electrons and infinity?

[audioquiz]

hi everyone,
if electrons are infinity and the solar system around us is infinity and we live in infinity has anyone actually tried to sus this out with numbers? I know that digital uses binary code, but a series of 0's and 1's may seem simple to some, but..........

Lets start with time, 12 hours on a clock face, 12 months in a year. Man made time has 4 seasons of 3, horoscopes 3 seasons of 4 in a year.
A pyramid has 4 sides of 3 triangles (visable), so this is the answer, it has to be the answer there is no other way round it as far as i am aware.

imagine you have a calculator, but all the numbers are missing apart from 3 & 4, you can make any number from zero to +infinity and from zero to -infinity. this is how its done ( remember you can use any mathematical symbol on the calculator so there can be more than one way to achieve the same result)

3-3= 0
4-3= 1
3+3-4= 2
3 = 3
4 = 4
4+4-3= 5
3+3= 6
3+4= 7
4+4= 8
3+3+3= 9
3+3+4= 10
3+4+4= 11
4+4+4= 12

you can change any of the mathematical symbols for the same answer. example 3x3=9 and so on.

HELP ALL I WANT IS A LOW JITTER SUPERCLOCK FOR MY DAC AND CD PLAYER

free to use for your own enjoyment, but remember who posted it lol

[Valvebloke]

... imagine you have a calculator, but all the numbers are missing apart from 3 & 4, you can make any number from zero to +infinity and from zero to -infinity ...

Strictly speaking you can't make any number. If you've only got the four most common operators (+, -, *, /) then you can only make any integer and a small subset of the rational numbers. You can't make any of the infinities I think. If you've got brackets then you can make all of the rationals and a subset of the infinities. But you can't make an irrational number like pi, for example.

VB

[audioquiz]

try it give me a number? it could be pages and pages of calculations though

[Valvebloke]

OK. Pi is a number. Make pi for me.

Before you spend any time on this though you might want to check the second paragraph here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi - the one which begins "Being an irrational number, pi cannot be expressed exactly as a common fraction ...".

Actually I'd be more interested to hear how you plan to go about working this out. If it helps, the first 50 digits are 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10 but the exact value of pi contains an infinite number of digits and there is no pattern within them. So when you say "it could be pages and pages of calculations" then I think it will actually be an infinite number of pages.

I can write a simple expression for pi:

pi = 4 x (1/1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 ...)

and you could work out any of the terms within the brackets using your caluclator. But again the expression goes on for ever, so I don't see how it'll be much help when it comes to working out the number exactly. If you have a way though then I'd be really interested to hear it.

VB

[audioquiz]

ok its a different set of mathematical values, but with out been to technical i look for simple answers. take a three sided triangle, each side equal and a square, how many triangles can you fit in to the triangle and how many squares can you fit in to the square? its infinite is'nt it? now try to work your question out using binary code. this is were you need to be a genius, but unfortunatly i'm not

[lurcher]

take a three sided triangle

I don't know of many other types :-)

I think this is what you are looking for

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfinite_number

[audioquiz]

take a look at the periodic table of the elements and look at the numbers, they are all whole numbers, but simple numbers

[lurcher]

They would be, given they are the number of protons an element contains in its atom.

[Valvebloke]

take a look at the periodic table of the elements and look at the numbers, they are all whole numbers, but simple numbers.

As Nick says, the atomic numbers are whole, and for a very obvious reason. But the atomic weights aren't. The atomic weight of copper is 63.55, approximately. This is because natural copper consists of a mix of different isotopes. You'll remember that from school chemistry.

I'd also argue that none of the numbers is simple (except, in the mathematical sense, that none of them is complex). Here is a list showing how every one of the atomic numbers is distinctive and interesting http://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/numbers.html.

VB

[audioquiz]

hey, how clever 3 is the spatial number we live in, i got chatting to an electric & electronic teacher and he told me that TESLA said you needed three numbers for electricity. ( 2 3 and 4 ) I said thats wrong cos you only need two, he asked me why. So i said you already have number two with 3 and 4, he asked how i worked that out so i said 3+3-4= 2. So why complicate things with an extra number.

thats the beauty of science, many different ways

[Valvebloke]

Why make it as complicated as two numbers ? Why not just use the number 1 ?

...
-1=1-1-1
0=1-1
1=1
2=1+1
3=1+1+1
4=1+1+1+1
...

