On Monday, June 2, 2025 at 7:14:47 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote: *> And you are too susceptible to casually assuming you understand the familiar just because it's familiar. Your alarm clock measures time by the oscillations of a wheel, which depend on the inertia of the wheel. Do you understand "the reality of that inertia"?*
On Mon, Jun 2, 2025 at 9:48 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote: *> You'd be in a much better position to defend Clark if either of you > could define the clock inherent in a muon, but you don't seem able to meet > that challenge. AG * > *Define "define". I'm just kidding, I know you can't do that without tying yourself up into an infinite loop. So instead give me an example so I can understand what's worrying you. Let's start with the first timepiece humans ever invented, what is the clock inherent in a sundial? * *> with muons there's no discernable clock* *If there was no discernible clock in a muon then we wouldn't be able to, in theory, use them as a clock, and yet we can thanks to radioactive decay. A muon clock is possible but not practical, however other types of radioactive clocks are very practical. Before scientists learned how to read the clocks inherit in unstable nuclei such as uranium-238, uranium-235, potassium-40, rubidium-87 and of course carbon-14, geologist were able to tell that one layer of rocks was older than another layer of rocks but they didn't know the absolute age of any of them. However now thanks to radioactive clocks we know that the Earth formed 4.54 billion years ago.* *And you never answered Brent's question. Do you understand "the reality of inertia"? Richard Feynman said he had an interesting conversation about inertia with his father when he was about 8 or 9. He ran up to his father and said: * *“Say, Pop, I noticed something: When I pull my wagon the ball rolls to the back of the wagon, and when I’m pulling it along and I suddenly stop, the ball rolls to the front of the wagon. Why is that?”* *His father said: * *“Nobody knows. The general principle is that things that are moving try to keep moving and things that are standing still tend to stand still unless you push on them hard. This tendency is called inertia but nobody knows why it’s true. If you look close you’ll find the ball does not rush to the back of the wagon that you’re pulling against the ball; that the ball stands still or as a matter of fact from the friction starts to move forward really and doesn’t move back.”* *Feynman said: * *"I realized dad was right! The ball never moved backwards! Relative to the wagon it moved backwards, but relative to the sidewalk it actually moved forward a little bit! It’s just that the wagon caught up with it!”* * John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* edc -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0x7RT7_uV1EvL8NoRU0Ok7jm6a7LK_SJbd8zRzcOT4sQ%40mail.gmail.com.
