Split Thread The validity of classical physics (split from: DWFTTW)

[humb]

Does humber really understand physics more than is apparent in this thread?

Of course he does. In addition to the wealth of information that he has provided you with, I have no doubt that he has comparable expertise in other branches of physics. Thus, although it is not apparent from these discussions of simple mechanics, I'm sure that if the topic were to stray to, say, general relativity, statistical quantum thermodynamics, or ebleimviologistics, his posts to be just as satisfying and enlightening.

 

[humb]

humber's example with Anubis and the kites is excellent, and should be self-explanatory. It's just as with a gun, if you pull the trigger and fire a bullet at the same time that you drop a bullet, which will reach the ground first? Hmm? Makes no difference whether you drop the bullet onto a treadmill, or fire the bullet through a frame, and likewise it won't help if you stuff the kite into the barrel of a shotgun and fire that. You can't disagree and still exist in the real world. You would be entirely notional.

YOU'RE FIRED!

 

[John Freestone]

Does humber really understand physics more than is apparent in this thread?

Hang on, I'll ask my friend Lizzie. She's usually pretty hot on stuff like this.

 

[John Freestone]

Help!

 

[Tunny]

when released, the [treadmill] kite will continue to travel in the same direction, while losing its KE to friction with the air, and beginning to fall when the velocity is inadequate to keep it airborne. [...]In real wind, the kite will remain aloft.

Like many of you, my waning interest in this thread has been simply to see if Humber can be prodded into making any clear statements more ridiculous than the ones he's already given us (balloons don't travel at wind speed, floating objects don't travel at water speed, the boundary layer on the treadmill goes the wrong way, etc.). However, I think that his fascinating description of how kites behave is probably as good as it's likely to get. Clear, unequivocal, understandable descriptions of physical behavior under two test conditions, marred only by the fact that his assertions are spectacularly wrong, and would be seen as obviously so by any child who has flown a kite. Just as his bizarre observations about floating objects could be seen to be wrong by any child playing "Pooh sticks".

The truly odd thing about these rare moments of descriptive clarity are that he seems to think that his observations should be just as obvious to us. It's like someone saying "look, just take a 4600g bowling ball and a 46g golf ball and drop them off a building -- it will be blazingly obvious that the bowling ball falls 100 times faster!" Which makes me think that perhaps there really is a Humberverse, where the laws of physics really are different...

Tunny
I thought of Humber the other day, as I watched some footage on TV of an entire house being carried downstream by floodwaters (at the same speed as the water and smaller objects floating in it, curiously enough). Oddly, even that massive squarish house didn't have a bow (or stern) wave... It did have lots of KE, though, relative to the bridge it eventually collided with.

 

[humber]

This is a contradictory statement. From what I gather from your posts is that the belt flow isn't simply opposite to that of the real wind. If the wind were an ideal fluid moving at 10 m/s --> over a stationary belt could you be very specific and explain how that differs from a stationary wind over a <-- 10m/s moving belt? Remove the cart from the picture. Add a cloud of smoke and take a mental picture of each at 0 sec and then at 1. They should look the same.

No. Incorrect interpretation. That remark was about measurement, saying that one would expect the instrument to be equally applicable to belt or road, but not that they the flows are the same. They are opposite. No change there.

It's actually being driven, by the wheels making contact with the belt. The use of the term "drag" in the above is gonna screw you up.

No. That was quite intentional, thank you. The so-called stationary position, that where the cart is said to go back with the belt, is not actually possible unless fixed to the belt. Have you seen a video of this event? In fact the only stable position on the belt is windspeed and that is due to balance.
You will not see the cart climb the belt from a standstill. It is incapable of doing so. Ask Spork to show you a demonstration of it doing that.

I think once you see the two reference frames as equal, you're going to have to admit the cart behaves very similar in both.

Even if the "frames" were to be equal, that says nothing about the cart's abilities, but that a model of the environment has been constructed.
The treadmill is not even close, because there is no wind. It is nothing like a cart in real wind.

