Dear George, magnanimous as you are, you do not seem to have understood my
text. I did NOT find the 'h' (not even with the little line on it). However:
the generous prize, even with today's lousy gold prizes, amounts (for the 5
million atoms) to $4.8x10^-16, which amount I pray to deposit to my checking
account. - OR: Maybe my philosophical stance will forfeit your generosity?
I don't speak for Russell, he DID find the h and so deserves the prize
anyway.
John Mikes
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Levy" <GLevy.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2001 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: Planck semantics
> John Mikes and Russell Standish deserve the prestidigitation prize for
finding
> Plank's constant! The prize is worth ten million in gold,which they will
share
> and which, I am glad to announce, is in my financial capacity to award
them.
> Since their prodigious feat was performed by simply selecting the units
used in
> expressing h, the prize will also be formulated in a similar fashion. The
unit
> used to express the prize will be the gold atom. Ten million gold atoms
shared
> between them will make each of them a multimillionaire. Congratulations to
both
> of you!
>
> George Levy
>
> John Mikes wrote:
>
> > > George Levy wrote (Re: Leibnitz semantics): - SNIP, - Russell
answered:
> > > In what way is the digits of Planck's constant an objective? The
> > > numerical value of Planck's constant is determined by the system of
> > > measurements you choose. If you use Planck units (Planck length,
planck
> > > time, Planck mass), Planck's constant is trivially 1.
> > >
> > > Of more interest is to ask why the human body is an astronomical
> > > number of Planck units high, and why our body mass is so high, and why
we
> > > think so slowly. After all, the units of metre, kilogramme and second
> > > are chosen to be within an order of magnitude or two of our own
> > > physiological measurements.
> > >
> > > Of course I can give numerous speculations as to why this might be,
> > > but I won't for the moment.
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > >
> > Thank you, Russell, for your wise comment. Indeed, IMO Planck's 'units'
are
> > a quantized semantics of a philosophical identification about our
physical
> > system.
> > Our present observation does not go further than the (now unobservable)
> > Planck measures. So the Planck unit is - yes - trivially "1" (for us),
but I
> > cannot take it for granted in a wider view with a possible further
> > "structural" resolution of it.
> >
> > On your second par: we are still hooked into our anthropocentric system
of
> > quantities. We may think so slowly, because our mass (inertia,
whatever) is
> > so "big". Relative to what? the universe thinks (changes) much slower.
> >
> > John Mikes
> > <jamikes.domain.name.hidden>
> > "http://pages.prodigy.net/jamikes"
>
Received on Mon Apr 02 2001 - 13:54:36 PDT