certainly aren't believed in by a majority of physicists. And, those equations aren't accepted are wholly true -- they are attempts to address one aspect of the unsolved problems and seem to allow other unobserved phenomena. This actually is kind of one way how science actually works, ya know, when an equation seems to help in one way, it is explored what else the equation says, and if it predicts things that are impossible or unobserved, then it is rejected. This is actually an example of science, not religion. In short, I think, as swansont said, just saying 'time travel' is awfully vague. 'Time travel' into the future is certainly possible, for example. Cryogenics and time dilation are both real phenomena. Care to try again? Either with a more specific aspect of 'time travel' or maybe a less vague example?

I can't seem to find the formula posted above as "Wallis' formula" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_product has a somewhat different form. Your formula looks like it may be missing some terms... Furthermore, I think that 2*4*6*8*...*(2m-2) means that you multiple every even number together until you get to 2m-2 i.e. if m = 20, 2m-2 = 38, so the numerator is 2*4*6*8*10*12*14*16*18*20*22*24*26*28*30*32*34*36*38. The denominator looks the same, just with odd numbers.

Yes, it is very interesting that a role reversal has occurred. Floating Point was invented in an attempt to mimic the real numbers as best possible by a computer. But, now we see people taking the computer representation as sacrosanct. There is an early Simpson's episode that makes fun of this: Mrs. Crabapple: "Whose calculator can tell me what six times seven is?" Millhouse: "Oh! Oh! Oh! Low Battery!" The point being that we have to remember that a computer is a tool -- an imperfect one at that. Imperfect in that unless care is taken in the programming, round off errors will occur. It is also imperfect in that the programming could simply be in error. Just trusting what a computer outputs is generally a poor idea. Especially when trying to look at questions that mathematics has left indeterminate and incalculable. Just because a computer spits out an answer, doesn't mean that it is a right answer. And why anyone would think that an approximation of the real number line should actually answer some of the unanswerable questions about the real number line is beyond me.

I only wanted to 100% back up swansont's comment. I don't think that this fulfills my requirement that a majority of physicists take this on faith. Care to try again?

because they follow based on the axioms taken to be true. You may want to look into some of the documents on Introduction to Proof, or Introduction to Logic or similar books/webpages.

statements that can be demonstrated true, given the current axioms.

Please provide some evidence of this happening recently. That is, please provide some instance in the last 50 years of some belief that the average physicist held or holds today based on faith alone (i.e. no evidence). This should be easy to provide, else YOU are asking us to take THIS statement on faith, and YOU are at least as bad as the people you are railing against. If you don't have any evidence, I'd even argue that YOU are worse, since you are spreading falsehoods.

In addition to the 3-4-5 triangle listed in the post above me, the other favorite one of math classes is the 5-12-13 triangle. Sets of three numbers that can make integer sided right triangles are known as Pythagorean Triples. Here's a list with a bunch of them. http://www.tsm-resources.com/alists/trip.html As you can imagine, there is an infinite number of them, especially considering multiples of the known ones. That is, since 3-4-5 is a Pythagorean Triple, so is 6-8-10. That link above also shows how one can always generate a Pythagorean triple. Take 2 integers, m & n, and let m>n. Then 2mn, m2+n2, m2-n2 will always be a Pythagorean Triple. So long as you start with m & n as integers, all three of those calculations will also result in integers.

I own zero Lamborghini automobiles. Seems attainable to me....

I must have been confused by the first post in this thread, AND THE FREAKING TITLE OF THE THREAD!!! So, one last time -- are you going to provide a detailed calculation. Having been asked, you need to provide one per the rule of this section of the forum. You've already posted that you can provide it -- so what's the delay?

Sure. The more rectangles you use, the better. Also, you can use trapezoids, and polynomials, and .... lots of choices. Numerical integration is still an active area of research to maximize accuracy with the minimum number of function evaluations. If you can save even a few % over the current methods, you will get significant attention, considering how many function calls those large supercomputers do every second.

the definition of velocity says nothing at all about why it moves. Why do you think that the velocity should have the why in it? 5 m/s is 5 m/s whether that motion is because the object is falling, or was struck, or a cat sneezed on it. I still wish you would provide an example where the tried and true definition fails. Since you claim to be able to calculate it, why don't you present such a calculation?

Easy there big fella. I don't think that there is a single thing in this thread that is negative. Just discussing things. Maybe there hasn't been a great deal of 'huzzahs' simply because this isn't exactly brand new. Consider the Dutchman Ludolph van Ceulen who spent most of his life computing pi based on a million million million sided polygon. He reported the value of pi to 35 digits based on that calculation in 1610. So, your calculation isn't exactly new. People have been doing it for literally hundreds of years now.

Hi Pot, have you met the Kettle? newts, if you are going to tell us we should just accept your idea with the paucity of evidence you've presented here, don't go lecturing us about 'repeating nonsense'. You've had a year to go and read some papers, clearly it doesn't interest you enough to actually bother with that. Goodbye newts. In all likelihood I will not be posting in this thread again.