Author: Peter Fendrich
Date: 05:36:08 08/19/98
Go up one level in this thread
On August 19, 1998 at 07:13:52, fca wrote: >On August 19, 1998 at 06:20:56, Peter Fendrich wrote: > >>I think the typical physician solution is: >>The brothers will meet in 1 1/4 hour. >>The dog, runing back and forth, will during that time reach 8 miles/h * 1 1/4 h >>= 10 miles > >>The mathematician approach is in a way more 'lazy' than the physician. >>I think the typical mathematician answear would be: >>The brothers are reachig each other with a speed of 8 miles/h which is the same >>speed as the dog is running. >>The dog must run the same distance as the brothers are walking, 10 miles. > >Which reply I gave earlier in the thread ;-) > >But.... > >You have got it completely the wrong way around, Peter. the answer is inside the >circle. :-) > >(1) Relative velocity is a concept far too complex for most mathematicians - it >is fraught with existence-type problems, and the general relativity involved as >they started off would send the math-head into rigor *tensor*; > >(2) Multiplication of reals without having established the closeness of the >operation to that set is something a phys-head would only undertake under >supervision of a math-guy - or would it not occur to him? > >(3) Thet the straight-line was indeed the shortest distance would not occur to >the math-guy, without the problem having been better stated to begin with. I >suggest an orthogonal prefix something along the lines "Consider a bijection >from RXRXR to R wherein [snipped in advance of trouble]..." > >(4) The phys-head would frighten the math-guy away from the faster solution with >talk of the dangerous of confusing vectors and scalars, some varied irrelevant >Heisenberg references, a paradox or two > >I see a non-Dedekind cut being brought in here, so... > >More interesting to me is how would the **computer chess guy** solve this sort >of problem? If the answer involves bean-counting, or paradigms of any flavour, >or fairy chess, please follow this up somewhere else > >Kind regards > >fca Well maybe we don't know the same type of guys. There are physicians and there are physicians as well as for the math-guys... In my profession I mostly get in touch with engineers and that's another story completely! They would certainly solve this but start thinking about what would *really* happen here. The dog is say 1 meter in length and can't possible run 8 miles/h when it's only 3 meters left to run and furthermore when it's 1 meter left he cant run at all. The answear should be 10 miles minus 1 meter minus some decreasing factor for the last few meters. Let's try it in the lab! And so on... :)) //Peter
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.