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The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

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Owen Densmore

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

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OK, what's the verdict? It looks interesting but sounds impossible!

-- Owen

Owen Densmore
http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org

Roger Frye-2

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

I'm only a little more than 10% of the way through this 1100 page book.
The way Penrose is going, it definitely seems possible to cover all of the
math needed to understand many of the modern physical theories. At the
very least, the reader should get a better understanding.

The trick is that he leaves out what you don't need to know and doesn't
prove the hard things. He does give hints in the footnotes and exercises
on how to go further.

I am very put off by his Platonic belief system. The title itself
reflects this world view -- that this math and these theories are the road
to "reality." But maybe that is what let's him achieve so much. He has
no doubt. On the other hand, he regards complex analysis as truly
magical, and he carries the reader with his enthusiasm.
-Roger

On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 14:39:35 -0700, Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net>
wrote:
> OK, what's the verdict? It looks interesting but sounds impossible!

Jochen Fromm-3

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

Scientists in the economic sciences are not the only people
who produce bullshit. Penrose was written so many bad bullshit
books that he has lost nearly his whole scientific credibility
and a lot of his reputation. Perhaps this book is a small
contribution to restore it.

The table of contents looks interesting, but I can not
find the keywords "evolution" or "emergence". Maybe his
mistake is that he believes that there are fixed laws of
the universe. First he completely ignores in his
"complete guide to the laws of the universe" all the
laws of the social, political and biological sciences.
Second he is so twisted in his own twistor theory
that he does not recognize that the laws of nature are
neither fixed nor eternal. They evolve and emerge
together with the actors, elements and particles they
describe.

I think we are in this discussion group much more ahead on
the road to the ulimate laws of the universe than he is
with all his heavy weight mathematics. Although they are
simple, the two basic concepts "evolution" and "emergence"
are much more fundamental than Calabi-Yau spaces and
M-theory.

-J.

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:Friam-bounces at redfish.com] Im Auftrag
von Owen Densmore
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 7. Dezember 2005 22:40
An: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Friam
Betreff: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

OK, what's the verdict? It looks interesting but sounds impossible!

-- Owen

Owen Densmore
http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org

Roger Frye-2

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

Jochen,
I agree. Only the "true" theories are included. No complexity. No
quantum field theory. None of Gell-Mann's interpretation. Just the road
to his reality. Nevertheless, it's a grand road.
-Roger

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 10:13:09 -0700, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de>
wrote:

>
> Scientists in the economic sciences are not the only people
> who produce bullshit. Penrose was written so many bad bullshit
> books that he has lost nearly his whole scientific credibility
> and a lot of his reputation. Perhaps this book is a small
> contribution to restore it.
>
> The table of contents looks interesting, but I can not
> find the keywords "evolution" or "emergence". Maybe his
> mistake is that he believes that there are fixed laws of
> the universe. First he completely ignores in his
> "complete guide to the laws of the universe" all the
> laws of the social, political and biological sciences.
> Second he is so twisted in his own twistor theory
> that he does not recognize that the laws of nature are
> neither fixed nor eternal. They evolve and emerge
> together with the actors, elements and particles they
> describe.
>
> I think we are in this discussion group much more ahead on
> the road to the ulimate laws of the universe than he is
> with all his heavy weight mathematics. Although they are
> simple, the two basic concepts "evolution" and "emergence"
> are much more fundamental than Calabi-Yau spaces and
> M-theory.
>
> -J.
>
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:Friam-bounces at redfish.com] Im
> Auftrag
> von Owen Densmore
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 7. Dezember 2005 22:40
> An: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Friam
> Betreff: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose
>
> OK, what's the verdict? It looks interesting but sounds impossible!
>
> -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore
> http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Robert Holmes-2

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-3

On 12/8/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:
>
>
> <snip> he does not recognize that the laws of nature are
> neither fixed nor eternal. They evolve and emerge
> together with the actors, elements and particles they
> describe.
>

Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they were 100
years ago? I think it more likely that its our mental models of the actors,
elements and particles that evolve rather than the actors, elements and
particles themselves.

Robert
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Hywel White

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

The universe is thought to be expanding at a steady rate. So, the spatial
extent has to change. If electrons have a well defined scale then at least
the way we describe them has to change. Hywel

_____

From: Robert Holmes [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 9:48 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

On 12/8/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:

<snip> he does not recognize that the laws of nature are
neither fixed nor eternal. They evolve and emerge
together with the actors, elements and particles they
describe.

Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they were 100
years ago? I think it more likely that its our mental models of the actors,
elements and particles that evolve rather than the actors, elements and
particles themselves.

Robert
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Russell Standish

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

In reply to this post by Robert Holmes-2

What rot! The space between clusters of galaxies is getting bigger,
but not the space internal to bound systems: atoms, molecules, human
beings, solar systems and so on. So the relative scale between
electrons and humans is not changing.

This will change if the big rip scenario is true, however that won't
be for at least another 20 billion years.

