Mass Debate

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on February 20th, 2011, 2:49 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on February 20th, 2011, 3:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dom edit: split from Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Sabre Hyper-Impulse

you wanna start that again? you know we disagree on it. if u wanna debate about it more, dont use weasel tactics like that, openly try it. i enjoy a debate and would be happy to do so

I don't feel like filling the rest of this post with massive quotes, so I'll just show the important bits, with super-important bits bolded.

In empty space (i.e. a universe where the only mass is the scoutcube), it would indeed. Sources of gravity might be very very far away, but they have a small effect. Or by nothing you meant "undetectably little."

of course galaxies and stuff have gravity, but that is so small its irrelevant here.

[Anonymous]

posted on February 20th, 2011, 10:59 am

Last edited by Anonymous on February 20th, 2011, 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't feel like filling the rest of this post with massive quotes, so I'll just show the important bits, with super-important bits bolded.

watch your attitude. im not going to discuss this off topic with you here, if u want to argue with me, start a thread in small talk.

EDIT: now dom has moved it so it is on topic

[Anonymous]

posted on February 20th, 2011, 3:35 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on February 20th, 2011, 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't feel like filling the rest of this post with massive quotes, so I'll just show the important bits, with super-important bits bolded.

you can bold quotes all you want it wont make your agument any less incorrect, nor will it change that i am correct in my assertion that a scube has no weight in space due to the fact that for practical reasons i consider zero and infinitely small to be similar enough to call the same.

if u wanna do anything practical, like launching a rocket into space etc. then 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (a whole bunch more 0s) 1 might as well be 0.

so your pedantic comment about a scube having little weight in space is transparent, it shows that you desire only to correct people and try to make yourself feel intelligent, in this case you failed though, as your correction was purely semantical, so much so that you acknowledged it while trying to correct me (the first bold bit) you started typing, then realised at the end that you were arguing on semantics, and added that little bit at the end.

happy now? u wanted more pointless spammy arguing, u got it

this arugment isnt really that important, it boils down to whether you consider infinitely small to be small enough to ignore. in applied maths the answer is always yes. in pure maths it gets a little hairy, but the example here of a scube in space is applied, and thus the scube weighs nothing. if u manage to build a device accurate enough to measure that infinitely small weight, not only will you have proved your smarts to the world, but i will concede the argument because that would be awesomes.

so to sum up, i wasnt repeating your point and just making it longer, as our points differed. you merely attempted to put my point at the end of your correction to try cover both bases.

EDIT: damn those 0s cause a scroll bar

posted on February 20th, 2011, 4:32 pm

Everything has mass, which defines how much matter in in an object.  Weight is the measure of how hard gravity pulls on an object.  A scout cube wouldn't weigh as much on the Moon as it would on Earth.  But it would have the same mass on Earth that it does on the Moon.

@Miles:
An objects weight is measured by how hard gravity pulls on an object.  If it's in orbit around a planet, it still has weight, but due to altitude, it doesn't have as much weight as it would if it was on a planet's surface.

Bottom line, a scout cube does have weight in space as determined by the relatively highest gravitational force in the area.  Only if the gravitational forces in the area are exactly the same, will an object not have any weight.

posted on February 20th, 2011, 4:54 pm

you can bold quotes all you want it wont make your agument any less incorrect, nor will it change that i am correct in my assertion that a scube has no weight in space due to the fact that for practical reasons i consider zero and infinitely small to be similar enough to call the same.

if u wanna do anything practical, like launching a rocket into space etc. then 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (a whole bunch more 0s) 1 might as well be 0.

so your pedantic comment about a scube having little weight in space is transparent, it shows that you desire only to correct people and try to make yourself feel intelligent, in this case you failed though, as your correction was purely semantical, so much so that you acknowledged it while trying to correct me (the first bold bit) you started typing, then realised at the end that you were arguing on semantics, and added that little bit at the end.

happy now? u wanted more pointless spammy arguing, u got it

this arugment isnt really that important, it boils down to whether you consider infinitely small to be small enough to ignore. in applied maths the answer is always yes. in pure maths it gets a little hairy, but the example here of a scube in space is applied, and thus the scube weighs nothing. if u manage to build a device accurate enough to measure that infinitely small weight, not only will you have proved your smarts to the world, but i will concede the argument because that would be awesomes.

so to sum up, i wasnt repeating your point and just making it longer, as our points differed. you merely attempted to put my point at the end of your correction to try cover both bases.

