This post continues thoughts about design, last posted here. Here is a description of how cement is made from the Portland Cement Association: In its simplest form, concrete is a mixture of paste and aggregates, or rocks. The paste, composed of portland cement and water, coats the surface of the fine (small) and coarse (larger) […]
I’ve been revising the glossary lately, see above. This required adjusting the post on Foundations of mechanics for time-space, among others. Here is an explanation: Ordinary 3D space is measured by distances. Correspondingly, 3D time is measured by durations. That is, 3D time is a space of times. Call this time space. Ordinary 1D time
Controversies are more difficult than they need be. I have written about this before here and here. One challenge for dealing with controversies is that terminology is misleading, inaccurate, or loaded. Here are some examples from the creation-evolution controversy. The term ‘evolution’ originally meant an unrolling, and was applied by Charles Lyell and Herbert Spencer
This post continues a series of posts. The previous one was here. I’ve noted before that the one-way speed of light is a convention (see John A. Winnie, Philosophy of Science, v. 37, 1970). The two-way (round-trip) speed of light is known to equal c, but the one-way speed may vary between c/2 and infinity,
The measurement of the length of a motion follows the course of motion at its own pace. It is a measurement of something passive, and the motion may be past when the measurement takes place. Cartesian space lacks direction. The independent axes are just coordinates that describe a passive space. The origin is arbitrary and
Since Newton, time has been the usual and ultimate independent variable for physics. This contrasts with problems in transportation, where time is often optimized. Whether transporting goods across the world, commuters across town, or athletes to the finish line, length is the independent variable against which time is measured and optimized. If length is taken
The temporo-spatial kinematic units are straightforward opposites of spacio-temporal units: Dischronment has units of seconds, minutes, hours, days, or years. Pace and lenticity have units of distance over duration: s/m or min/km or min/mile. Compare speed and velocity with their units of m/s, km/hr, or mi/hr. Relentation has units of s/m² or min/km² or min/mile². Compare
This post continues on the subject of light conventions, see here. In ordinary life today clocks are very common and portable. Time is everywhere and is everywhere the same (apart from adjustments for longitude, that is, time zones). It’s as if the signals from clocks arrived instantaneously everywhere, near or far. This is equivalent to
The fact that many creation stories from around the world have been preserved (see here) shows that there is something behind them all. It shows us that something happened at the very dawn of time that human beings were aware of and considered important and tried to pass on. Now imagine trying to preserve a
A carrier is the baseline transmission (such as a wave) that is modulated for a signal. Carriers have minimum entropy. Their opposite, noise, has maximum entropy. A signal conveys a message between a sender and a receiver. The entropy of signals is between that of the carrier and noise. Carriers are the canvas for the
