Sven works in mysterious ways...

You can't be me, I'm taken

If only people would know about weird and weridness and quantum mechanics, it would be lovely to have more "rational" debates about reality....and applied epistemology :)

By the way... lovely end-twist about the need of a future complexity theory....or sort of.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

you are whetting our appetites for more of your engaging explanations of the inexplicable.

closer to the Old One....closer

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

 "Sometimes it's good to write about boring stuff rather than about interesting stuff, that is, to write about what you know rather than about what you wish you knew. And what to you seems trite will likely seem tremendous to others, which is generally a good thing. By writing about what seems tremendous to you, you might end up seeming trite to others, which is bad. Tremendous or trite, we do it all in pursuit of the elusive snark."

 imply not only that

"boring stuff" is approximately equal to "what you know rather than ...what you wish you knew"

 but also that

 "boring stuff" approx'ly = "what you know" approx'ly = "what...end[s] up seeming trite to others"  ?

 If so, there may be some assumptions contained there which amount to what I suspect ThatBritGuy might describe as "category errors"--if he were asked ;^).

  Here's my shot at revising your introductory paragraph in a more (ahem) "gender neutral" manner:

Sometimes it's good to write matters on which our knowledge is fairly well-founded rather than speculating about other matters which we consider very interesting stuff  That is, better to risk others' finding what you know rather than about what you like to speculate about to be rather, well, boring. Matters on which you're well-informed may seem trite to you; and yet, what seems trite to you may seem tremendously interesting to others, which is generally a good thing.

By writing largely about what seems tremendously interesting to you, and about which you're not very well-informed, you might end up seeming trite to others.  Dare you risk that?  Tremendous or trite, we do it all in pursuit of the elusive snark.

 Please don't ask me what "the elusive snark" means.

  ;^)

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

The Heisenberg Indeterminency Principle (HIP) - usually mis-named the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle - is normatively communicated as Migeru does, above:

there are quantities of physical interest which cannot be known simultaneously with arbitrary precision.

With the emphasis being on what can never be known.  But let's delve into this for a second.  And look at the actual equation of the HIP which is:

Δp  • Δq ≥ h-bar

And we need to unpack this.

p and q need to be canonical conjugates.  Which are things that go together ... because they go together.  :-)  Things such as: mass AND acceleration; momentum AND position; space AND time.  Other things such as "The orbit of Venus" AND "The digestive process of a flea" are not canonical and therefore outside the HIP.  (They are also outside 'having a grip' but that is neither here nor there.)  Δ means "a change in."  The bullet is either multiplication (if we're talking arithmetic) or a Logical AND.  h-bar is Planck's Constant, 6.626 x 10 ^ -27 divided by 2Π.  So we're talking about measurable change in something at a really, really, teeny-tiny level.

(Note: discussion of "arbitrary measuration" is consciously eliminated.)

Only when p and q are canonical conjugates, a change in {whatever p refers to} times/AND {whatever q refers to) can be determined iff the product is greater or equal to h-bar.  This sets the lower boundary below which we cannot know AND sets the lower boundary at and above which we can know.  The HIP could have been named, with equal justification, the Heisenberg Determinency Principle.  

This is what I meant the other day when I commented the HIP establishes a firm foundation for Human Knowledge.  


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

things that make you go hmmm

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

No detached clockmaker here!  

The Fates are kind.