Cheers

On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 02:22:33PM -0700, Hywel White wrote:

> The universe is thought to be expanding at a steady rate. So, the spatial
> extent has to change. If electrons have a well defined scale then at least
> the way we describe them has to change. Hywel
>
> _____
>
> From: Robert Holmes [mailto:rholmes62 at gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 9:48 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose
>
>
> On 12/8/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:
>
> <snip> he does not recognize that the laws of nature are
> neither fixed nor eternal. They evolve and emerge
> together with the actors, elements and particles they
> describe.
>
> Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they were 100
> years ago? I think it more likely that its our mental models of the actors,
> elements and particles that evolve rather than the actors, elements and
> particles themselves.
>
> Robert

> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

--
*PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
may safely ignore this attachment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom Carter

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

In reply to this post by Robert Holmes-2

All -

Ummm . . .

On Dec 9, 2005, at 8:48 AM, Robert Holmes wrote:

> Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they
> were 100 years ago?

Short answer, "Yes." The slogan version of the explanation is
"electrons aren't objects in the World, at which we look, but rather
are part of a way we look at the World." Somewhere around 100 years
ago, an "electron" was "a tiny white (! :-) marble-like object in
orbit around the nucleus of an atom." Ask a quantum theorist today
what an "electron" *really* is, and you're likely to get an answer
something like "a particular way of interpreting a probability
density function, which is a particular solution to Schrodinger's
equation." Has the "nature of an electron" changed in the last
hundred years? Absolutely (!:-), since "electrons" (per se . . .)
only "actually exist" as objects within particular (interpretations
of) physical theories. So, for example, a considered contemporary
answer to the question, "How big is an electron?" is that, since the
domain of definition of the probability density (and, in particular,
the typical domain over which the probability density is non-
zero . . .) is the entire Universe, probably (! :-) the most
meaningful answer to the "How big?" question is, "As big as the
Universe."

When I'm teaching "Philosophy of Science" (either as a separate
course, or as part of some other course), I often take my students
through one of the chestnuts of the "Science wars" (see, for example,
the so-called "Sokol hoax" . . .). Does the force of gravity exist?
Let me "prove" to you that it doesn't. Imagine yourself sitting in
space on a line through the center of the earth normal to the plane
of the moon's orbit around the earth. You see the moon moving in a
circular orbit around the earth. You conclude that the force of
gravity makes the moon's motion curve around the earth. Thus, you
conclude that the force of gravity exists out there "in the world,"
and that you are observing its effects. Now you fall asleep. While
you are sleeping, someone sneaks up to you and gives you a gentle
push. Now, you are rotating in space (around your own center of
mass) at the same rate as the moon revolves around the earth. When
you wake up, you feel no different. You cannot detect "that you are
now rotating" (a la Einstein, there is no "absolute inertial frame,"
so there isn't even a "fact of the matter" about whether you are
rotating or not . . .). You look at the earth-moon system, and
observe that they are just sitting static, unmoving with respect to
each other. There is no longer a "force of gravity" pulling the moon
toward the earth . . . "Gravitational force" is not an object we
observe in the World, but is rather an artifact of a way of looking
at the World (present in some frames of reference, absent in others;
and in particular, there is no "universal absolute frame"). Note
that this is not an argument that "things don't fall," but rather an
argument about our interpretation of "falling," etc.

The argument then, in essence, is that "an electron" is just as
much an artifact of a "way of looking" as is the "gravitational
force." To quote Niels Bohr (a notorious anti-realist, and primary
author of the so-called "Copenhagen Interpretation" of quantum
mechanics), ". . . any observation of atomic phenomena will involve
an interaction with the agency of observation not to be neglected.
Accordingly, an independent reality in the ordinary physical sense
can neither be ascribed to the phenomena nor to the agencies of
observation." (I am particularly charmed by Bohr's inclusion of "the
agencies of observation" in his denial of "independent reality in the
ordinary physical sense." According to Bohr, *we* don't have an
"independent reality" . . .) According to Bohr (and the Copenhagen
Interpretation), the "nature" of atomic phenomena depends in the most
essential and fundamental way on the whole experimental arrangement.

It's not just "what you see depends on how you look," but rather
"what there *is* to see depends on how you look" (in as deep as sense
as you want to mean it) . . .

tom

Robert Holmes-2

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

Hmmm, I'm not convinced. These examples seem to be commenting on the nature
of observation, not the nature of reality. Just because I can't make
measurements on an electron without changing it doesn't mean that the
electron doesn't have some 'real' existence.

And what happens when the electron isn't being observed? Does it stop being
real?

Robert

On 12/9/05, Tom Carter <tom at astarte.csustan.edu> wrote:

