[Suska]

I meant imaginary numbers.

[Brother of Karl]

He was talking about complex numbers, which are basically just numbers that are part imaginary, part real.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number

An imaginary number isn't some strange esoteric concept, all it is is the square root of a negative number, since the square root of a negative number can't be a real number. "Imaginary" is actually a bit of a misnomer, but the name isn't changing.

I really hope you weren't trying to critique theoretical physics without understanding the concept of an imaginary number...

[Suska]

It's been a while and I only had time to wing it. I made this post to explain my general position in another thread without going off topic. I will try to find a moment in the next few days for a refresher.

[Tachyon]

Suska, does this line of thought extend to concepts such as Calculus? Because Newton and Leibniz were certainly pushing the boundary of established mathematics when they introduced the concept. In fact, the rules and definitions for the use of imaginary numbers predates calculus by over 100 years. I know you aren't trying to diminish the usefulness of calculus (based on its relatively late appearance in the world of mathematics) because i dont have enough time to list all of its applications.

I guess i am just not understanding the argument you are trying to make. It sounds as if you are trying to make the argument that new ideas such as relativity and quantum mechanics are somehow not valid in the real world because they were first established using thought experiments and purely mathematical exercises. Nevermind the fact that both have subsequently been experimentally verified and hold to the mathematical constructs under which they were predicted. Dont let your relative lack of knowledge of the subjects lead to the conclusion that they are somehow not useful in everyday applications, because they most certainly are.

[Suska]

"Non-Euclidean Math is Psychology" was meant to convey the understanding that we see patterns in things according to the patterns we use to perceive things; if the structure we see in the universe can be perceived with math it is only because in the first place the structure was intuited. Relativity is a theory based on an essentially traditional concept of universal justice. It works as much as universal justice works; it's not the only way of looking at it. Change the pattern of expectations about the world and people start looking in different places - using different patterns to structure it. String theory is an acute example, quantum physics too; when you have no data you just see medium. Passing this along as data is dishonest, but we're way past that point - we compound this sort of thing over multiple generations. My main assertion here is not that this is useless, though it's falsely labelled, but that it is psychologically useful; we trade in interesting patterns - not to demonstrate anything about the world, but to give our minds options in the thinking of our ordinary experience.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Relativity is a theory based on an essentially traditional concept of universal justice.

Is this a joke? Is, therefore, the whole thread a joke?

[Rancid]

You realize that imaginary numbers are extremely useful and practical right? In electrical engineering, imaginaries allow us to account for energy in a system that isn't currently being consumed, but will be consumed at a later time (i.e. reactive power). We do this by making the number line two dimensional, which is exactly what imaginary numbers do. One axis (the real axis) is for energy currently being consumed in the system, and the other axis (imaginary axis) is for energy that is in the system, but will be consumed later.

[Suska]

It's not the point if calculus or imaginary numbers or any of them are useful, can we get past the notion I'm here to criticize the scientific method?

The findings of science seem to be increasingly irrelevant to anyone's even potential personal experience, but no matter how we spam-experiment our going theories are not the result of trying every possibility. We design according to our own construction and we think in the patterns of our culture. We look for what we want to see and shrug about the rest. Fair enough when the rest is just stuff we cannot know yet, not so awesome if we're brushing off the fact that it doesn't bear on, or bears negatively on the quality of our experience of life.

Having said that I'm willing to concede that I see the use of such disciplines, I think it does bear on the matter of suffering in that all our studies of the world as much as our studies of ourselves give us talent and force in our personal lives - that people study science in order not to suffer and to be great, but not because technology makes life easy - but because of the discipline and by use of analogy. We carve out our territory from a vast field and act like it can't possibly happen that we simply drew the picture we wanted to see.

In my view it's all different strategies, same problems. I consider the matter by analogy to my own methods of perception, I can't help not do this, my eyes see light, my ears don't - my mind selects from the patterns I know and no others, to structure whatever I see with my mind. I can expand and firm up the patterns I know by studying patterns in nature, I learn to visualize a person by drawing what i see in the same way a person get's some idea of anything including any scientific topic. In a way what I'm suggesting that science is a creative act masquerading as observation. That may well be the unavoidable condition of culture, that it doesn't have the limitations imposed by nature - it can be unnatural even if it might also be helpful.

So as a artist I learn things I need as a person and this is also why we do science, and if not why not? What we've learned about the world is nothing like a matrix of certainties, more like a giant fractal inkblot for us to look at ourselves with.

[Xbow]

Imaginary number, what a terrible name for i or (j). Something that describes such things as alternating current and electromagnetism is hardly deserving of the name 'imaginary'. That René Descartes derisively named i and complex numbers as 'imaginary' is at this point a minor foot note in history and perhaps it is unfortunate that the name has stuck for 375 years. What would Leonhard Euler say?

I fully support the number i and the complex numbers it gives rise to as a useful tools.

Perhaps Suska is alluding to the idea that at the limits (if any exist) of the very large or very small where conventional descriptions and theories break down. This ends in confusion for the layman (me), but for the specialists its just a matter of developing and using ever more abstract and specialized tools to describe these otherwise indescribable effects and conditions. But what is the connection to psychology?

But will someone please explain Particle Spin to me in a way that is understandable by a child or a Golden Retriever?

[Potemkin]

But will someone please explain Particle Spin to me in a way that is understandable by a child or a Golden Retriever?

Particle spin is the quantum number representing the intrinsic angular momentum of the particle. That's it, that's all there is to it.

*pointedly ignores Suska's babbling*

[Xbow]

Particle spin is the quantum number representing the intrinsic angular momentum of the particle. That's it, that's all there is to it.

Thanks Potempkin , that seems a bit more understandable.

But I have further questions. I'm not being a testy ass in asking them, an ignorant layman perhaps but not a testy ass.

Is this angular momentum of a particle independent of its temperature and its energy state?

Its hard to imagine but I take it that firmions (photons, gravitons) always have a spin of 1/2 and bosons always have spins that are described as integers. And I am further confused by the Composite bosons meson, Carbon 12 nuclei and helium-4 atoms.

And how do Negative Temperatures (below absolute zero) come into play? I am reading the article at the end of the link.

Yes these things are a bit out there for the layman (moi) but I am not ready to assign them a place in metaphysics or psychology simply because I haven't the tools to be comfortable with them.