30.5.12

Phunny Physics Take II

While Newton's laws are adequate to describe the motion of an idealized object's motion in an inertial frame they proved inadequate to characterize the motion of rigid bodies and deformable bodies, necessitating the development of more generalized laws of motion for rigid bodies by Euler based on Newton's groundwork.

If a body is represented as a continuum of discrete particles, each governed by Newton’s laws of motion, then Euler’s laws can be derived from Newton’s initial concepts.

Likewise, while Newtonian mechanics is a useful approximation for objects moving at speeds much slower than the speed light, for moving frames of reference and objects moving at faster speeds, it has been superseded by Einstien's Special Relativity; and for objects on the atomic scale Einstien's General Relativity and quantum mechanics provide the better heuristics.

This is not to say that Newton's ideas which first appeared in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687 (along with the Calculus) were wrong, as they served to successfully describe and predict planetary motions and the orbits of thier satellites, and provided the basis for the more accurate and comprehensive theories that were predicated on his initial concepts, but that they were nascent.

Newtonian mechanics served as the precursor to the more highly developed ideas fostered just by his having proposed them in the first place.

{He Said, "Can you write it so a kindergartner can understand it?"
I was not aware that was my audience, but here goes, "In Life You Are what You Eat, and in Death it's what You've Read."}

With this in mind and mayhaps a little tongue-in-cheek, this blog entry serves as a convenient cross-reference between more familiar verbage and concepts we come across in our common experience and what A Page In The Life tries to tease out from the Quran as Knowledge Object.

"`You know,' said Arthur, `it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die from asphyxiation in deepspace that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.'
`Why, what did she tell you?'
`I don't know, I didn't listen.'"


"`If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.'"

"`Hey this is terrific!' Zaphod said. `Someone down there is trying to kill us!'
`Terrific,' said Arthur.
`But don't you see what this means?'
`Yes. We are going to die.'
`Yes, but apart from that.'
`APART from that?'
`It means we must be on to something!'
`How soon can we get off it?'"
-- Evidence that there will be some justice in the Universe eventually.

"`She hit me on the head with the rock again.'
`I think I can confirm that that was my daughter.'
`Sweet kid.'
`You have to get to know her,' said Arthur.
`She eases up does she? '
`No,' said Arthur, `but you get a better sense of when to duck.'"

-- Ford and Arthur on Random.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency


...and from Funny Phrases
According to my best of my recollection, I don'tremember.






The more things change, the more they stay insane.

You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.

I have always been crazy, but it kept me from going insane.


Around here, to be nuts is normal, to be sane is stupid.




Imagination is the foundation of reality.

Where does it go? It doesn't matter. Flush it.

No matter where you go; you're there.


Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.





It's only hopeless if you walk away.




Death is the consequence of being alive.

Clever is getting out alive.



In theory, everything works.

Plagiarism is copying from one source; research is copying from two or more.



More Familiar Concepts from Douglas Adams Quotes

Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!
"He believed in a door. He must find that door. The door was the way to... to...
The Door was The Way."

"Good.
Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn't have a good answer to."

-- The Electric Monk discovering the reason why there are so many acronyms in computing.


"He had extracted himself from the Cambridge one-way system by the usual method, which involved going round and round it faster and faster until he achieved a sort of escape velocity and flew off at 
a tangent in a random direction."
-- Quantum transport physics explained.


Could we perhaps take a snakebite detector with us to Komodo?'
`Course you can, course you can. Take as many as you like. Won't do you a blind bit of good because they're only for Australian snakes.'
`So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly, then?'
He blinked at me as if I was stupid.
`Well what do you think you do?' he said. `You die of course. That's what deadly means.'"

-- DNA failing to spot the obvious.


"`You're proposing twenty hours on a boat...'
`A small boat,' added Mark.
`On violently heaving seas...'
`Probably.'
`With a three-day-old dead goat.'
`Yes.'
`I hardly know what to say.'"
-- DNA learning what fun awaits him on the way to Komodo.


"He stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the fields and hills. To add weight to his words he stuck the rabbit bone in his hair. He spread his arms out wide. `I will go mad!' he announced."
-- Arthur discovering a way of coping with life on Prehistoric Earth.

Paul Revere was a tattle-tail.

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