>
> All -
>
> Ummm . . .
>
> On Dec 9, 2005, at 8:48 AM, Robert Holmes wrote:
>
> > Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they
> > were 100 years ago?
>
> Short answer, "Yes." The slogan version of the explanation is
> "electrons aren't objects in the World, at which we look, but rather
> are part of a way we look at the World." Somewhere around 100 years
> ago, an "electron" was "a tiny white (! :-) marble-like object in
> orbit around the nucleus of an atom." Ask a quantum theorist today
> what an "electron" *really* is, and you're likely to get an answer
> something like "a particular way of interpreting a probability
> density function, which is a particular solution to Schrodinger's
> equation." Has the "nature of an electron" changed in the last
> hundred years? Absolutely (!:-), since "electrons" (per se . . .)
> only "actually exist" as objects within particular (interpretations
> of) physical theories. So, for example, a considered contemporary
> answer to the question, "How big is an electron?" is that, since the
> domain of definition of the probability density (and, in particular,
> the typical domain over which the probability density is non-
> zero . . .) is the entire Universe, probably (! :-) the most
> meaningful answer to the "How big?" question is, "As big as the
> Universe."
>
> When I'm teaching "Philosophy of Science" (either as a separate
> course, or as part of some other course), I often take my students
> through one of the chestnuts of the "Science wars" (see, for example,
> the so-called "Sokol hoax" . . .). Does the force of gravity exist?
> Let me "prove" to you that it doesn't. Imagine yourself sitting in
> space on a line through the center of the earth normal to the plane
> of the moon's orbit around the earth. You see the moon moving in a
> circular orbit around the earth. You conclude that the force of
> gravity makes the moon's motion curve around the earth. Thus, you
> conclude that the force of gravity exists out there "in the world,"
> and that you are observing its effects. Now you fall asleep. While
> you are sleeping, someone sneaks up to you and gives you a gentle
> push. Now, you are rotating in space (around your own center of
> mass) at the same rate as the moon revolves around the earth. When
> you wake up, you feel no different. You cannot detect "that you are
> now rotating" (a la Einstein, there is no "absolute inertial frame,"
> so there isn't even a "fact of the matter" about whether you are
> rotating or not . . .). You look at the earth-moon system, and
> observe that they are just sitting static, unmoving with respect to
> each other. There is no longer a "force of gravity" pulling the moon
> toward the earth . . . "Gravitational force" is not an object we
> observe in the World, but is rather an artifact of a way of looking
> at the World (present in some frames of reference, absent in others;
> and in particular, there is no "universal absolute frame"). Note
> that this is not an argument that "things don't fall," but rather an
> argument about our interpretation of "falling," etc.
>
> The argument then, in essence, is that "an electron" is just as
> much an artifact of a "way of looking" as is the "gravitational
> force." To quote Niels Bohr (a notorious anti-realist, and primary
> author of the so-called "Copenhagen Interpretation" of quantum
> mechanics), ". . . any observation of atomic phenomena will involve
> an interaction with the agency of observation not to be neglected.
> Accordingly, an independent reality in the ordinary physical sense
> can neither be ascribed to the phenomena nor to the agencies of
> observation." (I am particularly charmed by Bohr's inclusion of "the
> agencies of observation" in his denial of "independent reality in the
> ordinary physical sense." According to Bohr, *we* don't have an
> "independent reality" . . .) According to Bohr (and the Copenhagen
> Interpretation), the "nature" of atomic phenomena depends in the most
> essential and fundamental way on the whole experimental arrangement.
>
> It's not just "what you see depends on how you look," but rather
> "what there *is* to see depends on how you look" (in as deep as sense
> as you want to mean it) . . .
>
> tom
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

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Hywel White

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

Convincing you was not a goal of mine. As far as I am concerned all we can
do is observe. We make a model to explain observations we make and if we
predict results that come to be in the future then we gain confidence in our
model. At least until some new observations come along. In my case I grew
up embedded in a model of the structure of the neutrino. I am delighted to
say that I have had a part in pulling this chimera to the ground. Since
electrons are just neutrinos with charge I anticipate that our model of
charged leptons also will come under stress. Hooray! Hywel

_____

From: Robert Holmes [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 11:18 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

Hmmm, I'm not convinced. These examples seem to be commenting on the nature
of observation, not the nature of reality. Just because I can't make
measurements on an electron without changing it doesn't mean that the
electron doesn't have some 'real' existence.

And what happens when the electron isn't being observed? Does it stop being
real?

Robert

On 12/9/05, Tom Carter <tom at astarte.csustan.edu> wrote:
All -

Ummm . . .

On Dec 9, 2005, at 8:48 AM, Robert Holmes wrote:

> Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they
> were 100 years ago?

Short answer, "Yes." The slogan version of the explanation is
"electrons aren't objects in the World, at which we look, but rather
are part of a way we look at the World." Somewhere around 100 years
ago, an "electron" was "a tiny white (! :-) marble-like object in
orbit around the nucleus of an atom." Ask a quantum theorist today
what an "electron" *really* is, and you're likely to get an answer
something like "a particular way of interpreting a probability
density function, which is a particular solution to Schrodinger's
equation." Has the "nature of an electron" changed in the last
hundred years? Absolutely (!:-), since "electrons" (per se . . .)
only "actually exist" as objects within particular (interpretations
of) physical theories. So, for example, a considered contemporary
answer to the question, "How big is an electron?" is that, since the
domain of definition of the probability density (and, in particular,
the typical domain over which the probability density is non-
zero . . .) is the entire Universe, probably (! :-) the most
meaningful answer to the "How big?" question is, "As big as the
Universe."

