On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 10:28:40AM -0400, John Clark wrote: > On Sat, Oct 25, 2014 at 2:41 AM, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> > wrote: > > > If you sample the Geiger counter every second, and ask the question "has > > an electron triggered the counter in the previous second", one > > gets a sequence of zeros and ones, that is bounded only by the length of > > time we're prepared to continue performing this operation. This is not a > > "few dozen digits at best" that you claim. > > > Yes, if you used a arbitrarily large number of electrons you could get a > arbitrarily large number of digits, and you could do the same thing with a > arbitrarily large number of dice. But if physics works by Real Numbers why > can't we do the same thing with just one fundamental particle like one > electron? Again I'm not claiming to have a answer I'm just asking a > question. >
Assuming that position lies on a continuum, and assuming that our technological prowess shows no bounds to how accurate we can measure something, then yes, we could continuing measuring the same particle with continuously improved measuring devices, and obtain a noncomputable sequence. But what I proposed with the Geiger counter is easier to do, and sufficient for the point. > > > > The sequence is, as you concur, likely to be not computable > > > If it's not computable it doesn't follow that non-computable numbers must > be causing the electrons to do what they do, nothing at all may be causing > it to do what it does. After all, there is no law of logic that demands > every event have a cause. > I don't know where you're going with that ramble. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
