At 10:36 am 14/01/2006 -0800, Jones wrote: > > -----Original Message-----
> Why do liquids, for instance, NOT have the minimum b-a tensile > strength? ... a possible analogy: the same reason that a sieve > swung through air has less resistance than a pot of the same size? > > Jones You must be psychic Jones cos I have just realised that a whole hierarchy of nets or sieves is the way to model the higher powers found in stuff like the three water vapours. When one compresses a region of space, it's like squeezing the sea with a net. One only catches fish bigger than the mesh size. As one reduces the mesh size smaller and smaller creatures are captured and the bulk modulus increases drastically. If one had a completely impermeable piston and cylinder then space would be incompressible. A case of the proverbial irresistible force meeting the immovable object. These hierarchies of substances are independent of each other and thus effectively constitute the metrics of independent spaces in much the same way as a series off overlaid graph papers of different colours and different gradations constitute a series of independent finite spaces. The isothermal, adiabatic compressions provide a chink in the armour and the VP laws should get us well on the road. The very high powers of the clay water system should reveal how asymmetry behaves. Once people cotton on to the hierarchical techniques of looking for discontinuities to use as zeros for the powers, they will start turning up everywhere. The beauty of a hierarchical system is that, like a mathematical series, once one can master the general term, one has mastered them all. Frank