EDIT: damn those 0s cause a scroll bar

There is weight in space, mass doesnt just disappear, in a next gen episode riker said the ship they were towing was too heavy and had to dumb some of its cargo, so a scube most certainly does weigh.

[Anonymous]

posted on February 20th, 2011, 5:01 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on February 20th, 2011, 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Everything has mass, which defines how much matter in in an object.  Weight is the measure of how hard gravity pulls on an object.  A scout cube wouldn't weigh as much on the Moon as it would on Earth.  But it would have the same mass on Earth that it does on the Moon.

nobody here has mass and weight confused, have you actually read the posts in this thread?

@Miles:

how can you spell my name wrong? it appears next to my posts in green. i hope the rest of your argument is of higher quality.



oh dear.

An objects weight is measured by how hard gravity pulls on an object.  If it's in orbit around a planet, it still has weight, but due to altitude, it doesn't have as much weight as it would if it was on a planet's surface.

the relation between the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.

nobody here is talking about being in orbit, we are talking about being in deep space. what you say about being in orbit is technically correct, but is worthless in this debate, you didnt have to say it as it doesnt help your argument, in fact it shows you dont know what the point here is, as you have made a point which isnt relevant.

at the distances we have in space (which are extremely large) this relation means that the force of gravity is very low. i use the word "very" carefully here. if u want a long boring maths lecture about rates of growth i could give you one, but take me at my word when i say that the force of gravity gets stupidly small over these distances because as the distance increases, its square increases a huge amount more.

the only reasons we care about weight are for applications of maths, we only need as much accuracy as is enough to prevent our rocket from exploding/crashing/failing to reach orbit etc.

also if the scube turns its engines off it weighs nothing, as it is in freefall. when in freefall an object weighs nothing. this is the idea behind how astronauts dont weigh anything, as they are constantly in freefall towards the earth, just the fact that they already were moving tangential to this freefall means that they dont hit the planet.

so back to the maths, if you work directly from the maths and try to calculate the weight of a scube in space, your calculator wont be able to display a number that small.  the number is infinitely small, which is small enough to ignore.

Bottom line, a scout cube does have weight in space as determined by the relatively highest gravitational force in the area.  Only if the gravitational forces in the area are exactly the same, will an object not have any weight.

bottom line is that you are wrong, nurrr

---

EDIT:

There is weight in space, mass doesnt just disappear

why did u have to quote my entire post?

you clearly display a lack of understanding of the difference between weight and mass. you have quite correctly identified that the mass of a scube is always constant, that is not disputed by anybody.

weight is not constant. you could have a mass equal to a billion kilograms, but if you are put in deep space, outside of the gravitational influence of any big stuff like planets, then you would weigh nothing, weight is measured in newtons, not kg. what you are doing when you step on your bathroom scales is measuring your mass, not your weight.

in a next gen episode riker said the ship they were towing was too heavy and had to dumb some of its cargo, so a scube most certainly does weigh.

hold on, you are quoting riker, who is quite possibly the most stupid person in the history of star trek, and quoting star trek, which has a terrible record on this stuff. star trek's science holds water like a sieve. that is probably the worst example anybody has ever given me in a debate.

[Zebh]

posted on February 20th, 2011, 5:07 pm

Last edited by Zebh on February 20th, 2011, 5:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Myles, I think you got ninja'd by Kestrel...
Edit: Nevermind
Edit2:

what you are doing when you step on your bathroom scales is measuring your mass, not your weight.

The scales you step on actually measure your weight. On moon the same scales you would use on earth wouldn't show your mass.

posted on February 20th, 2011, 5:08 pm

Myles, the reason I "covered both bases" was that your statement had ambiguity. I didn't know for sure if you meant "literally nothing" (which is incorrect) or "so small it's irrelevant." To not cover both, and explain why the first would be wrong, could lead to people reading your post and assuming the first one as what you meant.
Yes, it was about semantics. Semantics are very important to avoid confusion.

