On Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 10:44:00 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: > > > > On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 2:22 AM Philip Thrift <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > > *> Engineers today are ultrafintiitists in practice: They design airplanes >> and bridges with computer software that runs on computers with a fixed, >> finite number of bits that are ever used. * > > > For over 40 years computers have been able to solve calculus problems > symbolically and get EXACT answers and do it better than any human can, > just look at Mathematica. Sometimes engineers use numerical approximations > not because they think calculus is wrong, no engineer is that dumb, but > because sometimes the equations are so complex even Mathematica can't find > a solution and because an approximation is good enough to make sure the > bridge won't fall down > > John K Clark > > > > By the word "approximation" above in reference to what is being approximating seems to assume that the natural world itself - the materials out of which the bridge or airplane is made, the air, the bedrock, the whole constructions and environment - are continuous and differentiable in the mathematical sense of standard calculus. But why would one assume that the world is *in reality **that*?
That would assume a mathematical reality a la Tegmark (which he himself doesn't believe). - pt >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