When I'm teaching "Philosophy of Science" (either as a separate
course, or as part of some other course), I often take my students
through one of the chestnuts of the "Science wars" (see, for example,
the so-called "Sokol hoax" . . .). Does the force of gravity exist?
Let me "prove" to you that it doesn't. Imagine yourself sitting in
space on a line through the center of the earth normal to the plane
of the moon's orbit around the earth. You see the moon moving in a
circular orbit around the earth. You conclude that the force of
gravity makes the moon's motion curve around the earth. Thus, you
conclude that the force of gravity exists out there "in the world,"
and that you are observing its effects. Now you fall asleep. While
you are sleeping, someone sneaks up to you and gives you a gentle
push. Now, you are rotating in space (around your own center of
mass) at the same rate as the moon revolves around the earth. When
you wake up, you feel no different. You cannot detect "that you are
now rotating" (a la Einstein, there is no "absolute inertial frame,"
so there isn't even a "fact of the matter" about whether you are
rotating or not . . .). You look at the earth-moon system, and
observe that they are just sitting static, unmoving with respect to
each other. There is no longer a "force of gravity" pulling the moon
toward the earth . . . "Gravitational force" is not an object we
observe in the World, but is rather an artifact of a way of looking
at the World (present in some frames of reference, absent in others;
and in particular, there is no "universal absolute frame"). Note
that this is not an argument that "things don't fall," but rather an
argument about our interpretation of "falling," etc.

The argument then, in essence, is that "an electron" is just as
much an artifact of a "way of looking" as is the "gravitational
force." To quote Niels Bohr (a notorious anti-realist, and primary
author of the so-called "Copenhagen Interpretation" of quantum
mechanics), ". . . any observation of atomic phenomena will involve
an interaction with the agency of observation not to be neglected.
Accordingly, an independent reality in the ordinary physical sense
can neither be ascribed to the phenomena nor to the agencies of
observation." (I am particularly charmed by Bohr's inclusion of "the
agencies of observation" in his denial of "independent reality in the
ordinary physical sense." According to Bohr, *we* don't have an
"independent reality" . . .) According to Bohr (and the Copenhagen
Interpretation), the "nature" of atomic phenomena depends in the most
essential and fundamental way on the whole experimental arrangement.

It's not just "what you see depends on how you look," but rather
"what there *is* to see depends on how you look" (in as deep as sense
as you want to mean it) . . .

tom

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

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Roger Critchlow-2

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

In reply to this post by Robert Holmes-2

It seems to me that "The Road to Reality" as a title invites one to
see "The Road" as something that might go on and on, require rerouting
on occasion, require maintenance, and not necessarily ever reach or
even be capable of reaching its intended destination. Yet most of
this criticism seems to assume an ultimate reality implicit in
Penrose's book that has already been invalidated by one empirical
observation or another.

It it relevant to quibble with his platonic views if you're going to
end up using the same mathematics to describe reality in the end? If
you use the same mathematics to incorporate new particle theories or
models of emergent behavior, are you on the same road, a different
road, or have you leapt to the ultimate destination without using the
road at all?

-- rec --

Douglas Roberts-2

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

In reply to this post by Russell Standish

There was another inaccuracy in the original post: the rate of expansion of
the universe is accelerating, not constant. See

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9802/27/accelerating.universe/
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#CC
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/big_rip_030306.html

and nobody knows why. "Dark Energy" was invented to attempt to explain it,
but nobody knows why the rate of expansion has relatively recently (in
cosmological terms) accelerated.

--Doug

On 12/9/05, Russell Standish <r.standish at unsw.edu.au> wrote:

>
> What rot! The space between clusters of galaxies is getting bigger,
> but not the space internal to bound systems: atoms, molecules, human
> beings, solar systems and so on. So the relative scale between
> electrons and humans is not changing.
>
> This will change if the big rip scenario is true, however that won't
> be for at least another 20 billion years.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 02:22:33PM -0700, Hywel White wrote:
> > The universe is thought to be expanding at a steady rate. So, the
> spatial
> > extent has to change. If electrons have a well defined scale then at
> least
> > the way we describe them has to change. Hywel
> >
> > _____
> >
> > From: Robert Holmes [mailto:rholmes62 at gmail.com]
> > Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 9:48 AM
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose
> >
> >
> > On 12/8/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:
> >
> > <snip> he does not recognize that the laws of nature are
> > neither fixed nor eternal. They evolve and emerge
> > together with the actors, elements and particles they
> > describe.
> >
> > Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they were
> 100
> > years ago? I think it more likely that its our mental models of the
> actors,
> > elements and particles that evolve rather than the actors, elements and
> > particles themselves.
> >
> > Robert
>
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
> --
> *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
> is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
> virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
> email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
> may safely ignore this attachment.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
> Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
> Australia
> http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
> International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

--
Doug Roberts
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell
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Russell Standish

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

Yes - I thought to point this out as well, however eventually decided
it would obscure the more significant point about bound systems.

The aceleration that started around 1 Gya (due to dark energy or
whatever) is only a recent result (last 5 years IIRC). Before then,
extrapolations into the past were done according to the Friedman
model, which has expansion slowing down as a function of time (ie
deceleration). This was what was taught to me in cosmology classes any
way. At no time was linear extrapolation used though (as implied by
Hywel).

