[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index] 

Re: inertial/gravitational - real 3-body problem in the news

Hi Dan,

Wow, it's a good thing it's raining here, I'm glued to the computer all morning!

Devil's Advocate, eh? (Nice play on words...)

How about if we turn this around and look at it from the other direction:

How many ways (feasible solutions) can we come up with to solve the problem of an asteroid on a collision course with our planet? Might we miss any feasible solutions if we rely entirely on state-based models and "numerical approximations"? Would we be worse off if we add relational thinking to this process? Does a "spacecraft that might alter the course of the asteroid" constitute our best chance/only chance to save ourselves? (Incidentally, this isn't quite the same as a three body problem, because it isn't the spacecraft, itself, that is intended to solve the problem, just by existing in some relation with the other two bodies.) On the other hand, would it be possible to invoke some other entity to act as a "third body" that DOES have the capacity to alter orbital trajectories, simply by it's existence/relation with the other two bodies? How would we figure that out? (I'm visualizing something along the lines of... the asteroid is projected to pass by one of Jupiter's moons at such and such a time/date/year and we have time to send a warhead to rendezvous with that moon before the asteroid would pass through that space... or something along these lines).

Incidentally, I have always observed that scientists involve a ton of relational thinking, even now, without recognizing that they do it. It's not formalized so it's invisible/obscured... But, if they could somehow be made to recognize it and then really took a cold, hard look at what it means, they would have to either stop doing it or change the paradigm and the rules (which is exactly a description of my father's career, as a matter of fact). I think the spacecraft aspect in your scenario is the smoking gun (the wordplay just keeps suggesting itself, somehow) which makes the relational thinking in their equation visible-- in that they actually mean for the spacecraft (third body) to act/interact in an anticipatory way.

Too bad that "final causation" is verboten in science, isn't it?

Judith
Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Nov 16, 2005, at 10:40 AM, Dan Fiscus wrote:

Judith, Tim and all,

Here's a recent news story of a 3-body system in which
1) state-based models are functional and effective, at
least via numerical approximations, and 2) the stakes
and value of this reductionistic, state-based approach
are high. The three bodies are 1) asteroid that may hit
2) the Earth and 3) spacecraft that might alter the
course of asteroid to avoid collision.

(May need a free register to Washington Post to see
this)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110902204.html

Devil's advocate issue...maybe we have to be more
specific about right and wrong, maybe by citing utility
or functional value or cost/benefit, etc.?

Dan


Judith Rosen wrote:

The phrase that grabbed me is "It's not that the state-based equations are wrong..."
snip
In this instance,/_ his whole point was that the state-based equations ARE wrong._/ They are inherently wrong, if our definition of wrong means "does not commute with reality" but they are able to be less wrong in some contexts and more wrong in others.
snip
On Nov 14, 2005, at 10:23 PM, Tim Gwinn wrote:

If one pictures a 3-body system, and the set of state-based
equations involved, they requires that one body be considered an
inertial system being forced by the other two (gravitational)
bodies. So we have drawn a box, as it were, around the first body
and said: this is the system, all else (namely, the two other
bodies) is the environment of the system. A very tractable problem.
But then, this division into system and environment must be repeated
for the other two bodies in turn, and all the equations must be
solved simultaneously.
snip
Its not
that the state-based equations are wrong, but they are limited in
what aspects they can model about the three-body system. And if we
break the system apart reductionistically, then we lose the
/relationship/ of a body pushing on other bodies which push on it.