Is there a physicist in the house?

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
Date: Fri Oct 31 00:40:36 2003

At 22:36 10/30/2003 -0600, you wrote:

>Heisenberg says we can't know the speed of <thing> and it's location at
>the same time.

IANAP (;-) but I would think that for this to be true, it would have to be
an infinitely short period of time...


>What if I concentrate on location while timing <thing>
>
>ie <thing> is at "5" and 1 second later it's at "35" is it not going "30"
>per second?
>and while it was going 30 per second didn't I see it at 5 and 35?

1) Not enough information to form an hypothesis... Is <thing> going in a
straight line or circle? (I was actually thinking chain printers when I
read this...
;-)

2) your statement of '30 per second' *assumes* it's at a constant speed...
what if it's not? It could have started at '20 per second' and ended at '50
per second'...

3) When you said "see it at 5 and 35" if you meant to append "At The Same
Time" then it would have to be at two places at once... which is a totally
different problem... ;-)

4) This might actually help: Once you saw it at 35, and using the time it
took to calculate that it was going "30 per hour," it's not technically at
35 anymore, so 1) isn't at that location and/or 2) could have changed speed
by that time... so the next time you 'saw' it at a new location (let's say
35.5) it has either changed speed or location...

>(note to a real physicist this question is probably meaningless...)

Note: I'm just a stupid geek... so these answers are probably meaningless...
;-)

Just my 0.000000000002 (wishing physics were required teaching in school...),

Roger "Merch" Merchberger
Received on Fri Oct 31 2003 - 00:40:36 GMT