studiot

Reg You have pitted direct quotes from one member against those of another using misrepresentation of the words of a third member. Polysemy? I give and gave you credit for stating your definition of mainstream. But you have no basis whatsoever for asserting that 'everyone else' uses this definition. In fact I specifically ruled out any polysemy by the words "in this context" Since you wish to claim that everybody else uses your definition (quite reasonable in some very limited contexts) here is my version. By far the greatest majority of the activities of scientists is in the application of existing Science, not the search for new Science. As such I would offer mainstream to represent the major activity of Science. Application is, by definition, using science for something we want to work and be successful. As an example, since you are fond of these, consider the motor car. There is an existing world land speed record. New Science would be trying to build a car to exceed this speed. But this would be one single solitary car. Set that against the output of the world car manufacturing industry building mainstream cars, using mainstream Science. Turning the the other member statement you placed in opposition brings us to the meaning of "all the time" It may have been an unfortunate use of words fo those who can only take pedantically literally what others say. I did not, anymore than when I use the phrase "I am forever making typing errors" do I mean literally that every word I type is in error or that I will live forever or that I am doing nothing else with my time. You use literary hyperbole liberally and I take Phi's words in the same vain. Most of the activity of Scientists is, as I already mentioned, spent performing activity where it is undersirable to challenge what is known to work. But some of it is spent on new Science. For instance I am reading an interesting book about the history of Earth interior geophysics. In the last two decades our knowledge and understanding of the interior of the Earth has been turned on its head at least 3 times. Perovskite, post perovskite and other matters. Fascinating.

I find that my views on social matters are very closely aligned to those expressed by PhiforAll. Since I know quite alot about the design, building and maintenance (and sadly the inquisition when they fail) of bridges I will continue the example. Others have suggested that you go to a contractor and ask them to design and build a bridge across so and so obstruction. So what standards will be applied? How wide will the lanes be? What loading will the bridge be designed for? What impact protection will be provided? If the bridge is an underbridge, what headroom will be provided? You get the drift of the questions.

Hobson was the grandaddy of them all. My 3rd Ed Vol 1 is dated 1927 and my 2nd ed Vol2 is dated 1926 The Theory of Functions of a Real Variable and the Theory of Fourier Series Vols 1 and 2 E W Hobson Cambridge University Press. Ferrar was a contemporary of / overlapped with Hardy at Oxford He wrote a number of thoughtful analysis textbooks including Differential Calculus Integral Calculus A Textbook of Convergence All Oxford University Press

I indeed meant public and private, which largely translates to left v right on the political spectrum. But note my comment about which 'public' . Local v national. It's neither simple nor easy. What about subsidies? Some are open, some are hidden. Yes private outfits have the profit motive to operate. But should they be allowed to walk away from unprofitable contracts they have bid for and won? Yes they will try to arrange and promote structures, situations and circumstances where they can earn a profit. Drug companies will close factories for profitability reasons, even if some patients die as their source of medicine dries up. Is this equitable?

Yes it is and a result of the despicable "soak the unsuspecting tourist" policy. If a tourist walked into a railway station and bought a single to us or from us to London they would pay over £80.

Throught my life I've watched the conflict between those who want private ownership and operation and state ownership and operation. Both sides want it all. Neither will contemplate a society where some roads (for example) are private and some are state. That is anathema to them. Furthermore there is a question of what is state ownership. In the past, throughout this green and pleasant land, local coucils used local money to obtain, build or whatever, facilities for their locality. This included water supply, gas supply electricity supply, telephone and so on. In many cases the local council issued bonds to raise the money. These bonds were well regarded. Subsequent right wing governments grabbed these assests for themselves and eventually sold them off as though the national government actually owned them. Furthemore the same national governments have now prevented the issuing of local authority bonds (as they were called) for several decades. But who wants to go to the North? The train ticket from Paddington to the SouthWest cost £12. Further I must apologise for an earlier mistake. The plane price should have been in euros.

I am expecting someone from Hamburg today. Her plane was 4 hours 10 minutes late. But then the Ryanair fare was only £35 return.

Yes I was offering the simplest into that I know Here is the version from Abbot. Taeto have you see Either Ferrar or Hobson on this subject?

How is this an appropriate response to my comment? I actually gave an example of where you are misusing terminology Clearly misusing the term finite difference, which is a term concerning real numbers. I think 113 meant 'non zero difference' here. Do you know what a finite difference is? I'm sorry you are so contemptuous of books, Here is an example modern definition of a derivative from the modern book by Kantarovich, showing the ideas I have suggested and you appear to have rejected.

