Re: Examples of wheels in space?

jmfbahciv wrote:
sanforized wrote:
jmfbahciv wrote:
sanforized wrote:
jmfbahciv wrote:
I am reading Fritz Leiber's _A Specter is Haunting Texas".

much snippage throughout


I'll leave it to you to describe what you believe is
the mechanical advantage of the wheel.

I have been thinking about this for two days (while I've been
maniacally unpacking boxes trying to find my calculator and
black ink pen so i can do the fucking taxes--six of them this
time). And I don't know how to write it in English ASCII.
I did find some of my physics books hunting for the calculator
so I'll be able to do some reading when I'm too pooped to think
when I'm doing taxes.

I'm guessing the foundation under your former abode crumbled
and drove you out? (I read something about that in s.p a
while back.)

I also thought about gears but didn't think those were
strictly defined as wheels.

What of a cogwheel railway?

<grin> Combining the two complicates matters. My approach is
to do the one, then the other, then combine them. And I did
consider the cogwheel before I asked the question.

The next question might have been about the usefulness
of a cogwheel in space.

Made captive it is usually described as a rack and pinion.

What is a wheel, really?

At this point, I have no idea.

I know what I thought to be a wheel as a child.

That's what I think a wheel is.

Later I
began to get some inkling about set theory.

Oh, good grief. Now I know I don't know what I don't know.
Set theory? How in the world did make that leap?


I prefer inclusive, rather than exclusionary,
definitions.

There should be some way to categorize the formulas that are
used for calculations so thingies can be identified.

See the fuzzy logic discussion below.

Is this done in physics or applied mechanics?

IMO function in this instance is the province of applied
mechanics. i.e. Physics studied and made the rules and
models relevant to inclined planes in the general sense.
Specific cases are dealt with by applied mechanics. However
the rules and models were developed through experiment for
many specific cases from which the results were later
combined. There is an overlap because one could not exist
without the other where empirical science is concerned.

Sure there is overlap. My hypothesis was that, if an
analysis of the function of a certain gizmo requires
the use of Formula A, B, and C and uses Principles X, Y,
and Z, you could say "aha" and ID the mechanical
advantages used in the operation of the gizmo. Breaking
down the work into the functions of A,B,C,X,Y and Z
would help with the analysis of the "pieces" of the
work done. When you overlay these pieces...Oh...I see
about your comment about set theory. I know I don't
anything about set theory. The couple of textbooks I do
have are on my list of things to plough through.



I think I've just scratched the surface of something I didn't
know I didn't know.

/BAH

I think you'll find such answers as are available to
much of this in the realm of fuzzy logic. There's a
nice article at:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-fuzzy/

"The term "fuzzy logic" emerged in the development
of the theory of fuzzy sets by Lotfi Zadeh (1965).
A fuzzy subset A of a (crisp) set X is characterized
by assigning to each element x of X the degree of
membership of x in A (e.g., X is a group of people,
A the fuzzy set of old people in X). Now if X is a
set of propositions then its elements may be
assigned their degree of truth, which may be
“absolutely true,” “absolutely false” or some
intermediate truth degree: a proposition may be
more true than another proposition. This is obvious
in the case of vague (imprecise) propositions like
“this person is old” (beautiful, rich, etc.). In
the analogy to various definitions of operations
on fuzzy sets (intersection, union, complement, …)
one may ask how propositions can be combined by
connectives (conjunction, disjunction, negation, …)
and if the truth degree of a composed proposition
is determined by the truth degrees of its components,
i.e. if the connectives have their corresponding
truth functions (like truth tables of classical
logic). Saying “yes” (which is the mainstream of
fuzzy logic) one accepts the truth-functional
approach; this makes fuzzy logic to something
distinctly different from probability theory
since the latter is not truth-functional (the
probability of conjunction of two propositions
is not determined by the probabilities of those
propositions)."

But you would then have to begin to use Chaos Theory.
I didn't think Heisenberg(sp?) Uncertainty Principle
could be used with your above examples of fuzzy sets
because (intersection, union, and complement) happen
at the same time...or I should say can happen at the
same time.

I don't know what I'm talking about.

It's a process. Never try to freeze "state of knowledge"
at any moment in time because the conclusions reached
cannot be true a moment later.

Nobody knows everything. The gift of intelligence includes
an ability to actually use it to combine bits and pieces
of information into something useful for oneself, sometimes
for all of humanity. We see a lot of intelligence in these
newsgroups with arrested ability when it comes to making
something useful out of discovered information. (BTW, that
goal of making something useful out of discovered/disclosed
information is the reason for having these newsgroups in
the first place.)

You appear to be able to combine stuff and come out
ahead for your effort. Good going!

There's lots more.

Isn't there always? :-)

that's what makes thinking fun to do.

I ran into something interesting the other day while watching
an unnameable (in these parts) channel. Take a few minutes to
pursue the concept of "passion." I'm guessing you'll find the
close relationship between "passion" and "that's what makes
thinking fun to do."
.

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