Mother Nature holds many secrets from Man or does She?

[JohnDBarrow]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

"The real interval 0<a<1 has no end nor beginning. Nevertheless, it is finite."

 

I would say that as "The above interval has an end and a beginning, yet is comprised of an infinite number of discrete points"
( don't know what you did, but it's impossible to quote your post )

Or you could use the Earth's surface as an example, It has no beginning and no end, yet it is definitely finite.

 

Absolutely. Perception, and even measurement, are not always reality.
But we do know quite a lot about nature.
The interesting thing about nature, however, is that for every question we answer about it, two ( or ) more questions are revealed.

You never finish inquiring about science; it is a lifelong endeavor.

Trying to study science might be daunting or even humbling to some. What you thought or believed was reality or truth all along might be a cherished personal holding suddenly to become unmercifully crushed by some bearded bespectacled college professor in chemistry, biology, calculus, astronomy or physics. 

Did you know that when one physical thing is divided in two you have two separate objects? When you cut a pie in two, you have two objects each of which is called a pie half. In arithmetic, however, one divided by two is only one half. We got two halves of a pie when we cut it down the middle with one knife. We only got one half when we split the number one with the number two. 

When I was about seven, my mother gave me a 5 dollar bill to buy a loaf of bread in my hometown store. I bought the bread and came back with 4 one dollar bills and a few coins. Seeeming surprised, I told my mother that I had "more money" after buying the bread. After all, I did have more separate pieces of money after the clerk gave me change. My mother told me that notion was ridiculous.  She asked me how one can end up with more money than I started with after spending the part of the five-dollar bill on something. What does "MORE money" really mean? A greater number of currency pieces or something else? You see, sometimes mathmatical logic doesn't always agree with our perceptions of the physical world. Certainly, one five dollar bill would weigh less on a scale than 4 ones and a few coins. 

 

 

[swansont]

30 minutes ago, JohnDBarrow said:

Did you know that when one physical thing is divided in two you have two separate objects? When you cut a pie in two, you have two objects each of which is called a pie half. In arithmetic, however, one divided by two is only one half. We got two halves of a pie when we cut it down the middle with one knife. We only got one half when we split the number one with the number two. 

When I was about seven, my mother gave me a 5 dollar bill to buy a loaf of bread in my hometown store. I bought the bread and came back with 4 one dollar bills and a few coins. Seeeming surprised, I told my mother that I had "more money" after buying the bread. After all, I did have more separate pieces of money after the clerk gave me change. My mother told me that notion was ridiculous.  She asked me how one can end up with more money than I started with after spending the part of the five-dollar bill on something. What does "MORE money" really mean? A greater number of currency pieces or something else? You see, sometimes mathmatical logic doesn't always agree with our perceptions of the physical world. Certainly, one five dollar bill would weigh less on a scale than 4 ones and a few coins. 

 

I would hardly call your pie example “mathematical logic”

It’s a semantic argument, not made in good faith.

[JohnDBarrow]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

I would hardly call your pie example “mathematical logic”

It’s a semantic argument, not made in good faith.

But when you add both of the two pie halves together, you somehow come out with one pie. I'm not sure there is any mathematical expression to represent the cutting of one whole pie with a knife to yield two pie halves. You start with one whole pie and need to end up with two halves as represented by this fraction: 2/2 

[Phi for All]

6 minutes ago, JohnDBarrow said:

But when you add both of the two pie halves together, you somehow come out with one pie. I'm not sure there is any mathematical expression to represent the cutting of one whole pie with a knife to yield two pie halves. You start with one whole pie and need to end up with two halves as represented by this fraction: 2/2 

In one instance you're doing math, dividing 1 by 2 to get .5, and in the other instance you're slicing a line down the middle of a pie. Both instances are NOT examples of mathematical division. 

All of your arguments are weak in this thread, especially your Arguments from Incredulity (How is this possible? and I can't believe it's true!). You've misunderstood quite a bit, so you need to study more, and perhaps listen to the folks here who are trying to help you see. 