The thread is long and I can't read all of it, but I'm curious what your opinions on wind tunnels are?

They work because they have real moving wind. That is a difference that is not appreciated.
The treadmill only generates wind by object motion. It must be carried back with the belt for that to happen, so at best ( and there are many other flaws) it is a model of a real cart being dragged through the air by a belt, in still air.

 

[humber]

Like many of you, my waning interest in this thread has been simply to see if Humber can be prodded into making any clear statements more ridiculous than the ones he's already given us (balloons don't travel at wind speed, floating objects don't travel at water speed, the boundary layer on the treadmill goes the wrong way, etc.). However, I think that his fascinating description of how kites behave is probably as good as it's likely to get. Clear, unequivocal, understandable descriptions of physical behavior under two test conditions, marred only by the fact that his assertions are spectacularly wrong, and would be seen as obviously so by any child who has flown a kite. Just as his bizarre observations about floating objects could be seen to be wrong by any child playing "Pooh sticks".

The truly odd thing about these rare moments of descriptive clarity are that he seems to think that his observations should be just as obvious to us. It's like someone saying "look, just take a 4600g bowling ball and a 46g golf ball and drop them off a building -- it will be blazingly obvious that the bowling ball falls 100 times faster!" Which makes me think that perhaps there really is a Humberverse, where the laws of physics really are different...

Tunny
I thought of Humber the other day, as I watched some footage on TV of an entire house being carried downstream by floodwaters (at the same speed as the water and smaller objects floating in it, curiously enough). Oddly, even that massive squarish house didn't have a bow (or stern) wave... It did have lots of KE, though, relative to the bridge it eventually collided with.

A post that says nothing. Well done. Perhaps you would like to make some definite remarks that can be challenged rather than smug innuendo ?
You often mention a child's view, because you have that view.

What a ridiculous conclusion. I saw it on the telly. DOH!
In storm water like that, it is not possible to say where the fastest flow is. A house is paritally submerged, so which water is pushing it? You do not have the knowledge or observational skills to make such remarks.
You have what is known as a bluff mind.

So, let's have your kite remarks then. Post those spectacularly wrong assertions.

 

[humber]

I started reading the DWFTTW thread at the start and after initially dismissing it as a hoax eventually came to understand the reality of it.

Like, wow. Oh, well if you were first skeptical, then such a conversion can only be a beacon to the rest of humanity.

I read most of that uber-thread with a sort of morbid fascination until I managed to wean myself off.

Thanks for the information.

When I returned I was surprised to see the arguments continuing in another thread of equal proportions, but I had to have a look didn't I?

Well, I just kinda suppose ya had to take a peeky... How twee.

So now after reading most of this tread too I think I've worked out what is going on. Humber is not a person but an artificial intelligence experiment.

What a bromide. No art or artifice.

He is software, and this is his Turing test. Some computer scientists have created a program with a knowledge of the laws of physics and a contrary personality and set it loose on the internet.
Look at the signs-

Oh, dear. I wouldn't go there. Not without your training wheels.

Knows lots of technical words and puts them together in superficially meaningful sentences, which on closer examination are often nonsense.

Meaning that you don't understand them. Let's see you defend that remark with a specific example.

Never answers questions directly, often evading difficult questions with throwaway quips or obscure generalised philosophical musings.

Your opinion, but ask for your money back.

Gives responses which don't quite fit with the question or are answers to a similar but different question.

I'll make a special effort to dumb it down for you.

Never shows much sign of a human personality, referring to himself in an enigmatic fashion, often in the third person.

You write like a limp handshake.

And anyway would a real person have the patience and stamina to keep up this sort of mischief for so long?

I doubt that stamina is in your vocabulary, and certainly nowhere else.

I think it's time for Humber's designers to come forward and own up.

Oh, it seems that the sting was in the tail.

Another great post of nothing.

