Re: Temporal database - no end date

From: V.J. Kumar <vjkmail_at_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:50:25 +0100 (CET)
Message-ID: <Xns98BD973C9AB3Evdghher@194.177.96.26>

"-CELKO-" <jcelko212_at_earthlink.net> wrote in news:1169171804.854308.195070_at_38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

>>>  That sounds more useful. Can you please present these reasons? And
>>>  don't just say "Zeno". << 

>
> Actually, Zeno and (much) later Einstein are a good place to start
> with what happens when you think of chronons and infinity-as-process
> like the ancient Greeks (and the rest of the world until Cantor) did.
>
> If I wanted to explain irrational numbers to an ancient Greek, I would
> use the classic sqrt(2) example and show there is at least one number
> which cannot be modeled as (i/j) where i and j are integers
> --rationals. The myth is that the Pythagoreans would kill me to
> prevent my telling anyone, but I am not sure if that is true or not.
>
> So, I want a chronon model made up of not integer time points, but
> irrational ones.. Or transcendental or any other infinite set
> contained in the continuum which is not rational -- a kind of Cantor
> dust. Zeno proved that they had to exist, even though he did not know
> such concepts, because things move thru them. This is basic senior
> Math major stuff!

This all is nonsense. Modern physics does not have a definite answer if the space-time is continuous or discrete (see Lee Smolin's work).

As to Zeno's paradoxes, the notion of continuum does not give a 'solution' as you seem to believe. The "Arrow" paradox argument can be made in the context of time as continuum. See Arntzenius'article for a clue.

> My first Masters was in Math; trust me this is not crap.

Argument form credencia, huh ? Most cool. Received on Fri Jan 19 2007 - 13:50:25 CST