Re: request for ideas
From: Dinox (dinox_at_removethisbtinternet.com)
Date: 08/22/04
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Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 17:31:26 +0100
Hi Craig,
I've got something that you might be interested in. There is a theory in
geology that could do with some mathematical input. Basically all the
ancient continents can be joined together to make one continuous land mass,
but the only way to do this is to consider the earth was smaller in the
past. The concept of an earth that has been expanding in size is such an
amazing idea that most people refuse to believe it. But whether you believe
it or not there is still the fact that all the ancient continents can only
be reconstructed on a smaller diameter earth. This fact has been explained
away by saying that some of the ancient ocean floors have been consumed
within the earth. If you look at my web site on the subject you should get
the concept. Look at this page;
http://www.dinox.org/english/geoevid.htm
and the "earth has been expanding in size" link from that page for example.
http://www.dinox.org/expic/exp-30.htm
Anyway, to get back to your question. It's difficult to "prove" that the
ocean floor hasn't been consumed within the earth. Would it be possible to
calculate the probability that all the continents would fit together on a
smaller earth? How likely is this? If we had two identical jigsaw puzzles
and one person had fitted all the pieces together to make a small picture,
but the other had a larger picture with large gaps in his picture (which he
said must have been lost) we would surely all know that the small picture
was correct. Why is this different from reconstructing the ancient earth as
a smaller diameter? Would a mathamathical study of the probablity of this
reconstruction occuring by chance help the argument or not? Or will we never
be 100% certain who is correct?
Hope that gives you a few ideas to be going on with.
Regards,
Stephen Hurrell
"Craig Feinstein" <cafeinst@msn.com> wrote in message
news:b671fc3e.0408220731.7bd8a49e@posting.google.com...
> I am planning to write a paper which surveys mathematical results that
> show that the old "axiom->proof->theorem" way of doing mathematics
> does not always yield complete information about mathematics. The
> prime example of this (which started it all) is Godel's Incompleteness
> Theorem, but there has been a lot of work in this area since then.
>
> For instance, Gregory Chaitin has an incompleteness theorem which
> shows conclusively that a certain number which he calls Omega, which
> is really the probability that a computer program halts (defined in a
> way that makes sense), is a random number - which implies that there
> is no finite axiom system that can yield all of the bits of Omega. He
> concludes from all of his work that sometimes one has to simply
> perform experiments in mathematics and form conclusions from the
> experiments without being absolutely certain that the conclusions are
> correct.
>
> It is these types of very original ideas that I am looking for to put
> in my paper, that there are some problems out there that are so
> difficult for us to get a grip on that we might have to approach them
> like a chemist approaches chemistry, never being 100% sure that his or
> her theories are always correct.
>
> Anyone who knows of results like these or has done work in this area
> or has original ideas is welcome to respond to me on usenet or if you
> want, you can email me directly.
>
> Craig
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