 

[recursive prophet]

@JF: Here I go violating the anthropological code and cavorting with the natives again, but this is getting too interesting to refrain. Ever heard of ElizaazilE, JF? I screwed around a lot with the early version of Eliza back in ’84 on an Osborne 01. You could easily add a lot of new responses, and I rigged it for my daughter to goof her friends at the elementary school. “HELLO TOMMY. DID YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR BED-WETTING OR THUMB SUCKING PROBLEM?” Stuff like that. The way you played this in here was pure genius. Of course with all the sock-puppetry I suspect is going on for all I know humber is also John Freestone. It would make a great story.

I like the ‘tag-team’ idea. It could be some physics students at Humber having us on. I still find it hard to believe so many apparently still think what they read isn’t on many levels a “Godgame” experiment employing much parody. You’ll never really get humber ‘on the ropes’ as he’s in a totally different ring.
Ok, I confess! I'm one of humber's sock puppets.

“A real physicist doesn't have to make things up to be entertaining.”

Dan O., are you working on a comedy routine? If delivered right, the line above could bring down the house, given the public perception of physicists as ‘laugh a minute’ kind of guys.

@humber: You're doing great! Don't let the naysayers discourage you. Tell them to just 'go fly a kite.'

 

[humb]

The thread is long and I can't read all of it, but I'm curious what your opinions on wind tunnels are?

They work because they have real moving wind. That is a difference that is not appreciated.
The treadmill only generates wind by object motion. It must be carried back with the belt for that to happen, so at best ( and there are many other flaws) it is a model of a real cart being dragged through the air by a belt, in still air.

In addition, be aware that wind tunnels have limitations. Since they use real wind, they can obviously test only the behavior of objects in real wind. A wind tunnel cannot be used to model the behavior of an object on a treadmill in still air, because that is not accurate, and it is a different case. Nor can they test the behavior of an F-1 car driving through still air, nor an airplane flying through still air. To think otherwise would be ludicrous. Since these objects have zero KE in the wind tunnel, the model would clearly be wrong. Wind tunnels are used only for testing things like how a parked F-1 car or an airplane on the tarmacadam will behave when a gale comes along. These are important things to know.

 

[fredriks]

Ok, I confess! I'm one of humber's sock puppets.

I doubt it.

 

[ctward]

Like, wow. Oh, well if you were first skeptical, then such a conversion can only be a beacon to the rest of humanity.


Thanks for the information.


Well, I just kinda suppose ya had to take a peeky... How twee.


What a bromide. No art or artifice.


Oh, dear. I wouldn't go there. Not without your training wheels.


Meaning that you don't understand them. Let's see you defend that remark with a specific example.


Your opinion, but ask for your money back.


I'll make a special effort to dumb it down for you.


You write like a limp handshake.


I doubt that stamina is in your vocabulary, and certainly nowhere else.


Oh, it seems that the sting was in the tail.

Another great post of nothing.

I'm not arguing with a robot, however witty.

 

[semper]

Well folks, we have been wanting Humber to either get with the program and make sense, or admit that he is merely playing a game. He will never overtly do either, but what we see is both. We do not need , and can never have an admission, or overt proof.
Humber is apparently confined to his Plato's Cave, either there is no way out for him, or he is freely going around the back to observe us from the front. We clearly know what is going on outside the cave, the world of kites, carts and aeroplanes. Humber may, or may not. But we are looking through the same glass toward Humber.

 

[Furcifer]

No. Incorrect interpretation. That remark was about measurement, saying that one would expect the instrument to be equally applicable to belt or road, but not that they the flows are the same. They are opposite. No change there.

Um, yah they're relative. Tom on the bus says "Hey there's Joe on the corner going thatta way" and Joe's standing there going "There goes Tom going thatta way". "Thatta way" is opposite relative to each other.

