YAAP (Yet Another Armchair Physicist)

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Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
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LeeE
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When I was about six or seven years old I found that, with my young, sharp eyesight, I could just perceive the movement of the tip of the minute hand against the wood-grain of the clock-face as it slowly crept around the face of the family living room clock. Although I knew the clock was 'ticking' and therefore moving the hand in small 'jumps', the movement appeared to be smooth and continuous, and that started me wondering about how (not why) things accelerate and move through space. At the time, over sixty years ago, back when I was six or seven, the best answer I got, from one of my school teachers was, essentially, Infinitesimals. However, while I could understand the concept and see how it worked, it really seemed more like a way of avoiding the question instead of answering it, rather like brushing it infinitely far away under an infinitely large carpet.

Since then, over the last sixty-odd years, it's a question that has never left me and one to which I've returned again and again, as I learned new things and gained new insights. While I still haven't found an answer to that question, I do think I have now got a far better understanding of both that original question and it's context.
 
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Umm.. You Should Go Out On The Ale More Often?
 
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Me thinks it is: you should get out of the armchair more often.
 
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