Re: Date's First Great Blunder

neo55592_at_hotmail.com (Neo) wrote in message news:<4b45d3ad.0404192101.75a2facc_at_posting.google.com>...
> > > Newtonian Mechanics is mathematics. It's consistent.
> > > Unfortunately, it doesn't tally with reality :-(
> >
> > Ah yes, Newtonian Mechanics - what a failure that was! Any attempt to
> > use that in the real world is doomed to failure. No wonder they don't
> > teach that old rubbish in schools these days ;-)
>
> You missed the point. The point was that just because a model is
> consistent doesn't mean it is the correct model of reality and not
> that the model isn't accurate enough for practical purposes within a
> certain scope.

I don't think I did actually. And as a metaphor for the relational model it doesn't work anyway. The relational model doesn't purport to model REALITY, it purports to model DATA.

> > On the other hand, to quote Wikipedia: "Classical mechanics produces
> > very accurate results within the domain of everyday experience.
>
> No one is arguing that Classical Mechanics isn't accurate enough for
> the scope of a human's typical everday experience. You missed the
> point.

I don't think I did actually. Wol was arguing that Classical Mechanics "doesn't tally with reality" period.

> > In other words, it DOES tally with reality except in esoteric domains
> > outside the realm of everyday life.
>
> Excuse me but it is a human's perception of everyday life that is
> ESOTERIC (in the scope of the universe or do you perceive that the
> universe revolves around you :)

In everyday life, the deviations of reality from the Classical Mechanics model just don't matter. They only matter to cosmologists and particle physicist, who form a small (which is not to say unimportant) minority. That is what esoteric MEANS. Look it up! Received on Tue Apr 20 2004 - 15:23:22 CEST