Monday, June 26, 2006
Measuring Maine
How long is the coastline of Maine?
On Google maps, if you measure a straight line from the southern border near Kittery to the northern tip of the Atlantic Coast near Lubec, it is approximately 360 km long. Naturally, if you were to drive the distance between those two points, you'd have to go out of your way and would cover approximately 470 km of road.
How far do you think you would walk if you followed the path of the shoreline a few feet from where the waves break on the beach? According to maine.gov, the state has approximately 5600 km of tidally-influenced shoreline. If, however, I asked you to crawl on your hands and knees with a 6 inch ruler and measure the length of the line of the normal high tide water mark, would you agree that your sum would far surpass that 5600 km figure?
Changing gears for a moment, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac:
And so I ask you the following question: Does God wear a red shirt?
Links to this post
On Google maps, if you measure a straight line from the southern border near Kittery to the northern tip of the Atlantic Coast near Lubec, it is approximately 360 km long. Naturally, if you were to drive the distance between those two points, you'd have to go out of your way and would cover approximately 470 km of road.
How far do you think you would walk if you followed the path of the shoreline a few feet from where the waves break on the beach? According to maine.gov, the state has approximately 5600 km of tidally-influenced shoreline. If, however, I asked you to crawl on your hands and knees with a 6 inch ruler and measure the length of the line of the normal high tide water mark, would you agree that your sum would far surpass that 5600 km figure?
Changing gears for a moment, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac:
"Modern physics has made great progress toward explaining the genesis of the snowflake's form. Its hexagonal symmetry has its origin in the shape of a water molecule, which consists of an atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen. They are connected in such a way that the hydrogen "arms" make an angle like the arms on the letter x. This angle ensures that when the water molecules link to form a crystal, the resultant symmetry will be hexagonal. Regarding the probabilities of combination, a single snow crystal consists of something like one quintillion molecules of water. The number of ways that many molecules can be arranged into six-sided crystals is astronomical. So the odds are huge that no two snowflakes have ever been exactly alike."
And so I ask you the following question: Does God wear a red shirt?
Links to this post
Comments:
Is this one of those posts where you are checking to see if we are truly reading? b/c I don't get it!>
Russ,
Excellent comparison between the coastline of Maine, and the snowflake. I think the real answer in both cases is "it depends on what level of detail you are considering". There is really a problem with the unclarified question of the unique nature of snowflakes, and also the question of the length of the coastline of maine. Speaking of questions that dont get you anywhere... "Does God wear a red shirt?"
-J>
Excellent comparison between the coastline of Maine, and the snowflake. I think the real answer in both cases is "it depends on what level of detail you are considering". There is really a problem with the unclarified question of the unique nature of snowflakes, and also the question of the length of the coastline of maine. Speaking of questions that dont get you anywhere... "Does God wear a red shirt?"
-J>
I will have to think further on these things.
It would be helpful to know how many snow flakes fall each year all over the world. And even if two snowflakes were molecularly the same, they still wouldn't be physically identical due to quantum physics (what with indeterminate physical objects with no objective truth values) (outside of(which is impossible) divine interference or observation).
If measurements of length measure the distance between two points (cf Wikipedia on 'Distance'), perhaps the way we measure the circumference of a circle could help us measure something such as the coastline of Maine. My TI-89 calculator probably has a "Coastline of Maine" function somewhere in all those menus.
Red shirt? I don't know, but His car is pretty cool, and has awesome rims.
Mark
This comment does not endorse legitimacy of quantum physics; I'm still undecided about that.>
Post a Comment
It would be helpful to know how many snow flakes fall each year all over the world. And even if two snowflakes were molecularly the same, they still wouldn't be physically identical due to quantum physics (what with indeterminate physical objects with no objective truth values) (outside of(which is impossible) divine interference or observation).
If measurements of length measure the distance between two points (cf Wikipedia on 'Distance'), perhaps the way we measure the circumference of a circle could help us measure something such as the coastline of Maine. My TI-89 calculator probably has a "Coastline of Maine" function somewhere in all those menus.
Red shirt? I don't know, but His car is pretty cool, and has awesome rims.
Mark
This comment does not endorse legitimacy of quantum physics; I'm still undecided about that.>
Links to this post:
|
| 
|
|  |
