It’s time to put the entertainment industry that is SHMOP to one side and to take a peek at how we attempt to describe actual reality that doesn’t have anything to do with feelings.
The maths is all beyond me but on a practical level I would have got myself a large pointy stick and a couple of logs (rollers) to move the crate along!
I have no problem with vectors when it comes to classical physics (Newtonian mechanics). But when quantum state vectors enter the picture, my brain explodes. So I'm very much looking forward to your next article about this.
I wouldn't be me if Iidn't muck about with your examples (yeah I know the crate is a symbol, not an actual crate).
1) What's in the crate? Loose items? Fluid? Live animals? Those things affect how you can pull, push and lift.
2) What's the crate made of?
3) How did you attach the rope? Did you loop it around the crate, is it strung through a metal ring hammered into the crate, or some other manner of attachment?
4) Depending on the crate's material, being on an ice rink won't help more than it hinders. Imagine the difference between a rough-hewn coarse and non-sanded wooden crate and a smooth plastic one.
5) Winches, come-a-longs, pulleys and telling Steve and Nigel to get it done before they take off for tiffins, the lazy gits.
Not sure how that'd fit in with quantum mechanics, but having been the odd-job man several times and having worked in logistics and driving forklifts in between teaching gigs, I'm fairly certainthat actual reality is so messy with detail, maths is most useful when designing and finding out stuff helping usto deal with that detail.
Like this: Micha has driven the indoors-only forklift outside and has managed to go off the asphalt and onto (and given the weight of the forklift, into) the bare dirt. The object of the exercise is to move the forklift back onto the asphalt using only Pavel, Micha, Mirek, Rikard and Dragan, the forklift itself and three dozen towlines and similar of varying degrees of frazzled-ness and length, meaning their given max load is pure conjecture.
This is a real-life example, that happened.
I'm willing to bet that the men mentioned got it done faster than any number of people capable of doing the math would have - simple mechanics is sort-of built in to us, or something like that. Building something that way though... Iron Age longhouses and dragon ships are probably the limit there.
I think it was more trial and error - so Romanesque was very over engineered, and they just kept going higher and thinner until you get the High Gothic of Chartres. Salisbury cathedral had three goes at building their tower before it stayed up - over about 150 years I think. Actually I think they did have a kind of “high math / physics” which was passed on through the Masonic guilds, and eventually into freemasonry, but I think fundamentally they just did stuff - and got paid if it didn’t fall down.
The maths is all beyond me but on a practical level I would have got myself a large pointy stick and a couple of logs (rollers) to move the crate along!
Is SHMOP pronounced as in mop or mope? I can see either working.
I have no problem with vectors when it comes to classical physics (Newtonian mechanics). But when quantum state vectors enter the picture, my brain explodes. So I'm very much looking forward to your next article about this.
I love your mind.
I wouldn't be me if Iidn't muck about with your examples (yeah I know the crate is a symbol, not an actual crate).
1) What's in the crate? Loose items? Fluid? Live animals? Those things affect how you can pull, push and lift.
2) What's the crate made of?
3) How did you attach the rope? Did you loop it around the crate, is it strung through a metal ring hammered into the crate, or some other manner of attachment?
4) Depending on the crate's material, being on an ice rink won't help more than it hinders. Imagine the difference between a rough-hewn coarse and non-sanded wooden crate and a smooth plastic one.
5) Winches, come-a-longs, pulleys and telling Steve and Nigel to get it done before they take off for tiffins, the lazy gits.
Not sure how that'd fit in with quantum mechanics, but having been the odd-job man several times and having worked in logistics and driving forklifts in between teaching gigs, I'm fairly certainthat actual reality is so messy with detail, maths is most useful when designing and finding out stuff helping usto deal with that detail.
Like this: Micha has driven the indoors-only forklift outside and has managed to go off the asphalt and onto (and given the weight of the forklift, into) the bare dirt. The object of the exercise is to move the forklift back onto the asphalt using only Pavel, Micha, Mirek, Rikard and Dragan, the forklift itself and three dozen towlines and similar of varying degrees of frazzled-ness and length, meaning their given max load is pure conjecture.
This is a real-life example, that happened.
I'm willing to bet that the men mentioned got it done faster than any number of people capable of doing the math would have - simple mechanics is sort-of built in to us, or something like that. Building something that way though... Iron Age longhouses and dragon ships are probably the limit there.
Chartres Cathedral?
Had to lookit up, but I'd guess some math went into building it?
Longhouse you can build with an axe. Maybe if one wants to be technical about it, making sure the logs and beams are the right length is maths.
I think it was more trial and error - so Romanesque was very over engineered, and they just kept going higher and thinner until you get the High Gothic of Chartres. Salisbury cathedral had three goes at building their tower before it stayed up - over about 150 years I think. Actually I think they did have a kind of “high math / physics” which was passed on through the Masonic guilds, and eventually into freemasonry, but I think fundamentally they just did stuff - and got paid if it didn’t fall down.
Ok, this much I can understand because it is so concrete. Am I gonna be able to draw arrows for Part II and relate it to moving furniture?
Moving furniture is generally done using sociology:
"Dear, could you move the sofa to under the window, I need to see how the sunlight affects it and the drapes when they're next to each other."
Often leading to:
"Oh look at that differently coloured square in the wallpaper where the sofa was! Honey, you need to re-paper the living room this weekend!"