Steven D'Aprano <st...@remove-this-cybersource.com.au> writes: > But that depends on what you call "things"... if electron shells are real > (and they seem to be) and discontinuous, and the shells are predicted/ > specified by eigenvalues of some continuous function, is the continuous > function part of nature or just a theoretical abstraction?
Again, electron shells came up in the context of a question about quantum theory, which is a mathematical theory involving continuous operators. That theory appears to very accurately model and predict observable natural phenomena. Is the real physical mechanism underneath observable nature actually some kind of discrete "checkers game" to which quantum theory is merely a close approximation? Maybe, but there's not a predictive mathematical theory like that right now, and even if there was, we'd be back to the question of just how it is that the checkers get from one place to another. > By the way, the reason you can't do to a pea in reality what you can do > with a mathematical abstraction of a pea is because peas are made of > discontinuous atoms. Not so much discontinuity, as the physical unreality of non-measurable sets. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
