Dear Phellow Phriammers, Ever since the days of Hywel White (GRHS) I have puzzled over the fact that telic language so often appears in physics discussions. I used to tease Hywel that Psychology must be the Mother of Physics, because he had to use psychological terms to describe the motion of particles. More recently, I have the same sort of discussions with Stephen Guerin who wants to use telic language concerning the path of photons and least action. (I hope I have this right, Stephen). You all have been tempted to think I am just trolling, but I don't think I am. I think there may be places where such descriptions are appropriate. I do think, for instance, that the relation between the first derivative of a function and any point in that function is analogous to the relation between the motivation of a behavior and the behavior itself.
i am back to weather again, after a vacation from it for my obsession with unsuccessful vegetable gardening. Here is a quote from an Atmospheric Dynamics text which is laying out the Coriolis Force. *What happens if we consider the hockey puck moving equator-ward relative to the rotation of the Earth. In the absence of applied forces it must conserve angular momentum. Upon being pulled equator-ward in the northern hemisphere the radius of rotation of the puck begins to increase.Consequently, an anti-rotational relative motion develops in order to conserve angular momentum, [Italics by NST] * In the view of folks on this list, is this an appropriate use of telic language, and why or why not? Stephen has a defensible argument in favor of it's appropriateness, the only such argument I have ever heard. ( I don[t buy the premises, but the argument is sound) I am wondering about the rest of you. Nick
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