Vladimir Krondan: But along you come and say everyone was positively shocked by 4 dimensions. That's positively shocking.

My Goodness! Try not to choke on that bone.

I'm not sure you're making any point of merit. I provided quite reasonable support for the assertion that relativity had a substantial impact on culture, including the idea of 4-dimensional curves in space-time.

Rather than causing you to choke, and to avoid belaboring such an obvious point, I also suggested that you can substitute whatever bland adjective you prefer. Again, let me suggest eyebrow-raising.

[Zachriel] A four-dimensional universe was positively shocking.

[Krondan] To whom?

[Zachriel] Einstein's theory can certainly be described, and is described by historians, as shocking.

I did not ask you who found relativity shocking. I asked you who found a four-dimensional universe "positively shocking."

The Tait-Hamilton school of geometry was essentially 4-dimensional and anyone forced to suffer through it (in some universities at the time) had to live with that. In 1877 the astronomer Newcomb published "Elementary Theorems relating to the Geometry of a Space of three Dimensions and of uniform positive Curvature in the fourth Dimension." Clifford, Lie, and Klein had their own 4-dimensional (or more) physical theories. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions was a very popular book, and that was written in 1884. While perhaps not "positively shocked", Ernst Mach did express disgust at the proliferation of other-dimension theories, and that was around the turn of the century, which means they were already numerous and popular.

But along you come and say everyone was positively shocked by 4 dimensions. That's positively shocking.

Zachriel: A four-dimensional universe was positively shocking.

Vladimir Krondan: To whom?

Zachriel: Most everybody.

Vladimir Krondan: For example?

I cited period newspaper articles, a specialist in science writing, a science historian, and even Einstein. The public reaction to the confirmation of Einstein's theory can certainly be described, and is described by historians, as shocking.

But you may substitute whatever bland adjective you prefer. Let me suggest eyebrow-raising.

[Zachriel] Equivalent in this case means the typical treatment of space-time as a 4-dimensional Lorentzian manifold.

What do you mean? In a typical treatment, time dilates while length contracts. That's not equivalent. But if you mean that they are equivalent in the sense that they are treated consistently in the formalism, then okay - but then x and p can be considered equivalent in such a sense too.

the London Times: "The Revolution In Science/Einstein Versus Newton." The New York Times: "Lights All Askew In The Heavens/Men Of Science More Or Less Agog…

Peter Galison : With that shock, the foundation of Newtonian physics cracked; James Gleick Humanity was standing on a brink… All this was shocking and revolutionary and yet strangely attractive, to the public as well as scientists…

Well, we know about headlines like "Newton Overturned" and such. It seems that the flabbergasted ones were (and are) the journalists and pop-science writers, since they never miss an opportunity to tell us how everyone was flabbergasted. And they throw in some "Humanity was on the brink" type drama too, just to make it a little more painful to read. It's embarrassing.

Turning to primary sources and not journalists, we learn that Hamilton was convinced that time was a kind of 4-th dimension or something to that effect, which bore the relationship to algebra which space bears to geometry. He even called this Space-and-Time. His thoughts in that direction began in the late 1830s and were further resolved when he discovered quaternions. He being the foremost "Newtonian" too. So if you are looking for something shocking about relativity, you should look elsewhere than 4-vectors and space-time.

As for Galison, the crack he refers to must be in his own head. Classical mechanics is doing quite well, better than ever; it hasn't gone the way of geocentric theory; no, the "newtonians" were not jumping out of windows after the physics Black Tuesday; and look: the formalism of Hamilton even carries over nicely into quantum mechanics.

Vladimir Krondan: For example?

On November 8, 1919, for example, the London Times had an article headlined: "The Revolution In Science/Einstein Versus Newton." Two days later, The New York Times' headlines read: "Lights All Askew In The Heavens/Men Of Science More Or Less Agog Over Results Of Eclipse Observations/Einstein Theory Triumphs."

Peter Galison (science historian and Prof. of History at Harvard): With that shock, the foundation of Newtonian physics cracked; Einstein knew it.

James Gleick (author, journalist, and biographer, specializing in the cultural ramifications of science and technology): All this was shocking and revolutionary and yet strangely attractive, to the public as well as scientists.

Einstein: I have become rather like King Midas, except that everything turns not into gold but into a circus.

There's an important difference between not being religious because you haven't yet received the religious meme, and having received but rejected it.

The athiestic push toward believing in a universe that came into existence from natural causes actually has its roots in the presocratic philosophers, and especially the three Milesians on the Ionian coast: Thales (universe made up of water), Aniximander (the universe made up of a substance that is boundless, unlimited, and unobservable), and Anaximenes (air). These three were particularly athiestic, believing in a natural cosmogony, and rejecting the notion that the universe was the creation of a group of gods. That many of the presocratic natural philosophers also believed in animism, in which all objects were alive, does not detract from their rejection of the established religion of gods led by Zeus.

In fact, it is because of the athiestic tendencies of many of the presocratic philosophers that we even have science as we know it today.

I like you regardless.

I just find you more interesting when you demonstrate independent thinking. Your last comment is a good example of that, IMO.

Regards,
TP

im unsure if you are still checking this post, but i felt like responding to your previous comment….so here goes

againt sam harris' statement that religion promots irrationalism and dogmatism and science and athiesm are less likely to do so:

as one set of examples, the athiests in my own personal life and some of the ones i have come across in the scholarly world, treat their athiesm as an informed rational nondogmatic choice, a neutral philosophy picked up from the evidence. like harris, they praise critical thinking, rationality, antidogma, and in harris' case, science as a good teacher of rational discourse. However, the same atheists i know, who champion those qualities, are so irrational, dogmatic, and uncritical about their atheism that it is striking. and not only their atheism, but a good portion of their lives public and private. they claim their atheism is a rational informed choice, while it appears to be anything but. this does not mean ALL atheists are irrational, dogmatic, or uncritical about their atheism. i am merely providing another set of examples that harris has left out. in fact i would go so far as to say the idea of rationality itself, whom these atheists i know champion in a very similiar way as harris, they contradict on a regular basis, even in regards to their religious choices.

bottom line then: against harris, i dont find that those who champion rationality and the like, actually use rationality. i find harris and dawkins to "perform gymnastics" (harris has used this term in relation for religion apologetics) to defend their "rational, neutral, informed" athiesm.

i hope that helps.

also….i figure you like me better when you figure im "thinking for myself" or "not speaking for other people". honestly, as a member of the new generation, i dont much care if i am or am not thinking for myself, or speaking or not speaking for anyone else. does this mean you wont like me sometimes? alright, cool.

Am I an Atheist?

Was Socrates (470 BC) an Atheist?

Provoking Thought

Vladimir Krondan: Well, as the story goes atheism is merely the "absence of belief in God", nothing more. In this sense, a turnip is an atheist. And therefore the very thing which makes Dawkins an atheist, just so happpens to be a characteristic which he shares with a turnip. Turnips and other vegetables have been around for some time.

Can you tell the difference between a turnip and a human civilization? Here's a hint: one of them has historically never been atheist until very recently; the other one, I wasn't talking about.

There's an important difference between not being religious because you haven't yet received the religious meme, and having received but rejected it. Dawkins, unlike a turnip, is well aware that religion exists and is familiar with what it consists of. Atheism, in the Dawkins sense, is a new development, considering the timescale on which civilization has existed. Atheism, in the turnip sense, isn't particularly interesting. (If you can think of some good research questions involving turnip-Atheism, I've love to hear them.)