Cheers

On Sun, Dec 11, 2005 at 02:50:45PM -0700, Douglas Roberts wrote:

> There was another inaccuracy in the original post: the rate of expansion of
> the universe is accelerating, not constant. See
>
> http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9802/27/accelerating.universe/
> http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#CC
> http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/big_rip_030306.html
>
> and nobody knows why. "Dark Energy" was invented to attempt to explain it,
> but nobody knows why the rate of expansion has relatively recently (in
> cosmological terms) accelerated.
>
> --Doug
>
> On 12/9/05, Russell Standish <r.standish at unsw.edu.au> wrote:
> >
> > What rot! The space between clusters of galaxies is getting bigger,
> > but not the space internal to bound systems: atoms, molecules, human
> > beings, solar systems and so on. So the relative scale between
> > electrons and humans is not changing.
> >
> > This will change if the big rip scenario is true, however that won't
> > be for at least another 20 billion years.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 02:22:33PM -0700, Hywel White wrote:
> > > The universe is thought to be expanding at a steady rate. So, the
> > spatial
> > > extent has to change. If electrons have a well defined scale then at
> > least
> > > the way we describe them has to change. Hywel
> > >
> > > _____
> > >
> > > From: Robert Holmes [mailto:rholmes62 at gmail.com]
> > > Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 9:48 AM
> > > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose
> > >
> > >
> > > On 12/8/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > <snip> he does not recognize that the laws of nature are
> > > neither fixed nor eternal. They evolve and emerge
> > > together with the actors, elements and particles they
> > > describe.
> > >
> > > Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they were
> > 100
> > > years ago? I think it more likely that its our mental models of the
> > actors,
> > > elements and particles that evolve rather than the actors, elements and
> > > particles themselves.
> > >
> > > Robert
> >
> > > ============================================================
> > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
> > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> > --
> > *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
> > is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
> > virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
> > email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
> > may safely ignore this attachment.
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
> > Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
> > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
> > Australia
> > http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
> > International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Doug Roberts
> 505-455-7333 - Office
> 505-670-8195 - Cell

Hywel White

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

In reply to this post by Russell Standish

I thought we were having a deep discussion. Rot stops it. Hywel

-----Original Message-----
From: Russell Standish [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 2:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

What rot! The space between clusters of galaxies is getting bigger,
but not the space internal to bound systems: atoms, molecules, human
beings, solar systems and so on. So the relative scale between
electrons and humans is not changing.

This will change if the big rip scenario is true, however that won't
be for at least another 20 billion years.

Cheers

On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 02:22:33PM -0700, Hywel White wrote:
> The universe is thought to be expanding at a steady rate. So, the spatial
> extent has to change. If electrons have a well defined scale then at
least

> the way we describe them has to change. Hywel
>
> _____
>
> From: Robert Holmes [mailto:rholmes62 at gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 9:48 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose
>
>
> On 12/8/05, Jochen Fromm <fromm at vs.uni-kassel.de> wrote:
>
> <snip> he does not recognize that the laws of nature are
> neither fixed nor eternal. They evolve and emerge
> together with the actors, elements and particles they
> describe.
>
> Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they were 100
> years ago? I think it more likely that its our mental models of the

actors,
> elements and particles that evolve rather than the actors, elements and
> particles themselves.
>
> Robert

> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

--
*PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
may safely ignore this attachment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Jochen Fromm-3

The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

In reply to this post by Robert Holmes-2

Good answer. You are right, certainly our mental models evolve, too. What I
meant is more that the laws of nature make no sense if the actors, elements
and particles they describe do not exist. The laws of sociology make no
sense if there are no societies, and the laws of psychology are useless if
there are no humans. Society and humans are relatively "young" phenomena,
compared to the age of the earth and the solar system (roughly 4 billion
years). We know that both have evolved in the course of time. More
precisely, they have co-evolved together with the corresponding laws. The
constituents of a system confine the possible laws and vice versa.

The same argument can be applied to every other science: geology, biology,
chemistry,.. Physics is a bit special, because it deals with the extreme:
the smallest (elementary particles) and largest things (cosmic evolution).
In physics there is a tradition of "reductionism" to think that nature is
built out of certain simple building blocks - atoms, photons, elementary
particles. One has to find these simple building blocks, and to identify the
mathematical laws that govern them, and then everything else follows. This
can not be the ultimate answer, because one has to ask immediately who has
made this building blocks, and who has setup the laws. For various reasons I
think that the concepts of evolution and emergence are helpful here.

By the way, there is a new book from Eric J. Chaisson. He attempts to
explain the origin of the universe and the evolution of everything in it, in
nontechnical terms. Chaisson argues that "all ordered systems seen in nature
differ not in kind but only in degree, namely, the degree of complexity."

Epic of Evolution : Seven Ages of the Cosmos
Eric J. Chaisson
Columbia University Press, 2005
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0231135602/qid=1134141183

-J.

________________________________

Von: Friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:Friam-bounces at redfish.com] Im Auftrag
von Robert Holmes
Gesendet: Freitag, 9. Dezember 2005 17:48
An: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Betreff: Re: [FRIAM] The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

On 12/8/05, Jochen Fromm wrote:

<snip> he does not recognize that the laws of nature are
neither fixed nor eternal. They evolve and emerge
together with the actors, elements and particles they
describe.

Really? So electrons are now fundamentally different to what they were 100
years ago? I think it more likely that its our mental models of the actors,
elements and particles that evolve rather than the actors, elements and
particles themselves.

Robert

Tom Carter

reification and metaphor

In reply to this post by Robert Holmes-2

All -

On another level, there is the question, "What does it matter, if
we engage in reification, and presume that there are 'real' material
things that correspond with our abstract notions?" (recent context:
within some "physics theories" there are notional objects like
"electrons" and "the force of gravity"). What difference does it
make if one takes it as given that these notional objects correspond
with actual distinct physical things?

