Timeline for Why don't we define absolute coordinates?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 27, 2014 at 16:04 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @rijulgupta, you seem to be avoiding the essential question: what, on your understanding of the word absolute, distinguishes "conventional absolute origin" from "conventional non-absolute origin"? | |
| May 27, 2014 at 13:19 | comment | added | Rijul Gupta | Don't we have several conventional non-absolute origins like the earth, the sun, center of galaxy and so on; Don't we use a conventional non-absolute origin each time we make an astronomical observation? I would not emphasize it, but both may be just as meaningful and useful as one another | |
| May 27, 2014 at 10:54 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @rijulgupta, I still do not understand what a conventional absolute origin could mean to you. What, if conventional absolute origin is meaningful, is a conventional non-absolute origin? What distinguishes the later from the former? | |
| May 27, 2014 at 9:25 | comment | added | Rijul Gupta | Just fyi, I did actually mean a conventional absolute origin and nothing of the sorts relating to absolute rest. | |
| May 27, 2014 at 1:46 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @shep, you are correct, my interpretation of absolute in "absolute origin" is the same as, for example absolute in "absolute rest": mathpages.com/home/kmath686/kmath686.htm and not as in conventional. | |
| May 27, 2014 at 0:48 | comment | added | Shep | I think both of these terms are a confused mouthful, but the general point is that this answer fixates too much on the "absolute" in the original post. My guess would be that @rijulgupta meant "absolute" to mean something like "standard" or "official", whereas your interpenetration seems to hinge on "absolute" meaning "non-arbitrary". | |
| May 26, 2014 at 23:59 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @Shep, well, let's try this. If "absolute arbitrary origin" is meaningful, then so must "non-absolute arbitrary origin". What, on your understanding of absolute, would distinguish these two origins? | |
| May 26, 2014 at 23:40 | comment | added | Shep | No, I get how a bachelor can't be married, and if I didn't I could look in a dictionary. But I look up "absolute origin" and I don't see any history of this term being mutually exclusive with "arbitrarily chosen origin". Did I miss something? Does "absolute" imply more than I understood it to? (as I understand it the OPs question reads exactly the same if "absolute" is removed) | |
| May 26, 2014 at 23:30 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @Shep, there's nothing wrong with choosing an origin for a coordinate system and my answer doesn't imply that there is. As for a reference that an absolute origin can't be arbitrary, would you also like a reference for why a bachelor can't be married? | |
| May 26, 2014 at 23:01 | comment | added | Shep | @AlfredCentauri, I'm really confused by this answer: what's wrong with choosing an origin for a coordinate system? Do you have a reference for your claim that an "absolute origin" can't be arbitrary? | |
| May 25, 2014 at 2:05 | comment | added | Rijul Gupta | I feel a little humiliated that it flew right by me, seems like pretty normal. But that still does not answer either my question or my first comment. Since we are ourselves merely defining it, nothing should stop us from chosing a convenient point in space. | |
| May 24, 2014 at 16:33 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @rijulgupta, what jargon are you referring to? Do you not see that a randomly chosen event is an arbitrary origin, not an absolute origin? Arbitrary: "based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something" | |
| May 24, 2014 at 16:05 | comment | added | Rijul Gupta | this was waaay too complicated for me, please reduce the jargons a bit. | |
| May 24, 2014 at 15:18 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @rijulgupta, I'm saying that it the notion of choosing an absolute origin is incoherent - a contradiction in terms. | |
| May 24, 2014 at 15:03 | comment | added | Rijul Gupta | If the spacetime coordinates and the entire coordinate system we use is man-made and not natural why is it incomprehensible to define an absolute origin along with so much we have defined? I am sorry if I misunderstood, but your answer seems to say that if there were an absolute origin we would find it and not define it. | |
| May 24, 2014 at 14:58 | history | answered | Alfred Centauri | CC BY-SA 3.0 |