mandlebro @mandlebro@qoto.org

@artisticphilosopher What's the name of that painting?

@freemo @khird @sda @mngrif So to measure acceleration I just need to know my mass, since I can't think of how to measure acceleration besides measuring the force exerted by a fixed mass on, say, a spring.

@freemo @khird @sda @mngrif Ah, you can always measure acceleration because you can always measure force so that fixes the initial condition.

@freemo @khird @sda @mngrif Wait thats wrong. That's not a point in space. What isn't relative is differences of velocity (relative velocities) so that constant is just the velocity of an arbitrary reference point. Is there some natural constant to pick when integrating jerk that makes it special?

@freemo @khird @sda @mngrif I see. All the non relative things depend on force which can be measured without a fixed reference frame. The constant you pick when integrating acceleration is the first one that represents a point in space. Never really thought about that.

@freemo @mngrif Acceleration is relative if you allow for non-inertial reference frames. The absolute calculus was invented to address this very issue and was a necessary element of the theory of general relativity. As to your example, a spaceship traveling at constant velocity is an inertial reference frame, and the definition of such things is that the acceleration is not relative to the reference frame. As to what you feel, I would ask do you feel gravity pulling you down the way you feel other accelerations? I think we perceive things in a non inertial reference frame.

@snow @Eidolon0

@boat I have to ask, what do you mean by this?

@pschwede Normal distribution is wrong lol.

For some reason, on snow days, instead of having fun or getting work done I consistently sit around and have an existential crisis.

@maison_faim big mood

New book! Wanted some fun math to go with the work math

@Karthikdeva Reason only works within a set of first principles. Those first principles are things that we must believe without reason. Additionally, those things we must believe to think and interact with the world are not enough to grant us meaning. Often having principles that make life meaningful is more important than having ones that make good scientific predictions. Also most people aren't scientists. Science is just what some guy in a lab coat says it is after taking a lot of money from nebulous sources to play with expensive toys. Why wouldn't you doubt that?

@freemo depends how you look at at. At a distance we only see an average. A glass of water looks like a simple susten at rest at a distance but if you look closely and focus on single particles in the water then you see the fractal complexity of brownian motion. This is why reductionism can fail.

@btcprox Yes, that is correct. Because you can reason in many ways that everyone would agree is not mathematics. Mathematics is what happens when you create a strict formalization of how to reason, i.e. you define a grammar, and produce productions valid in that grammar. Math is pure syntax. Its value comes from semantics imposed on it by scientific theories or our own aesthetics.

@btcprox @freemo This is maybe an academic pretension, that I don't consider it math without proof but that is the tradition that I come from. It is the proof that makes it math. Building systems of reason without proof is either science, engineering, or philosophy depending on the aim.

@btcprox @freemo Interestingly enough, I find I disagree with this. My concept of math is it comprises of sentences within a formal system, that is, production made according to the rules of inference. The semantics, or how we understand the math is separate from the formal language. Additionally the formal language is clearly invented to make concrete patters that we perceived in our own reasons. That is, we were using the rules to reason before their formalization and the formalization is what we call mathematics.