I did not want more arguing, I was trying to be point out just how much you like to post to every little thing by using those two posts as an example. You're the one who keeps disagreeing that we were saying the same thing.

As for this applied maths thing about the meaning of nothing, I was not talking from a particular viewpoint using meanings specific to a certain field or something.

As for the posting to feel intelligent bit, I didn't think you'd resort to ad hominem attacks; I post to make things more (factually) correct, remove ambiguities, and a variety of other reasons. I do not post to feel more intelligent.



Now, since you like to nitpick on everything (who was pedantic again?), even when we're saying almost the exact same thing, I have decided to just not respond to [b]any of your posts that get close to potential arguments.[/b] No corrections, no arguments, no removing semantic ambiguities, etc. They are just not worth it, not even minor stuff.

posted on February 20th, 2011, 5:08 pm

Myles, I think you got ninja'd by Kestrel...

edited, and of course i got ninjad, i actually took time preparing my post, he just slapped together half a paragraph that uses riker as a source, and doesnt even mention the episode lol.

posted on February 20th, 2011, 5:26 pm

Myles, the reason I "covered both bases" was that your statement had ambiguity. I didn't know for sure if you meant "literally nothing" (which is incorrect) or "so small it's irrelevant." To not cover both, and explain why the first would be wrong, could lead to people reading your post and assuming the first one as what you meant.
Yes, it was about semantics. Semantics are very important to avoid confusion.

my statement wasnt ambiguous, it was precise. a scube weighs nothing in space. it wasnt a long statement, the only ambiguous part would be what you define as space. but as i was responding to somebody talking about a scube in fleetops, i think it would be obvious it is deep space.

and "literally nothing" is correct in this case, as infinitely small is zero is this context. another boring maths fact is that: if we take the limit as the distance approaches infinity of a constant divided by the square of the distance we get 0. this distance is measure in m not ly, so its value gets stupidly large as you go into deep space.

I did not want more arguing, I was trying to be point out just how much you like to post to every little thing by using those two posts as an example. You're the one who keeps disagreeing that we were saying the same thing.

i dont post in every thread, i post in threads that deserve posting in. there are very few threads that are worthless.

and i am disagreeing because we are saying different things, you are saying a scube has weight in space, i am saying it doesnt. thats what the whole debate is about 

As for the posting to feel intelligent bit, I didn't think you'd resort to ad hominem attacks; I post to make things more (factually) correct, remove ambiguities, and a variety of other reasons. I do not post to feel more intelligent.

i dont like fallacious arguments, so i was very careful to avoid ad hominem fallacies (not all ad hominem arugments are fallacious), i didnt imply anything about you, only your motives. it is my belief that you desire to improve people's opinions of your intelligence by correcting things whenever you can. i believe that this motive degrades the quality of your arguments.

a fallacy would be in saying you are stupid and are trying to sound smart, which i dont believe is true, your post doesnt sound like it came from an idiot

Now, since you like to nitpick on everything (who was pedantic again?), even when we're saying almost the exact same thing, I have decided to just not respond to [b]any of your posts that get close to potential arguments.[/b] No corrections, no arguments, no removing semantic ambiguities, etc. They are just not worth it, not even minor stuff.

accusing me of nitpicking? this entire debate started by you trying to correct my original statement that a scube has no weight in space. when i assert that it does have a weight, and that your argument stemmed from semantics (something you have admitted). that is nitpicking.

i enjoyed our debates, its a shame you have decided not to continue with them. that only leaves tyler for adult debate lol.

posted on February 20th, 2011, 5:30 pm

Edit2:
The scales you step on actually measure your weight. On moon the same scales you would use on earth wouldn't show your mass.

it uses your weight to calculate your mass. the result it gives is your mass.

i should have been more clear, technically scales measure your weight, but the purpose of standing on them is to obtain your mass, not your weight. about not working in environments with different accln due to gravity, i was assuming that the person's bathroom was on earth where the scales can correctly calculate mass.

