[JohnAdams1145]

Why don't you read some of the threads in the past?

There's the thread where Tom Bishop denies the continuous representation of space often used in classical physics.

There's the thread where Tom Bishop claims pi = 4 with a fallacious geometric proof, not understanding the difference between limiting areas and perimeters.

There's the thread where a bunch of FEers got trashed on their various hypotheses (chemical reactions, electricity) for how the Sun burns (at least Tom Bishop admits that he doesn't know, which places him in the top 1% of Flat Earthers in terms of good-faith debate). The FEers clearly didn't understand basic chemistry and physics; one even claimed that the Sun burns hydrogen with oxygen.

There's the thread including a diagram with a complicated sin/cos/tan/asin/acos/atan formula (necessitating precise numerical calculation) when any decent high school student could've written it with square roots.

There's the wiki pages, which are often filled with mathematical fallacy. Leading mathematicians would claim the same. This is not a personal assertion.

Part of the reason why you think a lot of arguments are strawman arguments is because you don't understand the idea of reductio ad absurdum or you don't understand the unbroken logical chains/trees that lead to the conclusions. This comes from a lack of understanding of physics most often.


So, is it really an ad hominem? No. It's an indication of the argument quality. Lacking knowledge on elementary mathematics or physics is a perfectly valid reason to discount their machinations asserting that 99% of scientists are wrong.

[NorseMythology]

"There's the thread where Tom Bishop denies the continuous representation of space often used in classical physics.

There's the thread where Tom Bishop claims pi = 4 with a fallacious geometric proof, not understanding the difference between limiting areas and perimeters."

Continuous representation of space? Unless I am misunderstanding the point, space is not continuous, it is quantized.

I believe the originator of the pi=4 is this fellow http://milesmathis.com/pi2.html
Might find better info there. Your kneejerk reaction will be "b.s" but this guy has a lot of interesting out of the box thinking.

[JohnAdams1145]

That deals with the Manhattan metric. Of course, if you measure circumference via the Manhattan metric it comes out to 4x the diameter. Usually we measure distance on the Euclidean metric which stays constant in Euclidean space, irrespective of the choice of a coordinate system. Euclidean distance is what is commonly referred to as distance. Claiming pi=4 is mathematically incorrect no matter how you spin it, as the circumference is commonly understood to be the length of string you need to make a circle with diameter d.

I've said probably three times now: space is quantized on a very miniscule level. Mathematics tells us that we can approximate it with continuous math, and gives upper bounds on the error, which is unobservably small. Quibbling on this does not invalidate the use of continuous tools of mathematics like the integral.

[NorseMythology]

"Claiming pi=4 is mathematically incorrect no matter how you spin it"

If only that pun was intentional

"I show that in all kinematic situations, π is 4. For all those going ballistic over my title, I repeat and stress that this paper applies to kinematic situations, not to static or geometric situations. I am analyzing the equivalent of an orbit, which is caused by motion and includes the time variable. In that situation, π becomes 4"

BTW I wasn't really arguing, I am new here so I am not familiar with your past posts saying space is quantized.

[JohnAdams1145]

"I show that in all kinematic situations, π is 4. For all those going ballistic over my title, I repeat and stress that this paper applies to kinematic situations, not to static or geometric situations. I am analyzing the equivalent of an orbit, which is caused by motion and includes the time variable. In that situation, π becomes 4" -- Miles Mathis (inserted attribution)

I pointed out the only redeeming quality in the article you gave. It was an interesting read, but completely wrong, both mathematically and physically. I can prove that he's pretty incompetent at math, but I'll address the more obvious fact: his pseudo-mathematics doesn't have any bearing in the real world. He can show whatever he wants, but he's contradicted by empirical reality. Drive in a circle. Your fuel consumption will be the circumference (pi approx 3.14) divided by your gas mileage, not what you get when pi = 4. Take a string that's 3.2 times the length of another string. You can lay it in an approximate circle such that the other string passes through the center. You clearly don't need a string of length 4.

He actually has no idea what an orbit is; an orbit is not "caused by motion"; it is the motion of whatever particle. He has no clue what he's talking about. None whatsoever.

As an easier thing to understand, and you can verify this empirically, take a car and drive it in a large circle. Measure its speed. Measure how long it takes to get back to the original point. The circumference is not 4 times the diameter. Clearly, pi = 3.14 is valid in kinematics as well.

[NorseMythology]

Somewhat off topic from our already tangential conversation, have you ever considered why the diameter cannot fully be translated into the circumference? At least as far as we know pi has no end.

[JohnAdams1145]

Somewhat off topic from our already tangential conversation, have you ever considered why the diameter cannot fully be translated into the circumference? At least as far as we know pi has no end.

So? There's limiting behavior that approaches pi. That's what limits and calculus were developed around. This is the same concept as adding 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 1; you never get there, but you get arbitrarily close.

It's still a far cry from pi = 4, regardless of how you slice it. The ratio gets progressively closer to pi as you increase the size of the circle. (Of course, for all intents and purposes, it is pi at measurable scales)

[NorseMythology]

Somewhat off topic from our already tangential conversation, have you ever considered why the diameter cannot fully be translated into the circumference? At least as far as we know pi has no end.

So? There's limiting behavior that approaches pi. That's what limits and calculus were developed around. This is the same concept as adding 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 1; you never get there, but you get arbitrarily close.

It's still a far cry from pi = 4, regardless of how you slice it. The ratio gets progressively closer to pi as you increase the size of the circle. (Of course, for all intents and purposes, it is pi at measurable scales)

I didn't ask that in relation to pi=4, just wondering if you ever thought about it or why it is.