From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Thu Sep 28 11:48:06 1995 Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id LAA13036 for ; Thu, 28 Sep 1995 11:48:02 -0400 Message-Id: <199509281548.LAA13036@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v0.1a) with SMTP id C6E135EA ; Thu, 28 Sep 1995 11:19:44 -0400 Date: Thu, 28 Sep 1995 08:17:22 -0700 Reply-To: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: Jim Carter Subject: Re: Many things, catching up To: lojban@cuvmb.columbia.edu In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 28 Sep 95 11:34:08 +0700." <9509281048.AA22380@julia.math.ucla.edu> Status: OR Goran Topic writes: > 1) About directions: > There is only one possible relatively culturally neutral way of > specifying left/right. I leave it to physicists to explain. Neutrinos circulate clockwise. Apparently they can only go in one direction. Antineutrinos, however, go counterclockwise, so you still have to know whether your conversational partner is made of antimatter :-) With magnetic fields the polarity of the field is determined through the cross product or the curl operator, both of which depend in an essential way on the parity of the coordinate system, which is a cultural choice. > 2) About dimensions: > Mathematically speaking, there are several things that get the name, and > sorry if my terminology sounds a bit nonstandard, it's probably because > it is: It's quite standard, and hits the nail on the head. James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555 Internet: jimc@math.ucla.edu (finger for PGP key) UUCP:...!{ucsd,ames,ncar,gatech,purdue,rutgers,decvax,uunet}!math.ucla.edu!jimc