Path: newssvr20.news.prodigy.com!newsmst01a.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!news.glorb.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: andrewst@onetel.net.uk (Tony) Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory Subject: Re: In an RDBMS, what does "Data" mean? Date: 18 May 2004 02:59:20 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 45 Message-ID: References: <2gkdtnF3saspU1@uni-berlin.de> <2M76I7CMVHqAFw9q@thewolery.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 194.131.250.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1084874360 14228 127.0.0.1 (18 May 2004 09:59:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 09:59:20 +0000 (UTC) Xref: newssvr20.news.prodigy.com comp.databases.theory:26839 "Anthony W. Youngman" wrote in message news:<2M76I7CMVHqAFw9q@thewolery.demon.co.uk>... > In message , Tony > writes > >> I just find it fascinating that, while we know that Newtonian Mechanics > >> doesn't belong in the set Accurately_Matches_The_Real_World, so many > >> people here (on the grounds of it's mathematical correctness) seem to > >> believe that relational theory does. That argument just doesn't make > >> sense to me. > > > >You keep saying that (on and on, tediously...) but it just doesn't > >work, does it? After all, didn't NASA put a man on the moon using > >Newtonian Mechanics? Expensive and complex successful experiments > >have been done to observe the effects of relativity, but it hardly > >impacts on the real world as lived in by us humans does it? If your > >analogy holds any water at all (to give you the benefit of very large > >doubt), it suggests that relational theory will do just fine for > >pretty much anything we ever want to do "in the real world". > > I think you need to read up - and fast! I will indeed read up - though don't worry, there is no real urgency: I am not personally involved in putting men on the Moon. > If NASA had used Newtonian Mechanics, from what I know, the astronauts > would never have come back. > > Even under such "near earth" conditions as that, the discrepancy between > Newtonian Mechanics and Relativity would have been enough to ensure the > rockets ran out of fuel, stranding the astronauts in space. > > We're talking velocities of 7 miles a second here, more than fast enough > for relativity to make itself felt. That's roughly c*10^-5 - not small > beer. Actually - it looks like we probably need relativity even with the > Shuttle! Despite being no expert, I am pretty confident that you are completely wrong here. 0.0000376 * c sounds pretty small to me. How much discrepancy in fuel usage could that lead to - a millilitre even? I bet whatever difference it makes is insignificant compared to other more mundane factors such as the accuracy of measuring the rate of fuel use, quality of fuel, etc. But yes, I will do a little Googling to see if you are right. If I had a hat, I'd be prepared to eat it if it turned out you were correct.