Re: I came here to babble incoherently about and the universe.

From: Jasper Stein (J.J.Stein.Stein_at_cs.cs.ru.ru.nl.nl)
Date: 11/25/04 

Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 08:23:41 +0000

Lefty wrote:

> Here's a question for all the dynamicists out there. You will need to
> model this on a computer, unless you can think of a way to do it with
> fluids somehow. Here the proposed experiment -
>
> You have a spherical shaped object. There is a flow eminating from the
> center. There is also a flow directed toward the center. These two flows
> may interfere with each other somewhat.
>
> The question is this - what kinds of patterns might emerge from such
> an
> arrangement ? We know from experiments with liquids that we can duplicate
> things similar to the "Great Red Spot" on Jupiter. And, Jupiter itself may
> be taken as an experiment in fluid dynamics. Heck - even Neptune has some
> vicious eddys.
>
> If you had a spherically shaped vessel of fluid with an inflow/outflow
> type of arrangement - could this generate a spiral shaped state similar to
> a galaxy ?

Hello Lefty,

Two remarks. (1) We need your math before we can model anything. Qualitative
descriptions like yours are too vague. They could mean anything. We could
make thousands of different models based on this. (2) Even if we had a
computer model, the question remains whether it models anything real at all
at the fundamental level. Sure the sun emits particles, but the way your
description goes sounds more thermodynamic than fundamental.

So first the math! It's important! I dare say that modern physics is over
80% math and only 20% interpretation; coming up with qualitative
descriptions only is a sure sign of crackpottery. And no use saying "in
principle we could compute this-and-that" because that's exactly what
remains to be seen. At the required level of accuracy at least. It's very
nice to view the sun as a monopole, but it's not nearly enough by a very
long shot indeed. Math, math, math! After that we can talk. And indeed,
only after the math we can see what patterns can emerge.

Jasper 

-- 
The problem with having an open mind is that people toss in garbage

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