Recent content by PeterJ

An edge would make no sense at all. This suggest that our usual notion of space and time makes no sense, which of course it doesn't, since it gives rise to the question you've asked.

There's lots of examples - Stockhausen, Boulez, Bach, Stravinsky et al. Then there's 'ten green bottles, hanging...' It's a natural thing really. Music is all numbers. We might say that Debussy was using maths by dividing the octave into six tones. Boulez is one of the most interesting I'd...

Yes, this is why I brought it up here.

Not according to the glossy TV documentary I watched a couple of weeks ago. They reported well-observed and significant effects and discussed them with the researchers. All quite excited about it. I don't think I dreamt it but you never know.

I heard recently that different frequencies of radiation have been measured to travel at different speeds on their way through space to us. Is it possible that this bias in the arrival time of different frequencies could affect our measurement of distances to objects?

No it's okay. I'm happy with my way of thinking about it. I'd say that the topography of the universe is unrepresentable as a visual model, and so within quite wide limits it would be a matter of personal preference how we do it. A Klein bottle or Necker cube would also be relevant images...

I have no ability to understand a sphere with nothing off the surface. I'd rather have Plotinus's hypersphere. This is more or less a balloon analogy, with the spacetime universe on the surface as usual, but it has a centre and at least one extra dimension. Then we have the ability to include an...

Shame. Perhaps it could reopen when you find a philosophical moderator or two. I have to agree though that the forum was awful as a free-for-all.

Then you have to sit in a room and and speculate on the meaning of what the telescope has revealed. I really cannot get this idea that thinking is useless compared with experiment. I'm afraid I can't remember the discussion. I could not comment much on it anyway. I just took his proposal to...

Hmm. I can't agree with much that's been said here. Solipsism has been opposed to realism, but this is not a true contradictory pair by Aristotle's rules and so there can be a third answer. Metaphysics is full of these unintentional category-errors, and they cause all the problems. I would say...

Would there not have to be a difference of definition between 'the whole universe' and 'all that came out of the Big Bang' in order to make sense of the latter? Here's my problem with this. Some physicists seem to have concluded that spatial extension is some sort of illusion. One calls it a...

Okay. But I'm assuming it wouldn't be observable for reasons already given.

Would I be right in thinking that a boundary to the universe is an absolute, and that physics does not deal with absolutes.

I sympathise. If we had to make do with only what we are taught in schools these days life wouldn't be worth living. I had to spend half my time de-programming my kids when they were younger. I expect I detest our education system more than you. I'm in the UK so it may not apply in your...

I don't think you mean that. Or I hope not.