"math is NEVER applicable to the real world" split from is current day math flawed

[swansont]

As I said math is NEVER applicable to the real world so that means any equation you dream up is never applicable to the real world.

 

Repeating it doesn't make that statement any less wrong, and it's spectacularly wrong.

[Strange]

As I said math is NEVER applicable to the real world so that means any equation you dream up is never applicable to the real world.

 

We use equations all the time in the real world. have you never calculated how many miles per gallon you get from your car? Or your average speed to get from A to B? Do you think that cars, computers and medicines are designed without maths?

 

Repeating it doesn't make that statement any less wrong, and it's spectacularly wrong.

 

It is up there in the Top Ten Wrongest Things Anyone Has Said. Ever.

It is so wrong it goes through "not even wrong" and out the other side to "just wrong"

[Delta1212]

 

We use equations all the time in the real world. have you never calculated how many miles per gallon you get from your car? Or your average speed to get from A to B? Do you think that cars, computers and medicines are designed without maths?

 

 

It is up there in the Top Ten Wrongest Things Anyone Has Said. Ever.

 

It is so wrong it goes through "not even wrong" and out the other side to "just wrong"

It's not even not wrong.

[Strange]

Not even, not even not wrong.

[Phi for All]

It is up there in the Top Ten Wrongest Things Anyone Has Said. Ever.

 

I find it depressing that anyone involved in this conversation could have the perspective that math is NEVER applicable to the real world. It's so trivially wrong that it must have been said strictly to get a reaction.

 

I really don't get the position that, if I don't understand something, or can't make it work, it must be wrong or broken. How do people learn ANYTHING with this outlook?

[cladking]

I didn't say we don't apply math to the real world, I said math is never applicable to the real world. In order to invent technology and theory we must use math but this is akin to pounding a square peg in a round hole. Math employs nature's logic to work but it is still a construct and nature still operates on forces and processes we don't understand. You can measure a river with some accuracy after you define it. You might measure the flood plain or each meander. You might measure to the continental divide or only to where the water actually starts flowing. But no matter how you define it it is constantly changing such that you can't step into the same river twice. A glance at a map might be sufficient for such things as estimating the amount of fuel you'll need to get a boat upriver but no matter how closely you estimate you won't get the boat beyond a waterfall.

 

We force our equations onto nature all the time and rarely notice that when they don't fit or have no meaning because they are misapplied. Even the simplest concepts are often nonsense. If you're supposed to meet someone at midnight on Tuesday do you go Monday night or Tuesday night. About 75% of people believe it's Tuesday night but in reality it's neither because midnight falls on no day. The NOAA publishes sunrise and sunset tables but as we all know the sun never rises or sets. Men die because of such nonsense yet nobody ever seems to notice that we misapply or misdefine math in the real world.

 

Math often seems to work because equations are often applied and solved properly. They only work in given situations and the results are never exactly what we think they are but the point of math is provide knowledge and insight into nature. Math is most assuredly not a representation of nature itself but merely quantified natural logic. No matter how much the odds are with it even the fastest and smartest rabbit in the woods can get caught by a fox. No matter how beautiful an equation nature will not kowtow to it unless you strip all the variables and do it in the lab. And it might still take a few tries.

[StringJunky]

Not even, not even not wrong.

 

 

I find it depressing that anyone involved in this conversation could have the perspective that math is NEVER applicable to the real world. It's so trivially wrong that it must have been said strictly to get a reaction.

 

I really don't get the position that, if I don't understand something, or can't make it work, it must be wrong or broken. How do people learn ANYTHING with this outlook?

Sometimes you just need to say "Yeah ...OK".

[Strange]

 

Sometimes you just need to say "Yeah ...OK".

 

Or: "Nurse! He's out of bed again!"

[imatfaal]

I didn't say we don't apply math to the real world, I said math is never applicable to the real world. In order to invent technology and theory we must use math but this is akin to pounding a square peg in a round hole. Math employs nature's logic to work but it is still a construct and nature still operates on forces and processes we don't understand.

