Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00190)

Unscientifically speaking, all liars are cretans. That way we would know who not to trust.
Cass

stevestubbs <stevestubbs@yahoo.com> wrote:


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky wrote:
> Radians are defined in terms of pi. Regardless of the uses of pi, 
or 
> means of calculating it, pi is DEFINED a the ratio between the 
> circumference and the diameter of a circle.

Aw, you're just jealous because you worship volcanoes and I don't.

Anyway, I have to thank you for a far more interesting topic than the 
usual stuff about how Leadbeater was a divine being and how his lies 
are really just manifestations of something occult that nobody can 
hope to understand or some other silly humbug like that. That kind 
of pathetic drivel gets to be too much after awhile. It is nice to 
see someone come up with something interesting for a change.

So here's one for you. You probably know that according to 
relativity theory time slows down and space contracts in the vicinity 
of a gravitational field. So that if the field is sufficiently 
intense time and space both vanish. This phenomenon, known as the 
Schwarzschild radius, theoretically can exist inside a large mass 
(such as a star or even a planet.) But in the case of a neutron star 
it exists outside the mass which sustains it.

If you were to approach this phenomenon in a space ship, since time 
and space are both contracting as you approach it, it seems to me you 
would never actually arrive, but merely approach it as it were 
asymptotically. There seems to be some controversy about this, but I 
would think it would effectively appear to be at infinity. So here's 
the question:

If space vanishes at the Schwarzschild radius, then how is it that 
the mass of the neutron star can be inside it. How is it meaningful 
to say that there is an "inside" if there is no space? I think I 
know the answer, but I put this to the self-proclaimed genius Marilyn 
vos Savant, who claims to know everything, and no response, heh, 
heh. Anyway, tell me your take on it.

Here is another which is simpler and which has long since been 
solved, yet very few people know the answer.

Epimenides of Crete became famous for the statement "All Cretans are 
liars," which is a paradoxical statement because the person who 
originated it (Epimenides) was a Cretan. I think a more elegant 
statement of the same paradox is the modern form "This statement is 
not true." Unraveling this one led to a very elegant theory 
published by two British mathematicians some seventy or so years 
ago. Comments?







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