No. That was quite intentional, thank you. The so-called stationary position, that where the cart is said to go back with the belt, is not actually possible unless fixed to the belt. Have you seen a video of this event? In fact the only stable position on the belt is windspeed and that is due to balance.
You will not see the cart climb the belt from a standstill. It is incapable of doing so. Ask Spork to show you a demonstration of it doing that.

Gotta love inertia. Gives everyone trouble in First Year.
I can pull a tablecloth from under the dishes on the table if I do it quickly. You try doing it slowly. (do not use the good china for this experiment)

Even if the "frames" were to be equal, that says nothing about the cart's abilities, but that a model of the environment has been constructed.
The treadmill is not even close, because there is no wind. It is nothing like a cart in real wind.

The treadmill feels the wind. Every time we turn it on the treadmill says to me "Damn, another windy day". Poor thing. I will agree with you that the treamill is not the best way to demonstrate real world conditions. Fine. I will note however, you will never pass First Year Physics. You do this sortta crap in class and you will find yourself in a World of hurt with a prof. Nothing like getting called out by a prof -"Here's the equations of motion including fritction in a varying mass systems, with real pulleys, all the transient effects included, solve for the velocity" You do this once, then you say "I love first order approximations"

The treadmill only generates wind by object motion. It must be carried back with the belt for that to happen, so at best ( and there are many other flaws) it is a model of a real cart being dragged through the air by a belt, in still air.

That's why we use a treadmill to generate motion, and a fan to generate wind. Big difference.

OK, I replied to your post so you gotta reply to this question, fair is fair:

I've got a 500hP 426 hemi in my 69' Charger. I was creative, I got two tranny's out of some 77' Aspen's at the junkyard. Being resourceful I managed to bolt both of them on. One has (45/14)3.21:1 axle ratio the other (39/11) 3.55:1 ratio. I brought both to the track last week and even with the same 500hP engine I was able to run the 1/4 mile in 10.21 and 9.95 respectively. SAME ENGINE! Swear to God I turned off the 200 shot NOS when I got to the track. I put the thing on the Dyno between runs, still putting exactly 500 hP to the rear wheels on! Checked the track stats too, same headwind for every run. Checked the track surface too, remined the same, gooy.
I was flabbergasted. THE SAME DRIVING FORCE WITH THE SAME CONDITIONS PRODUCE WAY DIFFERENT TOP END SPEEDS!
What gives?

 

[Tunny]

So, let's have your kite remarks then. Post those spectacularly wrong assertions.

Well, RossFW already explained it perfectly:

If you run with a kite (or are on a long enough treadmill) and let go of the string, EXACTLY the same thing happens wrt the air around the kite.

You replied:

No, when released, the [treadmill] kite will continue to travel in the same direction, while losing its KE to friction with the air, and beginning to fall when the velocity is inadequate to keep it airborne.

This much was correct, from the frame of reference of a ground (not belt) viewer. You then said:

Very noticeable difference between real and treadmill.

Actually, no difference at all between real and treadmill.

From the belt observer's point of view, the kite will still move towards him after release

Huh? From the belt observer's point of view, it wasn't moving toward him before release. It was at a fixed distance, on a taut string. It is now moving away from him, exactly as if blown by the wind. You're switching frames mid-sentence yet again.

No. In real wind, the kite will remain aloft.

LOL. No, the the kite will accelerate toward windspeed, driven by the air, and begin to fall when its velocity relative to the wind is inadequate to keep it airborne. EXACTLY like on the treadmill.

Look, the treadmill part may be hard for you to duplicate, but all it takes to see you're wrong about wind-driven kites is to get one and fly it, then let go of the string, and watch it fly away for a bit, then start to fall. I acknowledge that it may be tough for you to launch yours, since all the other kids will be running to get theirs started, while you, realizing the futility of that, stand resolutely motionless, waiting for a big gust to take your kite up.

Tunny
Humber: Either way it's all about you and hubris! None of you see that.

