Another boring, batshitcrazy maths thing (with no equations)

Studying theoretical physics, music, and philosophy.

 

I'd like a source on that please. It should be basic two-dimensional momentum, which is, like, super easy.

 

The point he's making is that you can't accurately predict complex systems, like the weather, cause it's currently impossible to acquire accurate enough information, and these tiny inaccuracies become much larger in later versions of the model.

 

Alright, my source for that is an old, drunk, drug-fucked snooker buddy. I can't verify that for you. The maths of vectors is easy, but the angles for spheres hitting spheres are infinite and the tiny variations add up very quickly into chaos.

PS - I should add that my source is a veteran of bar-room snooker games all over the world, and an excellent player. The essential unpredictabilty of the game is obvious, even to old, drugfucked barflies.

 

I would imagine sphere-on-sphere collisions could be reliably reduced to a single point using tangents and entry-level Calculus.

Don't take my word for it though, as I am neither drunk nor an accomplished snooker player.

 

It sounds good, but what about the spin of the ball? The humidity of the air? The grain of the velvet on the table? The molecular integrity of each ball? The spot of chalk on the side of the cue ball as it spins into another ball? In reality, it's never quite what you'd predict.

 

Spin of the ball can be modeled with angular momentum and coefficients of friction between balls. Molecular integrities and spots of chalk would only affect to something like the 4th-6th significant figure, which'd means you should get a few orders of magnitude more than three collisions for them to make and effect. The grain of velvet, you can actually just factor it as a point which will deflect the ball to an extent on the plane.

I think what he meant was that a professional snooker player could not think of what would happen after the third collision. A model for a snooker table would be very accurate.

As for predicting stuff, if we could predict everything now, scientific observation and research would be useless. That's why we're still raising scientists and trying to discover shit.

 

I know we can imagine modelling all that stuff, plus everything else, plus the teeny tiny angles between spheres that exist even in sterile simultions, but the point is we can't yet. And, no, what he meant was that mathematicians cannot predict the location of the balls after three collisions due to chaos theory, not simply that players don't.

 

Funny thing is, it's not really chaos at all. It's complete order; it only looks like chaos because it doesn't follow the prediction you were expecting.

 

For a given value of "chaos" sure.

Look, I believe in causality, in logic and in the scientific method. I just believe that it has limits.

"There is more in heaven and earth, Horatio..." even in a game of snooker.

 

I don't think it has limits; but for the same reason that you think it does. We can't define things with absolute accuracy; this is an apparent limit to science and mathematics; but it is only caused by the existence of the lack of a limit: infinity.

 

Good sir, you are obviously a fine mathematician and musician, but I invite you to consider using the other hemisphere of your brain.

I hear what you're saying, and I will not argue further... and this time I really mean it.

 

There seems to be no end to human ingenuity, but that's more an expression of how lazy people have gotten over the past few years. Why walk when you can drive? Or better yet, why drive when you can fly?
No one could have predicted the appearance of commercial jet liners, even when the Wright brothers, bicycle enthusiasts, successfully mounted an engine to a canvas wrapped airframe.
Humanity can't be predicted like the moves in chess, or snooker balls. We're infinitely more complex than something that only moves on a 2D plane. The lack of a limit, your infinity, lies within the human mind.

 

What an odd thing to say...

It's not mine!

Fuck yeah! Quote of the Day comes through for me again!

 

Yeah, proper source on that please. I'd like to see either the 2D momentum modeling compared with the real stuff (as for an original argument), or an article by a mathematician/physicist. Drunken bar crawlers don't really make for good scientific sources, and as much as I appreciate all the philosophical stuff running down here, as a scientist I am only interested in the theory and how it applies in the real world. Your beautiful thoughts on how it is impossible to predict something is worth nothing if it can actually be predicted to a reasonable degree.

Actually, you "can" calculate stuff to infinite precision in mathematics - it's the practical stuff that need to deviate from ideal results.

 

Chaos in the scientific sense, where it applies to Chaos Theory; not the kind which you're thinking of.

Not to be a dick, but, obviously.

And before someone goes and looks that up and reads the following paragraph,

 

Well of course things are predetermined, but not in any way we can understand. I see future events in dreams, but at the time I view them I don't realize it's the future, I just think I'm dreaming. These events happen no matter what path I "choose".
If we can't understand how things are predetermined, consciousness and therefore, free will remain the most successful illusions created by natural processes.

 

Being somewhat of a mitigated sceptic, I, on the one hand, agree that consciousness and free will are premises with which we must act as though we agree, alla David Hume; but I seriously doubt that you can predict the future through dreams.

 

Hold on there, at what point was it agreed that evens have been predetermined?

 

I never once said I could predict the future, I just said I see future events in dreams. It's not the same thing. I don't realize I'm seeing future events, and so they stay as strange dream memories until the day they happen. You misunderstood me greatly.