Is there such thing as a "perfect" circle when it comes down to the structure of....

[Bio-Hazard]

Sure we can idealize the concept of a perfect circle in our mind, a good 360 degrees.

 

But is there really such a thing as a perfect circle?

 

Even on computer monitors we will use pixels to create a circular formation which, the pixels are not perfectly circular themselves. When you keep going down to a next level you reach atoms and even atoms are not a sphere or a circle.

 

They are more of a geometrical shape that is three dimensional with edges, but not a smooth round shape.

 

Or are there atoms that are actually circular? How can one actually be sure that it is spherical?

[doG]

No, at some scale all circles are polygons....

[Bio-Hazard]

Would there be possible environmental factors that we could enduce to a quantum mechanical structure to enable it to become spherical and break it's current structure?

 

I'm sure there probably is some type or somewhere in the future we'll come across it.

[Klaynos]

the probability cloud of an electron in hydrogen can be a sphere, that is probably as close as you can get :|

[the tree]

If you consider a circle to be a round collection of points then any regular polygon is a circle, from equalateral triangles to the hypothetical one with ifinite sides.

[Bio-Hazard]

I consider a circle to have no sides, except an inside and outside.

Kinda weird feeling comes over knowing that real circles don't exist, they are just composed of other geometrical shapes creating them, yet strangely these geometric shapes will take the form of a circle or sphere.

[LazerFazer]

Have you ever heard of circular functions? They consist of many points, which have no dimension, therefore yes, it is possible.

[Sisyphus]

It depends on what you mean by "exist." Is there a physical object, composed of matter, that is exactly circular? No. But they exist in the sense that they are rational mathematical entities. A circle exists in a way that a triangle whose angles add up to something other than 180 degrees does not. And you can apply mathematical entities to the physical world. You can say that there is a sphere of space, for example, without contradiction, even if there is no material boundary to that sphere.

 

EDIT: Circular fuctions work as long as you don't conceive of them as "consisting" of points. No amount of points can make up anything, specifically because they have no dimension. You could say it's made up of "infinite" points, but that just generates all kinds of crazy logical problems. For example, are three successive points colinear? If so, then all points must be, and you have a line. If not, then you have curvature over an infintely small distance, and the circle must be infinitely small as well. On the other hand, all of calculus is based on ignoring those sorts of problems by saying "the limit approaching infinity" instead of "infinity." Sigh. I'll be quiet now.

[jcarlson]

Sure we can idealize the concept of a perfect circle in our mind' date=' a good 360 degrees.

 

But is there really such a thing as a perfect circle?

 

Even on computer monitors we will use pixels to create a circular formation which, the pixels are not perfectly circular themselves. When you keep going down to a next level you reach atoms and even atoms are not a sphere or a circle.

 

They are more of a geometrical shape that is three dimensional with edges, but not a smooth round shape.

 

Or are there atoms that are actually circular? How can one actually be sure that it is spherical?[/quote']

 

 

There really isn't a perfect geometrical ANYTHING that exists as a physical object in nature.