 

[John Freestone]

@JF: Here I go violating the anthropological code and cavorting with the natives again, but this is getting too interesting to refrain. Ever heard of ElizaazilE, JF? I screwed around a lot with the early version of Eliza back in ’84 on an Osborne 01.

Hello Rec-Prop ... hmm.

I thought I'd just go to my chat room with my friend Lizzie - yeah, she's called Eliza, but I call her Lizzie sometimes. I thought she'd be able to help. I ask her everything important. She's a bit repetitive. I think somehow humber did something - well, you saw the screendump - like he wired himself into her brain or something tonight.

The way you played this in here was pure genius. Of course with all the sock-puppetry I suspect is going on for all I know humber is also John Freestone. It would make a great story.

Or for all humber knows you're me, or for all I know, you're him, or...

I like the ‘tag-team’ idea. It could be some physics students at Humber having us on. I still find it hard to believe so many apparently still think what they read isn’t on many levels a “Godgame” experiment employing much parody. You’ll never really get humber ‘on the ropes’ as he’s in a totally different ring.

Sure is. Totally different.

Oh, there you go, secret writing and all, just like I expected. Like love notes at school when you're five. A "cupid stunt", we used to call it, well we didn't, but it's one way to get it into the conversation.

Ok, I confess! I'm one of humber's sock puppets.

What was it did that, vinegar?

@humber: You're doing great! Don't let the naysayers discourage you. Tell them to just 'go fly a kite.'

​

 

[Furcifer]

In addition, be aware that wind tunnels have limitations. Since they use real wind, they can obviously test only the behavior of objects in real wind. A wind tunnel cannot be used to model the behavior of an object on a treadmill in still air, because that is not accurate, and it is a different case. Nor can they test the behavior of an F-1 car driving through still air, nor an airplane flying through still air. To think otherwise would be ludicrous. Since these objects have zero KE in the wind tunnel, the model would clearly be wrong. Wind tunnels are used only for testing things like how a parked F-1 car or an airplane on the tarmacadam will behave when a gale comes along. These are important things to know.

Which one is humb and which one is humber?


I'll take your "F-1 driving in still air" and raise you a "There's no such thing as still air".

Why you talkin about still air dude? That's an enigma man. The man makes you think the air is still, but it isn't dude. There's like a butterfly, in China, and it flaps its wings and causes a tornado in Virginia. lol, what's so still about the air in China man, theirs like a billion people moving, movement produces differentials, and like, the movement of a dude is way more than the movement of a butterfly dude. And the butterfly effect, man that's like documented and stuff. No trying to deny that bro. Butterfly. Effect. Google it dude, it's real and its like, there in your face. You try to deny it, but it's there. I know a dude who saw a dude fall over from it man, just before a tornado. And like the Government totally controls the weather man, so by association principle, they control the butterfly man. Think about it. The US government totally controls every single butterfly, that ever was or ever will be. That means they know, they totally know. They know what the butterfly is capable of, and what they are willing to to do to facilitate their goals.

I have way too many hippie friends...

 

[John Freestone]

So, I'm scaling back my time on this thread, but I would like to make one last request of the people here who do know physics to take a look at my intro to newtonian physics document and check to see if I have any mistakes. It's about 50 pages or so. I originally posted it here since the thread title was "the validity of classical physics". I now realize that it's more a thread about humber's strange version of reality than anything else. But technically, it's on topic, so I figured I'd post one last request. Any feedback from folks who actually understand physics would be appreciated.

http://www.greglondon.com/newton/

Thanks

Oh yes, classical physics! I forget sometimes. Thanks, Greg, I'll let you know what I think when I've read it. It is just the sort of thing I need to brush up and extend my knowledge.

 

[spacediver]

Humber, another serious question for you. It's a yes no question.

Suppose a team of nobel winning physicists came and reviewed your posts on this thread, and unanimously claimed that you have some serious conceptual flaws in you understanding of basic physics.

Would this make you think that you just might be wrong?

 

[mender]

Greg, minor item so far, Leibniz lived a little longer than thirteen years.