One of the big reasons is "habits of mind." In my experience, I
have never known anyone who was able to engage in reification without
imputing to the resulting "objects" properties not in evidence. In
an earlier post, I suggested that an "electron" might be "a tiny
white marble-like object in orbit . . ." Did it strike anyone as
odd that I suggested "whiteness" as one of the "properties" of such
an "electron"? Did anyone wonder why I included that embellishment?
What about "marble-like," with the suggestion of a specific shape,
diameter, hardness, etc.?

I would argue that it's worth actively reminding ourselves that
the "objects" in our theories and models really reside only there,
and not fool ourselves into thinking that they have properties beyond
those directly implied by the theory or model, nor delude ourselves
into thinking we know more than we actually do. It may sound silly,
but I've seen an awful lot of science that at some level boils down
to asking nonsense questions like "aren't electrons really green,
rather than white?" -- and enormous amounts of "popular science"
discussion that amounts to the same thing . . .

A nice little book bearing on some of these issues is "The Century
of the Gene" by Evelyn Fox Keller. Apropos current discussion, she
wrestles with questions like, "Do genes really exist? And, if not,
what difference might that make in the actual practice of science?"

A quote from her book: "The core of my argument is that much of
the theoretical work involved in constructing explanations of
development from genetic data is linguistic -- that it depends on
productive use of cognitive tensions generated by multiple meanings,
by ambiguity, and more generally, by the introduction of novel
metaphors" (p. 117) On the same page, she continues, "Most
philosophers, and even many scientists, have long since abandoned the
traditional view of scientific language as, ideally at least, literal
and univocal, uniquely corresponding to the entities and processes
that make up the real world. But the specter this tradition cast on
the use of metaphors and other linguistic tropes in science dies
hard, and the conviction persists among some that when language is
not literal it is therefore less than literal -- at best, that
metaphoric language offers a provisionally useful heuristic to be
dispensed with as soon as possible, and at worst (as both Hobbes and
Locke believed), a merely ornamental or downright deceptive intrusion
that ought not to be admitted in proper scientific discourse. Yet,
as historians and philosophers have increasingly come to appreciate,
close observation of scientists at work, either in the present or in
the past, reveals that they simply cannot function under such a harsh
mandate. The difficulty is obvious: scientific research is
typically directed at the elucidation of entities and processes about
which no clear understanding exists, and to proceed, scientists must
find ways of talking about what they do not know -- about that which
they as yet have only glimpses, guesses, speculations." She further
notes, "Making sense of what is not yet known is thus necessarily an
ongoing and provisional activity, a groping in the dark; and for
this, the imprecision and flexibility of figurative language is
indispensable." To put these quotes in some context, I should
perhaps note that Fox Keller earned her Ph.D. in theoretical physics
at Harvard, and is currently Professor of History and Philosophy of
Science in the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT.

While it might be fun to argue that biology is "different" from
physics, with the claim that physicists "really know what they are
talking about" (e.g., "electrons really exist") whereas biologists
"engage in metaphor" (e.g., "gene" has been a useful metaphor, but
doesn't correspond with a specific distinct physical entity), but I
don't think there is an essential difference in kind between the two
sets of scientific practices. I think that her first sentence above
applies to sciences generally -- all scientific endeavor "depends on
productive use of cognitive tensions generated by multiple
meanings, . . . etc." -- so, for example, the term "electron" is a
useful metaphor, with multiple meanings, ambiguity and novelty, but
is not the name of a specific object . . .

tom

Russell Standish

reification and metaphor

I guess it all depends on what you mean by existence. Most things are
actually emergent in some sense - they are dependent on the observer
categorising the world in a particular way. Good examples from physics
include thermodynamic state variables, particularly entropy. I would
still argue that entropy exists, even if it is really a notion that
arises through how we model systems (thermodynamically). I guess I
have a somewhat laxer interpretation of existence than is
traditional. Non-existence corresponds to poor correspondence between
the model and the system.

I would not be surprised if things like electrons, quarks etc are
emergent things in just the same way as entropy or genes are. Just
because physicists take them as atomic entities does not mean they
always will be as our theories develop. Photons, for example, are
emergent excitation modes of the quantum vacuum in QED. But I would
still say they exist, in the sense that they model the phenomena in
question, just as little white marble-like balls don't exist because
they poorly model the phenomena ion question.

Cheers

PS - exercise for the student: apply the above reasoning to the
statement "Free will is an illusion".

On Mon, Dec 12, 2005 at 10:12:53AM -0800, Tom Carter wrote:

> All -
>
> On another level, there is the question, "What does it matter, if
> we engage in reification, and presume that there are 'real' material
> things that correspond with our abstract notions?" (recent context:
> within some "physics theories" there are notional objects like
> "electrons" and "the force of gravity"). What difference does it
> make if one takes it as given that these notional objects correspond
> with actual distinct physical things?
>

--
*PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
may safely ignore this attachment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Holmes-2

reification and metaphor

In reply to this post by Tom Carter

On 12/12/05, Tom Carter <tom at astarte.csustan.edu> wrote:
>
> All -
> <snip>
>
While it might be fun to argue that biology is "different" from
> physics, with the claim that physicists "really know what they are
> talking about" (e.g., "electrons really exist") whereas biologists
> "engage in metaphor" (e.g., "gene" has been a useful metaphor, but
> doesn't correspond with a specific distinct physical entity), but I
> don't think there is an essential difference in kind between the two
> sets of scientific practices.

