Re: Questions (Space)

Ric Locke <warlocke@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina Hall wrote:
Ric Locke <warlocke@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip lotsa quotes>

Actually, "vaguely sounds like an attribute" is a good start.

Ok. Like in 'green plant', green is an attribute of plant.

Yet it seems to be treated as a noun. The green (I don't mean grass,
but just the colour) is something else than a plant being green. Or
high, or leafy, where height and 'leafage' are the nouns.

(If you see differences in my examples, please out the one which
would apply more, is closer to what kind of attribute you mean.
Perhaps I could see something in that.)

Other way 'round, actually. "Vector" is the name of a class of
things, like "plant". One of the attributes every vector has is a
direction, like the plant has a color, except that the existence of
the "direction" attribute is what makes it a vector instead of
something else.

Could we put that attribute at 'produces oxygen'? (Because I think
that's what every plant does.)

The other attributes of the vector describe what kind of vector it is.

Ok. A vector is something that has a direction, proper direction in 3D
space (rather than a direction on a graph, where it just tends to go
from left to right, and optionally up or down).

I wonder why give it a name.

(And 'vector is something that has a direction' would still make my head
hurt to insert the alternate meaning every time the word turns up. In
any other sentence it would still come up as a blank.)

For visualizing, I use a line with an arrowhead. The arrowhead tells
what direction, and the length of the line tells the size of the
other attributes.

Those arrows never said anything to me when they turned up in physics
lessons, so I've got a dislike for them. (Besides that it doesn't fit
into my way of imagining things.)

Blank means there is nothing. No information, no image. Not even a
label, it's just an empty drawer.

Hmm, that is hard. Can you do it the other way if you try? Can you
label the empty box, then search for things to fill it up with?

No. You can fill the drawer, and then put a label on it.

Matrix: [Explanation goes here]. If a scrap should show up you have
a place to put it, and from time to time you can take the scraps
out and see if they fit together yet.

Vector is the problem. ('Scalar' is improving, see other posters
offering their explanations, if you like.) If a matrix is a grid, I
don't object. (3D would be ok, too.)

This is English we're using :-) "Matrix" can mean several different
things, but in the sense we're talking about here, yes, it's a grid
with numbers in the individual squares.

Well, the numbers are confusing. For me a grid is what you've got in a
graph, and there the numbers are at the X and Y axis.

I'd rather return to the mass and energy that got lost in all this.
What I wondered concerning 'imagined' mass didn't get a comment
(even just 'no') yet.

Mass is so simple [that is, it doesn't have many parts; simple is not
necessarily "easy"](1) that it's impossible to tell the difference
between "imaginary" mass and the real thing. Even if there is some
difference it doesn't matter. If it causes gravity it's "mass"
regardless of where it came from.

That doesn't help. For me it matters where it came from. And how mass
does that gravity thing.

It might not make a difference to you, but for me the difference is
understanding it, and not understanding it. The idea of energy
presenting itself as imaginary mass makes sense. Just added mass out of
nowhere, as if you had stuck a lump of rock to the side of <whatever>
does not make sense.

That's the really interesting thing. I don't know what this about
direction in combination with speed has to do with it, and even less
why you keep mentioning that 'vector' thing.

Let's see how this goes. I will get back to it, I promise.

It would help if I knew why you try to get the meaning of that word into
my head. I don't see the point in this digression. You could just use
other words and save us all this.

(I meant it when I said that it means to postpone the discussion a few
years if you want to wait until that word's settled into my head. It
will take many more explanations until something seeps in properly. As
this it doesn't stick and isn't available for use.)

(1)Actually, the German fits perfectly here. "Einfach", literally
"one face" or "one attribute" = "simple". Mass has only one thing,
mass.

Einfach isn't 'one face' or 'one attribute'. And I don't think taking it
apart into Ein (one, a) and Fach (compartment) works. There might be a
mathematical 'einfach', but I could at best guess what that means
(guessing is not good, it isn't certainty or knowledge).

--
Tina
WIP: Space: 2936 words
WISuspension: Seasons & Elements trilogy | Magic Earth series
Posted to Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.composition.

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