Can you completely destory one of the three dimensions of breadth,lenght and depth?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by river, Jun 29, 2017.

  1. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    Sure it can. Look at temperature scales: Celsius put his zero at the freezing point of water; Fahrenheit put his zero a little lower and Kelvin put his zero a lot lower. Look at altitudes: On an aircraft zero altitude might be considered to be sea level or it might be considered to be the altitude above sea level of the airfield that it intends to land on; to a spacecraft, zero might be the center of the earth.

    Zero can represent any real-world value. It's just a position on a scale, like any other number.

    Don't confuse zero with nothing.
     
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  3. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    If something has only two dimensions, that doesn't mean that the third dimensions has been "destroyed".
     
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  5. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Mixing human applications or imagination with mathematical constants.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2017
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    That is mixing human imagination with mathematical functions.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2017
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Mixing human applications with mathematical constants is a bad idea
    That's why the dictionary has a list of different definitions for specific applications.

    In Mathematics zero = 0, does not equal 32.

    It would the same as saying 1 = 2.54

    They express a relationship when used in a specific application, but not you can't mix them willy nilly.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2017
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    It is entirely possible to describe a 2D plane (a triangle) by connecting 3 points. You can create a 3th dimension by adding a connecting 4th point (a tetrahedron). By a reverse mathematical function you can remove that point and return to a 2D plane.

    By your logic a triangle can mathematically represent a decahedron, an octahedron, a dodecahedron, etc. But that is not how Mathematics functions.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2017
  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    It is entirely possible to describe a 2D plane (a triangle) by connecting 3 points. You can create a 3th dimension by adding a connecting 4th point (a tetrahedron). By a reverse mathematical function you can remove that point and return to a 2D plane.

    By your logic a triangle can mathematically represent a decahedron, an octahedron, a dodecahedron, etc. But that is not how Mathematics functions.

    Remember; "input of two or more defined values must result in a single defined output" It's a law of mathematics
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2017
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I did not say that. I said zero has no value in and of itself.....difference!
     
  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I agree, it just means it has two dimensions. How it got there is entirely beside the point.

    The 2D plane of a sphere does not mean a third dimension has been destroyed. It never had one.
     
  13. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    And? What's wrong with that?
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Theoretically nothing. We can draw an entire blue-print of the house and every room.
    But for practical purposes you can not use an imaginary wall to build your house. It would not offer much physical protection from the elements. Witness Trump's great wall along the imaginary border.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2017
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    deleted for duplication.
     
  16. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    What does that have to do with the topic? I'm not the one who's claiming you can "destroy" a dimension. I'm just trying to show that zero is a number like any other number.
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    OK, it's off topic, but I agree that zero is used in our decimal and binary numerical systems. It jus doesn't have a value in and off itself. It indicates the absence of a value. In computer science zero = off (the absence of energetic value)
    In the decimal system it was demonstrated that in the number 102 the zero stands for the absence of any tens in the value of the number. These simple equations prove that zero has no causal value; x . o = 0 , x : 0 = x, x + 0 = x, x - 0 = x
    -1 = negative causal value, 0 = no causal value, +1 = positive causal value,
    Zero is a placemat, a point of departure, an imaginary dimensional location without properties in and of itself.
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2017
  18. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    You can invent coordinate systems like that, and they can even be useful for some purposes.

    In regular 3D space, though, what we find is that you can't have more than three directions that are all mutually linearly independent of one another. In terms of the mathematics of linear algebra, the basis vectors can only be linearly independent and still cover the whole of space if there are exactly three of them.

    For example, suppose you take as two basis vectors the x and y directions. Then, instead of z you choose to use two vectors v and w, each at 45 degrees to the x axis, and perpendicular to the y axis, say. If you do that, you'll find that when you write down all four vectors x, y, v, w, any one of the vectors x, v and w can be expressed as a linear combination of the other two, making them linearly dependent on one another. Therefore, that set of 4 vectors does not form a mathematical basis for 3 dimensional space. If you toss one of the three vectors out (choose any of x, v or w), and keep y, then you have a workable basis again, and only 3 basic directions, as expected.
     
  19. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    No. It indicates zero value.

    Consider temperature, for example. If I say the temperature outside is \(0^\circ\)C, that doesn't mean there's no temperature outside. Temperature isn't absent. It has a specific, measurable, value, which happens to be denoted by the number zero.

    Zero is just a number, like any other. It is a little special in part because it happens to be the additive identity element in arithmetic, which just means that for any \(x\) we have \(x + 0 = x\). Also, unlike other rational numbers, it has no multiplicative inverse in normal arithmetic, which means that there is no number \(x\) for which \(0.x = 1\).

    That's just a representation of the number. It says nothing about the number itself.

    No. Zero is just the number of tens in the number.

    What do you mean by "causal value"? That is not a term I have come across in mathematics. (Neither is "quadrahedron", for that matter, while we're talking about terms for things.)

    Wrong. I just gave you one property above, and you even gave a few yourself.
     
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  20. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry, could not adjust my responses to the format you used .Everything got jumbled.

    But thanks for the info. It encourages me to look deeper into the value of zero.
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2017
  21. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    And I said in the number 102, the zero indicates how many tens there are, namely zero/none.

    But I think this is a mostly semantic quibble. We could just as easily write "102" as "1_2", and if we did that consistently then over time everybody would recognise the meaning of "_". But remember when we write "102" we're really writing shorthand. We understand the meaning:

    \(102 = 1\times 10^2 + 0\times 10^1 + 2\times 10^0\)

    And here, on the right-hand side, the "0" is playing the role of a regular number, multiplying that factor of \(10^1\).

    Incidentally, using zero in this way was an important step in the history of mathematics. The Romans, for example, would have written "CII" instead of "102", and they didn't have a zero. But to add "102" to "612" was then a problem of adding "CII" to "DCXII", which is a bit of headache. There's no approach that works consistently for any numbers. Even worse, if you want to add, say, 9 + 6. If you're Roman you have to add "IX" to "VI" to somehow get "XV".

    I don't know what that means. How can a value cause anything?

    Give me an example of a value that has a positive potential.

    The term "tetrahedron" is often used by mathematicians. I don't think I've come across "quadrahedron", and a brief google search shows that it doesn't seem to be a commonly used mathematical term.
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2017
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    +1

    In regard to the identification of hedra, I refer back to my post # 52
     
  23. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I'll reboot. Perhaps I can preview my responses as they should appear.
    Going for a cup of coffee.....

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     

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