¶ Calculus (2)
← Calculus (1) | Calculus (3) →
Index Entry
Calculus:
"The calculus is used to figure the relative acceleration curves in the drag tank pattern tests for a ship like the Queen Mary. Then the points along the curves are graphically accommodated by translation through analytical geometry and geometrical identification of the relative positions of the various points in a three-dimensional grid cube of XYZ coordinates.
“By 1913 I saw that man had come to regard the three-dimensional coordinate system as exclusively fundamental. But, I thought, that while the XYZ coordination served useful purposes, it might also be possible that nature had some other quite superior, rational, and comprehensive kind of coordinate system. This occurred to me because the XYZ coordinate system inherently requires recognition of such irrationalities as pi and the paradoxical recognition that we cannot finitely subdivide the circumference of a finite circle by its radius. There are a great many irrational numbers occurring as ‘fundamental’ constants in the mathematical coordination between mutually remote scientific disciplines which I though might be the consequence of our arbitrary use of the XYZ coordinate system. Chemistry seemed to laugh at our coordinate awkwardness us”
