May 21, 2011. The date of the Rapture.

I don't share many of your beliefs but I do admire the lives that most of your fellow Seventh Day Adventists live.:tea: (Your cup contains the healthy beverage of your choice).

 

I believe that when this body is destroyed, my consciousness and thoughts will be downloaded into a new one. I will merely awaken somewhere else in an identical body.

 

Is this to suggest in a three-dimensional world, it's possible the shortest point between two points is NOT a straight line?

Is that disputed?

In any belief system, not all things are based 100% on fact.

That would include how the Universe began.

 

@ comrad, But won't that body be worn out like the one you just left?

 

Camping is infamous for making these kinds of absurd predictions.

 

In fact, the ONLY universe in which the shortest distance would be a straight line is one devoid of matter. Matter distorts the shape of space-time (that's what gravity is: a distortion in the shape of space-time) causing the geometry of the universe to be curved, and therefore the "shortest" distance is a curved line.

On the Earth, where the gravitational field is minuscule, the difference between the shortest path, and a straight line, is not measurable. That's what threw Euclid off. But if you could get close to a black hole, you'd find some extremely curved "shortest" lines.

 

Give us a real non-relativistic physical world example of the shortest distance not being a straight line.

A curved path on a 2-dimensional map that represents a spherical surface is not an example.

 

ANY time there is a gravitational field, the shortest distance is not a straight line. In the very low gravitational field of the Earth, the difference is too small to measure. When the effect is measurable, you have by definition a relativistic condition: A relativistic situation is one where the difference between Newtonian and Einsteinian calculations is measurable.

 

So your in Geometry class and a piece of paper has Point A and Point B. You tell the instructor there is a shorter path than a straight line....somehow I don't think the instructor is going to give that an "A"

In that Geometry class, many things are being proven, but there is none for the assertion the shortest point between two points is a straight line.

Call it a given, assumption, faith - not everything in Geometry or a belief system is fact.

 

That would be the reason I asked for a non-relativistic example.

 

Ah! So you are a Cylon then?

 

You didn't specify the type of geometry. I assume you mean Euclidean geometry. In that case you are correct, by definition. Your assertion is one of the tenets of Euclidean geometry.

There are, however, many other forms of geometry. No one geometry is the "real" geometry; no one geometry is the "correct" geometry. Like all mathematics, any given geometry is "correct" only if it correctly models the given problem.

In one interesting geometry, called taxicab geometry, the distance between two points is the sum of the absolute differences of their coordinates. For example, if you are standing on one corner in a city and want to go to another corner, it's the same number of blocks if you zigzag up and over and up and over, or if you go up two blocks and over two blocks.

One shouldn't throw around geometry, or any math for that matter, as if it were some sort of physical constant. It's not. It is only a convenient method for modeling. If the model is good, it is useful. If the model is bad, it is junk.

Tom

 

Yes, I meant Euclidean geometry.

Hope that helps.

 

Again, if you are limiting your study to plane geometry you are right. But plane geometry exists only on a piece of paper. The real world is not governed by plane geometry.

By DEFINITION, an example would be relativistic! Because when the differences between Newtonian and Einsteinian physics become measurable, we call it relativistic.

Again, the real universe is not Euclidean. That's what Einstein's theory of gravity is all about: Demonstrating that space-time is not Euclidean.

 

True. And in reality, your tires are not round. But if you described them as being "not round", with no further explanation, you'd be wrong. And if you DID explain, well, I hope you enjoy a life of never getting laid (yes, there is a correlation there. I'll let you figure it out).

 

How timely
Dilbert comic strip for 01/11/2011 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.

Dilbert comic strip for 01/12/2011 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive.

I appreciate Daniels posts and viewpoint on many things, but sometimes he gets a little carried away with exact definitions that are so exact they miss the point. I still much prefer that to people ascribing things they don't understand to magic.

 

My point on the geometry lesson is our beliefs whatever they are can't be 100% proven, and a few seem to find that thought distasteful

Things That Science Can't Explain - by Dr. Claude Swanson

 

Yep! I noticed that the Cylons believed in one God but the colonists did not. What a series that caused all of us to think.
So who were the real earth decendants?

PS/me be a cat lover BTW!

 

I was an atheist! Time to get to work and I:rockon: love this forum.

 

I find your thoughts on the subject either incorrect of irrelevant depending on the claim bring made. Geometry and the maths that build on it are amazingly useful designing and constructing real things with as much accuracy as is wanted, while religion at best is a feel good belief system that can used to predict or construct nothing with any degree of surety.