First day of the 2012-2013 school year for the boys! Surprisingly they were all up early & ready to go. Maybe it is because they are all getting school iPads this year... Or maybe they missed their friends during the summer.
The boys got into a discussion about perfection. Nico, quoting "the wheelchair guy", said there is no perfection. I argued that something can be perfect within specified parameters and margins of error. For example, a band-aid (I've been cutting myself a lot lately) has plenty of imperfections when examined under a microscope, but the manufacturer might know that irregularities below a certain size can't be felt by our skin nor seen by our eyes, so every band-aid without irregularities bigger than that is, at least for practical purposes, "perfect". Hmmm... Not the best example I admit. But a good one to contrast with the quantum physics that Hawkings refers to, and that is not as relevant day-to-day.
Paco said perfection depends on each person's opinion. I agreed that could be the case in some subjective matters, such as someone thinking a certain chocolate cake is "perfect", but that perfection is not always subjective, such as when imperfections can be physically measured and the margin of error pre-established. Ale said the Sun sure looked like a perfect sphere through the fog today, even though he knows there are flames hundreds of miles high on its surface. We are just too far to notice them... Do imperfections matter when we can't see them?
Time to go. "Have a perfect first day of school"...
The boys got into a discussion about perfection. Nico, quoting "the wheelchair guy", said there is no perfection. I argued that something can be perfect within specified parameters and margins of error. For example, a band-aid (I've been cutting myself a lot lately) has plenty of imperfections when examined under a microscope, but the manufacturer might know that irregularities below a certain size can't be felt by our skin nor seen by our eyes, so every band-aid without irregularities bigger than that is, at least for practical purposes, "perfect". Hmmm... Not the best example I admit. But a good one to contrast with the quantum physics that Hawkings refers to, and that is not as relevant day-to-day.
Paco said perfection depends on each person's opinion. I agreed that could be the case in some subjective matters, such as someone thinking a certain chocolate cake is "perfect", but that perfection is not always subjective, such as when imperfections can be physically measured and the margin of error pre-established. Ale said the Sun sure looked like a perfect sphere through the fog today, even though he knows there are flames hundreds of miles high on its surface. We are just too far to notice them... Do imperfections matter when we can't see them?
Time to go. "Have a perfect first day of school"...
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