How many different ways are we moving at any given time

[happyskunky]

I am trying to get down to the bottom of this. 

How many different ways is it physically possible that a human being can be moving at any given time. 

I think the best place to start this is in an elevator.   You can literally put a treadmill in an elevator and while that elevator is going up you can run on it.   2      so many there is a small earthquake and you don't fall but it shakes you a bit side to side.... so that could be 3 .   Your building is on a tectonic plate which is moving very very slow... 4   the Earth is rotating ... 5  beyond that I don't have any clue other directions /ways  we are moving at the same time.

Can anyone help with this pondering of mine?

[joigus]

Depends on the level of approximation.

If you consider the human as a point (centre of mass): 3

If you consider the human as a solid (COM & orientation): 6

If you want to account for motion of articulations: 6 plus (number of relative angles needed to specify articulations)

If you want to account for every cell's position: somewhere between 10¹²-10¹⁶

If you want to account for every atom's position...

You get the idea? It depends on how precisely you want to be able to tell the dynamical state of the human.

Up-down motion is considered the same "way" (so-called degree of freedom) no matter whether it comes from an earthquake or an elevator.

Edited October 13, 2020 by joigus

[joigus]

1 hour ago, joigus said:

If you want to account for motion of articulations: 6 plus (number of limbs) plus (number of relative angles needed to specify articulations)

Sorry. Let's say some additional angles to account for articulations.

Edited October 13, 2020 by joigus

[Bufofrog]

5 hours ago, happyskunky said:

I am trying to get down to the bottom of this. 

How many different ways is it physically possible that a human being can be moving at any given time. 

I think the best place to start this is in an elevator.   You can literally put a treadmill in an elevator and while that elevator is going up you can run on it.   2      so many there is a small earthquake and you don't fall but it shakes you a bit side to side.... so that could be 3 .   Your building is on a tectonic plate which is moving very very slow... 4   the Earth is rotating ... 5  beyond that I don't have any clue other directions /ways  we are moving at the same time.

The earth is orbiting the sun, the solar system is orbiting the milky way, the milky way is moving towards the andromeda galaxy, those galaxies are moving towards the great attractor, this super clusters is moving with the Hubble flow, etc, etc, etc...

[joigus]

31 minutes ago, Bufofrog said:

The earth is orbiting the sun, the solar system is orbiting the milky way, the milky way is moving towards the andromeda galaxy, those galaxies are moving towards the great attractor, this super clusters is moving with the Hubble flow, etc, etc, etc...

This is another possible and interesting way to interpret your question I had missed. Composition of motion from local references to more cosmic-based ones.

Edited October 13, 2020 by joigus

[HallsofIvy]

We are, at any given time, moving in one direction.  That direction vector might be the sum of many different vectors but it is still one direction.

(If we were moving in many different directions at the same time we would be torn apart!)

[Kartazion]

45 minutes ago, HallsofIvy said:

(If we were moving in many different directions at the same time we would be torn apart!)

Exactly.

Here is my point of view which will not be shared by others:

How many different ways are we moving at any given time

Just one. It is that quite simply we cannot several. The movement is therefore done point by point, and one after the other, in time. We are therefore made up of a chain of action which regenerates in a cycle; for example the reading of DNA is done word by word, hence the term sequencing which includes a succession of steps. The regeneration of the constitution of organic matter following DNA therefore takes place in a loop, just like non-organic matter.

53 minutes ago, HallsofIvy said:

We are, at any given time, moving in one direction.  That direction vector might be the sum of many different vectors but it is still one direction.

Yes!