"Randy" wrote in message news:lWk9b.43$Qy4.2964@typhoon01...
"Catherine Hampton" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 03:46:33 GMT, Sam Wormley wrote:

Are you trolling Greenfield? There is no edge--everywhere is the center.

I doubt he's trolling. This is a misunderstanding I've bumped into among
non-science people time and again when they're trying to understand
space-time.

My experience is that the "mental map" most people have of space-time
isn't
too different from what Newton held, although (of course) nowhere near as
sophisticated. Most people are slaves to their mental images of reality;
they
might know, but don't really accept, that space-time as a whole can't be
painted and doesn't "look" like any picture their minds can build. It
takes a
non-trivial grasp of mathematics (well past the standard high school two
years
of Algebra, one year of Geometry, and perhaps one of Trigonometry) before
a
person has the mental tools to begin to understand just how strange the
universe is.

Isn't it wonderful? Not that so few people have those tools, but that at
least
some do?

It's wonderful if you have the tools, but it's *damned* frustrating when you
don't.

I *hate* not being able to understand stuff and I have to admit I just don't
get some (or maybe even most LOL) of modern cosmology.

Many questions, but no desire for ridicule. ;-)

Observe, Randy, that the ridicule is directly proportional to the
contradictions in the opposing arguement.
Here we have Catherine, her tools in hand, come to insult and
belittle.
But take a closer look at her arsenal! (-1 x (-1) = +1 (to her) AND
she reserves the right to use the square root of (-1) to 'prove'
something with her magic and imaginary formula. Why not just use her
hair brush? That is just as convincing to those who refuse to swallow
this R and BB crap!!

Jim G

--
-Randy (OF+)
'Up the stairs.
Into the fire.'