Tom,
A couple of points:
1) I think there is a difference in the scientific practices: biology
typically uses teleological explanations, physics doesn't. In a teleological
argument, there's a functional component which explains how some particular
trait is useful to an organism (the function of a polar bear's white fur is
to camouflage it) and an aetiological account of how that function came to
be (usually a combination of genetic transmission mechanisms and selection
mechanisms). You tend not to see these types of explanations in physics.

2) Also, I'm pretty sure that Keller is misrepresenting the use of metaphor.
I think most sciences use it in the process of discovery: our inspiration
for a hypothesis can come from anywhere (e.g. Kekule dreaming the form of
the benzene ring on a London bus) but when we come to test that hypothesis
(and get it accepted by the scientific community) we are firmly back in the
world of measurements and observations, not metaphor.

Robert
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Tom Carter

reification and metaphor

Robert -

On Dec 12, 2005, at 9:33 PM, Robert Holmes wrote:

>
> A couple of points:
> 1) I think there is a difference in the scientific practices:
> biology typically uses teleological explanations, physics doesn't.
> In a teleological argument, there's a functional component which
> explains how some particular trait is useful to an organism (the
> function of a polar bear's white fur is to camouflage it) and an
> aetiological account of how that function came to be (usually a
> combination of genetic transmission mechanisms and selection
> mechanisms). You tend not to see these types of explanations in
> physics.

Well, and biologists don't typically talk about vector fields.
I'll grant you that . . . But biologists and physicists are
explaining different stuff, so the mechanisms invoked are likely to
be different. I don't think that was the point I was trying to
make . . .

Also, though, concerning "teleology" and physics, you might have
fun reading "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" by Barrow and
Tipler -- a fascinating book by a couple of mathematical physicists.
(To all following this: I give this a strong "Read This" -- it's a
good read -- although I won't necessarily claim to "believe" in the
strong anthropic cosmological principle :-) (But it will help you
answer questions like "How high is a mountain?" and "How big is an
animal?" . . .)

>
> 2) Also, I'm pretty sure that Keller is misrepresenting the use of
> metaphor. I think most sciences use it in the process of discovery:
> our inspiration for a hypothesis can come from anywhere (e.g.
> Kekule dreaming the form of the benzene ring on a London bus) but
> when we come to test that hypothesis (and get it accepted by the
> scientific community) we are firmly back in the world of
> measurements and observations, not metaphor.
>

interestingly, a metaphor doesn't have to feel like a metaphor to
be one. Measurement and observations are not really hallmarks of
"non-metaphor-ness." Physicist, reading a dial: "9.10956E-28".
That this number is interpreted as "rest mass of electron" doesn't
imply that "electron" is not metaphoric. "Electron" is part of a
systematic way of interpreting a collection of measurements and
observations, and can perfectly well still be deeply metaphoric.
Similarly, biologist reading a dial: "28,250". That this number is
interpreted as "number of genes in the human genome" doesn't imply
that "gene" is not metaphoric.

Anyway, responding more to this, and to a previous comment:

> Hmmm, I'm not convinced. These examples seem to be commenting on
> the nature of observation, not the nature of reality. Just because
> I can't make measurements on an electron without changing it
> doesn't mean that the electron doesn't have some 'real' existence.

Part of the argument is that the way the commentary "seems" may
well depend on a false dichotomy/separatedness of "observation" and
"reality" -- the (mistaken?) idea that it actually makes sense to try
to get at "the nature of reality" without making sense of the "nature
of observation." Yes, the commentary bears on "observation," and
what we take as "given," but goes beyond the "popular science" notion
that quantum "weirdness" largely boils down to the slogan "I can't
make measurements on an electron without changing it." You're right
that such a slogan doesn't mean that the electron doesn't have a
specific 'real' existence, but that's not the extent of the argument
being made . . .

Anyway, you're in good company. Einstein famously "disbelieved"
in much of quantum "weirdness." In the thirties, Einstein, Podolsky,
and Rosen published a paper in which they presented a "challenge" to
quantum mechanics (now typically known as the EPR paradox). Einstein
(et al.) basically asserted that there must be (so called) "hidden
variables," effectively "carrying the reality" of, e.g., an electron,
while "it is not being observed." There followed an exchange between
Bohr and Einstein.

An interesting question is whether there could be a scientific
"test" of whether Einstein is right that "reality is really real," or
that Bohr is right that "there's no there there" . . . It turns out
further work has been done on the issue. I won't go through all the
arguments, but rather just point at some web pages highlighting some
of the issues (e.g., the Bell inequalities, and the so-called "Aspect
experiments"). The upshot seems to be that Bohr was more right than
Einstein . . .

