aguywhoplaysthief on 5/10/2007 at 02:07
Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky
You have no idea how much that hurts me.
Hurts you in that
you're not my favorite poster, or hurts you like he was a friend of yours, and the fact that I liked reading his posts brings us far too close together for comfort?
Pyrian on 5/10/2007 at 02:28
Quote Posted by RocketMan
...but if time were to flow backward (in theory) entropy would STILL increase.
You'd have to define what you mean by time flowing backward more precisely to even make sense of that statement. On the one hand, you could take reversing the direction of entropy's increase and time reversing it's flow as being literally equivalent statements, so that claim is correct but doesn't really mean anything - most notably, in that definition, if you reversed time's flow you would not actually arrive in the "previous" past. Instead, you'd be going into an all-new future where everything happened to be suddenly traveling in the opposite direction. Your memories would still accumulate in the direction of the flow of time, rather than dialing back.
On the other hand, if you reverse time's flow in such a way that you're literally going to the past, then entropy HAS to decrease, since it was less then.
It would only affect my point if you could reverse time's flow and both increase entropy and arrive at the same past state you had before, which I'm pretty sure is a direct contradiction and therefore impossible.
RocketMan on 5/10/2007 at 16:55
Quote Posted by Pyrian
You'd have to define what you mean by time flowing backward more precisely to even make sense of that statement. On the one hand, you could take reversing the direction of entropy's increase and time reversing it's flow as being literally equivalent statements, so that claim is correct but doesn't really mean anything - most notably, in that definition, if you reversed time's flow you would not actually arrive in the "previous" past. Instead, you'd be going into an all-new future where everything happened to be suddenly traveling in the opposite direction. Your memories would still accumulate in the direction of the flow of time, rather than dialing back.
You're right, I was referring to "local" past. It would be as if you took a trip around a tippler cylinder and went back in time. The entropy would increase in that case.
Mazian on 5/10/2007 at 18:58
Quote Posted by RocketMan
As for the entropy thing, I still believe it comes in somewhere. It also has an effect on things like the air, microstructure defects, all sorts of things so until real life resembles an "ideal" coin toss with "ideal" coins and "ideal" environment, entropy can still affect the outcome of a coin toss I believe.
Are you sure you're not thinking of (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory) Chaos Theory?
daniel on 6/10/2007 at 22:47
The speed of light changes in a medium because the permability changes frim free space, not because of absorption - that affects the intensity. Light is affected by changes that affect magnetism. For example, if you pass light through a strong magnetic field, it will polarize.
I don't think you've stated your case for your second problem clearly enough.
theBlackman on 7/10/2007 at 08:54
As for the coin toss. Each and every time you flip, you have an equal chance for a head or a tail.
There is no reason for you not to get 10 or more H or T in a series because each flip is a new try at a 50/50 proposition and the coin has no memory. However, if you flip it 100,000,000 times the percentage will come within decimals of 7 to 9 places of 50/50.
But. Whichever side H or T gets a lead, it almost always will stay in the lead to a greater or lesser degree. IE. a spread of 49.000 to 49.999.
In dice (normal 6 sided pairs) you have 36 possible combinations. Each and every roll. But you very well can roll 10 12's in a row. But if you roll a series of dice 144 times, and keep track of each number, you will find that the numbers fall very close to the mathematical combination possiblities even though during the trial a number may repeat in a series of rolls.
Your potential combinations in a perfect 36 roll series is:
No. 2 = 1 chance in 36
No. 3 = 2 ""
No. 4 = 3 ""
No. 5 = 4
No. 6 = 5 ""
No. 7 = 6
No. 8 = 5
No. 9 = 4
No. 10 = 3
No. 11 = 2
No. 12 = 1 ""
