I asked a retired mathematician from Ohio State University if -4 mph squared would really equal 16 mph. He said it was easier to imagine this in outer space.
I didn't really even know how to follow up on this. It was at a party, and you have only about a third of a second at a party to respond. If you can't figure out what to say, you have to pretend to go and get a drink, or food, or check to be sure there's enough seeds for the canary.
I explained I needed a drink. Anybody got any idea what he meant?
What I think he meant is that directionality doesn't matter in space, but aren't you still going toward Orion or away from it, so that directionality still exists? Are we now in hyperspace, at warp speed, or something?
Friday, May 29, 2009
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15 comments:
-4 mph squared isn't 16 miles per hour; it's 16 miles squared per hour squared. You have to multiply the units, too. I have no idea what the "outer space" comment could have been referring to.
I usually pretend to go to the bathroom.
It's a comforting place. Most bathrooms in America are pretty much the same. It's like a traveling home.
Brett,
I thank you for that chuckle. That was truly funny.
But I suppose you will comment back that you were being totally serious.
WW
well mathematics... my fore-tay!
I'm a better mathematician than a pimp or a poet:
where
form is emptiness
emptiness is form
form is form
emptiness is empty
when toilet is
full of shit
f l u s h!
then fill it up (again) with number 1 and number 2
just make sure that the toilet is an
American Standard sani-flush
made in China
etc
George, what do you mean you have to square the units? How can you square hours -- turning time into space? Or what? Wonderful.
Brett -- I don't like to clog the bathroom. There's usually only one and there are fifty people drinking too much.
But I like the idea of sudden solitude.
I used to go to the bathroom when I was temping, and stay in there for fifteen minutes, reading something so that I didn't feel quite so lobotomized.
Kirby,
When you square something, you have to multiply it by itself. When you multiply things, you also have to multiply their units.
It's possible to make sense of miles squared per hour squared, in the right context. Miles squared would give you an area (as opposed to miles, which is a length, of course). So miles squared per hour would be a rate at which an area is changing (perhaps in the context of deforestation, for example?) and miles squared per hour squared would be a rate at which the rate of deforestation is changing (a sort of acceleration).
So the upshot is -4 mph times -4 mph is 16 miles squared per hour squared, while -4 mph times -4 is 16 mph.
Gosh, I love how complex numbers get!
what i'd like to know
is
is there anything that actually goes a negative speed
i mean
wouldn't a person going backward
just have to turn around
instead of doing the math
if it doesn't match up with the
actual lived experience of people
why bother
i guess a person sinking into depression
could be said to be going
at a negative speed
the march to suicidal oblivion-
is that marked with
negative speed
can anything go
slower than
0 mph
it shouldn't take much to get to artificial intelligence
the evidence for it is everywhere
jh,
No, you can't go a negative speed, but you can go a negative velocity. Velocity is a vector quantity, which has a direction as well as a magnitude. In one dimension, that direction can be indicated by a positive or negative sign. In higher dimensions, the direction of each component of the vector can be indicated by its sign. Speed is the absolute value of the velocity, and is a non-negative number.
so to even write
-4mph
is a little silly
give george
a tangible example
to a mathematical idiot
of an actual occurence of
negative velocity
vectors and all
an asteroid slowing down ??
i don't get it
j
A guy I was talking with yesterday who helped me move a broken couch to the dump said that at the pharmaceutical factory where he works he has to multiply with negative numbers to find the exact amount of pharmaceuticals left on the shelf. They have too much, and too little, and multiplying negatives really heps him, and he said it comes out right.
So I guess they do have some use aside from making me feel dizzy, and unsafe at any speed.
no wonder the pharmaceutical companies are doing so well
i wonder if the street dealers
use the same math
j
jh,
If you're driving north on the interstate at a speed of 65 mph, you could call your velocity 65 mph; then driving south at a speed of 65 mph would be a velocity of -65 mph. The speed is the magnitude of the velocity; in both cases here the speed is 65 mph. The sign of the velocity keeps track of the direction.
Note that, really, which direction is positive and which direction is negative is arbitrary, or, which amounts to the same thing, depends on your point of view. What is not arbitrary is that the two directions have opposite signs.
It's not silly to use signed numbers with speeds. It just means that you're keeping track of direction as well as speed.
i guess if it's a matter of losing time
a wife is delivering a baby
and someone forgot
grandma and has to retrace
on the hiway to go pick her up
yeah
OK
you wanted to be there at 5
and now you're not going to make it
until 7
you could figure out a negative quantity
you in effect lose time
but if a cop stops you
on the way south
he's not going to
say
hey buddy
you shoulda been going the other way
i'm giving you a ticket
for going 130 mph over the speed limit which actually pans out to standing still but -65 mph squared is no slight matter
do the math
actually i'm giving you a ticket
for losing so much time
have a nice day
the truth of the matter is
negative quantity in any application
is unnecessary
in anything but a surreal abstract sense
which for dramatic affect
may have a value
when math is not about actual things
it's about cerebral puzzles
and like i say
everyone needs to do something
j
jh,
Well, police looking for speeders are interested in speed, not velocity. That doesn't mean nobody else should be interested in velocity. Whether you're going north or south on the highway matters, even if not to the trooper, and you need to take account of it somehow. If you call them 65 mph north and 65 mph south, you're still using negative numbers, just under a different name. There's no mystical significance to negative numbers. They're a tool.
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