[Atlantis]

posted on February 20th, 2011, 7:21 pm

Last edited by Atlantis on February 20th, 2011, 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If we are going to have such a pointless debate, here goes...

a scube weighs nothing in space.

and "literally nothing" is correct in this case, as infinitely small is zero is this context. another boring maths fact is that: if we take the limit as the distance approaches infinity of a constant divided by the square of the distance we get 0. this distance is measure in m not ly, so its value gets stupidly large as you go into deep space.

Not true either. Nothing weighs nothing. There are always forces acting on it from something. Gravity is inverse-squared, and as infinity is theoretical, and not reachable, gravitational effect never reaches zero.

The word you are looking for is "negligible", not "nothing". Different meanings entirely. Look it up.

On the other hand, you could have meant "practically nothing", but never "literally nothing".

posted on February 20th, 2011, 8:10 pm

why did u have to quote my entire post?

Because

you clearly display a lack of understanding of the difference between weight and mass. you have quite correctly identified that the mass of a scube is always constant, that is not disputed by anybody.

Yep

weight is not constant. you could have a mass equal to a billion kilograms, but if you are put in deep space, outside of the gravitational influence of any big stuff like planets, then you would weigh nothing, weight is measured in newtons, not kg. what you are doing when you step on your bathroom scales is measuring your mass, not your weight.

Wrong

Not true either. Nothing weighs nothing. There are always forces acting on it from something. Gravity is inverse-squared, and as infinity is theoretical, and not reachable, gravitational effect never reaches zero.

The word you are looking for is "negligible", not "nothing". Different meanings entirely. Look it up.

On the other hand, you could have meant "practically nothing", but never "literally nothing".

What he said.

posted on February 20th, 2011, 8:59 pm

If we are going to have such a pointless debate, here goes...

if u think it is so pointless then why have you posted?

Not true either. Nothing weighs nothing. There are always forces acting on it from something. Gravity is inverse-squared, and as infinity is theoretical, and not reachable, gravitational effect never reaches zero.

The word you are looking for is "negligible", not "nothing". Different meanings entirely. Look it up.

On the other hand, you could have meant "practically nothing", but never "literally nothing".

that is incorrect, i know exactly what i mean.

infinity is not a real number, that is what limits are for. and the required limit in this case (as distance approaches infinity) is 0. and gravity isnt concerned here, its the force caused by gravity.

in deep space the distances are so vast that the weight is in fact 0.

also anything weighs nothing when in freefall. astronauts on iss weigh nothing as they are in constant freefall. anything not supported by something like planetary surface or engine thrust would be in freefall and couldnt weigh anything.

there isnt always a force acting on something as the force due to gravity is the value in question, and as distance gets big (deep space big) this is 0.

and you are gonna have to do a lot better than a wikipedia article that has 2 tags at the top stating no sources and written poorly. even if the wikipedia article had no issue tags it would be a rubbish source. so dont tell me to "look it up". i dont need to, as i already have the knowledge required. and even if i didnt, i wouldnt learn anything from a bad wikipedia article.

Wrong

thats some debating skill, i mean just by repeating your point again without any logic or reasoning or evidence you have now convinced me that you know what you are talking about and i concede the argument (!) good show sir.

What he said

i already dealt with that above.

[Atlantis]

posted on February 20th, 2011, 9:09 pm

Last edited by Atlantis on February 20th, 2011, 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

if u think it is so pointless then why have you posted?

Simply to show up your ignorance, not that you haven't already done that yourself.

If the distances are so vast that gravitational effect is zero, how come stars orbit the centre of the galaxy? Because gravitational effect is never zero.

If infinity is not real (which is what I said too), how can you "approach infinity"? You can't.

In freefall, you are accelerating, so yes, you are still encountering gravitational force.

Wikipedia is just one place to look. You can make fun of me linking to it, but you're just making yourself look small. I was pointing out the definition, and how it differs from "nothing". Look anywhere else for the difference between "negligible" and "nothing". You are obviously ignorant of the difference, so yes, you do need to look it up. How about a dictionary?

Oh, and btw, "deep space" is defined as anything outside a planet's atmosphere, so you might want to change your use of that terminology too.