John, List,
 
continuity is a major trait of thirdness, and I think also of firstness, if one may say, that space and time are fields of possibility. Anyway, firstness and thirdness are more similar to each other than each to secondness. Discreteness is a secondness thing, I guess. But an actual incandescent tungsten wire emits a continuous spectrum? I would say, this is a pseudo- or secondary continuity caused by blending of many discrete photons or frequencies.
 
Best,
Helmut
 
 
 
 12. Dezember 2019 um 20:15 Uhr
Von: "John F. Sowa" <[email protected]>
 

Ben,

I agree that space and time in quantum mechanics are continuous.  But there is one issue that Peirce understood very well:  the discrete lines in the spectrum of any chemical element that is heated on earth or in any distant star.

 

In the so-called "black body" radiation, the filament of an incandescent light bulb emits a continuous spectrum with a peak at a frequency that is determined by the temperature.  But a photon emitted when an electron of an atom falls from a higher state to a lower state has a sharply defined frequency. 

 

Peirce learned that fact when he studied chemistry, and he used it in his photometric studies of distant stars.   Although it may be wrong to consider a continuous line as a set of discrete points, there are phenomena in physics whose measurements are discrete.

 

John

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