 

Nature's logic - nope. It is based on man made axiomata. That's why we can prove theorems - within our set of assumptions a set of mathematical arguments can be shown to be true. If it were based on nature then maths would be empirical and we would be satisfied with falsifiability and alignment with predictions.

 

 

A glance at a map might be sufficient for such things as estimating the amount of fuel you'll need to get a boat upriver but no matter how closely you estimate you won't get the boat beyond a waterfall.

 

Nope - we have been doing portage for centuries if not millennia

 

 

 

...We force our equations onto nature all the time and rarely notice that when they don't fit or have no meaning because they are misapplied. Even the simplest concepts are often nonsense. If you're supposed to meet someone at midnight on Tuesday do you go Monday night or Tuesday night. About 75% of people believe it's Tuesday night but in reality it's neither because midnight falls on no day. The NOAA publishes sunrise and sunset tables but as we all know the sun never rises or sets. Men die because of such nonsense yet nobody ever seems to notice that we misapply or misdefine math in the real world. ...

 

It doesn't surprise me that you are regularly confused as to which day of the week it is. The rest of us manage - convention is a wonderful thing. And the earth centric view is very useful. And when was the last person to dies because they erroneously believed in the NOAA sunrise/sunset tables?

 

Math often seems to work because equations are often applied and solved properly. They only work in given situations and the results are never exactly what we think they are but the point of math is provide knowledge and insight into nature. Math is most assuredly not a representation of nature itself but merely quantified natural logic. No matter how much the odds are with it even the fastest and smartest rabbit in the woods can get caught by a fox. No matter how beautiful an equation nature will not kowtow to it unless you strip all the variables and do it in the lab. And it might still take a few tries.

 

"No matter how much the odds are with it even the fastest and smartest rabbit in the woods can get caught by a fox." What sort of home-spun hokum is this? Are you still smarting that no one agreed with your ideas about evolution? You would be amazed (because you clearly do not understand it at present) how accurate the predictions of science are in many diverse fields; from the field with the afore-mentioned rabbit and fox, to evolutionary biology, and cosmology.

[xyzt]

 

 

We force our equations onto nature all the time

Who is "we"?

 

 

 

and rarely notice that when they don't fit or have no meaning because they are misapplied.

 

Can you provide proof of your above statement ?

[swansont]

I didn't say we don't apply math to the real world, I said math is never applicable to the real world.

 

Since both statements are wrong, I don't see how this saves you any criticism. "Not applicable" implies there is no reason to do so, because there will be no valid results, and that's contradicted by pretty much all science. Which works. We put people on the moon and probes on other celestial bodies using math, so it's applicable to the real world and other worlds, too.

[Delta1212]

I didn't say we don't apply math to the real world, I said math is never applicable to the real world.

 

Um...

[cladking]

 

You would be amazed (because you clearly do not understand it at present) how accurate the predictions of science are in many diverse fields; from the field with the afore-mentioned rabbit and fox, to evolutionary biology, and cosmology.

 

Of course they are correct because we define these diverse fields such that quantified natural logic can be applied to it. If you have two apples and get two more apples then how many apples do you have? What if you've just eaten one of of the apples you had? This apple is now fundamentally different than the others and is quickly being changed into something nearly unrecognizable as an apple. The others are changing as well. One might already be rotten. Perhaps the apples are need to feed someone with no teeth or you're sitting above an industrial juicer with greasy hands. What does "have" even mean? Are these the same types of apples and is some relevant consumer alergic? Are they peeled or cored? Is a cored apple even an apple to Johnny Appleseed? Perhaps "get" has a different meaning than is apparent. Perhaps you're being hooted off stage by someone chucking rotten apples.

 

If you need 12 apples then 4 might be of no value at all. If you need three apples you might toss the fourth. (or maybe the second if it has a bad spot).

