XPost: sci.electronics.design   
   From: jeroen@nospam.please   
      
   On 2/20/26 19:31, Bill Sloman wrote:   
   > 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 don't think that is correct. Both the sets of natural and rational   
   numbers are aleph-0 in size, because it's possible to create a   
   one-to-one mapping of every rational number to every integer.   
      
   Jeroen Belleman   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)