As far as the three spatial dimensions go, there are people (they're called Kaluza-Klein theorists - see here, but be warned, it's tough stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaluza%E2%80%93Klein_theory) who think that there are in reality more spatial dimensions than three. Only three of them are sufficiently extended though for us to be able to perceive them directly. I once went to a lecture on this by Steven Weinberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaluza%E2%80%93Klein_theory who explained it pretty clearly I thought. He said (I paraphrase)

"Imagine that someone is holding up a drinking straw. From a long way away it looks just like a line - a 1-dimensional object. You could say where something was on the straw just by saying how far along it it was. One number. You wouldn't need anything else. But if you get close enough you can see that the outside of the straw is actually a 2-dimensional thing. If a flea wanted to tell another flea where she was sitting on the straw she'd have to say how far along it she was and where she was around it - whether on the front or the back or the side. Two numbers - one for the 'along' dimension and one for the 'around'. The higher Kaluza-Klein dimensions are thought to be like the 'around' one on the straw - wrapped up so tightly that we can't perceive them, but there nonetheless."

Science is indeed beautiful.

VB

[walpurgis]

So a tube (straw) is round (probably), has length, an inside, an outside and ends and looks small and indistinct from a distance.

[struth]

So a tube (straw) is round (probably), has length, an inside, an outside and ends and looks small and indistinct from a distance.
Mine looks indistinct close up too[emoji12]

[Barry]

String theory requires 10 or 11 dimensions.

[lurcher]

As Nick says, the atomic numbers are whole, and for a very obvious reason. But the atomic weights aren't. The atomic weight of copper is 63.55, approximately. This is because natural copper consists of a mix of different isotopes. You'll remember that from school chemistry

Even taking the isotopes out of the equation, a single isotope is never a unit multiple of its component parts because of the binding energy that’s holding it all together, and remember e=mc^2 so that energy appears as mass.

http://physicsnet.co.uk/a-level-physics-as-a2/nuclear-energy/mass-and-energy/

[audioquiz]

Only 3 & 4 can make infinity. example: draw a triangle with three equal sides and draw a square, how many triangles can you fit in to the triangle and how many squares can you fit in to the square? Answer infinity
Go back to the ancient pyramids ( egyptian bosnian or the ones on mars ) you see 4 sides of 3, buts whats underneath the pyramids? A cubed space possibly?
So if man can not make these with the same precision there must be something to question. Were these not made to create energy? were is the answer?
Look to the sky, whats there? as well as most of the answers to the bible, there is the sun and the planets. Imagine the sun being the nucleus and the other planets being the neutrons and protrons. Once again a possible answer?

INFINITY A STRANGE THING IN THE WORLD OF SCIENCE

[lurcher]

thats the beauty of science, many different ways

Dont confuse Science with Mathematics.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/purity.png

[audioquiz]

Hey, good answer i like it

[Valvebloke]

Only 3 & 4 can make infinity.

One of the beauties of mathematics is that statements can be proved to be completely wrong. The fact that 1/(1-1) is a type of infinity and that it was not made with 3 & 4 proves your statement to be completely wrong.

VB

[walpurgis]

At least this lot is in the correct forum area. The Chat is very Abstract.

[Barry]

One of the beauties of mathematics is that statements can be proved to be completely wrong. The fact that 1/(1-1) is a type of infinity and that it was not made with 3 & 4 proves your statement to be completely wrong.

VB

The mathematician Gregor Cantor discovered there an infinite number of 'infinities'. He was ridiculed by fellow mathematicians at the time (especially by Pointcaré) and went mad as a result. Cantor has of course been proven right, and is now regarded as one of the worlds great mathematicians.

[Beobloke]

I'm tempted to post the mathematical proof that 2 = 1 now, just to confuse things even further.... :D

[Barry]

I'm tempted to post the mathematical proof that 2 = 1 now, just to confuse things even further.... :D

Why not? - we can have the pleasure of finding the flaw in such a proof.

Some time ago Stan posted a 'proof' showing pi = 4.

[lurcher]

Well, strictly speaking 1/0 is not a type of infinity. Division by zero is not defined, so its not valid to use it as such. It is valid to say that 1/x tends to infinity as x tends to zero.

Likewise "proofs" that 2=1 often use a hidden division by zero as slight of hand.

[struth]

My son can proove he is 2 as well :eyebrows:

[audioquiz]

Hey i am going MAD, but who cares at least i'm happy :doh:

[walpurgis]

Hey i am going MAD, but who cares at least i'm happy :doh:

We were beginning to wonder. ;)

[Valvebloke]

Well, strictly speaking 1/0 is not a type of infinity. Division by zero is not defined, so its not valid to use it as such. It is valid to say that 1/x tends to infinity as x tends to zero ...

Sorry. I was using it as shorthand for Lim x->0 (1/x). This is the sort of grubby corner-cutting that physicists descend to sometimes :(. It is also the sort of thing that pocket calculators (see post #1) let you do though. Anyone who's feeling like throwing up should go outside and do so now :).

VB

[Barry]

If you want to throw up, type "1/0" into Google and then go to the Wikipedia page. It would seem there are algebras where "division by zero" is defined!

[lurcher]

This is the sort of grubby corner-cutting that physicists descend to sometimes

"A few years ago, a colleague proposed the idea that North-European population are tall because of an adaptation to the colder climate. He could prove his theory but only for a perfectly spherical Viking."