 

In the real world these things always apply. There is no "apple" nor does "two" exist in the real world because all apples are different. This is just the reality that science chooses to ignore because it can be quantified or understood. But mostly it's irrelevant except when designing experiment or inventing machines. But the point remains that math is a construct based on definitions and axioms. Numbers and lines and asymtotes don't exist in nature. The logic for such things exists just not these things themselves.

Um...

 

Math is misapplied.

 

This misapplication wouldn't matter so much if people could see it and they don't plan on feeding gasoline to their boat porters.

 

And when was the last person to dies because they erroneously believed in the NOAA sunrise/sunset tables?

 

 

Most individuals who need to know the difference between a setting sun and spinning earth know the difference.

 

But 20 or 30 men were reported to have died near Normandy because they couldn't scale a 100 degree cliff. They came equipped toi scale an 80 degree cliff because cartographers have no defined means of depicting overhanging cliffs. They were picked off by the enemy before they could be rescued. Such errors in definitions, standards, and applying math to the real world are quite common but don't normally result in disaster.

[swansont]

If you have two apples and get two more apples then how many apples do you have?

You can't count apples if "math is never applicable to the real world".

 

But 20 or 30 men were reported to have died near Normandy because they couldn't scale a 100 degree cliff.

You can't have an angle for a cliff if "math is never applicable to the real world".

[imatfaal]

 

Of course they are correct because we define these diverse fields such that quantified natural logic can be applied to it. If you have two apples and get two more apples then how many apples do you have? What if you've just eaten one of of the apples you had? This apple is now fundamentally different than the others and is quickly being changed into something nearly unrecognizable as an apple. The others are changing as well. One might already be rotten. Perhaps the apples are need to feed someone with no teeth or you're sitting above an industrial juicer with greasy hands. What does "have" even mean? Are these the same types of apples and is some relevant consumer alergic? Are they peeled or cored? Is a cored apple even an apple to Johnny Appleseed? Perhaps "get" has a different meaning than is apparent. Perhaps you're being hooted off stage by someone chucking rotten apples.

 

If you need 12 apples then 4 might be of no value at all. If you need three apples you might toss the fourth. (or maybe the second if it has a bad spot).

 

What does any of this screed have to do with maths, or logic, or science? It is as if you are confusing the simple games we play with children to help them learn maths with some philosophical insight. Ceci n'est pas une pomme - interesting for a discussion after a bit too much of a "la fee verte" but nothing to do with maths and science.

 

In the real world these things always apply. There is no "apple" nor does "two" exist in the real world because all apples are different.

 

Getting too silly now - quite apart from the fact that you seem to have dismissed the notion of two based on a botanical truism - there is only one of "this apple" and only one of "that apple" however human language and culture allow us to group them as "two apples". We are even flexible enough to describe things which are, in and of themselves, unique individuals as duplicates "he's another Maradona/Pele/Ronaldo".

 

This is just the reality that science chooses to ignore because it can be quantified or understood.

 

Your trouble is that you fail to recognise that humans innately group and categorise into larger sets YET at the same time take great pleasure in classifying and constructing taxonomies. Basically it is quantified and it is understood - just not by you

 

 

But the point remains that math is a construct based on definitions and axioms.

 

Last post you were saying it was based on natural logic - not man-made axiomata.

 

 

 

This misapplication wouldn't matter so much if people could see it and they don't plan on feeding gasoline to their boat porters.

 

Most individuals who need to know the difference between a setting sun and spinning earth know the difference.

 

But 20 or 30 men were reported to have died near Normandy because they couldn't scale a 100 degree cliff. They came equipped toi scale an 80 degree cliff because cartographers have no defined means of depicting overhanging cliffs. They were picked off by the enemy before they could be rescued. Such errors in definitions, standards, and applying math to the real world are quite common but don't normally result in disaster.

 

Citation for that last one.

[Greg H.]

But 20 or 30 men were reported to have died near Normandy because they couldn't scale a 100 degree cliff. They came equipped toi scale an 80 degree cliff because cartographers have no defined means of depicting overhanging cliffs. They were picked off by the enemy before they could be rescued. Such errors in definitions, standards, and applying math to the real world are quite common but don't normally result in disaster.

