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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (40338)	6/13/1999 1:37:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

come up with a statistically different weight ... the answers will be the same within statistical tolerances. There is a world of difference between "statistically different" and "different." It all depends on how much accuracy you want -- a human judgment. If I set the statistical difference high enough, every person in the world has the same weight. (And indeed, that is what airlines do when they estimate the weight of passengers in an airplane, or engineers when they design the loading of a floor. They assume all people weigh the same.) In science there is no absolute truth. There is merely approximation. That was my point, and I stick to it. And indeed, by saying "statistically different" you agree with me. Because you do not deny that there is a difference -- you just say it's a difference you don't care about. But I say that I care about ANY difference.

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (40338)	6/13/1999 1:41:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

if you were to measure the freezing point and boiling point of triple-distilled water at standard pressure (1 atmosphere) you would find that the water freezes at 0 degrees C and boils at 100 degrees C +/- a very small amount. If I recall my science, this is not true. Fully distilled water at standard pressure freezes at exactly 0 degrees centigrade because that's how we define 0 degrees centigrade. Definitions are by definition always exact. Although your THERMOMETER will always measure the freezing point as something more or less than zero, it is the thermometer, not the boiling point, that is off.