XPost: sci.physics.relativity   
   From: bill.sloman@ieee.org   
      
   On 21/02/2026 3:47 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:   
   > On 02/19/2026 11:45 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:   
   >> On 20/02/2026 10:48 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:   
   >>> On 02/19/2026 11:19 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:   
   >>>> On 20/02/2026 2:44 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:   
   >>>>> On 02/19/2026 01:45 AM, Bill Sloman wrote:   
   >>>>>> On 19/02/2026 6:13 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:   
   >>>>>>> On 02/18/2026 11:06 AM, Ross Finlayson wrote:   
   >>>>>>>> On 02/17/2026 08:35 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:   
   >>>>>>>>> On 18/02/2026 5:37 am, Ross Finlayson wrote:   
   >>>>>>>>>> On 02/17/2026 09:47 AM, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:   
   >>>>>>>>>>> Ross Finlayson wrote:   
   >>>>>>>>>>>> On 02/17/2026 03:49 AM, J. J. Lodder wrote:   
      
      
      
   > I'd wonder, have you ever heard any notion that there's a   
   > modern, "crisis", in physics? That is to say, when somebody   
   > like Penrose points out that GR and QM effectively disagree   
   > 120 orders of magnitude, and furthermore, there's no room   
   > for gravity in the theory since it would be a constant violation   
   > of energy everywhere, are these considered worthy of interest?   
      
   I bought and read Lee Smolin's "the trouble with physics"   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_with_Physics   
      
   and passed it on to a friend who did undergraduate physics but   
   metamorphosed into a statistician. I've also got Roger Penrose's "The   
   Emperor's New Mind" which was earlier. For years I read "Physics Today"   
   because my wife was a member of the American Acoustical Society.   
      
   I'm well aware that there is talk of a crisis in physics, but if you   
   want to publish a book about what's going on, you do need to play up the   
   drama to give the reviewers something to talk about.   
      
   Our world view isn't entirely consistent, and it probably never will be   
   - the more we learn the harder it becomes to pull everything together   
      
   > How about Mathematics, ..., I'm curious what you think that   
   > Mathematical Foundations is.   
      
   For me mathematics is a tool box. I'm well aware that I'm not a   
   mathematician, but I can follow mathematical advice.   
      
   > Agreeably, my little video essays are rather dry. That said,   
   > some of the modern AI reasoners eat them up. For example,   
   > in "Logos 2000: physics today" I gathered a bunch of responses   
   > from a sort of model reasoner.   
   >   
   > How about "continuity" and "infinity", I'm curious what these   
   > things mean to you.   
      
   Finite and continuous functions can be differentiate and integrated.   
   My undergraduate mathematical education concentrated on them. I'd been   
   exposed to permutations and combinations at secondary school in   
   Tasmania, and one of my cousins is a professional statistician, so I did   
   know that there was a world outside calculus.   
      
   I know enough to know that the infinite number of integers is a smaller   
   number than the infinite number of rational numbers, but I don't get   
   excited about it.   
      
   I knew some of the linguists that tried to describe natural language in   
   terms of a generalised phase structure grammar   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalized_phrase_structure_grammar   
      
   and got to hear when they decided that it didn't work. That's math too.   
      
   --   
   Bill Sloman, Sydney   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)