Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cbscc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!we13!ihnp4!cbosgd!cbscc!pmd From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: Re: Leaps of Faith Message-ID: <2314@cbscc.UUCP> Date: Wed, 18-Apr-84 09:07:39 EST Article-I.D.: cbscc.2314 Posted: Wed Apr 18 09:07:39 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 20-Apr-84 00:41:48 EST References: <2397@allegra.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus Lines: 27 >Mr. Caplan. I am pretty sure that if a room holds 8 gas molecules, >that in a short while all of them will be on one side for an instant. >If there are 10^30 molecules I am content to believe that it will just >take a little longer. I have a certain naive faith that arithmetic >continues to work even when I run out of fingers and toes to count on. Depends on how big a room you use, doesn't it? It seems to me that you can do a lot with mathematics that doesn't actually happen. Especially if you assume the time available for the event to happen to be infinite (or at least "enough") and that nothing will ever happen during that huge expanse of time to make the event less probable (which would out weigh things that might make it more probable, of course). Does mathematical proof always "prove" that things can happen, or have happened? (Especially when dealing with phenomena that require much time in order to be "probable"). Isn't a mathematical model always simpler than the thing it models? And couldn't that difference in complexity between the actual and the theoretical make the difference between whether or not something is actually possible? Haven't much faith in things that only happen on paper. Paul Dubuc -- Paul Dubuc ihnp4!cbscc!pmd