Do you have try very hard to be this wrong?

 

 

The brown contour lines on topographic maps show elevation. Each contour line joins points of equal elevation above a specified reference, such as sea level. A contour line represents one and only one elevation and thus never splits or intersects other contour lines (expect in the rare case of an overhanging cliff). Note that the vertical distance between contour lines (the contour interval) is always equal; the smaller the contour interval, the higher (or more detailed) the vertical resolution, or the minimum separation of objects, of the map.

 

 

Source: http://www.extension.org/pages/9695/topography-and-understanding-topographic-maps

 

The more probable reason is that the map they used was just wrong, or they landed in the wrong place. The USGS has been around since the 1870s. I'm pretty sure overhanging cliffs didn't suddenly spring into existence right before the Normady invasion.

Edited February 4, 2015 by Greg H.

[John Cuthber]

I didn't say we don't apply math to the real world, I said math is never applicable to the real world.

We force our equations onto nature all the time and rarely notice that when they don't fit or have no meaning because they are misapplied.

Well, you need to check the definitions of a couple of words in the first line there.

In the second one, perhaps you can help me.

Can you please force tell me how to force this equation onto nature?

n= 0 where n is the number of people dying in poverty today.

 

 

Or were you trying to say that we use maths to model the world, and the models are generally imperfect?

Because that's true, but dull. And it's nothing like what you said.

[Strange]

Do you have try very hard to be this wrong?

 

It seems to come naturally, in quite a wide range of areas.

[cladking]

 

You can't count apples if "math is never applicable to the real world".

 

 

And this is exactly the problem; it's impossible to count apples. More precisely, it's impossible to know whether you've counted apples correctly or not. If a tree produced two apples last year and two apples this year then how many apples do you have? Obviously you can't have four apples because apples don't last so long. The problem with counting and measuring go far beyond chronological and definitional issues since there may be no two identical things to count. Two newtons plus two newtons (same vector) equals four newtons but this introduces more things that don't exist in the real world like calculations and the ability to measure variables.

 

We look at an old Mathew Brady photograph and can probably coiunt the number of individuals in it. But what of a battle scene where there are large numbers of grainy and only partially photographed individuals? What of the dead and maimed? What of the simple fact that every individual in the photo has been dead for many decades? What if one soldier is a shaved monkey that was used as a unit's mascot?

 

We imagine we can count and measure because this is what we are taught and it is the means by which we are taught. It is the means by which we understand models and paradigms. But most importantly it's how we view reality and it defines our perspective of realiity. Reality doesn't really exist as being axiomatic to modern science except inasmuch as it affects experiment so we see reality indirectly through our beliefs in science (experiment) or other beliefs (often religion). So to most of us the concept that you can't step into the same river twice seems absurd. If the Missisippii is ever changing then it's impossible to measure the distance between St Louis and New Orleans. If the planet is forever changing then no measurements have real meaning outside all of the definitions and all of the variables. This is nature. This is the real world; ALL of the definitions and forces which we barely understand at all.

 

You can't have an angle for a cliff if "math is never applicable to the real world".

 

Perhaps it would be more true to say that "the cliff can exist for the same reasons that math can exist.".

 

Nature has an internal logic reflected by the cliff and by humans' math. Without this logic neither can exist. If somehow "consciousness" existed anyway 2 + 2 wouldn't equal 2 x 2. Nothing can exist without cliffs and 2 + 2 equaling 4. But math still doesn't apply to the real world so much as the real world applies to math.

[swansont]

 

And this is exactly the problem; it's impossible to count apples. More precisely, it's impossible to know whether you've counted apples correctly or not.

 

The first statement is patently ludicrous, and the second is not a "more precise" statement of the first (and is arguably wrong)

[Greg H.]

If a tree produced two apples last year and two apples this year then how many apples do you have? Obviously you can't have four apples because apples don't last so long.