[Ghideon]

2 hours ago, JohnDBarrow said:

Trying to study science might be daunting or even humbling to some. What you thought or believed was reality or truth all along might be a cherished personal holding suddenly to become unmercifully crushed by some bearded bespectacled college professor in chemistry, biology, calculus, astronomy or physics. 

That seems to reflect a misconception about how scientists view their profession? Let's say someone discovers and confirms physics beyond relativity theories that could potentially allow for faster than light travel*. My guss is that it would trigger curiosity. A parallel from my profession: there are several fundamental theorems putting constraints on computational models and algorithms. Should one or more of these be shown to be invalid* that discovery would allow for many exiting breakthroughs in areas such as cryptography, communication or machine learning. The new possibilities would be exiting, no matter how much I hold on to the belief that the fundamental theorems are never to be proven** wrong.

 

*) Not likely, just used as an illustration 
**) I use "proof" rather than "evidence" since for instance P vs NP problem is of mathematical nature. 

[swansont]

17 minutes ago, JohnDBarrow said:

But when you add both of the two pie halves together, you somehow come out with one pie. I'm not sure there is any mathematical expression to represent the cutting of one whole pie with a knife to yield two pie halves. You start with one whole pie and need to end up with two halves as represented by this fraction: 2/2 

When you add 1/2 to 1/2 you get 2/2= 1

The problem isn’t with the math. Millions of kids master this every year.

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, JohnDBarrow said:

When I was about seven, my mother gave me a 5 dollar bill to buy a loaf of bread in my hometown store. I bought the bread and came back with 4 one dollar bills and a few coins. Seeeming surprised, I told my mother that I had "more money" after buying the bread. After all, I did have more separate pieces of money after the clerk gave me change. My mother told me that notion was ridiculous.  She asked me how one can end up with more money than I started with after spending the part of the five-dollar bill on something. What does "MORE money" really mean? A greater number of currency pieces or something else? You see, sometimes mathmatical logic doesn't always agree with our perceptions of the physical world. Certainly, one five dollar bill would weigh less on a scale than 4 ones and a few coins. 

None of this story has anything to do with logic, especially mathematical logic, which is a formal study of its own. This is more of a psychological example, where a child sees more pieces of currency and assumes it represents more money. My brother-in-law used to offer young kids a $5 bill OR a handful of nickels, about 20 of them, and most took the coins. Don't forget the shiny factor here, too. Coins glitter where paper does not.

[Mordred]

6 hours ago, JohnDBarrow said:

The universe is infinitely large. True or false? 

We don't know it can be finite or infinite we only know our Observable portion is finite. Beyond what is observable is strictly speculation based on what we understand of our Observable portion.

6 hours ago, JohnDBarrow said:

Trying to study science might be daunting or even humbling to some. What you thought or believed was reality or truth all along might be a cherished personal holding suddenly to become unmercifully crushed by some bearded bespectacled college professor in chemistry, biology, calculus, astronomy or physics. 

Did you know that when one physical thing is divided in two you have two separate objects? When you cut a pie in two, you have two objects each of which is called a pie half. In arithmetic, however, one divided by two is only one half. We got two halves of a pie when we cut it down the middle with one knife. We only got one half when we split the number one with the number two. 

When I was about seven, my mother gave me a 5 dollar bill to buy a loaf of bread in my hometown store. I bought the bread and came back with 4 one dollar bills and a few coins. Seeeming surprised, I told my mother that I had "more money" after buying the bread. After all, I did have more separate pieces of money after the clerk gave me change. My mother told me that notion was ridiculous.  She asked me how one can end up with more money than I started with after spending the part of the five-dollar bill on something. What does "MORE money" really mean? A greater number of currency pieces or something else? You see, sometimes mathmatical logic doesn't always agree with our perceptions of the physical world. Certainly, one five dollar bill would weigh less on a scale than 4 ones and a few coins. 

 

 

Nothing makes sense here you might want to try again with more rigor