A brief discussion of the EPR "paradox": http://www.bun.kyoto-
u.ac.jp/~suchii/Bohr/EPR.html

Some discussion of the Bell inequalities: http://math.ucr.edu/
home/baez/physics/Quantum/bells_inequality.html

The Aspect experiments: http://roxanne.roxanne.org/epr/eprS.html

I also wrote a bit on some of these issues once upon a time:
http://astarte.csustan.edu/~tom/MISC/particle/particle.html

As has been said, "The thesis of the essential indivisibility of
the quantum phenomenon is not a piece of idle holistic metaphysics in
Bohr's philosophy, though metaphysics it certainly is. It is a piece
of working metaphysics. It plays a decisive role in Bohr's response
to EPR." (Peter Gibbins -- see below for reference)

Part of the difficulty is the "what would it feel like?"
problem. "What would it feel like, if electrons didn't 'really
exist' in the traditional sense?" Back in the good old days, during
the time of the Copernican Revolution, people argued that it can't be
the case that the earth revolves around the sun, because after all it
surely doesn't feel like it does. Of course, the rejoinder is, what
*would* it "feel like" if the earth did revolve around the sun? The
answer: "Just like this." Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well
to hold fast to the "old paradigm" while "testing" the new paradigm.
Your questions, "And what happens when the electron isn't being
observed? Does it stop being real?" presume that there is "an
electron" pre-existing, there to be observed or not observed, and
that there is some "it" to start or stop "being real." If you think
about it, you may realize you can't give up the idea that electrons
are independently existing objects without giving up the notion that
electrons are independently existing objects . . . :-)

Some references:

"Particles and Paradoxes: The Limits of Quantum Logic" by Peter
Gibbin -- a good book, wandering a bit between "philosophy for
physicists" and "physics for philosophers."

"On The Origin of Objects" by Brian Cantwell Smith -- touted as a
"philosophy of computation," but wrestles with ontological (and
epistemological) questions . . .

"Muddling Through : Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-
first Century" by Michael Fortun and Herbert Bernstein -- one of the
more useful "philosophy of science" books I have found . . .

"Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler -- take a look at the
stuff in chapter 21 on Mach's Principle and the "relativity of
inertia" . . .

"The Fabric of Reality: the Science of Parallel Universes and Its
Implications" by David Deutsch. Makes one think about the world in
new ways. I really like this book . . . Deutsch is a "quantum
computation" guru, and was recently awarded the Edge of Computation
Science prize.

"The Matter Myth" by Paul Davies and John Gribbin -- more of a
"popular" type book, but co-written by a mathematical physicist.

"Mind, Brain and the Quantum : the Compound 'I'" by Michael
Lockwood -- a philosopher wrestles with some of these issues, and
their relationship to consciousness.

"The Artful Universe" by John D. Barrow -- he says "Life, like
science and art, is a theory about the world: a theory that in our
case takes bodily form." . . .

"Theories and Things" by W. v. O. Quine -- at least I like the
title . . . Quine wrestling with some of the underlying issues . . .

"Wholeness and the Implicate Order" by David Bohm. No discussion
of "hidden variables" and the "meaning" of quantum mechanics is
complete without at least a little of David Bohm . . .

tom
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Tom Carter

reification and metaphor

In reply to this post by Russell Standish

Russell -

I'm with you on this . . . I tend to push the "don't reify!" side
perhaps a bit too hard, but mostly because I see so much of the
reification habit out there, together with its attendant traps . . .

On the "free will is an illusion" issue . . . an interesting read
on that topic is "The User Illusion : Cutting Consciousness Down to
Size," by Tor Norretranders (Norretranders is a "Science Reporter"
rather than an actual scientist, so I recommend taking a salt shaker
with you when you read this, but it does raise some interesting
issues . . . Libet's work plays a significant role, if you are
familiar . . .)

tom

On Dec 12, 2005, at 2:11 PM, Russell Standish wrote:

> I guess it all depends on what you mean by existence. Most things are
> actually emergent in some sense - they are dependent on the observer
> categorising the world in a particular way. Good examples from physics
> include thermodynamic state variables, particularly entropy. I would
> still argue that entropy exists, even if it is really a notion that
> arises through how we model systems (thermodynamically). I guess I
> have a somewhat laxer interpretation of existence than is
> traditional. Non-existence corresponds to poor correspondence between
> the model and the system.
>
> I would not be surprised if things like electrons, quarks etc are
> emergent things in just the same way as entropy or genes are. Just
> because physicists take them as atomic entities does not mean they
> always will be as our theories develop. Photons, for example, are
> emergent excitation modes of the quantum vacuum in QED. But I would
> still say they exist, in the sense that they model the phenomena in
> question, just as little white marble-like balls don't exist because
> they poorly model the phenomena ion question.
>
> Cheers
>
> PS - exercise for the student: apply the above reasoning to the
> statement "Free will is an illusion".
>
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2005 at 10:12:53AM -0800, Tom Carter wrote:
>> All -
>>
>> On another level, there is the question, "What does it matter, if
>> we engage in reification, and presume that there are 'real' material
>> things that correspond with our abstract notions?" (recent context:
>> within some "physics theories" there are notional objects like
>> "electrons" and "the force of gravity"). What difference does it
>> make if one takes it as given that these notional objects correspond
>> with actual distinct physical things?
>>
>
> --
> *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
> is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
> virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
> email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
> may safely ignore this attachment.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
> A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
> Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish at unsw.edu.au
> Australia http://
> parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
> International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at Mission Cafe
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org