You're asking the wrong question, and then acting surprised when you get the wrong answer. The number of apples the tree produced in the last 2 years has absolutely nothing to do with how many apples I currently have. I could have a truckload of apples currently to hand, or I could have none.

 

Now, if you asked, "This tree produced 2 apples last year, and 2 apples this year. How many apples has this tree produced in the last two years?" Then I could answer 4.

 

If you ask the wrong question, you will never get the right answer.

 

You are also failing to account for (or just completely ignoring, I can't decide which) the idea of acceptable precision. If the distance between St Louis and New Orleans changes a fraction of an inch due to some crustal shift in the earth no one really cares except maybe a hyper precise GPS. I certainly don't when I am travelling there - if the roadsign says NOLA is 300 miles away, I honestly do not care if it's 300 miles one inch, or 299 miles 5279 feet 11 inches. The difference has absolutely no impact at the precision I care about.

Edited February 6, 2015 by Greg H.

[cladking]

 

Nature's logic - nope. It is based on man made axiomata.

 

 

Humans are a part of nature.

 

 

Nope - we have been doing portage for centuries if not millennia

 

"No matter how much the odds are with it even the fastest and smartest rabbit in the woods can get caught by a fox." What sort of home-spun hokum is this? Are you still smarting that no one agreed with your ideas about evolution? You would be amazed (because you clearly do not understand it at present) how accurate the predictions of science are in many diverse fields; from the field with the afore-mentioned rabbit and fox, to evolutionary biology, and cosmology.

 

 

Scientific predictions are often accurate because equations can be applied properly and enough of the nature of something understood to apply those equations and quantify the variables. But it doesn't change the fact that there's no such thing as rabbits and cliffs. It doesn't change the fact that modern science only works because reality acts as a check on experiment. Science works because reality works and humans are an aspect of reality.

 

Ceci n'est pas une pomme - interesting for a discussion after a bit too much of a "la fee verte" but nothing to do with maths and science.

 

 

An argument can be made that it has nothing to do with math and science because reality is excluded from them but the fact is math nor science has any value at all except to the degree they can be applied to the real world. We understand the world in terms of math and science (theory) and this is a misapplication unless we remember that no application is fully legitimate. Accidents and disasters are the result of these misapplications. Misapplications are misunderstandings. The best math in the world is meaningless if not applied properly. It's of no value if variables can't be quantified or if various relevant forces and processes are not understood.

 

This really seems so obvious that there must be a problem with communication. Surely all of us has computed a physics problem incorrerectly at some point.

 

Getting too silly now - quite apart from the fact that you seem to have dismissed the notion of two based on a botanical truism - there is only one of "this apple" and only one of "that apple" however human language and culture allow us to group them as "two apples". We are even flexible enough to describe things which are, in and of themselves, unique individuals as duplicates "he's another Maradona/Pele/Ronaldo".

 

 

Some things are more easily grouped than others.

 

Citation for that last one.

 

 

I've never seen documentation. It is hearsay.

[Strange]

I've never seen documentation. It is hearsay.

So you admit you make up all this drivel.

Edited February 6, 2015 by Strange

[cladking]

 

 

 

Your trouble is that you fail to recognise that humans innately group and categorise into larger sets YET at the same time take great pleasure in classifying and constructing taxonomies. Basically it is quantified and it is understood - just not by you

 

 

And all taxinomies are constructs. Even a river has no clearly defined beginning and end until you define the tributaries and end points which are forever changing. If the US Midwest became much drier would the Mississippi River begin in Pittburgh? Surely a river can't just move but what if the Ohio carried much more water than the Mississippi north of Cairo?

 

We simply come to mistake these taxinomies as reality instead of models. DNA evidence is showing plants and animals always thought to be very different or very similar often aren't. Similarities are apparent and not real. Even two "rabbits" have different DNA.

[Strange]

We simply come to mistake these taxinomies as reality instead of models.

Citation needed.