... to which Phi for All responded... I'll probably not win any friends by saying this, but I'd say Sam is, on this point at least, largely right, and Phi largely wrong -- with no disrespect intended to any of our members. Before you can build an argument based on these quotes you have to agree the meaning of the word mainstream in this context. By your own admission, another member introduced the word. So clearly according to the rules of proper debate and argument the onus is upon you to demonstrate that your definition coincides with that of Sam Cogar. That there is more than one possible interpretation of Sam's utterance is demonstrated by the fact that I have a different definition (and therefore understanding of what he said) for yourself. Equally I have a different understanding of PhisforAll's utterance from the one you are portraying. In both cases I may be right or wrong as to my understanding, as may you. So over to you to demonstrate that you have chosen the correct interpretations of the words.

Gosh Reg, the Internet has provided a big boost for the challenging of Science. What do you think of this?

Actually they do have a meaning. For instance movement along lines of constant volume involve zero work in the First Law of Thermodynamics. But it is best not to push the analogy of least mechanical work lines in mechancal theory (geodesics) and zero work lines in Thermo too far. The point is that both are plots or graphs of properties of interest. And this connection is geometric. But there is no guarantee of direct correspondence between the properties.

Only if you use the more advanced or exact VdW equation.

You can, of course, avoid infinities altogether by using neighborhoods and epsilon delta type arguments. This is why they are now popular.

Yes but a whole family of them for different values of a, describing a disk centered at the origin - in other words a euclidian plane. Stack these up (for different values of V) and you will get a cylinder, ie a euclidian 3D space. Well yes but not all of such sets, only ones which can be described by the property of continuity - the integers cannot for instance. That is where continuity comes in and topology is sometimes describes as the mathematics of continuity

No I used to do this regularly. All you need is another device that can read the hard drive (unless it was hardware security locked to the particular computer it belongs in) Taking the hard drive out and attaching it to another computer as an auxiliary drive is one way. Obviously the other computer must be running an operating system that that read the directories. To read wanted filesand even to copy them over, you may have to follow a convoluted proceedure to 'take ownership' using, Microsoft software as there may be security tokens attached to them. Alternative you can obtain a linux disk or machine and bypass this problem. You should be able to run the original computer directly from a linux rescue disk so you would not need another machine in that case.

Did you try the plot I suggest? It takes all of 15 seconds to sketch. No I am not talking about 'replacement' or 'displacement' or 'embedding'. My analogy is simply offering the idea that geometrisation is another word for plotting or drawing a (multidimensional) graph using suitable axes. So you given two of the three variables, pressure, temperature and volume you can either Calculate the third from the equation or Read of the value of the third from the plot. The simple ideal gas law equation and plot are regula, (isotropic and homogeneous) The more complicated VdW equation is not.

are you trying to tell that I can't perform the additon x + dx ? No, I think we all understand what taeto was trying to say, but English is not his first language and this did not come out very well. I was quite taken aback by this flippant response to my attempt to help.

Good catch Sensei. +1

Thank you swansont, +1 Now we are back on topic I can offer my thoughts on humility's question "What is movement?" We say that if we can establish a comparative scale, possibly but not necessarily numeric, for some parameter or colllection of parameters that a change occurs when repetive observations of the system under observation return different scale values, after taking due allowance for observational error and variation. Movement is the change of a restricted set of these parameters. That is it is a subset of change. It is then necessary to examine more closely what we will allow as acceptable parameters. This introduces modifying words or phrases to cotrol this. Mechanical movement (which I think hunmiltity means) restricts the parameter to a position in space applied to material objects. But we should consider other uses of movement for instance of immaterial objects eg the movement of heat in a bar or the movement of the stock exchange (ie a graph).

I don't know if you realise the full power of your fuzzy boundary. It doesn't matter if it is the whole thing or any part of it. Any part is still a thing. And so must be subject (or not) to the same rules as any other thing according to our OP.

Like this too. +1 And wave a bit harder on my question too please?

As a matter of interest (how) can things which don't exist have a start?

I think this is a really good one liner. +1 (I know you have used it before)

That view sets you apart from all the worlds mathematicians. I, of course, used the expression in the standard sense, where it is defined to be without start or end. Equally the sine function is at least as real as the thoughts in your head.