"Mathematics is not a substitute for observable, measurable
and repeatable scientific experimentation."
This is an excellent hypothesis to test without the use of
mathematics, so it shall be done. It is called
hereinafter the "Stanley Hypothesis."
In this essay we may go into semantics, etymology,
grammar, theories, and measurements. It has no intention of
staying on the subject being examined, so one must be
willing to suspend attention to that subject and then
return to it once the distraction is complete. It goes back
into ancient history, or at least what is said to be that,
to show the fallibility of ideas that came hence from
thence. (a little poetic alliteration is permitted)
For an example of the latter, the story of Descarte having
announced that he thinks, therefore, he is, is not an
accurate one. It was really a drunk Frenchman in a winery,
who went by the name nickname "Des Cartes" due to his
always losing at cards and proclaiming that it was the
fault of "des cards" (that is French for "the cards.") One
day this drunk French card player was so out of it that
those in the winery started to worry. They asked him (but
in French), "Are you alright?" He lifted his besotted head
and said, "I think I am, so I am." That was translated and
abbreviated across time into the brilliant philosophical
axiom "I think, therefore I am." So, it is plain to see
that not all highly acclaimed proclamations of now famous
drunks are necessarily accurate.
This brings us to the meaning of the word "accurate." There
is another word that is often confused with it, and that is
"precise." Accuracy and precision are related as cousins,
but not the same girls. The former has to do with being
careful when making decisions, such as in measuring things,
and the latter is the amount of care that is taken, such as
when using inches, millimeters, decimeters, meters, miles,
feet, yards, and even light years. Being precise in making
distance measurements to the nearest light year is not very
close to being usefully accurate when measuring a room for
a carpet, but too precise if using the closest millimeter
for that purpose. That subject will be discussed further
herein a bit further on.
That last sentence ended in a preposition, which is not
permitted when using proper grammatical posturing. It was
not overlooked by this essayist, however, that "later on"
is as soon as "further on" is distant. The adage that once
in a while occurs only once means that a while can be as
long as your "later on" allows before it does. As is
"observable" (one of the Stanley Hypothesis criteria),
these sentences do not end in prepositions, even though
they use "on" several times in them. This proves the value
of prepositions used anywhere and anytime.
Now let's examine the idea of a light year. That is claimed
to be the distance that light travels in one year, so it is
a measurement of distance and not of time. It has been
observed, measured, and repeatedly shown that when
approaching the temperature of what is called "Absolute
Zero," everything slows down and will stop if it ever gets
there. In short, time stops, and nothing can move. The
opposite of this observed and measured and repeated
scientific experimental fact is if the temperature goes up,
light accelerates with it. That is why when an explosion of
some kind happens, there is a high speed flash of light.
The temperature at the center of the explosion is quickly
fired out into the cooler surrounding air, and that is what
makes the sound so loud. As the progression of time at the
center has to slow back down to that of the air, it makes a
big bang that can surely be heard in the sound waves
produced.
If it were not for this observable, measurable, and
repeatable result, a jet engine would not work. It is the
difference in temperature between the gases being burned
and their surroundings outside the engine that make the
energy to propel the aircraft. So really, speaking
accurately about this, time is what makes it move. Time in
the center of the engine's combustion chambers is moving
faster than in the surroundings, and it has to slow down
back to the speed that it progresses at the outside. This
it does very forcefully.
A light year is stated to be a measurable distance, but
how is that possible when the light is traveling through
various temperatures on the way to the Earth that are not
known to science? It does not travel in the same time warp
all the time, and light from different stars is traveling
in different time warps. At each temperature gradient, they
are going the speed of light, obviously, but speed is
composed of distance and time. If the speed of the
progression of time varies, the distance traveled at a
constant speed must also. To keep the speed of light a
constant, when the distance is the same but the time it
takes to get there is different depending upon temperature,
there is a difference between the outside observer's time
warp and the one at the center of the light. A light year
is a different distance depending upon the location of
those observing the variables, and as such it is a very
uncertain tool for expressing "measurable and repeatable
scientific" results of experimentation.
Even if it were not, let's suppose that the PhD astronomers
say that a star is some 50 to 100 light years away. This
brings up a bit of ancient history. The term "PhD" derives
from the initials of the little known Greek doctor of
witchcraft medicine, Philo Hypocritus Dungstudy. He decided
that he needed a way to determine if one of his patients
had a fever or a chill. He started by putting his hand
under a large pile of sheep dung and sensing the
temperature there. Then he put it under a shorter pile and
did the same. He noticed that the large pile retained the
heat longer than the short one. This gave him the idea of
temperature being based upon the height of the pile of
dung, but it did not tell him what human temperatures
should be when sick or well and so could not be used as a
thermometer.
Next he tried putting the same accurately measured amount
of water in his hand when he had a fever and then when he
was well, but nothing was measurably different in the
height of the water. When he discovered that the liquid
called mercury did change depending upon his health, he
thought he could then develop the first thermometer. His
problem was how to use this new discovery. By putting the
mercury in a tube, he could see its height better than in
his palm. So, after repeated experimentation, he was able
to decide how the mercury should rise in the tube when he
was well. If it was below that he was having a chill and
above that he had a fever. Unfortunately, the doctor died
of mercury poisoning before his invention was patented by
the company named Merck, after mercury, of course. After
his death, his name is recalled as the doctor of "Piled
higher and Deeper" fame, who had discovered the observable
effect of temperature on time when his ran out.
Now let's get back to the light year distance measurements
without having any thermometers to measure the temperatures
in which the light travels. How do the PhDs know that? If
it takes 50 years, or so, for the light to reach earth, it
would take 50 years to send a laser beam up to the star,
hit a reflecting mirror, and then another 50 years for it
to be reflected back to Earth. Those guys would be long
gone by then. And a star at 50 light years distance is a
close one according to their proclaimed observations. Oh,
and one more thing, who put the reflecting mirror on the
star, and how did they keep it from melting?
The Stanley Hypothesis has been tested and found to be true
as long as "Des Cartes" and PhDs don't get into it. But
observable, measurable and repeatable scientific
experimentation with light years as measurements of
distance are as real as the troll under the bridge when the
three Billy Goats Gruff went to cross it. This essay is the
third Billy Goat who charged that troll with lowered horns
and send him into the river never to be seen again, not
even once in a while. And so on.
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